“So, is this bullpen built to be less of a liability in 2010? Statistics, even though they can be misleading when it comes to projecting reliever performance, would suggest that yes, the ‘pen will be better.
Replacing Capps at the back end will be Dotel, who hasn’t closed for a full season since 2004..
The 38-year-old Brendan Donnelly.. brings eight seasons of experience with him.. though the fact that he is less than three years removed from Tommy John surgery remains a slight concern..
Lopez represents the left-handed option that the Pirates lacked and is looking to emulate the success that he had with the Red Sox from 2006-08..”
Better statistically even though the author sees huge red flags. Ok, now we have something to go on. Let’s see if the ‘better statistically’ premise is even close to accurate.
Let’s take all the relief pitchers from the NLCD in 2009 who appeared in at least 30 games and throw them together. Then let’s add the three new additions and rank them by OPS allowed just for fun:
Donnelly and Carrasco look to be a nice addition based on that one stat (if you don’t also peek at Carrasco’s leverage index of .62) while Dotel and Lopez finish well out of the money.
How about if we rank by percentage of inherited runners who scored? Once again, Donnelly ranked well as only 3 of 15 scored for a 20% ranking while Lopez wasn’t trusted enough to be put in a position to find out what he could do. Dotel choked with 52% scoring which, granted, was a tick better than Capps, but significantly higher than league average as well as Chavez we lost. Carasco choked there too.
Where our new additions look really good is in the one stat our GM tells us is worthless with relievers – ERA. When I look closer at Dotel and Donnelly’s ERA using xERA as a comparative tool, Dotel’s ERA looks legitimate despite a ridiculous number of walks, but Donnelly’s was somewhat lucky (mainly from lots of walks) although still very good.
Considering Donnelly barely made our cutoff since he only appeared in 30 games, I’m not so sure we’re looking at a true representative sample for him. Also, the NLED isn’t exactly known for having the best advance scouting departments. That being said, this is a young club which is more likely to need his services at home so I suspect we’ll see him rack up considerably more innings at the friendly confines of PNC Park where he should shine — as long as he stays healthy.
As for Dotel and Lopez? Dotel pitched in some pretty big parks except at home but his position is now somewhat reversed where his home park is larger and his road parks are going to give him fits. I think that’s problematic for Dotel because he’s going to have to rely heavily on Kerrigan for batters to walk to get to batters he can handle (his MO) because he doesn’t know NL batters. Throw in small away parks and I think we’re looking at a road implosion candidate who very well might put up nasty numbers at home.
And are we supposed to think D.J Carrasco hasn’t forgotten that he was forced to throw +26 innings in 1999 from 1998 and then never given a chance in Pittsburgh which resulted in a somewhat dysfunctional career including pitching in Japan? And what about the fact that Neal Huntington was director of player development with the Indians in 1998 when Carrasco was handed his release papers? Am I the only one who thinks there is a huge cultural red flag there?
Anyway, was the premise accurate? A couple of statistics are better, most statistics are worse, and some statistics are questionable and/or unreliable. I happen to be a big believer in the percentage of inherited runners which score stat when combined with opportunity leverage and in that regard we’re worse off as a whole with the new additions I used above.
There might be some merit to the argument that Dotel and Carrasco pitched in the AL, in a short-perch park no less, which on the surface seems like they should have a tick better advantage. But I don’t buy into that argument because the batting average and OPS difference between the NLCD and ALCD is statistically insignificant plus they are now having to pitch more often in less pitching friendly parks. Add in the age of all these additions, but add some love because of their experience level, then subtract for their health risks and I think we’re looking at a weaker pen, not an improved pen.
“I think the bullpen this year is really going to surprise a lot of people,” Meek said. “I don’t think [manager John Russell] is going to hesitate to use us.”
Aside from Meek issuing the standard 2010 corporate-love player PR statement, let’s hope he’s wrong and that our starters are able to go deeper into the game than ever because I’m not personally comfortable that we have any better tools in the pen to hold leads than last year.
By Jake, on February 3, 2010, at 9:37 pm | 20 comments
The Pittsburgh Pirates had the 7th highest number of quality starts in 2010. Remember now, a quality start is defined as a start where no more than three earned runs have been allowed by the starter through at least six complete innings. Backing our starters up was a bullpen which ended the year with the 5th worst ERA and the 3rd worst winning percentage in the game.
But was the bullpen really to blame?
Below I used a very basic stat Bill James invented called Game Score to evaluate starting pitching in the division. All you have to really know about Game Score is that 50 is the mid-point and any number above that is better than average with about 50% of all starts falling in the 40 – 60 range and 20% falling below 30 or above 80 range.
As you can see from the chart on the left side below, the Bucs starters produced the third highest number of 50+ Game Score starts in the NLCD at 81 yet ended up winning only 56.8% of those starts which was 10.9% below the NLCD average. Had the club produced wins at league average levels, we would have theoretically seen 8.8 more wins. That’s a crapload of potential additional wins.
Where did we go wrong?
Now look at the charts on the right side.. as you can see, our failing point was the 3rd inning. When you are behind in 70 games by the third, and you have a below average offensive unit, you’re going to have a very bad year and that’s exactly what happened to our Bucs. It wasn’t the fault of the bullpen, it was the fault of our anemic offense as well as our starters as shown by the reddish/pink highlighting below.. an incredibly high 3.59 ERA in our 50 – 59 Game Score contests.
The bullpen gave up quite a few leads but every bullpen does.. it’s expected as part of the game. The problem is the Pirates didn’t have the offensive weapons to come back like every other team in the division does and that’s one solid reason why they lost so many last year, and why they will lose another boatload this year. Bolster the bullpen all you want, but unless the pen can put up zeros in every single game once the starter leaves, it won’t matter one bit if they have 100 mph fastballs, get more swings and misses, or throw heavy sinkers.. we’re still going to lose a lot more than we win. That’s what history tells us.
By Jake, on January 29, 2010, at 1:08 am | 40 comments
Since my family and I are about 75%, I’m going to wait until Monday to shift my energy to breaking down who I believe the 2010 Pittsburgh Pirates are, where I expect they will be by the end of the year, and how I believe they will stand up to the rest of the division.
In the meantime, here’s some defensive runs saved data for the last four years to enjoy (note: ten runs saved theoretically equals one win).
I grouped 2006 – 2008 together because Huntington was hired so late in 2007 that he started the 2008 year off with mostly Littlefield’s roster, albeit trades made in 2008 influenced the regression to some degree.
Still, there is little doubt where Huntington picked up his gains in 2009. Simply replacing Bay brought him back to near league average in left and adding a little speed in Morgan and Milledge added a few more runs to boot. And even though McCutchen was a below average defender in center, the fact McLouth wasn’t out there swung center’s defense back to a league average rate. Throw in a little Kerrigan with some flyball arms, and all of a sudden Huntington realized significant gains.
Should we expect to see those same kind of numbers in 2010? Sure, both McCutchen and Milledge have a few miles under their feet now so their routes are expected to improve plus Varsho, who aligns the outfielders, and Kerrigan have a year under their belt together.
It’s the left side of the infield which is going to take a significant hit.
Replacing Wilson with Cedeno was, and still is, a concern. On one hand Wilson was in seventh heaven playing like he was 24 again with all the attention he was getting from traveling scouts and Hill’s presence until he was dealt, and on the other hand you have Cedeno who was brought in and immediately asked to retool his mechanics. The resulting loss in runs saved was significant and remains a problem for 2010. Huntington addressed one hole by grabbing Aki early on because as you can see in the chart above on the right, we were -9 runs at second alone.
Then there is LaRoche. Perry Hill proclaimed him a gold glove candidate after the 2009 season and rightfully so. In 2008 LaRoche bled runs but swung a win and one-half the other direction under Hill’s guidance. Unfortunately for Huntington, LaRoche is nothing but a placeholder at third for Alvarez who is likely to come up looking like a 2007 Jose Bautista clone (-30 runs type of production). Put Cedeno and Alvarez together and, well, let’s just say it’s not expected to be a pretty sight.
On the rest of the diamond I think we’ll be near league average or better with the only question mark in Jeff Clement. Both Pearce and Jones are good glovemen at first and Clement is still in the learning stage, so I expect a drop in runs saved.. say ten runs; twenty would kill us and that’s very possible if Cedeno doesn’t hit Clement’s mitt consistently which I don’t expect to happen.
Overall can we expect to keep up the +46 run difference like we saw in 2009 as compared to 2006 – 2008? Not a prayer in hell – but I don’t think that’s Huntington’s goal either, although he’ll certainly take it if it happens. I’d guess with all the young studs headed to Pittsburgh this year, Huntington would be tickled pink to be +1 run at the end of the year. Problem is, that’s a -3 defensive win swing from 2009.. so where can he make that up?
By Jake, on January 21, 2010, at 11:43 pm | 27 comments
Since Neal Huntington seems to favor power arms, and since our pitching staff now seems complete, let’s take a look at how each of our pitchers did in 2009 with their fastballs. The only players missing below are Lopez, Veal, and Jakubauskas.
First some trivia.
Including our new additions, which roster pitcher had the highest swing and miss rate on fastballs in 2009?
Including our new additions, which roster pitcher induced the highest groundball rate?
The answers to those questions are in the 2009 fastball production table below:
Glossary – the chart has four groups, potential starters at the top, then projected relievers although Ascanio is a maybe, then players in the system, and lastly some of the players no longer with the club.
These types of unique stats, and hundreds more including things like daily updated hit charts, fantasy matchups and notes, and production trends (heading up, staying the same, or moving down), will be available in the New Bucs Insider (NBI) membership area in a couple of weeks. My publication license limits what, and how much, of these stats I can post in the public blog here, but I’ll do my best to try to keep everyone informed. I’ll ink the contract next week and be able to tell you which stat house is involved, but you can be assured they are A++ as they work closely with most of the teams. Where this all gets very exciting is when you compare these types of stats to the Pirates opposition, or against division foes, because you immediately see glaring weaknesses in matchups.
So let’s answer the trivia questions first.
Including our new additions, which pitcher had the highest swing and miss rate on fastballs in 2009? The answer is Dotel – an incredible 24% which was 10% higher than the major league average. That’s an incredible number when you also realize he threw a very high 81% of all pitches as fastballs, 17% above the ML average.
Including our new additions, which pitcher induced the highest groundball rate on fastballs in 2009? That would be Evan Meek. Surprised? I certainly was even though I knew he had a semi-heavy fastball. And look at Meek’s swing and miss rate on fastballs – 20%. Wow. Let’s hope that stat remains constant – or even gets better – in 2010.
Have fun with the chart – discuss it in the comments section. Just remember you are only looking at one year. Think the Bucs are going to need solid middle infield D? Oh my.
Dotel is being paid $3.25M which means it’s a tick better than average signing by Huntington. At $3M I would have been a bit happier, at $4M I would have been a lot more concerned, but in any case it’s nice to see we didn’t significantly overpay to get him to play in Pittsburgh. That’s a good sign. Since he has a 2011 $4.5M club option with $250k buyout, I doubt he’ll be around in 2011 unless this roster surprises everyone including Huntington.
So someone tell me why Rizzo didn’t hand Dotel the closing job in Washington, or why Dotel didn’t want to go there if Rizzo did call him? Rizz isn’t stupid and has deeper pockets, so am I the only one wondering what’s up with that?
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Poll time:
The Pirates had the 5th worst reliever ERA in 2009 despite throwing the 4th fewest number of innings. One reason for the higher ERA was that it was fueled from the 4th highest on base average allowed in the game at .350.
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Barring any trades involving their priciest players, the Marlins will open the season with a total payroll of roughly $45 million — the most since ‘05 and more than either the San Diego Padres or Pittsburgh Pirates are projected to shell out. — Miami Herald
Stab, stab, stab.
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Something to think about in case you missed it, courtesy of a TonyPenaHOF comment yesterday:
If anyone is interested – here are the teams with multiple picks (number of picks in parenthesis) before the Pirates get their second pick:
This puts the Pirates second pick at 50 overall. The 3rd round pick is 82. The 4th round is 115. So by the time the Pirates pick four players, over 100 will be selected and 11 other teams will have more selections.
By Jake, on November 23, 2009, at 1:55 am | 34 comments
If you happen to have an RSS Cloud aggregator on your desktop, then you’ll benefit from some new software I added to the blog today which will allow you real-time updates. The change was necessary for syndication.
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New York Daily News columnist Bill Madden sent a second shot across the bow of the USS MLB that Admiral Selig seems to be limping toward dry dock. Fortunately for Selig the shot was wide of the MLB but ended up striking Captain Nutting square between the eyes on the USS Pittsburgh Pirates. Madden said in part (I’m putting all this in the blog because links dry up):
“Now on to Manfred, the Pirates and Boras. It seems this past week, Boras and Manfred got into a little hissing match over a column I wrote back in August which reported that the Pirates received a total of $75 million in revenue sharing and central fund monies (shared national TV, marketing, licensing, MLB Network and WEB site revenue) before they sold their first ticket.
Unbeknownst to me, Boras, with whom I have not exactly enjoyed a warm and fuzzy relationship through the years, threw those figures out last week, only to have Manfred, baseball’s VP of Labor Relations, fire back, saying: “He completely made those figures up,” adding that the Avenging Agent was living “in a fantasy land.” Manford also told Foxsports.com’s Ken Rosenthal that “no one club is getting $80 or $90 million in combined revenue sharing and Central Baseball funds,” even though the Florida Marlins, in fact, got $40 million from each, to top all teams with $80 million., according to my sources. This prompted Boras to counter: “There is factual merit to the facts Madden reported and that is why Rob didn’t address it in August. Why did it take him three months to comment on it?”
In the meantime, Pirates President Frank Coonelly insisted that the $35 million Central Fund figure Boras is using is “inaccurate” – and to that I must confess Coonelly is right. When I first reported the $75 million booty the Pirates received, I broke it down to $35 million in central fund monies and $40 revenue sharing. In fact, it was just the opposite, but the bottom line is, it still adds up to $75 million.“ (Also see: Madden’s August 1, 2009 warning shot article and his first true cannon shot August 15, 2009)
Coonelly, however, said the Pirates’ income from Major League Baseball was “well below” that $75 million figure. He said his club received substantially less than $40 million in revenue sharing last year, but declined to say what the specific numbers were.
Madden continued in his latest article:
And here is another figure Coonelly will probably want to refute: According to my sources, the Pirates were one of the teams to make a profit this year – approximately $14 million, which is not bad for a team with 99 losses and 17 straight losing seasons.
What we do know is Pirates chairman Bob Nutting is not re-investing his revenue sharing in payroll, although there are disturbing rumors in Pittsburgh that he’s using the Pirates’ money to subsidize the hemorrhaging at his Seven Springs Ski Resort in Champion, Pa.
I mentioned here back in early October that perceptions in the area were that Seven Springs was having problems, so Madden’s news on that subject isn’t new to me. Nor is it new news that the organization took home a sizeable profit because it has been doing so for several years based on all the written reports (about $60 million by my guess last five years) without any real backlash from the local media or fans (except my constant hounding, that is).
But what is new is that Philly lawyer Frank Coonelly has been blatantly called out as a liar by Rosenthal and Madden’s insinuations. That is the last thing in the world the Nutting clan want to see happen right now because it also calls their credibility to the mat at a time they appear headed for a ‘one year grab as much profit as possible in 2010′ run.
This is far from over as even my phone is ringing from investigative research types now so sit back and wait for the next round to be fired. In the meantime, don’t expect any changes in the way the Pirates go about their business. But I am very pleased to see national media types and some inside the game start to openly question the financial motives of Ogden and Robert Nutting. It’s long overdue since local media has become too soft on the subject.
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I’ve brought all this up before and I think it is worth mentioning again now, how do you think the players in our system (from Pittsburgh to Bradenton) feel after reading these types of reports in the national media? Think hard about it.
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If you look at the chart on the left you can see that, since Ryan Doumit joined the Pirates in June 2005, when he started the game as a catcher the team has a .390 winning percentage over 259 games. When Doumit wasn’t the starting catcher, the team winning percentage was .413. That’s a 0.023 percentage difference and if you multiply that times a 150 game season that we would expect Doumit to start as a catcher, having him start cost us 3.5 wins per year.
No, that’s not perfect science by any means considering the magnitude of other variables, but it does hint at value. Now look what happened when he started at first or in right – we played almost .500 baseball over 78 games and his ‘value’ jumped 15.5 wins the other way. Wow. Again, splitting 78 games up over several years is hardly providing us with credible results, but still, there you go. If you are Huntington, how do you pass the chance to test the theory further?
Now look at our starters.. when Duke took the mound to start a game the team winning percentage has been .392 since he joined the club. That is a negative 1/2 win per year off the team’s actual winning percentage since he joined the club while also assuming he makes 35 starts.
Maholm? Over 127 games his starts have resulted in a .465 team winning percentage on a club that has gone .405 since he’s been in Pittsburgh. Ohlendorf had a good year but only started 29 games so it will take another year of starts to get a better handle on his ‘value’ to the club. But for right now, he’s the highest of the four pitchers listed at +3.4 wins last year. Realize the +/- wins are based against the overall team winning percentage during the time that player has been with the club and assumes 35 starts.
I think it’s clear Maholm is our best starter by far based on his consistent results and I think it’s equally fair to say he would provide an average or better than average MLB team with middle of the order expected results.
None of this proves a thing of course but it does point us in a direction.. if Doumit is going to be dealt then Huntington needs to consider more value than what he has produced as a catcher while hampered with numerous injuries.
And Huntington also needs to consider moving Duke. in fact, I’d move Duke to AZ for Snyder in a heartbeat and pick up some change along the way (too late now that they got Heilman?). Then I’d keep Doumit and stick him in right knowing he’d be a minus defender out there but also expecting him to be better than the ‘-3.5 win’ guy he was behind the dish.
We can’t lose because if we get 150 games from Doumit playing right, we’ll go past his run production over 75 games that we are used to seeing from him thereby reducing his poor defensive contribution. Sure, it would be ugly but I have to believe somebody on our field staff can kick his butt into gear so he hustles in right. Or maybe it would be better to work him in an effective platoon with Jones at first and in right based on who is on the mound to minimize his exposure on defense?
By Jake, on October 24, 2009, at 1:06 am | 4 comments
UPDATED.
The name of the game is scoring more runs than you give up because that’s how you win baseball games.
Neal Huntington can take credit for at least one positive in the Pirates system in 2009 - the ratio of runs allowed to runs scored was reduced from near franchise high levels in 2008 at every level. Some might call that a remarkable job, all thing considered. Others wonder how the heck he allowed the system to tank so far in 2008.
But, whatever..
In the chart below I simply took runs scored per 9 innings and subtracted runs allowed per nine innings to get the difference each year and then plotted it at each league level. ( team RS/9 – RA/9 = run diff )
It’s not a pretty sight. Not in 2007, not in 2008, and certainly not in 2009. Big picture? If we are moving forward in this regard, it’s at a snail’s pace. Considering we are a rebuilding club, you logically expected to see progression forward from 1A (many of Huntington’s first draft class) to High 1A between 2008 and 2009 and, sure enough, it’s there from a -1.3 run difference in 2008 at 1A to 0.1 run difference in 2009 in high 1A.
In fact, the 2009 high 1A positive run value difference is the first time that has been achieved in our system below 3A since Altoona in 2006 when a bunch of guys 26 – 30 years old you probably don’t remember the names of all seemed to have career years at the same time, and they rolled up a scant 4.2 runs allowed average per game type of year. This year at least the age of the players was appropriate for the league making it a legitimate honor even if they were absolutely blown out in the second half (28-42).
Still, kudos to Huntington, Stark, and their rovers and field staff – they made it happen at one hop. It’s a small win for the fans. Very small, but still there. Now the million dollar question looms – will it continue forward to 2A in 2010 and, more importantly, will we see additional movement forward?
Anyway, the sad part about that chart above is that it’s all negative numbers, has been in negative numbers for years, and remains in negative numbers today despite two solid drafts. In fact, the two years Huntington and Stark have been in control of the system have yielded the highest combined run deficit across this organization since Bonifay days. Part of it is explained off by the level of talent they took control of, but that doesn’t explain it all by far. There’s a lot of work to be done yet.. a lot of work.
As a fan, I need to start seeing each club consistently improve year-by-year against their division opponents. It’s that simple. One ‘elite talent’ in Alvarez won’t win us a division – it takes a whole team. 2010 is going to show us if this FO is improving the system. Not in words like ‘we’re stronger and deeper today than we were’ but whether those ‘deeper guys’ are getting it done in the trenches.
Or not.
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Edit 10-24 at 1PM — lots of people e-mailed wondering how many of the other clubs were doing in the same leagues so I threw together a fast trendline chart to show you plotting only 1A, high 1A, and 2A runs scored minus runs allowed differences per team, per year.
Don’t look at the length of the trendline because it’s only determined by the number of affiliates that club has in the same leagues with the Pirates. Instead, look at the general direction of the trendline to get a feel for their system as each trendline starts at 2005 and runs through 2009. Not perfect science by any means but it does tend to show you how much better the talent is than in our system overall. Also notice the Pirates are at the very bottom, notice that only the Astros, Pirates, and Braves systems are not moving in an upward trend, notice the Nats have come out a major hole to being respectable, and look at the Giants and Yankees who always draft well behind us. That’s really embarrassing.
By Jake, on October 15, 2009, at 12:01 am | 16 comments
Quick – over the last two years, which Pittsburgh starter (20 or more starts with Pittsburgh) had the easiest starts based on median park factors during the period? My guess was Zach Duke. Yours?
If you said Ian Snell, you won. Yep, he beat Ross Ohlendorf by the width of your chin hair for easiest places to pitch based on median park factors.
The guy who had it hardest? Tom Gorzelanny … imagine that.
I hear some of you asking what exactly is a park factor?
Think of it this way, a completely neutral environment would be rated at 1.000 run because it neither favors hitters (the higher a park factor goes, the better a hitting environment) nor pitchers (lower park factors).
The difference between the two-year median park factors at Coors and PNC is .227 runs so for every 100 runs that are scored at PNC, you would expect 123 runs to be scored at Coors if everything was equal.
Another way to look at it is like this … in 2009 Pittsburgh starters enjoyed a 4.03 ERA at home. Had they started those same games at Coors instead, they would have theoretically seen an earned run average almost one run higher at 4.94. At the same time, if they had pitched in a perfectly neutral park at 1.000, their home ERA would have been 4.19.
Getting a feel for it? Good, now there are a couple of different reasons why parks lean toward hitters or pitchers. The most obvious is where the park is located like in San Diego where balls in the air just seem to die in mid-flight because of the high humidity levels, or in Denver where the ball carries well because there is less friction against the ball from the high altitude and thin air. The second reason is talent – if a team has a better than average staff with decent defense behind them, obviously fewer runs are going to be scored at the park. So park factors aren’t perfect science by any means but it does supply us with a reasonable snapshot.
Now on to the Pirates. If you look at the chart on the left side below you’ll see that 419 starting pitchers qualified for having at least 20 starts the last two years and that Jason Berken of the Orioles happened to have the easiest group of starts based on the median two-year park factors I used from ESPN. On the flip side, Shaun Marcum of the Jays had it the hardest and by a pretty hefty margin no less.
On the right side I listed all the Pirates starters and the starts they made for the Pirates over the last two years plus where they ranked or would have ranked if they had 20 starts. You’ll quickly see that three-quarters of the pitchers who started benefited from a median park factor below the league average, which, as you might expect, is also 1.000. Morton took it on the chin this year with 10 of his 18 starts on the road away from pitching friendly PNC Park but, in the scheme of things, his park factor ranking of 236 was nearly middle of the pack for MLB starters. But don’t confuse his high road ERA (6.08) as being the result of pitching in more hitting friendly parks because it isn’t. From what I saw, it seemed to be more mental than anything - like a young pitcher learning to trust his stuff.
Considering the fact that the Pirates play 81 games in a park well known to suppress right-hand hitting runs allowed, you would think even a cast of average starters would be able to win more often. That’s obviously been part of the organizational thinking because we haven’t invested in any free agent pitchers who would be considered difference makers with our park advantage. Only recently have we reached out in the draft to take a few risks on young high school arms who might, one day, be difference makers.
And look at poor Herrera.. was he set up for failure, or what? He had five starts and his park factor ranking would have put him in the top seventeen percent of hardest places to pitch. What a blow to hand a rookie out of the shoot. Virgil Vasquez wasn’t handed many scheduling favors either. But Ohlendorf and McCutchen were and they both took advantage of it the best their talent would allow.
The sad part about this look-in is that it simply shows us how little talent we really do have in our rotation when we consider the amount of runs that are naturally suppressed thanks to PNC. I mean, Duke, Maholm, and Snell all benefited from a 2% below median park factor last two but still had above average ERA’s. That’s not good and doesn’t speak well about the future potential of this staff. Morton at least pitched well at home even though he was mauled on the road.. as was Maholm. Only Duke – in 2009 only mind you – threw reasonably well both home and away.
So what does it mean? Nothing by itself. I probably should have seen what the corelation was between ERA and park factors but I didn’t really expect it to be very high because, when it comes right down to it, a starter with talent is going to get the job done no matter what park he’s in. That being said, I think the Pirates can benefit more by adding a true talent starter to our group than adding a true talent bat because of the suppression theory. It just stands to reason that any player we add has to provide 2% more productivity to his stats in Pittsburgh just to get to his baseline where a pitcher comes in with an additional 2% gift handed to him. So if we add a 4 win bat you can probably knock as much as half a win off him because of the parks he’ll play in. Add a 4 win pitcher and you add a half win or even more, and that’s quite a swing (1 win between the two) for the money.
I’d go with adding arms first, then bats. But that’s me.
Side note – is Gallardo a monster in the wait or what? Wow. And hold on to your horses because, considering Morton’s fielding independent pitching (FIP) ERA of 4.20 plus his little bit harder than average Pirate park factor hit, he could end up being our sleeper for 2010 if he stops being so soft on the road. Duke, Maholm, and Ohlendorf all look to regress with Ohlendorf taking the biggest hit. It actually might be a great time to deal Ohlendorf (sell high baby). But more on this later this winter after I set the rotation to the schedule.
By Jake, on October 4, 2009, at 10:23 pm | 4 comments
I’m sure we’ll hear our front office blame the season on the players using excuses like injuries or poor performances (you know, not stepping up), but Pirates’ fans know the real culprit was poor short-term planning upstairs. Several cardinal rules were broken from attempting a rebuild during the season to running players out of town because the front office refused to deal with their personalities.
But none of that compared to the egregious short-term planning error of allowing top talent to get away. The Miguel Sano story is an epic tale – one of our front office gurus (Rene Gayo, director of international scouting) decided it was better to negotiate directly with the prospect’s family than through his advisor and because of that we lost impact talent. Making the entire event even worse is that Gayo remains employed instead of immediately being terminated which means his actions must have been acceptable, if not also approved, by Neal Huntington.
Another case in point is the 2008 and 2009 first year drafts. I remember well respected Los Angeles Angels director of scouting Eddie Bane once saying that, for the Angels to draft a pitcher, it all starts with command. Having plus heat was nice, having three or four pitches was nice, but neither one of those mean a thing if the pitcher can’t throw strikes.
Now take a look at the Pirates draft choices from 2008-2009 and what they have done in the lower part of our farm system (the exceptions being Colla and Wilson both in high 1A):
Year
Rnd
OvPck
First
Last
Level
IP
Pos
Drafted Out of
# BB
BB/9
OBA
2008
39
1164
Albert
Fagan
SS
1.0
RHP
No School (Yonkers NY)
1
9.0
0.667
2009
43
1284
Edward
Fallon
SS
16.3
RHP
University of South Carolina Upstate (Spartanburg SC)
16
8.8
0.425
2009
34
1014
Zachary
Fuesser
RK
14.3
LHP
Walters State CC (Morristown TN)
10
6.3
0.281
2008
21
624
Brent
Klinger
SS
3.0
RHP
Glendale CC (Glendale CA)
2
6.0
0.200
2008
49
1452
Zachary
Foster
SS
29.0
RHP
University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh PA)
16
5.0
0.278
2008
5
144
Justin
Wilson
1AH
116.0
LHP
Fresno State University (Fresno CA)
55
4.3
0.356
2008
48
1425
Owen
Brolsma
SS
6.3
RHP
Texas Tech University (Lubbock TX)
3
4.3
0.400
2009
1s
49
*Victor
Black
SS
31.3
RHP
Dallas Baptist University (Dallas TX)
15
4.3
0.321
2009
2
53
Brooks
Pounders
RK
23.7
RHP
Temecula Valley HS (Temecula CA)
11
4.2
0.316
2008
44
1314
Mike
Williams
SS
34.0
LHP
Mount Olive College (Mount Olive NC)
15
4.0
0.347
2008
20
594
Quinton
Miller
SS
7.0
RHP
Shawnee HS (Medford NJ)
3
3.9
0.424
2008
15
444
Chris
Aure
RK
5.3
LHP
North Pole HS (North Pole AK)
2
3.4
0.250
2008
38
1134
Alan
Knotts
SS
30.7
RHP
Louisiana Tech University (Ruston LA)
11
3.2
0.363
2009
42
1254
Marc
Baca
SS
18.0
RHP
University of Nevada Las Vegas (Las Vegas NV)
6
3.0
0.359
2008
14
414
Mike
Colla
1AH
64.7
RHP
University of Arizona (Tucson AZ)
19
2.6
0.331
2008
35
1044
Tyler
Cox
SS
73.3
LHP
Illinois State University (Normal IL)
15
1.8
0.326
2009
18
534
Ryan
Beckman
RK
39.3
RHP
Grayson County College (Denison TX)
8
1.8
0.345
2009
21
624
Phillip
Irwin
SS
29.7
RHP
University of Mississippi (Oxford MS)
6
1.8
0.292
2009
5
144
Nathaniel
Baker
SS
16.0
LHP
University of Mississippi (Oxford MS)
2
1.1
0.224
2009
24
714
Jason
Erickson
SS
56.7
RHP
University of Washington (Seattle WA)
7
1.1
0.301
2009
4
114
Zackry
Dodson
RK
1.0
LHP
Medina Valley HS (Castroville TX)
0
0.0
0.000
2009
6
174
Zachary
Von Rosenberg
RK
1.0
RHP
Zachary HS (Zachary LA)
0
0.0
0.000
2009
7
204
Trent
Stevenson
RK
15.0
RHP
Brophy Jesuit Prep School (Scottsdale AZ)
0
0.0
0.263
2009
12
354
Jeffrey
Inman
SS
4.0
RHP
Stanford University (Stanford CA)
0
0.0
0.313
That’s an incredible 2.9 walks per nine innings throwing 80% fastballs as they do below A-ball, and 3.2 BB/9 if you include Crolla and Wilson’s work. I expected to see this in the 1’s. Sure, the hyped group of high school arms we picked this year didn’t get many innings in, but that only reinforces this because they are no less than five years away before the reach Pittsburgh and probably seven to eight years from providing impact. I suspect next year we’re going to find this very same group is up closer to 4 BB/9… maybe higher. Of the college arms we did take in the lower part of the draft which might have been able to help us relatively soon, Victor Black couldn’t find the plate, nor could Justin Wilson. And while Tony Sanchez had a fine start to his pro career, it won’t be so cushy for him in 2010 and I think we;ll start to see the real Sanchez come down to earth.
Bane also said that the bat is worth four times as much as any of the other four tools a position player prospect could have but, unfortunately, we’ve only drafted one impact bat the last two years in Pedro Alvarez. We had more chances, especially in 2009, but we passed on the impact talent or we simply failed in our pursuits. Instead, we chose the ’signability’ route – a plan which has sunk numerous rebuilding efforts by countless clubs in the past.
Another area that I continue to have major concerns about is the fact we de-emphasized scouting needs under the Littlefield era and, while we picked up a couple more eyes in the field under Huntington, we’ve become way too raw at the area level, we’re still placing too much emphasis on third-party scouting and statistical services, and we’re failing to add to our bird dog ranks with quality men. Throw in our recent failure with Gayo in the international market, throw in some troubled times the last two years with players of powerful agencies like SFX, and throw in our Boras/Alvarez fiasco and it’s easy to see that, not only are we not getting the impact players but, when we do, we have too much trouble trying to keep them.
Simply put, we need to go back to our roots of infusing more experienced old-school scouting practices. Instead of spending the Sano money on a free agent, I think we’d be better spending it hiring better scouts from the area level all the way up to to the supervisor level. AND, give them a voice.
Plus, I’ve already written about the inability of Larry Corrigan to get the job done with the Twins and Greg Smith with the Tigers, and many of our recent moves seem to have a Corrigan-Smith smell to them. I realize Huntington may be limited in his ability to hire quality lieutenants, but I don’t believe for a second we have the right mix upstairs and our trading record clearly proves that.
Throw in the giveaways like Todd Redmond, Tom Gorzelanny, Salomon Torres, sprinkle a little short-term planning mess like needing to move Andy LaRoche off third but failing to give him any time with Perry Hill before he leaves, and even some poor evaluations leading to bad acquisitions, and it’s pretty obvious we’re a mess upstairs. Next thing we’ll see is our second wave torn apart with guys like Matt McSwain pushed out the door as a throw-in to a Doumit deal or something.
If we can’t spend the money hiring and keeping quality baseball men the likes of Perry Hill, then we might as well give up rebuilding right now. Go get Terry Ryan and pay him some ridiculous amount of money to be a consultant or go get Kevin Towers and pay him a ludicrous amount of money to be a west coast scouting supervisor. Those are a bit far fetched ideas but I’m sure you get the idea. The same is true in our development system – we can’t keep hiring newbie trainees, we need quality baseball men like Tom Kotchman.
I could go on and on for hours but my point is this – Neal Huntington and Frank Coonelly executed a very poor plan the last two years. Rebuilding needed to start over the winter of 2007 and should have been long over by the end of the 2008 season. And all along they should have been honest with the fans instead of trying to hide the “R” word. Now Bob Nutting is going to pay a massive price for their error in 2010 and 2011 as ticket sales are sure to tank to below the 1.4M range both years. Bringing up Pedro Alvarez won’t help.. bringing up Brad Lincoln won’t help.. and signing one big bop bat won’t help.
No, the fans are pissed off that they were lied to. Once again. Like some players said they were lied to, like some agents said they were lied to, and like Perry Hill said he was lied to. Obviously we haven’t learned very much upstairs.
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We avoided the 100 loss season, huh? My bet is that if we had played a 162 game season, we would have lost the 100th game. And, the time of Sunday’s game? 3:09 mostly because of 21 hits.
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Anybody notice how a couple of our players were padding their personal stats the last few series instead of playing ‘team’ baseball?? I certainly did.
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I crushed the Mets!!!!! in MLB fantasy baseball so I head to the $10k challenge. MLB hasn’t communicated with us on the rules for the contest yet but it’s my hope to get all of you involved helping to pick each day’s game. If I win, I’ll buy two 2010 Lexus Club season tickets or rent a suite (value up to $10k) and allow 81 of you the opportunity to use them. That’s only if the boycott to get Chuck Greenberg in as owner that’s gearing up doesn’t take place. If it does, then I’ll buy two season tickets to all our minor league affiliates and you can use those.
By Jake, on October 2, 2009, at 10:38 pm | One comment
Hey, Capps didn’t get blown out closing a game at Great American Park! Wonders never cease.
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So one of our pitchers who made his MLB debut on Friday the 13th 2007 who we got in a trade when we gave away a back of the order starter with 13 letters in his baseball name (Tom Gorzelanny) ended up having season ending labrum surgery today with a full moon in the sky?
Yep, makes sense to me.
Well, if you thought Jose Ascanio was going to be worth anything more than a hard name to pronounce while a Bucco, then you’re probably a bit more upset over the Grabow/Gorzelanny deal now. The rest of us lost it when the deal went down. And don’t forget the analysis we did after the trade.. we mentioned then that Ascanio looked to have had some arm problems May 17 – 25th this year because his velocity and command tanked significantly. I suppose the million dollar question is, did the Pirates do an MRI on him or did they simply rely on the Cubs medical reports? Maybe Dejan will tell us.
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Ouch.. Baseball America wasn’t very impressed with our talent in the South Atlantic League, were they? Well, it’s no wonder.. look at some of these pathetic MLE’s (Major League Equivalent stats) for position players with 100 or more AB in our system:
