Baseball’s Happening! Here’s a Trade Idea: Logan Morrison for Chris Davis.

Originally posted April 4, 2015

The MLB season begins very soon, and that means two things:

·       I shall begin posting on this blog

·       I shall begin posting on this blog about aggressive, risky trade ideas.

Here’s one:

The Mariners should offer the Baltimore Orioles a first basemen swap.  Logan Morrison for Chris Davis.

Why would Baltimore agree to this trade?

Didn’t Chris Davis slash .286/.370/.634 (wRC+ 168) in 2013? Wasn’t he third in the MVP voting?

Yes. Yes.

More recently, though, Davis encountered struggles. In 2014, Davis hit under .200 and was worth less than +1.0 fWAR (less than Morrison). Davis was suspended for unauthorized Adderall use. In other words, Davis regressed an extreme amount last season.

Well, maybe not “extreme” for Chris Davis.  After all, in 8 MLB seasons, Davis has been worth more than +2.0 fWAR only twice. As revered as he is, Chris Davis’ career to date is pretty much summarized as: 2,100 plate appearances of near replacement-level performance, plus one Brady Anderson season.

Davis’ contract expires after 2015.  He is owed $12mm first, for this season’s baseball games. (Baseball is going to start happening again, guys, pretty soon too.)

So if the Orioles wanted to find a younger, cost-controlled first baseman – or just a better first baseman – right now is an attractive window to scrap Davis.

But… wouldn’t that be a public relations disaster for Baltimore? Trading away a slugger who recently jacked 50+ home runs in a single season? Surely that will create media stories that “the Orioles are rebuilding” when instead they should be going for broke in a very-winnable AL East.

Well, guess what?  Logan Morrison might be an improvement over Chris Davis in 2015. The probability is slightly against that, but not by much. Steamer has Davis projected for +2.2 WAR in 2015, while Morrison is forecast for +1.1 WAR for Morrison. So our best guess might be for a delta of a single win.

And beyond 2015, who knows?  Maybe Morrison reaches a solid, stable plateau of several years of major-league quality play. Morrison is only 27 years old, after all. (The peak year at most positions is typically forecast to be the age-28 or -29 season.)  Maybe Davis continues to struggle as age 30 approaches in 2016. Or maybe not. What we do know is that Davis is a free agent in 2015, while Morrison isn’t a free agent until 2017. So, Morrison represents the opportunity for a fair amount of surplus value to an organization over the next couple of seasons, at least.

Meanwhile, the Mariners. Why should the Mariners pursue Davis to begin with?  Isn’t he old and regressed and all of that, as was just mentioned?

Maybe. But maybe not. Davis is a wildcard. Athletically, he is capable of awe-inspiring feats. His raw power cannot be instructed. He’s proven he can a play an entire major league season at an extremely elite level. Maybe, just maybe, Davis can create 5 extra wins, or thereabouts, in 2015. Maybe he can transform Seattle from a borderline division contender into a World Series champion. (That’s the whole point of these baseball games, after all.)

At an bare minimum, Davis should be expected to produce at a sufficient level to hold his job at first base until August or September, when the Mariners’ backup plan of DJ Peterson could conceivably kick in.  Peterson isn’t ready for the major leagues today.  But it’s well-within the realm of possibility that he could be in 2015.

Bottom line:

·       The Mariners are weak at first base.

·       First base is typically an easy position to source offense, even in today’s lower-scoring environment.

·       Davis could be available.

·       Davis could very conceivably help the 2015 Mariners in a significant way.

·       The Mariners have a backup plan in Peterson, should the experiment fail.

So, do it. Propose this deal. Fortune favors the bold, or something.

2015 Seattle Mariners Preliminary Outlook

Originally posted on December 6, 2014

The 2014 Seattle Mariners missed the playoffs by one game. How will 2015 end?

I don’t know. But here is what I think on the weekend prior to the annual Winter Meetings:

As currently constructed, the 2015 Mariners project to be one of the best teams in Major League baseball. The 2015 Mariners currently project for 38.2 fWAR, fourth-best in MLB. The Mariners very likely will increase that total, marginally, in the coming days because the team does not have a reliable, every-day right fielder right now, nor a plausible platoon scenario. They are expected to add this missing piece, and they definitely ought to.

The increase from adding this right fielder could increase fWAR by 1.0-3.0 fWAR. Currently, Mariners right fielders are projected for a measly 0.6 fWAR. Remember, league average is around 2.0 fWAR. So, substituting in a league-average RF into the current roster could potentially win the team 1-2 more games in 2015. At the higher end of the talent continuum, substituting in a player like Justin Upton into RF could be expected to increase the team’s 2015 wins by 2-3, relative to the current roster. (Upton is forecast for 3.1 fWAR in 2015, versus the current roster’s 0.6 fWAR projection.) But, remember, by gaining Upton or acquiring another player via trade, you would of course also need to subtract the loss of talent given away in a trade.

An increase of  +2 fWAR would put the Mariners in a tie for expected fWAR with Boston for the best-projected American League team. That’s a fancy way of saying that Seattle could very likely head into 2015 as slight favorites to advance to the World Series. (In reality, the Mariners of course won't be favored by the national media to advance to the World Series, but the more sophisticated analyst community might give them a very real shot.)

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Remember the error bars around any type of WAR projection. Imagining in our heads a bell curve of Wins versus WAR, we could expect to find actual team wins to be within +/- 12 wins of their originally-projected WAR. That’s the 95-percent confidence interval. In other words, by sneaking past Boston in expected fWAR by 0.5 or 1.5 – or even 3.5! – wins, we still need to remember that the team’s 2015 fortunes will be overwhelmingly determined by luck. Good or bad, the “luck factor” is going to dominate, like it often does in Major League Baseball and team sports more generally.

Plus, other teams aren’t done building for 2015. Obviously, these fWAR projections will shift as the offseason progresses and talent is traded in the market.

The Mariners pitching staff looks talented, and it looks deep. The Mariners’ starting pitchers are projected to be worth 11.9 fWAR in 2015, second-best in the MLB, behind the Nationals. Moreover, the team currently has 6 or 7 players on the roster that should be starting in the MLB in 2015. If you believe in Erasmo Ramirez, the number is 7. If you do not believe in Erasmo Ramirez, then the number is 6.

Nelson Cruz matters, but he doesn’t matter THAT much. Last year Nelson Cruz was worth +3.9 fWAR. That’s terrific. Truly a great season. But that’s because he hit 40 HR. Unfortunately, we don’t have overwhelming evidence to expect 4 win seasons from Cruz year-in, year-out. For his career, Nelson Cruz has been worth +2.7 fWAR per 600 Plate Appearances (PAs) (approximately one full season). Currently, Nelson Cruz is older than at any previous point in Nelson Cruz’s life. He is six years beyond the typical age-28 peak. Sure, Nelson Cruz could have another monster season in 2015. But we should not expect that to happen. Being a Designated Hitter in 2015 will mean that Cruz cannot contribute value via his defense. And the Mariners probably do not want Cruz to attempt to impress them on defense and win innings out there. No. Historically he is rated as a a solidly below-average outfield defender (see previous link). So, Cruz needs to hit, and he needs to hit a lot to really move the needle for the Mariners in 2015.

Austin Jackson could be a crucial contributor to the 2015 Mariners. Austin Jackson’s 2014 season was the worst of his career, at +1.0 fWAR. But this was driven by a significant decrease in evaluated defensive value, which is much more statistically erratic and difficult to quantify than offensive performance. Let’s look at Jackson’s career as a whole. For his career, Jackson has been worth +2.9 fWAR per 600 PAs. A rebound from +1.0 to +3.0 would give the Mariners a solid boost of two more expected wins. Will it happen? It’s certainly possible. After all, Jackson is still only 27 years old.

The Mariners need to “go for it” in 2015. This is my final thought. Why do I say the team needs to “go for it” (and what does that mean, anyways)?  Because Robinson Cano is 32 years old.  King Felix is in his peak years. Hisashi Iwakuma – one of the team’s top players – is 33 years old. We should not be shocked to see a material decrease in performance from Nelson Cruz, at age 34. So, one could argue that the window is closing. Equally important, the Mariners have trade chips. The current roster has 6 starting pitchers, maybe 7.  The Mariners have an elite prospect in Alex Jackson, as well as D.J. Peterson. I’m sure 29 Major League teams would love to get their hands on James Paxton or Taijuan Walker, or heck, potentially even Danny Hultzen has some value, as he attempts to come back from injury this spring. What does this all mean?  Simply put: if you’re calling the shots, don’t be afraid.  Get as much payroll from ownership as you possible can. Make this Mariners team as good as possible in 2015, and sacrifice some future value or talent, if you need to.

Maybe those 2015 projections will end up correct, after all.

Roger Maris versus Babe Ruth

Originally posted on September 1, 2014

I decided to plot Babe Ruth’s 1927 season (60 home runs) versus Roger Maris’ 1961 season (61 home runs) day-by-day, out of curiosity. There were a couple surprising things I found. First, here is the cumulative home run chart:

You’ll recall the debate about whether Maris was truly the single-season “Home Run King,” or not.  After all, the season was 162 games long in 1961 (Maris), versus 154 in 1927 (Ruth). For some people, Ruth was still clearly the Home Run King, all the way up until 1998 (when everything got extremely complicated). But I wonder if the Ruth-supporters know the following?

·    Even though there were eight more games played in 1961, the number of Plate Appearances (PAs) between Ruth and Maris were basically identical.  Ruth had 691 PAs, and Maris had 698.(Granted, Ruth took a base on balls a lot more frequently, and as a result the number of at-bats isn’t close – 590 for Maris and only 540 for Ruth.)

·    Even though there were eight more games played in 1961, the length of the season, in terms of the actual number of days, was basically identical? Ruth’s season began on April 12th, and Maris’ began on April 11th.  Both players’ (regular) seasons ended on October 1st. In other words, Maris had more baseball compacted into basically the same number of days.

·     Maris’ home run pace was well-ahead of Ruth’s, from mid-June all the way until the very end of September? For example, on September 1st, Maris had 51 HR, but Ruth only had 43.

·    It’s not fair to say Maris “fell off” in September.  He hit 10 HR after September 1st. 10 HR per month is basically the same pace he had all season.

·    Ruth, however, went on an absolute tear starting in early September.  Over the course of just 12 PAs between September 6th and 7th, 1927, Ruth hit 5 HR.  Maris’ lead collapsed. Is it more appropriate to say “Ruth caught Maris,” than to say “Maris caught Ruth?”

That’s it.  Now you know.

Which Historical AL West Teams Have Been Luckiest?

Originally posted on September 1, 2014

One way of describing luck in baseball is by winning a lot more games than your runs scored/runs against (RS/RA) ratio should indicate. The Pythagorean estimator is probably the most famous way of predicting win/loss record based on RS and RA. Here it is:

Winning Percentage = RS^2 / (RS^2 + RA^2)

This isn’t the single most accurate estimator, but it’s pretty accurate. Looking at all of the MLB team-seasons since 2000, the Pythagorean estimator predicts win-loss record within 8 wins 95% of the time. It predicts win-loss record within 4 wins about 68% of the time.

One way to sharpen the pencil immediately is to adjust the exponent. I’ve done that for Oakland, Seattle, Texas and for the Los Angeles Angels (and their predecessor teams, the Anaheim Angels and California Angels) since 1990. In this set of data, the best-fitting exponent in the Pythagorean estimator isn’t 2; it’s 1.934. You probably don’t care about this paragraph, but I’m just saying it because it makes the results more robust.

Anyways, I was curious what the “luckiest” teams have been, amongst the “Core Four” AL West teams over the past 25-ish years. That’s why I am doing this.

Let’s look at the data.

There are 96 observations in this data set (four teams playing 24 seasons each, from 1990 through 2013). So, each team has one observation, for each season.

Here is a scatterplot of our 96 observations, plotting the Pythagorean-expected winning percentage (x-axis) versus the actual winning percentage (y-axis) for each team:

There are three diagonal lines in this plot. The middle one represents neither under-performance nor over-performance. In other words, if a team’s plot sits on the middle line, they won exactly as many games as Pythag predicted. If it lies above, they’ve overachieved, and if it lies below, they’ve underachieved. The top line is plotted at Pythag + .040, and the bottom line is plotted at Pythag – .040. In other words, if you’re above the top line, your team’s winning percentage exceeded the Pythagoran estimated wins by more than .040. These teams won 6-7 more games (4% of the season) than they “should have,” perhaps due to pure luck.  Similarly, if you’re near the bottom line, you lost 6-7 more games than you “should have.”

The moral of this story is that the 2008 Angels pretty much blow everybody away.  They’re an outlier. That team had 100 wins and 62 losses (.617 winning percentage). But based on runs scored versus runs allowed, you more reasonably would have expected them to win 88 games.

The plot in the far upper right is the 2001 Seattle Mariners, who won 116 games in the regular season.  According to Pythag, they overachieved, by about 6 games. Which is another way of saying that that team scored and prevented runs like a true 110-win team.  Pretty remarkable.

Can Felix Beat Pedro?

Originally posted on August 6, 2014

Since the Designated Hitter Era began in 1973, there have been 3,375 qualified starting pitcher-seasons. Of those, only 13 have ended with an Earned Run Average (ERA) superior to Felix Hernandez’s current 1.97 mark. Of those 13 pitcher-seasons, only three came from American League pitchers, meaning, the other 10 came from players who faced lineups where pitchers were batters. All else equal, that makes it significantly easy to have low ERA's in the National League. (Hey, we should have the DH in the National League.)

Anyways, all of this means that 2014 Felix Hernandez has the 4th-best ERA all-time amongst pitchers who had to throw against the designated hitter. In this regard, King Felix is in percentile 0.24. The other 99.76% of American League qualified starters have had inferior ERAs.

Here are the three AL pitcher-seasons with lower ERAs since 1973:

·       2000 Pedro Martinez, 1.74 ERA (42 ER in 217.0 IP)

·       1978 Ron Guidry, 1.74 ERA (53 ER in 273.2 IP)

·       1990 Roger Clemens, 1.93 ERA (49 ER in 228.1 IP)

In this list, Pedro’s 1.74 ERA beats Ron’s 1.74 ERA because of rounding. So, Pedro is numero uno. Can Felix be number one? Can he surpass Pedro?

Felix to date has allowed 38 ER in 173.1 IP. There are 50 games left in the Mariners 2014 regular season. Felix started yesterday. So he should receive 10 more starts. Let’s assume Felix averages 7 IP per start. Then he will finish the regular season with 243.1 IP. With that total, Felix can allow a maximum of 47 total ER to beat Pedro. Felix would come in at 1.738, versus Pedro’s 1.742.

9 ER or less over the next 70 IP. (Or something proportionally equivalent, over more or fewer innings.) That’s what Felix needs, to break the record.

This would be cool. But, I’m not saying that having the lowest AL ERA since 1973 means that Felix’s 2014 would be the “best pitching season” since that time. That’s a different statement to defend, because ERA isn’t a very good metric, honestly. ERA is not park- or defense-adjusted (except for the fact that it backs out errors). ERA doesn’t care whether a pitcher threw in the “steroids era,” or not. Plus, I ignored the entire National League in this analysis.

Maybe Fielding-Independent Pitching (FIP) would be a better metric than ERA. Well, Felix’s 2.04 FIP in 2014 is already #2 in the DH Era (AL-only). Although, 1999 Pedro Martinez’s 1.33 FIP at #1 is totally untouchable.

There are other metrics to evaluate as well, of course. But any reasonable way you look at it, 2014 Felix will be near the very, very top of the list. He is having an historic season.

Mariners Creatively Address #1 Problem

Originally posted on August 1, 2014

Today the Mariners addressed their #1 problem: the outfield. Now, let me be clear about something. From an opportunity cost perspective, it’s definitely not always advisable to address your #1 problem first and foremost. Why not? Because (a) there might not be easily-acquired upgrades available to address your #1 problem, or (b) you might have a separate problem that is much easier to solve, or can be solve/improved to a much greater extent. In fact, scenario (a) is the situation the Mariners found themselves in, coming into the trading deadline season. While their #1 problem has been an unproductive outfield for several years now, there seemingly was not a lot available when it came to outfielders.

Think about it. The entire trading deadline, teams were discussing names like David Price, Jon Lester and Cole Hamels. Those people are all pitchers. Hitters? Well we discussed Marlon Byrd, Alex Rios… and that’s about it. Much lower-profile guys.

So the Mariners came into late July with the following situation:

·    a terrible outfield that could that could be MASSIVELY upgraded by simply acquiring an average player or two, and substituting out the weak current players, but

·    there seemingly wasn’t a ton available

Enter a three-team deal to acquire a valuable but off-the-radar centerfielder in Austin Jackson, in combination with a secondary, but very important transaction to acquire super-off-the-radar Chris Denorfia. The net cost was Nick Franklin, Abraham Almonte and minor league reliever Stephen Kohlscheen.

I’m going to examine Austin Jackson in a moment. But he’s the headliner, a borderline star and the obvious improvement factor here. Less talked-about is the Chris Denorfia acquisition, which greatly helps upgrade the team’s previously-poor outfield because it allows for a platoon situation in right field, and possibly creates additional competition and optionality in left field as well.

Okay. Chris Denorfia. What is Chris Denorfia? Chris Denorfia is 34-years old and a free agent at the end of this season. He owns a career slash line of .275/.335/.397, good for a 106 wRC+. His defense is rated as average. In other words, Denorfia is an all-around average, older veteran, with two months of team control. So, why do I like him?

Because Denorfia destroys left-handed pitching, and the Mariners right fielders definitely, definitely do not. Specifically, Denorfia owns a 128 wRC+ against lefties in his career, while Michael Saunders owns a 96 wRC+ against righties in his career. This platoon package could very plausible be an above-average major league offensive weapon for the remainder of 2014. Compare that with the very, very below-average production level so far in 2014 from Mariners rightfielders, thanks to big playing time from Endy Chavez (71 wRC+ in 2014) and Steven Romero (52 wRC+) at the position.

Don’t worry if a Saunders+Denorfia platoon ends up being slightly below-average on net. Because that is definitely NOT the important point. The important point is that this platoon would represent a MASSIVE improvement relative to Chavez and Romero. At a minimum, this transaction takes innings away from players grossly under-performing, which is almost as impactful as…

acquiring a borderline-star center fielder in Austin Jackson. Here are the basics on Jackson:

·       Team-controlled through the 2015 season

·       Age 27

·       Career 106 wRC+ (6% above-average offense)

·       Slightly above-average defense

The above bullet points don’t really do Jackson justice. Remember that he’s playing a premium position in centerfield. It is hard to find centerfielders in today’s world that are truly above-average hitters. (They have to compete with first basemen, and corner outfielders, after all, in that regard.) So, Jackson is quite a valuable player, which is obvious just by observing the fact that he’s accumulated almost 16 career fWAR in just his fifth major league season.

Just like with Denorfia, I care not just about Jackson himself, but also the value of the player(s) he is replacing. Jackson replaces James Jones in centerfield.

Frankly, James Jones did not perform well at all. I know how badly he wants to be a MLB regular, and I sure as heck hope he is one day. But we should have seen this coming. He hasn’t show the ability to hit for power or draw walks, and his defense looked quite suspect, and was rated poorly. The solid batting average and great speed were nowhere close to strong enough to offset Jones’ flaws. I hope he works hard, gains a couple more tools, and contributes. But he produced -0.7 fWAR in his first MLB stint.

Put it this way. Over the course of a full MLB season, Austin Jackson could be about 3 fWAR better than Jones, or he could be about 6 fWAR better than Jones. Let’s call it 4.5, and split the difference. Right now, David Price is a 5 fWAR pitcher. So having Jackson over Jones, is something akin to adding David Price.

Add Denorfia, and you’re talking about a couple more incremental wins, over the previously-available outfielders. Now you’re adding more than David Price.

So today, it’s entirely possible the Mariners acquired David Price’s value, and were able to retain all of their top prospects, including Taijuan Walker, James Paxton and DJ Peterson.

Not bad at all. Now, they just have to execute on the field.

Is This the “New Michael Saunders”?

Originally posted on July 27, 2014

Some Mariners fans have their fingers crossed for Michael Saunders’ return to the lineup. He’s been out of the lineup since July 10th due to injury, and since he’s been and above-average hitter so far in 2014, and the team’s outfield is so bad, his return is considered a reason for optimism.

Unfortunately, digging deeper into the numbers, we see that much of Michael Saunders’ 2014 improvement may have been due to random chance. There isn’t much reason we should expect his solid season to continue when he returns.

This season Michael Saunders is hitting .276/.327/.434. His 113 wRC+ implies he has been worth about 13% more than the average MLB hitter. It’s only been 219 plate appearances (PAs), but hey, those are solid results.

Let’s compare against the “Saunders of old.”  Prior to the start of 2014, Saunders had 1,656 PAs, a slash line of .224/.295/.374, and a wRC+ of 87, meaning on net, his offense was about 13% worse than MLB-average. Clearly, Saunders’ 2014 is a huge step-up from his prior performance.

So, is he truly a better ballplayer now? Is he more talented?  Did something fundamental change?

Let’s look at a handful of key metrics to try and answer this question. Below is a table of Saunders’ career batting performance, broken out by 2009-2013 results, versus 2014.  In the right three columns, I’ve cut to the chase – is he better or worse in 2014, is it by a large amount or not, and should we consider the improvement/deterioration as “sustainable”? The sustainable column is based on whether Saunders’ 219 PAs in 2014 are enough to consider the change permanent, or not. (See this link for the minimums.)

Bottom line – Saunders’ 2014 might be due to minor improvements in ISO, GB% and FB% – these are all “sustainable.”

But the major changes occur in LD%, BABIP and Infield Hits per Ground Ball – none of which should be expected to continue.

Most glaring is Saunders’ whopping 49-point improvement in BABIP.  This has resulted in a 36-point improvement in his batting average. (To find this, you need to take at-bats minus strike outs, to determine the balls in play. Then multiply .049 by that amount, and divide your answer by at-bats.)

Similarly, Saunders’ 5% increase in Infield Hits per GB has resulted in a 15-point improvement in batting average. It’s not likely that Saunders is suddenly significantly faster at age 27, and is now legging out more ground balls for hits. More likely, it’s just lucky placement of where the ball dribbled to. Yes indeed, you can gain 15 points in batting average from this type of luck. (Which should prove to you that batting average is fairly worthless as a standalone statistic.)

So, these two non-sustainable factors have pushed up Saunders’ batting average 51 points alone (36 plus 15). Remember, the 2014 improvement in batting average has only been 52 points (.276 versus .224). So in just two “lucky” metrics, we’ve already explained the vast majority of Saunders’ improvement.

Bottom line – it’s possible Saunders’ offense is better in 2014 due to some fundamental change. But much more likely, it’s been due to random chance, and therefore should not be expected to continue.

MLB Statcast is going to be absurdly awesome (hopefully)

Originally posted 7/27/14.

Check this out:  This is a demo of the new MLB Statcast  technology.  You can see a map of Mike Trout’s route around the bases during his triple in the All-Star Game, and a tracker of a Giancarlo Stanton home run in the Home Run Derby.

The amount of data that will be produced is staggering.  It truly has the potential to revolutionize baseball analytics.

Specifically, the evaluation of defense could change radically. This is convenient because many critics of advanced baseball analytics today draw their arguments from the evaluation of player defense.  Critics note how the measurable events we rely on are currently limited to things like errors, and how often a player advances from 1st to 3rd base on a single. Not very comprehensive. Well, Statcast can track players’ initial starting positions, reaction time, acceleration, top velocity, route efficiency and probably more.  Reams and reams of data will be produced about every single play, of every single game. The result could be a gigantic step forward in terms of reliability of historical and forecasted defensive performance.

My understanding is that we are apparently at least a year away from the tech being rolled-out, and there are questions about how much of the data will be publicly available, if any. If I had to guess, I would think MLB will try to roll this out in a way that maximizes their profits, which means less available data for the average fan.  But I hope I’m wrong about that. This technology has the potential to not quench the analyst world’s thirst for information but also change the way the average fan witnesses the game of baseball. It’s stunning.

The Mariners Tried to Trade for Drew Stubbs. Why?

Originally posted on July 26, 2014

The Denver Post reports that the Mariners made a trade offer for Colorado Rockies outfielder Drew Stubbs.

Why?

If you read this blog or other analytically-focused articles, you’re probably getting more and more shrewd about how you value players.  And Drew Stubbs is a classic lesson in why the standard baseball metrics don’t accurately describe the player’s talent.  You need to delve deeper to see what you are actually getting in Stubbs.

Just take a look at his player page on Fangraphs.  And compare his traditional stats, with his meaningful stats:

A traditional baseball analyst might think:  Drew Stubbs is hitting .297/.335/.498 this season.  Wow!  That is great.

A serious baseball analyst, however, thinks: Dude. That slash line is impressive, but standard stats like AVG, OBP and SLG (a) are not adjusted for the baseball park Stubbs plays in, and (b) they are less correlated to team wins than something like wRC+. Stubbs’ 2014 wRC+ is 115, meaning this season, his total offensive performance has been about 15% better than league average – nothing more. In layman’s terms, Coors Field likely inflated his stats, because it is the preeminent hitter’s park, and because National League pitching is not as good as American League pitching. Stubbs would lose both of those advantages by moving to Seattle. Those are important factors that wRC+ accounts for, which a traditional slash line does not. Also very importantly, his current 115 wRC+ has occurred over just 258 plate appearances (PAs). For his career, Stubbs has 2,743 PAs, and a wRC+ of just 91. In other words, for his career, Stubbs’ total offensive production is about 9% below average.

By way of comparison, Michael Saunders is at 113 wRC+ in 2014, and his career wRC+ is 90. So, Drew Stubbs is very similar to Michael Saunders offensively.

Hmm.

Okay, so Drew Stubbs is having a solid season, but we should have serious doubts about his ability to continue to produce at this level.

But remember, we always need to think about a player’s contract, in addition to his talent and performance. Stubbs is second year arbitration-eligible, and not expected to make much more than a few million dollars in 2015. He’s a free agent in 2016. That’s okay, I suppose.

On the other hand, however, he’s already 29 years old. Yes, there certainly are players who peak at age 29 or later, but they are not typical.

Now, to be fair.   have no idea what the Mariners have offered to Colorado for Stubbs.  Maybe it was the proverbial “bucket of baseballs” that everyone jokes about when evaluating a penny-stock type of trade.

But maybe it was James Paxton or Nick Franklin. Giving up those players for Stubbs would have been a huge mistake.

This story screams “desperation move” and “outmoded analysis,” to me.

James Jones Comparables

Originally published 7/19/14

In a recent post, I discussed how, unfortunately, we need to be a little more realistic about James Jones. He’s considered one of the major positive surprises so far for the 2014 Mariners, but in reality, his total career performance to date has been somewhat below-average.

Okay. But, he’s young. He can only improve from here, right?

Let’s answer this question as objectively as possible. Let’s find the players who, historically, began their careers most similarly to Jones. And let’ see how their careers panned out.

I went back through the list of hitters classified as rookies, since 1955. (1955 is when the intentional base on balls became reliably recorded and is therefore a common place to begin historical look-backs.)

Since 1955, a total of 4,691 position players (i.e. non-pitchers) were classified as rookies and had a qualifying number of ABs. Of those, 200 players had a K%, BB% and ISO all within 1 standard deviation of Jones’. We will examine the career fWAR (Fangraphs wins-above-replacement) for all 200 players in a moment.

But first, why did I select K%, BB% and ISO? Why not batting average, home runs, stolen bases or slugging percentage, for example?

Because BB%, K% and ISO are highly correlated to offensive performance, and because they stabilize very fast. That means we don’t need to worry about smaller sample sizes.

For example, ISO stabilizes after about 160 ABs. K% and BB% stabilize after 60PAs and 120 PAs, respectively. To date, Jones has 250 career ABs and 264 PAs.

So, already at this point in his career, it’s not reasonable to assume Jones’ core hitting metrics will drastically change.

Okay, so let’s go back to these 200 players – the close comparables to Jones.

Here is a chart showing these 200 players’ career fWAR:

The fWAR above are ordered from high (+72.3 fWAR – Rod Carew) to low (-7.1 fWAR – Vic Harris).

The 100th and 101st players are at the median of the distribution.  The median players totaled +1.0 fWAR each. The median players are Mike Phillips and Donovan Solano. If we only have one guess in a given data set, we should guess the median player. So, best guess, James Jones will amount to Mike Phillips or Donovan Solano. I had never heard of these two players until I did this blog post. I’m sure they’re great guys, but they weren’t anywhere close to average major leaguers.

James Jones could be Rod Carew one day – a Hall of Famer. Statistically, there is about 0.5% chance of it (1 in 200). Or Jones could be some guy that not a lot of people ever hear about.

Only 46 of the 200 players ever achieved more than +10 fWAR.  An average major leaguer produces +2 fWAR per season.  In other words, there is a 23% chance that Jones’ career contribution is larger than 5 seasons of an average MLB player. There is a 77% chance that his career amounts to less than that.

Being 100% serious – that’s not bad. Average players can contribute to great teams. And, average is a lot better than people expected from Jones. Jones’ attitude appears to be awesome. He plays the game tough. He notably sat down with Manager Lloyd McClendon to ask how he could improve his game. I, personally, want Jones to succeed, very badly. The Mariners have had so many position players bust in recent years. Can Jones be an exception? Yes, of course. But we absolutely should not expect that to happen. We can’t even expect him to be average, in the long run.