Vlad and Road Splits
With his spot in Anaheim now filled by Hideki Matsui, it was time for Vladimir Guerrero to find a new home. His new home is one he’s quite familiar with, as he signed a one-year, five million dollar contract with the Texas Rangers. Guerrero figures to be the designated hitter for the Rangers, as Nelson Cruz, Josh Hamilton, and Julio Borbon should start the season as the outfielders.
Vlad should be a good fit for Texas, and he should be much better than Hank Blalock and Andruw Jones in that role. Despite a dip in production in his first season as a DH – to be expected – Vlad still put up a 110 wRC+, making him roughly a one-win player at that position. His power did drop last year, as his ISO fell from .218 to .164. We should expect some regression there, however, as much of that drop can be attributed to an 11.5% HR/FB ratio, by far the lowest recorded since 2002, when our batted ball data begins.
Guerrero can probably be expected to put up a 1.5 win season at DH, making his contract fair from a value standpoint. With the Rangers competing for the AL West crown, making a move at fair market value to pick up roughly an extra win makes a lot of sense for GM Jon Daniels.
One of the talking points surrounding this move has been how much Vlad loves to hit in Texas. It’s true – over 50 games and 221 PAs, Guerrero has a .394/.471/.705 line. That’s a 146 tOPS+, meaning that Vlad has performed 46% better than his average production at The Ballpark in Arlington. I don’t have to go into great detail about why 221 plate appearances aren’t enough to base a significant argument upon. We see this all the time here. In this case, however, making an assumption based on splits can be even more dangerous.
Not only are we limited to 50 games worth of data for this split, but it is also 50 games spread out over multiple seasons. Here’s how many plate appearances Vlad has seen in Arlington in his career, with his OPS in parenthesis.
Pre-2004: 0
2004: 46 (1.522)
2005: 38 (1.428)
2006: 40 (.929)
2007: 33 (.809)
2008: 36 (1.072)
2009: 28 (1.140)
That leaves us only 137 usable plate appearances as far as reliable data goes – what Guerrero did in 2004 and 2005 tells us next to nothing about the true talent of 2010 Vladimir Guerrero. With that, we’re already down to about 62% of our original amount of plate appearances, leading to an increasingly low amount of reliability with our split. Yes, Vlad has been above average in each of our four usable years (although not nearly as good as in 2004 and 2005).
How much do these road splits actually tell us? It’s possible that Guerrero is about a point or two of wOBA better in Arlington, true talent wise. Especially after considering park factors – Arlington allows far more extra base hits than most fields – it’s likely that it’s just statistical noise.
Vlad should be better in his second year as a DH and playing in Texas’s hitter friendly park should boost his numbers, but it’s important to remember that the Vlad that will be playing in Texas is not the slugger that raked in Montreal and won an MVP with Anaheim. This is 35-year-old Vlad with 40-year-old knees, and the data from the last few years in Anaheim far outweighs the fact that he’s killed the Rangers at home over the last six.
Jack Moore's work can be seen at VICE Sports and anywhere else you're willing to pay him to write. Buy his e-book.
Look on the brightside, Jack, I’ve heard people bitch about Mike Cameron’s stats at Fenway.
For the record, that’s 96 PA’s since 1997.
Don’t we also have to adjust for the quality of Rangers pitching, which has generally been poor?
Park factors are constructed based off both home and visitor pitching, but Vlad only faced the home team. Of course he doesn’t get that boost anymore.
Probably a little, but also, the point of this essay was to state how it’s silly to form an opinion on Vlad playing for Texas based on tiny amounts of data spread over 6 seasons, anyway.
I was going to add this as well. The other difference is that he’ll be facing the Angels’ pitching rather than the Rangers’.
Two or three people beat me to it. I was going to say that facing those pre-2009 Rangers pitching staffs had to have helped those numbers (together with the stadium itself).
What are the chances of the Rangers trading Hamilton before he falls off the wagon?….again
You have some personal insight into the life of a past substance abuser that makes you think this likely?
And what has that got to do with Vlad anyway?
In his defense, that was brought up at the time of his trade from the Reds as part of the reason they were dumping him after his breakout year for a “more reliable” player.
It wasn’t anything personal but the fact that many addicts do happen to have lapses, its wasn’t a bad bet for the Reds.
Yes, in a population of former addicts the relapse rate is very high. But we’re not talking about a population, we’re talking about one individual.
And it still has nothing to do with Vlad.
Yeah, I never said it did…I was just defending the first half of his statement.
The real question is whether Vlad is going to be able to use his lower body this year in his hitting. If so, he will be just fine. If not, those HR/FB numbers might be here to stay.
Is Vlad a surefire HoFer?
I used to think he’d be a 1st ballot guy but he tried off recently. He was probably the most underrated player in baseball in his prime. When you look at his career numbers you jump back. If he were to retire today, I think he’d make it in though I’m not sure it’d be on the 1st ballot as he’s never really been in the spotlight (a result of playing in Montreal and then on the West Coast).
His 145 OPS+ is impressive but not spectacular for a guy that was never an elite defender…even before his back was ravaged by multiple injuries.
If you ever saw him as an Expo (I used to see him a bunch of times a years a Phillies season ticket holder) you’ll remember how truly great he was.
I hope he clicks in Texas and has a late-career surge to make everyone remember how great a hitter he was even 5 years ago.
Career batting average of .321, 407 HRs (be interesting to see if he makes it to 500), 1318 RBI, 2249 H, 1185 R, .954 OPS (22nd all time),.568 SLG (14th all time)
He was another casualty of playing in Stade Olympique. It killed his knees and his back. Damn shame.
In my book he’s a no doubt about it Hall of Famer. Unfortunately, my book isn’t a Hall of Fame ballot, and I don’t get a ballot with the creation of the book. Sucks for me.
He’s going to be 35 and is in the junk years of his career.
Honestly, I’d put Andruw Jones in there before Vlad Guerrero.
WARP-3’s:
Jones: 61.3
Guerrero: 53.5
WAR:
Jones: 58.4
Guerrero: 57.1
People so quickly forget that Andruw Jones from 1998-2006 was Franklin Gutierrez glovework combined with a better bat. But people will forget Jones for the same reason they underrate Raines: he started young, peaked young, and became a role player young.
Guerrero is a maybe for me, but Jones is a better pick imo.
Many would argue that WAR is overvaluing Jones’ defense in comparison to Vlad’s offense.
When Jones was in his “prime” batting .250, Vlad was tossing of a .330 avg every year and was one of the most feared hitters in the league. Given the choice, I think most teams would take Vlad’s 130 point increase in OPS over Andruw’s defense.
Career OPS+
Jones – 110
Guerrero – 146
Sure, Guerrero has a better bat. I can buy that there’s plenty of argument for Guerrero over Jones. I’m just not sure if I agree.
For another point of reference, b-r rates Guerrero has an okay defender, +4 per 1250 innings in RF. Guerrero definitely wasn’t hurting himself w/ the glove.
But Jones? +18.6 per 1250 innings in Center. Using FRAA, his glove was on par w/ Willie Mays. Using b-r, it was better. Obviously no one here can give a good, qualitative analysis on Mays’ glove, but it’s pretty common knowledge that he knew how to use it.
So ~14.6 runs a season difference defensively, even before the position adjustment. Add it in, and we’re closer to 23-24 runs.
Vlad, per b-r, creates about 112.2 runs per 600 PA. Jones, about 87.7. So I guess after factoring in defense, these guys are a wash (heck they have almost the exact same # of PA’s), but I think people are going to underrate Jones’ career w/ respect to Guerrero’s because he started young, peaked young, and a lot of his value came from the glove. After all, his batting average is just .257, and that would be by far the lowest BA of all center fielder in the Hall.
Basically, people just forget how dominant a defender Jones was. I’m not a fan.
I think part of it has to do with it being a lot easier to find a great defender in CF than a great hitter. There are plenty of no-hit, great glove guys out there while there aren’t alot of .330 hitters sitting around…thus many people value the offense over the defense.
Guerrero didn’t hurt himself with his glove (at least for most of his career) and he was an amazing hitter.
Jones was moving along on a HoF trajectory till he fell off the face of the earth his final year in Atlanta and first year in LA.
Pretty much, but from what I see, it’s
Player A: Great bat, adequate glove
Player B: Great glove, adequate bat
And Great bats are always treated better in history than great gloves. Great bats are Hall of Famers, as they should be. Great gloves? Well, Bill Bergen had a great glove. Aurelio Rodriguez had a great glove. Bergen’s one of the worst players ever, if not the worse, and Rodriguez was a career AAA level player for pretty much every season other than 1970. Players usually get remembered one dimensionally, and no doubt Vlad’s dimension is better.
Point on WAR occasionally overvaluing defense: Who would you have rather had last year? Ben Zobrist or Albert Pujols?
WAR valued Zobrist higher but would you really have taken him over Pujols on your team?
Feel free to even swap out Zobrist with Mauer, Utley, etc.
I mean, feel free to swap out Pujols with Mauer, Utley when making that same comparison.