Beyond the Box Score - A Saber-Slanted Baseball Community

Major Rumor Quick Reactions 7/30

by Satchel Price on Jul 30, 2010 3:35 PM EDT Comment 10 comments

We're closing in on crunch time. It's time for guys like Kenny Williams and Mike Rizzo to find their inner-Kobe, and come up with something before the trade deadline clock runs out. As of writing this, we're looking at t-minus 1 day, 3 hours and 37 minutes until players must pass through waivers in order to be traded.

Yesterday was pretty eventful in the baseball world. We saw the biggest name left on the market move in Roy Oswalt, as well as a couple of other well-known players in Miguel Tejada, Matt Capps, J.A. Happ and Jorge Cantu. Prospects were flying all over the place, as Brett Wallace, Anthony Gose, Jonathan Villar, Wilson Ramos, Wynn Pelzer, ~~Alexi Ogando~~ Omar Poveda and Evan Reed all have new homes this morning.

Basically, there's no time to dwell on the past. Those posts can come another day, I suppose. Right now let's dive into today's rumors. Commentary on a potential Lilly-to-LA deal, the Edwin Jackson trade, and Chicago's interest in Brett Myers and Lance Berkman is below the jump.

We'll start a new thread on this one, but the other Jackson-to-Chicago commentary is below. Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports that the White Sox are including Edwin Jackson in their offer to the Nationals for Adam Dunn. And if they do manage to finalize that deal, they plan to continue their chase for Houston starter Brett Myers. Dunn and Myers are due to hit free agency after the season, while Jackson is signed through 2011. (MLBTR link)

I wouldn't be totally surprised if the White Sox and Nationals end up figuring something out. The White Sox could really use an impact bat like Dunn, while Washington's interest in adding Jackson has been widely reported.

Obviously, the White Sox could use an arm for the rotation, too. So presumably Chicago would be perfectly fine with keeping Jackson and seeing if pitching coach Don Cooper can make things click, although I doubt that the White Sox have the ammunition to trade for Myers without leaving their farm system essentially bare.

I don't love the price that Chicago paid for Jackson, but he definitely makes the team better. And if they can land Adam Dunn, that's a huge addition for the team's offense. In terms of value, these moves wouldn't be any great shakes, as Hudson's under team control through 2016 and projects to be pretty useful. But Chicago has certainly made themselves better for 2010, and 2011 if they keep Jackson, so it's hard not to blame them for trying to win this year.

The Blue Jays have acquired first baseman Mike Jacobs from the Mets in exchange for a player to be named later, according to Andy McCullough of the Newark Star-Ledger. Jacobs has spent most of the season in Triple-A. (MLBTR link)

It's not clear what role Jacobs will fill in Toronto. He could possibly come up and offer some help against right-handers, or he could merely be the organization's Triple-A replacement for Brett Wallace.

The 29-year-old has always had big raw power, but a lack of plate discipline and high strikeout totals have preventing him from totally taking advantage of it. With all of that said, though, Jacobs could probably actually help some teams against right-handers.

He's always had a huge platoon split, and things have been no different in 2010. For his MLB career, he has a .262/.325/.503 line in 1667 PA against right-handers. This season in Triple-A, he's batting .279/.335/.525 in 246 PA against right-handed pitchers. Plus, he's been quite hot in July, posting a .299/.368/.627 line with 6 homers in 67 at-bats despite a .262 BABIP. He'll always be limited by his complete lack of defensive value, impatience and inability to hit lefties, but Jacobs can actually be a somewhat useful hitter against RHP.

It looks like we're having an All-Chicago afternoon. Bob Nightengale of USA Today is reporting that the White Sox are only focused on acquiring Adam Dunn, and not Prince Fielder or Lance Berkman. This comes after Ed Price's tweet that there was buzz about Chicago pursuing Berkman. (MLBTR link)

This shouldn't be too surprising. Dunn is a superior option to Berkman and he'll come much cheaper than Fielder.

Presumably Chicago will make another push for Dunn now that they have Edwin Jackson in tow, a player that Washington reportedly has serious interest in. The White Sox could desperately use an upgrade in the DH spot, where they've primarily used Mark Kotsay and Andruw Jones this season, and Dunn would certainly provide that.

It's not clear whether Washington has any interest in a Jackson-for-Dunn swap, but reports were swirling about a possible three-way deal that would send Dunn to Chicago, Jackson to D.C. and prospects to Arizona before the White Sox and Diamondbacks agreed to a Jackson trade of their own.

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Major Rumor Quick Reactions 7/29

by Satchel Price on Jul 29, 2010 4:59 PM EDT in Transactions & Rumors Comment 11 comments

My coverage of yesterday's rumors fell somewhat short at the night went on, so I'd like to get through most of what I missed this morning.

We did see a couple deals come to fruition yesterday though, as some contenders moved to shore up holes after injuries. Detroit was quick to find help at the hot corner with Brandon Inge on the DL, as they traded for Cleveland's Jhonny Peralta. Additionally, the Dodgers moved to upgrade on Manny Ramirez's left field replacements, Garret Anderson and Xavier Paul, by trading for Royals left fielder Scott Podsednik.

But we're sure to see more deals in the coming days, and there's really no excuse for not being up-to-date on the latest rumors in this day and age. Unless you just don't care, that is.

We'll start with a few rumors from last night, and I'll do my best to update the post throughout the day.

Wow, didn't see this coming. FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal is reporting that the Astros are sending center field prospect Anthony Gose to the Blue Jays in exchange for first base prospect Brett Wallace. Gose was acquired from Philadelphia in today's Roy Oswalt trade. ESPN's Jayson Stark first reported that Toronto was acquiring Gose. (MLBTR link)

Gose, who turns 20 in roughly two weeks, is hitting .263/.325/.385 with 17 doubles, 11 triples and 4 homers in 103 games. He stole 76 bases in his full-season debut last year, but has struggled with his base-stealing this season, going 36-for-63 on SB attempts. That's a 57% success rate, and that's detrimental to the team's effort to score runs. But he projects as a plus defender in center field given his plus-plus speed, and some development with the bat could turn him into a star player given his potential value in the field and on the bases.

With all of that said, Houston already has quite the stable of raw center field prospects. Between T.J. Steele, Jay Austin, Jon Gaston, Collin DeLome and recent first-round pick Delino DeShields Jr., who could start at second base but projects just as well in center field, the Astros are loaded with good athletes that need refinement.

I think that we definitely have to consider this a huge win for the Astros. Wallace gives the Astros the kind of high-quality hitting prospect that they didn't have before, and he'll presumably step in for Lance Berkman in 2011. It's safe to say that Toronto didn't have a player like Gose in their system before now, but I don't think that anybody thought that the Astros could get Brett Wallace for him. Gose is potentially a premium defender and elite base-stealer, something the Toronto system simply didn't have in a center field prospect. I wouldn't be surprised if Gose was Toronto's center fielder at some point soon, with Vernon Wells' inevitable move to a corner outfield spot coming to fruition.

But Wallace is far closer to contributing in the majors, and seems far more likely to be a solid regular given his hitting ability and on-base skills. Frankly, if you look at this deal as Oswalt and $11M for Brett Wallace, J.A. Happ and Jonathan Villar, that looks like a pretty impressive move by Houston when the D-Backs are taking the Saunders/Skaggs special for their ace. And while I've loved pretty much every move that Toronto GM Alex Anthopoulos has made so far, this doesn't appear to be a great move by the Jays.

I said a deal seemed likely, and it appears I was right... that's pretty cool, I guess. FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal reports that the Marlins have agreed to trade Jorge Cantu to the Rangers in exchange for Double-A right-handers Omar Poveda and Evan Reed. Presumably the Marlins are paying most of Cantu's salary. (MLBTR link)

We've talked about Cantu a lot the past couple days. He's an okay bat that's flashed good power before but not this season, and without that power he's not a particularly valuable hitter given his lack of patience. Factor in his poor defense at third base, and I would have to guess that Florida's mostly happy with their return.

Reed is a 24-year-old reliever who put up a 1.62 ERA in 39 innings at Double-A before getting the call to Triple-A. His 2.68 FIP is equally as impressive, although he hasn't given up a home run yet which isn't remotely sustainable even with a 48% groundball rate. He wasn't considered much a prospect coming into the season, although his performance has been strong as a reliever so far.

Poveda is currently on the DL recovering from Tommy John surgery, but he projected as a solid back-end innings-eater before that. He's still only 22 and the track record for TJS is pretty good now though, so if he his stuff can miss enough bats at the next level presumably he'll be a useful piece for Florida.

It's a pretty solid return for Florida.

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BtB Power Rankings: Week 17 -- The one where I changed a bunch of stuff

by JinAZ on Jul 29, 2010 1:05 PM EDT in Power Rankings Comment 4 comments

This week's rankings feature a number of improvements under the hood. More on that below...but if you just want to see the rankings, here they are!

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MLB Strength of Schedule Estimates through 27 July

by JinAZ on Jul 28, 2010 11:22 PM EDT in Stat-Colored Glasses Comment 13 comments

Jonathan Daniel - Getty Images

Sorry Lou--your team has had the weakest schedule in baseball. And you're still 46-56.

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One of the things I've long planned to include in the power rankings is a strength of schedule adjustment. There's a big difference between playing in the AL East than...well...any other division. Baltimore may not be a good team, but they probably look worse than they are because they play so many games against elite teams like the Yankees, Rays, and Red Sox.

Well, I finally have it going, and thought I'd give a preview of it here before posting the power rankings tomorrow.

First, the methods. You can skip this and click "more" below if you just want to see the results!

The approach is pretty straightforward. First, I calculate the weighted average component winning percentage of each team's opponents. This is basically the strength of schedule adjustment. Face more tough teams, you'll have a higher opponent component winning percentage. We can then use the log5 method (solving for W%(A)) to apply this adjustment to a team's raw component winning percentage and calculate an adjusted component winning percentage. This adjusted component winning percentage should be a better estimate of a team's true performance, because it accounts for the fact that some teams have faced tougher competition than others.

There's one additional wrinkle. As @cwyers pointed out to me on twitter, it is then possible--and desirable--to use this adjusted component winning percentage to re-calculate strength of schedule adjustments. That way, your strength of schedule measures are based on a better measure of team performance than raw component winning percentages. And, of course, once you get this new strength of schedule adjustment, you would want to generate new adjusted component winning percentages for teams...and you can repeat this cycle indefinitely. I'm finding that after three iterations, you don't get much change, so that's what I'm doing.

...Ok, one last thing. It is the case that a given team has a say in the performance of his opponents, though this effect on any one team should be small in most cases. Nevertheless, because I'm pulling data from baseball-reference team schedule tables, I don't have the ability to account for this game by game. So I opted to "regress" 10% back toward 0.500, reasoning that few teams have accounted for more than 10% of another's games played, and thus shouldn't drive more than 10% of the strength of schedule adjustment. It's an imperfect solution to this problem, but it's the best I can do.

Make sense? That's the methodology. And now, at long last, here are strength of schedule (SoS) adjustments through 27 July--these are essentially measures of opponent winning percentage, as measured by the methods used in the power rankings:

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Best Hitting Pitchers of All Time, by WAR

by adarowski on Jul 28, 2010 6:00 PM EDT Comment 11 comments

More photos » Darren Hauck - AP

Yovani Gallardo is making a name for himself as one of the best hitting pitchers in the game.

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I couldn't help but notice that Yovani Gallardo's WAR (Rally WAR from Baseball-Reference) is already at 0.7 this season. In 44 plate appearances. Yikes. Were that sustainable over 600 PA, we're talking a 9.5 WAR season. Gallardo already has 1.4 career WAR at the plate in 161 PA (that comes out to 5.2 WAR per 600 PA). Small sample, but impressive nonetheless.

That got me wondering who the top pitchers of all time were in terms of offensive WAR (it's technically "Position Player WAR", but Total Zone data doesn't exist for pitchers). Now that Baseball-Reference and it's wonderful Play Index has Rally's WAR, this type of search is possible. Here are the Top 20:

Rk	Player	WAR	PA	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
1	Red Ruffing	13.7	2083	882	1937	207	521	98	13	36	273	97	266	.269	.306	.389	.695
2	Walter Johnson	12.1	2517	934	2324	241	547	94	41	24	255	110	251	.235	.274	.342	.616
3	Wes Ferrell	12.0	1345	548	1176	175	329	57	12	38	208	129	185	.280	.351	.446	.797
4	George Mullin	11.7	1685	615	1531	163	401	70	23	3	137	122	21	.262	.319	.344	.663
5	George Uhle	11.3	1498	722	1360	172	393	60	21	9	187	98	112	.289	.339	.384	.722
6	Don Newcombe	9.0	988	452	878	94	238	33	3	15	108	87	147	.271	.338	.367	.705
7	Bob Lemon	8.6	1330	615	1183	148	274	54	9	37	147	93	241	.232	.288	.386	.674
8	Schoolboy Rowe	8.2	1022	491	909	116	239	36	9	18	153	86	157	.263	.328	.382	.710
9	Carl Mays	8.0	1199	502	1085	113	291	32	21	5	110	66	116	.268	.313	.350	.663
10	Mike Hampton	7.3	845	438	725	97	178	22	5	16	79	47	195	.246	.294	.356	.650
11	Doc Crandall	6.6	1033	500	887	109	253	35	19	9	126	118	94	.285	.372	.398	.770
12	Earl Wilson	6.4	838	405	740	95	144	12	6	35	111	67	271	.195	.265	.369	.634
13	Bucky Walters	6.3	2149	715	1966	227	477	99	16	23	234	114	303	.243	.286	.344	.630
14	Early Wynn	6.3	1903	796	1704	136	365	59	5	17	173	141	330	.214	.274	.285	.559
15	Bob Gibson	6.2	1489	596	1328	132	274	44	5	24	144	63	415	.206	.243	.301	.545
16	Jim Tobin	5.7	884	396	796	81	183	35	3	17	102	80	162	.230	.303	.345	.648
17	Burleigh Grimes	5.6	1685	632	1535	157	380	62	11	2	168	69	241	.248	.282	.306	.588
18	Gary Peters	5.3	875	450	807	86	179	31	7	19	102	29	172	.222	.253	.348	.601
19	Doc White	5.2	1516	548	1283	147	278	22	13	2	75	147	1	.217	.298	.259	.556
20	Reb Russell	5.1	1062	422	976	141	262	48	25	22	172	42	130	.268	.309	.436	.745

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 7/28/2010.

Red Ruffing is already in the Hall of Fame for his 53.6 WAR on the mound. But he was worth an additional 13.7 wins at the plate! How about Walter Johnson? His 127.7 WAR as a pitcher get a boost from his 12.1 wins at the plate. Interesting to see Mike Hampton crack the Top 10 with 7.3 WAR in 845 PA (or 5.2 WAR per 600 PA).

Where does Gallardo rank all time? He's already moving into the Top 150 hitting pitchers ever. And he's got a long way to go.

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Who was similar to Dennis Eckersley?

by adarowski on Jul 28, 2010 3:00 PM EDT Comment 1 comment

You've probably figured out by now that one of my favorite sabermetric research topics involves trying to figure out the value of relief pitchers. Every time I write a post or make any kind of list, I always end up casting Dennis Eckersley aside. He's just so different compared with other Hall of Fame relievers. He was inducted because of his work as a reliever, though he provided a lot more value (by WAR) as a starter. Neither one of his "careers" is truly Hall-worthy by itself, but if you combine them, you've got yourself a Hall of Famer.

So, now I'm wondering… who exactly was like Dennis Eckersley? Anybody?

I built a list of pitchers below who started between 20% and 50% of their career games, pitched in over 2000 innings, and accumulated at least 25 WAR. It's not a terribly long list:

Name	Innings	Games	Starts	WAR	WAR/200 IP	GS%	ERA+	W	SV
Dennis Eckersley	3285.6	1071	361	58.7	3.57	0.34	116	197	390
Wilbur Wood	2684.0	651	297	45.0	3.35	0.46	114	164	57
Eddie Rommel	2556.4	500	249	42.1	3.29	0.50	122	171	29
Tom Gordon	2108.2	890	203	34.4	3.26	0.23	113	138	158
Firpo Marberry	2067.2	551	187	29.4	2.84	0.34	117	148	101
Ken Forsch	2127.1	521	241	27.8	2.61	0.46	106	114	51
Greg Swindell	2233.4	664	269	27.4	2.45	0.41	107	123	7
Ron Reed	2477.6	751	236	27.3	2.20	0.31	108	146	103
Syl Johnson	2165.8	542	210	26.3	2.43	0.39	104	112	43

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Major Rumor Quick Reactions 7/28

by Satchel Price on Jul 28, 2010 1:15 PM EDT Comment 1 comment

Is anyone else starting to get antsy? We still haven't seen another trade since Arizona and LA agreed to the Dan Haren deal. In fact, more than anything, it seems like we've been seeing major trade candidates fall by the wayside.

You got the Tigers and Rangers losing interest in Mike Lowell. You got the Rangers telling other teams that they can no longer take on any payroll this season. You got the Marlins trying to sign Dan Uggla and Ricky Nolasco long-term, rather than try to trade them. You got the Chris Coghlan injury seriously impacting the likeliness of a Cody Ross trade.

But there were a few good rumors last night that I didn't get to touch on, so let's get started and hopefully there are some interesting developments today.

George A. King III of the New York Post is reporting that the Blue Jays asked for set-up Joba Chamberlain from the Yankees, and either Jose Iglesias or Casey Kelly from the Red Sox, in exchange for left-handed reliever Scott Downs. In a separate tweet, Jon Heyman of SI reported that Toronto asked the Yankees for top prospect Jesus Montero. Downs is a free agent after this season, so that's a huge asking price for two months of a relief pitcher. (MLBTR link)

That's an absolutely monster asking price, and one that no team should meet. Downs is a very, very good reliever; one of the best lefties around.

But we're talking about two months of a relief pitcher, which has extremely limited value no matter how you slice it. I know that we're talking about intra-divisional trades here, but this price seems to be exorbitant for that kind of asset. Chamberlain is already a fantastic reliever that's under team control through 2013, and Montero, Iglesias and Kelly are all regarded as very good-to-great prospects depending on who you talk to.

I love what Toronto GM Alex Anthopoulos has been doing, but I don't think we're going to see Downs in Boston or New York this year with that kind of asking price.

The Dodgers are apparently making a strong push to trade for Scott Podsednik. Jayson Stark of ESPN reported that the Dodgers are getting closer to a Podsednik deal, while Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports reported that LA is talking to the Royals about Podsednik but is also considering another option to shore up their outfield situation. Rosenthal also mentioned a source who said that the Giants are still in it, though. This comes after yesterday's talk about some NL West teams having interest in Podsednik, which I touched on. (MLBTR link)

Podsednik wouldn't be a bad addition for the Dodgers. The Dodgers currently have Manny Ramirez on his third DL stint of the season, and his primary back-up, Reed Johnson, is on the DL as well. Xavier Paul has struggled in his chances so far this season and Garret Anderson has proven to be all but done in the majors at age 38.

Podsednik isn't anything special, as I said yesterday, but he wouldn't be an awful stopgap in left field for a team that needs some help. He's cheap and he's pretty solid.

Oh, and he hit a walk-off home run in the World Series, too!

According to ESPN's Buster Olney, the Chicago Cubs have been telling teams that Carlos Zambrano is available. Once considered the team's ace, Zambrano has spent the past month or so on the restricted list after a dugout tirade in June. The commitment on Big Z is huge: about $6.8M left for 2010, $17.9M for 2011, $18M for 2012 and a vesting option at $19.25M for 2013. (MLBTR link)

Zambrano may be available, but I doubt he's moving this summer. He's still capable of being a high-quality starter given his durability, solid GB rates, and ability to miss bats, but the past couple years his volatile personality has often gotten in the way of his immense talent.

As recently as last season Zambrano put up 3.6 WAR in only 169 innings, so he can clearly still help a team. The problem is that he's paid to be so much more than merely a good starter, as he's one of the highest-paid players in baseball. I fully believe that the Cubs should find interest in Zambrano if they're willing to eat salary; there are enough reasons to believe that Zambrano can thrive once again that for some teams it's likely worth some kind of risk in terms of money and prospects.

The Cubs will likely have to eat a lot of money, but at same time this guy's value hasn't fallen so far that he'd be worth releasing or anything. My guess is that he doesn't get dealt until the winter, when Chicago can get more bidders involved and get a better grasp on the situation. But as a Chicagoan, there's a small part of me that's worried that the Cubs will trade him and then he'll slide off like three straight 4+ win seasons.

After rumblings came out, including a report by FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal, talking about the Rockies as sellers, Joel Sherman of the New York Post has reported that the Rockies are "quietly shopping" starter Aaron Cook. Colorado is apparently willing to include money in the deal to make it work. If he's traded, Cook will be owed about $3.75M for this season along with $10.75M for 2011, and there's a $10.5M mutual option for 2012. He receives $125K bonuses in each year that he pitches 200+ innings. (MLBTR link)

When Cook signed his three-year, $30M extension with Colorado before the 2009 season, he had emerged as one of the best sinkerballers around. Armed with durability, low walk rates and high groundball rates, Cook put up 11.5 WAR from 2006 to 2008 despite some of the worst strikeout numbers for any starter in baseball.

But in the past two seasons, Cook's seen his velocity decline and his walk rate increase, making him a far less effective pitcher. With the emergence of right-hander Jhoulys Chacin in the rotation, Colorado clearly would like to make room while possibly saving some money and adding some talent. Chacin is currently in the minors as the team's Opening Day rotation is finally intact, but at this point it's become pretty clear that he's one of their five best starting pitchers.

Cook probably isn't worth what he's owed, but he could end up being a bargain depending on how much of the contract Colorado is willing to eat. Maybe Cook could be a good fit for the Phillies; his groundball tendencies would fit into their ballpark well. And while Colorado is pretty far away from a playoff spot, they could still trade Cook without hurting the team all that much.

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This Week In The AL West

by philkid3 on Jul 28, 2010 12:00 PM EDT in Best of Sabermetrics Comment 1 comment

More photos » Alex Gallardo - AP

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Greetings!

What I have here for you are some of the best links referring to the AL West from across the internet landscape, with the interests of a Beyond the Boxscore reader in mind.

The division is winding down at a remarkable rate, with the Rangers up 8.5 going in to this posting, and there's a new second place team for the first time in weeks. It's not over yet, though, so I have to ask: do you think the Dan Haren trade is enough to make a difference, or do you think the Athletics have what it takes to make this a race again?

Texas Rangers (59-41)

Baseball Time In Arlington: Profiling (And Appreciating) Cliff Lee

Joey Matschulat has an exhaustive Pitchf/x analysis of Cliff Lee's start last week against the Angels. We'll see if he has a follow up for Lee's 9 IP, 0 ER, 0 BB, 13 K performance against the A's from last night.

FanGraphs: Josh Hamilton's Hitting Breakout

Matthew Carruth briefly discusses the incredible season being put up by Josh Hamilton. While he doesn't think the huge batting average will continue, he does find evidence of an increase in power.

FanGraphs: Sizing Up Mark Cuban; Potential Owner Of The Rangers

The controversial sale of the Texas Rangers is close to reaching its next, confusing stage, and Mark Cuban has thrown his hat in the ring. The excellent Maury Brown makes his FanGraphs debut looking at what Cuban brings.

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