Diamond Mine

Los Angeles Dodgers
Kansas City Royals
Pittsburgh Pirates
Milwaukee Brewers
Toronto Blue Jays
St. Louis Cardinals
New York Mets
Tampa Bay Rays
San Francisco Giants
Colorado Rockies
Cincinnati Reds
Arizona Diamondbacks
Chicago Cubs
Atlanta Braves
Seattle Mariners
Detroit Tigers
Boston Red Sox
Houston Astros
Texas Rangers
Philadelphia Phillies
Oakland Athletics
Chicago White Sox
San Diego Padres
Florida Marlins
Minnesota Twins
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Cleveland Indians
Washington Nationals
New York Yankees
Baltimore Orioles

Power Ranking BETA

Here’s my 1st attempt at a power ranking. I’m basing the results on a component score of a team’s OPS, SP ERA, RP ERA, and Team Defensive Efficiency. Team defense counts just as much as everything else and the team RP pitching counts half as much as everything else.

Diamond Mine Power Ranking as of May 25th 2008:

1-Arizona Diamondbacks
2-Atlanta Braves
3-Chicago Cubs
4-Oakland Athletics
5-Chicago White Sox
6-Toronto Blue Jays
7-Tampa Bay Rays
8-St. Louis Cardinals
9-Boston Red Sox
10-Philadelphia Phillies
11-Cleveland Indians
12-Baltimore Orioles
13-Los Angeles Dodgers
14-Florida Marlins
15-New York Mets
16-Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
17-Minnesota Twins
18-New York Yankees
19-Houston Astros
20-San Francisco Giants
21-San Diego Padres
22-Texas Rangers
23-Milwaukee Brewers
24-Colorado Rockies
25-Washington Nationals
26-Kansas City Royals
27-Cincinnati Reds
28-Detroit Tigers
29-Seattle Mariners
30-Pittsburgh Pirates

Based on these results, We expect to see the Braves to improve their play going further into the season. The World Series could be Oakland and Arizona. The Blue Jays, at this point, are playing more complete baseball than any team in the AL East, but the Red Sox performance is pretty strong and they seem to be improving. No matter how you slice the numbers and observe the sport form every possible angle, the Pirates are always the worst team in baseball. The Rockies are better than they have been playing, but not by much at all. Expect the Angels to drop off later in the season. Ironically, their bullpen ERA is hurting them even though they have the best closer in baseball. The Marlins will not be able to hold the NL East. Their Starting pitching is relatively weak to the other top teams in baseball. The Cardinals just look real good this year, but so far, they are not as strong across the board as the Cubs. The deciding factor there is the significantly better defense of the south-siders. Near the bottom of the list, there are very few surprises. This analysis shows the Yankees with an OUTSIDE chance at the playoffs. If they could only overcome the monster Blue Jays in that division. :-)

Top Fives

So we’re just over ¼ of the way through the season at this point and I’m going to take a quick look at the top leaders of the performance categories we look at here at Diamond Mine and see what turns up. Everyone on this list has, at this point 162 Plate appearances which qualifies them for the entire season already.

CON

1	Betancourt	Yuniesky	91.38%
2	Guzman	Cristian	90.57%
3	Molina	Bengie	90.53%
4	Lopez	Jose C	90.43%
5	Keppinger	Jeff S	87.73%

Above Average OBP from your SS can be hard to come by and, in that respect, Keppinger is having a pretty good season. Most of his OBP is coming from his BA, which is a direct result of his high contact rate. Molina, as always, will hit a little bit and has a little power. Guzman’s only skill seems to be making contact. His 300 average isn’t very valuable since he’s actually producing outs quicker than some of his counterparts. Betancourt puts a whole bunch of balls in play. He’s slightly unlucky, but when you consider his poor PWR scores and his poor EYE score, it seems logical to conclude that the balls he does put into play are relatively easy balls to handle and turn into outs.

PWR

1	Berkman	Lance	0.221
2	Uggla	Dan C	0.213
3	Burrell	Pat	0.178
4	Utley	Chase	0.177
5	Bradley	Milton	0.172

Lance Berkman is having a pretty big year for himself this year. Everyone knows about his power, but his power is more amazing when you consider that he’s a switch hitter. No only is he a switch hitter but he’s a 90% base stealer going 9-10 so far this year. He’s near the top of MLB leaders with a speed score over 1.5 so far. Dan Uggla: 28 year old who’s never hit less than 20 home runs in any professional season and that is slugging 700 so far this year. That’s all you really need to say about that. Chase Utley makes 2 middle infielders on the top of this list. Middle Infield power is pretty hard to come by, but players like Utley and Uggla COULD change that. Pat Burell just has a bunch of home runs. Pretty usual for him.

EYE

2008	Molina	Yadier B	9.83
2008	Keppinger	Jeff S	7.38
2008	Polanco	Placido	6.22
2008	Jones	Chipper	5.81
2008	Mauer	Joe	5.54

Forget steroids Jose, Plate Discipline turns very good players into great players. Yadier Molina has a good defensive reputation which is usually good for a roster spot in the majors, but his plate discipline is what makes him the Card’s everyday catcher and what could make him one of the better catcher’s in the majors soon. It’s one of the great ironies in baseball, that, if you’re a player that Billy Beane is actively attempting to trade for, it immediately raises your stock to the point that other teams put together better packages to get you and you end up going somewhere else. Both aspects of Polanco’s game are so exceptional for his position, that he’d be the starter if he only was skilled in one. Polanco’s offense is so good for a second basemen that he could probably start on any team. Conversely, Polanco’s defense is so stellar that many teams would start him even if he didn’t know how to put on a batting helmet. Poloanco’s offensive game is straight Moneyball and t works quite well for him.

SPD

1	Taveras	Willy	1.973
2	Ellsbury	Jacoby	1.960
3	Gomez	Carlos A	1.918
4	Bourn	Michael R	1.823
5	Kinsler	Ian M	1.782

Speed is Tavarez’ game and probably will be until he retires. If he could add a bit more power, he’d become quite a force in center field. Right now, he’s like a good version of nook logan. It probably won’t be long before Ian Kinsler is considered one of the best players in baseball. He already has stolen 14 straight bases this year. Even if he slows up, he’d steal around 30 bases and hit 15-20 home runs. I can’t stress this point enough. HE’S A SECOND BASEMEN!!! Those are outfielder type offensive skills.

@import url(http://www.google.com/cse/api/branding.css);

Injuries SUCK

There may not be anything more frustrating to a baseball fan or executive than injuries. Most of the time, they are fluke accidents that some out of no where and injuries show no favor towards star players. There is one, undoubtable trend in injuries which is the most frustrating of all. Pitchers are more apt to be injured than any other position. Of the 137 currently injured ball players, 62% are pitchers.

That’s 86 players with significant injuries which will cause them to miss time this season and we’re not even half way through the first month of the season. Pitchers have the most physically demanding responsibility on the diamond and, therefore will incur more injuries as a group. This problem is compounded by the fact that, because Pitchers have the most physically demanding position, that same position is the most important to fill. By nature of the job, Pitchers are always in high demand and it is that same high demand that increases the chance of injuries. The more you think about it, the more it will drive you crazy. Relief pitchers are generally assumed not to be able to handle a high pitching workload and so, naturally are more easily injured than starters. However, Starters pitch so much more often and for longer durations at a time that they get injured about as often as relievers.

Just looking at the significant injuries on the list I made some observations:

Kelvim Escobar- Kelvim has been an excellent pitcher whenever he’s available but he’s only pitched over 200 innings once in his career. He could be out the rest of the season with a shoulder injury.

Rich Harden- The A’s should see him back in May. Does it really matter? He’s going to continue to injure himself pitching until he can’t take the mound anymore. HE’s like a less successful Mark Prior.

Anibal Sanchez- If the Marlins are going to win any significant amount of games this year or in the near future,they’ll need anibal to contribute. Starting off this season witha significant shoulder injury usually turns out pretty badly for all involved.

Pedro Martinez- Since September 27th 2006, Pedro has pitched 31.3 innings. That’s 1.1% of all the Mets innings pitched over that span. Whenever Pedro HAS been on the mound, the results weren’t pretty. He’s only managed to make it past the 5th inning twice in two seasons. 2008 is off to a typical Pedro start. HE’s out until mid may. The Mets have real rotation problems after John Maine’s turn, and if Pedro could muster up something in may, the Mets would look pretty good 1-4. Having no one really capable as your 4th and 5th starters makes the mets relatively weak in this area.

Mark Prior- Was there any doubt? As I stated earlier anyone with some sense should EXPECT injuries to happen to pitchers anyway, but, Mark Prior starts are getting to be more like a special ballpark promotion night than they are a regular occurrence. Mark Prior will help when he’s pitching, but it’ll be a blessing to the cubs if he starts more than 20 games.

Curt Schilling- Schilling is out until Late July. The Red Sox Rotation has moved well past Schilling since 2004. With Dice- K, Beckett, Wakefield, and even Lester, the BoSox may not even NEED Schilling. Of Course, Beckett will get a severe blister at some point in the season and they will need another starter, but, they still have Julian Tavarez, Clay Bucholz, or EVEN there closer can start. Schilling’s contributions will be more like fudge icing on a double fudge cake this year.

Carl Pavano- Apparently has an elbow problem. After a while, they all run together. I had to go to BaseballReference.com to check when it was the last time he’s even pitched. it’s been more than a full 356 days. Last year the Yankees payed 10 million dollars for just over 11 innings and an ERA over 4.50. Or you can look at it this way. Pavano has thrown 152 pitches in the past year. That’s $65,789.47 per pitch last year.

Kiko Celero- might be out for the year. Celero is a valuable Reliever. As an A’s fan, I’m a bit disappointed since the A’s bullpen had a chance to be GREAT this year. Instead, it will probably only be very good.

Joel Zumaya- Zumaya was expected to contribute to the Detroit bullpen this year and he won’t be back until late July. Zumaya is a hard thrower and his injury has to do with his shoulder. It may be until 2009 that his velocity returns to full form. This means that when he does return to the pen, he will most likely not bas as effective as he was in 2006 or 2007.

Casey Janssen- Janssen is out for ’08 which will put pressure on the Jays bullpen. B.J. Ryan will miss time, just like he does every year, and Janssen was able to lessen the blow last year by pitching so well out of the pen. If/when Ryan goes down this year, Arccado will have a much lesser set up man than he did in ’07.

Put up your Dukes!

 

Today Justin Duchscherer will start his first major league game since September 20^th 2003. Duchscherer lost that game and moved to the Oakland bullpen the following year. Justin has become a very valuable asset to the A’s bullpen since the move. Duchscherer was even the Athletics sole representative at the 2005 MLB All Star game. As a reliever, The Duke started as a the long reliever/ mop up man in the A’s pen as other relievers such as Kiko Celero, Chad Bradford, Jim Mecir, and Houston Street all had more prominent roles. 2005 was the year Justin was given the most opportunity to pitch late into games as he finished 14.8% of Oakland’s games second to only the team’s closer Houston Street.

 

            The interesting thing about Justin Duchscherer is that he’s never really been considered a “failure” as a starter. Not that he’s any great shakes as a a starter either. The truth is we just don’t know.

 

Here’s what we do know: Duchscherer as above average stamina for a pure relief pitcher. The Duke has pitched as a reliever in 192 Major league games and has averaged over an inning per appearance for the past 5 years. Most closers average almost exactly one inning per relief appearance (that’s usually the 9^th inning), and situational relievers pitch so little in most appearances that it’s easier to measure them by how many batters they face per game rather than how many innings they pitch.

 

We also know that Justin Duchscherer hasn’t pitched as a starter enough in the majors to make any real meaningful performance evaluations based on his 24 and 2/3rds innings pitched. So how do we know what Justin Duchscherer: Starting Pitcher is supposed to look like?

 

Here’s the premise- We’re going to say that AAA performance is about as good as MLB performance. So we’ll take a look at Justin in AAA, when he did start all the time, and discount those numbers by 20%. What we’re saying is that a AAA pitcher as 80% of a MLB pitcher.

yr                    level          ips        h         hr    bb    k          ERA    IP/GS    WHIP    IPOut    K/BB    STF    K/9    HR/9
4 seasons        AAA          266      274     0      35    222     3.69    6.33    1.14        798      6.34    28%      7.5    0
MLBEq                            212.8   328.8  0      42    177.6  5.63    6.33    1.71        638      4.23    28%      7.5    0

 

            It would seem that Justin still profiles as a bit of a reliever. High ERA/ High Whip guys that can strike batters out tend to perform better in relief roles than as everyday starters. Still we have to consider that there are players who’s performances improve to a degree as their usage increases. This sort of translation has it’s limits. You have to look at the numbers that matter for starters and ERA is one of the least of our concerns.

            The first thing to note is the durability. 6.3 innings a start isn’t half bad. In fact, it’s pretty good. It’s just a tad above average. Getting 28% of your outs from K’s indicates that Duchscherer can probably stay later into games in situations where he’ll need to keep the ball out of play. He also never gave up a home run in AAA. Since he never gave up a HR at the Triple A level, it’s impossible to “translate” nothing, but we can assume that he’s pretty good at keeping the ball in the park. Oddly, Duchscherer does have a pretty pedestrian GB% for his MLB career but the effects of that are minimized by the ballpark he plays in.

 

            So, what do I expect to see tonight? I’m looking for probably 5 and a third, leaving the game with men on 1^st and 3^rd down by one. As far as the year goes,  I’m expecting about 150 some innings with an ERA close to 5.00. It should be fun to see what happens.

Stats that matter 2008 click link below:

So as the season goes I've set up the stats on this page to be updated weekly. Here's the Deal... The Hitting and Pitching Pages both have all the normal stats you'd expect. There are additional columns after the traditional statistics that I find particularly interesting and useful. The updated statistics are located on the left hand side of the page in the links section. Click on the link and then click the button that follows to open the file.

CON- is the % of the time the Batter makes contact with the ball. If a batter simply put the ball into play each at bat, we'd expect him to have a .290 Batting Average since the average MLB defense turns 71% of all balls in play into outs.

PWR- is calculated by using Linear Weighted Power Indicators. Using linear weights I add up the Runs generated by the batter using only counting metrics that indicate power. 2b's, HR's, as well as IBB's. Not all power hitters are created equal. THe difference are the true power hitters that are so feared that they do not get a chance to swing the bat as often as the other players. Barry Bonds would have easily hit more home runs than he did in his career had he not been intentionally walked so often. Afterall, it is Barry Bond's power that put the opposition in the position to have to walk him to stay away from his ability to hit for power. It makes sense to give credit to hitters for being intentionally walked since, if they were poor hitters, they wouldn't be piched around. The runs genereated by a hitter's power indicators are then put into a rate which is where we come up with PWR. so the number you see in this column represents the runs the hitters generates by power hitting ability alone per each AB.

EYE- this metric is the Batter's Hits and walks to strike out ratio. Using just walks in comparison to K's is not fair to a batter. Just because a batter gets a hit does not mean that he wasn't selctive in trying to do so. On the contrary, obviously, since the batter was able to reach safely, we must assume that the pitch the batter did swing at was good enough to yield a positive outcome. Combining Hits into the BB/K ratio gives the batter credit for swinging when he was supposed to and comparing it to the times he wasn't supposed to.

SPD- is the same as OPS except there are four different rates that are added together. It is a player SB% The Total times the runner was sent % of Balls in Play that were triples X 10 Runs Scored %. It sounds more complicated that it really is. The number itself doesn't mean much other than the higher the number, the faster the player is.

As for the Pitchers...

Again all the regular numbers, there are all sorts of other cool nuggets.

BFP/G- This is simply the amount of hitters the Pitcher faces per Game.

GS%- This is simply the percentage of games the pitchers started. I use it to differentiate between Starters and relievers.

IPOuts/G- Same as Innings per game but broken down to outs for relievers.

IP/GS- same as above except broken down by inning for Starters.

Pit/BFP- Pitches per batter faced.

EFF- This stands for Pitchers Efficiency. It's actually a pretty simple concept. Pitches per out. Pitcher's who take a while to get someone out and still generate a bunch of innings in one year, tend not to be able to repeat the same performance the next year. Also, so pitchers are just good at generating outs efficiently like Greg Maddux or Mark Mulder (at least the Mark Mulder from 2003).

END- The Endurance Score is under construction.

CTL- Good ol' fashioned K to BB ratio. If, a pitcher is striking out more batters than he's walking, then, he's probably throwing pitches where he wants more often than he's missing his target.

STF- BEST STAT EVER!. No really though, it's a pretty cool idea. Of all the outs that a pitcher is able to make throughout a season, how many of them are strikeouts? Pitchers who rely on their defense to make them look good usually don't have very impressive "stuff". That is to say their pitch arsenal is pretty pedestrian. Pitchers who's outs are scoming from strike outs are doing something right to miss bats. They're nasty.

DOM- Similar to STF, but this number is the raw percentage that a given pitcher struck out any batter they faced. This reveals the pitcher's ability to take over any given at bat. This is a very important skill for relievers since they are sometimes called on to keep the ball out of play entirely.

The Mets get:
2b Luis Castillo. Castillo should do better than Jose Valentine has been doing for the mets. Castillo is probably a better fielder, but he's not having his best year according to RZR. The Mets are better off with Marlon Anderson and Castillo than Valentine because of the flexibilty Anderson has. That will be particularly useful for the playoffs.

The Twins get:
C Drew Butera &
CF Dustin Martin

Drew Butera seem comepletely uninteresting to me, but luckily for him he works at a defensive position where his weak bat might not hinder his progress through the minors than if he was trying to get by ANYWHERE else. Dustin Martin doesn't seem to be SO bad. I honestly haven't read any scouting reports about him but his 770-ish OPS isn't so bad ofr a center fielder so long as he can field the position well. I'd be amazed if the Twins get a real gem out of this but I think that martin might turn out ok for a 26th round pick (whatever that might mean).

Click on the link to compare players...
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pgYCLpkUM9wGAHdcHFPaJFw&hl=en

SO...

For the 2006 Season, I've completed the offensive and Defensive ratings for MLB players. This year, I've been able to integrate the offensive AND defensive ratings so that both work together to give a better "overall" rating. In order to do this, the process had to be changed to account for a player's offensive and defensive contributions relative to that player's position...


Here we have Travis Hafner form 2006

The 1st column indicates the year for Data basing purposes. The next column is the player's Lahman ID number also for database purposes. Then we have the First and Last name of the Player. Now we get to the stuff that matters.

POS:
This is the position code for a given player. The position code generally follows the basic numbers used when scoring a baseball game.

2: Catcher
3: 1st Base
4: 2nd Base
5: 3rd Base
6: Shortstop
7: Left Field
8: Center Field
9: Right Field

Since many players player more then just one position, it made sense to define some of the other players by the roles they played rather than the specific position they played the most if they didn't play that position as much as the players that ALWAYS play in a particular position. For Instance, It doesn't make sense to compare Eric Hinske to other players that almost exclusively played LF for their team since Eric Hinske played in different outfields and also played at 3rd, and 1st. We're going to asses Hinske's defensive value by comparing him to other players that served a similar role for their teams in 2006 instead of comparing him to someone like Manny Ramirez or Barry Bonds who almost ALWAYS plays in left or doesn't play the field at all.

0: DH or Utility player.
Players that have a "0" for their position code are DH's (like Frank Thomas), full time pinch hitters, or utility players that played the field in so many different positions that they can't be rated accurately at any of them (like Ryan Freel).

13: Other First Basemen
Players with 13's are players that normally play 1st base, but generally have enough fielding ability to log a relatively significant amount of playing time at other positions such as RF, or 3rd. Eric Hinske is pretty much the poster child for this position code.

14: Middle Infielders
These are players that play on a regular basis but do not solely play 2nd base or Short. If the A's didn't always have an injury problem up the middle, Marco Scutaro would register as a prototypical middle infielder instead of a regular 2nd basemen. Middle Infielders, as defined by this position code tend to be more 2nd base oriented. Many players that can handle Short and second are often made into utility men and are made to play 3rd and sometimes even outfield. This group of players contains more pure middle infielders along the lines of a Mike Gallego rather than a Mark Mclemore.

15: Other 3rd Basemen

15's are mostly natural 3rd basemen that lack the athleticism to get it done in the outfield but can usually fill in at 1st.

17: Other outfielders

This group consists mostly of corner outfielders that neither excels nor disappoints in either left or right. Players like these usually have average arms, because if they had an obviously weaker arm, they'd play much more left field (like Barry Bonds) and if they had a stronger arm, they might get more regular time in right field. Most of these players can play a little center on an "as needed" basis, but Center fielders aren't as interchangeable as the corner fielders are.


Offensive categories:
CON: I've made a change to the way I calculated this stat. As it turns out, batting average isn't all that bad when evaluating a player's ability to hit for contact.
POW: Power represents a player's ability to hit the ball a long way. It still is a variation of the Linear weighted power Index.
EYE: A hitter's "eye" is his ability to pick and choose the right pitches to take or swing at. Note, that players with good BB/K ratios are necessarily "selective" hitters. Vlad usually has a good BB/K ratio because he's just such a good hitter that he can hit many different pitches in many different parts of the strike zone (sometimes not even in the strike zone) with success.
SPD: Still a really complicated formula but it's a variation of Bill Jame's speed score.

Defensive categories:
Note: many of the defensive ratings used here have major flaws due to the primitive metrics used to measure defense in baseball. I believe that using these metrics actually can tell you a great deal about a player's defensive abilities when you compare these numbers in the context of players that were responsible for similar roles. Doing this cancels out some of the inherent problems with these metrics.
GLV: This rating is determined by a player's fielding percentage. Fielding percentage is generally a good indicator of sure handedness. If a player with a good fielding percentage gets to a ball in play, he'll probably record an out successfully.
ARM: "Arm" is determined by how often a player uses his arm to record out by way of assists.
RNG: Revised Zone Rating as provided by the Hardball times Website. Players with a score of 50 or more get to balls that the average player wouldn't and the opposite is true of players with a score of less than 50.

Now it gets a bit more complicated...
As a rule, shortstops don't hit as well as Right fielders. That is because short stop's defensive responsibilities take precedent over offensive production. What happens if you have a shortstop on you team that DOES hit like an outfielder? His value is magnified since your team has a competitive advantage over the competition. The "OR+" and "DR+" columns calculate the difference, either positive or negative, between that players skills and an average player. A player that hit's above average gets extra credit for it doing so. Players that hit above average while playing defensive positions that are more challenging, are given a higher rating since they are more valuable. the adjustments are made based on the difficulty of the position. Player’s are also given credit for above average performance defensively. The more "defensive" the position, the more important it is to be a good fielder.

OVR
This is the player’s overall rating. This rating takes into consideration a player’s position. So, a player with a 100 overall rating as a DH represents something different than a 3rd Basemen with an overall rating of 87. Take in to consideration, that a 3rd basemen with a rating of 87 could be more rare than a DH with a similar rating. As with anything in baseball, it’s relative to a team’s need or what particular skill you are evaluating.

Poll #780240
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Who is the MVP for the ENTIRE MLB so far this season?

Starting for the 2006 season, I will have the ACTUAL ball/strike counts for pitchers. Each MLB pitcher's CTL rating will be based on their actual strike percentage. The Minor Leagues will continue to use a variant of the pitch count estimator. I might even get some 2005 minor league ratings out this week because I'm feeling happy.

So far, the season is off to a good start. I put together a list of 5 players who have had terrible starts to their seasons that have totally caught me off guard.

5. Brad Radke

Brad Radke had one of the best 9-12 seasons by a starter you could hope for. I'm a sucker for Innings eaters with outstanding control. Guys like that should just get wins handed to them from their offense if it's any good at all. Baseball Prospectus projected Radke to have about a .500 year because of his age. Radke has never been the dominate ace that some people thought he'd be, but that's not to say he's bad either. Radke has a 1.79 WHIP through five starts this season. He's averaging 5.26 Innings per start. Radke is giving up 3.487 runs per start. That doesn't sound too bad. You have to consider that he's barely getting past the 5th inning in giving up those 3.5 runs. If you pro-rate that for 9 innings and make it look like an ERA, it comes out to be 5.97. Radke is better than this… right? Twins fans sure better hope so. Some scouting reports say that Radke has been relying on his fastball more and more. If that is true, it's possible that he's become more hittable since he has such great control and his fastball is rated somewhere between average and barely good.

4. Jeff Francoeur

Ahh… It's the classic sophomore slump. We all know the man lack plate discipline. His 11/58 BB/K ratio was one of the worst in baseball last year. It took him 139 PA to draw his first walk last year and it's only been 108 PA this year so maybe I'm in panic mode. I love this guy's defense in right field and there's certainly something to be said for that so far this year. At this point, Francoeur has a .261 baseline average. Last year's MLB baseline average was .341. The poor guy is striking out in almost 20% of his plate appearances this year. I haven't seen Francoeur play that much so far this year. If I were to guess, I would say that pitchers are picking on this guys complete lack of selectivity and just throwing him garbage to swing at. From what I can see, Francouer reminds me of a young Vlad Guerrero, but not as good. Vlad swings at everything too, but is much more successful. The Braves need this guy to pick it up.

3. Ben Sheets

Sheets started the season hurt. Then he came back. Then he was hurt again. When he's pitched, he's been totally erratic. Of everyone on this list, Sheets is the most likely to bounce back and do well the rest of the year. He only has one walk all year and has an obscene 1.39 K per inning rate. The key for Sheets this year is to stay on the mound for long enough stretches to help the Brewers out when he's pitching effectively.

2. Cliff Floyd

He's 33 and he's not hitting for any average or power. There are three possible explanations.

1) Last year was his last good one he had left in him.
2) He's in the middle of a one month slump right now.
3) There is some unknown injury being hidden and hindering Floyd's performance.

Baseball Prospectus gave Floyd a 25% collapse rate which is a pretty high number and it seems as good an explanation as any. I don't buy the idea that Floyd is simply slumping either. Given Floyd's history with injuries, I'm inclined to believe that there is something wrong and that he will be on the DL soon. Once he returns from whatever is wrong, he'll come back as the real Cliff Floyd. You know… the left fielder with a center fielder's glove. Cliff Floyd has that perfect balance of offensive production and defensive excellence. I would like to believe this isn't going to be that collapse year for such a good player, but the guy has done NOTHING offensively for an entire month.

1. Estaban Loaiza

Here's a list of things that start to happen in the workplace when your employer starts having problems with the job you are doing.

1) Minor transgressions begin to be amplified as being reflective of a bigger problem. This is true even if those minor transgressions have been apparent before the bigger problem was brought up.
2) A slightly altered role within the job place which usually results in less responsibility.
3) Your direct Supervisor (Curt Young), your Manager (Ken Macha), the Company President (Billy Beane), and the Assistant General Manager (David Forst) call an emergency meeting to talk about what a bad job you are doing and what they are going to do to get rid of the problem.

Yeah, Loaiza, it's that bad for you right now. It's not like this hasn't happened before. In 2004, the desperate Yankees traded troubled Starter, Jose Contrtares, to the White Sox for Estaban who had won 21 games the year before. Upon arriving in New York Loaiza pitched well enough to earn himself out for the rotation and into a bullpen with guys like Tanyon Sturtze and Felix Heredia. In his ten appearances with New York, he put up an ERA of 8.50. In 2005, Loaiza pitched like Loaiza. He ate up innings with the occasional timely K, and good control. Those are all good qualities to have from a fourth starter. Of course, since coming to the A's, he's put in his application for the seldom used-not very useful bullpen guys spot in the bullpen that he had in New York.

He are my grades on chances for recovery of the above players:

5. Brad Radke: C
4. Jeff Francouer: B-
3. Ben Sheets: A
2. Cliff Floyd: B
1. Estaban Loaiza: D

So Theo Epstein went all Ken Williams by trading for a player that he had last year after letting them go. It seems to me that it would have cost less to just sign Doug Mirabelli during the off season than to trade THREE players to get him back!

I'm not saying the Red Sox gave up the world to get Mirabelli, but it cost more in the long run when they could have just re-signed him.

According to the 2005 Defensive ratings, Mirabelli (76) is a step up form Bard (51). Both players are defensive replacement type catchers as neither catcher had even 140 AB's. Mirabelli's value comes almost entirely from the fact that he can catch Tim Wakefield's knuckleball. So far this year, Josh Bard has demonstrated that he cannot. This is something that was readily apparent going into the off season to even the casual fan, let alone the RED SOX FRONT OFFICE. Of course, only a very small percentage of baseball's fan base actually makes a living off of making observations like that.

Now, I can see where the Red Sox were coming from. Doug Mirabelli is set to make $1.5 million. That's a whole bunch of money for a backup catcher that you wouldn't even plan of giving 150 AB's. That is a very narrow view of what Mirabelli does for the team.

Tim Wakefield made it to Boston in 1996. Here is a list of Boston Red Sox catchers since his arrival to the majors (in Chronological order):

Mike Stanley
Bill Haselman
Scott Hatteberg
Jason Varitek
Doug Mirabelli

Three of those five players ARE NOT EVEN ACTIVE AS CATCHERS in the majors right now. WE saw in the 2004 playoffs what happens when the Red Sox tried to bit the bullet on Defense and leave Varitek in at catcher with Tim Wakefield. It's a disaster. Scott Hatteberg has been a full time first baseman since he signed with the A's. Mike Stanley retired after 2000. Bill Haselman came back to the Red Sox in 2003, but that ended up being his final year.

So of that list of five catchers, there are only 3 left that have experience at catching Tim Wakefield's Knuckball. One of those players isn't even a catcher anymore. That leaves two options: 1) The Red Sox could have tried to just have Varitek catch Wakefield anyway, or 2) STAY WITH MIRABELLI for crying out loud!! Instead the Red Sox signed a random back up catcher with a defensive reputation that couldn't hit and hoped he would catch Wakefield. I don't even see that as an option. At Least with Varitek, he's caught Wakefield before (and done a miserable job, but he has at least BEEN THERE before), and he has some offense to offset the defensive miscues. The only other way around the problem would have been to limit Wakefield’s role in the rotation and move him back to the bullpen. Since Wakefield has been the Red Soc most reliable and effective pitcher over the last few years, that would not have really made much sense either.

The Red Sox gave up Josh Bard, Cla Meredith and a Player to be Named in order to get Mirabelli back. Now, Josh Bard simply isn't that good of a player at all. So there's not loss. Cla Meredith is a side armed K machine that gives up homeruns a little mor often than you would like for a relief pitcher. Going in to the 2006, Meredith has a K rate of .934 in the minors. That's almost 1 strikeout per inning. Meredith has clearly demonstrated the ability to get players out with the K. That's a pretty strong indicator for any pitcher, let alone relief pitchers who rely even MORE on K's in high leverage situations.

Now, seeing it from the Red Sox perspective, you could argue that Meredith has never shown anything in the majors and they obviously don't want Bard anymore anyway. I can understand that but you have to consider that they never "needed" to sign Bard if they never let Mirrabelli go to begin with. It is trtue that Meredith has never shown anything in the majors. As a matter of fact, he outright failed at the Major League Level. Of course, he's a 23 year old, right handed, side-armed, K machine relief pitcher. It's possible that the Red Sox end up losing much in this traded, but it's also possible that they lose a good amount of production from Meredith. Who's to say that a pitcher with that kind of profile couldn't beat out a declining, overpriced, Keith Foulke as Palpelbon's set up guy?

Yes, The Red Sox win in this trade by acquiring a player that can help out their team this year and they gave up very little (a relief prospect with some promise and a catcher with very little offensive value). My problem with this trade was that the Red Sox put themselves in a position to have to trade Cla Meredith at all. Why not just re-sign Mirabelli when, as we looked at earlier, he's the only catcher in baseball, that we know of, able to handle Wakefield!

It's no secret that Barry Bonds' 2006 season has been a bit of a strtuggle for him out of the gate. Being a lifelong A's fan, I know what slow april starts are ALL about. There was simply nothing that caught my ear more than when I was working on my computer about two nights ago and I hear John Kruk going nuts about how Willie Randolph SHOULD NOT give Barry Bonds the free pass to 1st base. Perhaps John Kruk simply han't watched much baseball in the last ten years that Barry Bonds has been the best hitter in baseball. Even the most casual of fan can see what happens when you DO pitch to Barry Bonds: He kills the ball dead!

Billy Wagner has one of the most gruesome Slider's EVER. He uses it along side his unbelieveable 99 mph + fastball. Simply put, he one of the most dominating pitcher's in baseball based purely on nastiness. In addition to being one of the games most feared closers, Wagner's left handed. Barry bonds hits all pitchers well, but his batting average does take a 14 pts hit against lefties over his career. Bonds' raw power numbers take a bigger dip against lefties. Against left handed pitcher, Bonds Slugging Pct drops by 56 pts. It goes from .639 against right handed pitchers to .583 against left handed pitchers. I usually don't put too much stock into splits, but these are CAREER splits so they are at least moe meaningful, statisticly, than year to year splits.

My point is that Barry Bonds could not have been more disadvantaged than he was against Billy Wagner last night. Yet he STILL did what he's always done. He KILLED the ball dead.

Barry can barely play left field anymore. Barry, due to his chronic knee problem can barely run the bases anymore. Finding pitches to crush is all Barry is left with. John Kruk, THAT'S why Willie Randoph should walk Barry Bonds. Not only that, but he should walk Barry Bonds as often as possible.

Normally, giving an opponent a free base runner without geting an out is return is a bad trade. Again, I was saying that was when it's a normal player we're talking about. Barry Bonds is not a normal player.

I will assert here that Power is the single most important part of Barry Bonds' game in the year 2006.

I will also say that by pitching to Barry Bonds, you are playing to this particular player's main offensive strength.

I took BArry Bonds' numbers and removedhis intentional walks. What I found was pretty typical to those who favor pitching to Bonds over the course of 2006. His Run Created per game drop over a half a run (.632)! Here's what I find interesting though. A metric I like to use to measure a player's abilty as a power hitter or "clean up guy" is his Extra Base Percentage. Bond's Extra base percentage jumps from .122 to .144. That is to say that he moves form hitting adouble or better 12% of the time to 14% of the time. We all know that Bonds isn't known fo his ability to clear the bases with his triples. He hits home runs. If you remove Barry Bonds' Intentional Walks over those three years, he would have started hitting homeruns in 9.2% of his Plate Appearances. Give the man 500 Plate appearancecs and you're talking 55 home runs in that year!

I know that I've thrown alot of numbers out here and I apologize for that. But I feel as though I must point this out as well. Bond's On Base Percentage WITHOUT all the free passes is still and ungodly .487 over the last 3 years. That means that pitchers are only getting a 51.3% chance of getting him out at all. Pitcher's are used to having a 66% of getting a hitter out on average. Bond's is THAT MUCH better with out free passes than the average major leaguer WITH intentional walks.

So my conclusion is, that there is a much greater chance of Barry Bonds reaching base safely than any pitcher is used to facing. We muct also consider that allowing Barry Bonds to see potentional pitches to crush (remember that's what I claim is the single best thing he does) plays to his STRENGTHS not his weaknesses (his abilty to run).

In the way of speculation, I would like to say that I think Bonds' power numbers like XBP (Extra Base Percentage) and HRP (Home Run Percentage) would start going up as you continued to pitch to him. After all, THAT WHY THEY STOPPED PITCHING TO HIM TO BEGIN WITH!

So John Kruk, if you think Barry Bonds is such a bad hitter currently, why don't YOU pitch to him. Lay off Willie Randoplh for trying to get around the greatest power hitter in the history of baseball.

For those of you who are new: Here is a list of the abbreviations and what they mean.

ARM: This abbreviation is short for... well... the word arm. OK, It's not really short for it but whatever. a Player's "ARM" rating is determined by his Assists/1000 definsive innings at his normal position. a player with a good arm makes few throwing errors and uses his arm srength to get outs that other players might not be able to make defensively.

CON: "CON" is short fo rthe word "contact". Simply stated, I figure out how often a given player puts the ball into play vs. how many Plate Appearances he has. For instance, Alex Rodriguez gets into the batter box and hits a single. That At Bat would count as making contact. Let's say that later in the gave Alex Rodriguez takes four ball and gets walked. Although getting walked is a good thing, we're going to credit that accomplishment to Alex Rodriguez "Batting Eye" (discussed later) since he came up to the plate and did NOT make contact on this Plate appearance.

CTL: Some pitchers don't have the ability to throw stikes. They have what are called "control issues". Pitchers with a "CTL" of over 50 are pitchers without those "control issues". They simply throw strikes often. The higher the "CTL" rating, the less chance that a pitcher will drive you crazy by walking batters.

DOM: DOM=Domination Stat. Dom is my way of measuring how often a batter has NO CHANCE against a given pitcher. I take the Strike outs a pitcher has and divide that by how many batters he faced. The resulting number is the percentage of the time this pitcher strikes out an opposing batter. Pitchers like Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens and Brad Lidge usually do pretty well in this catagory.

END: Endurance is one of the most overlooked aspects of pitching I think. I'm an A's fan and, in 2004, nothing was more frustrating than watching an obscenly talented Rich Harden rarely pitch more than 5 innings. A pitcher's "END" is his rating on how deep he usually pitches into games. Starters with high "END" normally average about 7+ innings per start. Relievers are rating against otehr relivers in this catagory so a 100 "END" for Brad Lidge is TOTALLY different than the 67 "END" Doug Davis put up. Brad Lidge has amazing endurancee for a closer while Doug Davis is marginaly above average for a starter.

EYE: A Batter's "EYE" is his ability to determine what pitches are strikes and what pitches are balls. I measure this my simply taking how often a player walks and divede it by how often he strikes out. Younger players who do well in this catagory, usually can develop in the other areas offensively (contact and power) because they bigin to swing at pitches that are easier to hit.
GLV: This catagory is differenct for other positional players as opposed to catchers. For Catchers "GLV" is a combination of how well a pitcher makes plays he has to (bunts, Double Plays, and preventing passed balls) and how often he commits an error. Unfortuantely, a catcher's "GLV" (Short for glove) is somewhat of a combination of sure handedness and range. Catchers are a special case though and using the standard Range Factor usually doesn't work very well. For EVERYONE else, "GLV" is simply the player's fielding percentage ona scale 1-100.

MOV: "MOV" tell you how "nasty" a pitcher's stuff is. It's one of my favorite pet stats. The higher a pitcher's "MOV" the more he relies on Stirkeouts to get hitter's out. For Instance, Bobby Jenks produced 118 outs for the White Sox last year in the regular season. Of those 118 outs, 50 of them were strike outs. 42% of Bobby Jenks' outs were K's. He was one of the nastiest pitchers in baseball last yeat. He was in the top 3% of that catagory thus he earned a 97 rating in "MOV".
POW: If you know what linear weighter power is then I will not bother to explain it to you. I will tell you that I use a slightly modified version of that formula to come up with my power rating. If you don't know what linear weighter power is, you probably don't want to know. The guy with 100 as a rating for the "POW" hits alot of home runs. The guy with a 50 "POW" is average at hitting home runs. Simply enough right?

RAT: This is the weighted average of all the player's skill catagories.

RNG: I use the good old Range Factor. It has it's limitations but a good amount of them are taken car of by weeding out players at their NORMAL positions and then comparing against player who also played that position as their normal position. Players with "RNG" over 50 get to balls that the average player at that position don't get to. Chipper Jones, at 3B rates as a 43 in Range. I will quote The Sporting News Scouting notebook for 2006:
"Jones still has quick reflexes, but his range has declined..."
The highest rating for range at 3B was by Freddy Sanchez who started his career as a rugular middle infielder. It makes sense that a somewhat young middle infielder who happens to play 3B for the Pirates would have good range for the position.

SPD: The calculation for "SPD" is probably one of the most complicated things EVER and I don't have room to explain it. Just like everything here; the lower the rating, the lower the skill. Jason Giambi's speed is rated at 10 or one rating lower than Paul Konerko.

2005 MLB Batter Ratings

2005 MLB Pitcher Ratings

2005 MLB Catcher Defensive Ratings

2005 MLB Conrer Infielder Defensive Ratings

2005 MLB Middle Infielder Defensive Ratings

2005 MLB Outfielder Defensive Ratings

They are done. Dan has them and they will be posted here soon! Minor leagues are coming a little down the road. Maybe sometime next week when I'm off of work again. As a preview:

The Top Offensive Position Players for the year 2005 are:

C: Javier Valentine, Cincinnati Reds, 74 Overall
1B: Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals, 92 Overall
2B: Brian Roberts, Baltimore Orioles, 76 Overall
3B: Chipper Jones, Atlanta Braves, 86 Overall
SS: Russ Adams, Toronto Blue Jays, 66 Overall
LF: Moises Alou, San Francisco Giants, 84 Overall
CF: Dave Roberts, San Diego Padres, 71 Overall
RF: Vladimir Guerrero, Los Angeles Angels, 84 Overall

The Top 5 Starting Pitchers for 2005 are:
1. Pedro Martinez, New York Mets, 94 Overall
2. Johan Santana, Minnesota Twins, 94 Overall
3. Felix Hernandez, Seattle Mariners, 92 Overall
4. Jake Peavey, San Diego Padres, 91 Overall
5. Chris Carpenter, St. Louis Cardinals, 90 Overall

The Top 3 Releif Pitchers for 2005 are:
1. Kerry Wood, Chicago Cubs, 90 Overall
2. Bobby Jenks, Chicago White Sox, 90 overall
3. Brad Lidge, Houston Astros, 90 Overall

The MLB Database was made available for the first time today. The ratings for MLB players will be up 2 days after the spreadsheet version is up!

First, an announcement:

As of yesterday, all of the files you will be referenced to on this page are no being hosted thanks to DanWins.com. The load speed has been increased by amounts that I am not qualified to speculate on. SCREW YOU TRIPOD! :-P

Within the next month or so, we will have all of the stats for '05 in. THIS IS NOT A GUARANTEE but we hope to include ratings for MLB, AAA, AA, and college players for '05. There will not be a college > MLB RAT for those players as the point of those ratings will be to evaluate draft picks rather than tell you how useful a major league player they are.

(As a side note, Single A players do not get rated according to our system for this reason: These players are so early in their development, that to ATTEMPT to compare them to a Major league standard would be foolish. Think of it this way, If any of these players had comparable skills to any Major League players, they would be in Double A or the Majors already. The College players, on the other hand, we hope to rate simply because of their relationship to the draft)

Here are all the ratings for 2004 MLB players. The 2005 Ratings are on their way!! Be Here...
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2004 MLB Pitchers

2004 MLB Hitters

Top 9th
-Isringhausen should be in.
-Taguchi in @ RF to increase range.
-Lamb's bad spot in the lineup is highlighted w/ this AB. The astros are MUCH better off with Lane leading off in the 9th than Lamb. Out of spite, Lamb gets a hit.
-Lane's biggest AB of the night... LOW CALLED STRIKE 3!
-Everett gets a big hit to bring up Ausmus. No power up until they bring in Bagwell though.
-Izzy is throwing (or getting) alot of strikes.
-Strike 2 to Ausmus was nonsense!
-Jose V. grounds out to give Izzy the messy save.
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Top 8th
-Carpenter's Pitch count after the 8th will look something like 106 or so. I expect him to struggle unless he strtictly throws strikes and hopes to let the awful Astros Offense get themselves out.
-Bagwell's still available in case the game gets closer.
-Isringhausen will be up in the pen at the 1st sign of trouble though.
-CArp breezes through w/ 3 straight grounders
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Bot 8th
-Astacio is a Strike out pitcher despite his really high WHIP. As he gets 2 K's