Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Today in Baseball Prospectus...

As frustrating as I sometimes find their stats (too much proprietary info...even for their subscribers!), the Baseball Prospectus folks do put out some great material. Today, there were several articles that were of particular interest to Reds fans--I'll summarize two of them since I'm sure many people don't have subscriptions.

1. Kevin Goldstein wrote a fascinating essay on the draft practices of different big-league clubs. He created a ranking of ballclubs based on the money paid to their top-5 draft picks over the past three years multiplied by risk coefficients for each player. Risk coefficients were set based on the riskiness of each acquisition (presumably this was based on some data), with college hitters being the least risky and high school hitters being the most risky (I always thought high school pitchers were harder to project/keep injury free...??).

He then plotted this score vs. the total dollars spent on draft picks and came up with four types of clubs: high risk-high spenders, low-risk-high spenders, high risk-low spenders, and low-risk low-spenders. Interestingly, the only type of organization that didn't have examples of highly successful programs were the low-risk, low-spending teams like the Phillies or the Blue Jays. The Athletics, Diamondbacks, and Indians typified the low-risk, high spending teams, while the Twins and Devil Rays were high risk, high spending teams. The Reds fit into the high risk, low spending bracket, along actual productive systems like the Braves and the Cardinals.

2. Joe Sheehan has a piece on the recently released Carlos Pena, who many Reds fans have been clamoring for Krivsky to sign and stick in our hole at first base this year. It's not a complementary article, and highlights his high strikeout rate as a major factor that has impaired his development. Here's an excerpt:
Pena simply hasn’t been a very good major leaguer. He has a career line of .243/.330/.459 in 1887 plate appearances across five seasons. His inability to make contact--492 strikeouts in 1652 at-bats, one every 3.4 ABs--and the middling power he generates when he does hit the ball have prevented him from putting up the kind of numbers you need from a first baseman. He’s been remarkably consistent at a level just a bit below what you need to get from a first sacker: EQAs ranging from .270 to .286 in his four full seasons. His defense, at least according to Clay Davenport’s system, has been underwhelming, below average in every season.
His ultimate point is that we should perhaps pay more attention to strikeout rates when we evaluate players, but the article also argues that any move the Reds might make with Pena should be done cautiously.

Of course, Sheehan closes his article with this:
I still think Pena can have a career. He’s 28 years old and coming off of two season of .280+ EQAs, and he did close last year with a strong second half. In fact, having written this column, I expect he’ll latch on with the Astros or something and hit .295/.380/.540 with 37 home runs, winning Comeback Player of the Year honors. And a Nobel Prize. And a People’s Choice Award.
So maybe we should go grab him. :)
-j

5 comments:

  1. If they won't take Choi, why would they take Pena? I'm as mystified as anyone about this, but obviously there is something that Narron and Krivsky like about Hatteberg that is not apparent from looking at his past performance. Or there is something in the works that we can't see.

    Personally, I am not in favor of more Reds strikeouts, period, whether they come from Pena or Dunn or Jim Thome. This is one of the reasons I think the Casey trade really hurt us, because we now have one less reliable in-play ball every nine at bats. (Unless Williams wins 15 games and pitches 200 innings. Then I'll just shut up.)

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  2. I'm not as worried about the SOs as some. Casey may have made contact, but he also grounded into a lot of DPs (27 (!) last year). And 58 RBIs is very low for a .300+ hitter, esp. in that park and with that lineup.

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  3. You may like Hatteberg then, as he's a good contact guy who's very patient at the plate. I thought he was a great signing as a reserve. But he's going to be 36 this year, and given that that the Reds may be lucky to not finish last this season, I'd like to get a guy in there who has some future potential. I think Choi is a better bet than Pena (moot point now), but I'd rather see one of those guys than Hatteberg starting at first.

    Strikeouts...well, I'll definitely grant that they are the least productive out, save for being caught stealing. But I think their detriment to a ballclub is overrated--a player can strike out a lot IF they are otherwise productive, particularly if they get on base and have power. But I'd gladly take a guy who could post a 880's-plus OPS this year along with some additional strikeouts. Wouldn't bother me a bit. And both Choi and Pena are potentially able to do that this year, while the best we can hope for from Hatteberg is a high 700's OPS.
    -j

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  4. Hatteburg is Sean Casey at one tenth the price. End of story.

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  5. Anonymous said...
    Hatteburg is Sean Casey at one tenth the price. End of story.


    Unfortunately, that's not entirely true. As bad as Casey was last season (for a first baseman), Hatteberg was 25% worse. Casey has grossly out produced Hatteberg the last 2 seasons, and Casey's career OPS+ is 14 points higher than Hatteberg's.

    I'm not upset to have Hatteberg (like J, I'd prefer he was a backup). However, if he gets 500 at bats this year and performs like he did last season, the Reds will definitely have a drop in runs scored. Casey hit into a lot of double plays, but he also had a .371 OBP. That's not easy to replace. And given that the Reds didn't really do anything with the money that they saved on him, his loss means little bit more.

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