Tuesday, December 26, 2006
THE LEDGE
Well, we have signed Shea Hillenbrand to be our DH.
This is Juan Rivera insurance. Rivera will be undergoing surgery for his broken leg and we still don't know how long he'll be out.
What would the difference between Hillenbrand and Rivera be, over a full season (say, 600 plate appearances)?
RubenJuan and Hillenbrand is close to a win, maybe a bit more. Remember, however, that's just looking at the offense. There's another cost here, and that's on defense; Juan Rivera figured to get a lot of time on the corner outfield positions, giving Garret and Vlad rests, while providing a defensive advantage while filling in for either of them. That's gonna cost us some runs, as well.
Hillenbrand at DH also means that one of Legs Figgins and Dallas McPherson won't be in the starting lineup. I'd guess The Legs will take the hot corner and Big D will take the bench or another trip to Salt Lake.
And while you don't sign a guy to a $6.5M contract to be a platoon player, Hillenbrand does have a, um, 106 career OPS+ against southpaws, while McPherson has a 112 mark off of righties in his young career.
Let me take a step back here ...
... Shea Hillenbrand isn't an awful player. He's mediocre. He's an average hitter, not a very good fielder, durable. Blah blah blah. But he's a guy that's overrated due to his batting average. His .287 looks respectable, but if you adjust his league averages for his parks, the average is .271. Juan Rivera's .291 average is up against a park-adjusted league average of .265.
And Hillenbrand's average is pretty empty. He doesn't have exception power and never draws a walk. And what bothers me is that the Angels don't seem to understand than an empty batting average isn't really all that helpful to anyone.
Now, I do recognize that we're only getting Hillenbrand because of the Rivera situation, but he's a guy we've been rumored to be interested in for awhile, and we all know he's a guy who hacks and gets singles. If you hack and hit like Vlad, that's okay. But Hillenbrand has never been a difference-maker for anybody, and now he's on the bad side of 30. He's a finger in the dam, but we should all hope that Rivera can be healthy and productive sooner than later.
Well, we have signed Shea Hillenbrand to be our DH.
This is Juan Rivera insurance. Rivera will be undergoing surgery for his broken leg and we still don't know how long he'll be out.
What would the difference between Hillenbrand and Rivera be, over a full season (say, 600 plate appearances)?
Batting Runs Above AverageOver a full season, it looks like the difference between
per 600 PA
Rivera Shea
2003 + 1 -6
2004 +14 +5
2005 - 3 +6
2006 +23 -8
Average + 9 -1
Wtd Avg +12 -1
Hillenbrand at DH also means that one of Legs Figgins and Dallas McPherson won't be in the starting lineup. I'd guess The Legs will take the hot corner and Big D will take the bench or another trip to Salt Lake.
And while you don't sign a guy to a $6.5M contract to be a platoon player, Hillenbrand does have a, um, 106 career OPS+ against southpaws, while McPherson has a 112 mark off of righties in his young career.
Let me take a step back here ...
... Shea Hillenbrand isn't an awful player. He's mediocre. He's an average hitter, not a very good fielder, durable. Blah blah blah. But he's a guy that's overrated due to his batting average. His .287 looks respectable, but if you adjust his league averages for his parks, the average is .271. Juan Rivera's .291 average is up against a park-adjusted league average of .265.
And Hillenbrand's average is pretty empty. He doesn't have exception power and never draws a walk. And what bothers me is that the Angels don't seem to understand than an empty batting average isn't really all that helpful to anyone.
Now, I do recognize that we're only getting Hillenbrand because of the Rivera situation, but he's a guy we've been rumored to be interested in for awhile, and we all know he's a guy who hacks and gets singles. If you hack and hit like Vlad, that's okay. But Hillenbrand has never been a difference-maker for anybody, and now he's on the bad side of 30. He's a finger in the dam, but we should all hope that Rivera can be healthy and productive sooner than later.
Labels: a real bummer, Dallas McPherson, empty batting average, Garret Anderson, hacktastic offense, Juan Rivera, Legs Figgins, Shea Hillenbrand, Vladimir Guerrero
Saturday, December 23, 2006
"A REAL BUMMER"
Juan Rivera has broken his leg playing winter ball in Venezuela. He's seeing a specialist today, so we'll see what happens, and have more analysis when we know more.
Merry Christmas, everybody.
Juan Rivera has broken his leg playing winter ball in Venezuela. He's seeing a specialist today, so we'll see what happens, and have more analysis when we know more.
Merry Christmas, everybody.
Labels: a real bummer, calamity, injury, Juan Rivera
Friday, December 15, 2006
WORLD SERIES HERO TRADED FOR 27-YEAR-OLD ROOKIE
Feel-good story Brendan Donnelly is no mas with the Angels; he's been traded to Boston for Phil Seibel. Seibel is a left-handed pitcher who has both started and come out of the bullpen during his minor league career. He does have a few undistinguished major league innings, but after injury kept him from playing in 2005 he bounced back with a pretty nifty 2006, which saw him pitch well at three levels.
Justin Speier has made Donnelly redundant; Darren Oliver doesn't really fit the lefty specialist role, so maybe Seibel will make a play for that spot. If not, he shores up Salt Lake's pitching staff.
I wasn't really dying to lose Donnelly, though he is getting older and, resultingly, worse. I'll always think well of him for coming out of nowhere to be a big part of the 2002 team, and I wish him well with the BoSoxers.
Feel-good story Brendan Donnelly is no mas with the Angels; he's been traded to Boston for Phil Seibel. Seibel is a left-handed pitcher who has both started and come out of the bullpen during his minor league career. He does have a few undistinguished major league innings, but after injury kept him from playing in 2005 he bounced back with a pretty nifty 2006, which saw him pitch well at three levels.
Justin Speier has made Donnelly redundant; Darren Oliver doesn't really fit the lefty specialist role, so maybe Seibel will make a play for that spot. If not, he shores up Salt Lake's pitching staff.
I wasn't really dying to lose Donnelly, though he is getting older and, resultingly, worse. I'll always think well of him for coming out of nowhere to be a big part of the 2002 team, and I wish him well with the BoSoxers.
Labels: 2002, Brendan Donnelly, bullpen, Darren Oliver, Justin Speier, Phil Seibel, pine tar, Stoneman trades
Monday, December 11, 2006
ANGELS SIGN A CHEAP LEFT-HANDED PITCHER WHO MAY AT ONE TIME HAVE LOOKED LIKE HE WAS GOING TO BE GOOD, BUT THAT NEVER HAPPENED, THOUGH HE DID FIND SOME SUCCESS IN THE BULLPEN LAST YEAR DESPITE THE FACT THAT OVER HIS CAREER HE'S BEEN ABOUT EQUAL VS. LEFT-HANDED AND RIGHT-HANDED BATTERS, WHICH SEEMS LIKE A BAD RECIPE FOR A LEFTY RELIEVER, BUT, ANYWAY,
his name is Darren Oliver.
his name is Darren Oliver.
Labels: Darren Oliver, LOOGY, pithiness
Monday, December 04, 2006
PMR, 3B
Here's Pinto. David is now giving us the data utilizing distance exclusively, so what we see here is only what I called the "Alternative Method" for past positions.
Per a comment I received, I'm also reducing the decimals. I used to have it carried out to four -- no real reason, I just figured more info was better, and if anyone wanted to use this, they could round it off any way they wanted. But I do agree that carrying it out to less looks better, and given the fact that this is all an estimate, anyway, I don't believe that any accuracy is lost.
Here's Pinto. David is now giving us the data utilizing distance exclusively, so what we see here is only what I called the "Alternative Method" for past positions.
Per a comment I received, I'm also reducing the decimals. I used to have it carried out to four -- no real reason, I just figured more info was better, and if anyone wanted to use this, they could round it off any way they wanted. But I do agree that carrying it out to less looks better, and given the fact that this is all an estimate, anyway, I don't believe that any accuracy is lost.
Alternative MethodAgain, I'll compare this to runs derived from zone rating, despite the fact that zone rating does not count balls in the air for infielders:
Player Runs Above Average
Total Per 350 Opp
Joe Crede 30.8 27.1
Pedro Feliz 22.5 20.1
Brandon Inge 21.0 15.3
Adrian Beltre 17.9 15.9
Freddy Sanchez 15.3 20.1
Scott Rolen 14.6 13.7
Mike Lowell 13.6 11.6
Ryan Zimmerman 13.6 13.0
David Bell 10.3 10.8
Morgan Ensberg 9.6 12.2
Maicer Izturis 8.4 17.2
Eric Chavez 7.0 6.9
Corey Koskie 5.6 10.7
Miguel Cabrera 5.2 5.3
Andy Marte 4.2 10.7
Nick Punto 3.8 6.3
Willy Aybar 2.7 9.3
Vinny Castilla 1.9 4.3
Chad Tracy 1.0 1.0
Hank Blalock 0.7 0.9
Melvin Mora -0.5 -0.4
B.J. Upton -1.4 -4.3
Mark DeRosa -1.7 -6.1
Abraham Nunez -1.9 -3.6
Troy Glaus -2.3 -2.5
David Wright -2.4 -2.3
Chipper Jones -2.4 -3.4
Mark Teahen -2.6 -3.1
Aramis Ramirez -2.9 -3.0
Wilson Betemit -3.7 -8.9
Alex Rodriguez -7.0 -7.2
Tony Batista -8.0 -22.6
Aubrey Huff -8.6 -14.8
Rich Aurilia -8.9 -27.7
E. Encarnacion -10.8 -14.2
Aaron Boone -11.4 -17.0
Garrett Atkins -14.3 -13.3
Player ZR-R PMR-2 DiffThe correlation between the two methods for these players is .76, which is surpsingly high (to me, anyway).
Aaron Boone -4 -11 7
Adrian Beltre 11 18 7
Alex Rodriguez -8 -7 1
Aramis Ramirez -4 -3 1
Brandon Inge 20 21 1
Chad Tracy 0 1 1
Chipper Jones -4 -2 2
David Wright -10 -2 8
David Bell 0 10 10
E. Encarnacion -10 -11 1
Eric Chavez 0 7 7
Freddy Sanchez 5 15 10
Garrett Atkins -5 -14 9
Hank Blalock 1 1 0
Joe Crede 8 31 23
Maicer Izturis -3 8 11
Mark Teahen -7 -3 4
Melvin Mora -4 -1 4
Miguel Cabrera -12 5 17
Mike Lowell 14 14 0
Morgan Ensberg 9 10 1
Nick Punto 8 4 4
Pedro Feliz 11 23 12
Ryan Zimmerman 1 14 13
Scott Rolen 5 15 10
Troy Glaus -7 -2 5
Labels: David Pinto, fielding, probabilistic model of range
