National League Update - Through 5/26/09

Sorry for my absence. Had a baby. You know how it goes.

Also, quick announcement: I've started writing, in at least a limited capacity, for Beyond the Boxscore. Thanks to Sky for giving me a spot over there and being flexible with my schedule.

Anyway, it's time for another look at the National League!

Division Roundups

Quick notes on the stats below: All runs data are park adjusted using Patriot's park factors. PythWins is from Hardball Times, and so is PythagenPat. XtrapWins is the wins that the teams' current winning percentage would provide at the season's end. Wif500 is what the team's record should be if they win half of their remaining games. %for90W is the winning percentage the teams will need to get to 90 wins at the end of the season.

East

Team	W	L	PCT	GB	RS*	RS/G*	RA	RA/G*	PythW	XtrapW	Wif500	%for90W
PHI	25	19	0.568	0	242	5.5	223	5.1	24	92	84	0.551
NYN	25	20	0.556	0.5	219	4.9	194	4.3	25	90	84	0.556
ATL	23	22	0.511	2.5	194	4.3	201	4.5	22	83	82	0.573
FLA	21	26	0.447	5.5	219	4.7	261	5.6	20	72	79	0.600
WAS	13	32	0.289	12.5	222	4.9	280	6.2	17	47	72	0.658

The Defending Champions have pulled ahead, though Pythagoras still prefers the Mets. The Braves are hanging in there, however, with the pitching staff in baseball (so far). Florida's falling, but still within striking distance...but they haven't done much since the first few weeks to warrant any concern. The Nationals are better than their record, but probably have the worst pitching/fielding combination in baseball.

Central

Team	W	L	PCT	GB	RS*	RS/G*	RA	RA/G*	PythW	XtrapW	Wif500	%for90W
MIL	27	19	0.587	0	216	4.7	199	4.3	25	95	85	0.543
STL	27	19	0.587	0	218	4.7	186	4.0	26	95	85	0.543
CIN	25	20	0.556	1.5	203	4.5	194	4.3	23	90	84	0.556
CHN	22	22	0.500	4	193	4.4	192	4.4	22	81	81	0.576
PIT	21	25	0.457	6	207	4.5	203	4.4	23	74	79	0.595
HOU	18	26	0.409	8	194	4.4	228	5.2	19	66	77	0.610

The Brewers and Cardinals are locked in a struggle for first. Pythagoras likes the Cardinals a bit more, but the Brewers are a quality team. The Reds, Cubs, and Pirates are all pretty similar to one another according to Pythagoras, though according to my power rankings (see BtB today!), the Pirates have a slight edge over the Reds, with the Cubs ranking well below them (with the Astros) on the heels of a major losing streak. The Cubs have a ton of talent, however, so I'm not convinced we won't see them surge one of these days. The Astros could well finish in the basement by season's end.

West

Team	W	L	PCT	GB	RS*	RS/G*	RA	RA/G*	PythW	XtrapW	Wif500	%for90W
LAN	32	15	0.681	0	273	5.8	186	4.0	32	110	90	0.504
SD	23	23	0.500	8.5	196	4.3	230	5.0	20	81	81	0.578
SF	22	23	0.489	9	174	3.9	180	4.0	22	79	81	0.581
ARI	20	26	0.435	11.5	186	4.0	212	4.6	20	70	78	0.603
COL	18	27	0.400	13	201	4.5	216	4.8	21	65	77	0.615

The Padres have been hot-hot-hot, but the Mannyless Dodgers just keep on winning. As a result, the Padres haven't gained any ground on the division leaders since my last post, even while they passed the Giants and Rockies by. If I were running the Diamondbacks, I have to say I'd be wondering what happened. Upton, Reynolds, and Felipe freaking Lopez have hit just fine, but seriously: Chris Young (0.235 wOBA), Conor Jackson (0.253), Chad Tracy (0.253), Stephen Drew (0.253), Eric Byrnes (0.281)? Yikes. The good news is that if a few of those guys get going, their defense has been decent enough that a wild card run isn't completely out of the question. But that better start happening soon.

New Toy at FanGraphs: Pitch Type Linear Weights

Today, FanGraphs debuted what they're calling Pitch Type Linear Weights. They're only on the player pages, for now. Appelman:

What this section does is it uses linear weights by count and by event and breaks it down by each pitch type so you can see in runs the actual effectiveness of each pitch.

So, if you make an out on a pitch, you get credited for the linear weights value of an out. If you allow a single on a pitch, you get penalized the linear weights value for that event. And it's broken down by count as well. So, you get a strike on a hitter, you are credited for typical value of a strike. Allow a ball, you're penalized for the typical value of a ball.

These are really new stats, so it's hard to know how to interpret them. So, to start, I pulled career totals for all current Reds pitchers (minus Janish...). All data are average run values per 100 pitches of that type (that's what the "/C" means). My comments are in the table.

Player	wFB/C	wSL/C	wCT/C	wCB/C	wCH/C	Comments
Arroyo	-0.76	1.44	0.07	0.79	-0.64	Breaking stuff is strong, but high-80's fastball gets hit. Has to be thrown to set up the other pitches, though.
Burton	0.71	-2.42	1.33		3.13	You see that cutter, which he throws about half the time. Should he ditch the slider?
Cordero	0.44	1.52			1.38	Probably best slider on the staff--that's not a surprise, right?
Cueto	-0.09	0.4			-1.74	In 2009, Cueto's FB & SL are +1.39/C and +3.18/C, but his change is -8.13 runs/C. Wasn't that something he was working on?
Harang	0.31	0.22		-0.57	-2.22	Harang (like Cueto) is primarily a two-pitch guy, so I guess it's not surprise that his 3rd and 4th pitches don't look so good..?
Herrera	0.75	1.44		-1.58	-0.48	I have no idea how they're classifying his screwball here. Given this and the sample size, I'm ignoring this one
Lincoln	-0.39		-3.17	0.85	4.71	Last year, Lincoln's curve ball was +1.29 runs/C. This year, -3.13 runs/C. Location? Any pitchf/xers want to look?
Masset	-0.38	1.26		1.24	-1.27	Masset throws his fastball 70% of the time. Should he try using his breaking pitches a bit more often (60/20/20 instead of 70/15/15)?
Owings	0.44	-0.84			-0.91	Some guys throw their fastball to set up the offspreed stuff. This makes me think Owings uses to the offspeed to set up his 89 mph FB.
Rhodes	0.93	0.89			1.52	The change-up is little used (low sample), but he gets by just fine with his FB/SL combo.
Volquez	-0.26	-0.72		-1.03	0.76	His early years are weighing him down--his '08-'09 data are much better.
Weathers	0.06	0.84			0.75	He's has gone from using his change-up 3% of pitches to 7% last year and 10% this year, with good results. Simultaneously, he's relying less on his slowing FB.

Your thoughts are welcome!

Red Reporter interviews Reds Asst Director of Baseball Ops Nick Krall

Really exciting interview today by Slyde of Nick Krall of the Reds' front office. Nick reportedly was an extremely nice guy, and the two yammered on for quite a while. Some version of that conversation is what appears at Red Reporter today.

Slyde was nice enough to solicit some questions ahead of time from various people. Here's one of mine and Nick's response:

RR: The Reds have made a few player personnel decisions over the last 6 months that appear to have been in favor of defense over offensive players. What has been the organization's reasoning behind these moves?

NK: Let's use Jay Bruce as an example. Bruce played centerfield last year. Jay Bruce statistically wasn't a great centerfielder, but he was good in right. So he goes from playing out of position to playing his normal position and Taveras comes in to play centerfield. If an average fielder catches 88% of the balls in centerfield and you get around 300-400 balls in centerfield, Willy Taveras is at 90% - he catches 2% more of the balls. So say he catches 8 balls a year more than the average, assuming Jay Bruce is an average centerfielder. If Willy is catching 8 extra balls, that's 8 extra at bats that we'll see. Two or three of the following hitters will get on base because of those at bats, so that's 11 total extra at bats that Willy has probably prevented. Now you add in the other guys that are out there (Bruce, Dickerson, Hairston, etc.) and compare them to the players that were previously out there and you could have upwards of 75 at bats saved in the outfield. We've got a flyball pitching staff - that's no secret. You may get 50 extra balls caught, but it's not just those 50 extra balls that matter. It's the .330 on base percentage after that plus the .330 on base percentage after that. It's not just those outs, but the effects of those outs on limiting the number of overall at bats.

If you are eliminating 75 at bats during the season, it means that fewer pitches are thrown, which means the starter can go longer in the game. If you look at the team in 2006, we had relievers who threw a lot of innings before the All Star break and then by the second half they were worn out or hurt. You are putting a lot of pressure on the relievers. So, improving the defense actually improves your pitching staff because you make more outs and you don't have throw as many pitches. You don't have to get a reliever up and sit him down as many times because the pitcher on the mound has things under control and so the reliever gets a real day of rest. That's where our defense has really improved in that way.

Ok, don't try to follow the math too carefully--this is a transcript of a verbal conversation, not a written argument. But I think the big picture point is right-on, and is something we've been talking about a lot: better fielding can have massive, pervasive effects on innings. I think we all know this intuitively when watching games, but many folk often seem to forget this when evaluating players. Now that we finally have some decent tools to assess defense, we can better understand how important it is.

Also, it's worth mentioning that the runs saved defensive estimates used here, on FanGraphs, etc, do take into account the "inning killer" aspect of better fielding that Krall talks about above in addition to just preventing a play. Tango has a nice discussion of this here.

Basically, the way it works is that the average single is worth ~0.5 runs. That's the additional runs scored you'd expect to get in an average inning that has a single vs. that same inning before the single. So, if you have a guy with excellent range in the outfield who prevents that single, you prevent that 0.5 runs. But in addition to preventing the single, you also caused an out! That extra out reduces the number of runs scored in an inning by, on average, 0.3 runs, because it prevents other players from coming up to hit as Krall describes above (Tango's "inning killer" component). So the total effect of the great play that prevents a single is 0.5 + 0.3 = 0.8 runs. This is where the shorthand 0.8 runs/play conversion that you'll sometimes see used comes from, though the one used in bUZR is specifically honed to the specific position, and I think also the zone, how hard the ball was hit, etc.

FWIW, the Reds' outfield currently sports a cumulative bUZR of +15.6 runs, which is on pace for +68 runs saved at the end of the year. Last year, outfield bUZR was -33 runs. In 2007, it was -31 runs. We're talking close to a 100 run difference (if they can keep on pace, of course), which equals ~10 wins. Don't get me wrong, I miss Dunn's bat...but I don't miss his glove, and I especially don't miss Junior's glove.

Congrats again to Slyde for scoring this interview! It's something he and I (and others) have talked about for a while, but to see it actually happen is really exciting! Hopefully it's just the start of a long, positive relationship between the Reds front office and the blogging community.

American League Update - Through 5/16/09

Tonight, I'm going to take a look at the junior circuit.

Division Roundups

Quick notes on the stats below: All runs data are park adjusted using Patriot's park factors. PythWins is from Hardball Times, and so is PythagenPat. XtrapWins is the wins that the teams' current winning percentage would provide at the season's end. Wif500 is what the team's record should be if they win half of their remaining games. %for90W is the winning percentage the teams will need to get to 90 wins at the end of the season.

East

Team	W	L	PCT	GB	RS*	RS/G*	RA	RA/G*	PythW	XtrapW	Wif500	%for90W
TOR	25	14	0.641	0	219	5.6	167	4.3	24	104	87	0.528
BOS	22	15	0.595	2	198	5.4	180	4.9	20	96	85	0.544
NYA	19	17	0.528	4.5	195	5.4	210	5.8	17	86	82	0.563
TB	18	20	0.474	6.5	203	5.3	189	5.0	20	77	80	0.581
BAL	16	21	0.432	8	186	5.0	216	5.8	16	70	79	0.592

As much as hate to admit it, this is probably the most interesting division in baseball right now. The Red Sox and Yankees should have very good teams, and the Rays--despite their record--have played every bit as tough as the rich teams. But the Blue Jays have been the class of the division thus far, sporting both the best offensive and the best defensive (pitching + fielding) performances. You have to expect some of Toronto's hitter's to fall back to earth--none of Barajas (0.820), Hill (0.927), and Scutaro (0.869) have OPS'd over 0.800 before this season. And they've gotten unreal pitching performances from Romero and Cecil. It will be interesting to see how long they can hold off their division rivals.

Central

Team	W	L	PCT	GB	RS*	RS/G*	RA	RA/G*	PythW	XtrapW	Wif500	%for90W
DET	19	16	0.543	0	190	5.4	163	4.7	20	88	83	0.559
KC	19	18	0.514	1	166	4.5	151	4.1	20	83	82	0.568
MIN	18	19	0.486	2	181	4.9	197	5.3	17	79	81	0.576
CHA	15	20	0.429	4	135	3.8	162	4.6	15	69	79	0.591
CLE	14	24	0.368	6.5	198	5.2	218	5.7	17	60	76	0.613

Another rather evenly matched division, though perhaps without the quality of the east. The Tigers have had the best offense, but the Royals have had the best defense--thanks in no small part to the spectacular first month and a half for Zach Greinke. Nice also to see Brian Bannister having a nice bit of success in the early goings. The Tigers have their own surprise--Brandon Inge is OPSing 0.954--but they have a lot of guys who aren't really hitting yet (Granderson, Guillen, Ordonez) and thus might actually improve even as Inge cools.

West

Team	W	L	PCT	GB	RS*	RS/G*	RA	RA/G*	PythW	XtrapW	Wif500	%for90W
TEX	22	14	0.611	0	200	5.6	174	4.8	20	99	85	0.540
LAA	18	17	0.514	3.5	177	5.1	179	5.1	17	83	82	0.567
SEA	17	20	0.459	5.5	152	4.1	179	4.8	16	74	80	0.584
OAK	13	20	0.394	7.5	145	4.4	162	4.9	15	64	78	0.597

The Angels have had as much bad luck and tragedy as any team I can remember, but still are right at 0.500 thanks their great depth. The Rangers, though, have taken advantage of the weak division, riding hot starts by Ian Kinsler, Michael Young, and Kevin Millwood to a nice little division lead. Not as impressive is the offense of Ken Griffey Jr.'s Seattle Mariners. Thank goodness they at least have Russell Branyon.

Team performance breakdown

Below is a kind of power ranking of teams based on their component statistics. I estimate team runs scored using linear weights (actually, FanGraphs does, though I park-adjust it), pitching performance based on FIP (I do park-adjust the HR's), and fielding based on UZR. I use those numbers to estimate team runs scored and runs allowed, and then use PythagenPat to estimate expected winning percentage. It's not perfect, but this should give us another look at team performance that gets beyond actual wins, losses, and runs scored or allowed.

			Offense				Pitching						Fielding			Overall
Rank	Prev	Team	OBP	SLG	wOBA*	wRC*	ERA	FIP*	K/9	BB/9	HR*/9	FIPRuns*	bUZR	THT+/-	DER	ExptW%
1	-	Blue Jays	0.359	0.460	0.356	225	3.97	4.23	6.8	3.1	0.9	181	6.2	24.8	0.720	0.619
2	-	Rays	0.346	0.452	0.357	214	4.83	4.83	6.5	3.8	1.2	191	16.3	0	0.689	0.595
3	-	Royals	0.335	0.421	0.334	174	3.63	3.76	7.5	3.4	0.7	149	-3.8	-4.8	0.685	0.560
4	-	Rangers	0.335	0.496	0.357	201	4.66	5.02	5.3	3.4	1.2	192	15.2	19.2	0.712	0.560
5	-	Tigers	0.340	0.426	0.337	170	4.31	4.29	7.3	3.6	1.0	160	4.7	8.8	0.704	0.544
6	-	Red Sox	0.364	0.451	0.351	204	4.82	4.67	7.4	4.0	1.1	185	-12	-7.2	0.677	0.517
7	-	Yankees	0.350	0.467	0.358	211	5.41	5.28	7.2	4.2	1.4	203	-4.1	4	0.691	0.509
8	-	Indians	0.355	0.420	0.345	204	5.62	5.03	6.6	4.0	1.3	199	-2.8	-12.8	0.673	0.505
9	-	Angels	0.344	0.414	0.339	174	4.70	4.61	6.0	3.4	1.0	171	-4.1	-10.4	0.690	0.497
10	-	Twins	0.347	0.417	0.338	183	5.20	4.91	6.2	3.0	1.4	192	-0.1	-0.8	0.696	0.476
11	-	Orioles	0.342	0.437	0.340	182	5.51	5.11	6.6	3.3	1.5	196	-9	-20	0.666	0.444
12	-	Mariners	0.305	0.378	0.305	138	4.25	4.46	6.8	3.7	1.0	178	10.6	-4.8	0.689	0.411
13	-	White Sox	0.317	0.385	0.306	132	4.71	4.05	7.0	3.8	0.7	150	-14.4	-19.2	0.667	0.398
14	-	Athletics	0.309	0.338	0.294	116	4.12	4.57	6.2	3.6	1.0	167	-0.2	-11.2	0.689	0.333

The only major disparity I see is with the Indians, who have apparently hit and pitched well enough to expect a 0.500 record, and yet are somehow 10 games below 0.500. Their true pythagorean record is 17 wins, but indications here are that they've given up quite a few more runs than expected. Are they just unlucky, or are the methods missing in this case? Part of the answer might be with the fielding estimates: bUZR rates them as only slightly below average, but THT's batted-ball based plus/minus stat (as well as straight-up DER) pegs them at second-worst in the league. Perhaps bUZR is overrating their defense?

What's up with the Athletics offense? They add Giambi, Holliday, and Nomah, and yet have a wOBA under 0.300? Beane must be blowing a gasket.

• Top hitting teams (wOBA*): Yankees, Rays, Rangers, Blue Jays, Red Sox (holy AL East!)
  
• Top pitching teams (FIP*):Royals, White Sox, Blue Jays, Tigers, Mariners
  
• Top fielding teams (bUZR): Rays, Rangers, Mariners (maybe), Blue Jays, Tigers
• "Expected" leaders: Blue Jays, Royals, Rangers
• "Expected" Wild card: Rays

Blue Jays rank in top five in hitting, pitching, and fielding. What will they have to do to keep their lead the rest of the way?