Marooned On Federal Street

Not that I’m some hugely influential person or anything, but I suppose I ought to come out in favor of Neil Huntington’s dealings last week. Especially since there seem to be a lot of people misunderstanding the Pirates’ situation.

The Pirates are not close to being a contender.  Yes, they finally have an offense, but even that is something of an illusion. The Pirates ranked 4th (before today’s games) in the National League with 536 runs scored. The problem is that their component statistics don’t support this. I won’t bore you with the math (though I am a bit rusty), but using the BaseRuns formula, the Pirates have created about 499 runs. They’ve scored 37 more runs than they should have (the luckiest team in the NL. The Dodgers are second at +34). Their BaseRuns rank 8th in the National League. So, the offense isn’t the juggernaut it has seemed.

They’ve allowed  602 runs, dead last in the National League. That’s still 36 runs better than their peripherals would suggest, by my math (only the Cardinals are luckier, allowing 47 fewer runs than they should have). Plugging those numbers into the Pythagorean Formula, we get a team whose statistics suggest it should be 44-65, making a strong run at yet another top 5 draft pick. This team already isn’t very good, yet they are outperforming their statistics.

Repeat after me: this team is not very good. This team is not very good. It is not a contender. It is not close to a contender. This team is not very good.

What’s more, this team that is already not very good was slated to fall apart after 2009.  There is almost nothing in the pipeline to reinforce the major league squad after the likes of Bay/Nady were due to leave anyway. A reasonable bet in Cutch, and capital-M Maybes in Neil Walker, Steven Pearce, and Brad Lincoln. And that’s it. What Huntington did was take an oft-injured journeyman outfielder having a career half, a lefthanded specialist reliever, and an old-player-skills franchise player about to get old, and build some real depth. Three bona-fide prospects were picked up in LaRoche, Tabata, and Morris. Moss and Hansen from Boston are nothing to sneeze at (and Moss in particular can bridge the gap until the real outfield prospects show up…McCutchen’s still only 21, Tabata turns 20 in less than two weeks), and the odds are good that at least one, likely two, of Karstens/Ohlendorf/McCutchen will be servicable. The three of them can’t possibly be worse than the Van Benschoten/Morris/Herrera three-headed monster we’ve endured this season.

This trade is nothing like almost anything Littlefield tried. In fact, it only resembles two of Littlefield’s deals, and they’re easily his two best: Giles for Bay/Perez/Stewart and Todd Ritchie for Wells/Fogg/Lowe.  It would seem to me that anybody who thinks this is “same old Pirates” is just a Stiller fan killing time until camp. This is nothing like the same old Pirates. And that’s what makes it so great.

I wrote in this past week’s Pittsburgh Pirates Roundtable about my more optimistic opinion of Freddy Sanchez. Space was limited for that little blurb, but I’ll expand on my thoughts here.

Essentially, I think Freddy has largely been the victim of bad luck.  He’s not striking out a whole lot more than usual. Entering the season, his career strikeout rate was 9.3% of his plate appearances. This year it’s 11.6%, which means 2.3 extra strikeouts every 100 trips to the plate, or maybe a 13-15 more over the course of a season. Not entirely significant. Plus, how a batter makes his outs doesn’t matter that much anyway. Not to mention, Freddy is seeing even more pitches per plate appearance (3.6) than he has each of the last two seasons (3.4).

So, let’s take a look at Freddy’s batted ball types to get a clearer picture of his “struggles”. First, I calculated Freddy’s “expected” batted ball results for each of his major league seasons using the table found on page 142 of the 2006 Hardball Times Annual (as well as the ballpark adjustments found in the next article). This, of course, only tells you what the average major league hitter would have done with Freddy’s ball types:

                Expected
Season Team Out    1B    2B  3B  HR
2002  BOS   9.4   2.8  0.7 0.1  0.3
2003  BOS  18.1   6.0  1.5 0.1  0.6
2004  PIT  12.3   3.5  0.8 0.1  0.5
2005  PIT 279.0  97.9 29.5 2.9 14.9
2006  PIT 347.5 126.8 41.3 4.1 21.1
2007  PIT 356.0 115.0 37.5 3.8 22.6
2008  PIT 176.5  62.5 18.9 1.8  9.4

Of course, we all know that Freddy is not a 20 HR/year type of player. We can correct for this by creating a ratio of Freddy’s actual results to his “expected” results.

                 Ratio
Season Team  Out  1B   2B   3B   HR
 2002   BOS 1.06 1.08 0.00 0.00 0.00
 2003   BOS 0.94 0.99 1.36 0.00 0.00
 2004   PIT 1.06 0.85 0.00 0.00 0.00
 2005   PIT 1.02 0.99 0.88 1.39 0.34
 2006   PIT 0.97 1.10 1.28 0.49 0.28
 2007   PIT 0.99 1.10 1.12 1.05 0.49
 2008   PIT 1.11 0.85 0.63 0.00 0.43

So, ignoring 2008 for now, we see that Freddy typically hits more singles and doubles than one would expect given his batted balls, but less than half as many home runs. What we can do now is take a weighted average of Freddy’s past ratios (I’ll use a 3-2-1 weighting for each of Freddy’s past three seasons, since 2002-2004 have very little data in them anyway) and apply them to his “expected” 2008 line from the first block. This tells us what we can expect Freddy to have done in 2008 instead of the average batter.

           Out    1B    2B   3B   HR
Actual   196.0	53.0  12.0  0.0	 4.0
Expect   174.3	67.5  21.5  1.7	 3.7

By my rough calculations, Freddy was lost roughly 14 singles, 9 doubles, and a triple from what we can expect him to do. This is almost purely due to luck: his approach at the plate has changed very little and he’s hitting almost the same numbers of each batted ball type as he usually does. Freddy’s AVG/OBP/SLG are currently .232/.263/.312, an OPS of .575. When we add those missing hits to his line, it becomes .312/.334/.430, an OPS of .764. That isn’t terribly awesome either, and it’s still worse than 2005-2006, but it’s miles better than the .575 that has made him one of the worst regulars in Major League Baseball this season.

I believe Freddy’s been the victim of almost 1/2 a season of terrible luck. It’s more reasonable to expect his results to return to 2005-2007 level than to assume this one half season is a more accurate measure of what his batted balls tend to do. He’s still doing the same things he’s always done, but the hits just ain’t dropping where they ain’t.

As you’ve no doubt heard by now, the Pirates released Matt Morris today. I think this is one of the more important moves the Coonelly/Huntington regime. Not because we’re really going to gain much from it: there’s nobody in the system that’s going to perform much better than Morris did, and even if someone did, our fifth starter isn’t what’s standing between us and a playoff spot.

What the move shows us is that the new boss is not, in fact, same as the old boss. The old regime would never have outright cut a player owed over $10 million. They should have released Burnitz and/or Randa when their corpses were sitting in our dugout, and those two together might have cost $10 million. (Of course, there never should have been signed in the first place, but that is neither here nor there). The ability to recognize a sunk cost is one that eludes a lot of management regimes (and not even just in baseball). Morris’s $10 million is about as sunk a cost as I’ve ever seen, and it is always tempting to hold onto that asset and hope to recoup something from it. What that temptation fails to recognize are primarily two: time has a value, and the likelihood of regaining any of the cost is awfully small.

It behooves the Pirates to figure out, once and for all, if our stable of failed pitching prospects is at all salvageable. The next contender in Pittsburgh was never going to have Matt Morris on its staff. But it may have a need for a role that can be filled by a Van Benschoten, a Bullington, a Burnett, a Dumatrait. It’s pretty certain none of these guys will contribute significantly to the next Pirates contender, either. But their chances are astronomically better than Morris’s.

$10 million is a lot of money to get nothing out of. The desire to recoup some of that is very strong. Matt Morris turns 34 this summer, with some arm trouble in his past. His arm is certainly getting no younger. His peripheral statistics have been declining for years. But you all know this. Our previous regime obviously did not, or chose to ignore it (either is very possible). But the chance of gaining anything out of Morris, even 150 innings of 5.00 ERA ball, is microscopic. Matt Morris wasn’t getting flipped for a C-grade prospect in July. Brian Sabean couldn’t get anyone to take him last year, even if the Giants sent some cash with him. Until Littlebrain and the Drive for 75 showed up on Sabean’s caller ID.

There are few bright spots to Morris’s short stay in a Pirates uniform. It’s certainly not his fault somebody gave him a bunch of money he didn’t deserve and then shipped him to our team. Hopefully he enjoys his millions in early retirement and hopefully this is indicative of a management regime with a much better idea of how to build a baseball team.

When I see him out on the mound, what I really see is Dave Littlefield’s middle finger.

On short notice, I attended my first game of the season tonight. It was cold and drizzled a bunch, and it looked like the weather had scared off a lot of the announced crowd of 18,096. What struck my dad and I as unusual was how into the game the crowd actually seemed. PNC Park is normally more like a morgue than a sports stadium in terms of atmosphere. Tonight, though, we had a crowd that would spontaneously break into a “Let’s go Bucs!” or “Freddie! Freddie! Freddie!” chant, and reacted to anything of significance that happened on the diamond. I cannot stress enough how unusual this is, especially since all of my recent sports attendance has been at Penguins games.

As for the game itself, it wasn’t really one we deserved to win. The Reds banged out 14 hits and drew a couple walks (including Corey Patterson???), but managed only 3 runs thanks to some timely strikeouts and unlucky baserunning. Pirates starter Ian Snell did not look particularly good, striking out only two. Most balls put into play against him were hit pretty well, too. What really boggled our minds was how long it took Russell to get somebody up in the Pirates’ pen. We didn’t see anybody up until the sixth, despite Snell’s struggles in the fifth. Snell didn’t throw a lot of pitches, but as noted earlier, the pitches he was throwing were being hit pretty well. It really seems like Russell has too short of a hook for his starters.

I’m not sure how I feel about the Pirates’ little intro for Matt Capps. For those who don’t know, the scoreboards all go dark and some country-rock song about riding a bull plays as Capps comes in. Doesn’t quite have the feel of, say, Trevor Hoffman coming in to AC/DC’s Hell’s Bells (one of the coolest things I’ve had the pleasure of seeing at a baseball stadium). I think it was a bad choice of song.

At any rate, we shouldn’t have won this game, but we did, and I’ll take it.

All hail Thor!

We in the blogosphere always loved Craig, and he’s something of a symbol for what was wrong with the Littlefield era. There’s a belief among us that the Pirates simply destroyed what should have been a very good career, and that we somewhat owe Craig for that. Glad to see him back in the organization, and I hope he sticks. I think I speak for many when I say that we would love nothing more than to get one more pinch-hit HR from his bat.

So, exhibition season is wrapping up soon. As you may have noticed, writing reviews for last season’s Pirates got awfully depressing awfully fast. Add in a fairly dull offseason, as Connington appears to have identified the Pirates’ main problems as being systematic, and there was just about nothing interesting (for me, anyway) to write about. And I can’t be one of them breaking-news-analysis blogs, either, since by the time I get home from my job (some bloggers do actually have those, Stephen A.) all the breaking-new-analysis has been done. But spring training brings with it hope(/delusion) and a renewed interest in the Buccos and baseball in general.

One project I spent the offseason working on was a game-by-game prediction model. Utilizing PECOTA projections, season-to-date statistics, lineups (including batting order), defenses, starting pitchers, bullpens, benches, and park effects, it spits out (what I hope) is a realistic guess at a final score for each game and a win probability for each team. It’s not designed to predict anything long term, as it takes into account who is starting each specific game and who is available to come into each specific game. So I won’t be using it to post any season predictions. So when the Pirates are eliminated come May, I’ll have something marginally interesting to write about.

                                                   WIN SHARES
            AVG  OBP  SLG   OPS OPS+  EQA  VORP  OFF  DEF  TOT   WPA  RZR
Duffy      .249 .313 .357  .670  73  .246  -0.1  3.7  1.8  5.5 -0.27 .902
Avg NL CF  .273 .336 .426  .762 101  .263  16.4  9.3  3.9 13.2 -0.13 3*/8    

Centerfielders with 300 PA used for determining average VORP, win shares, WPA.
Ranking among qualifiers used for RZR.    

*Duffy did not play enough qualify but would have been tied for 3rd of 8 if he had.

Despite going on the disabled list June 30 with a sprained ankle and having season-ending shoulder surgery August 31, Duffy still had the most innings and plate appearances in center field for the Pirates. That’s only because Tracy couldn’t figure out that he should have been playing Nate McLouth in center, but McLouth will get his own article later.

Duffy was OK, OBPing .350 through April (and, uh, slugging .352). He had a crappy May before finishing with his best month in June. Remember Tracy’s “idea” that Duffy hit balls into the ground and try to run them out? Against groundball pitchers in ‘07 he OPSed .601, in ‘06 it was .595. He hit fewer groundballs in 06/07, however, at 58% and 56% after 62% of his balls in play were groundballs in 2005. It would seem, much as we though, hitting groundballs is the last thing Duffy needed to be doing, and he didn’t really do it any more under Tracy anyways.

Duffy seemed to recover from his month-long bailing on the team last season. He was one of few Pirates who seemed to genuinely hustle on the diamond, and that’s largely because hustle (speed) is his game.

In 754 career major league plate appearances, Duffy has OPS+ed 78. That’s not good. It’s also enough time to know that he’s not going to get much better, as he also will turn 28 next April. What Duffy does have is a glove and some wheels (85% career success rate stealing bases, 41-for-48). Duffy has value, but like lots of other players on this team, he’s a spare part. He would be a great late-inning replacement for a team with bad outfield defense, or as a pinchrunner some smallball team that wants to “manufacture” runs late in games. In the role the Pirates want him in, starting CF, he’s worthless.

I’m not sure he has much value anymore on the trade market. Atlanta wanted him in the Gonzalez trade, not Lillibridge, but that was before his injury-plagued 2007. So, given that, I really don’t mind keeping Duffy around. I’m all for selling players high, but dealing Duffy would be to sell low. There’s no harm keeping Duffy around on the bench, as long as, well, he spends most of his time there.

GRADE
OFFENSE: F
DEFENSE: A
INTANGIBLES: B
OVERALL: D

                                                   WIN SHARES
            AVG  OBP  SLG   OPS OPS+  EQA  VORP  OFF  DEF  TOT   WPA  RZR
Bay        .247 .327 .418  .745  92  .263   3.9 11.6  1.9 13.5  -1.02 .842
Avg NL LF  .278 .358 .478  .835 109  .269  27.9 14.7  2.6 17.3   1.23 5/10

Leftfielders with 300 PA used for determining average VORP, win shares, WPA.
Ranking among qualifiers used for RZR.

What. The hell. Happened.

Bay went from being one of the premier players in the National League to being replacement-level dreck. Bay was solid through May, OPSing .923 at the end of play on June 1. It was all down hill from there, though, as he OPSed .569, .679, .695, and .651 in the remaining months.

Curiously, Bay was eaten up by lefthanders this season. In 152 plate appearances vs. lefties, he hit an awful .227/.336/.406. For his career, even including his terrible 2007 split, he’s hit .290/.398/.542 against them. My guess is that the backdoor breaking pitch killed him, but I’m no scout. I do know that I also saw Bay flail at countless low-and-away breaking pitches against righties, as well. Perhaps his slump is nothing more than the National League finally figuring out that all one needs to throw Bay is sliders away. Bay’s inability (unwillingness?) to adjust is discouraging, to say the least. You have to wonder whether Jeff “(R+RBI-HR)” Manto figured anything out and mentioned to Bay what the online Pirates community as known almost since Jason showed up. I doubt it.

Bay’s defense continued to be nowhere near as good as the Pirates (once again, Greg Brown in particular) would have us believe. I’m led to believe, however, that it’s not as bad as some of us thought this season, either. Bay has a noodle arm, that much is certain. But RZR puts him middle-of-the-pack among NL LFs, his Win Shares are only slightly below average, BP puts him at 4 runs above replacement (6 below average). Make no mistake: Bay is not a good glove. But his glove is good enough that, if he hits like Jason Bay 2004-2006 edition, it doesn’t matter. But if he hits like David Eckstein (OPS+: 94), it becomes a big problem.

Bay seemed as detached and uninterested in baseball as any ballplayer I’ve ever seen. One definitely gets the impression that he wants to just hurry up and get through his contract as quick as possible and go to a real organization. We can hope, however, that the new regime can make some progress in getting the Pirates interested in, say, playing baseball again.

GRADE
OFFENSE: F
DEFENSE: D+
INTANGIBLES: F
OVERALL: F

                                                   WIN SHARES
            AVG  OBP  SLG   OPS OPS+  EQA  VORP  OFF  DEF  TOT   WPA  RZR
Wilson     .296 .350 .440  .790 103  .274  24.8 11.7  7.2 18.9 -1.77 .823
Avg NL SS  .279 .337 .420  .757 100  .255  26.2 12.0  7.0 19.0  0.23 7/14

Shortstops with 300 PA used for determining average VORP, win shares, WPA.
Ranking among qualifiers used for RZR.

Uh, this kind of snuck up on us. Wilson ended up as one of the better hitters on the team (no big compliment there, though, to be sure). His .350 OBP led the team among qualifiers (Nate McLouth’s was .351). His 103 OPS+ is second among qualifies, only LaRoche’s 106 was better (Nady’s was 105, McLouth’s 108 [!]). Wilson OPSed .972 after the All-Star break, which is absolutely mind-boggling. Nine. Seventy. Two. Jack Wilson. For three months. Well, two. His July was terrible, as he hit .219/.256/.260. He went on to hit .362/.444/.580 in August and a ridiculous .460/.493/.825 in September. Aside from those two months, though, he was the Jack Wilson we all know and don’t love. All that said, he was just above average as a shortstop. The NL had a bunch of good shortstops this season, and only one (Omar Vizquel) who was below replacement level (by VORP).

His defense has clearly slipped a bunch, too. My eyes say he’s probably just above average, and the numbers pretty much agree, as Win Shares and RZR put him about the middle. Wilson had a tendency to get lazy in the field at times, and this was no more evident than in the Yankees series. It is his performance, or lack thereof, in that series that stuck with me all season, leading to my surprise at his final numbers.

Wilson has always kind of struck me as being overly smarmy, haughty, “I know how to play the game the right way” for my liking. I get the feeling that he’s just as big a drag in the clubhouse as the ol’ vets he didn’t like were. Always trying to be all Mr. Motivator, C’Mon Everyone Work Hard Like Me, which is tough to take from somebody that A) sucks and B) mails in an entire series like he did in New York. Somehow, though, he’s crazily popular with the bobbleworks fans.

Wilson will never be more valuable as a trade commodity than he is now, and that’s even considering the outrageous $7.5M he’s due next season. But his glove has been slipping, he’s still not a good hitter (riding two insanely, unsustainably hot months this season to a good overall line), and he’s a bit of a punk. I can’t see this front office keeping him around.

GRADE
OFFENSE B
DEFENSE B-
INTANGIBLES D-
OVERALL C+