Phoenix.BloggersPub

“…and now let me show you the larger closet.”

Josh Byrnes left the winter general managers’ meeting in the palatial St. Regis Resort, on the coast midway between LA and San Diego, with nothing to show for it except, one imagines, a sizable bill [rooms there start at $745 per night, with room-service OJ and cereal for twenty bucks]. The biggest piece of Diamondbacks news to come out during the past few days was not a replacement for Orlando Hudson, the re-signing of Randy Johnson, or details of contract talks with Brandon Webb. It was that the pool at Chase will be sponsored by RideNow Powersports, a Tempe company who will be replacing the bankrupt Paddock Pools. Stop the presses!

In view of that, and the current economy, I think Nick P might have trouble convincing his Republic masters of the need to let him go to the next set of meetings. That’s in Las Vegas from December 8-11, and they’ll want him to come back with something more substantial than a pair of lap-dancer scented pants [though that might just be me - back in my bachelor days, of course. ] Still, he does a decent job of basically writing about nothing, even using the word “plethora,” in what may be a Three Amigos reference. That refers to the options available at second-base, described as, “A market in which supply might outweigh demand.” There also does not seem to be any one outstanding candidate: Hudson is the only Type-A on the market, and he’s not returning. Beyond him, are a bunch of mid-level second-baseman who are free-agents and would likely be adequate.

Ramon Vazquez is Steve Gilbert’s pick to click, with an important factor being that he’s left-handed, so would help balance our overwhelmingly rightie-skewed lineup. On the other hand, he has what can only be described as a contract year: yes, he hit .290, but that’s on the heels of four awful seasons. From 2004-2007, he hit .235, .212, .209 and .230 with a total of ten homers, and his career OPS+ is a weak 85. There’s no doubt some team will pay for him based on last season, and unless this 32-year old has suddenly figured out how to hit, will end up overpaying. I’d rather that team wasn’t Arizona.

Then there’s Felipe Lopez, who apparently “would love to play for the Diamondbacks.” The question there would be, which Lopez do you get? The one who hit .234 with two HR in a hundred games for Washington, and was so bad he got released? Or the one picked up by St. Louis, who apparently realized free-agency was looming, and batted .385 with a .964 OPS from that point on? The likelihood is, as usual, that you’d instead find something in the middle. His career line is .262/.330/.395, and with eight seasons under his belt, that’s probably not too far from what you’d receive. However, his agent is Scott Boras, and you know he will be focusing on the last couple of months performance. As another alternative, the Tribune sees Mark Loretta as a possible candidate at second-base.

I’ll work on a chart that lists all the free-agent second basemen and their relevant stats, ages and salaries. Still got a few days until free-agent negotiations can actively begin, so expect that next week at some point. The alternative to free-agency is a trade, though there are some issues there: the Diamondbacks’ farm system isn’t quite brimming with prized prospects at this point, and if you trade any of the established players, you’ll be filling one hole by creating another. Ken Rosenthal reports us as in the running for Kelly Johnson, another left-hander, though the story says Johnson won’t be going anywhere if his middle-infield partner Yunel Escobar goes to the Padres as part of a trade for Jake Peavy.

Drifting off to discuss that one for a bit, we will, of course, be glad to see the departure of an divisional rival’s ace. Though we’ve actually hit Peavy a lot better than the rest of the division [his record against us is only 11-11 with a 4.80 ERA]. I note that the trade talks are ongoing despite Jake having a no-trade clause and he’s lobbing some interesting thoughts into the mix. He’d rather Escobar not be part of any trade with the Braves for him, and no wonder, since Escobar has been ranked among the best SS in the league, a player any pitcher would want behind him. Peavy also wants a similar no-trade clause with his new team. However, the mere fact a player with a no-trade clause is almost certain to be dealt… Are you listening, Eric Byrnes?

Sounds like there could be some chance for Brandon Lyon to return to Arizona - if we want him. His agent says, “Brandon would be thrilled to come back to Arizona. We’re going to get some sense of the market and come back to Arizona and have a meeting of the minds. I don’t think it would be surprising if he got some multiyear offers from teams.” Particularly if the GM concerned slipped into a coma between June 17 and September 12, a period of 27 appearances over which Lyon had an ERA of 9.59. Snark aside, I wouldn’t mind getting him back at a reasonable rate, especially as it seems Lyon is not demanding he must be the closer, a role he looks to have lost to Chad Qualls here in Arizona.

if he doesn’t sign for us, Lyon is going to be classed as a Type B free-agent, according to the official list of Elias rankings, so we would get some compensation if he goes elsewhere. The other AZ players are as expected: Hudson, Cruz and Dunn are all Type A, while Johnson joins Lyon as a Type B, and we get nothing for Eckstein or Clark. And finally, a quirky little piece. Did you realize that all advertisements in parks have to be scrutinized by someone in the commissioner’s office, to make sure they don’t interfere with the ability of the players or umpires to track the ball? That someone is Darryl Hamilton, and this is his story.

Here’s the last of the SB Nation awards: officially announced yesterday, but delayed because I was too busy ranting about the traveshamockery which was McLouth’s Gold Glove. First the National League:

Here’s my ballot on this one.

1. Albert Pujols
2. Manny Ramirez
3. Chase Utley
4. Ryan Braun
5. Aramis Ramirez
6. Chipper Jones
7. Lance Berkman
8. Stephen Drew
9. Matt Holliday
10. David Wright

And now, the explanations. Pujols was, once again, head and shoulders above just about every other player in the league, and was good enough to overcome my usual preference for MVP’s who help their teams reach the playoffs. My second-place pick is a classic example, and demonstrates admirably the difference between “Most Valuable” and “Best”. In 36 regular-season games, he had an OPS+ of 213. Much though I loathe him, Manny Ramirez is the reason the Dodgers reached the playoffs. They often say one player can’t make all that much of a difference, but his impact on LA can not be over-stated. Let’s hope he gets a better offer from somewhere else, as I really do not want to see him next year. [And in the playoffs? 13-for-25 with eleven walks, four homers and 10 RBI all told; an OPS in eight games of 1.747].

Further down the list, nothing too outstanding, or out of place, except perhaps my pick of Stephen Drew in eighth spot. Only Hanley Ramirez had a higher OPS among shortstops in the league, almost fifty points better than last year’s MVP, Jimmy Rollins. His production out of the position was one of the things that drove Arizona’s offense all season, but in particular during the second half, when all about were faltering, with a line of .326/.372/.556, for a .927 OPS. In a season which proved disappointing in a number of ways, Drew was a shining beacon of surpassed expectations.

And here is the American League:

Meh. It’s the American League, so I can’t really work up much enthusiasm for any detailed analysis here. I note the startling lack of love shown for the two teams with the best records: the Angels and Rays, whose entire rosters received not a single first-place vote. Pena’s overall ninth-place finish was the highest Tampa player, while the 100-win Anaheim team didn’t get anyone rated above seventh. Again, this perhaps illustrates the difference between ‘best’ and ‘most valuable’. Perhaps the key to becoming MVP is to be a standout player on an otherwise mediocre team, rather than a player of the same quality on a team where everyone is good.

India’s top pitchers try out for MLB scouts

Are the Gold Gloves perhaps the most worthless of all awards, awarded on the basis of monkeys flinging handfuls of poo at ballots? That’s just about the only conclusion which can be drawn from the winning of one by Nate McLouth. Let’s review, shall we. According to Wikipedia, the Gold Glove “is the award given annually to the Major League Baseball player judged to have the ‘most superior individual fielding performance’ at each position.”

Actually, that’s not quite the case, because three gloves are awarded to outfielders, with no regard for position. This year, as well as McLouth, Carlos Beltran and Shane Victorino - all of them center fielders - took the outfield awards. So on that basis, let’s be a little more generous. Is Nate McLouth among the top three cernter-fielders in the National League? Let’s take a look at all the available metrics, and see what we find, as far as who the most appropriate recipient would be. There are ten potential center-fielders who played enough to qualify. The following chart shows the rankings of these players, as measured by each metric. The final column totals up those rankings and gives a final value; lower is better, obviously.

Sources:
Fielding Percentage (F%), Range Factor (RF) and Zone Rating (ZR), from ESPN.
Revised Zone Rating (RZR) and Out of Zone Rating (OOZ) from Hardball Times.
Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA), adjusted for all time, through Baseball Prospectus.
Any ties are broken based on the number of innings played in center.

I think the above makes it pretty clear that McLouth’s Gold Glove was an utter travesty, and that it should probably have gone to the Diamondbacks’ Chris Young, whom the majority of measures agree, was a superior player in center field. McLouth’s edge is really only in his low number of errors, which is the equivalent of banging the rocks together as far as defensive metrics goes. In particular I note that the more advanced figures of RZR and FRAA both agree, ranking Young first and McLouth dead-last among qualifiers in center-field. Defensive Win Shares? Young: 6.9; McLouth: 3.0.

This all ties in with the results published by the Fielding Bible. While I don’t have access to the full rankings, so could not include them in the table above, I do have the top and bottom players, according to John Dewan’s plus/minus system. Chris Young is rated at +23, meaning basically, that he made 23 plays this year an average center-fielder would not have made. That trailed just Beltran and Carlos Gomez, so Young was still in the top three. Nate McLouth? Well, he came in at -40: that’s last, and it was not even close, with the next-worst, Jim Edmonds, being fourteen plays better at -26.

Now, the awards in the past have seen some remarkable atrocities - need I say any more than, “multi-Gold Glove winning short-stop, Derek Jeter”? But this is probably worse than any of those. I may not often agree with Rob Neyer, but when he headlines his article on the awards, NL Gold Glove voters erred on McLouth, it’s hard to argue. He says, “Quite frankly, this is like some horrible joke, roughly on par with…giving one to Rafael Palmeiro (1999) on the strength of 28 games.”

Even locals are perplexed: One comment on the story from a Pirates fan says, “His range in centerfield is awful… There was nothing more frustrating this year than watching McLouth take an awful route on a ball he had to go back on, only to see the ball fall behind him a full five feet in front of the warning track. He played soooo far up and was soooo bad at going back on the ball.” Over at Bucs Dugout, Charlie is somewhat kinder - but only somewhat: “McLouth’s memorable throw in the All-Star game probably helped him, but other than that, I don’t know what the voters saw here. McLouth, to my eyes, looked like an average centerfielder.”

This is in contrast to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, which crows, “Before last season, the rap on McLouth was all-hit, no-field. He silenced those who doubted his defensive skills.” Sorry. Not at all. Going by the most advanced and objective measures, McLouth possesses the defensive skills of a beached manatee with rheumatism. When he’s presented with it, the award will probably go over his head and roll all the way to the wall.

Chris Young was robbed.

My ballot did have Lincecum in first place, but I opted for Webb ahead of Santana. It’s probably as much a question of familiarity as anything else, since there’s hardly a stat, from ERA to Quality Start percentage, where Santana didn’t come out ahead. But 22 wins, a number not surpassed in the majors for six years? Damn. Much as that’s a stat dependent on factors outside the pitcher’s control, it has to be respected, especially as Santana actually got more run support [4.83 to 4.64] than Webb.

Reluctant though I am to mention the other nominees - for fear of putting ‘Charmer on the spot again! - Sabathia for #1? Seventeen starts, half the number of the other contenders, just aren’t enough to justify a Cy Young, and if you look at his season overall, that’s a 17-10 record and a 2.70 ERA - worse than Santana and Lincecum. Down the list, interesting to see Haren get some love: I’m trying to work out who that person left off their ballot to make room for Dan: Webb, Santana or Lincecum?

In the American League, got to be impressed with Halladay’s nine complete games. That’s the most for any AL starter in a decade [Scott Erickson had eleven in 1998]. But Lee’s 22-3 record is stunning: only seven pitchers in baseball history have started 30+ games and lost three or less. Add that to his lead in ERA, and I would have had to vote for him as the winner, with Halladay second and Lester third.

No argument from me here, as the 1-2-3 I posted, was exactly the one come up with in the final rankings. In some ways, Votto had a slightly better offensive season [OPS .874. six points ahead of Soto]. But he’s a first-baseman, while Soto’s position behind the plate makes his season standing at it, all the more impressive. No catcher of any age, in either league, had more home-runs than Soto, and he nailed a respectable 27% of base-stealers. Not that Votto had a bad year, with 24 homers and 84 RBI, hitting .297. Jurrjens led all rookies with 188.1 innings pitched,. and had the best ERA of qualifiers, at 3.68. At only 22, he looks to be another one in the long line of good Atlanta pitchers.

Must confess to being somewhat surprised by the lower picks like Stewart and Bruce: the former had only 266 at-bats, and benefited from the Coors effect [he hit .234 on the road], while the latter had an OPS over 100 points back of Soto and Votto. Bowker and DeWitt were even further back, and I sense some fan bias overcoming neutrailty there. As an aside, I note the absence of any votes for the Japanese imports in Kuroda and Fukudome. The latter is probably no surprise, but I did expect Kuroda to get some love in this category, even though I could never bring myselt to vote for a 33-year old “rookie” personally. Unless he played for Arizona.

Certainly can’t argue with the winner there, Longoria being one of the main reasons the Devil Rays made it all the way to the World Series. Everyone else came a long way back: If I’d had a ballot, I would likely have put Galarraga in the second spot, and perhaps given the third one to Davis, who had a great year - .285/.331/.549, for a better OPS than Longoria, albeit in half a season.

‘Charmer will likely be along in due course to reveal her ballot and comment on the results. We’ll be covering the Cy Young awards, as voted for by the SB Nation, tomorrow, and then the MVP’s of the two leagues on Thursday.

Democracy. Use it or lose it.

Edgar Gonzalez outrighted off the 40-man roster

It’s awards week here at SB Nation, and we’ll be covering the Rookie of the Year, Cy Young and MVP nominees and voting results over the next three days. But, the apparently eternal process of the ‘Pitties continues to rumble on too, though last week’s voting, for Performance of the Year was the closest to date. Four candidates received between 18% and 34% of the vote, but Jackson’s selflessness, running through a certain cycle, won voters’ approval, with Drew’s actual cycle deserving of honorable mention.

We now move on to a new, somewhat painful award: Least Valuable Person. I’m not going to lay out a definition for this one, as it all really depends on what factors you want to take into account. Expectations, cost, impact [or lack thereof], positive contributions to offset the bad: these are all the kind of things which could factor into one’s individual decision. And the nominees for this category are:

Chris ’sub-Uecker’ Burke
Burke’s contribution is not just his .194 average or a .582 OPS: it’s that these were achieved over almost 200 trips to the plate. He was seen in more games than not, despite his poor performance, thanks to position flexibility: in other worse, he sucked, more or less, at six different position plus as a pinch-hitter. His OBP of .310 was respectable, but that was largely due to almost one-third of his walks being intentional ones to reach the pitcher. Given our hurlers batted .160, it was almost a wash.

Eric ‘Hamstrung’ Byrnes
Including the signing bonus, Byrnes got paid $8m this season: that’s more than $186,000 per hit, $347,000 per RBI or $1.33 million per home-run. The face of the franchise, newly signed to a three-year extension, started credibly [his BA was .314 after the first 17 games], but then fell off the planet, hitting a mere .154 from April 20th on, before his hamstrings gave out entirely. Rarely seen around the dugout after his injury, he finished the season by getting into a public spat with Conor Jackson over locker-room smack talk that didn’t stay in the locker-room.

Tony ‘Veteran Presence’ Clark
The Dodgers got Manny Ramirez before the trade deadline. The D-backs got Tony Clark - a player we let go before the season started. Any surprise who won the division? Clark seemed intent on proving the original decision to let him go was the right one. In 63 at-bats he hit into more double-plays than Stephen Drew did in 611 at-bats, and had fewer extra-base hits with Arizona (four) than twin killings (six). He imploded utterly down the stretch, with one hit in the final thirty-five games.

Chip ‘The Windmill’ Hale
Earlier, I wrote “Hale is not going to be opening a hospice in the near future, since he firmly believes in sending everybody home to die.” When you notice the third-base coach at all, it’s rarely good, and at times there seemed no base-running decision which Hale would not get wrong. In particular, he seemed to possess unbounded optimism about the speed and stamina of our pitchers and catchers. But infamously, Augie Ojeda also ran through a Hale stop sign, and scored easily. Given our clutch struggles down the stretch, issues from the coach’s box were the last thing we needed.

Bob ‘Mismanagement’ Melvin
Since he was given credit for our 90 wins last season, and named ‘Manager of the Year,’ one presumes he bears responsibility for the barely-.500 results this year. With a bigger budget, a shiny new #2 starting pitcher and a year’s more experience from the young players… What the heck happened? The bullpen imploded, Melvin showing an uncanny knack for putting in the wrong arm; his line-up construction baffled everyone; and the false dawn of April apparently led to a ‘Crisis? What Crisis?’ attitude as things unfolded thereafter. By the time change came, it was too little, too late.

Jon ‘The Biggest Loser’ Rauch
As far as I can tell, no pitcher in the history of baseball has ever thrown so few innings and lost so many games for a team, as Rauch did for the Diamondbacks. In just 23.1 innings, he had an 0-6 record - losing all six in the space of just twelve frames of work. Even if we’d won half of those, we’d have taken the division, so you could argue Jon Rauch was every bit as crucial to the Dodgers taking the title as Manny Ramirez.  Heard some doubtful things about his clubhouse presence, though no-one who refused AZWILDCATS an autograph can be all bad.

The team’s eleventh season proved remarkable mediocre, 82 wins being right on the button for the average number of victories. However, it ranks only in seventh place, with the mean being skewed down thanks to 2004. How do the marks set by the individual players stand against those posted over the first decade of the Diamondbacks’ existence?

At the plate, Conor Jackson became the ninth man in franchise history to qualify for the batting title and hit .300 - the first since Chad Tracy’s .308 in 2005. Luis Gonzalez did it four times, while Shea Hillenbrand, Matt Williams and Junior Spivey are the others to have accomplished the feat. CoJack’s .376 on-base percentage tied him for tenth on the team’s all-time list, though no-one cracked the top ten for SLG or OPS. Chris Young missed just two games, a number surpassed only by Gonzalez, who was an ever-present in both 2000 and 2001. [The two NL players who appeared in all 162 games this season: Adrian Gonzalez and Ryan Howard]

Nobody reached 100 runs - Stephen Drew’s 91 led the team, but he did get a total of 178 hits, ranking him sixth on the franchise list for a single season. Tracy’s 75 moved him up to sixth all-time for Arizona; Orlando Hudson is eighth and Jackson ninth on the same ranking. Drew’s 44 doubles this season were good enough for fifth, and Young’s 42 follows immediately behind him. Our short-stop’s eleven triples is the highest total since Tony Womack had 14 in 2000, trailing only that and David Dellucci’s dozen from the 1998 season. Overall, Drew had 76 extra-base hits, a tally no-one save Gonzo has beaten in a D-backs jersey.

It looked like Mark Reynolds was a shoo-in for thirty homers: after all, on August 7, following game #115, he already had 24. But he struggled thereafter, batting .219 with an OPS of .663, falling two short. On the all-time list, however, he’s already up to number twelve: next season could well see three new entries to the top ten, at the expense of Tony Clark, Damian Miller and Erubiel Durazo. Chris Snyder, Reynolds and Jackson are the most likely candidates, with Drew also a possibility. Similarly, Special K looked sure of a 100 RBI year, but managed to drive in only five over the final 25 games of the season. The 97 he reached was still enough for ninth-equal, while Jackson moved up to sixth on the all-time list.

It probably is significant that Reynolds’ 64 free passes couldn’t even reach the top twenty for walks in Arizona history. To put that into context, during all eight seasons Gonzalez was here - even the one where he missed a third of it due to injury - his lowest total was still 66. The Diamondback leader for walks this season was also only 29th in the National League, an unwanted feat which I hope to see improve going forward. Reynolds, as is well-documented, also set a new major-league record for strikeouts. Obviously, this was also a franchise mark, yet perhaps less-noticed was that Chris Young, also smashed the previous “best”, fanning 165 times, twenty more than any other Arizona player of the last decade. His total number of outs - 496 - was also a new high.

Finally on the hitting side, a tip of the hat to Augie Ojeda, who managed to get hit by a pitch ten times, good enough for eight-best in a single season, even though he only had 272 plate-appearances. No-one else in the majors got his so often in less than 300 PA’s, and it was at a higher rate than Carlos Quentin. It’s particularly impressive, given that Ojeda is such a small target.

Moving to the mound, the question becomes, how high does Brandon Webb now rank on the list of all-time Diamondbacks? Back in January 2006, when published our original top ten, he was #5, behind Randy Johnson, Gonzalez, Curt Schilling and Steve Finley. I think it seems ripe to revise the rankings, given the past couple of years, so I’ve attached a poll to see whereabout he should go. Here are some career stats for Webb. Johnson leads in most categories, with Webb second in IP, wins, K’s and shutouts, while he’s third in ERA, Win %, complete games and WHIP, with Schilling generally the other pitcher ahead of him, if there is one. Obviously, it’s an ongoing career, but where would you rank Brandon now?

Obviously, Webb’s 22 victories stands out, being the best the team has seen in six seasons, though Dan Haren’s sixteen is not to be sneezed at - it’s a total beaten by Webb, Johnson, Schilling and no other pitchers for Arizona. Haren’s WHIP this year of 1.130 is also good enough for ninth spot; again all eight spots ahead of him belong either to the Big Unit or the Big Mouth. Particularly noteworthy, is that Haren made the top ten for fewest BB/9 IP and also for most K/9 IP, showcasing an impressive combination of power and control. He finished with 206 strikeouts, eighth-most. Though one suspects the top four spots - all RJ - are likely untouchable, since from 1999-2002, Johnson averaged more than 350 K’s per season. Oh, and pitched 31 complete games, including eleven shutouts.

Out in the bullpen, Chad Qualls appeared in almost half of Arizona’s games - 78 in total. Let’s hope there are no omens to be found in the subsequent careers of the D-backs who are ahead of Chad: Villarreal’s 86 games in 2003, and Kim’s 78 from 2001. Obviously, while losing his job as closer certainly stopped Brandon Lyon from saving more, his 26 is still fifth-best for a single season. I note that the top five are by five different pitchers - quick, how many of them can you name? Answer to that at the end of the piece. He still finished fifty games this year: even before being removed from the closer’s spot, Lyon had more non-save appearances than saves. Contrast F-Rod - 76 games, only fourteen not resulting in a save.

[The top five single-season save totals for Arizona were by: Jose Valverde (47, 2007); Byung-Hung Kim (36, 2002); Gregg Olson (30, 1998 - I bet that was the one you didn’t get!); Matt Mantei (29, 2003); and Lyon’s 26 this year.]