Links: Interview, Grading the Offseason, Evans to 2B, and Dusty Baker hilarity

Some links to check out while wondering if the 17 lbs. Marlon Anderson lost this offseason will improve his 2008 OPS+ of 40:

1) I did an interview with Brian Joura at Mets Online about the 2009 Mets outlook. I answered questions about the Mets injury worries, whether the bullpen is as good as it seems, lineup formation and my prediction for the Mets W-L record. Brian also writes for Fangraphs and his work at both sites is highly recommended.

2) Sam at Amazin' Avenue grades the Mets offseason by looking at the projected WAR ("wins above replacement") of the players acquired and lost. It's a better approach for evaluating the offseason then the dozens of other subjective "report cards" by analysts like Jon Heyman. Heyman rated the Phillies offseason at #1, mainly because they locked up Cole Hamels and Ryan Howard to multi-year deals. That's all well and good, but their only major addition was Raul Ibanez, who they grossly overpaid.

3) Mets Fever noticed that Nick Evans is listed as 3rd on the Mets depth chart at 2nd base, per mets.com. It's an interesting possibility, because it seems Evans doesn't have a position. He isn't a good enough hitter to be valuable at 1B, and his OF defense is suspect.

4) Beyond the Boxscore announced the winner of their graph contest, and it's hilarious. It's a flowchart which takes you into the mind Dusty Baker. Fans of the late FireJoeMorgan know how terrible Baker's baseball analysis is and will especially appreciate it. But anyone who's heard Dusty announce a game and mention "clogging the basepaths" can have a laugh as well.

The value of throwing arms and turning double plays

Fangraphs added new defensive stats this week which tell us how many runs an outfielder saves with his throwing arm and how many runs an infielder saves with his double play turning ability. Over the last few years, outfielders with the best throwing arm include Alfonso Soriano, Jeff Francouer, and Ichiro. The worst arms belong to Brian Giles, Juan Pierre, and old friend Shawn Green. Some of the best at turning double plays include Dan Uggla, Troy Glaus and Jose Reyes. Among the worst are Brian Roberts and Placido Polanco. Here's how many runs the 2009 Mets have saved over the last 3 seasons based on these stats:

David Wright is a strong fielder, but it appears he isn't too great at turning the double play. Jose Reyes had an overall down year in the field in 2008, but his double play runs make it look better. My perception was that Ryan Church had a solid throwing arm in 2008, and the numbers back it up. If he played a qualifying number of innings, he'd have had the 10th best arm in the National League. All that's missing from Fangraphs is a baserunning stat, although Baseball Prospectus has some pretty ones.

Which Mets pitchers will elicit groans at Citi Field?

The collapse of the 2007 Mets caused fans to be impatient with the 2008 Mets pitching staff. Audible groans could be heard at Shea Stadium when Mets pitchers fell behind 2-0 or even 1-0 in the count, no matter the inning or situation. Let's take a look at the projected 2009 Mets pitching staff's "Zone %" (percentage of pitches in the strike zone) and "F-Strike %" (first strike percentage) from 2008 to determine which pitchers may cause rumblings from the fans at Citi Field:

J.J. Putz's numbers look like a fluke, as his F-Strike % and Zone % have been outstanding throughout his career. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for Francisco Rodriguez. As anecdotally frustrating as he was, Billy Wagner could come in and throw strikes. Johan Santana had a down year in both statistics, and was still terrific. Hopefully Mets fans will be more patient in 2009, though I fear they won't after 2008's finish.

Fun with win expectancy: June 30, 2000 - Mets 11, Braves 8

A win expectancy graph is pretty self explanatory. It tells us the the probability that a team will win a game at any point in that game, based on score, innings, situation, etc. The graph above is from the Mets-Braves game on June 30, 2000 which the Mets memorably won 11-8. It was played on a Friday evening which also happened to be "Fireworks Night" at Shea Stadium. Through the first 7.5 innings it looked like only the post-game fireworks would be the only thing cheered that night. Heading into the bottom of the 8th, and the Braves ahead 8-1, the Mets win expectancy stood pretty close to zero. Then the following happened:

Derek Bell, single

Edgardo Alfonzo, flyout to CF (1 out)

Mike Piazza, single

Robin Ventura, RBI groundout (2 outs, 8-2 Braves)

Todd Zeile, RBI single (8-3 Braves)

Jay Payton, single

Benny Agbayani, walk

Mark Johnson, RBI walk (8-4 Braves)

Melvin Mora, RBI walk (8-5 Braves)

Derek Bell, RBI walk (8-6 Braves)

Edgardo Alfonzo, 2 RBI single (8-8 tied!)

Mike Piazza, 3-run home run (11-8 Mets)

Robin Ventura, groundout (end of inning, 11-8 Mets)

Other than Ventura making 2 outs in the same frame, wow, what an inning. It's pretty simple to locate the bottom of the 8th on the win expectancy graph. The Mets went from 0.5% to 96.7% in one turn at bat. I was fortunate enough to watch this game on TV in its entirety, and it's still of my favorites ever. Piazza's laser 3-run shot off Terry Mulholland must have gone out of the park in no more than 1.5 seconds. Best of all, most of the 52,000+ remained in to see it happen because they were waiting for the postgame fireworks. I'll post more win expectancy graphs (courtesy of Fangraphs) from memorable Mets games from time to time.

How much were Mets pitchers worth in 2008?

FanGraphs now has win value stats up for pitchers. The stat "WAR" (wins above replacement) tells us how many "wins" a player contributes over a replacement pitcher, which is defined as a readily available pitcher whose performance is well below league average. I understand the calculations of WAR for hitters, but I'm still trying to make complete sense of it for pitchers. Nevertheless, this is pretty high-level stuff and can decently pinpoint just how much a player is worth based on performance. Here are Mets pitchers' WAR, $$ worth for 2008 assuming a value of about $4.5 million per win, and actual salary:

A few thoughts:
1) Johan Santana is awesome. Hopefully he can keep it up for a few more years.
2) John Maine was worth more than Oliver Perez despite pitching 50+ fewer innings. Enough said. 3 years, $30 million Ollie - take it or leave it.
3) Sayanora Pedro Martinez, Aaron Heilman, and Scott Schoeneweis.
4) This stat suggests that middle relievers and closers are overrated and generally paid more than they're really worth. Interesting.

Again, this win value stuff isn't infallible but it's well researched by some smart people. Click here for an introduction to pitcher win values. Hopefully free agent signings will start to pick up soon - check out the impressive list of players still available.

Quote of the day about Oliver "Overrated" Perez

My favorite line of the day, courtesy of Dave Cameron at Fangraphs. At the end of a post on win value statistics, he writes:

"Over the last four years, Oliver Perez has been worth a total of 2.5 wins in nearly 600 innings. And he wants $12 million a year for 5 years. Maybe he's the left-handed Gil Meche, and he's going to turn the corner immediately after signing a big contract, but there's about a 5% chance of that being true and about a 95% chance that he's the most overrated pitcher in baseball."

Anyone familiar with what I've been writing here and at Mets Geek over the last few weeks knows that I agree 100% with what Dave is saying. Perez may be the most overrated pitcher in baseball... wow. Do you think Omar Minaya reads FanGraphs? (Note: The 2.5 wins Dave mentions are not wins as in W-L record for a pitcher - it's wins above replacement. For comparison, Johan Santana has been worth 24.3 wins over the last 4 seasons spanning 900+ innings.)

Links: Mets free agent news, Carlos Delgado in 2009, Bert Blyleven vs. Jack Morris, and more Hall of Fame

Some links to check out while you ponder whether Bert Blyleven's Hall of Fame case is helped or hurt by the shirt he's wearing in this picture:

1) Peter Botte of the Daily News (via MLBTradeRumors) had some thoughts/rumors about the Mets free agent pursuits. Here they are, with my brief thoughts as well:

- The Mets are probably not interested in Andruw Jones: Good!
- They're "not even in" on Manny Ramirez: The only way I want Manny is if they fail to land Ben Sheets or Andy Pettitte. In that scenario they would have to drastically upgrade the lineup.
- They won't have an agreement with Oliver Perez anytime soon: Hopefully the only agreement they have with Ollie is for 3 years, $15 million or less.
- They've been in contact with Randy Wolf and Jon Garland: Neither of these guys thrill me, but they aren't that big a step down from Perez.
- They've talked with Freddy Garcia: Meh. I say sign him, but only if Sheets or Pettitte is signed as well.

2) Brian Joura at FanGraphs writes about what to expect from Carlos Delgado in 2009. He thinks Delgado's poor 2007 and first couple months of 2008 were a result of his wrist injury. After some great LD% and BABIP analysis, he concludes that we should expect a similar offensive output from Delgado in 2009 as 2008. This means about 30-35 HR, and a .265/.350/.510 line. Works for me.

3) Joe DelGrippo at NY Baseball Digest wrote a hilariously awful piece yesterday about why he would vote for Jack Morris but not Bert Blyleven for the Hall of Fame. Joey D. manages to insult many readers in the process. He wrote the piece in response to a comment I made on a previous post of his, and it is just terrible. Joey D's main argument is that Morris had a higher win % than Blyleven. This, as we all know, is an awful way to evaluate a pitcher. Check out the comments section - there's 24 comments and the only one's not completely ripping Joey D. a new one are the 2 he made himself. Here is a snippet from the post:

"Too many people are so wrapped up in statistics, especially the new stats that seem to spew out of every sabermetric bloggers mouth. Those bloggers are guys who mostly never played the game at any decent level above Little League, but they know the OPS+ of every guy not in the HOF but should be based on WARP 3."

Right. So basically he's saying stats are stupid, then goes on to tell us about Morris's win % and average W-L record each season. These are, ya know, stats. For the last time, Blyleven pitched 1000 more innings than Morris, with a higher K rate, lower BB rate, lower HR allowed rate, and MUCH lower ERA. Blyleven had a 2.47 postseason ERA and Morris a 3.80 ERA. It's no contest. If Mike Silva, proprietor of the recommended NY Baseball Digest, had any sense he'd either have a little chat with Joey D. or kick him off the site altogether.

4) I'm pretty obsessed with this Hall of Fame stuff. I have an utter contempt for the sportswriters who vote on the HOF and refuse to learn about or use modern statistics to evaluate players for their ballots. King Kaufman at Salon shares my sentiments:

"It's one thing to criticize the new stats. But it's another thing to simply dismiss them without bothering to figure out what they're all about. And then to try to pass this off as wisdom. It's what's going on in the world we're covering. In what other profession do practitioners brag about their ignorance regarding current events and developments? In what other area of journalism is lack of awareness a mark of distinction? Cut it out, fellow writers. Do your job. Engage with your material. Stay current. Learn about things you don't understand. Ignorance isn't a virtue. It's not something to brag about. It's something to fix."

I couldn't agree more. These men get paid to write about sports and have the privilege (not the right) to vote on the Hall of Fame. And many of them wear their lack of statistical knowledge as a badge of honor. Get with it guys. Modern medicine no longer practices phrenology or uses leeches as a cure; modern baseball writers should not be using W-L records, batting average and RBI to evaluate players.

Burrell and Bradley sign: How will this affect the Mets?

Pat Burrell and Milton Bradley signed contracts today with the Tampa Bay Rays and Chicago Cubs, respectively. Why should Met fans care? Because these signings, along with the previous Raul Ibanez signing by the Phillies, will affect the Mets pursuit of an upgrade in LF. The major options left on the market are Bobby Abreu, Adam Dunn and Manny Ramirez. Let's compare these 6 players based on what they're worth and what some of them have already signed for. The column "WV $ in '08" is how much each player was worth in 2008 based on the win value system at FanGraphs. The column "BtB $ Value" is how much Beyond the Boxscore valued the player at heading into free agency. Neither of these measures is 100% infallible, but they're pretty good for our purposes:

It looks like Burrell and Bradley were signed for less than what they're actually worth. Bradley is a perpetual injury risk (he's played more than 101 games just twice in the last 7 years) and head case, but when he plays he can dominate (163 OPS+ in 2008). The Ibanez contract is at best a fair contract. Though it looks worse and worse after the bargain signings of Burrell and Bradley.

Considering these facts, it appears the Mets are in the driver's seat should they decide to pursue a defensive challenged LF. Could Dunn be had for 2-3 years and $8-9 million per? How about Abreu for 1 year, $7 million? Ramirez already turned down a 2 year, $45 million offer from the Dodgers, so I'm pretty sure he can't be had at a discount. Another option that several other Met fans have kicked around is Rocco Baldelli. He's a right-handed hitter with some medical/injury problems, but might be worth a risk for 1 year and $3 million or so. Plus Rocco seems to have a decent understanding of statistics, which is a plus in my book. I'd love to have Dunn playing LF in 2009 and then 1B in 2010, as I've covered over and over and over again. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like Omar Minaya and the Mets have any interest.

How much were Mets hitters worth in 2008?

Fangraphs added a new section to it's already vast library of stats which calculates players' win values. This is better than any Christmas gift I got this year. Value wins measure how many wins a player contributes to his team, factoring offense, defense and positional adjustments. Read here and here for more. Additionally, Fangraphs provides how much each player was worth in millions of $$ based on the stat. Let's take a look at the Mets hitters' win values, $$ value based on win values and actual salaries, minimum 100 PA's (each win is worth about $4.5 million; actual salaries courtesy of Cot's Baseball Contracts):

Let's summarize:
1) David Wright and Jose Reyes are awesome. These guys were worth A-Rod money in 2008. Their contracts should continue to be huge discounts for the Mets in the foreseeable future.
2) Carlos Delgado finishing ahead of Carlos Beltran and Reyes in the NL MVP voting is a joke. But we knew that already. WAR factors defense and positional adjustments, which is why Delgado does not have a strong showing here.
3) Damion Easley was basically a replacement-level player in 2008.
4) Brian Schneider is no Joe Mauer, but his contract isn't bad.
5) Marlon Anderson sucks.
6) The Mets don't have too many bad contracts, for their hitters atleast. Omar Minaya is a smart GM, in my humble opinion. Compare to the Yankees WAR page - many of their contracts were poor (see Hideki Matsui, Derek Jeter, Bobby Abreu, Jason Giambi, Ivan Rodriguez, Melky Cabrera).

I'll continue to explore this win value stuff, which isn't too complicated once you understand it. It took some time to grasp the concepts but it's worth the effort. Remember that this is not the end-all-be-all measure of a player's worth but it's pretty high-level.

5th starter option: Tim Redding

The Nationals non-tendered right-handed starting pitcher Tim Redding, and a report from the Denver Post says the Mets have shown some interest. I say go for it. Ideally, the Mets will sign Derek Lowe or Ben Sheets (or even Randy Wolf), and the #5 spot in the rotation will be up for grabs. Jon Niese and Brandon Knight are options from within the organization, but I would prefer the Mets sign a guy like Redding or Odalis Perez to compete for and hopefully win the job. Let's look at Redding:

Redding gets knocked around a bit, evidenced by his HR/9 and LD%. However, his FIP is just fine for a #5 starter. If he could have a performance identical to 2008 next season, Redding would be a nice pickup. I don't anticipate a big-time bidding war for his services, so maybe a 1 year deal for $3-4 million could secure him.

***EDIT***: For more on Redding, check out this FanGraphs post by Eric Seidman. Eric puts Redding's fair market value at $6.5 million. He'll likely end up signing for less.

Rob Neyer on Dunn, Burrell, Ramirez and the importance of defense

Check out this great read from Rob Neyer at espn.com, where he writes about the increasing availability of reliable defensive statistics for player evaluation. A couple snippets:

"Dunn, like Ramirez and Burrell, is a pretty lousy outfielder (though not as lousy as them, yet). All of these guys are worth a great deal of money. But while Ramirez might be a $25 million hitter, he is not a $25 million baseball player because he gives away a bunch of runs when he's in the outfield. Same goes for Burrell, a $12 million hitter but an $8 million player"

Here is my favorite line:

"According to BP, Burrell over the last two seasons has been 15 runs worse than average per season. It's such a fundamental thing but is so often ignored: all those plays lead to runs allowed, and those runs count, too. Doesn't mean he's not a good and valuable player. Does mean that if you ignore his defense when you're figuring out how much he's worth, you're going to overshoot by a big chunk of change "

The prevention of runs is just as important as the scoring of runs. It's a pretty basic concept that I think many fans (and GM's apparently) fail to grasp. Defense is a big reason why Carlos Beltran would possibly be worth about $30 million a year as a free agent this offseason. Defense is why Manny Ramirez is certainly not worth $25 million a year.

2009 Mets offense projection

The godfather of baseball statistics, Bill James, recently came out with his annual projections for major league players. The projections show up on each player's page at FanGraphs. Here is what James predicts for the Mets offense in 2009:

A few notes:
A) I included Damion Easley, despite the fact that I don't think he'll be a Met in '09. There was no projection for Argenis Reyes - I guess James realizes that he is not in the Mets' future plans. I omitted Marlon Anderson's projection as well.
B) I think Jose Reyes's projection is too low. I think Luis Castillo's is too high, but if he can produce like that in 2009, what a bonus.
C) James thinks David Wright will have another monster year, comparable to his outstanding 2007.
D) The Daniel Murphy projection is too generous. Also, I'd be very surprised if Murphy logs 456 AB's in 2009.

Is this a lazy post? Yes, but it gives us something fun to look at while no signings or trades are happening. Also, the total RsBI for these players is 770.

The importance of 0-1 vs. 1-0 counts

The great baseball site FanGraphs recently added some new statistics to its already extensive database. One which I will look at today is "F-Strike %". For batters, F-Strike % is how often the player gets behind 0-1 in the count, or puts the first pitch in play. For pitchers, it tells us how often the player gets ahead 0-1 in the count. Again, it counts a ball put into play on the first pitch thrown as a strike. Let's take a look at the F-Strike %'s for the Mets' pitching staff members who logged 30+ IP, as well as their BB/9:

With the exception of Nelson Figueroa, it appears there is a decent correlation between F-Strike % and BB/9. This demonstrates something we've all heard since Little League - the importance of throwing a first pitch strike. It's a pretty obvious concept, but I think it's interesting to see the statistics that support it.

FIP and the importance of defense

I've touched on this before, but fielding independent pitching (FIP) is a stat that approximates what a pitcher's ERA would be based on outcomes that do not involve fielders - strikeouts, walks, and homeruns. The stat was created on the premise that a pitcher has little to no control over balls in play that are not home runs, and the rate of hits allowed on balls in play is a function of luck and the defense behind the pitcher.

To this end, FIP (and other defense independent pitching statistics) is a better way to project future pitcher performance than ERA, which depends largely on the defense of a pitcher's team. To demonstrate the importance of the defense played behind a pitcher, I took a look at the top 5 and bottom 5 teams in baseball at defensive efficiency for 2008, according Baseball Prospectus. I then looked the difference between FIP and ERA for these teams. If ERA is greater than FIP, I would expect that the team's pitchers had poor defense played behind him. If ERA is less than FIP, I would expect that the pitchers had good defense played behind him. The numbers next to each team are the difference between ERA and FIP, and the team's overall ranking in this category. Remember, a negative number indicates a team's ERA outperformed its FIP, and vice versa:

Top 5 Defensive Teams
1. Tampa Bay Rays: -0.41 (2nd)
2. Chicago Cubs: -0.22 (6th)
3. Toronto Blue Jays: -0.32 (4th)
4. Oakland A's: -0.18 (8th)
5. Boston Red Sox: -0.08 (12th)

Bottom 5 Defensive Teams
26. Seattle Mariners: 0.13 (23rd)
27. Colorado Rockies: 0.47 (29th)
28. Pittsburgh Pirates: 0.26 (26th)
29. Cincinnati Reds: 0.01 (14th)
30. Texas Rangers: 0.53 (30th)

This is not an exact science - I'm not implying there is a direct correlation between team defensive efficiency and difference between ERA and FIP. However, it appears there is some kind of relationship there. I'd need to look at historical statistics to draw some kind of definitive conclusion. Hopefully this isn't too confusing.

In 2008, the Mets' team ERA was 4.07, and team FIP was 4.32, for a difference of -0.24 (rounded). They were 6th in baseball in defensive efficiency. Do not underestimate the importance of defense - this difference between ERA and FIP would equate to about 39 runs for the 2008 Mets.

Javier Vazquez: Available and underrated

According to a report in the Chicago Sun-Times (via MLBTradeRumors), White Sox GM Kenny Williams's biggest priority this offseason is trading 32 year-old Javier Vazquez. Vazquez fell out of favor with White Sox manager/lunatic Ozzie Guillen towards the end of 2008 after pitching miserably in his final 3 starts. Williams reportedly seeks an infielder in return. Vazquez is owed $11.5 million a year from 2009-2010.

Based on this report, it seems as if the White Sox are willing to sell low on Vazquez. I would be in favor of his acquisition, assuming the Mets don't have to surrender Daniel Murphy, Fernando Martinez or some other comparable top prospect. Vazquez has been an underrated pitcher over the last 9 years or so, and had the bad luck of pitching for some terrible defensive clubs, namely the early 2000's Expos and the 2006-2008 White Sox. While his career ERA is 4.32, his career FIP, "fielding independent pitching" (what you would expect his ERA to be, based on K's, BB's, HR allowed) is 3.93. ERA as a stat is heavily influenced by the defense played behind a pitcher. FIP removes this factor. (Note: other defense independent stats include dERA and DICE)

Consider this excerpt from a post about Vazquez at FanGraphs by Eric Seidman:

"From 2000-2008, there are only six starting pitchers who made at least 190 starts, with a K/9 above 8.0 and a BB/9 below 3.0, and Vazquez has the highest inclusive ERA of them all at 4.11. For good measure, the others are: Pedro Martinez (2.99), Randy Johnson (3.25), Jake Peavy (3.25), Roger Clemens (3.34), and Josh Beckett (3.78)."

ERA is a useful stat, enabling one to gain a general understanding of a pitcher's success. However, peripheral stats and defense independent pitching stats should also be considered when determing a pitcher's expected future performance. The Mets are a great defensive club, as Baseball Prospectus lists their defensive efficiency in 2008 at 2nd in the NL and 6th in all of baseball. This fact would go a long way in improving Vazquez's ERA. To sum up, the Mets should look to make a play for Vazquez, as it appears he will be available for a fraction of what he's really worth.