Messing With Park Factors

Last night, for reasons I still don't know, my mind wandered while driving home from a friend's apartment towards baseball and park factors. I've always wondered why we only use a players home park as the park factor by which to adjust his offensive or pitching performance. After all, baseball teams spend half of their season on the road so it would stand to reason that one would look at both a home and road park factor, no?

In the absence of actually sleeping, I decided to goof around in Excel for a bit, as I'm known to do. I took the 2B/3B and HR park factors from StatCorner, and decided to perform a lazy-man's park adjustment to Miguel Cabrera's 2013 season. I should note that I used only park factors for right-handed hitters as Cabrera is a right-handed hitter so there's no need for me to worry about how Miami's Taxpayers Dicked Over stadium treats LHB's.

Tigers Sign Prince Fielder

The Tigers have filled the void of Victor Martinez by signing Prince Fielder to a huge 9-year, $214 million deal.

I'm not going to fully defend the deal. It is an over payment. You cannot get around that. Will this deal be an albatross at some point in the future? Possibly. Will he be an over paid, under-skilled baseball player for the latter half of the deal? Probably. Show me a deal this large where the player isn't over paid and under-skilled in the latter stages of said deal and I'll be impressed because those types of players just don't exist.

Even Albert Pujols -- a clear superior player than Prince Fielder -- will be over paid. Remember when Alex Rodriguez was a lock for the all-time home run title? $31 million for 15.5 runs above average offensively from the Future Home Run Champion isn't exactly an Evan Longoria-like deal.

My point is that free agents that are held in high regard are often over paid because they don't hit free agency with many prime seasons left in them.

So what are the Tigers getting from Prince Fielder for the next nine seasons?

Net Strikeout Rates

Strikeout-to-walk differential is something Tom Tango has written a couple times about as a nice -- and better -- alternative to strikeout-to-walk ratio. I'm going to call it Net Strikeouts or Net K's for simplicities sake. Essentially, you take a pitcher strikeouts and subtract out unintentional walks and hit-by-pitches from the total. I thought this would be a fun list to make for this year and I don't think this would really fit in any other site I'd post at, so I'm going to dump it here.

First,  a list of the starting pitchers with the most Net K's in the major leagues as of Wednesday.

Rk	Name	Team	Lg	Role	Net K's
1	Justin Verlander	Tigers	AL	SP	167
2	Roy Halladay	Phillies	NL	SP	164
3	Clayton Kershaw	Dodgers	NL	SP	162
4	Cliff Lee	Phillies	NL	SP	148
5	CC Sabathia	Yankees	AL	SP	148
6	James Shields	Rays	AL	SP	137
7	David Price	Rays	AL	SP	131
8	Dan Haren	Angels	AL	SP	128
9	Felix Hernandez	Mariners	AL	SP	127
10	Cole Hamels	Phillies	NL	SP	125
11	Jered Weaver	Angels	AL	SP	119
12	Tim Lincecum	Giants	NL	SP	119
13	Anibal Sanchez	Marlins	NL	SP	118
14	Matt Garza	Cubs	NL	SP	112
15	Madison Bumgarner	Giants	NL	SP	107
16	Yovani Gallardo	Brewers	NL	SP	106
17	Chris Carpenter	Cardinals	NL	SP	106
18	Matt Cain	Giants	NL	SP	104
19	Brandon Morrow	Blue Jays	AL	SP	103
20	Ian Kennedy	Diamondbacks	NL	SP	103
21	Michael Pineda	Mariners	AL	SP	102
22	Ervin Santana	Angels	AL	SP	100
23	Bud Norris	Astros	NL	SP	99
24	Daniel Hudson	Diamondbacks	NL	SP	97
25	Ricky Nolasco	Marlins	NL	SP	96

Putting Miguel Cabrera's 2010 Season in Historical Context

It's no secret that the offense has been inconsistency surrounding one consistent rock: Miguel Cabrera. Miggy (I refuse to call him Cabby) is having his finest offensive season of his career, and arguably his best overall season as well. There's a refrain amongst Tigers fans about him winning the MVP -- something that Lee touched on pretty eloquently.

For me, it comes down to how you credit his intentional walks. I had a back-and-forth quickly with Tigs Town's Paul Wezner on twitter about Cabrera's MVP candidacy, and I'm waffling on my position -- it's closer than I was anticipating.

But, this post doesn't care about whether El Martillo should or should not win the American League MVP. Instead, I'd like to focus on just how damn good Cabrera's been and where this offensive season ranks in the pantheon of Tigers sluggers.

Is John Buck a Good Trade Target?

The Tigers have had awful production from the catcher position this year as Laird/Avila have combined for a dismal .560 OPS when the American League average is .691. There are some potential upgrades to be had and one some Tigers fans come back to is John Buck.

Buck's been part of the home run barrage going on north of the boarder. He's slugged out 14 already, 4 off of his career high of 18 he set in 2007 with the Kansas City Royals. Is he desirable? Yes. Is he worth over-paying for? Absolutely not.

Buck is currently sporting a 15.2% home run-to fly ball rate which is about 2.5% higher than his career 12.6% rate. This is the main driver of his career high Isolated Power of .231. Let's look at this for a bit. READ MORE...

Tigers Acquire Jhonny Peralta

The Tigers made a move to help bolster an infield that's half missing due to injury, and another spot that was never really filled this year (SS) by nabbing Jhonny Peralta.

I LOVE this move... if it were still 2008. Facts are that Peralta's batted ball data has shifted from a once-ground ball heavy (50.2% in 2008) to a fly-ball heavy hitter (33.9% this year). Due to this, his BABIP has dropped from the .315 from 2007-2009 to just .284 this year. This isn't something new, either. Hit more fly balls, you generally have fewer balls fall in for hits (see: Granderson, Curtis).

The biggest thing to not like about Peralta? The power outage. From 2006-2008 Peralta had an Isolated Power of .162 and the last two years Peralta's bottomed out posting a collective .129 Iso. That's a huge drop.let's peruse the leaderboards to get a feel for how big a 33 point drop is. Over the last three years, Joe Mauer, Lyle Overbay, and JJ Hardy have posted .162 IsoP numbers. Orlando Hudson has posted a .129 IsoP in that same time frame. Yuniesky Betancourt has posted a .127 Iso in span of time as well.

So we've not got a gut who hits for as much power as Yuniesky Betancourt. Congratulations!

"He can play shortstop when Inge gets back!"

Yes. Jhonny Peralta can physically stand at the shortstop position and not field baseballs that other guys will field. So he can play shortstop but he shouldn't play shortstop. There's a reason the Cleveland Indians have moved him off the position and it wasn't to be fair to opposing hitters because Peralta's just that good in the field. John Dewan has him as a +6 this year in Defensive Runs Saved and UZR has him at -2.2. Let's just call him an average defender. That'd be all well and good if he were still at short, but he's average at 3rd base. He'll likely be below average at shortstop. (More after the jump.)

Thanks Bill Ferris

Bill Ferris of Detroit Tigers Weblog fame announced he's stepping aside today from being a daily blogger on the Detroit Tigers. KJ at The Only Colors briefly talked about Bill's impact on him and Kurt briefly did the same at Bless You Boys. If you ask Matt Wallace and Lee Panas, I'm sure they'd both echo KJ and Kurt's thoughts as well. So, I felt the need to write a few words about Bill and how much I'll miss DTW.

I found the site in late 2006. After the Series That Never Happened versus Kansas City, well, happened to end the regular season. Oh, and there was the World Series that supposedly happened but I've blocked that from my mind. I was 20 years old and looking for a place to discuss baseball because my dad and brother only marginally liked it and none of my friends could stand it. Moves too slow. Lacks action. No one's getting tackled or hit (unless Kyle Farnsworth is on the field during a brawl).

I somehow stumbled onto Bill's site in the latter part of that 06 season and shared in the misery that everyone else there was immersed in. It was theraputic.

At that time I was dipping my toes into the sabermetric pool as well. DTW was such a godsend because it was a Tigers-specific blog ran by someone else who knew more about sabermetrics than I did. I loved it. Anyone that doesn't like what I've written here or for Bless You Boys that comes from a big time math/nerd/saber angle can point their fingers to Bill. Had I not found DTW, who knows how much I'd like sabermetrics today.

Bill is also the reason I own the 2008 Hard Ball Times Annual. He gave the choice of three books to the three people with the most comments on his site. Yours truly won with over 700 in 2007. It's a fact that doesn't impress as many people as you'd think. Still, I'd like to think that he put that book in there knowing it'd be the one that I'd pick as my prize for him being a great blogger. Realistically, he'd written a big article examining Dave Dombrowski's career as a General Manager and it was likely a free copy he got for doing it (along with some coin).

Bill was also very accessible, as are most bloggers. He's responded to every email I've ever sent him and always in a timely manner. Hell, he even emailed me in 2008 to see if he'd pissed me off because I hadn't been commenting on his site that year. Truth was, I found RSS Feeds and just how amazing they are (this is pre-twitter explosion for you youngins' out there) and read all of his stuff but had other avenues to expunge my baseball talk, plus life was in the way for the most part. 2009 saw me try my hand in the latter half of the year as a semi-blogger and I've been at BYB sporadically this year. Unfortunately, I've kind of been unwoven from the community fabric that still exists at DTW, but it's still a big building block of me as a baseball fan.

Unfortunately with Bill semi-retiring from blogging and Ian's departure around the new year, we've lost two of the three out of what I used to think of as the "Big Three." This was Bill/DTW, Ian/BYB and Kurt/Mack Avenue Tigers. Kurt, obviously, took the reins at Bless You Boys and Ian does write for MLive.com and you can find him on a podcast over at the Daily Fungoes.

But the Tigers blog-o-sphere is shrinking. No disrespect to other Tigers bloggers (because there are others that I read) but we're missing two large chunks out of what I once argued was a top three independent, team-specific blogging circle.

Ian made his decision for the right reasons and now Bill is moving on to better things: spending more time with his family. Our "loss" is their immense gain. I just wanted to expand on something that KJ at The Only Colors and Kurt mentioned briefly when Bill made his announcement. 9 years is a hell of a run. In internet years, that's probably around 112, so kudos to him. Even blogging part-time -- especially the types of analysis Bill would do -- is a ton of effort. He deserves to be saluted for it. I like to think of him as a Mitch Albom of the Tigers blog-o-sphere -- you know, with out the contempt from most of his peers and holier-than-thou attitude -- in that he has directly or indirectly influenced every single person that blogs on the Tigers.

To Bill Ferris!

More Site News

Well, now that the cat is out the bag, I can formally announce that I'm moving on over to Bless You Boys.What this means is that I'm 99% sure I'll be abandoning this blog for the duration that I'm at BYB. It's been fun since I've started to write semi-regularly in here and I hope anyone that stops by here follows on over there where I won't be changing a thing as I bring the nerdy math, PITCHf/x breakdown, and some prospect talk.

Big thanks to Kurt for inviting me a couple weeks ago and a huge thanks to Ian for making that site the biggest Tigers blog on the internet. I'm excited and honored to write for it.

I've enjoyed growing this blog from rants about Jim Leyland a couple years ago to trying to bring an advanced look into the Detroit Tigers roster construction and an analytical view point at what would be best for the club.

Thinking Out Loud What Most Tigers Fans Will Hate

I have no silly intro for this. I've been mulling it around since I wrote about the very first rumors of a Granderson trade bubbled up a few weeks ago: Should the Tigers shop Justin Verlander?

I'm only inspired to write this after Eddie Bajek and Kurt both made similar statements on Twitter. Safety in numbers I suppose.

Here's why I think it is time:

Time To Question Dave Dombrowski?

So today is the day all the media has their reactionary pieces to easily the biggest deal of the Winter Meetings thus far (and likely to be the biggest one of the Winter Meetings once they conclude). This little nugget, via Ian, really, um, intrigued me:

The way I heard how the Granderson trade began was that Arizona was trying to get Edwin Jackson at the GM Meetings and was told Max Scherzer was too little of a return, but felt Scherzer and Daniel Schlereth was too much. So Diamondbacks GM Josh Byrnes' first call was to Cashman because he assumed Granderson fit the Yankees' needs so ideally, and that the Yanks had resources that Detroit wanted.

 Am I the only one that finds this concerning? I know this is going to come off as sounding like "the blogger knows more than the professional sports franchise" but I find this quote to be baffling. Max Scherzer isn't enough for Edwin Jackson? Is it that he strikes out more guys than Jackson? That he's younger and already had a better full season than Jackson's ever had? That he's cheaper? That he's farther away from arbitration? I'm failing to see where it is that Scherzer doesn't stack up with Edwin Jackson in the eyes of the Detroit Tigers.

I'm going to assume that the Tigers have a lot more information at their disposal than I do. I'm also going to assume that Dave Dombrowski can run a professional franchise better than I can. However, I do not follow the reasoning here.

What would a Scherzer-for-Jackson deal have meant?

The Trade (Foolish Projections Ahead)

I was going to write this earlier this afternoon after news broke that the Tigers have agreed to deal Curtis Granderson, but I couldn't collect my thoughts enough. Bill, Lee, Matt, Kurt -- and I'm sure Ian, too -- all have thoughts from the emotional side of the issue. They're far more eloquent than I am, so I won't re-hash the things they've said already.

But, being this is Tigers by the Numbers, well, let's get to the numbers after the jump . . .

What to Expect From Adam Everett

We've got our shortstop. Adam Everett has returned for the paltry price of $1.55 million. He apparently was looking in the $3 million range, but signs for half of that. Do we get our money's worth?

Basically, if he repeats his 2009 season, we easily get about 4 times the surplus value of Everett. But, I'm going to say this: he needs to play more.

I know, I know, his bat is awful. It's a pain to watch him stink it up at the plate at the bottom of the order. But that's not where his money lies. Valuing Adam Everett occurs at the jump. . .

Site Changes

After much thought and consideration, I've decided to grab a domain name. Due to this, I've dropped the previous "Fire Jim Leyland" moniker. It was a more difficult decision than it probably should have been, but I was willing to give up the 5-6 hits I was getting from people typing in a combination of fire, Jim, and/or Leyland in a search engine.

Also, you probably noticed, but in case you haven't (and given the sporadic writings around here, I'm sure most haven't) I threw up the generic google ads. I figured why not? Can't hurt. And I'm up to $2.20 in the month since I've done that. So I'm looking to be living large in my retirement from blogging earnings in or around 2093. It will be amazing.

But the biggest piece of news is that you can now get here by www.tigersbythenumbers.com, as I've changed the name to Tigers by the Numbers. I figured I like the Tigers, I like numbers, and I essentially am putting the two together in every post, it makes sense.

In the mean time, I'm restoring my blog roll to the right -- sorry Kurt, it for some reason won't add your site! I also will probably mess with some of the templates over the next couple of days, so if things seem out of whack, that's why. On the whole, I'm pretty apathetic about the look of this blog as I think the content of it is what is most important. I'm just looking for something clean and easy and will maybe test run a couple of them for a few days each to see what I like the best.

Is Bobby Crosby a Good Move?

Here's a look at a few graphs that should explain whether getting Bobby Crosby is a good move or not:

 

 

Revisiting 2009 Draftee Wade Gaynor

Around this time last year, I took an interest in trying to adjust the offensive numbers put up in the college baseball landscape so I could get a grasp on what constitutes "good" offensive numbers in college baseball. With the metal bats, 300+ division 1 teams, and a talent pool that is very, very spread out, the elite college hitters put up offensive numbers that compared to what we're used to Major Leaguers putting up are just mind boggling.

I've written about my methods over at Baseball Analysts last winter. Overall, my methods really haven't strayed from that article. That is still how I correct for the park factor and for the strength of schedule.

The only things that have changed have been the weightings I give the categories in my "score" category. My "score" is a hodge-podge formula that is completely back-of-the-envelope on what I think the weightings should be -- like heavily penalizing K% (strikeouts divided by plate appearances) and rewarding BB%. I also use adjusted Weighted On Base Average (wOBA) and Isolated Power (IsoP; slugging percentage minus batting average) that get adjusted by park factors and strength of schedule. I'm really just rambling the things I wrote in the article I already linked to.

Before I move on I want to say this: The biggest single-season sample size I have is 354 plate appearances. So, immediately the Small Sample Size alarms should be ringing in your head. Most players are coming in around 250 PA's which is about 35% of a full, major league season. That is the biggest thing to keep in mind.

The second biggest thing to keep in mind is that these always, always need scouting reports to accompany them. Sure this is fun and all (for a nerd like myself), but the numbers don't mean anything if there's glaring holes in a players swing or someone isn't going to stick in center field like they have during their college careers.

With all that said, I've just input the numbers for the Sun Belt Conference and took a look at Wade Gaynor, the Tigers 3rd round draft pick out of Western Kentucky University. Lets see what they say after the jump. . .

PITCHf/x Profiling: Robbie Weinhardt

One of the 308 college relievers that the Detroit Tigers took in the 2008 draft is Robbie Weinhardt. He spent the last couple of months in the Arizona Fall League pitching for the Peoria Javalinas. Because of this, we get some decent-sized amount of data on how good of stuff the former Oklahoma State Cowboy features as parks in Peoria and Surprise, Arizona were fitted with PITCHf/x cameras.

Before we start, I will say that the following post is using only the data from Peoria as I haven't learned to correct for park differences. Also, I did not break up the fastballs between two- and four-seam fastballs. I feel that the change-up's were all labeled correctly -- except one, which I believe was a breaking ball. Speaking of the breaking ball, I've elected to go with labeling them as a Slider. Whether it's a slider or a curveball ... I don't know. I'm not sure it matters so long as the labeling is consistent.

Now, on with the PITCHf/x graphy goodness after the jump

Evaluating Baseball Managers: Billy Martin

Just wanted to take a moment to pass along this fantastic link. Chris Jaffe, a writer at The Hardball Times, has a book coming out about baseball managers and their tendencies. It seems like a great read and something I'll be looking to pick up.

Well, today's excerpt was about former Detroit Tigers manager, Billy Martin. It focuses mostly on his time with the Twins, but it's a fantastic look into what a gambler he was. Here's the part I enjoyed/was shocked about the most:

Martin’s approach to the base paths demonstrated how he wanted his team to play. In the second game he managed, Minnesota’s Rod Carew stole home. This was no fluke—by the end of the month, Carew had three steals of home and by the season’s conclusion he tied Ty Cobb’s single-season record with seven such swipes. Three of them came on triple steals. On another occasion, Cesar Tovar stole home as part of a successful triple steal. Four triple steals are the most by any one team in the last half-century, and probably the most since the deadball era.

On another occasion, opponents tagged Tovar out at the head of another triple steal—which Martin called when the Twins enjoyed a six-run lead. Graig Nettles, of all people, was once thrown out stealing home. Technically he was picked off of third and made a break for it, but he must have had a good-sized lead to draw a throw, as pitchers normally do not try picking runners off of third. Even slow-footed Harmon Killebrew, at age 33, stole eight bases that season. He had 11 the rest of his career. Billy Martin truly did not fear a damn thing.

Say whaaa? A triple steal? I've seen double steals fairly frequently, but the triple steal has never even entered my mind as a possibility in a baseball game. Ever. And I like to think that I'm fairly outside-the-box thinking. Maybe I'm not. That is astounding.

But, please, click through to read the entire thing. It's a great read from what is shaping up to be a great book. If you do like what you read and want to pre-order it, I would really recommend doing it through the publisher, as that nets Chris the most money, and lets face it, making money in from publishing a book (especially one in this sort of niche-market) is not easy.

Fun With Projections, Fanning the Milton Bradley Flames and Polanco v. Sizemore

Like I mentioned in my last post, the CHONE projections for hitters have been released. Sean Smith does a ton of good work from the CHONE projections, to TotalZone defensive metrics for the minor leagues, to the Wins Above Replacement database Lee is using for his top 20 tigers series. So head on over to Sean's site and waste away your afternoon looking at various CHONE Projections that I don't cover below.

About a month ago, I advocated trading for Milton Bradley after reading a piece from Patrick Hayes proposing it. Nothing has dissuaded me from still hoping Bradley comes to Motown and now we have CHONE projections to use to see how good he could be next year.

How does Bradley look for 2010? And what about other Tigers of interest? Find out after the jump...

Trading Curtis Granderson

The media and internet has been quite a-buzz with rumors of Curtis Granderson potentially being shopped by the Detroit Tigers. I want to say this right off the bat: I think Dombrowski is listening to offers, not shopping him. There's a difference between the two. And I see no reason for Dombrowski to not listen. You don't know if someone's willing to trade you the moon for him if you're not open to the discussion.

I've valued Curtis Granderson to be quite the bargain back when Lynn Henning was hitting him with the "Trade This Tiger" dart-toss of a column. He finished the 2009 season with 3.4 Wins Above Replacement and now with the Bill James and CHONE projections (hitters only, thus far) being released, we can get a pretty good read on his value. In the past, the Bill James projections have been a bit inflated (probably has to do with the level at which he is regressing the past numbers) and CHONE has proven to be a beast of a projection system as of late. Let's examine him (again). . .

Anatomy of a Player: Placido Polanco

Given the slow amount of news that trickles out at this time of the baseball season for non-playoff teams, I figured that it'd be the best time to take a break from toying around in Excel and posting about the Tigers. But, I'm back now and here to continue my Anatomy of a Player series (which can be found in the right side bar).

Below the jump, you'll find graphs on the value that Placido Polanco has brought to the table since his first full season in Detroit, 2006. . .