Thursday, March 26, 2009

Looking Ahead to 2009: Johnny Damon

When the Yankees signed Johnny Damon after 2005, I hated it. I hated it for emotional reasons primarily, but also because I felt he was a poor risk to be productive offensively and defensively through age 35. Heading into 2009 and the final year of his contract, let's take a look at Damon's value to this point.

Player	Year	Age	Pos	PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	BR	BRAR	zr rs	uzr rs	avg rs	WAR	Value	Salary	Difference
Johnny Damon	2006	32	cf	669	.285	.359	.482	101.0	40	4	-7	-2	3.8	$19,014,058	$13,000,000	$6,014,058
Johnny Damon	2007	33	cf	604	.270	.351	.396	78.5	11	-1	7	3	1.4	$7,397,618	$13,000,000	-$5,602,383
Johnny Damon	2008	34	lf	621	.303	.375	.461	95.3	36	-1	3	1	3.7	$20,313,310	$13,000,000	$7,313,310
	Total			1894	.286	.362	.448	274.9	87	2	3	2	8.9	$46,724,985	$39,000,000	$7,724,985

I'm assuming a marginal win for the Yankees was worth $5M in 2006, $5.25M in 2007, and $5.5M in 2008. With that assumption, so far the Damon contract has been worth it and then some.

For information about the projections being used and the acronyms in the tables below, check out the first and second posts in this series.

2008
After a poor 2007, Damon looked like he was on the verge of collapse. Offensively, he slugged under .400 for the first time since his age 23 season, and defensively his range in CF appeared to decline drastically and his poor arm seemed to get even worse. CF also seemed to be taking a physical toll on Damon. Because of all that, the Yankees officially moved Damon to LF to start 2008.

	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	HBP	AVG	OBP	SLG	BR	BR/650	BRAR/650	wOBA
2008 chone	598	535	97	148	26	3	16	63	17	5	60	78	3	.277	.353	.426	80	87	26	.334
2008 marcel	570	507	89	142	28	3	13	63	20	4	54	75	3	.280	.349	.424	76	87	27	.329
2008 pecota	534	471	76	131	25	3	11	59	15	4	55	69	3	.278	.354	.417	70	85	25	.330
2008 zips	575	519	93	145	25	3	12	67	17	4	54	73	2	.279	.350	.408	74	83	23	.327
2008 cairo	647	575	101	165	29	4	17	74	21	5	64	81	3	.287	.358	.437	90	90	30	.338
2008 average	585	523	92	147	27	3	14	66	18	4	58	75	3	.280	.354	.424	78	87	27	.333
2008 actual	623	555	95	168	27	5	17	71	29	8	64	82	1	.303	.374	.461	94	98	38	.355
difference	7%	6%	3%	8%	-4%	46%	15%	2%	50%	71%	5%	3%	-65%	.022	.020	.038	15	11	11	.021

Damon's projections were slightly pessimistic, pegging him to hit for an average line of .280/.354/.424, and projecting him to be worth around 2.4 wins above replacement. It's worth noting that the deadly accurate CAIRO projection system was the closest. Yay CAIRO! Damon instead was worth 3.6 wins above replacement offensively,

Offense
Here's how Damon projects in 2009.

	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	HBP	AVG	OBP	SLG	BR	BR/650	BRAR/650	wOBA
2009 chone	615	551	97	152	27	3	15	65	19	5	62	81	2	.276	.351	.417	81	85	25	.330
2009 marcel	572	507	84	140	26	3	15	62	22	6	58	80	1	.276	.348	.428	77	87	27	.329
2009 pecota	549	486	80	136	26	4	12	62	22	6	55	77	3	.280	.353	.423	74	87	27	.331
2009 tht	573	512	74	140	26	3	13	61	2	22	59	80	2	.273	.351	.412	64	73	13	.328
2009 zips	628	564	99	164	30	4	15	69	2	25	62	78	2	.291	.363	.438	77	79	19	.342
2009 cairo	634	564	102	159	30	4	16	69	22	6	63	84	2	.282	.354	.433	87	89	28	.335
2009 average	595	532	90	149	27	4	14	65	15	12	60	80	2	.280	.355	.426	77	84	23	.334

The projections are expecting Damon to fall off by about a win and a half. I do expect him to fall off some, although perhaps not quite that much.

Here are his CAIRO percentile forecasts.

cairo percentiles	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	HBP	AVG	OBP	SLG	BR	BR/650	BRAR/650	wOBA
80%	647	575	114	175	36	7	20	79	28	4	73	77	4	.304	.389	.494	108	108	48	.372
65%	641	569	108	167	33	6	18	74	25	5	68	80	3	.293	.371	.464	97	99	38	.353
baseline	634	564	102	159	30	4	16	69	22	6	63	84	2	.282	.354	.433	87	89	28	.335
35%	603	536	92	145	25	3	13	62	19	7	56	84	1	.271	.336	.403	73	79	19	.316
20%	552	490	80	127	21	2	10	53	15	7	48	81	1	.260	.319	.373	59	69	9	.297

Defense
It doesn't seem like the Yankees are entertaining the idea of putting Damon back in CF, although it'd be a way to get the best offense on the field. Since it's still a remote possibility, here are Damon's ZRs and UZRS going back to 2005.

Year	Age	Pos	GP	Inn	RS (ZR)	RS (UZR)	Avg (ZR/UZR)	p162
2005	31	CF	147	1225	0	-8	-4	-5
2006	32	CF	131	1087	1	-7	-3	-4
2007	33	CF	48	377	1	2	1	5
2008	34	CF	34	285	0	-6	-3	-14
2009	35	CF	89	722	0	-4	-2	-4

That doesn't include his arm, which probably costs about five runs a season.

Damon's LF statistics suffer from small sample size, but here they are anyway.

Year	Age	Pos	GP	Inn	RS (ZR)	RS (UZR)	Avg (ZR/UZR)	p162
2005	31	LF	0	0	0	0	0	0
2006	32	LF	0	0	0	0	0	0
2007	33	LF	32	271	0	6	3	16
2008	34	LF	87	659	-3	8	2	5
2009	35	LF	81	612	-2	5	2	4

UZR likes Damon's defense more than ZR. As discussed in the Jeter thread, that probably means he saw a more difficult distribution of fieldable chances.

Dates	Player	TM	LG	Pos	G	INN	Ch	PM	ZR	Diff	RS
Through June 16	Damon, Johnny	NYY	AL	LF	54	443.2	119	106	.891	6	5
After June 16	Damon, Johnny	NYY	AL	LF	33	215.9	58	42	.724	-8	-7
Total	Damon, Johnny	NYY	AL	LF	87	659.1	177	148	.836	-2	-2

Damon's zone rating was solid through June 16, then tanked. I blame Snacks Pontoon.

It's probably a safe assumption that Damon should be average or slightly above in LF defensively when looking at the combination of his CF and LF projections. A rough rule of thumb is that a league average CF should be anywhere from 10-15 runs above average in LF.

Baserunning

Year	GA_OPPS	EQGAR	AA_OPPS	EQAAR	HA_OPPS	EQHAR	OA_OPPS	EQOAR	OPPS	EQBRR
2007	41	0.4	42	1.7	60	2.0	371	-0.4	514	7.5
2008	46	-0.2	54	-1.1	55	-0.5	411	1.3	566	0.0
2009 Proj	44	0.0	50	-0.1	57	0.3	398	0.7	549	2.5

Damon was one of the better baserunners in the league in 2007 but fell to average in 2008. He should probably be somewhere close to that projection if he's healthy.

Value
Well, we already touched on Damon's value to this point, so let's see what the projections see as the final verdict on the Damon contract.

Category	Runs	Wins
Offense	23	2.3
Defense	2	0.2
Baserunning	3	0.3
Total	28	2.8
2009 Salary	$13,000,000
Value if:a marginal win is worth:	Value	Difference
$3,000,000	$8,271,727	($4,728,273)
$3,500,000	$9,650,348	($3,349,652)
$4,000,000	$11,028,969	($1,971,031)
$4,500,000	$12,407,590	($592,410)
$5,000,000	$13,786,212	$786,212
$5,500,000	$15,164,833	$2,164,833
$6,000,000	$16,543,454	$3,543,454

It looks like the Yankees will end up ahead on the Damon deal unless disaster strikes.

Conclusion
Damon's possibly playing for his last MLB contract so I think he'll do whatever he can to have a big year. The news that Joe Girardi is going to bat him 2nd this year behind Derek Jeter seems like a smart move. I'd be curious to see the stats of lefty batters with 1B occupied, but I don't have time to run the data right now. Anyway, it makes sense because it splits up the possible Gardner/Damon lefty bottleneck between 9 and 1 and it moves Damon's power down a slot where it should be more advantageous, since he should see more opportunities with runners on.

I didn't think it would happen, but I've warmed up to Damon. I probably wouldn't bring him back in 2010, but he's been solid as a Yank.

It looks like the season is dawning on us faster than I'll be able to get through all the players, but I'll try to double and triple them up to get through them. Also, I expect to have the Diamond Mind Projection Blowout posted early next week.

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