Revisiting 2009 Draftee Wade Gaynor

Around this time last year, I took an interest in trying to adjust the offensive numbers put up in the college baseball landscape so I could get a grasp on what constitutes "good" offensive numbers in college baseball. With the metal bats, 300+ division 1 teams, and a talent pool that is very, very spread out, the elite college hitters put up offensive numbers that compared to what we're used to Major Leaguers putting up are just mind boggling.

I've written about my methods over at Baseball Analysts last winter. Overall, my methods really haven't strayed from that article. That is still how I correct for the park factor and for the strength of schedule.

The only things that have changed have been the weightings I give the categories in my "score" category. My "score" is a hodge-podge formula that is completely back-of-the-envelope on what I think the weightings should be -- like heavily penalizing K% (strikeouts divided by plate appearances) and rewarding BB%. I also use adjusted Weighted On Base Average (wOBA) and Isolated Power (IsoP; slugging percentage minus batting average) that get adjusted by park factors and strength of schedule. I'm really just rambling the things I wrote in the article I already linked to.

Before I move on I want to say this: The biggest single-season sample size I have is 354 plate appearances. So, immediately the Small Sample Size alarms should be ringing in your head. Most players are coming in around 250 PA's which is about 35% of a full, major league season. That is the biggest thing to keep in mind.

The second biggest thing to keep in mind is that these always, always need scouting reports to accompany them. Sure this is fun and all (for a nerd like myself), but the numbers don't mean anything if there's glaring holes in a players swing or someone isn't going to stick in center field like they have during their college careers.

With all that said, I've just input the numbers for the Sun Belt Conference and took a look at Wade Gaynor, the Tigers 3rd round draft pick out of Western Kentucky University. Lets see what they say after the jump. . .

PITCHf/x Profiling: Robbie Weinhardt

One of the 308 college relievers that the Detroit Tigers took in the 2008 draft is Robbie Weinhardt. He spent the last couple of months in the Arizona Fall League pitching for the Peoria Javalinas. Because of this, we get some decent-sized amount of data on how good of stuff the former Oklahoma State Cowboy features as parks in Peoria and Surprise, Arizona were fitted with PITCHf/x cameras.

Before we start, I will say that the following post is using only the data from Peoria as I haven't learned to correct for park differences. Also, I did not break up the fastballs between two- and four-seam fastballs. I feel that the change-up's were all labeled correctly -- except one, which I believe was a breaking ball. Speaking of the breaking ball, I've elected to go with labeling them as a Slider. Whether it's a slider or a curveball ... I don't know. I'm not sure it matters so long as the labeling is consistent.

Now, on with the PITCHf/x graphy goodness after the jump

Evaluating Baseball Managers: Billy Martin

Just wanted to take a moment to pass along this fantastic link. Chris Jaffe, a writer at The Hardball Times, has a book coming out about baseball managers and their tendencies. It seems like a great read and something I'll be looking to pick up.

Well, today's excerpt was about former Detroit Tigers manager, Billy Martin. It focuses mostly on his time with the Twins, but it's a fantastic look into what a gambler he was. Here's the part I enjoyed/was shocked about the most:

Martin’s approach to the base paths demonstrated how he wanted his team to play. In the second game he managed, Minnesota’s Rod Carew stole home. This was no fluke—by the end of the month, Carew had three steals of home and by the season’s conclusion he tied Ty Cobb’s single-season record with seven such swipes. Three of them came on triple steals. On another occasion, Cesar Tovar stole home as part of a successful triple steal. Four triple steals are the most by any one team in the last half-century, and probably the most since the deadball era.

On another occasion, opponents tagged Tovar out at the head of another triple steal—which Martin called when the Twins enjoyed a six-run lead. Graig Nettles, of all people, was once thrown out stealing home. Technically he was picked off of third and made a break for it, but he must have had a good-sized lead to draw a throw, as pitchers normally do not try picking runners off of third. Even slow-footed Harmon Killebrew, at age 33, stole eight bases that season. He had 11 the rest of his career. Billy Martin truly did not fear a damn thing.

Say whaaa? A triple steal? I've seen double steals fairly frequently, but the triple steal has never even entered my mind as a possibility in a baseball game. Ever. And I like to think that I'm fairly outside-the-box thinking. Maybe I'm not. That is astounding.

But, please, click through to read the entire thing. It's a great read from what is shaping up to be a great book. If you do like what you read and want to pre-order it, I would really recommend doing it through the publisher, as that nets Chris the most money, and lets face it, making money in from publishing a book (especially one in this sort of niche-market) is not easy.

Fun With Projections, Fanning the Milton Bradley Flames and Polanco v. Sizemore

Like I mentioned in my last post, the CHONE projections for hitters have been released. Sean Smith does a ton of good work from the CHONE projections, to TotalZone defensive metrics for the minor leagues, to the Wins Above Replacement database Lee is using for his top 20 tigers series. So head on over to Sean's site and waste away your afternoon looking at various CHONE Projections that I don't cover below.

About a month ago, I advocated trading for Milton Bradley after reading a piece from Patrick Hayes proposing it. Nothing has dissuaded me from still hoping Bradley comes to Motown and now we have CHONE projections to use to see how good he could be next year.

How does Bradley look for 2010? And what about other Tigers of interest? Find out after the jump...

Trading Curtis Granderson

The media and internet has been quite a-buzz with rumors of Curtis Granderson potentially being shopped by the Detroit Tigers. I want to say this right off the bat: I think Dombrowski is listening to offers, not shopping him. There's a difference between the two. And I see no reason for Dombrowski to not listen. You don't know if someone's willing to trade you the moon for him if you're not open to the discussion.

I've valued Curtis Granderson to be quite the bargain back when Lynn Henning was hitting him with the "Trade This Tiger" dart-toss of a column. He finished the 2009 season with 3.4 Wins Above Replacement and now with the Bill James and CHONE projections (hitters only, thus far) being released, we can get a pretty good read on his value. In the past, the Bill James projections have been a bit inflated (probably has to do with the level at which he is regressing the past numbers) and CHONE has proven to be a beast of a projection system as of late. Let's examine him (again). . .

DIBS Awards

There is some ground-swelling amongst all of the Tigers bloggers to bring back what is known as DIBS: Detroit Independent Baseball Scribes. It's being headed up by Kurt Mensching of Mack Avenue Tigers (and ESPN Tigers-independent blogger!) fame. Recently we all voted for the Hitter and Pitcher of the year as well as Breakout Player of the Year and Most Improved Player, and the results can be read in the DIBS 'press release' below:

Established 2005

Tigers scribes announce 2009 season awards

Miguel Cabrera, Justin Verlander unanimous winners


Detroit Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera and starting pitcher Justin Verlander were voted the Tigers' top positional player and top pitcher of 2009, in a vote conducted by the Detroit Independent Baseball Scribes.

Cabrera and Verlander each received 20 first-place votes.

Cabrera had a .942 on-base percentage plus slugging average (OPS), which was good for fifth in the American League. He had a .324 batting average, 34 home runs and 103 RBIs. All four categories led the Tigers. His Ultimate Zone Rating of 2.8 ranked second of all AL first basemen.

Verlander led baseball in strikeouts with 269 and was tied for first in the AL with 19 wins. He had an ERA of 3.45. He led the Tigers in all three categories.

Voting was also conducted in two other categories: breakout player of the year, for the player experiencing his first taste of success in the major leagues; and most improved, for the player who made the biggest step forward from the previous season.

Rookie right-handed starting pitcher Rick Porcello earned 18 of 20 votes for the breakout honors. The 20-year-old completed the season with a 14-9 record, 3.96 ERA and 89 strikeouts in 170 2/3 innings. Also receiving votes were right-handed starting pitcher Edwin Jackson (1) and utility player Ryan Raburn (1).

Verlander was also named comeback player of the year, rebounding from a 2008 season which saw him go 11-17 with a 4.84 ERA and 163 strikeouts. He received 11 of 20  votes in the category. Also receiving votes were right-handed closer Fernando Rodney (3), Raburn (2), Brandon Inge (1), Brandon Lyon (1), Jackson (1) and utility infielder Ramon Santiago (1).

Voting was conducted during the week of Nov. 9-15.

Established in 2005, the Detroit Independent Baseball Scribes now has 21 members who write primarily on the Internet. Its member writers are affiliated with such online organizations as MLive.com (Booth Newspapers), SB Nation, ESPN.com, Freep.com, Bleacher Report, Yardbarker, MVN, Fan Blog and Fan Huddle.


The Detroit Independent Baseball Scribes include:

Bless You Boys -- Ian Casselberry
Daily Fungo -- Mike McClary
DesigNate Robertson -- Scott Rogowski
Detroit4Lyfe -- Bob Biscigliano
Detroit Tigers Den -- Austin Drake
Detroit Tigers Weblog -- Bill Ferris
Eye of the Tigers -- J. Ellet Lambie
Fire Jim Leyland -- Mike Rogers
It's Just Sports -- Patrick Hayes
Jamie Samuelsen's Blog -- Jamie Samuelsen
Mack Avenue Tigers -- Kurt Mensching
MLive's The Cutoff Man -- James Schmehl and Scott Warheit
Old English D -- Jennifer Cosey
Roar of the Tigers -- Samara Pearstein
Spot Starters -- Blake Vande Bunte
Take 75 North -- Matt Wallace
Tigers Amateur Analysis -- Erin Saelzler
Tigerblog -- Brian Borawski
Tiger Geist -- John Brunn
Tiger Tales -- Lee Panas
Tiger Tracks -- John Parent
Where have you gone, Johnny Grubb? --Greg Eno

Anatomy of a Player: Placido Polanco

Given the slow amount of news that trickles out at this time of the baseball season for non-playoff teams, I figured that it'd be the best time to take a break from toying around in Excel and posting about the Tigers. But, I'm back now and here to continue my Anatomy of a Player series (which can be found in the right side bar).

Below the jump, you'll find graphs on the value that Placido Polanco has brought to the table since his first full season in Detroit, 2006. . .

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. . .

Scouting Andrew Oliver with PITCHf/x

The Arizona Fall League started up and there will be PITCHf/x cameras turned on in Surprise and Peoria, ARI. Tigers 2009 draft pick, and one part of the Big Four they signed to over-slot deals, Andrew Oliver has made his debut under the bright, uh, lens of the cameras. Before that though...

Andrew Oliver is probably best known for his battle with the NCAA over representation and the MLB draft. On the diamond, he's a lefty with a good breaking ball and low-to-mid 90's fastball. From the left side, what more can you want, really?

PITCHf/x data and graphs abound, after the jump.

Graphic Value: Offense

This off season, one of the things I've got planned is a break down of the components of each aspect of the game as they relate to the Tigers players. My plan is separate as many components apart and graph them to make them easier to understand. I've never had a problem looking at a set of numbers and picking out what part of that player's game drives most of their value. This will be a series I'll be calling Graphic Value because, well, I'm not that creative when it comes to names.

First up, we've got offense. My offensive statistic of choice is Weighted On Base Average (wOBA), as created by Tom Tango in The Book. You can find the formula here. What's great about this, is that it's based in Linear Weights which has proven to be the most accurate way to measure offense. It is scaled to mirror On Base Percentage (OBP), so .335 is right around average, .360 is good, .380 is great and .400+ is elite level offensive ability. wOBA properly weights the ability to get on base with the ability to hit for power.

After some help from Steve over at STL Sports Scene, where I first saw these graphs and got the idea from, I've got a stacked bar graph displaying the value of each component as they relate to each player. Click the graph to enlarge.

Here we see all of the components that go into the wOBA formula and how much each player gets out of their skill set. These are only players with 100+ plate appearances with the Tigers, except for Alex Avila who had just 72 PA's. I knew someone would probably inquire about him so I've included him despite the incredibly small sample, of which, you can't fully conclude anything.

wOBA rewards the home run as the best hit (and event) that a hitter can have. Therefore, they're mostly the biggest component of a players offensive value.

Some quick hits about the graph:

-Look how big the 1B (singles) bar is in Magglio Ordonez's graph is. He was a singles machine. Unfortunately, his HR section is just about as big as Placido Polanco's.

-Alex Avila's bar is just 72 PA's, but his incredibly limited sampling showed a well-rounded offensive game. However, I don't expect that to be his true talent level at all.

-In case you didn't notice, these are all summed and the top of each bar is the total wOBA of each player. Aubrey Huff is in last, and that is only his wOBA from his time in Detroit. To be positive about a trade I did not like, Huff walked at a decent clip. So, there's that.

-There are some players that provided negative value with the stolen base, however these were very, very small. They were Raburn, Thames, Guillen, Inge and Santiago. The most negative value from the stolen base of the players I've looked at was Guillen at -0.004. To say it's a tiny impact is an understatement. The best, by the way, was Josh Anderson at 0.012.