Monthly Archives: November 2008

A closer look at the 2008 offense

Posted on November 26, 2008 by | Leave a comment

Posted by Steve

We’re in a bit of a lull before the hot stove season really gets underway.  Things are slow right now, and will probably stay that way until the Winter Meetings kick off in a couple weeks.  That’s fine by me, as this is a good time to reflect a bit on the 2008 season.

I’ll start with the offense, because in my eyes it was the most frustrating and disappointing part of 2008.  Therefore, it is what needs to improve the most in 2009–especially when you consider the pitching overall could be substantially worse (assuming they lose Sabathia and/or Sheets).  During the season I alluded more than once to the fact that no Brewer was exceeding his individual expectations for the season, and most failed to even meet them.  This information certainly supports that claim.

This is just a simple process of looking at PECOTA projections for 2008 and comparing them to actual player performance.  For each player, all I’m looking at is batting average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage.  PECOTA projects many more stats than those three, but this post will probably end up being long enough.

Ryan Braun

PECOTA: .300/.367/.575

Actual Line: .285/.335/.553

Braun proved that it’s possible to have both a good and disappointing year at the same time.  He was one of the best hitters in the NL, but that was expected.  He didn’t really hit full stride until mid-season, and down the stretch his production was slowed by his ribcage injury.  I’ll give him something of a pass for that, but I still am hoping for more from Braun next season.  In the first half his plate discipline was horrible, which led to my (shredded) Anti-All Star post.  At times I would get extremely frustrated watching someone with so much talent flail away at terrible pitches.  His discipline improved over the course of the season (20 walks in 401 first-half plate appearances; 22 walks in just 262 post-All Star Break plate appearances), which gives me hope that next year could be a monster season for Braun.

Craig Counsell

PECOTA: .237/.323/.323

Actual Line: .226/.355/.302

Counsell remained a good bench player in ’08, but the problem was he was used as a starter far too often.  Counsell is great at working a count, and his walk rate is astounding considering his complete lack of power.  He was still very sure-handed defensively, but his arms strength and range have diminished to the point where he’s no longer a strong defensive shortstop, and his weak arm was apparent at third sometimes as well.

The Brewers wisely declined Counsell’s pricey option for 2009, but I’d be open to bringing him back at a lower price for another year.  This is, of course, assuming he’d actually be used as a reserve instead of a regular platoon player.

Joe Dillon

PECOTA: .286/.376/.501

Actual Line: .213/.337/.293

Dillon only had 75 at bats in 2008, which seems like an under-utilization.  As you can see, PECOTA really, really had high hopes for him in a semi-regular role–they actually projected over 400 plate appearances.  The Brewers released Dillon this off-season, and considering he’s right-handed and limited defensively, it’s not a huge loss.  That doesn’t mean I think they used his bat enough last season, though.

Prince Fielder

PECOTA: .287/.384/.560

Actual Line: .276/.372/.507

Like every Brewer slugger not named Hardy, Prince Fielder also failed to meet his projection.  His on-base percentage was strong and he had a nice eye at the plate, but the power numbers just weren’t where they should be.  My master plan for this off-season involved trading Prince for pitching and handing first base to Matt LaPorta, but that went out the window when the Crew landed CC Sabathia.  It’s no longer an obvious move without LaPorta, but I would still entertain offers for Fielder.  If Doug Melvin is able to get good value for him, now may be the time to do it.  He should still have high value with multiple seasons before free agency, particularly to an American League team.

The Brewers should be able to acquire a decent first baseman without paying a whole lot (Nick Swisher, Nick Johnson, Sean Casey, even Lyle Overbay).  Otherwise I could get on board with finding a right-handed hitter to platoon at first with Brad Nelson for a season.  Mat Gamel would also be a long-shot option, but he hasn’t played first base yet.

I should make it clear that I would only trade Fielder if the Brewers were getting serious major league talent back in return, as in a 1-2 type starting pitcher or a 2/3 type pitcher and good position player.

Gabe Gross

PECOTA: .267/.366/.467

Actual Line: .238/.336/.414

Gross certainly wasn’t a world-beater, and he also fell short of his projection last season, but this trade still puzzles me.  Gross still had a .789 OPS against right-handed pitchers last season.  Think about how valuable he’d have been against righties in September when Corey Hart looked like a blind 10-year-old at the plate.  I don’t even want to think about how furious I’d be over this if the Brewers had missed the playoffs.

Tony Gwynn Jr.

PECOTA: .251/.321/.344

Actual Line: .190/.271/.214

Thankfully Tony Gwynn only had 42 at-bats, so his line doesn’t mean anything.  His .659 OPS as a 25 year-old in AAA does though.  He fell short of his major league PECOTA projection while in AAA.  Ouch.

Bill Hall

PECOTA: .267/.335/.482

Actual Line: .225/.293/.396

Bill Hall is just about dead to me.  A .293 OBP for your opening day third baseman is truly abysmal.  Add in the fact that he’s still owed over $15 million the next two years, and you’ve found yourself a near-unmovable contract.  Hall may still have value as a shortstop to some team, or the Brewers might be able to trade him in a bad-contract-for-bad-contract trade, but either one is a far cry from the .899 OPS season in 2006.  Because of this, I pretty much expect Hall to be an overpaid supersub next season.  He still crushed lefties, so at least he has some use.

J.J. Hardy

PECOTA: .273/.329/.441

Actual Line: .283/.343/.478

Hardy was really the only Brewer regular to outperform his projection, and he did so by a pretty wide margin.  Taking defense into account, he may have been the Brewers’ best position player last season.  He had the fourth-highest OPS among shortstops and would have very good value should the Brewers decide to make him available this season (something I would probably not do yet, but that’s for another post).

Corey Hart

PECOTA: .288/.358/.528

Actual Line: .268/.300/.459

Hart’s total collapse in the second half was the most puzzling and troubling part of the season in 2008.  Hart seemed poised to become a star, and PECOTA seemed to think so as well.  It includes something called Breakout and Collapse rates.  A quick and simple definition: A breakout rate is the percent chance that a hitter’s production will improve by at least 20 percent relative to his average performance over the last three seasons.  A collapse rate is the percent chance that a hitter’s production will decline by at least 25 percent from his last three seasons.

Where am I going with this?  Basically, that PECOTA didn’t see Hart’s horrible year coming at all.  Out of every Brewer hitter on the 2008 opening day roster, Hart had the highest breakout rate (32%) and lowest collapse rate (8%) of any position player on the team.

It poses a huge dilemma.  At the start of the season, Hart looked to be a building block fixed in the Brewers’ long-term plans, but he’s now a huge question mark.  If he refuses to take walks again next year he might find himself on his way out of Milwaukee.

Rickie Weeks

PECOTA: .265/.368/.454

Actual Line: .234/.342/.398

Sigh.  This one really made me look dumb this year.  I was telling anyone who would listen that Rickie Weeks was primed for a breakout season, and instead he pretty much laid an egg.  He still had a fantastic eye at the plate, and he did have some bad luck (.280 BABIP), but he just didn’t make enough contact.  It blows my mind to see someone jack a 450 foot bomb a handful of times throughout the season with such a good eye, yet he just couldn’t put it all together.

Yet, here I am, still campaigning for Rickie Weeks as the Brewers’ second baseman in 2009.  I’m expecting at least an .800 OPS from Weeks next year, and I’m hoping for even higher.  Bill James projects a .799 OPS, so hopefully I’m not too far off.

I was at the Cardinals game in which Weeks hit the walk-off double against Jason Isringhausen, and I was also at the Friday game of the last series against the Cubs for his huge homer late in the game.  Safe to say I went nuts; sorry to say for everyone sick of my Weeks man crush that attending those games didn’t help the matter.

Mike Cameron

PECOTA: .269/.356/.493

Actual Line: .243/.331/.477

Cameron was another victim of an awful September, and also fell short of his projection by more than a narrow margin.  Still, he was among the top six or seven center fielders in baseball and was a tremendous bargain in 2008 for six million dollars.  I realize this post is only looking at offense, but Cameron’s defense helped the Brewers immensely.  It’s the main reason why picking up his ten million dollar option was a no brainer, and he’ll still have good trade value if the Brewers decide he’s expendable.  The Yankees have shown interest already this off-season.  They already acquired Nick Swisher, but I’d see if they would be open to a deal centered around Swisher and Cameron.

Jason Kendall

PECOTA: .255/.324/.321

Actual Line: .246/.327/.324

PECOTA was pretty much dead on with their projection of Kendall.  It’s important to realize you should significantly lower your standards when looking at catchers, because most of them are bad hitters.  Kendall isn’t a good offensive catcher, but he least he isn’t terrible.  His .327 OBP was 14th out of 29 catchers with at least 300 plate appearances.  Factor in his unexpected great contribution on defense, and Kendall was a very good player last season.  Now if they just rest him a bit more in 2009…

Gabe Kapler

PECOTA: No projection, came out of retirement

Actual Line: .301/.340/.498

Nobody could have projected this line from Kapler, who finished with the highest OPS in his career in 2008.  That type of thing isn’t supposed to happen at age 33, which should prompt you to think something fishy is up.  Sure enough, a glance at Kapler’s batting average on balls in play reveals the secret.  His BABIP was .335, which is well above league average and also the highest of Kapler’s career.  His career BABIP is .301, which is more in line with what should be expected in 2009.  This tells us that Kapler is very unlikely to duplicate his 2008 OPS of .838 again next season.

Mike Rivera

PECOTA: .244/.293/.424

Actual Line: .306/.377/.435

Rivera’s huge overperformance wasn’t as crazy as it seems because he was only given 69 plate appearances.  Considering the success he had in very limited playing time, it’s quite strange he didn’t play a little more.  Kendall had a great year defensively, but he was the Brewers’ worst hitter in the lineup.  PECOTA projected Rivera for 191 plate appearances, a much more typical amount for a backup catcher.  Regardless, Rivera had some big hits for the Brewers, particularly his bases-clearing double against Washington that capped off a day in which he reached five times in six plate appearances.

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So there you have it.  Considering the hopes many had for the Brewers’ offense, the numbers aren’t pretty.  While it was a bit depressing going through and seeing all of these, just imagine how brutal this would have been had the Brewers not reached the playoffs?

I am pretty encouraged by what I’m hearing so far this off-season.  It seems like every Ken Macha quote mentions improving team OBP, which is music to my ears.  Doug Melvin has discussed getting more left-handed hitters in the lineup.  It also seems the team may move Rickie Weeks down in the lineup, which is something I really think could help him.  I don’t expect the pitching to be as good as it was last season, but I do expect the offense to be better.  It will have to be if the Brewers want to contend again next season.

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Posted in Base Clogging, Milwaukee Brewers 2008, Projections

The best chance of re-signing Sabathia

Posted on November 20, 2008 by | 2 Comments

Posted by Steve

I figure it’s about time I address the biggest issue with the Brewers right now. I was waiting to say much on CC Sabathia until the offers started to become clearer. Until yesterday, the only two reported offers were the Brewers’ offer of five years for $100 million and the Yankees’ offer of six years for $140 million. Obviously, the Yankees’ offer is the superior one between those two, although costs of living probably make them a lot closer than it seems.

New York’s strategy was clear, and it was probably an effective one: Make an incredibly high initial offer in effort to discourage other teams from even bothering to pursue Sabathia. Once free agency officially began, the Yankees immediately leaked their offer to the media, which is a different strategy than the Brewers (Doug Melvin has not even confirmed the widely reported Brewers’ offer of 5/100 mil).

For five or six days, it seemed like the Yankees’ strategy may be working. No reports surfaced of any other team even interested in signing Sabathia. Yesterday though, we found out the Giants will make Sabathia an offer, and that the Angels are strongly considering it as well.

It would have been very interesting if the Yankees and Brewers were the only two suitors, but that wasn’t very realistic. The more teams involved, the less of a chance the Brewers have of retaining Sabathia. I’m assuming the Brewers will come back with a counteroffer, but the question is obviously what type of offer they’ll make.

In case you’re at all interested, here’s the approach I would take. The initial reaction is probably to increase the years and total dollar amount. The Brewers can’t match 6 years/140 mil, but a sensible reaction might be to suggest the Brewers improve their offer to 6 years/120 and see if cost of living and/or a preference to play in Milwaukee trumps 6/140 from New York in CC’s eyes. I disagree with that strategy for a couple reasons. One, a six-year contract for a mid-market team, especially one for a pitcher, is incredibly risky. In fact, under virtually no circumstance would I be on board with the Brewers handing out a six-year deal to a pitcher. Second, the Angels/Giants/Dodgers/somebody would likely match or exceed 6 years/120 mil, and Sabathia is from California.

Instead, the final offer I would make would be $100 million over four years. The 25 mil/year is a higher per-year offer than the Yankees and very likely higher than what the Giants or any other west coast team will offer. Four years/100 is attractive to the Brewers because they aren’t locked in for six years, and the risk is lower. More importantly, four years should be attractive to Sabathia because of his eventual next contract. After a four-year deal, CC would hit free agency again at age 33, where he’d still be highly coveted if he continues to pitch well. Common sense tells us teams will generally pay more for a good 33-year-old pitcher than a good 35-year-old pitcher, which would mean CC’s next contract would most likely be bigger if he accepted a shorter deal.

The Brewers can’t compete with six or seven year deals for 140+ million, so they need to get creative. The odds of re-signing Sabathia have never been high, but this is the one approach that makes me think they still at least have a shot. The one advantage the Brewers have over the other suitors is cost of living. Housing is exponentially more expensive in New York or California than it is in Wisconsin, so that’s a multi-million dollar advantage to the Brewers. In order for the Yankees, Giants, Dodgers or Angels to match the Brewers’ offer of 25 mil/year they’d have to go quite a bit higher than the Brewers on a per-year level.

If I’m Doug Melvin, this is the point I’m trying to drive home. ‘We’ll give you 100 mil over four years, and here’s why it’s a great offer for you. You’ll make an ungodly amount of money each year, you’ll save millions in living expenses by staying in the Midwest and you’ll hit free agency two or three years sooner and be in line for yet another absurd contract.’

That’s probably the only realistic shot the Brewers have.

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Posted in 2009 Hot Stove

Slave-driving statistics

Posted on November 18, 2008 by | 1 Comment

Posted by Steve

There are some Brewer-related things to get to, but in this post I want to addresss the NL MVP Award, and specifically, the ballot of Tom Haudricourt. In a blog post he made yesterday, he revealed his ballot. He voted for Ryan Howard with his top vote. That’s completely wrong, but at least 11 other voters did that. What was truly absurd was where he ranked Albert Pujols, the obvious choice for this award: Seventh. His order:

1. Ryan Howard

2. CC Sabathia

3. Manny Ramirez

4. Carlos Delgado

5. Aramis Ramirez, Chi

6. Prince Fielder, Mil

7. Albert Pujols, Stl

8. Ryan Ludwick, Stl

9. Ryan Braun, Mil

10. David Wright, NY

Now there have been some terrible winners of post-season awards in recent years, but that has to be the worst ballot I have heard of.

He spends uses several paragraphs to justify his vote, but here’s a snippet.

I had an MVP ballot and voted for Howard first because he almost single-handedly carried the Phillies to the playoffs by batting .352 with 11 homers and 32 RBI in September. I like to weight my voting to teams in the playoff hunt because I think that puts more pressure on players and separates the men from the boys. There’s little pressure on players having big years if their teams aren’t playing for anything at the end.

With the Cardinals finishing fourth, I voted Pujols seventh on my ballot. I don’t consider MVP to be “the most outstanding player” award and therefore don’t just go by who had the best stats. I like to credit players for lifting their teams to the post-season or at least keeping them in the race until the very end.

Where do I begin? Ryan Howard had a great month. He also had a pretty mediocre first half and wasn’t the MVP of his own team, much less the league. Albert Pujols, meanwhile, had a dominating season for the entire year and had vastly superior numbers to Howard. Howard shouldn’t have been in the top ten in votes.

It truly wasn’t close. Here are some NL rankings for hitters. In WPA Pujols was second; Howard was 24th. In on-base percentage Pujols was second; Howard was 50th (!). In slugging percentage, Pujols was first; Howard was sixth. Pujols was first in runs created; Howard was 13th. Pujols was first in VORP; Howard was 29th. I could keep going with this, but I’m sure you get the idea by now.

After receiving quite a bit of backlash (which was deserved) regarding his ballot, TH posted a response in which he added this gem.

I choose to not be a slave merely to statistics. If you want to pick the MVP solely on statistics every year, we can hire a statistical outlet to name the winner and just do away with balloting. We can call it “Most Outstanding Statstical [sic] Player.” And, certainly, Pujols had great statistics, as he always does.

Not sure about you, but I think “I choose not to be a slave merely to statistics” rivals “It’s big-boy time.” He won’t be “enslaved” by “statistics” (oooh, such a bad connotation) even when every statistic imaginable proves Pujols was incredibly more valuable than Howard.

And then to cap it off:

As for the debate of what makes a player “most valuable,” that one will rage on forever. And it certainly looks like I did my part to add to that debate. Enjoy yourselves.

I love when TH gets overly defensive like this. It’s high comedy. “We can hire a statistical outlet to name the winner and just do away with balloting.” First of all, you don’t need to hire anyone… Professional writers should be able to understand the value and meaning of baseball statistics. Secondly, I love the idea. And then the “enjoy yourselves” thrown on at the end, which really reads like a giant EFF YOU in my eyes.

Haudricourt does have a point. The MVP is a completely subjective award. People are not voting on the same thing. Some are voting on best statistics, some are voting on best statistics on a good team, some are giving more weight to different months of the season, etc. The MVP will have no meaning until there is an actual definition of what “Most Valuable Player” means.

Valuable Player? Nah. Hast to be Most Valuable Player on a winning team. And not just a winning team, but on a playoff-contending team. And it helps if you do your best in September, when it counts.

You can see where problems occur.

It’s not just having Howard first. Like I said, many made that mistake. But why have Pujols seventh because he didn’t make the playoffs yet have Delgado fourth? He also doesn’t have Chipper Jones, Lance Berkman and Chase Utley (who OMG made the playoffs too) on his ballot. It’s truly remarkable.

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Posted in Articles that irritate me

RIP FJM

Posted on November 14, 2008 by | Leave a comment

Posted by Steve

I write this post with a heavy heart. Yesterday the best blog in existence, firejoemorgan.com, came to an end. It’s not an overstatement to say I enjoyed their writing style and satire more than anyone else.

I always felt that dak, Junior and Ken Tremendous could be professional writers, so it makes perfect sense that when they revealed their true identities a few months ago they revealed they are professional writers.  Very cool in a way, but that obviously was a big reason they had to give up FJM.  I still can’t get over the fact that Ken Tremendous, my hero for all intents and purposes, is friggin’ Mose on The Office.

It is truly a sad day for anyone who opposes bad sports journalism and/or likes to laugh.

Cheezy writers everywhere just breathed a sigh of relief.  Keep fighting the good fight, KT.

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Posted in Uncategorized

So long Waukee

Posted on November 11, 2008 by | Leave a comment

Posted by Steve

Not much new going on, but I figured I’d post since it’s been over a week since the last one (and as I post this I notice that there is some grumbling about the lack of posts, so good timing). I’ll be starting up some analyses of the 2008 season, mainly on individual performances, pretty soon. I’m also kicking the tires on a Bill’s Scouting Report of the Year post, which could possibly feature a reader poll.  My only concern is the potential embarrassment of having like seven total votes in the poll, so you might have to vote like ten times (joking, at least somewhat). For now, this will be a mixed bag of sorts—a cornucopia, if you will.

  • Literally as I was typing this I heard that Sal Torres has retired. Surprising move, but I guess not that shocking considering the Brewers had to talk him out of retiring last season. Torres had a nice season, and he was a fun pitcher to watch. He wasn’t great, but he was good, which is certainly valuable. This really leaves the Brewers in a bind. I expect them to pursue Trevor Hoffman, whose option was just declined by San Diego. At least we’ll always have the “Sup Waukee!” moment.
  • It’s nice to see a post-season award actually go to a deserving recipient for a change (Nate McLouth=Gold Glove?!?!?/1/1/). Tim Lincecum won the NL Cy Young today. Either Lincecum or Johan Santana deserved it, but I was afraid Brandon Webb’s win total would steal the award for him.
  • The Brewers have made plenty of hires over the last week. Dale Sveum as hitting coach, Bill Castro as pitching coach, Willie Randolph as bench coach and probably most importantly, Bruce Seid as scouting director. Not going to pretend to have much insight on coaching hires, so here’s my limited and irrelevant reaction to each one: Sveum as hitting coach seems strange, but whatever. Cool to see Castro get a pitching coach job after 17 freaking years as bullpen coach. Kind of cool that Randolph accepted the bench coach position, though I am certainly glad Macha will be calling the shots instead of him. Kind of crazy that three members of the staff were managers as one point.  I don’t know anything about Seid either, except for the fact that I like the idea of filling that position from within the organization with someone who worked under Jack Z. Hopefully the Brewers continue to stay ahead of teams in Canada and the east coast.
  • The hot stove season is upon us, and it is glorious. The first couple big trades went down yesterday, and the Brewers should start getting into the mix very soon now that all their hirings are complete. Doug Melvin has a ton of work cut out for him, as the Brewers will undoubtedly look a lot different next season.
  • If the Cubs acquire Jake Farking Peavy for a few B and C level prospects I will probably blow up this blog.

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Posted in 2009 Hot Stove, Cornucopia of thoughts

Maddux, Cameron and Sabathia

Posted on November 3, 2008 by | 7 Comments

Posted by Steve

Some interesting pieces of news on the Brewers front today. Mike Maddux is signing with the Texas Rangers to be their pitching coach, the Brewers have exercised the option on Mike Cameron and they have also made an offer to CC Sabathia.

The Maddux news isn’t good or anything, but who knows how much (if at all) it will hurt. Maddux had success early in his Brewers tenure with reclamation projects like Dan Kolb and Derrick Turnbow, but it’s hard to evaluate the effect of a positional coach from an outsider’s perspective. He seems to be well respected as a coach, and apparently he got a pretty hefty contract from Texas, so good for him.

The more interesting news is the Brewers exercising the one-year, $10 million option on Mike Cameron. Arguments against bringing Cameron back: he’s no longer a big bargain at $10 mil, he’s not left-handed and the Brewers will need to give big raises to many of their arbitration-eligible players. Despite all that, my feeling was picking up the option was a no brainer. The Yankees had already expressed some interest in Cameron, and obviously other teams would have been interested as well. Doug Melvin noted that Cameron was in the upper echelon of center fielders last year.

The reason I thought it was a no brainer is that just because his option was picked up doesn’t guarantee he will be in Milwaukee next year. Today was the deadline for making a decision on his option, but Cameron could still be traded if the Brewers decided sometime this off-season that the money for his salary would be better spent elsewhere. Maybe it’s just me reaching a bit, but it seemed to me that Melvin was at least hinting at that in this quote:

The only difficult thing is that we’re so right-handed (throughout the lineup). But we felt he has value. When you look at his contract, we paid him $7.5 million average for two years. That’s the way we viewed it.

The “we felt he has value” line is what stands out to me. Discussing a player’s value rather than just saying “he helped our team” seems strange if you aren’t open to trading him. Put it this way… I don’t expect to hear Melvin say Ryan Braun or Yovani Gallardo have good value any time this off-season.

Finally, the CC offer. It was reported on Friday that the Brewers were expected to make a four-year, $110 million offer to Sabathia. That is a huuuge annual salary, but I like the fact that it’s only four years. I would not have gone any higher than that amount.

Today, though, Tom Haudricourt reported that the deal is likely closer to $100 mil over five years. I’d be alright with either one as a Brewers fan, but I’d be pretty shocked if Sabathia accepted it. He’d be leaving at least $40 million on the table that he’d get on the open market, and it’s probably more like $60 million or more.

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Posted in 2009 Hot Stove