Minor Moves

by Tom Dakers on Nov 27, 2011 2:25 AM EST in Toronto Blue Jays News

As JaysSaskatchwan noted in a fanshot, the Jays picked up Luis Valbuena from the Indians for cash. Here is his career numbers:

Year	Age	Tm	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+
2005	19	SEA-min	77	291	47	75	10	3	12	51	14	6	32	39	.258	.331	.436	.768
2006	20	SEA-min	132	488	63	134	26	7	5	48	22	10	58	70	.275	.353	.387	.740
2007	21	SEA-min	122	444	55	106	23	3	11	44	10	6	48	83	.239	.311	.378	.689
2008	22	SEA-min	128	452	84	137	21	2	11	60	18	8	59	69	.303	.382	.431	.813
2008	22	SEA	18	49	6	12	5	0	0	1	0	0	4	11	.245	.315	.347	.662	78
2009	23	CLE-min	22	78	15	25	4	2	3	13	3	3	16	13	.321	.436	.538	.975
2009	23	CLE	103	368	52	92	25	3	10	31	2	3	26	83	.250	.298	.416	.714	90
2010	24	CLE-min	25	96	23	30	8	1	6	20	2	0	19	21	.313	.427	.604	1.032
2010	24	CLE	91	275	22	53	12	0	2	24	1	2	28	61	.193	.273	.258	.531	50
2011	25	CLE-min	113	420	64	127	22	0	17	75	6	3	46	96	.302	.372	.476	.848
2011	25	CLE	17	43	4	9	0	0	1	1	1	0	1	9	.209	.227	.279	.506	41
4 Seasons			229	735	84	166	42	3	13	57	4	5	59	164	.226	.286	.344	.630	72
162 Game Avg.			162	520	59	117	30	2	9	40	3	4	42	116	.226	.286	.344	.630	72

CLE (3 yrs)			211	686	78	154	37	3	13	56	4	5	55	153	.224	.283	.344	.627	71
SEA (1 yr)			18	49	6	12	5	0	0	1	0	0	4	11	.245	.315	.347	.662	78

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 11/26/2011.

He's not exactly someone we want to see playing a lot but he could battle Mike McCoy for utility job and allow the Jays to keep sending Mike back and forth between Toronto and Vegas.

The move fills the Jays 40-man roster so any time they want to add someone, say a free agent, they will have to DFA somebody. I wouldn't be all that surprised if Valbuena would be the first to go, though they would likely try to slip Brian Jeroloman through waivers first.

We still have to find someone to play second, it won't be Valbuena. Things have been pretty boring on the transaction, front for the Jays, but December is coming and the Winter Meetings start on the 5th. I figure the Jays will want to know who's on second by the end of the month, so things should get more interesting soon.

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Comments

Hopefully this transaction would mean that I could keep my Mike McCoy tracker on for the 2012 season...

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by Minor Leaguer on Nov 27, 2011 2:28 AM EST reply actions

Valbuena is an interesting pickup. He could develop into a very nice bat or not at all. I like these kinds of gambles.

by dexfarkin on Nov 27, 2011 2:59 AM EST reply actions

Personally I’d like to see Johnson resigned. I feel tht the Jays can at least be a quasi contender next season and Johnson can only contribute positively to that effort compared to the last two years of 2nd base glory. Now we just need to hope that the Red Sox panick and make a couple of desperate moves. The dumbest thing they can do is mess with that lineup.

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by Redonred on Nov 27, 2011 3:00 AM EST reply actions

Cleveland Middle Infielders

How many Cleveland-trained middle infielders have we picked up over the past ten years? John McDonald 2 or 3 times, Inglett, Nix, now Valbuena. We must like what their coaches do with them, at least on the defensive-side of the ball

by khaleeji on Nov 27, 2011 4:45 AM EST reply actions

farrell used to be a scout in their system.

by ddbumpus on Nov 27, 2011 3:11 PM EST via mobile up reply actions

That doesn’t explain Inglett or McDonald; they were before his time

by khaleeji on Nov 27, 2011 3:15 PM EST up reply actions

Don’t forget about Hector Luna! (I did)

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by Minor Leaguer on Nov 27, 2011 3:35 PM EST up reply actions

Well done. Hector Luna...haha.

Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.

by Jevant on Dec 1, 2011 1:48 PM EST up reply actions

Valbuena bats left

So at first I thought he was brought in as part of a platoon. But over his short major league career:

wOBA vs left: .343 / wOBA vs right: .269

the split is largely BABIP/power driven and quite possibly simply a product of small sample size.

Looking at his splits in the minors, Valbuena hit significantly better against righties there. Possibly a good find by AA if Valbuena does indeed get platooned.

by Woodman663 on Nov 27, 2011 5:07 AM EST reply actions

forgot

link to minor league splits

by Woodman663 on Nov 27, 2011 5:08 AM EST up reply actions

you're on to something...

there aren’t many interesting FA 2B, and anyone remotely interesting would want a multi-year deal. If they think Hechavarria can contribute and if they want to give him a significant number of at bats in the latter part of the year, they can’t sign a big name, even on a one year contract. We’ve seen time and time again that veteran major leaguers, even on one year deals, want and receive at bats. Their future contracts depend on it. So maybe a Valbuena/McCoy platoon gets you above average defense (Valbena being a shortstop and all) and gets you up to about average offense for the position.

It also simultaneously fills your utility player position. Whomever isn’t playing 2B on that day is your backup IF.

They could sign a few more Valbuena types to compete for jobs in ST with McCoy and Sanchez. I just don’t see a big name 2B with the Jays in 2012…

by REMO on Nov 27, 2011 8:01 AM EST up reply actions

Yep

I’m on board for a cheap 2012 platoon, probably won’t get quite league average production (I’d be happy with 90 wRC+) but it’s possible and would still be an improvement over the last couple years anyway.

If the Jays are actually contending, you can trade for an upgrade in midseason if necessary. But this way you avoid a multiyear deal, gives Hech to develop and prove that he could handle MLB in 2013 potentially, or give AA time to swing a deal for a longer term solution

by MjwW on Nov 27, 2011 8:43 AM EST up reply actions

I think people are overestimating the benefit from a split with McCoy and Valbuena

90 wRC+ is exceptionally optimistic. A more realistic mark is no greater than 70 wRC+, which is just awful from any position on the diamond.

by Playoffs!!!!1 on Nov 27, 2011 10:31 AM EST up reply actions

Well, I never said a platoon of McCoy and Valbuena specifically. As Remo said above, it’s a long way to spring training and plenty of time to bring in other guys to compete.

Maybe 90 wRC+ is too optimistic. But a 70 WRC+ would be a wOBA of about .275, which is about 55 points below average (using last year’s offensive environment here). Across 700 plate appearances, that’s something like 25 runs below average or basically replacement level. If we don’t contend next year, so what? If we are, then as I said go out and get an upgrade. Rather than spending now on an upgrade over a hypothetical platoon.

by MjwW on Nov 27, 2011 10:46 AM EST up reply actions

Inglett/McCoy platoon!

by REMO on Nov 27, 2011 11:18 AM EST up reply actions

70 is at least as pessimistic

As 90 is optimistic. James has McCoy projected for a .299 wOBA, the components of which seem reasonable. A .275 wOBA is on the low end for McCoy, and below what we ought to expect from Valbuena as well, I think.

by gabrielsyme on Nov 27, 2011 1:00 PM EST up reply actions

I was thinking along the same lines

And was similarly surprised by the reverse MLB splits that I looked into the minor league splits and found it seemed to diappear. I want to offer a thought on what you said above, and then offer a thought of my own on why he might have those MLB splits.

On whether the reverse split is just SSS – my first thoughts too. But then I thought that with 800 career PAs settling for that seems like a bit of a copout. Using the Appedix from The Book, the section on Random Variation in Multinomials (p. 373) gives us a formula to estimate the standard deviation (SD) for wOBA. Plugging this in, I get a SD against lefties of 0.048 and 0.017 against righties. One SD confidence intervals for true wOBA talent would be .295 – .391 against L, and .251 – .287 against R. Two SD confidence intervals would be .247 – .439 (L) and .233 – .305 (R ). Based off this, I think we have to be careful about writing this off to SSS.

The next step would be to actually directly test this to see the significance level at which we can reject the null hypothesis of wOBA(L)=wOBA( R), and a step further would be to find the X value at which we reject a null of wOBA(L)-wOBA( R)=X at 95%. I might come back to this, but I’d have to dig through a couple books/notes to find the right formula and make sure the test is done properly.

My second thought relates to why we see these reverse splits. From 2008-11, across MLB, 27% of all PAs were against LHP. On the other hand, Valbuena faced only 8.6% LHP. Basically, it looks like there may be a (perfectly logical) selection bias where Valbuena didn’t play against good lefties, and consequently his observed wOBA is far greater than his true talent wOBA.

by MjwW on Nov 27, 2011 7:57 AM EST up reply actions

by ecb282 on Nov 27, 2011 10:51 AM EST up reply actions

The Jays don't want to eat $5.5m

I think the front office is still hoping someone will come up with a need in Spring Training and they’ll be able to get rid of some of his salary. Or that they can include Teahen in a trade.

by gabrielsyme on Nov 27, 2011 1:02 PM EST up reply actions