Fans Scouting Report

Tom Tango's been running his Fans Scouting Report for the last few years and he's got the balloting open again. Hopefully every blogger links to it, as it's a great wait to supplement the UZR defensive data that's cited daily around the blogosphere.

Before you vote, please keep this in mind:

Try to judge 'average' not as an average player at that position, but an average player at any position. If you think that Willie Bloomquist has an average arm, then mark him as average, regardless if you've seen him play 2B, SS, 3B, LF, or CF.

DO NOT CONSIDER THE POSITION THE PLAYER PLAYS!
DO NOT CONSIDER THE POSITION THE PLAYER PLAYS!
DO NOT CONSIDER THE POSITION THE PLAYER PLAYS!

Go vote on the Tigers (or whatever team you watch the most) now!

Jarrod Washburn vs. Lucas French

So, I stood alone on the Jarrod Washburn acquisition at the trade deadline. I felt it was a latteral move at best, and I understand the whole "veteran presence" and not having a rookie's innings limits like French will have. Being very stats-based, I'm prepared to go against the grain on certain moves (like the Aubrey Huff deal, as well...). So, let's revisit it.

First off, it's pretty premature to make any comparisons. Both Lucas French and Jarrod Washburn have thrown minimal innings (22.1 for French, 25.1 for Washburn) for their new clubs, but it's worth a look.

First, the traditional surface numbers:

Jarrod Washburn:

6.04 ERA, 25.1 IP, 13 K, 6 BB, 24 H, 8 HR allowed (though 4 came in one game).

Luke French:

4.43 ERA, 22.1 IP, 15 K, 13 BB, 27 H, 3 HR allowed.

Traditional numbers are a mix. French leads in ERA, but drags behind in the K:BB ratio.

Let's move onto Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP).

Washburn:

7.21 FIP.

French:

5.33 FIP.

FIP looks at just strikeouts, walks, home runs allowed. It divides it by innings pitch and adds around a 3.2 qualifier to put it on the ERA scale. French wins this as well, mainly because of the homer's allowed. Washburn hasn't been overly good, but his 8 homers kill his FIP and that's largely due to 25% of each fly ball he's given up going for a homer thus far. That's nearly double league average.

Let's look at xFIP (from the same source as above).

Washburn:

5.17

French:

5.86

Washburn wins this because xFIP regresses the home runs allowed by a pitcher back to the league average. Luke French gets hurt here because of the walks he's allowed while not striking out a substantial amount.

However, my favorite pitching metric is currently tRA. It is essentially a better FIP number that simulates defense-independent ERA simulators. It is based on each batted ball type a pitcher gives up. If he's getting hit hard with a ton of fly balls and line drives (the two more damaging of the FB/LD/Ground Ball batted ball types), his tRA will be higher. tRA* is the regressed version of tRA and would be what xFIP is to FIP. We'll look at tRA* since regressing is better than not regressing.

Washburn:

5.01

French:

5.08

Here, it's pretty much a dead heat. To get tERA, you must divide by .92 since 92% of all runs are earned. When we do that, Washburn's tERA is 5.45 while French's is 5.52 -- again, virtual no separation. Before the trade, the tERA's for both Washburn and French were 5.86 for Washburn and 5.49 for French.

Commenter Scott pointed out that you multiply by .92 -- I don't know what i was thinking when I wrote this. So, their tERA's are 4.61 for Washburn and 4.67 for French.

StatCorner also has Wins Above Replacements, as well. Since Washburn's come over, based on a WAR sample that uses tRA, he's provided -0.3 wins above what a replacement pitcher would bring to the Tigers in the same number of innings. French has given the Mariners -0.2 wins above what a replacement level pitcher would provide given the same number of innings.

Essentially, the two have been nearly identical once you account for Washburn's bad luck with the home run ball this year.

So, then, what is the difference between the two?

Around $3.3 million dollars in salary. I'm sure you know which one is getting paid more. My opinion on the deal hasn't changed, thus far. Here's to hoping I'm proven wrong, though.

One Way to Brighten a Day

I don't plan on doing this for every email that gets sent my way, but the chance to write for Beyond the Boxscore and a prospect site like Project Prospect does give this little ol' blog some exposure. I guess I should've addressed the name of it in a side bar, but I didn't, and I won't. I feel the content speaks for itself.

But, it's good to know that I'm officially a blogger of some sort on some level. As evidenced by this coherent and wonderfully thought-provoking email I got last night from a Mr. Don Draper:


I just wanted to document the first hate-email I've received since starting this blog. The smile it brought to my face when I first read it on my phone last night was definitely worth it.

Where ever you are, Mr. Don Draper, and whatever your real name is, I appreciated the email. Thanks, a bunch!

P.S. Kudos on the Mad Men reference, as well.

Re-evaluating Aubrey Huff

I just penned a piece over at Beyond the Boxscore about the Huff deal. After sleeping on it, I'm far less enthused about this deal. Given the lack of positions for him to play, and the likelyhood that he won't be a major upgrade (or an upgrade at all), I feel it was a move to just make a move. I find it unlikely to make a major impact on the club.

Here's to hoping I'm wrong and he goes on a massive rampage offensively for Detroit!

A Look Back at Rob Deer

Here's a nice look back at Rob Deer and that era of baseball over at American Polymath -- a monthly online magazine. I found it a good, quick read that hopefully has interest among other Tigers fans.

I'm only 23, so guys hitting 30 homers are common place to me. So, for someone like Rob Deer to hit 21 home runs in 8 straight seasons, and have it be quite the accomplishment is something that I can't get my head around. In fact, he finished top ten in the league in homers in 1986, 1989, 1990 and 1992 and in those years he hit 'just' 33, 26, 27 and 32 long balls.

In other baseball history stuff, I came across this link thanks to Syshter ball. It's a link to some newspaper clippings about Josh Gibson who was dubbed The Basher for his prodigious power. I find the Negro Leagues and Gibson endlessly fascinating. Apparently the Negro Leagues statistics used in the Baseball Hall of Fame will be released sometime next summer, which, of course, will be fantastic.

Aubrey Huff's Value (Easy Math Ahead)

We got our left-handed bat that everyone clamored for at the trade deadline, it just took a couple of weeks. It comes in the form of lefty-slugger Aubrey Huff from the Baltimore Orioles.

But, what should we expect?

Well, the ZiPS projections for the remainder of the 2009 season has him projected for a slash line of .265/.331/.439 which would be a wOBA of .334. The league average wOBA is currently sitting at .329. If we give Huff 4 plate appearances per game, he'll have about 180 PA's to do some damage. If you convert the wOBA's into runs, you get roughly 0.78 runs above the average hitter. Let's be generous and say he goes on a big tear and outplays his projection, we'll call him a +1 run above average hitter the rest of the way.

Defensively, Huff's only been a first baseman in 2009. In fact, since 2007, he's only played 48 games at the hot corner, so if he takes over for the hurting/slumping Brandon Inge, it's a gamble. However, eyeballing the numbers, he looks to be an average defender at both 1st base and 3rd base. So, we'll just go with average, or 0 runs saved/allowed defensively.

Positionally, let's just give him the biggest boost we can and say Inge can't play 3rd the rest of the way. This is how Huff would reach his peak value, so we'll roll with it. Positional adjustment over the course of 162 games for a 3rd baseman is +2.5 runs. Pro-rated to 45 games, that's 0.69 runs in his favor.

Add this up: 1 for batting, 0 for defense, 0.69 for position and we get a grand total of 1.69 runs above average. To get to replacement level, we're looking at around another 5.5 run bonus in Huff's favor, that makes him 7.19 runs above replacement -- call it 7.25 for ease. To get wins, you divide by 10 (actually 10.5, but 10 is just cleaner) and you then get 0.725 wins.

Aubrey Huff, if he plays an average 3rd base, out-performs his projections for the rest of the season at the plate would bring around 0.75 wins. Three-quarters of a win. That is $3.6 million in on-field value. He'll make about $2 million the rest of the way, which means he's got $1.6 million surplus value to the Tigers.

But, that's not where his entire value lies. He'll be a Type-A free agent this winter. Dave Dombrowski is notorious for not going to arbitration, so I'm not sure if he'll get offered arbitration or what. We'll say he does and he turns it down and Detroit picks up two draft picks in return. Victor Wang's done research that says that's around $5 million in total value.

$1.6 million in on-field surplus value + $5 million in off-field surplus value = $6.6 million total surplus value.

But, the Tigers traded away Brett Jacobson. John Sickels rated him a B- pitcher, but we'll call him a B for this example. That is worth $5.5 million. But, Jacobson's one of the 84 college relievers Detroit took in the 2008 draft, and that lowers his worth. Lets cut that in half since relievers grow on trees. So, he's got a value of $2.75 million, now.

$6.6 million in total Aubrey Huff value - $2.75 million in Brett Jacobson value = $3.85 million in total surplus value in the Detroit Tigers favor.

Now, that 0.75 Wins Above Replacement figure is an absolute peak value for Huff -- full time 3rd baseman, average defensively. He's probably more in the 0.25 to 0.5 WAR range. If he were...

0.25 WAR, that'd lower his value to $4.3 surplus value; the total deal to $1.55 million in surplus value in Detroit's favor.

0.5 WAR, that'd lower his value to $5.5 surplus value; the total deal to $2.75 million in surplus value in Detroit's favor.

So, any way you slice it, Detroit wins the trade and marginally help themselves towards winninga a division title. Any little bit helps, though I agree with Kurt when he says:

He brings a veteran bat and should immediately make the club better. Not by leaps and bounds mind you, but better none-the-less.

We're not leaps and bounds better, but we are better.

Edit: Forgot to mention that I like that we didn't give up my favorite of the college reliever 2008 draftee's: Robbie Weinhardt. I thought he was better than Ryan Perry coming out of college.

Is it Time To Move Polanco Down in the Lineup?

It's no question that Placido Polanco's struggled with the bat this year. Judging from his advanced numbers, it's a bit luck (low batting average on balls in play [BABIP]), but part of the low BABIP is due to hitting about 3% more fly balls than normal.

But, that aside, is it time to move him down in the order? He's at -5.7 Weighted Runs Above Average this year at the dish. Polanco's value with the bat is tied in his abilities to hit .320 or better because he doesn't walk much (just 5.4% of his plate appearances) but he also doesn't strikeout much (7.1% of all PA's). He also doesn't hit for power (.112 Isolated Power), so he's a guy who needs to hit for a high average to allow the few walks he does take to bump his on-base percentage into a reasonable state.

This year, he's hitting just .263 entering play this afternoon and that leaves his OBP at a measily .317. His normally higher average also bolster's his slugging percentage over the .400 mark normally, but due to his bad average, he's fledgling at .390.

The way I'm going to analyze the lineup is through David Pinto's Lineup Analysis tool over at Baseball Musings. The most used lineup for the Tigers in 2009 has been:

Granderson
Polanco
Ordonez
Cabrera
Guillen
Laird
Inge
Raburn
Everett

The Birchman brought this up in the comments, and proposed the following lineup:

Clete
Guillen
Cabrera
Granderson
Thames
Inge
Polanco
Laird
Everett

Now, I don't like Guillen in the 2 spot. He's struggled at the dish this year, so I'd put Inge (yes, even with his struggles) in the 2 spot.

How do these lineups stack up against each other and what would be the optimal lineup with both sets of personnel? Glad that you asked...

The most common lineup for Detroit would average 4.652 runs per game. Coming into this afternoon's tilt with the Baltimore Orioles, the Tigers had scored 488 runs in 106 games, for an average of 4.604.

If you extrapolate their actual rate of runs scored, you get 746 runs per 162 games. If you use the most common lineup would score about 754 runs over the course of a season -- remember, this doesn't count days off for guys or account for injuries, so that's the reason for the discrepancy. The Tigers have just 55 games left after today's series finale, which would mean if they used their most common lineup every game for the rest of the year, they would score around 256 more runs this year.

Now, if they employed the proposed lineup, they would average 4.792 runs per game. Extrapolate that over an entire season (a.k.a. everyone in that line up play 162 games, which isn't reasonable), you get 776 runs scored -- some 30 run improvement (or, about 3 wins worth). Now, just for simplicity's sake, the most common lineup averages 4.652 but the Tigers have averaged 4.604 which is a difference of 0.048 runs between the two for injuries and resting players. So, let's take that off of this lineup's projection and you now get 4.744. That comes out to 769 runs -- so just about 7 runs slashed from the 162 game average. Over the next 55 games, your'e looking at 261 runs scored which is just about 5 runs (half a win's worth) over the most common lineup.

But, that begs the question, what would be the best lineup?

Well, for the most common lineup Detroit's used this year, it'd be:

Cabrera
Inge
Ordonez
Polanco
Granderson
Raburn
Everett
Guillen
Laird

That batting order would score 4.814 runs per game and 780 runs -- a 4 run improvement over our proposed (and better) lineup. But, subtract the 0.048 for reserves/injuries and the best lineup using these nine would be 4.766 runs or 772 per 162 and 262 the rest of the way.

Using the proposed batting lineup, the most optimal one would be:

Cabrera
Inge
Laird
Thames
Clete
Granderson
Polanco
Everett
Guillen

And that lineup would produce 4.888 runs per game (792 per 162 games). Over a 55 game span the rest of the way, that lineup would produce 269 runs. Subtract 0.048 runs per game, though, for reserves/injuries over 162 games and that becomes 4.84 R/G which is 784 runs in 162 games and 266 runs the rest of the way.

For what it's worth, the most common lineup, if rearrange to score the fewest runs possible, would include this order:

Everett
Laird
Granderson
Guillen
Raburn
Ordonez
Inge
Cabrera
Polanco

And they would average just 4.369 runs per game (708 per 162/240 rest of the way).

And for the proposed lineup, the worst order would be:

Everett
Laird
Granderson
Guillen
Polanco
Clete
Inge
Cabrera
Thames

And that lineup would score 4.442 R/G (720 per 162/244 the rest of the way).

The results aren't that dramatic for the most common and the proposed lineup's (about 4 runs), but any little bit helps in such a close division race.

Tigers Find Answer to Offensive Woes

And it comes in the form of Alex Avila.

Wait, what? A Double-A catcher who has become the teams best prospect and is just about 13 months removed from being drafted is getting the call to the show? Apparently. Billfer, Ian, and Kurt all have their reactions (and I'm sure Lee and Matt will chime in soon, too) posted, and I encourage you to read them since I'm going to echo all of their sentiments.

Like Ian said, this smacks of 2007 and Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller getting rushed to the show. Like Bill said, Avila's struggled in the last 28 days posting a .191/.280/.393 line. His Major League Equivalency, according to Minor League Splits, for the entire season is .204/.280/.333. Is that really an improvement over Dusty Ryan's .160/.276/.200 given that he's getting one plate appearance for every 11 that Gerald Laird gets.

I get that he's left-handed and we could use a left-handed bat. I get that apparently Dusty Ryan isn't a favorite of Jim Leyland's (shown by his playing time) and whether that's due to him being a right-handed hitter or not is anyone's guess (has he ever addressed it?), but this move doesn't make sense anyway you slice it. Not to me, and apparently, not to the rest of the Tigers blogosphere that have chimed in thus far.

Reasons why this is bad:

-He'll accrue service time that he otherwise wouldn't have. And that's precious, no matter how little it is until the rosters expand.

-He now must stay on the 40 man roster this winter when he didn't need to be on it in the first place. This gives us less flexibility in the offseason.

-Dusty Ryan gets jettisoned for no reason whatsoever, despite posting a total line of .261/.342/.391 -- a line remarkably similar to a catcher we traded for in the offseason. Oh, and he's just 24 years old, still.

It's not that Avila's an awful player -- he's got an above average bat for the position, has a great arm and quick release as his Double-A caught-stealing numbers are fantastic (last check, over 50% gunned down), and he's only getting better in his time behind the dish. But, he was a 3rd baseman deep into his career at the University of Alabama and, thus, is still raw behind the plate. If someone like Dusty Ryan who's come up through the minors as a catcher, posted an acceptable line for a catcher, and isn't even 25 until September 2nd can't stick in the back-up role, then why should Avila be any different?

This just brings immense flashbacks of a certain outfield prospect getting rushed to the bigs and then disappointing. I don't expect much of anything from Avila in the majors.

Since he's coming up, he better be getting 2 starts every 5 games to both spell Laird and get enough use to warrant starting his service time clock and putting him on the 40-man roster.

I'm Not One For Self Promotion But...

...But look at me! I'm writing for Beyond the Boxscore now. Truly puzzled at how it came to be and entirely thrilled at the opportunity. My first article was a look at the Jake Peavy trade on deadline day. Go scope it out, if you would.

Rick Porcello's Start Through PITCHf/x

Rick Porcello didn't get the win after being rightfully taken out for Fernando Rodney (yes, I do back the move Jim Leyland made), but he had a great start. First, the numbers:

8 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, 91 pitches (67 strikes), 15 groundouts, 6 flyouts.

Porcello was dominant tonight and kept the ball on the ground when he didn't record a strikeout. Now, because I love graphs and am trying to learn the best routes to graph the things I want to look at (a.k.a. would like to be a Harry Pavlidis clone!), I've got an abundance of graphs.

First up, his selection of pitches to both right-handers and left-handers tonight. Click all images to enlarge:

I'm hoping I split up his fastballs correctly (I think I'm close, but I'm not entirely sure). Splitting two and four-seamers apart seems to be tricky. Same with curveball's and sliders -- Porcello's seemed to be identical so I lumped them in together as sliders, but don't take that moniker for 100% accuracy.

Anyways, you can see he abandoned the slider to LH hitters, although PITCHf/x only recorded 86 of his 91 pitches tonight. He did the same with RH hitters, but swapped out the slider for abolishing his change-up.

Now, his release points total:

I wish I'd gone with a different dot set and not this 2-D one (Harry's 3-D dot sets are much more clear). Live and learn. It's late and I'm tired and don't want to go back and change it. I've noticed it in the various times I've privately looked at his PITCHf/x data, but Rick Porcello releases his breaking ball a touch higher than his other pitches.

The strikezone plot really shows how much he pounded the zone tonight:

When he missed, he missed above or below the zone. I count 5 or 6 pitches being off the edge but between the chest and the knees. He really, really attacked the zone with all of his pitches, tonight.

And finally, the flight paths graph:

I know it's sometimes tough to read/comprehend when there's more than 3 or so pitch flights, but I included them all. But, his four-seamer (FF; blue line) was pretty straight tonight, and you can see the sink and arm-side run on the two-seamer (FT; orange line) that makes it such an effective pitch for Rick. His change-up (CH; white/yellow-ish line) mirrored his two-seamer almost identically. There's a gap of about 9 MPH between the two and giving a glance back to the release point chart shows just how tough his change-up is to recognize. Same release point + same flight path + 9 MPH difference between the two = great, great pitch. I think his change-up would grade out as a plus pitch on the scouting scale. Then again, I'm just a kid who's pretending to be a PITCHf/x guru, let alone know a lot about scouting. And the slider/curveball/breaking ball (SL; red line) has a bit of sweeping action but great downward movement.

All in all, this will be what Rick Porcello provides at the major league level at his best. I feel the strike outs will come with more regularity later in his career, but the Josh Beckett comp Scott Boras and the media was throwing out before the 2007 draft is completely false. He's a ground ball machine with above-average to plus ratings on his 2-seam, change-up and breaking ball and he can dial it up when he wants to the middle-90's. He's very much apart of the new hybrid of guys like a Roy Halladay or Brandon Webb that get gobs of ground balls and incorporate enough strikeouts to be a legitimate good K pitcher.

In short: Roy Halladay/Brandon Webb at his best, Derek Lowe at his worst. Yeah, I said it. Lofty expectations.