Projecting RBIs

December 24, 2008 by Alex Geshwind  
Filed under Uncategorized

Tex again?!

I hate RBIs. I hate what they stand for. I hate when announcers talk about how great RBIs are. I hate when “Hank Aaron’s greatest record is the RBI record.” I hate when players are picked in fantasy baseball leagues because they “drive guys in.” I hate when Joe Morgan writes books about baseball and says that, in fantasy, you need an “RBI man.” 

 

But because the majority of us are forced to use RBI as a category in our fantasy leagues we need a way to reliably factor them into our player valuations. One way is to just assume that better players will get more RBIs. But this is not the case. We could also just look at team offense, but again this doesn’t factor in how often a player will convert RBI opportunities. 

 

In my opinion the best and only way to semi-reliably project RBIs is to look at batting position, team offense, and player ability. The first formula I will look at is pretty simple. For #3 hitter s in the AL Projected RBI = OPS+(% relative to other #3 hitters)*100*OPS+(of team). Lets run that down. OPS+ relative to other #3 batters will show you how much better said player is from other #3 batters. The average third hitter has an OPS of .805 in the American League. Mark Teixeira had an OPS of .963 last year. That means his OPSbo+ would be 120%. That makes him 20% better than the average third hitter. The 100 is the average number of runs batted in by #3 hitters in the league. If we do the first half of the formula we get 120 RBI. In an average American League lineup, Mark Teixeira should drive in 120 runs. 

 

But the Yankees aren’t an average American League lineup. We need to find out how money runs he will drive in on the Yankees. So lets look at the Yankees OPS+, which happens to be 102%. If we multiply Mark Teixeira’s neutral RBI by the amount the Yankees are better than the neutral team we should get his RBIs right? That gives him 122.4 runs batted in. Seems reasonable. Now we do have one problem here. We don’t know if we are correctly factoring in any of this. Maybe (actually probably) RBIs have far more to do with who bats in front of you than total team offense. Though by using batting order averages we factor this in a bit, we don’t have the numbers to back this up. So lets take a look at Bobby Abreu in 2008.

 

Abreu hit #3 for the Yankees, who we already know is a 102% team. If we multiply 100 by 1.02 we get 102. So the average #3 hitter should drive in 102 runs on the Yankees. Bobby Abreu’s OPS is .842. The league average #3 hitter has a OPS of .805. That means Abreu has an OPSbo+ of 106%. 102 times 1.06 is equal to 108. Abreu drove in a 112 runs last year. Now this isn’t dead on, but there is certainly a lot of random luck and chance involved. It seems as though we might be on to something. But of course, there isn’t much proof here. Much more research needs to be put into here before we can come to a conclusion. 

 

I think something that needs to be stressed is that we are operating under the assumption that batting order position is of much greater importance than any other factor in RBI totals. While this may not be the case, we run into all sorts of problems if we start looking at player ability as paramount. The problem is that a players RBI total is effected by countless outside forces. When we look at a batting spots RBI total, we can take away the “who put up these numbers?” factor by just looking at the average, and then finding out how much better our target player is than the average. If we look at Abreu, we just can’t take away the team offense and batting order factors, as much as we may try. In my opinion RBI are probably the last thing you want to calculate. They don’t effect anything else, and everything else effects them. 

 

I don’t think we should draw a massive conclusion from this other than that RBI totals are effected a lot by luck and random chance. We know that team offense, batting position, and player ability are factors however I’m not sure we are weighing them correctly. As far as I can tell, this projection system does a good job of approximating how many RBI a player should put up, however there is a lot more time that could be spent on this topic. 

MLB needs help, but not a salary cap

December 23, 2008 by Alex Geshwind  
Filed under FCG, Of interested

 

With the Yankees recent signing of Mark Teixeira there has been a lot of criticism from the baseball world as to the wild spending of Hank, Hal, and Cashman over the last month. The problem is obviously not the Yankees, if you have money why not spend it? The problem is Major League Baseball. They don’t regulate spending, they don’t help out small market teams with nearly enough revenue sharing, and they allow the Florida Marlins of the world to draw 700 fans, spend $15 million, and get a nice, new, shinny stadium. When people see a spending problem their first reaction is to put in place a salary cap. Salary caps have had mixed results. It worked in the NFL. No, not every team competes every year, but the Lions and Cardinals have bad management. It’s not like they are being terribly out spent by the Patriots and Colts of the world. The NBA’s salary cap however is a joke. No one cares about it. If they have money, they just pay the fines. In a star driven league owners will pay to get big players on board. But a salary cap would be even more disastrous in Major League Baseball. It would set the league back a couple of decades, and would completely decimate the baseball economy. A lockout would follow, most likely for more than a year, and baseball would never be the same again. 
Lets look at what happens if we put a low ($90-$100 million) cap in place. Of course MLB couldn’t do this in one year, even the most extreme cap supporters have to realize that, but say they put it in place over 5-10 years. And lets, for a second, pretend they don’t have to get it past the MLBPA. As the cap slowly went down, teams would be forced to renegotiate contracts or buy players out. The market value for the average Major League player would go way down. Instead of a few teams out there reinvesting most of their money back into their teams all owners would be forced to pocket a good deal of their revenue. This is what players fought to prevent during the 60’s in the lead up to the first MLB free agent. Teams controlled players, there wasn’t much money in the market, and owners got rich while players were paid far less than they should have been. Now we have to look at the MLBPA. I don’t think the organization who’s job it is to get the most money and the greatest quality of life for it’s players would like this salary cap. Think about how it would devastate player contracts. No team could sign Mark Teixeira for 8 years, $180 million guaranteed. The MLBPA holds a lot of power because, quite simply, they can stop baseball until they get what they want. They did it in 1994, and that was for far less than an $80 million salary cap. A lockout could go on for years, baseball would not recover. 
Now lets look at what would happen if we put in a reasonably high ($175-$200 million) cap. First of all the MLBPA would appose it. It doesn’t matter if every team was bellow the cap, the PA wants to raise payrolls and get the players paid. Even if they could somehow get the PA to sign off on this, what is it going to do? There are still few MLB teams willing to spend $100-$150 million in payroll, even if they make that much in revenue. The Yankees would max out their cap, and the lower teams would be about $150 million bellow. This would just exaggerate the problem. MLB teams would begin paying full salaries just so smaller market teams would take on their big contracts for injured or aging players so they could continue to approach the cap. This would just make the problem worse. Small market teams would be LESS likely to compete and baseball would become a joke.
There are also those who would like to see a payroll range. Somewhere in the $80-$100 million range. I have a major problem with this. Teams operate differently, and the only way to compensate with that would be a $50 million or great difference between the cap and the floor. Because we have seen how un-pleasant that would be, I just don’t see it happening. Maybe at some point in the future MLB can elect a committee to put forth a salary cap at the start of each off season based on the current revenue in the league. This however would be assuming that league revenue continues to grow. In a league with guaranteed contracts, there is no such thing as lowering a salary cap. That just doesn’t work. 
But what do we do about it? My proposal is simple. Share revenue so that everyone has a chance to sign a few big name players. Then enforce a salary floor so that teams will not be able to take this revenue and hand it to the ownership group. This would create a semi-level playing field. I don’t think MLB will ever by completely fair, but I’ll tell you, there would be far more teams in it for Sabathia and Teixeira if they were getting forced to spend $75 million anyway. Owners, seeing they had to spend, would go after big name guys in hopes that they could fill a few more seats and make more money. The PA would be thrilled. Instead of 3 or 4 teams able to offer Teixeira that kind of a contract, now all 30 teams would theoretical have a shot. They would all have enough money, and they would HAVE to spend it on someone. 
There are a few more important economic issues baseball should work on. First free agent compensation. The Brewers traded Matt Laporta for CC Sabathia in July. They got a few months and a playoff birth out of him, and for that their fans are happy. But he has gone to sign a $160 million contract with the Yankees and the Brewers are left with the Yankeees second round pick. Guess why? Because their first round pick is going to the Angels for Teixeira. You see Elias sports Burrow has come up with a stupid formula for ranking free agents. Sabathia was less than a point bellow Teixeira, but it doesn’t matter. First, get rid of Elias. They have been nothing but trouble ever. They held on to the traditional scorecard and refused to share information with the public in the 80’s and 90’s. Put STATS Inc. or Baseball Info Solutions in charge. Both would do a FAR better job. Next we need to fix the compensation it self. The Angles should have gotten the 27th pick, but the Brewers should have gotten number 28 (or 27a and 27b). The Yankees then should have given up later round picks to compensate teams that didn’t get the Yankees first first round pick. 
Next Major League Baseball has to get some kind of slotting system in the draft. Boras runs the thing and teams are afraid to pick the best players because they might refuse to sign. There should be regulations as to what kind of bonuses you can pay latter round picks, forcing players to accept being drafter earlier if they wanted their money and to accept a reasonable sum once they are drafted. We also need to somehow incorporate Latin American players into some kind of draft. Again, these guys are signed by agents and go to the highest bidder. Smaller market teams rarely have the resources to compete in this area. 
Something has to be done, however I don’t really expect Major League Baseball to think about a lot of these things. Major League Baseball is a business, and as Bud Selig likes to say it’s doing better than ever (or was). Fans will get pissed that the Yankees and Tigers spend 10 times as much as them, but in reality the real problem in this league is poor revenue sharing and greedy owners. I doubt anything is done to level the playing field for a long time, small market teams can and do win, and I think the likelihood of anything extreme ever happening is slim to non. Selig already has steroids on his resume, he’s not going to take on another strike on top of that. Don’t expect anything to be done until he is gone. However if something is done the worst thing it could possibly be is a cap. A cap would ruin baseball, it would kill the player market, and it would send them into a lockout they might never recover from. 

Tex in Pinstripes

December 23, 2008 by Alex Geshwind  
Filed under FCG, Free Agency

After months of back and forth rumors on where Mark Teixeira would end up, he is a Yankee. While many feel the Yankees off-season of spending is irresponsible, they just picked up the top 3 free agents by some accounts. They are the favorites to win the division, the AL, and the world series. They locked up a 26 year old ace and a 28 year old #3 hitter who happens to be the best defensive first basemen in the league. While their off season may be a little much - over $400 million on 3 guys - however there is no doubt that they got who the wanted, and are probably the best team in baseball. But should they have spent their money on Teixeira? Would Manny Ramirez have been a better fit for the team? These are all legitimate questions.

Manny Ramirez is a pretty good hitter. In 2008 he hit better than anyone in the league except Albert Pujols. But over the last few years he’s been a pretty big drag deffensivly. First of all he plays a corner outfield position, if not DH, which takes away a significant chunk of any deffensive value he may have had. He isn’t that bad, about 5 runs bellow the league average, but he’s certainly not doing anything special at a relatively easy position. Teixeira however was easily the best defensive first basemen in the league. He was 11.7 runs above the average fielder (UZR), that’s over a win he contributes defensively. His offensive and defensive contributions but him in an elite category with Pujols, Lance Berkman, and himself. 

Offensively he’s no slouch, and he’s just getting better. His .410 wOBA was the highest of his career. He was also 46.1 runs above average, less than 2 runs below his career high 48 in 2005. He might not have had Many’s monster second half, but he destroyed AL pitching, and over the past few seasons has faired far better than Ramirez. Age certainly played a huge factor. Manny is 36 and even with his great 2008 he’s obviously in a decline. Teixeira is 28 and he’s entering his prime.
Overall I think this is a great deal for the Yankees. Many will criticize them for spending so much, but would you rather have the Steinbrener family pocket the money? The Yankees have the resources to win and they are using them the right way. I am a huge Theo Epstein fan, but in this case Brian Cashman did a better job. Epstein stubbornly let $1.5 million for the next 8 years get in the way of one of the top 5 players in baseball. He could have made the offer yesterday and Tex would be with Boston. Again the Yankees make a really, really good signing at a position of need. This team is going to be pretty good next year, no one can deny that. Furthermore they have used their resources in the most intelligent way possible, spending it on the top under-30 free agents, improving their pitching, offense, and defense, and actually lowering payroll. 

Another keeper list

December 16, 2008 by Alex Geshwind  
Filed under Keepers

So another keeper list has come in. Make sure to send in your keeper list if you would like keeper advice.

First lets get to the league settings and roster:

Hi, I need some help choosing who to keep in my fantasy baseball league.
It is a 12 team head to head league.
The categories are:  Batting: R, HR, RBI, SB, AVG, OPS. Pitching:  W, SV K, HLD, ERA, WHIP.
Each team must keep a minimum of 10 keepers and a maximum of 12 keepers. If you keep 10, you get to pick before the teams who kept 11 or 12 keepers. 
 
My lineup:
C: Victor Martinez
1B: Albert Pujols
2B: Brandon Phillips
3B: Ryan Zimmerman
SS: Edgar Renteria
OF: Hideki Matsui
OF: Pat Burrell
OF: Magglio Ordonez
Util: Carlos Delgado
Util: Casey Blake
BN: Matt Kemp
BN: Paul Konerko
BN: Rafael Furcal
 
SP: Cole Hamels
SP: Jesse Litsch
SP: Aaron Cook
RP: BJ Ryan
RP: Ryan Franklin
P: AJ Burnett
P: Johan Santana
P: Scott Baker
BN: Daisuke Matsuzaka
BN: Dana Eveland
BN: Adam Wainright
BN: Matt Garza
BN: Brandon Webb
 
Thanks!

What I like to quickly do is get the no doubt guys on and off the list. Out of that roster I would say that Brandon Webb, Cole Hamels, Johan Santana, Albert Pujols, and Brandon Phillips are no doubt keepers. That gets us half way to the minimum and gives us a very solid top three in the rotation. 

Next who can we take off? Well Matsui, Blake, Konerko, Garza, Cook, Wainwright, and Eveland. I think the closest guy to making the list is probably Matsui but with the rumors the Yankees will go after Manny and Nady + Damon already crowding up the corner outfield I think it’s safe to say Matsui will have to fight for playing time. He could get time, I would rather avoid the risk. 

That leaves us with a bunch of guys and I will quickly cross off a few good names, not because I don’t think they are potentially worthy of a roster spot in 2009 but I’m not sure they are worthy of a top 10-12 round pick. Edgar Renteria goes, I like Furcal much better anyway. So do Delgado, Burell, Matsusaka, Franklin, and Litsch. I’ll also give the last spot to Burnett over Baker, not because I don’t like Baker, I think he’s a stud, but Burnett has far more strikeouts. As far as fantasy I think Burnett goes over Baker. 

Now we have 13 guys left and I think we really have the right 13 guys but we have to pair this down to 12. I think that at this point Furcal, Kemp, Ordonez, Ryan, and Burnett are close to no brainers and for me it’s between Ryan Zimmerman and Victor Martinez for the final roster spot. Both were early picks last year that didn’t work out but we only have a spot for one of them.

Last year Martinez was one of the worst players in the league, and limited playing time due to injury made things even worse. However he has put up OPS+ of 120-130 the four previous years playing catcher. Zimmerman was slightly better, but at the hot corner he put up OPS+ of 101, 107, and 114 his past three seasons. Ok, but not nearly the offensive performance we need. 

I think I would go with Martinez on this one. I have always been a huge fan of Vmart and even though he did struggle a lot in 2008 most of it was due to injuries. He didn’t have enough playing time to put up great numbers, and I think 2004-2007 speak for themselves. When healthy he is an offensive force at the shallower position. 

Now if trading is allowed in your league things change. You have a lot of quality guys and I think you should go out and try to pair down. Maybe Carlos Delgado and Cole Hamels gets you CC Sabathia. Just try to be creative in getting down to a roster of 12 really good guys and a bunch of fillers. Don’t leave a good player on your roster if you can help it in a non salary cap league. You definitely have 12 guys that are better than an 11th and 12th round pick so use your keeper spots and if you need help with a trade send it in and we can give you our opinion. 

Final list: 

  1. Victor Martinez
  2. Albert Pujols
  3. Brandon Phillips
  4. Rafael Furcal
  5. Ryan Zimmerman 
  6. Maglio Ordonez
  7. Matt Kemp
  8. Cole Hamels
  9. Johan Santana
  10. Brandon Webb
  11. AJ Burnett
  12. BJ Ryan

$16 Million for Burnett? Worth it.

December 12, 2008 by Alex Geshwind  
Filed under FCG, Free Agency

Ok, so I said I would write an article about CC but really, who doesn’t know that CC is going to be a beast. I still have a few comments to make about the Mets bullpen (Hint: Omar Minaya is an idiot) but I thought I had to get this out.

————————————————————————————–

The news came down today that the New York Yankees had spent over $80 million on free agent starting pitcher AJ Burnett and I, like many Yankees fans, was a little disappointed. From a more objective standpoint I was in utter shock. Surely Brian Cashman had seen this guy get hurt time and time again. And did his 2008 season really support $16 million a year? My first impression was that someone else was calling the shots. I will make no secret that I don’t love Brian Cashman. He doesn’t seem to be the statistical genius of a Billy Beane or Theo Epstein and sometimes I just feel like I could run the team better than him. However he is a modern, progressive GM who understands sabermetrics and gets deals done. So why in gods name would he sign Burnett for $16 million a year? I set out to find the answer, and I did. AJ Burnett has been quite unlucky in his career, but if you look at his underlying statistics and you combine them in pretty freaking complicated ways you can see he’s actually pretty good.

AJ Burnett has always been a strikeout pitcher and that is not going to change. In 2008 he put up 9.4 strikeouts per nine innings, good for first place in the American league and third overall in major league baseball. I have to note that it’s down a strikeout every 3 games, but then I would also have to note that over the past 2 seasons he has put up by far the best strikeout rates of his career. The point is he strikes people out. That has never been his problem and never will be his problem.

Now let’s look at his walk rate. Since 2004 Burnett has been pretty average when it comes to his control and he has been very up and down. In his best year, 2006, Burnett walked 2.6 guys per nine innings. Not terrible, not good. This was when he was 30, right in the prime of his career, and we don’t necessarily expect him to reach this level again. However we didn’t expect what would happen in 2007 either; his walk rate leaped up to 3.6 per nine. That’s another walk every game, pretty significant. In 2008 he was unable to get it back down to his 2006 levels, but it didn’t get any worse. In fact it stayed at 3.5. This is pretty much in line with his career average of 3.7, and I think we can expect him to stay around there. There could be a small improvement of course, aging players tend to lose a little in strikeouts well before they lose a little in walks so the fact that he’s putting up great strikeout numbers and bad walk numbers makes me think there definitely could be a few things to iron out. When we put together those two stats we get a 2.7 K/BB rate. That’s pretty good. It’s not elite, but it’s pretty good. We also see he had the exact same K/BB rate in 2007, however his tRA and xERA are significantly worse in 2008. His xERA in 2007 was 3.45 and his xERA in 2008 was 3.75. That’s a huge difference. If it was still down at 3.45, I would be a little bit happier about the deal. So why did it go up?

First of all we have to look at his GB%. And here we do see a problem. In 2007, it was at 54.5%. In career context that was pretty good. In 2008 his GB% was 48. In career context that was pretty bad. His average is around 50%, which is very good considering his K rate. After looking at this we start to see how good of a season 2007 was. He had a 54% GB% and a good K rate. But was 2008 really that bad? He kept the same K rate and BB rate.  If he could have just kept the ball on the ground he would have been that 3.45 xERA pitcher right? In all likelihood, yes.  Now this leads to a very interesting debate. Can Burnett get his GB% back? Again in all likelihood yes. His GB% has been up and down his entire. He’s throwing his fastball in the range he has been since 2004. There is a possibility that Burnett lost a bit of his GB ability by throwing less fastballs and more curveballs in 2008. But again, it just doesn’t seem like enough.

So what does this mean? It means that Burnett didn’t get that much worse. That he did suffer a lot from a less effective sinking fastball and that he was most likely a little unlucky. Pitchers just don’t lose 6% off their groundball percentage by throwing essentially the same pitches in the same way. So if we can expect him to perform somewhere in the middle of his 2007 and 2008 seasons, than we can probably expect a 3.50 or so xERA and a 2.7 K/BB rate with a GB% regressing back to his career average of 50%.

So I just spent about 850 words telling you what to expect from AJ Burnett. But is he worth the contract. The three main factors I think went into this choice is performance, division, and injuries.  

As far as performance alone he is probably worth somewhere around what he got. Now of course this is all very subjective. Is any baseball player worth what they get played? But the only way to evaluate a player’s salary is to look at them in relation to the rest of the league. Burnett is getting paid in the Carlos Zambrano range, and I think that is pretty appropriate.  I am highly critical of Zambrano but when he signed the contract he was putting up an ERA in the mid 3’s where Burnett’s xERA should be in 2009. Now I’m not saying people should pay based on ERA and not xERA or tRA or something better like that, but xERA is just a better ERA and the Cubs probably don’t know what it means. Someone who puts up an ERA/xERA in the mid 3’s should be paid around 15-16 million in this market. Now there are plenty of pitchers getting paid less than this and putting up better stats, but we have to look at players in a similar performance group that signed extensions recently.

Now lets look at injuries. This could be the killer. In 2003 and 2004 Burnett had an injured elbow and missed significant time recovering from surgery. This injury flared up again in 2006, and he had shoulder problems in 2007. This is scary, and there is definitely a good chance something else flares up. But what we do have to be thankful for is that we haven’t seen those elbow problems since 2006. They plagued him the first few years of his career and appear to be gone. He had a little shoulder problem but nothing seems to have come out of that. I would be worried, but I don’t think Burnett has nearly reached Mark Prior or pre-2008 Rich Harden status. There is a possibility something comes up, but the chances of a major elbow injury seem slim at this point. I would be worried about the 5 years, but if anyone can absorb a bad contract in the last few years it’s the Yankees. At least for the next few years he shouldn’t be injured as much as most are saying he will be.

Now we have to look at the final, and probably deciding factor. The Yankees could have gone after Derek Lowe instead. Lowe was the better pitcher. He had a better BB rate, better GB% (possibly the best in the league) and pretty a pretty good K rate. The only problem is that he has been doing this in the national league west in a great pitchers park. The Yankees were concerned as to whether he could make the transition to the AL East and rightfully so. I’m not saying they made the right choice passing him up, but I see where they are coming from. Then you have AJ Burnett. Burnett has pitched the last few years, two of the best of his career, in the AL East and has done it very, very well. Even better he no longer has to face the Yankees and no gets to face the Blue Jays. He has proven he can put up mid 3’s xERA’s in the AL East and with the Yankees track record that is extremely important. He also did well against a few AL East opponents. He put up 10 dominate starts against the Yankees and Red Sox combined. I’m sure that he will have plenty of use out of division but the fact that he can handle the division does help his case.

Do I love this move? No. I would rather have had the Yankees go after Derek Lowe. He’s just a better pitcher, I don’t think the move to the AL east would hurt him that much. But I can see why the Yankees would want to go after Burnett, and I think they have many good points. Burnett is a talented pitcher with a few years left. He can pitch in the AL east and his injury problems have been slightly overblown. $16 million I am fine with. 5 years? Not so much.

Breaking News: CC Sabathia a Yankee

December 10, 2008 by Alex Geshwind  
Filed under Uncategorized

Big news breaking early this morning. CC Sabathia has told GM Brian Cashman he will be a Yankee, and pending final details on a contract and a physical he will. More to come on this and everything else when I’m not so tired.

Sabathia, Yankees may be finalizing contract

December 9, 2008 by Alex Geshwind  
Filed under Free Agency

CC Sabathia may be headed to New York after all. Acording to Joel Sherman of the New York Post, he has a source claiming that Brian Cashman could begin finalizing a contract with CC Sabathia. Cashman flew to Callifornia on Tuesday to meet with free agent starter CC Sabathia. Brian Cashman flew to Callifornia on Tuesday to meet with free agent starter CC Sabathia.

Cashman had canceled his scheduled daily meeting with reporters today, saying he was ”off hotel property and unavailable for the rest of the evening.” At a little after 11 p.m. Dan Graziano of NJ.com reported that a Yankees official had told him Cashman was in San Fransisco to meet with Sabathia. 

According the Graziano, Sabathia asked Cashman to fly out to San Fransisco and meet with him today and like any sane GM Cashman accepted. This is the third time in as many days that Cashman and Sabathia have met. They had meetings on both Sunday and Monday, during which Joe Girardi and Reggie Jackson were involved. 

The Yankees official was very optimistic regarding the Yankees chances at landing Sabathia:

“From (Tuesday) morning until (Tuesday) night, things are looking a lot more positive in terms of us signing this guy. If you’d asked me at 11:00 (Tuesday) morning, I’d have told you no way. But right now, we have a real shot.”

The Yankees also reportedly talked with Sabathia’s teammate, Ben Sheets. Joe Girardi was especially interested in Sheets and it appears the Yankees will offer Sheets a contract, worth about $26 million for two-year, within 48 hours. Also talking to the Yankees are Derek Lowe, and AJ Burnett as well as Andy Pettite. 

Yanks still leader in the clubhouse for CC, Dodgers looming

December 9, 2008 by Alex Geshwind  
Filed under Free Agency

CC Sabathia has completely turned the free agent market on it’s head over the past 24 hours and he and his agent are probably pretty happy about that. While it doesn’t seem as though Sabathia necessarily is getting very many offers at the $140 million he is looking for, the fact that it seems as though every team is hours away from signing him could help his value tremendously.

This all started at some point last night when Dodgers GM Ned Collette decided to tell the world that Sabathia would like to be a Dodger. Regardless of the legitimacy of the rumor, ESPN.com jumped and it blew up. But people refused to look at the facts.  The Dodgers do need pitching, but they have bigger wholes all around their infield and the rest of their offense is just terrible. Sabathia’s market value is very high, his top offer around $140 million for 6 years from the Yankees, and the Dodgers just don’t seem to have enough money to compete. Even Collette is willing to admit that it would be a stretch.

Then at some point today the Giant’s seemed to jump back into things in a big way. For the first time they seemed as though they would make an offer to CC. But we have been hearing all along that the Giants cannot top 5 years, $100 million and may be looking at even less. With Zito on the payroll doing absolutely nothing, they just don’t have the money pay him. Add that to the fact that they have a good rotation but an atrocious offense, similar to LA, and I just don’t know how likely they are to raise their offer.

Emerging from all of this as the favorite as of now appears to be the Brewers. For some reason, Sabathia would like to pitch for the Brewers and if they were willing to raise that offer to a 6th season he would quite possible accept. But just recently Newsdayhas reported they have no plans to raise their offer and it will stand at 5 years, $100 million.

Then we have the Yankees. Based on money alone it’s a no brainer. The Yankees offered him a year and $40 million more than any other team has so far. However CC Sabathia really seems to not want to pitch in New York. Although he told the Yankees at some point during their 2 meetings this past week that he does not have a bias against New York, it seems very clear he wants to pitch on the West Coast. If they end up this far apart from everyone else I think they have a shot at CC but there is a possibility  that a west coast team jumps into it. Although there are rumors that the Yankees are out of it those have been shot down. I don’t think the Yankees are looking to protect his value, so I do think they are still in it in a major way. 

I doubt the Red Sox have a shot. If CC goes to the east coast, it will be for $140 million in New York.  I also don’t think the Angels have a great shot, simply because they really need Mark Teixeira a lot more. It’s possible that Tex signs somewhere soon and that CC takes a look, but the Angels just haven’t shown enough interest.

In the end I think it comes down to the Dodgers, Giants, and Yankees. The Yankees are the only team right now that has a legit financial shot, however if the Dodgers orGiants come up close to New Yorks level I could see him going there just because he wants to pitch near his home in So Cal. I just don’t see a house in So Cal bridging a $40 million gap. 

 

Krod to Mets, more to come…

December 9, 2008 by Alex Geshwind  
Filed under Uncategorized

Krod is a Met. Really all I have to say, but I will say more. This deal is un freaking believably stupid. Omar Mania should be fired. I will take his job, I am vaulenterring right now to help the Mets because whenever Krod goes to the National Leauge, well lets just say thats not good. Much more latter. 

And at 5:00 PM EST on ESPN (or ESPN2, not really sure which…) BBTN winter meatings special.

GM for a day – Yankees

December 8, 2008 by Alex Geshwind  
Filed under Uncategorized

I’m going to take a page out of Baseball Prospectus’ book and play GM for a day with the New York Yankees. Note that this is a very good scenario for the Yankees and a lot of these moves may not happen. I made sure to stay within budget and sign guys that I thought the Yankees had a legitimate shot at. I think the core of this team is in place and guys like Damon, Naddy, and Swisher will play a major role in this team come 2009.

Before we get into anything else lets look at what Yankees are (possibly) leaving this offseason.

-          Jason Giambi ($23,428,571)

-          Bobby Abreu ($16,000,000)

-          Ivan Rodriguez ($12,379,883)

-          Andy Petite ($16,000,000)

-          Mike Mussina ($11,071,029)

-          Carl Pavano ($11,000,000)

-          Chad Moeller ($700,000)

-          Sidney Ponson ($1,000,000)

That adds up to $91,579,483 off of the Yankees payroll. That’s almost $100 million worth of old, expensive players. With all of these guys gone here is a look at the depth chart. That leaves us with quite a few positions of need. First we need to replace Jason Giambi. Having already traded for Nick Swisher (adding $5.3 million to the payroll), so if we can’t sign anyone else he should be serviceable. We need a center fielder as Melky Cabrera has proven to be pretty horrible, and we need a few starters to replace about half of our again rotation.

If we want to keep our payroll at the same level as in 2008, we need to keep our spending under or around $85,000,000. That shouldn’t be too hard. Here we go……

1.       Sign CC Sabathia if possible. The rumored contract would add $23,300,000 to the payroll in 2009. Sabathia is the best pitcher in baseball; that is pretty clear. He is top 5 in tRA and can put up innings like few other pitchers out there. It really doesn’t matter how much it costs, this team needs Sabathia to anchor its staff. If Sabathia cannot be signed, the Yankees need to find a solid number 2 guy. I think Derek Lowe is the prefect choice. Lowe has put up such great numbers the last few years that I really don’t see him declining much when switching leagues.  

2.       Trade one or more of Robinson Cano, Hideki Matsui, and Melky Cabrera for a center fielder or starting pitcher. Melky can’t get the job done and Austin Jackson is still an unproven commodity. If needed, Nick Swisher could play center field but I don’t think that is necessary. Possible centerfield options include Matt Kemp and Randy Winn. We should add $5,000,000 to the payroll to compensate for possibly taking on a big salary, however if we went in the Kemp direction we might be able to cut salary.

3.       Sign Orlando Hudson to replace Cano. Hudson has good defensive skills, has an OBP around .370, and walks far more than he strikes out. Expect a contract in the $8,000,000 range, something similar to what Dustin Pedroia got from the Red Sox.

4.       Sign Ben Sheets. Sheets may have some injury concerns, but our deep farm system will keep us protected. Sheets has been flat out dominate and his injury concerns will keep his salary down below that of guys like Lowe or even the bigger injury concern Burnett. Why this guy isn’t being talked about as a top free agent is beyond  me, I would love to see him on the Yankees if possible. If Sheets resigns with Milwaukee, or ends up somewhere else somehow I would go with Randy Wolf. Wolf is also an injury risk but his strikeout rate and flat out dominate performances the past few seasons are worth it. Whoever we sign here probably adds another $10 million to the payroll.

After this the team still has about $35,000,000 left and there is one major deal they could look at doing.

5.       The Yankees should at least try to sign Mark Teixeira. According to multiple sources Tex is not  looking to sign with the Nationals, and is likely to sign with one of the Red Sox, Angels, or Yankees. The Red Sox are rumored to be making a big push for him so it would be hard, but with all the payroll room left and a new stadium to fill up the Yankees should at least give this a shot.  If this doesn’t go down we could see Swisher at first base, and it is even possible that we would re-sign first Jason Giambi. Teixeira would be great, but there are plenty of other options out there.

That would leave the Yankees with an opening day lineup of:

1.       LF – Johnny Damon

2.       SS – Derek Jeter

3.       1B – Mark Teixeira (Or Swisher, Giambi, etc.)

4.       3B – Alex Rodriguez

5.       RF – Xavier Naddy

6.       2B – Orlando Hudson

7.       C – Jorge Posada

8.       CF – Matt Kemp/Randy Winn/Gabe Kapler (Whoever they end up getting…)

9.       DH – Nick Swisher

Of course that lineup could be moved around. Having guys like Naddy, Swisher, and Damon gives us a lot of flexibility. Unless we end up trading Matsui, which is possible, he could rotate in as well.

And a rotation of:

1.       CC Sabathia/Derek Lowe

2.       Chein-Ming Wang

3.       Joba Chamberlain

4.       Ben Sheets/Randy Wolf

5.       Philip Hughes

I don’t think moving Joba to the bullpen is a good idea at all. He proved he could dominate as a starter, and his injury looks like more of a coincidence than anything. The bullpen managed fine without Joba, and for a stretch of the season was on of the best in baseball.

So there you have it. If the Yankees go ahead and sign Teixeira it would leave them with a payroll about $10,000,000 less than in 2008. If they wanted to go out and get a better backup catcher, one more starter, or a bullpen arm they could do that. Although I’m not sure the Yankees will be able to sign both Teixeira and Sabathia, they certainly have the payroll room to do so. I think the key thing is for the Yankees to realize that they have a good bullpen and a base for their rotation as well as a great offense and to use their payroll room to sign a few premium guys to build around that. With that starting rotation and that lineup it would be hard for the Yankees to be anything but favorites to go to the world series, however as we have seen before injuries and bad luck can prevent any team from doing what they should. A good starting lineup, rotation, and bullpen only get you so far. You need to have depth to win in major league baseball and with the high level talent in the Yankees farm system and versatile guys like Nick Swisher and Johnny Damon  I think they have that.

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