Replacement Level Yankees Weblog

The Replacement Level Yankees Weblog Has Moved!

2010-04-09T03:11:00Z

Does Robinson Cano’s Approach Change With Men on Base?

2010-01-25T15:54:01Z

Despite a career MLB line of .306/.339/.480, and despite having some very good overall years, Robinson Cano can really frustrate Yankee fans. In addition to what seems likes maddening inconsistency in general, Cano has hit worse with runners on base in almost every season of his career so far, with 2007 being the lone exception.

Here’s how Cano’s splits in this category have looked so far in his career.

2010 CAIRO Projections v0.2

2010-01-24T17:30:01Z

For anyone who's interested, the 2010 CAIRO projections have been updated and can be downloaded here.

cairo_2010_v0.2.zip

There were a few projections that were screwed up so those have been fixed, but it's mostly been a case of updating player projections for roster changes and adding players who were not in the first build but were requested. For example, even though I have no faith in it, a Stephen Strasburg projection has been added, based on his college translations and his AFL performance with some regression towards the mean added in. Here's how it looks:

%	W	L	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	RA	ERA	FIP	RSAR	WAR
80%	5	4	84	82	34	31	4	25	86	3.65	3.36	2.78	19.0	1.9
65%	5	4	80	83	37	34	5	26	78	4.19	3.87	3.22	13.4	1.3
Baseline	4	5	76	84	40	37	6	28	70	4.77	4.42	3.67	7.8	0.8
35%	3	4	68	79	39	36	7	27	59	5.15	4.78	4.11	4.2	0.4
20%	3	4	61	74	37	35	7	26	49	5.52	5.15	4.55	1.2	0.1

RA: Runs allowed per nine innings
ERA: Earned runs allowed per nine innings
FIP: Fielding independent pitching
RSAR: Runs saved above replacement level
WAR: Wins above replacement level (RSAR divided by 10)

The big disparity between FIP and ERA is due to the way hits and other peripherals translate to MLEs. I wouldn't expect such a big disparity in real life, although it'd be because I'd expect his FIP to be closer to his ERA than vice versa, but like I said, I have no faith in this projection.

No Aroldis Chapman projection has been added, although I am working on one. Expect it to be ugly, but you never know.

I've also added a starter projection for Phil Hughes and a reliever projection for Joba Chamberlain since those were not in the original build but got requested.

I've also worked on fixing the mappings for all the players to their MLBAM ids, which is probably gibberish to 99% of you, but trust me, it was a pain in the ass.

There'll be further updates going forward once I have the teams projected in more detail, primarily to pitcher W-L and their stats based on the projected defenses behind them. I'm also hoping to add in something related to projected playing time if I can get to it. I'll also try and add pitcher saves at some point too. If there are any questions or further requests, ask away.

One Of The Following Stories May or May Not Be True

2010-01-24T00:20:00Z

CNNSI - Heyman: Yankees set deadline for Damon

Johnny Damon and the Yankees spoke again within the past few days, and Damon now has been given the weekend to decide whether he wants to come back on a bargain deal.

The chances he will accept a low-base contract for a few million dollars (probably no more than $5 million guaranteed) from the Yankees still appear slim, so Damon’s tenure with the team could officially end early next week.

Lohud - Jennings: Cashman denies Damon deadline

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman has refuted the idea the Yankees are waiting for Johnny Damon to make a decision before moving on to other outfield options.

“That’s not true,” Cashman said. “I have a certain amount of money, and when I decide to spend it, I’m going to spend it.”

While Cashman has repeatedly acknowledged that the Yankees remain in the market for an outfielder, he said the team has “had no discussions on Jermaine Dye” and is “not on Jim Edmonds at all.”

You decide.

RealGM Baseball: Yankees Among Teams Interested In Edmonds

2010-01-23T01:49:01Z

St. Louis Globe-Democrat - The Yankees are among three or four teams interested in free-agent outfielder Jim Edmonds.

Edmonds told Cardinals manager Tony La Russa that he wants to play in St. Louis, but the team may not have a spot for him.

“I’m trying to figure out what to do,” Edmonds said on The Morning After program on 1380 AM The Team in St. Louis. “We’re just going to have to see how it goes.”

Edmonds didn’t reveal what teams, other than the Yankees, were interested.

Isn’t it funny how the Yankees are always mentioned as an interested team?

What Happened to Wang?

2010-01-22T19:42:00Z

It’s looking more and more likely that Chien-Ming Wang’s time with the Yankees is over, with the St. Louis Cardinals currently rumored as the most likely landing place for the potentially former Yankee. Over at the Lohud Yankee blog last week, a guest post by Greg Mathews looked at Wang and laid out a theory that batters started to lay off Wang’s low sinker and that it was indicative of a trend that may mean his effectiveness will suffer unless he makes an adjustment. Trying to see if letting Wang go is a mistake and being on Pitch F/X kick lately I figured I’d look at the data to see if there was any truth to this theory.

Since Pitch F/X has only been around since 2007 and was not completely rolled out until 2008, we don’t have data from Wang’s best season of 2006, and 2007 data is incomplete, which kind of limits how much we can infer from the data we do have given his missed time in 2008 and his very abbreviated 2009, so keep that in mind when looking at the numbers that follow.

NY Times - Glanville: Seeing is Disbelieving

2010-01-22T02:28:01Z

But then Mark McGwire strolled into town, carrying the Cardinals and the future of M.L.B. on his back, as the bitterness of the 1994-1995 strike finally dissipated. The excitement about McGwire dwarfed even my enthusiasm for “Godzilla,” which was relegated to my “to do in the off-season” list. McGwire was streaking toward a seemingly unbreakable record, not by merely hitting balls over the fence but by scraping tops of stadiums as the ball left the atmosphere. Major league baseball players were reduced to little boys, tasting our childhood once again as we craned our necks to figure out when he would launch another impossible shot. Never in my experience had so many players who should have been stretching stopped everything just to watch an opponent take batting practice.

I rarely talk about PEDs here, because frankly, I don’t care about them at all. But this is a very interesting look at the McGwire thing from the perspective of a former player, who just so happens to also be a very intelligent person and very good writer.

Should Jesus Montero Be an Option for Left Field?

2010-01-20T17:16:00Z

Since the question came up in the prior thread, let’s see if the Yankees should at least consider using Jesus Montero in the outfield.

Obviously, we should know that:

a) We don’t know how he’d look defensively in the outfield.
b) Offense from a catcher is far more valuable than similar offense from an outfielder.
c) Montero’s still really young, and although he’s a very good hitting prospect, he probably still doesn’t project all that well in general in 2010 because of where he is in his development.
d) There’s a fair amount of uncertainty that Montero will ever be a good enough defensive catcher to stay there in the majors, although his performance in 2009 was somewhat promising in that regard.
e) A catcher is simply not going to be able to play as frequently as someone at a less demanding position.

Here’s something that we may or may not know. According to research done by Tangotiger in the 2009 Hardball Times Annual, the average catcher will hit about 12% better when he’s not playing catcher. This is pretty significant, and goes above and beyond any typical positional adjustments made for catchers.

So what does this all mean for Jesus Montero? Let’s see…

MLB.com - Bauman: Yankees appear stronger

2010-01-20T14:02:00Z

The bad news for the other 29 clubs is that in the offseason of 2009-‘10 the Yankees have not exactly become worse. In fact, the evidence suggests that they have become better. They are not without questions, but their questions are fewer and smaller than those of the vast majority of the competition.

The things that strike you about the Yankees’ work this winter is that they moved without sentiment, but also without spending $423.5 million. They made some necessary moves, but these moves did not include overwhelming free agents with offers that could not be refused.

WTF? The Yankees spent $423.5 million last offseason? Why hasn’t this been documented anywhere?

I do agree with Bauman’s overall point though. For all the consternation by a certain segment of the fanbase about the ‘gaping hole’ in LF, on paper this team is better than last year’s. How much better? Maybe four or five wins better by my estimates. Of course, that doesn’t mean they’ll win as many games,because a team’s season ending win total is subject to differ from their actual talent level for a multitude of reasons in both good and bad ways.

TSBG Versus High and Low Fastballs

2010-01-19T22:43:01Z

As suggested by Rich in the previous post, here's a look at how Brett Gardner's done against fastballs that I'm categorizing as high, middle or low.

Here's what I did to determine whether a fastball was high or low.

Pitch FX defines the fields sz_top and sz_bot as the top and bottom of the strike zone for the specific batter. It's measured in feet, and for Gardner they were on average 3.19 and 1.4 respectively. So Gardner's strike zone is about 1.8 feet in Pitch FX. It also defines the fields px and pz as the location where the pitch crossed the front of the plate.

I don't really care about px here (inside or outside), so I'm focusing on pz. Any pitch defined as a fastball that had a pz higher than 2.7 feet is considered high. Any pitch that came in between 2.7 and 1.8 feet is defined as a middle of the zone fastball, and anything that came in lower than 1.8 feet is considered low. And here's how it split out.

Type	#	max	min	avg	ball %	stkS%	foul%	stkC%	In play, out(s)%	In play, no out %	HBP %	wOBA
High Fastballs	448	97.6	79.9	91.3	42.0%	1.8%	17.2%	18.5%	14.7%	4.2%	0.2%	.328
Middle Fastballs	485	96.9	78.7	90.8	13.2%	1.9%	15.9%	46.0%	13.8%	5.6%	0.0%	.320
Low Fastballs	185	96.9	79.5	91.0	66.5%	2.2%	2.7%	16.8%	8.1%	2.7%	0.0%	.341
All Fastballs	1118	97.6	78.7	91.1	33.5%	1.9%	14.2%	30.1%	13.2%	4.6%	0.1%	.327

TSBG and Major League Pitches

2010-01-19T14:52:00Z

A few days back, Chad Jennings had a post about TSBG (The Speedy Brett Gardner) which touched on how he was preparing for the upcoming season. One thing that stuck out was this quote.

"Hitting ninth, the very last thing they're going to do is walk me," Gardner said. "So they're going to throw me a lot of fastballs, which I saw a lot last year...It's one of those things that I've got to get over the hump. I've got to get more aggressive. I can't fall behind.":

So I was thinking it might be interesting to look at the Pitch F/X data against Gardner and see how he performed against different types of pitching. I'll present the same type of data that I presented when looking at Javier Vazquez's pitch selection, instead in this instance it'll be what the pitchers threw to Gardner.

Yankees’ Top Prospects: 1-5

2010-01-17T04:48:01Z

First, I guess I should introduce myself. As should be obvious, my name is Kyle, I’m currently stuck in Arizona until I finish college, and—as is appropriate for this site—I am a stat-geek. SG and I had talked about me contributing some minor league stuff to the site, but it took a while for it to actually happen—and I’ve been procrastinating during my break between semesters.

I figured I’d start off with a completely unoriginal top prospect list, because I don’t think you are allowed to blog about prospects in the offseason without doing one. I’m going to focus on stats a lot more than publications like Baseball America, Pinstripes Plus, etc., but that’s because they already do far better work than I could with scouting. I do try to use a mix of both scouting and statistics when judging a prospect, and tend to agree with Theo Epstein’s view:

“For players in the rookie leagues and the lower levels, we focus more on traditional scoutings and tools. As the player rises through the minors, we shift our emphasis towards performance and statistical evaluation. When a player reaches AA, we balance these two schools of evaluation 50-50… and it more or less remains that way.”

—Theo Epstein

CAIRO Projected 2010 AL East Standings as of January 16

2010-01-16T16:22:01Z

Obviously it's way too early to make much of these, but here's how I have the AL East projected with CAIRO given current rosters and my estimated playing times.

Team	W	L	RS	RA	Div%	WC%	PL%
Yankees	100.3	61.7	864	664	66.4%	24.5%	90.9%
Red Sox	94.9	67.1	861	700	26.1%	44.8%	70.9%
Rays	89.3	72.7	804	706	7.4%	21.9%	29.3%
Blue Jays	70.1	91.9	696	761	-	0.2%	0.2%
Orioles	70.4	91.6	778	854	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%

W: Average projected win total
L: Average projected loss total
RS: Projected runs scored
RA: Projected runs allowed
Div%: Percentage of times team won division
WC%: Percentage of times team won wild card
PL%: Percentage of times team made the playoffs (Div% + WC%)

Although it looks like Boston's offense is on par with the Yankees superficially, it's not once you consider the park factors. The Yankees are probably about forty runs better than Boston offensively in a neutral park right now, although the converse applies to the pitching staffs.

Interestingly enough, for all the talk about Boston's great defense, they're not even the best defense in the division, with Tampa Bay projecting close to 20 runs better than Boston.

Anyway, expect lots to change before we can really have useful projected standings, so please don't take these too seriously.

Javier Vazquez’s Pitch Selection, 2007 - 2009

2010-01-14T15:20:01Z

I was thinking about the likeilhood of Javier Vazquez's 2009 being indicative of a possible change in approach that may mean he's more likely to sustain the gains made, so I pulled his Pitch FX data from 2007 through 2009 to see if it showed anything interesting. Keep in mind that Pitch FX data is not complete from 2007-2009.

First, here's a look at his pitch selection, broken down by season and type.

Type	2007	%	2008	%	2009	%
Four-seam fastball	1368	59.0%	1727	54.8%	1502	47.1%
Change-up	350	15.1%	387	12.3%	474	14.9%
Slider	365	15.8%	637	20.2%	739	23.2%
Curveball	234	10.1%	398	12.6%	472	14.8%
Total	2317		3149		3187

This breakdown screams for pie charts, so here they are.

In 2009 Vazquez threw fewer fastballs, while increasing his slider and curveball usage according to these numbers.

This next table just looks at the wOBA against each of the pitches. This only applies when a pitch is the decisive pitch of a plate apearance.

Type	2007	+/-	2008	+/-	2009	+/-
Four-seam fastball	.298	.013	.330	.007	.298	.011
Change-up	.295	.010	.323	.001	.240	-.047
Slider	.276	-.008	.338	.016	.295	.008
Curveball	.221	-.063	.274	-.048	.276	-.011
Total	.284		.322	.000	.287

The +/- column is just the difference between the wOBA for the specific pitch compared to the overall wOBA hea llowed in that season. So we see in 2009, for example, that he his changeup was his most effective pitch. as batters had a wOBA of .240 against it, compared to his overall wOBA against of .287. A difference of .010 in wOBA is worth about five runs over 650 PAs.

Lastly, here's a more detailed breakdown of his pitch selection.

Type (2007)	#	max	min	avg	ball %	stkS%	foul%	stkC%	In play, out(s)%	In play, no out %	HBP %	break_y	break_angle	break_length
Fastball	1296	98.2	86.0	92.5	32.7%	8.6%	22.8%	18.6%	10.7%	3.8%	0.2%	24.1	35.4	5.2
Four-seam fastball	72	97.0	90.1	93.4	37.5%	11.1%	15.3%	19.4%	9.7%	5.6%	0.0%	23.6	54.0	4.8
Change-up	350	89.5	59.2	82.8	35.7%	16.0%	12.6%	11.7%	14.9%	3.7%	0.3%	24.1	22.6	7.7
Slider	365	92.4	75.5	84.8	32.6%	13.7%	15.9%	17.3%	11.2%	6.0%	0.3%	24.2	-6.9	7.6
Curveball	234	82.1	65.7	75.7	38.5%	12.4%	9.0%	21.4%	11.5%	3.8%	0.0%	24.0	-13.1	12.9
Total	2317	98.2	59.2	85.8	33.9%	11.0%	18.5%	17.7%	11.5%	4.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%

Type (2008)	#	max	min	avg	ball %	stkS%	foul%	stkC%	In play, out(s)%	In play, no out %	HBP %	break_y	break_angle	break_length
Fastball	1693	97.1	86.0	91.8	32.5%	8.2%	22.3%	18.1%	11.3%	4.8%	0.1%	23.7	36.2	4.6
Four-seam fastball	34	95.4	89.0	92.6	35.3%	11.8%	17.6%	8.8%	23.5%	2.9%	0.0%	23.6	53.1	5.0
Change-up	387	89.6	72.4	81.9	35.7%	16.3%	17.1%	9.0%	12.4%	3.6%	0.0%	23.8	21.1	7.2
Slider	637	90.8	77.6	84.6	29.2%	14.4%	20.3%	14.4%	12.6%	4.7%	0.2%	23.8	-6.0	7.3
Curveball	398	84.6	63.5	74.0	33.7%	9.3%	15.3%	22.4%	10.6%	2.8%	0.5%	23.8	-13.4	13.1
Total	3149	97.1	63.5	85.0	32.4%	10.6%	20.3%	16.7%	11.7%	4.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%

Type (2009)	#	max	min	avg	ball %	stkS%	foul%	stkC%	In play, out(s)%	In play, no out %	HBP %	break_y	break_angle	break_length
Four-seam fastball	1502	94.8	85.3	91.2	29.2%	8.4%	20.9%	21.6%	12.5%	4.9%	0.1%	23.8	31.9	4.7
Change-up	474	88.1	70.8	80.2	38.0%	21.5%	12.9%	7.4%	12.0%	1.7%	0.4%	23.8	20.2	7.5
Slider	739	89.7	68.9	83.1	30.7%	13.4%	16.0%	19.6%	12.3%	4.3%	0.0%	23.9	-8.2	7.9
Curveball	472	82.2	64.0	72.5	29.7%	17.8%	10.6%	21.6%	12.1%	3.6%	0.0%	23.8	-12.6	13.8
Total	3187	94.8	64.0	81.8	30.9%	12.9%	17.0%	19.0%	12.3%	4.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%

#: number of times pitch was thrown as recorded in Pitch F/X
max: highest recorded starting velocity
min: lowest recorded starting velocity
avg: average recorded starting velocity
ball %: percentage of time pitch was taken for a ball
stkS%: percentage of time pitch was swung on and missed
foul%: percentage of time pitch was fouled off
stkC%: percentage of time pitch was taken for a called strike
In play, out(s)%: percentage of time pitch was hit into play for an out(s)
In play, no out%: percentage of time pitch was hit into play and not converted into an out
HBP%: percentage of time batter was hit by pitch
break_y: the y-distance from home plate where the maximum deviation occurs(definition taken from this site
break_angle: the direction of the deviation, with the convention that a pitch that breaks away from or toward a RHH has a negative or positive angle, respectively;
break_length: the largest deviation, in inches, of the actual from the straight-line trajectory.

Because of the league switch, I don't know how much I'd read into some of the peripheral improvements we see in his 2009 line.

Anyway, I'm not sure how much this tells us, but I figured it beats talking about signing Reed Johnson.

Yahoo: Johnny Damon may return to Yankees

2010-01-12T14:47:01Z

The Yanks have plenty of personnel by this point but there still remains the chance that Damon could return to the team but now it's looking the Yankees might only offer him one year and $6 million or $7 million. Damon probably doesn't love the idea of taking such a huge pay cut.

While I have made the case that the Yankees can survive with a LF platoon of TSBG + a right-handed complement, at a certain point Damon's price may drop to the point where it's a no-brainer to bring him back. What's that price? Let's assume a one-year deal is the only thing worth considering given Damon's age. Here's what CAIRO sees as Damon's percentile forecasts as a LF for the Yankees in 2010.

Player	johnny damon
Age	36
pPos	lf
pTm	nya

%	PA	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG	BR	BRAR	wOBA	aRS	WAR	$$
80%	683	29	.285	.373	.489	111	41	.376	-1	4.0	$17,971,486
65%	663	26	.274	.359	.459	99	30	.357	-1	2.9	$13,146,822
Baseline	650	23	.264	.344	.429	87	20	.339	-1	1.9	$8,664,608
35%	618	19	.253	.327	.402	75	11	.321	-1	1.1	$4,727,805
20%	585	16	.242	.310	.376	64	3	.302	-1	0.3	$1,162,960
2009	626	12	.283	.359	.485	96	31	.364	-1	3.0	$13,697,976

BR: Linear weights batting runs
BRAR: Park and position-adjusted batting runs above replacement level
wOBA: Weighted on-base average
aRS: Projected runs saved defensively compared to average, using an average of zone rating and UZR
WAR: Wins above replacement (BRAR + aRS divided by 10)
$$ Value assuming a marginal win cost of $4,500,000

Seems to me that any one year deal in the $5-7 is likely to be a good value for the Yankees. It would also hedge against the risk that any one of Curtis Granderson, Nick Swisher or Nick Johnson miss time in 2010.