Archive for the ‘projections’ Category

The Winning Percentage of the Beast

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

The objective, of course, is to win every series. Since the majority are 3-games long, the objective then is to finish the season with around a .666 (rounding down for mild comedic purposes) winning percentage—or two wins for every loss.

The Cardinals hovered about .666, or 2X+.500 if you cringe to invoke Beelzebaseball, throughout April and have the chance to finish May 1 there with a win this afternoon. Unfortunately, Kyle Lohse is pitching, so this one will be up to the offense. In their favor, Homer Bailey is pitching, whose struggles continue into this young season. His BABIP right now is .420, which is is ridiculously unfortunate and he’s still striking out batters at a very healthy clip. If the Cardinals take their free passes today, they should be able to score a bounty of runs.

After this series is a tough four-game stretch against the Phillies before settling into a pretty weak looking May with a bunch of games against the Pirates, Padres, Astros, Reds, and Cubs. If they go about their business, we should be looking at .666 to start June, too. And that’s a very happy thing.

Updated at 3:32: And that’s a winner!

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Sleepers for 2008

Saturday, December 8th, 2007

Here’re three minor-league players that I expect to make significant progress in the 2008 season.

Juan Mosquera: A 19-year-old 5’10″ switch-hitting shortstop from Panama who had a successful season in the Dominican Summer League, batting .299/.484/.338 with a 39:51 ratio of strikeouts to walks. He stole 18 bases, which is good—but in 28 attempts, which is bad. Only four of his forty-seven hits went for extra bases. He’s on Jeff Lunhow’s radar, saying of scout.com’s DSL Cardinal position player of the year:
Mosquera … works for everything he gets. He is a high energy player who doesn’t wow you with his tools but he gets the job done. From the day I tried him out on a dusty, hot field in Panama City to now he has progressed.

His weight is listed at 154 lbs and he’s not playing in any Winter League that I know of. Ideally, I’d like to hear that he’s on a nutrition and conditioning program to add 30 pounds over the next year and that his offseason is devoted to nothing but eating good food, lifting weights, and watching every clip of Rafael Furcal on record.

I expect Dan Nelson will be promoted to AA Springfield for 2008, and that Oliver Marmol or someone will take his place at A+-Palm Beach. I’d be happy to see Mosquera get a shot on the A-Quad Cities shortstop job, leapfrogging Kozma who should probably do extended spring training then stay at Batavia until his bat comes around. I thought Wladimir Mendoza would be more successful moving form the DSL to the American pro-leagues—here’s hoping Mosquera does a better job adjusting and adds some pop to his game in his third professional season. If he finishes the season at Palm Beach, he will have succeeded mightily in going from sleeper to prospect. (And it would also indicate that Kozma made strides as well, who I’d like to see finish the year in the Quad Cites.)

Brian Broderick: A 21-year-old 6’6″ 205 lb RHSP drafted in the 21st round in 2007 out of Grand Canyon University. In 88 2/3 college IP, he struck out 74 while allowing 22 walks. He continued this fine control as a professional pitcher, striking out 53 to 7 walked batters. He was an extreme groundball pitcher with Johnsonville (2.26 G:F) but couldn’t burn dem worms after being promoted to Batavia.

He allowed line drive rates around 17% at both levels, suggesting that he may have trouble keeping more advanced hitters from squaring up on his strikes and also needs to improve vs. lefthanders, but I like the size and control combination well enough to see him emerging as a legit prospect next year. I’d like to see him start at Quad Cities and dominate there before skipping to AA to start 2009.

Jameson Maj: A 22-year-old 6’4″ 225 lb RHRP who signed on the last day possible and threw only 1 1/3 inning at Batavia, striking out two batters and allowing two to single on line drives (both to left-handed hitters, although he struck out the third lefty he faced.) The sample size renders it meaningless, but his two non-K outs were grounders.

Before signing, he pitched 24 innings for the Denton Outlaws in the wooden bat Texas Collegiate League. In those 24 innings, he struck out twenty-six batters while walking only three. I don’t know where to find BIP data for the TCL, but in those 24 innings, he recorded four putouts and seven assists. So of the 46 non-K outs he pitched, he personally had a hand in fielding 11, or 24% of the BIP. Brandon Wood, perhaps the Platonic ideal of the high-K/9, high G:F pitcher, had a hand in just under 15% of his non-K outs, so we can reasonably assume that Maj keeps the ball down.

And before that, as the closer for Abilene Christian University, he recorded 72 strikeouts to only 4 walks. For the season, across three very different levels {NCAA D-II, Texas Collegiate League (high quality amateur), and short season A-ball, he showed phenomenal control with high strikeout rates and extreme groundball tendencies. He’s big and strong, and mature enough to rise quickly through the system. I’d like to see him start the year closing for the Swing of the Quad Cities (or whatever they’ll be called next year) with Josh Dew skipping to High-A, where he should look very, very good as a flyball pitcher in a flyball pitcher’s park. If he’s as good against pro competition as he was against collegians and amateurs, and his skillset looks like it should carry over nicely, he could finish the year as high as middle relief in AA.

Those are my three picks for sleeper prospects—players that most fans who have a pretty good idea of the farm system may not have heard of and who I think will have breakout seasons and finish the year as real prospects heading into 2009.

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Checking the Predictions

Sunday, July 29th, 2007

It’s high time for a first look at how my pre-season predictions are coming about. The first one I made was on the Jason Jennings for Hirsh and Taveras trade. At the time, I said:

That’s a really bad move for Houston, barring some already-agreed-to favorable contract extension and he’s already turned down a 3yr/$24.5m offer from Colorado. I’d bet dollars-to-donuts that Hirsh has a better 2007 than Jennings. The Rox couldn’t have come up with much better a center fielder than Willy Taveras. Competing with the likes of Juan Pierre, Dave Roberts, and Eric Byrnes, he could be the second best offensive CF in the division after Cameron.
Colorado fans must be awfully happy today.

That was a terrible trade for the Astros. Jenning’s made only 14 starts this season and hasn’t signed an extension with the Astros. He’s dealt with various injuries over the season and managed to get two Padres out while giving up 11 runs in a horror-show start today. Jason Hirsh hasn’t been the pitcher I thought he’d be just yet, but I don’t think many people doubt his future’s brightness.

Jennings: 5.99 ERA – 13 GS – 76.2 IP – 29:56 BB:K – 75:95 G:F – 8 HR
Hirsh: 4.90 ERA – 17 GS – 101 IP – 42:66 BB:K – 99:136 G:F – 16 HR!

Hirsh has been a better pitcher than Jennings this year, but not dramatically so. As for how Willy Taveras stacks up against other NL West center fielders:

Young: .244/.295/.453 – 15:16 SB:Att – 22:69 BB:K – 18 HR
Cameron: .245/.314/.424 – 10:14 SB:Att – 34:100 BB:K – 13 HR
Taveras: .309/.358/.371 – 24:32 SB:Att – 18:45 BB:K – 2 HR
Roberts: .262/.330/.355 – 21:24 SB:Att – 25:46 BB:K – 2 HR
Pierre: .282/.314/.335 – 42:51 SB:Att – 18:25 BB:K – 0 HR

I was pretty close, failing to predict Chris Young’s power production out of center field for the Snakes. Taveras was considered an all-glove/no-bat outfielder before the trade, so it was a pretty bold prediction, I’d say. That he’s managed to contribute so consistently at the plate for the Rockies is impressive. The Astros got royally screwed in that trade. It didn’t take much to see that at the time.

I had a post of Pre-season Predictions that don’t look so great now.

The first was that T.J. Nall would make the Nationals opening day roster and turn out to be their best setup man by the all-star break. T.J. is a pitcher from the Dodgers system who absolutely dominated AA batters with a 9.19 K/9 rate, but for whatever reason couldn’t make the transition to AAA. He was caught up in the Great Gnats Minor League FA Dragnet of 2007 but failed to make the team out of Spring Training and was released before the All-Star Break to be picked up by the Red Sox. I was wrong, but not as badly as the next prediction.

This one was so laughably wrong in every respect, I’ll cut-n-paste the whole thing:

Brian Lawrence signs a split contract with the Rockies and has an exceptional spring, joining a rotation of Cook/Francis/Hirsh/Fogg. He contends with Kip Wells and Mark Mulder for the 2007 NL Comeback Player of the Year award, but loses to Mike Hampton. (Gagne wins it in the AL.)

Lawrence was DFA’d by the Rockies after failing to impress in his rehab stint. He was picked up by the Mets, where he has been a very good flyball pitcher at AAA. Mike Hampton re-injured himself AGAIN before pitches were thrown in anger, Mulder hasn’t begun a rehab stint yet, and Kip Wells hasn’t had the season he or I had hoped for him.

The third prediction:

Taylor Buchholz struggles with home runs and with finding a role in Colorado and, after he fails to clear waivers, is traded to the Cardinals, when we suddenly find ourselves with three of the game’s better curveballers in our rotation.

Taylor’s made a few starts with the Rockies and pitched mostly in long/mop-up duty. He hasn’t been particularly home run prone. I don’t see where he’ll fit in with the Rockies long-term plans and have to think that they asked for him in the Jennings trade more for a trading piece later on than someone their organization can succeed with. Noted curveballers don’t quite fit in up in the Mile High City. I’d be very pleased if we swing a trade for Buchholz at some point before opening day 2008. His value isn’t at all high right now. Maybe they’ll claim Brian Falkenborg, who we DFA’d after he’d pitched so well in Game 1 of yesterday’s double-header. He certainly fits the profile of a good Rockies reliever. Good strikeout rate and keeps the ball on the ground. It’d take more to pry away Buchholz, but it’d be worth pursuing.

The fourth one dealt with Chris Narveson, who I thought would get claimed off waivers by the Nationals. Few players moved on waivers and some that could have been claimed ended up being traded, notably the St. Pierre for Hendrickson trade. Narveson cleared waivers and has had a disappointing, injury-plagued season.

Another prediction was too silly to mention although half of it has turned out true. The true part had to do with some of the bigger team blogs getting more access to minor leaguers and front office types. That has happened and I think we as fans have benefited greatly from it.

The last prediction dealt with Larry Bigbie, who I was happy to have picked up along with Aaron Miles in the Ray King dump trade. Larry had a huge Spring with the Dodgers, didn’t make the club, was released, and eventually signed with Atlanta to play for their AAA affiliate, where he has struggled.

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Plucking Stars from the Firmament

Saturday, February 17th, 2007

We played a community projection game at VeB for Kip Wells. The idea is for a bunch of people to make blind guesses about how well Wells will perform in 2007 and hope that the wisdom of the masses will give you a reasonable estimate of what he’ll actually do by averaging the guesses. It’s a decent enough way to kill time while waiting for Spring Training games to begin. As is describing in excrutiating detail how I made my guess…

Here’s the line I submitted:

190IP 198H 69BB 140K 18HR 16-9 3.85

You might think that I pulled those numbers straight out of thin air, but it’s less direct than that. I assumed he’d have his first healthy season since 2003, when he pitched in 197 1/3 innings over 31 starts. I assumed that he’d pitch about the same numbers as Jeff Suppan did last season—and used the exact number as Suppan’s 2006, 190.

Once I had assumed how many innings he’d pitch, I could make what I think are pretty good guesses about the rates at which he’ll allow the hits, walks, homers, and how frequently he’ll strike out batters.

Kip Wells has allowed 9.32 hits per nine innings over his MLB career, skewed slightly higher by last season, when he was injured and pitched terribly. In 2003, he allowed 7.8 H/9, as a peak benchmark. I figured he’d be encouraged to induce groundballs—to be aggressive early in the count, to pitch low in the strikezone, to prefer the batter to put a weak ball into play rather than pussy-foot around the zone and end up walking the batter. Inducing groundballs means more hits squirting through the infield, so I made a reasonably conservative rate of 9.4 hits per nine innings, or 1.044 BB/IP. Multiply that walk per inning rate by 190 innings, and you get the 198 hits total.

Wells has historically walked far too many batters. Over his career, he’s walked 4.09 batters per nine innings, compared to Suppan’s 2.95 or Carpenter’s 2.75 BB/9. I figured that if Wells buys into Duncan’s program described in the previous paragraph—and all indications are that he chose to sign with the Cardinals to get with his program—he’ll be working ahead of the count more frequently than in the past and should trust his defense enough to avoid nibbling when he’s behind in the count. I guessed he’d walk significantly fewer batters while recognizing that Wells won’t likely have the same control as Suppan does—I gave him a rate of 3.25 BB/9 or .36 BB/IP. That’s pretty optimistic, that in an average six inning outing, he’d only walk two batters. That works out to 69 walks, given the 190 IP assumption.

Wells is a pretty good strikeout pitcher, much better than Suppan. Between 2002-2004, he struck batters out at rates of 6.08, 6.70, and 7.55 per nine. Kip Wells’ third closest comparable pitcher through age 28 is Jason Schmidt. (I used age 28 instead of 29 since Wells has been injured the last two seasons.) Schmidt’s a better pitcher than Wells, but the similarity is remarkable, in many ways. Schmidt’s peak season was 2003, his age 30 year, and I optimistically guessed that Wells would similarly have a strong year at that age. The rate I guessed was 6.65/9, approximately in the middle of those early years that I believe show his true talent level, if it’s not higher. That worked out to the 140 strikeouts.

Allowing home runs hasn’t been a serious problem for Kip—his career rate is 1.02/9 innings. If he held that rate, he’d allow 22 HR over a 190 IP season. With Busch III being a pitcher’s park and assuming that Wells looks to keep the ball on the ground, I guessed a rate of 0.85 HR/9. That’s Chris Carpenter’s 2006 rate, and in retrospect, that’s too optimistic. I’d be surprised, though, if he didn’t beat that career rate by ten points or so, a difference of 2 HR. Of course, he’ll be helped by not having to face the Cardinals lineup.

I arbitrarily made up the win-loss numbers since I don’t put much significance in pitcher wins. That’d be the same record as Jeff Suppan had in his first season with St. Louis—you may have noticed that I don’t think there’s much difference between Wells and Suppan. Soup has better control, Wells has better stuff.

For the ERA guesstimate, I used a bastardized version of Tangotiger’s FIP formula, using 3.00 as the normalizing term instead of 3.20, to arbitrarily optimistically credit the Cardinals defense.

FIP = (13HR + 3BB - 2K)/IP + 3.00 = (13*18 + 3*69 - 2*140)/190 + 3.00 = 3.847

So yes, I just made those numbers up, but I tried to make reasonably educated guesses based on clearly stated assumptions. It’ll be fun to see whether they were at all close to decent at predicting his actual performance. Hopefully, they do.

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