Anatomy of a Player: Miguel Cabrera

Update: I had to change some of the graphs as I had the data in the wrong chronological order. It should be fixed now.

I had stared a series I was going to call Graphic Value but I've decided to change the way I'm going to attack breaking down the Tigers. I'm going to start on an individual basis in something I'm tentatively calling Anatomy of a Player and you will be able to find the series in the sidebar to the right.

My first player will be Miguel Cabrera. I was going to start with catchers, but I don't have multiple-year catcher defensive data at the ready, so I can't go with Gerald Laird.

Below the jump you'll find graphs galore. I'm trying to make the value each player has more visual. However, I'm stuck with Excel 2003 (yeah, I know.) and until I upgrade and check out different graphing features, the only way that seemed right to me was a lot of stacked bar graphs. You'll see what I mean as I show where Miguel Cabrera's value comes from and how much value he has over the average (and replacement-level) player at his positions over the last four seasons after the jump. . .

First up, we've got a look at Miguel Cabrera's offensive components (click all images to enlarge):

This is the same way I broke down the offensive value of all the Tigers in my Graphic Value post the other day. This doesn't really show negative value that well. The stolen base value is a Net Stolen Base value. In other words, it's just the runs he creates with the stolen base minus the runs he costs a team with the stolen base. You really need about a 75% SB safety rate before you start to really add runs to a team. Cabrera has been negative in this aspect the last two seasons, but it's incredibly miniscule. For a slugger like Cabrera this graph isn't overly exciting, however. We know that he derives most of his value offensively from hitting the baseball. I suspect that for other guys around the league -- particularly guys that steal more bases and draw a good number of walks, it'll change.

Now we need to put his wOBA's in context (see my last post I already linked to if you want a brief explanation and link to wOBA and it's definition). Below is a graph comparing his wOBA to a wOBA I've calculated for the league at that position.

Remember, wOBA is scaled to be on par with on-base percentage. So, the average for 1st basemen in the American League in 2009 and 2008 was .388 and .375 -- very good. The 2007 and 2006 figures are the league rates for a 3rd baseman in the National League, since Big Mig was manning the hot corner for the Florida Marlins in those seasons. It's clear that he's a special, special offensive force. However, his offense has been slipping since getting to the American League. His 2006 was surreal, so expecting him to live up to that isn't fair. But, his non-intentional BB's (NIBB) have been down a tick (around 5-8) since coming over.

Defensively, he's been getting better. Below is where he derives his defensive value from:

Here, the components we're looking at are Error Runs (ErrR), Range Runs (RngR) and Double Play Runs (DPR). These are a bit different from outfielders who have no double play runs but incorporates an arm rating in runs.

Miggy has made some good strides at first base the last two years. He's gone from -5 runs defensively to about +3.4 runs saved. That's about an 8.5 run swing -- or nearly a full win in his favor from just fielding the baseball better. The 2007 and 2006 seasons are his value from his time at third base. For his graph, I did not use any of his minimal time at 3rd in 2008 for Detroit. The last two seasons is strictly his fielding runs at 1st base.

Finally, we've got Miguel Cabrera's total value components:

Predictably, he gets a huge amount of his value from his offense. The categories are pretty easy to figure out. They are Offense (OFF), a league adjustment (LG), his defense (UZR) and a positional adjustment (POS).  Like I said above, I have the offense to be compared to what the replacement level player at that position would produce. Add in that UZR is graded against the average defender at that position, what we're looking at is Miguel Cabrera's Total Wins Above Position Average (TWAPA). 2008 and 2009 is against the average American League 1st baseman and 2006 and 2007 is against the average National League 3rd baseman.

Now, this graph is deceiving to look at. You need to subtract out the negatives. Miguel Cabrera's TWAPA (I need a better name for this...) is 4.93, 3.55, 4.09, 5.63 going backwards by years.

Also, if you're looking at the offense, it looks like this was his worst season offensively in the last four. That isn't necessarily the case. He's been consistent in his wOBA, however 2009 was one of the better years for the AL first baseman. In 2008 the AL 1B posted a .375 wOBA but it bumped up to .388 in 2009.

I am open to any and all suggestions on what other graph types would be a good way to visually show the value of the player. Hopefully this adds a picture to the numbers for anyone that has trouble visualizing the data that I normally reference in here.