Andruw Jones was Dale Murphy with a rad glove

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The offensive similarities between Andruw Jones and Dale Murphy are striking. And since each career encompassed successive generations in the Atlanta Braves’ outfield, these similarities are even more fun to consider. Jones had a ten year peak from 1997 to 2006. Murphy had an eight year peak from 1980 to 1987. Both started their careers at a very young age, Jones at nineteen, Murphy at twenty. And both lost their value in their early thirties. The only real difference between the two was defense. And it was this aspect that separated the two players.

Let’s look at the offensive numbers:

Standard:

  • Murphy: 9041 plate appearances, Jones 8664 plate appearances
  • Murphy: 1197 runs scored, 398 homers, 787 extra base hits, 1266 RBI
  • Jones:     1204 runs scored, 434 homers, 853 extra base hits, 1289 RBI
  • Murphy:  .265/.346/.469 = .815 OPS   Jones: .254/.337/.486 =.823 OPS
  • Murphy:  161 stolen bases / 70.3%,  Jones 152 stolen bases / 72%
  • Murphy:  822 non-intentional walks with 1748 strikeouts, Jones: 827 non-intentional walks, 1748 K’s.
Advanced:
  • Murphy: 357 career wOBA, Jones: .352 career wOBA
  • Murphy: 121 career OPS+, Jones: 111 career OPS+
  • Murphy: 228 batting runs above average, Jones 163.4
  • Murphy: 10.9% career walk percentage, 19.3% strikeout percentage
  • Jones:     10.3% career walk percentage, 20.2% strikeout percentage
Basically what you see is two similar offensive careers. But Dale Murphy will never get elected to the Hall of Fame and Andruw Jones will be hotly debated. The difference, of course, is defense. Murphy is given -33 runs below average for his career defensively. Andruw Jones is given credit for 236 runs above average for his career and is considered by many to be one of the best center fielders of all time.
And that difference makes up most of the difference as to why Andruw Jones is a 59.5 rWAR career compared to Murphy’s 42.6.
They both started young and lost productiveness in their early thirties. Both were iconic during their peaks. And both had eerily similar offensive careers. But Andruw Jones played a pivotal position and he played it better than most who have ever played the game.

Dickey’s high cost would bring short term rewards for Blue Jays

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The pending trade between the New York Mets and Toronto Blue Jays has people buzzing. Opinions have been bandied about everywhere. While one more voice on the subject might get lost in the cacophony, here is the Fan’s take on the deal as it stands in the rumor mill. The deal, if completed, makes the Blue Jays a mighty tough team in the American League East and an instant darling for projections. But it would cost the Blue Jays beyond a two and three year period.
Despite the fact that the Mets may be feeding out nuggets about Dickey to the local media in New York to paint the pitcher in a negative light (see Davidoff’s column yesterday for example), R.A. Dickey is a great pitcher whose three year track record seems too good to think he will crumble any time soon. He was 11-5 last season against teams with an above .500 record so don’t buy the thought that he will crumble in the AL East. If you take any rotation and remove J.A. Happ and insert R.A. Dickey, you are adding three wins to the rotation.
Then look at that rotation from top to bottom: Josh Johnson, Brandon Morrow, R.A. Dickey, Mark Buehrle and Ricky Romero. That is pretty sweet and should rival any rotation in the American League. Add that to the additions on offense and the Blue Jays–at least on paper–are mighty impressive.
So, yes, this deal makes a lot of sense for the Blue Jays and bringing Josh Thole, who is used to catching Dickey, along for the ride makes sense even if John Buck should be a slightly more valuable catcher.
And don’t buy the arguments that Dickey is 38 and will fade after another year or so. Phil Niekro, another knuckleball pitcher, pitched effectively for seven years past his 38th birthday. Dickey has found himself and it is irrelevant at what age he found it. His consistency the last three years should put aside all doubts.
But then there is the cost. And it is steep. Basically you are trading away seven years of cheap control on two (albeit unproven) talents in Travis d’Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard. As an aside: Do the Blue Jays have any prospects that are easy to spell!?
Anyway, d’Arnaud is a major offensive talent that has some question marks about where he will play in the field. He was drafted a catcher, but some, including the Blue Jays, question his defensive ability behind the plate. He played quite a bit of first base and DH this past season in the minors. But the guy seems to be a “can’t miss” offensive player who could preferably play behind the plate adequately.
It is hard not to drool at Syndergaard’s minor league stats thus far in his two short years at the lowest level in the minors. A K/9 rate over ten and a BB/9 rate under three is a pretty sweet combination. He is six foot, five inches which is just want you want to develop an incredible downward angle at the plate.
He is too young and new to have made any top prospect lists. But Syndergaard was a 38th overall pick in the 2010 draft.
Your host here has always subscribed to the “prospects are lottery tickets” theory. The odds are better than the lottery, but a prospect becoming the player projected once he gets to the big leagues is always a long shot. A proven commodity like Dickey for two lottery tickets does make short term sense if short term means three years or so.
But if d’Arnaud and Syndergaard find success in the big leagues once they arrive, this deal will be discussed for many years to come…if it happens, that is.

Judging Alfonso Soriano by his contract

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When a baseball player signs a historically bad contract, he ceases to be judged by his play on the field. Instead he is judged against his contract. There seems to be something unfair about that. Alfonso Soriano, like Zito on the Giants, will always be looked at with skepticism. He is ridiculed and derided for the fact that he cannot earn his pay. Is that really fair? The Cubs, who gave Soriano that contract, should be the ones ridiculed. They are the ones that gave him all that money. Because if you take away the money, Soriano has not been that bad a player for the Cubs.
It is not like Alfonso Soriano rolled up in a ball and quit playing. To date, the Cubs have paid him $97 million. And according to Fangraphs, Soriano has been worth $84.3 million for his time with the team. That’s not terrible. Average that out over six seasons with the Cubs and that is an average playing value of $16.05 million a season. How would we perceive Soriano if he did not make that kind of money? We would perceive him totally different.
First, we all know that Soriano has holes in his game. He will never be the prettiest outfielder. And that was after he was a pretty disastrous second baseman. He has not had a Hall of Fame career. But he has had a nice career. His career wOBA is .351–not Hall of Fame material, but productive nonetheless. His career triple slash line is: .273/.323/.505. He has 836 career extra base hits including 372 homers. He has scored more than a thousand runs and driven in more than a thousand runs.
In his prime, he reached the 30/30 mark in homers and stolen bases four times. He has 270 career stolen bases with a 78% success rate. He is 103 hits away from 2,000. That is not a bad career. That is a pretty good career.
And how come a guy like Soriano is not given the benefit of the doubt when he was underpaid for several years before he struck it rich? Soriano has built a playing value (again, according to Fangraphs) of $147 million in his career and he has been paid $121+ million. In the grand scheme of things, he has earned his keep.
There is an inherent unfairness that Soriano will always be judged for his contract. It seems petty. This has been stated many times in this space, but bears repeating one more time: Which of us would not put a pen to such a contract? Which of us has ever said to our bosses, “No, really, Joe, you are overpaying me. Stop it already.” None of us.
What a player makes is the team’s problem and purview. The team either takes a gamble or a calculated risk. Sometimes the team loses. The Cubs lost this one. That has nothing to do with Soriano. Their decision should not make Soriano a scorned and ridiculed player. Separate the player from his contract. And when you do that, Alfonso Soriano has given baseball more good moments than bad ones.

Kevin Youkilis and right-handed pitching

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Kevin Youkilis became the latest in a long, long line of aging ballplayers the Yankees have signed over the years hoping to wring one last cup of tea from the old teabag. Before Youkilis, there was Chavez and Ibanez and before that Sheffield and Mondesi and before that Boggs and it goes on and on. And quite often, the ploy has worked. Chavez and Ichiro worked wonders in their time in New York. And so the Youkilis deal makes sense if you see this history. And everyone knows that Youkilis has steadily declined over the last two seasons and has had trouble staying on the field. The answer of why that has happened is easy to see and lies largely in his platoon splits.
Youkilis does have a pronounced split for his career. But not overly drastic. Against left-handed pitching in his career, he has an OPS of .928 with a triple slash line of: .298/.417/.511 compared to an OPS of .843 against right-handed pitching with a triple slash line of .277/.371/.471.  It is doubtful that anyone would sneeze at those kinds of numbers. 
But his ability to hit pitchers who throw from the right side has a distinct curve of growth from the early part of his career to a peak and then a decline and suddenly a cliff. Here are his OPS and strikeout percentages against right-handed pitching for his career:

If you have trouble seeing the numbers, just click on them. To see those numbers put in chart form:

The blue line on the chart is his OPS and the red line is his strikeout percentage. wOBA shows a similar curve pattern, so there is no need to use that as corroborating evidence.
The fact is that Youkilis did just fine against left-handed pitching the last two seasons with OPS figures of .987 and .878 respectively.
The guess here would be the effects of aging combined with his unorthodox stance and approach. There is a lot that has to happen to get a bat from that high above your head to the hitting zone. When Youkilis was younger, he was probably much quicker in getting that to happen against right-handed pitching. Now that he is older, he is not getting there as quickly and is easier to fool.
He gets a slightly longer look from pitchers who throw from the left side and can adjust to the pitch more effectively.
The big question is whether or not Youkilis is open to change. If so, Yankees batting coach, Kevin Long, helped Curtis Granderson with split problems Granderson had against left-handed pitching. But Youkilis will need to be open to such a change.
The situation is similar to what Yastrzemski did with the Red Sox years ago. Yaz also had a pronounced stance with the bat high over his head. When he got older, he made a sudden move to lower his hand position in his stance and it probably helped him last long enough to pad enough numbers for the Hall of Fame.
Youkilis probably started too late in his life to pile up necessary numbers for any post-career accolades. But this guy used to be one of the most feared hitters in baseball. If he is going to help the Yankees and rebuilt his offensive reputation, he is going to have to adjust now that he is older to hit right-handed pitching and he needs to do so in a hurry after such a precipitous fall. If he does not adjust and continues this trend, he better stash these paychecks away as he won’t see them again..

Five reasons why Michael Young will bounce back with the Phillies

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Rangers fans are left this week pondering the mixed legacy of their now departed Michael Young. As a legacy member of that team, Young had produced far more positive moments for the Rangers than the other way around. But his contract–which is not his fault–combined with two episodes of whining at position changes despite that contract–which is his fault–led to a falloff of some of that fan ardor. Add to the mix his horrid 2012 and the prospect of less playing time in 2013 and you have the perfect timing of his trade to the Phillies. And while it is true that he has little way else to go but up after last season, there are reasons to suspect that he will bounce back for his new team.
Let’s look at five good reasons why Michael Young will bounce back in 2013:
  1. It seems clear that Michael Young never gelled in the designated hitter position and is much more comfortable playing in the field. In 2012, his triple slash line as a DH was: .265/.295/.367 in 292 plate appearances. In 108 plate appearances as a third baseman, his triple slash line was: .307/.352/.396. Yes, there is an element of small sample size there but looking at his career splits, he has compiled a career OPS as a DH of .784 while compiling a career OPS of .817 as a third baseman. The Phillies intend to make him their starting third baseman which will allow him to concentrate on just one thing.
  2. There were some anomalies in his batting stats for 2012 compared to the rest of his career. For example, looking at his batted ball data, Young traditionally had a ground ball to fly ball ratio of 1.5. That skyrocketed to 2.22 in 2012. His line drive percentage remained high, but his increased number of ground balls led to a BABIP of .242 on batted balls with that trajectory and a lowering of his historical BABIP from .334 (career) to .299 last year. Let’s say that was a fluke and his hit trajectory goes back to his career norms, then he’ll bounce back. 2012 also saw an uncharacteristic loss of plate discipline. For his career, he has swung at only 23.3 percent of pitches out of the strike zone. That rate has been closer to 30 the past three seasons and 33 percent in 2013. If he gets back on track in that category, that will also help.
  3. Michael Young played in a very tough pitching division last season. The Angels and Athletics had shutdown starters and even the Mariners could bring King Felix. Young moves to a division where he will face the Mets nineteen times and the Marlins eighteen times. Both of those teams should have difficulties maintaining a rotation, especially if the Mets jettison Dickey. Plus, the Mets boast two left-handed starters in Santana and Niese and Young kills left-handed pitching.
  4. One glaring statistical anomaly for Young in 2012 was his loss of effectiveness against the fastball. For his career, Young has compiled 147.3 runs above average against the fastball, an average of 14.7 runs above average per season. The prior three years, he averaged 24.3 runs above average. And then suddenly, he scores a -7.1 against the fastball in 2012!?  That will bounce back.
  5. The statistical gurus state that walk years on player contracts have not statistically proven to be that much better than a player’s normal seasons. But it still matters. There is a renewed emphasis to get one last contract and to prove his career is not over. That combined with a new situation with a new team will give him all kinds of incentive to get back to some semblance of his normal self.
Look, Mighael Young has always been a mixed bag as a player. He has compiled better than decent wins above replacement on offense while losing a third of that total with his defense. He was overrated and overpaid with the Rangers. But on the Phillies, all he has to do is his part and he will help what was a pretty pathetic offense in Philadelphia this past season. Write it down: Michael Young is going to have a bounce back season.

Vance Worley a nice move by the Twins

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After trading Denard Span to the Nationals earlier in the off season, it seemed rather odd that the Minnesota Twins would also trade his replacement, Ben Revere. However, the Twins improved their present rotation with Vance Worley in the deal and also received a decent prospect in Trevor May. With the myriad of problems the Twins had last season, the pitching was the largest problem and Worley should be a nice improvement.
To be honest, Revere for Worley straight up would have been a good deal for the Twins. To get May in the deal as well is a bonus. You might not agree from casually looking at Worley’s statistics for 2012. A 6-9 record with a 4.20 ERA and 1.511 WHIP hardly seems like an improvement for the Twins who gave up more hits as a pitching staff in 2012 than any other American League team. The Twins also finished next to last in runs allowed and homers allowed and were dead last in strikeouts.
But sometimes you have to go deeper than those surface stats to see the bigger picture. The linked article at the top of this post indicated that Worley battled most of the year with a bone chip in his elbow. The chip was removed in a September operation that ended Worley’s season. If you look closely at Worley’s numbers, you can see the effect of the injury in his pitching.
For example, His velocity was down slightly and his slider went from being a very good pitch for him in 2011 to being terrible in 2012. His fastball also went from 10.2 runs above average in 2011 (7.3 according to PitchF/X) to -0.6 in 2012 (-3.1 for PitchF/X). Clearly, the elbow problem had to figure into some of the loss of effectiveness in those pitches.
The clearest indicator of the problem came with how he fared against left-handed batters. In 2011, he held left-handed batters to a triple slash line of: .201/.271/.299. Those numbers went silly in 2012 and against those same sided batters, his triple slash line was: .312/.386/.462.
One last indicator of how the injury affected his pitching: In 2012, batters across the board had better plate discipline against Worley last season. During his cup of coffee season in 2010 and his larger season of 2011, batters would swing at 28 percent of Worley’s pitches out of the strike zone. That number fell off to 26.4 percent in 2012. It seems pretty clear that Worley was not as able to fool batters last year as he did the year before.
Even so, Worley’s season was not quite as bad as it looked. His ERA was 4.20 but his FIP was 3.85. His xFIP and SIERA were also lower than his actual ERA. Some luck had to be involved too as his BABIP rose to an extremely high .340 after finishing at .283 the season before. Also consider that in all nine of Worley’s losses, the Phillies scored two runs or less.
What should we expect from Vance Worley in 2013? His strikeout rate should remain nearly the same. His 7.2 rate per nine in that category was almost a full strikeout less than his 2011 rate. But that will be offset from not pitching to pitchers every nine at bats. His three-plus walks per nine should improve as the Twins really emphasize that aspect. His OPS against at home last year was a ghastly .861 compared to .739 on the road. With friendlier dimensions at Target Field, those numbers should improve.
The key for the Twins will be how well Worley bounces back after his surgery. If his pitches return to the bite of 2011, then they will have made one heck of a deal. But even if he pitches to his 2012 numbers, which seems hardly likely, he will be better than three of the five rotations spots the Twins were throwing out there last season.

Fun with Randy Choate

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The Cardinals have signed the ultimate LOOGY and got Scrabble a playmate. Randy Choate is a Cardinal. And not only is the 37 year old going to be the other “left-handed specialist” for the St. Louis club for 2013, his contract is for three years.
Now how can you call Choate the ultimate LOOGY? After all, there was Tony Fossas and Graeme Lloyd and Alan Embree that came before Choate. But Choate has taken things to the extreme. How so? How does this grab you? Of all the pitchers in history that have pitched in 475 or more games–and there have been 197 of them all told–none have pitched less total innings than Randy Choate’s 309.
“But, William,” you might ask, “a lot of those guys pitched in more games, right?” Well, yes, that’s right. But it doesn’t end there. All of those 197 pitchers and their innings pitched and games were moved over to a spreadsheet. Then the innings pitched were divided by the games. And of all those 197 pitchers, only one other pitcher had fewer innings pitched per outing.
Mike Myers pitched from 1995 to 2007 and averaged .613 innings per outing. Randy Choate has averaged .649 innings pitched per outing. So you could call Myers the king perhaps. But Randy Choate is right there.
But it goes beyond even that. Take Randy Choate’s 2012 (Please!): Choate became the only pitcher in baseball history that pitched in more than 75 games in a single season and compiled less than 40 total innings. He actually pitched 80 times and 38.2 innings.
And there is more. Randy Choate is the only pitcher in history who made at least 80 appearances in a season and compiled less than 45 innings pitched. And he has done it twice! There was last season and he also did it in 2010.
But there is a reason, perhaps, why Choate continues to make a decent living. Of all the 197 pitchers who have more than 475 outings, none of them have given up less hits and less homers than Randy Choate. He has made up for the hit stat a bit by giving up too many walks in his career, but even so, that is pretty impressive.
Except Randy Choate is not impressive. His fastball zips in there at 86 MPH. His slider at 76 MPH is slower than most pitchers’ curves. Even so, his career OPS allowed against left-handed batters is .563. For his career, left-handed batters have batted .201 with a .278 on-base percentage. His work against lefties would compare to a 68 OPS+. That’s pretty amazing.
And yet, batters from the right side have gotten on base against him at a .404 clip. That kind of split has created what he has become. And what he has become is a guy who only faces lefties and if he ever faces a right-handed batter, it is by accident. 52 batters got that pleasure in 2012 and reached base at a .474 clip.
That is Randy Choate in a nutshell. He is the ultimate “left-handed relief specialist.” And while people snicker at the longevity of his career and the slop he throws up there, he makes a very good living just the same and really does have the last laugh..

Why so many bad hitters become hitting coaches

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The thought about hitting coaches has been rolling around inside the noggin for quite a while and was crystallized last night at the news the Cardinals were seeking to make Bengie Molina their assistant hitting coach. Molina played thirteen years and was not a terrible hitter. Molina, one of the slowest players ever to play baseball even hit for the cycle once while visiting Fenway Park. But Molina had several flaws. First, he was allergic to walks. Second, he hit into a lot of double plays. These batting flaws made him a valued catcher who could hit a little bit. Now he is going to coach hitting.

Think about some of the more famous hitting coaches. There is Rudy Jaramillo, most recently of the Cubs and the longtime guru of hitting for the Rangers. Jaramillo played three seasons in the minors and finished with a career there of .679. Kevin Long, the respected hitting coach of the Yankees, played eight years in the minors and finished his career there with a .710 OPS. He hit a wall in Triple-A where he compiled an OPS of .595 in 471 plate appearances.

In fact, other than Mark McGwire, few hitting coaches could hit their own way out of a paper bag. So why then do they get where they are?

The most obvious reason is that great hitters get rich while they are playing and have no need to coach once they are done. This is a relatively modern phenomenon. No players got really rich before the Marvin Miller days and even the good ones would hang around the game. But say you make $100 million in your career? There is no need to coach then, is there?. Wade Boggs tried it for a year with the Rays. That was it.

And so the bulk of your coaches come from the rank and file baseball lifers. Kevin Long has been around forever as has Jaramillo. But can you be a good hitting coach if you couldn’t hit yourself? Yes, well probably. It is often easier to see flaws in someone else than it is to feel your own body screwing up. Baseball lifers have been around coaches for years and pick up things along the way. So it makes sense from that perspective.

But it seems to be unique with baseball. For example, in real life, you wouldn’t go to learn piano from someone who couldn’t play the piano. Apprentices have long studied under masters. Sure, the apprentice can someday far outshine the master when gifted. But that has been the way it has worked for ions.

But in baseball, the coaching of millions of dollars of batting talent is left to guys who had no talent of their own. It’s just weird. Of course, there are many experts that wonder if coaches have any positive or negative effect on their teams anyway. Kevin Long’s prize pupil, Curtis Granderson, made Long look like a genius in 2011 but a dunce in 2012. That’s baseball and players go in funks and on streaks no matter what a coach may do. At least that is what some people say.

Once the dust settles and teams fully hire their coaching staffs, we’ll rate the teams according to the career of their hitting coach. Suffice it to say McGwire will probably top that list. But until then, let’s leave you with some Twitter musings on where this post started. Say Bengie Molina coached his hitters on the way he played. What would that sound like? Maybe something like this:

Bengie Molina as a hitting coach: “You think hitting Kershaw is tough? Try doing it with fingers bent like pretzels.”

Bengie Molina as a hitting coach: “Don’t hit a line drive to an outfielder, cuz then they can throw you out at first base.”

Bengie Molina as a hitting coach: “Shoot, I framed more strikes for my pitcher than I ever took in my life.”

Bengie Molina as hitting coach: “Don’t worry about that plate discipline crap. As long as you swing and miss less than 10%, you’re fine.”

Bengie Molina as hitting coach: “Being in tip top shape is overrated. Look at me! I played thirteen years.”

Bengie Molina as a hitting coach: “Hit the ball on the ground. You can make two outs for the price of one and keep your pitcher in rhythm.”

Bengie Molina as a hitting coach: “Swing at everything. Be aggressive.”

Hanson just adds to the Angels’ rotation question marks

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The Angels of a year ago went into the season with their rotation feted as the strength of the team. Yes, they went out and got Pujols, and no one knew Trout was going to explode the way he did. The rotation was what impressed everyone. Jered Weaver, Dan Haren, C.J. Wilson and Ervin Santana were considered a formidable top four and Jerome Williams was a cut above for a fifth starter. But the rotation did not work out as most expected.
Weaver was as good as ever, but Haren had health problems and was not as effective after the early part of the season. Wilson seemed rather ordinary for most of the season and Santana struggled early and often in the season. Jerome Williams could not stay healthy. And even Zack Greinke picked up late in the season could not help the team reach the playoffs in what has become a very tough division.
With Haren, Santana and Greinke all gone this off season, the Angels needed to rebuild a bit and Tommy Hanson ended up being their target. Knowing the Angels, they might not be done working to improve themselves, but Hanson was a pretty bold statement. After all, Hanson is only 25 years old and started his career with three straight seasons with a WHIP of under 1.2.
But Hanson adds another layer of question marks. He did not have the same sort of season for the Braves last season. His WHIP ballooned to 1.454 and for the first time in his career, he gave up more hits than innings pitched. He also gave up home runs at an alarming rate.
The Angels really did not give up much to get Hanson. Jordan Walden will cross the river to get baptized in someone else’s pond. He joins an already deep bullpen for the Braves. But he had lost his closer role to Ernesto Frieri and it was apparent that the Angels did not trust him on the mound.
Knowing the little return the Braves allowed themselves to unload Hanson, you have to wonder about the pitcher the Angels are now counting on as the third guy in their rotation. The real big deal you notice right off the bat with Hanson is that he has lost three miles per hour on his fastball since 2010. The loss of velocity was shown across all of his pitches. Combine those facts with one strikeout per nine less in 2012 compared to 2011 and you see a few flags fly up.
From this perspective, the Angels have too many question marks in the rotation behind Weaver. Wilson just doesn’t often seem that impressive and his numbers for the Angels were just a tick above ordinary. There are red flags with Hanson. Garrett Richards is pegged as number four and has not blown anyone away in either the high minors or in his two cups of coffee. Round out the thing with Jerome Williams and his hard sinker.
The good news is that the Angels have not given up much to get Hanson. But the not so good news is that Hanson is not someone to be overly excited about either. There are only three possibilities here. Either Hanson was not healthy and can get his velocity back. Or he is still not healthy. Or, finally, that at twenty-five, we’ve already seen the best of what Hanson has had to offer. The Angels are hoping that the first possibility is the one that they get.