Friar Forecast

At The Hardball Times, Alex Eisenberg breaks down some mid first round draft picks, including Allan Dykstra:

As for what Dykstra does well, he generally lets the ball travel deep into his hitting zone. His batting eye is praised as one of college baseball’s best (and the numbers back him up, with a .519 on-base percentage). Also, he gets excellent loft on his swing, which will help in generating plenty of fly balls.

However, I do have questions about Dykstra’s overall fit with the Padres, since his defense is barely average at first base, and since first base is locked down by Adrian Gonzalez. In addition, I’m not convinced there weren’t better players on the board to choose from.

Grade - B-

I’ve neglected to mention it (not that you haven’t found out by now anyway), but there are some medical concerns now surrounding the first round pick.

Some people have said, “Forget about Dykstra, take the pick next year.” I have two problems with that. One, we don’t really know too much about the situation. Two, prospects are worth very little in the minors … until you turn them into major leaguers or other players (via trade), they don’t really have too much value to the organization. With that in mind, the Padres would be kind of spinning their wheels if they can’t sign Dykstra, even if they bring in an equally talented player in next year’s draft. A prospect now is worth more than a prospect a year down the road … or something like that.

Young Dbacks’ pitcher Max Scherzer is a stathead:

MS: Last year he came across the whole BABIP theory and explained it to me, but I was initially very skeptical because I just could not imagine all pitchers were essentially the same. As my season went on, I kept an eye on it, and he was right—pitchers really do not have control over the balls put in play, [that’s on] the defense and luck. I’m very numbers-oriented myself, so I kept digging into this wealth of information. Sure enough, the K/BB and HR/9 were really the driving numbers behind the success of pitching. It really made sense to me, but the pitcher inside couldn’t comprehend that, of everything involved, just three outcomes can determine one’s success.

Melvin Nieves takes exception to a recent Tom Krasovic article.

Mike Fast has moved his PITCHf/x catalog to The Hardball Times, and it’s pretty cool. There are a few of my older posts buried in there (thanks, Mike), but they obviously don’t stack up to all of those brilliant pieces. Take a few minutes to browse some articles. Tons of fascinating stuff.

Didn’t get me, believe it or not : )

Using the THT conversions I’ve been doing, I thought I’d take a look at team fielding. So, here’s each team’s performance, measured in runs … in parenthesis we’ve got MGL’s UZR from June 7th:

STL: 39 (34)
HOU: 38 (14)
SD: 34 (32)
ATL: 28 (-2)
OAK: 26 (6)
LAA: 26 (24)
PHI: 22 (17)
TOR: 20 (35)
MIL: 19 (-15)
CHN: 18 (18)
LAN: 18 (-9)
TB: 12 (22)
CHA: 6 (15)
SF: -2 (-13)
NYN: -3 (-2)
COL: -3 (5)
CIN: -9 (-19)
BOS: -11 (-7)
ARI: -11 (-4)
SEA: -15 (-32)
TEX: -15 (-38)
BAL: -16 (-12)
WAS: -16 (-8)
DET: -17 (-7)
PIT: -19 (-20)
CLE: -22 (-5)
FLA: -38 (-12)
NYA: -45 (-11)
KC: -55 (26)
MIN: -55 (-20)

If you add my THT ratings up, you get somewhere in the -40 range. That should be closer to 0, so I’m a little disappointed there (not sure why it happened; maybe it’s a bunch of rounding errors, a mistake or two — or ten – I made, or something I’m not thinking of). That said, I don’t think it’s too big of a deal, as it is not *that* far off.

Also, like I mentioned above, UZR is from almost a month ago, so keep that in mind. The correlation between the THT number and UZR is .533. I don’t think it ever really makes sense to take one data point out … but if you take out Kansas City (I have them at -55; MGL at +26), the correlation improves to .701. The .533 is the one to use, though, and considering it’s only half way through the season and the UZR data is a month old, I don’t think that’s too bad of a correlation. Then again, it isn’t great either (I don’t think …).

The new spreadsheet is updated through July 1st: fielding-ratings.xls

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Here are the top and bottom individual fielders so far (according to the THT data):

Top 10
Rolen, TOR, +20.5 runs
Giles, SD, +18.7
Utley, PHI, +18
Ellis, OAK, +16.7
Hardy, MIL, +15.6
Jones, ATL, +15.3
Escobar, ATL, +14.5
Beltre, SEA, +14.8
Berkman, HOU, +13.9
Pujols, STL, +13.1

Bottom 10
Abreu, NYA, -24.2
Wells, TOR, -22.6
McLouth, PIT, -16.7
Jacobs, FLA, -16.4
Hawpe, COL, -14.6
Blake, CLE, -14.2
Ramirez, BOS, -13.4
Betancourt, SEA, -13.4
Lamb, MIN, -13.3
Easley, Mets, -11.9

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Here are some Padres:

Giles, +18.7
Gonzalez, +6.2 (Edgar!)
Huber, +5
McAnulty, +4.2
Iguchi, +3.5
Gonzalez, +3.3
Greene, +1.7
Hairston, -1.4
Kouzmanoff, -3.5

***

If you look at the “positions” tab in the spreadsheet, there’s data for all the positions.

Abbreviations:
BIZ = balls in zone
Plays = plays on BIZ
RZR = plays/BIZ
OOZ = plays made out of zone
OOZ/BIZ = just that

Remember, as I’ve read many times, these numbers are not necessarily a reflection on the fielders, but rather on how the zones are drawn up. As you can see, in the outfield RZR tends to be higher and there are more plays on out of zone balls.

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Before I let ya go … remember, all this is done by a one man operation (a shaky one at that). I’d love for you to use this stuff for whatever you’d like, but just beware … there may be mistakes.

Also, I call it THT’s (The Hardball Times) stat or data, but they really have nothing to do with the calculations or formulation of the stat here. I only call it that because that’s where the data comes from (and they purchase it from Baseball Info Solutions). Thanks to them for that, but surely they wouldn’t want to be associated with my shoddy work …

Paul DePodesta:

Before noon eastern time, the Padres had locked up five of the top international prospects from around the globe for a total of nearly $5,000,000. Those commas are in the proper places.

More coverage from Baseball America and ESPN.

Seriously, I wish I followed this stuff closely, so I could give some kind of analysis … but I don’t, really (Padman, got anything?). Will be scouring the ‘net for stuff, though. It sounds like these guys, especially Portillo, are really highly touted prospects. From the ESPN link, an AL exec. said this: “Inoa, Rodriguez, Yorman and Portillo would [challenge] the first selection if they were eligible for the American draft this year; I have no doubt about that.”

Very interesting. It is definitely a contrast to the “conservative,” college-oriented draft approach.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve converted the fielding stats available at The Hardball Times into a little plus/minus stat, similar to what others have done. Although Justin gives you a good, concise explanation on the methodology (and here’s his more detailed post on the subject, which I’d highly recommend), I wanted to try it myself and take you through an example. If you’re familiar with the process, which many of you may be, there’s probably nothing new in this post …

THT buys the data from Baseball Info Solutions, and they give you a few things to work with:

Balls in zone (BIZ) — This is the number of balls hit into a player’s zone over the course of the season. A player’s zone(s) is the area where fielders at that position convert at least 50% of balls into outs (more from Dave Studeman).

Plays — Number of balls converted into outs on balls in zone.

Revised zone rating (RZR) — This is simply: plays/BIZ. So if Khalil Greene has 300 balls hit into the shortstop zone and converts 250 of them into outs, his RZR is .833.

Out of zone plays (OOZ) — This is the number of outs a player makes on balls hit outside of his zone.

So, let’s runs through a little example of how to turn these four numbers into a plus/minus stat  (all numbers are made up):

In zone:
Find the average RZR at each position (let’s use shortstop here): .850
Based on the avg. RZR at that position, find the number of plays a player should have, based on his BIZ: Khalil — 300 BIZ * .850= 255 plays made. Let’s say he actually has 265 plays made, so he’s plus 10 plays on balls in zone.

Out of zone:
Find average number of out of zone plays per BIZ at short: .135
Based on that number (.135), calculate the number of out of zone plays a fielder should have, based on his BIZ: Khalil — 300 BIZ * .135 = 40.5. Let’s say he actually has 40 plays, so he’s -1 play on out of zone balls.

Now add the two numbers together to get a total number of plays above/below average: Khalil: 10 - 1 = 9 plays above average. Since you generally want things measured in runs, rather than plays, convert to runs using Chris Dial’s plays to runs conversions. You may notice those numbers make a lot of sense, intuitively (at least to me): a play saved at short is worth ~.75 runs, while a play saved in center is worth ~.842 runs. Why? An out is an out, right? Well, hits that get by the shortstop are almost always singles and base runners usually gain only one or two bases. On the other hand, many hits into center are doubles or triples and base runners can more often take two or three bases.

Anyway, to finish it out, multiply plays above average by Dial’s number: Khalil: +9 plays*.753= +6.8 runs above average

That’s how I did it. Not too complicated, I don’t think — but please let me know if you have any questions or if I made any mistakes. What follows is some of the positives and negatives of this stat (in my opinion).

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 Why I like this ’stat’

• It’s based on play by play data. Some fielding stats, like Range Factor or Baseball Prospectus’, aren’t based on play by play data. Baseball Prospectus uses a bunch of adjustments to try and estimate how many chances a player had. With THT/BIS’ data, you don’t have to do that, because it is based on play by play data. So you’ve got a pretty darn good idea of how many balls were in a player’s zone, or were “fieldable.”  

• It’s based on performance both in and out of zone. I see a lot of people using RZR to measure fielding and while that’s great, I think you’re missing too much of the total picture (the OOZ balls) when you do that. So with some relatively easy calculations, you can turn it into a plus/minus stat, using both RZR and OOZ.   

Limitations/concerns, etc.

• There are not many (any, really) adjustments, like you’ll see in something like UZR. Those adjustments may be for park, pitcher handedness, batted ball speed, and so on. Obviously, this stat isn’t on the level of a more detailed fielding metric like UZR or John Dewan’s plus/minus, but it’s free and I think it’s pretty darn good : )

• A ball is either determined to be “in zone” or “out of zone.” Take, for instance, a ball hit right at the shortstop. That ball may be converted into an out, say, 90% of the time. Now, take one hit on the fringe of the SS zone; maybe it’s converted into an out 55% of the time. Those balls appear to be equal, under this system (since they were both hit in the SS zone). Over the course of a year, you expect stuff like that to even out, and fielders to have a relatively balanced distribution of opportunities, but surely it doesn’t always (or, even, often) happen.

• There are no “opportunities” for out of zone plays. We know how many OOZ plays a fielder makes, but we don’t know exactly how many chances he had. I (like Justin and others) use in zone chances as a proxy to estimate OOZ chances, but this certainly may not be the best way to do it — maybe it is balls in play (or ground balls for infielders; fly balls for out fielders, etc.), maybe innings, I don’t know. Either way, it is an issue but I’m not sure of its significance.

• It is not an all-inclusive fielding stat. For outfielders it doesn’t include throwing arms, for infielders it doesn’t include double plays or line drives/pop ups, for first basemen it doesn’t include catching throws from other fielders, etc.

Pizza Cutter has developed a new fielding metric using retrosheet data (part 1, part 2), similar to Dan Fox’s and Sean Smith’s. Good discussion at The Book Blog.

If you’re interested in “run estimation stuff,” check out Patriot’s last few posts. Sticking with the theme, there’s some additional discussion of the topic here.

 Geoff Young compares Adrian Gonzalez and Justin Morneau … and Jeff from Lookout Landing thinks Gonzalez is one of the most underrated players in the game.  

jbox and the GLB crew discuss Sandy Alderson’s interview on 1090. I’d listen to it, but the volume on my computer is awful (and/or it’s something with the recording …). Anyway, sounds like they got into it (again) about the Pads not having an advance scout. My opinion on the issue? I don’t really know (hey, what’s new?). There are some things you can only get from being there in person, I suppose. But there’s also a lot you can pick up without actually having a scout watch a team live, whether it is from video analysis or things like PITCHf/x. fwiw, here’s an older article from the USA Today on advance scouting.

There’s some good fielding analysis talk in this thread at DS (starting around post 24).

Peter Friberg has returned to blogging at Padres RunDown. Have always enjoyed his thoughts and analysis …

Brian Giles has been the 6th best position player in the NL so far, according to Justin’s calculations (based on hitting, fielding, and a positional adjustment).

Do ya need proof that you should take everything I write with a huge grain of salt? Here you are … on February 26th I wrote: “Well, I’m not going to post every day. Or I’m at least not going to plan to … blah, blah, blah.”

Since then: 122 posts in 123 days : )

As you can probably tell, there haven’t been too many updates of late … no big deal; just a busy week. Should be back on schedule soon, but posting will probably remain a bit sporadic (or non-existent) for the rest of this week.

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When I did the THT fielding conversions for center fielders, I only grabbed the unqualified players … big thanks to Tom Waits for the catch. Sorry about the screw-up (feel free to let me know if you see anything else weird). The spreadsheet should be fixed now, with updated numbers in center.

New top 5
Beltran, NYM, +12.1 runs
Taveras, COL, +9.1
Werth, PHI, +8.5
Bourn, HOU, +7.1
Edmonds, CHN, +6.7

Bottom 5
Wells, TOR, -21.3
McLouth, PIT, -17.4
Milledge, WAS, -8.2
Kemp, LA, -7.5
Victorino, PHI, -7

Edmonds with Cubs – 189 innings: +1.7 plays in zone, +6.3 plays out of zone
Edmonds with Pads – 212 innings: -.1 plays in zone, -4.2 plays out of zone

Here’s the new spreadsheet: fielding-ratings.xls

In an article yesterday, Tom Krasovic referenced:

• ERA+ from Baseball Reference
• Defensive efficiency (or whatever you want to call it; converting balls in play into outs)
• Baseball Prospectus’ postseason odds report

We already know Mr. Krasovic is quite the stathead (that is supposed to sound like a compliment, btw!), but seeing more and more of this stuff in the ‘mainstream’ is certainly … um … cool. Gives us bloggers less to complain about, though!

Anyway, the bar has been raised, and so to have my standards. Next time I expect FIP, UZR, and a playoff odds report that takes each players recalculated projections (to that point in time) and then simulates 1000 some odd seasons (per MGL’s suggestion).

… Just kiddin’, kinda : )

hat tip: Padres SuperForum

By Padman 

Now that it’s been over a year, let’s see how some of last year’s draft picks have done …

1) (Pick 23) Nick Schmidt P- Well, we all know that he’s out for the year

2) (Pick 40) Kellen Kulbacki RF- Struggled in Fort Wayne and Elsinore.  Now gaining steam.  Overall Cal League numbers: .266/.395/.477/.871 – 6 2B, 7 HR, 16 RS, 24 RBI, 26 BB, 26 K (128 AB), 0 SB

3) (46) Drew Cumberland SS- The good news is that for Fort Wayne he’s hitting really well:  .277/.341/.340/.682 – 23 RS, 7 2B, 3B, HR, 16 RBI, 16 BB, 21 K, 14 SB, 4 CS.  Last 10 games: 18 for 27, 10 RS, 2B, 3B, 3 RBI, 4 BB, 2 K, 3 SB.  Now, the bad news – 17 errors.  They keep on putting him out there, but chances are next year he’ll be patrolling Elsinore’s center field.

4) (57) Mitch Canham C- In Elsinore and hitting real well: .286/.409/.405/.814 – 35 RS, 12 2B, 2 3B, 3 HR, 42 RBI, 46 BB, 38 K…o ya and 7 SB.  (60 games, 210 AB).  If it wasn’t for a catching logjam ahead of him (Hundley in AAA, Morton/Lobaton in AA), he would find himself in AA in a couple weeks.

5) (63) Cory Luebke P- Lake Elsinore (got the loss today) Not doing too well: 3-5, 6.99 ERA, 14 GS, 65.2 IP, 90 H, 51 ER, 8 HR, 19 BB, 57 K.  BAA= .327.  Has shown great stuff at times….but has been horrible at other times (May 29th 2 IP, 10 H, 8 ER, 0 BB, 4 K)

6) (64) Danny Payne CF- Has been on the DL since April 26th, prior to that he was doing great in Ft. Wayne:  .333/.484/.500/.984 — 24 AB, 4 RS, 4 2B, RBI, 7 BB, 5K

7) (81) Eric Sogard 2B- A lot of talk about Sogard this year in Elsinore:  .317/.423/.410/.834 — 268 AB, 44 RS, 20 2B, 3B, HR, 39 RBI, 49 BB, 31 K, 6 SB, 3K (at one point had almost a 3:1 BB/K ratio)

8)  (87) Brad Chalk OF- Started off hot and has cooled off a bit:  .246/.343/.300/.653 130 AB, 13 RS, 3 2B, 2 3B, 0 HR, 10 RBI, 21 BB, 22 K, 7 SB, 0 CS

9) Tommy Toledo (Did not sign)

10) (134) Corey Kluber P- Also has struggled in Elsinore 2-4, 5.63 ERA, 15 GS, 78.1 IP, 84 H, 49 ER, 7 HR, 29 BB, 71 K, BAA .278

Best of the rest
Jeremy Hefner P (pick 177)- has had tremendous stuff for Fort Wayne and he and Harrington have been the ace(s) of the staff:  6-3, 3.97 ERA, 16 G, 11 GS, 68 IP, 69 H, 30 ER, 7 HR, 18 BB, 68 K (9 K/9), .263 BAA

Allen Harrington (pick 417)- left handed portion of the 1-2 Ft Wayne punch (could also be 3,4 with Breit and Latos), currently on the DL (since 6/1/08): 3-2, 3.59 ERA, 13 G, 8 GS, 57.2 IP, 55 H, 23 ER, 3 HR, 10 BB, 53 K, .255 BAA
Keoni Ruth and Woodward are the only players to make it past high A (both backups in AAA)

Tommy Toledo (pick 117), Christian Colon (327), Hunter Ovens (777), and none of their final four picks signed.  They signed less than 25% of the HS players they drafted, but all of the college players.

Shortstop (with ‘intro’)
Centerfield
Third
Second
Left
Right
data from The Hardball Times

This is the last position that I’m going to do — there’s no data for pitchers … catchers you can do, but the data used is different (not based on any type of zone rating stuff) … maybe I’ll try ’em sometime down the line. As for fielding posts, I will probably have a few more over the next few days/weeks (correlations between in zone/out of zone performance, ‘bench level’ fielding, things like that).

Also, remember the spreadsheet I made can be automatically updated. I’m not sure if only I can do that, or if you can too. If you can, you have to make some adjustments, I believe, because I made some mistakes (for instance, I believe you have to recalculate the overall averages at each position and then put them into the formulas — a lot easier than doing all of this everytime, but not exactly a click of the mouse, like I wanted). Anyway, I don’t think it should be too difficult to correct the spreadsheet to make the update easier. So feel free to do that and use these numbers however you’d like.

And the first basemen:

Top 5
Berkman, HOU, +12.7 runs
Pujols, STL, +12.2
Votto, CIN, +11.9
Kotchman, LAA, +11.7
Helton, COL, +10.2

Bottom 5
Jacobs, FLA, -14.2
Jackson, ARI, -12.3
Delgado, NYM, -8.9
Giambi, NYA, -8.4
Morneau, MIN, -8.2

Gonzalez, SD, +3

Remember, pickin’ machines are undervalued by this metric (as fielding throws from other players isn’t considered). There’s been some research here and there into that and, IIRC, it’s definitely not something you want to ignore.

Full spreadsheet: fielding-ratings.xls

Shortstop (with ‘intro’)
Centerfield
Third
Second
Left
data from The Hardball Times

Onward with this thrilling series … ; ) If you don’t know what I’m doing here, check the SS/intro post linked up top. And, as always, feel free to ask me any questions. fwiw, I plan on writing a post at some point explaining this method in more detail, although some people have already done that better than I ever could.

The right fielders ….

Top 5
Giles, SD, +17.4 runs!
Winn, SF, +10
Drew, BOS, +10
Gutierrez, CLE, +9.1
Church, NYM, +8.8

Bottom 5
Abreu, NYA, -16.1
Guillen, KC, -11.6
Griffey Jr., CIN, -9.8
Ludwick, STL, -9.7
Hermida, FLA, -8.4

Wow, how about Giles?! He’s way ahead of everyone else, as you can see there. He’s fielded 90 of 98 balls in his zone, which works out to about +2 plays. He’s getting all of his value outside of the right field zone where he is about +21 plays (remember, I convert the plays to runs). He’s fielded 41 balls outside of his zone … that’s 7 more than anyone else (Randy Winn’s at 34). But it’s not only the 41 plays that’s impressive; it’s the fact that he’s done it with only 98 balls hit into his zone, which is 12th most in the game.

Now, remember, we don’t have the opportunities for out of zone balls. We’re using in zone balls as a proxy to estimate how many out of zone chances the player had. Is this the correct/best way to do this? I am frankly not sure. Some people do it this way, some people do it using something else (I believe Eric Van from SOSH likes to use balls in play). So there is certainly some stuff to investigate here, and perhaps we’ll get to that at some point.

Anyway, Giles’ terrific rating also gives me a chance to talk about a few more limitations of this particular metric:

1. There are no park adjustments. The main thing here with Giles and Petco, I think, could be the thick, heavy air. Take two balls hit in the same spot, both outside of the RF zone, let’s say somewhere up the right center field alleyway. One is hit in Petco and the other in Colorado. If my speculation about the San Diego air and its impact on fly balls is right (and I’m certainly not the only one who has mentioned the heavy air!), then Giles would have an easier play because he’d have more time to get under the ball and make the catch. Of course, this not only applies to balls hit in the alley, but, really, all balls that are hit in the air in Petco. I’d love to see Giles’ home/road splits here …

2. It doesn’t adjust for the exact location of the ball (i.e., it is one big zone and one big ‘out of zone’), the speed of the batted ball, etc. These are the characteristics that separate stats like UZR, Dewan’s plus/minus, SAFE, and PMR from this one. Again, it’s somewhat speculative, but a lot of people believe some of the Padres pitchers get easier-to-field fly balls than the average guy (although that may just be the park effect mentioned above). Stuff like this is not really accounted for in this stat.

That said, UZR has Giles at +35 runs per 150 games (the above is not per 150). Dewan’s plus/minus has him at +16 plays (like +13.5 runs) so far. So he’s getting good marks all around – and what I’ve written above is not a knock on this stat anyway. I think it’s a real solid way to evaluate fielders and I’m thankful that THT is making the data available.

Anyway, as I’ve mentioned before, I haven’t watched nearly as much Padres baseball as I’d like (gotta get my head out of a spreadsheet and watch some games ; ). How does Giles look out there? Does he look like the best defensive right fielder in the game?

Oh, yeah, the full data, as usual: fielding-ratings.xls

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As a side note, I have some — get this — stuff to do over the next couple of days. I may not be able to get to the first base ratings until friday/saturday (and posting may be a little light overall, over the next few days …). Thanks for stoppin’ by, though!