How Are We Going to Replace our Departed Players?
by REMO on Dec 31, 2011 7:20 AM EST
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PrintI decided to put together a little project. Nothing complicated... I’ve listed all of the players who are either gone (e.g. Molina) or will receive a lesser role (e.g. Davis) in 2011, and I’ve examined whether we should expect an upgrade over 2011’s performance, or not. I didn’t take into account Encarnacion’s shuffle from 3B, DH and 1B since I’m guessing he’ll end up with a similar number of at bats anyway.
171 AB, 757 OPS, 3 HR, 15 RBI
His replacement
Jeff Mathis: 90 AB, 557 OPS, 2 HR
JP Arencibia: 50 AB, 727 OPS, 4 HR
Travis D’Arnaud: 50 AB, 725 OPS, 2 HR
Verdict:
I think it’s safe to assume that JP will be getting more at bats this season. Last year, he and Molina almost split catching duties, until JP took on a larger role after a few weeks of play. I also suspect we’ll at least catch a glimpse of D’Arnaud. So all in all, I’d be surprise if Mathis gets many at bats. And thankfully so, since he’s quite possibly the worst hitter in the league. But he’ll surely do well in continuing to show JP the ropes on the defensive side of things. Still though, Molina had a good season and while getting JP more at bats will probably lead to a few more home runs, I don’t think the Jays will be better off in the backup Catcher spot next season. But the loss is probably insignificant.
Cory Patterson
317 AB, 665 OPS, 6 HR
His replacement:
Colby Rasmus: 200 AB, 754 OPS, 8 HR
Travis Snider: 117 AB, 730 OPS, 4 HR
Verdict:
Wow! We gave 317 AB to CoPa last season. Overall, he was pretty terrible. There are a few reasons he got so many at bats. Injuries to Davis and lacklustre performance by Snider are obvious reasons. He also got hot mid-summer and I think that bought him a little bit of a longer leash with Farrell. So we should get a really good upgrade over Patterson with more AB’s coming from Rasmus and Snider. Even using Rasmus and Snider’s career stats (which I’m hoping they exceed next year), they’ll give a good boost, and the home runs should be about doubled that of Patterson’s. They should also give a slight improvement in defense.
168 AB, 630 OPS, 2 HR
His replacement:
Luis Valbuena: 100 AB, 630 OPS, 2 HR
Yunel Escobar: 68 AB, 766 OPS, 2 HR
Verdict:
The fan fave, Johnny Mac. Surprisingly, (to me anyways) Valbuena’s career stats are similar to McDonald’s 2011 stats. If Escobar stays healthy all season, he’ll get a few extra at bats as well. Defensively, I don’t see a big difference. McDonald is quite good, but Valbuena and Escobar are capable as well. I won’t miss Johnny Mac on the base paths.
Juan Rivera
247 AB, 666 OPS, 6 HR
His replacement:
Travis Snider: 247 AB, 730 OPS, 9 HR
Verdict:
Juan Rivera had a terrible start to the season last season. He’s better than what his performance with the Jays was last season. Travis Snider’s career norms would be a nice improvement over Rivera’s 2011 with the Jays. If Snider hits like we think he can, then all bets are off. Of course, he could also hit like he did in 2011. Or, of course, Thames or Francisco could win the job.
396 AB, 584 OPS, 6 HR
His replacement
Kelly Johnson 396 AB, 784 OPS, 15 HR
Verdict:
Aaron Hill was bad in 2011. Jeff Mathis bad. You could plug almost anyone in there and it would be an upgrade over Hill’s 2011.. I think the fact that Kelly Johnson accepted arbitration is very telling. I believe he feels comfortable at the Rogers Centre and he thinks he could put up really big numbers next season and then get a big payday. I hope he’s right, but I’d be happy if he performed around his career averages.
320 AB, 623 OPS, 1 HR
His replacement:
Colby Rasmus: 150 AB, 754 OPS, 6 HR
Verdict:
With the departure of Wells, Davis was given the starting CF job last season. Unfortunately for him and for us, he was injured and was never able to get into a groove. It’s too bad because he was a favourite of mine and I was hoping he would be able to hit like he did in 09. One of the most exciting moments of last season came with his 1st at bat. I might be wrong, but if I recall, he legged out a single, then stole 2nd and 3rd. Barring a trade, he’ll be the 4th OF next season and he should get some at bats against left handed pitching. But I’m taking away 170 AB from him and giving them to Rasmus. Given his poor showing last season, that’ll be a nice upgrade offensively. And Davis will get into plenty of games as a pinch runner, as well.
197 AB, 561 OPS, 2 HR
His replacement
Brett Lawrie: 75 AB, 953 OPS, 6 HR
Luis Valbuena: 75 AB, 630 OPS, 1 HR
Verdict:
I’m sure McCoy is a great guy to have in the clubhouse and all, but honestly, I hope he spends more time in Vegas next year. Of course, Valbuena might not be much better, but I think he at least has a bit more power. A full season of Lawrie will help take away some at bats from the McCoy’s and Valbuena’s.
136 AB, 554 OPS, 4 HR
His replacement:
Brett Lawrie: 136 AB, 953 OPS, 10 HR
Verdict:
Almost brings a tear to my eye.
32 AB, 500 OPS, 2 HR
His replacement:
Anthony Gose: 32 AB, 700 OPS
Verdict:
I’m just guessing here that Gose will be a September call up.
32 AB, 610 OPS, 1 HR
His replacement:
Anthony Gose: 32 AB, 700 OPS
Verdict:
I’m just guessing here that Gose will be a September call up.
Conclusion:
Assuming there are no injuries and no other signings or trades, the Jays should see significant improvements in LF, CF, 3B, 2B, backup IF. We should also hope for an improvement from Lind at 1B and a more consistent Encarnacion at DH. There is always a risk that Bautista takes a step backward, Escobar has an off season and that Lawrie struggles in his 1st full season.
Considering the Jays had the league's 5th best offense, I think it bodes well for next season on the offensive side of things.
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I need to improve my Spanish
Why? I thought John McDonald in Spanish was Juan McDonaldo not Luis Valbuena.
In a small defense off CoPa, he had some good series against the ChiSox and Texas early on in his stint that kept him around. Otherwise, it was ugly. I won’t miss his terrible D or his clumsy baserunning. The fact that he was part of the Rasmus trade still amazes me.
I’ll miss Aaron (because he was a signed/drafted Jay) and Jose “The Fastest” Molina, but I’d really like to see what KJ, Colby and Lawrie can do over a full season. The offense could be very scary.
In honor of the Jays 2nd Baseman who played with fire in more ways than one.
by Damaso's Burnt Shirt on Dec 31, 2011 8:01 AM EST reply actions
oh yeah, forgot to mention that I'm not projecting or predicting any numbers for anyone
I just used career numbers. Lawrie’s career sample size is pretty small.
We improved offensively at so many positions
It always strikes me as a little funny to constantly hear people say we need help. We were a top 5 offense with all those plugs getting significant PAs… I think if even a couple of the question marks (Rasmus, KJ, Lind, Snider, Encarnacion) pan out and a couple others have at least passable bounce back seasons the offense will be great. The fact that C-Pattz, Rivera, McCoy, Mcdonald an Jayson Nix had over 1,000 PAs is almost cringe worthy.
I'm not trying to say there isn't room for improvement
Even the Yankees offense could improve. But I think our resources are better spent trying to address the gaping holes at SP.
I think EE is a capable DH
He has been improving a bit each year, so I could see him hitting at a league average DH level, or just slightly below average. Certainly room for upgrade, but I wouldn’t call that a gaping hole. 1B though, that is a different story.
by Playoffs!!!!1 on Dec 31, 2011 12:38 PM EST up reply actions
his best season was 2006
so he hasn’t been improving each year. IIRC, league average for a DH is ~.365 wOBA – Edwin has never put up a wOBA higher than .357 in his career. a platoon with Lind and Edwin would be good, but Edwin is not good enough to be an everyday DH on a contending team, period
period?
Last year, the Jays ranked 10th in wOBA with a .322 mark, slightly below the Yankees mark of .326 and just ahead of the Rays at .321. If all AB’s went to EE last year, which I know is not realistic but just meant as a comparison, with a .344 wOBA would rank 5th in the AL.
Also consider that the Rays used Damon (wOBA of .328) and the Yankees used Posada (wOBA of .309) for the majority of DH ABs.
I’m not disagreeing, that there is certainly room for improvement on our DH production, which a Lind / EE split would accomplish. I just don’t see EE as really being as big of a hole as you make it seem. 1B, and starting pitching, are much bigger holes to me (with starting pitching possibly being able to sort itself out with improvements from our young pitchers).
by Playoffs!!!!1 on Dec 31, 2011 2:09 PM EST up reply actions 3 recs
You bring up some monster points
And I agree
also
as a DH he is .299/.362/.506 and OPS = .868 over his whole career (only 71 games)
The fact that his whole season was roughly in line with his career norms
I would not be expecting that level of production for a whole year. The upside is there to get that kind of production, but it is not a very likely scenario.
by Playoffs!!!!1 on Dec 31, 2011 4:04 PM EST up reply actions
It may not be likely
But I’d give it a fair chance. I’m a huge Edwin fan, I put him at just below 3 WAR this year on my fangraph thing :P
okay, if we had an excellent team otherwise
EE would probably be sufficient. but we don’t, and 1B/DH is a spot we can easily upgrade (and should). you don’t “need” a great player at any one position, so my statement was foolish, but other teams having poor DHs doesn’t mean we should too
is it that easy to upgrade though?
There aren’t that many huge upgrades outside of Fielder, and I wouldn’t consider spending $200 M easy
I can't think of any.
Southpaw had a nice little post looking at possible trades/signings. I don’t see many that make much sense.
there's lots of potential out there
Rizzo in SD or Konerko in Chicago are two guys that come to mind immediately who could potentially be sought and may even be available. I’m sure there are others.
And we didn’t see the Santos trade or lots of other recent moves coming, so just because we don’t know of potential moves doesn’t mean they aren’t out there as possibilities.
Kendry Morales
makes a lot of sense on the trade front. He’d take over from Lind, leaving a platoon at DH/1B unless either Lind or EE were traded on to make room
As I stated before... I never said there wasn't room for improvement
And even still, if Edwin keeps up his pace from the second half of last season (the fact that he turned things around when he started DH’ing and stopped worrying about defence gives him a fair chance of that) I think we are adequate at the DH spot when you also consider some of our OF will get PAs at that position due to depth. Being presumably adequate or above average at 8 of the 9 spots in the line up and only having two starters… I don’t know, to me its pretty obvious where I would be focused right now.
what's more obvious
is we should be focusing on the most cost-effective upgrade possible. if that is a starter, let’s do that. if it isn’t, let’s not
Sorry
I’m not on board with this belief that marginal improvement is marginal improvement regardless of where it occurs. Statistically, yes, that makes sense. But on a game by game basis… no, at least imo. If that were the case there would be no need for GMs, you can program a computer to do all your work for you.
If that is your belief though, more power to you. I just don’t agree with that sentiment.
This doesn't make sense then
If it makes sense to you statistically then it should make sense.
What part about it don’t you like?
A computer would be the best at picking the best possible team for previous years
The GM is there to take in the information from his front office staff (which almost certainly includes a lot of number crunching from computers) to project what is likely going forward.
With that said, I’m not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that small incremental improvements statistically do not actually result in more wins? I mean, a minuscule improvement probably doesn’t, as it is just lost in the noise. But any improvement certainly provides a better chance of winning games.
by Playoffs!!!!1 on Dec 31, 2011 4:07 PM EST up reply actions
This
Nicely said. In particular, this:
The GM is there to take in the information… (which almost certainly includes a lot of number crunching from computers) [and] project what is likely going forward.
Nails it, this is the difficult thing to do…whether we’re talking sports, financial markets, etc…this is the hell of management
Well...
The problem I have is someone saying a jump from 4 WAR to 7 WAR is better than a jump from 2 WAR to 4 WAR. The “marginal improvement” on the former is greater, but under that assumption you completely ignore the fact that a) its harder to sustain 7 WAR production than it is 4 WAR production and b) the same conditions that were in play for that 7 WAR play are not going to be present in a different environment (keep in mind these points only speak to my example).
Also, WAR is calculated or arrived at somewhat differently for pitchers and hitters if I’m not mistaken. Is a 2 WAR upgrade in the rotation really the same as a 2 WAR upgrade at CF? How is it normalized so that the impact of both can be treated the same in terms of projecting wins? I admit my knowledge is sort of rudementary in this regard, so this is a serious question. It would take a lot of work to come up with a model where 1 unit of value for a pitcher mirrors 1 unit of value added for a position player. I’m curious (and yes it is relevant because that’s more or less where this discussion started).
The TL;DR version is I think people neglect to put these statistics into context too often. I’d love to see (not sarcasm) anyone show me a clear and distinct correlation between a team adding 2 WAR at a position and actually seeing an increase of 2 wins. That might change my stance.
The typical response to my last point
Will be that it just gives you a “chance” prediction of adding 2 wins. I’d also be curious to know how accurate a predictor that would be.
Orioles Nation did a study in 2011 WAR Vs Record
correlation between fWAR and actual record was 0.88, with a standard deviation of 4.61. 18 teams were within 1 standard deviation, 28 teams within 2.
http://orioles-nation.com/2011/10/03/is-war-accurate-2011/
His 2011 wRC+ is 26
And just to add
In a normally distributed population, about 68% of the data points should fall within 1 standard deviation, and 95% within two.
18/30 = 60%, which is close to 68%
28/30 = 93.3%, which is close to 95%
So the aggregate observation fit pretty well what we would expect
WAR is calculated differently for pitchers and hitters
but it’s still based on one thing: runs. It shouldn’t matter which way you’re doing it; as long as you’re increasing run differential, you’re adding wins.
His 2011 wRC+ is 26
Which stat is it that
10 runs = 1 WAR ?
Or is that the stat itself? I remember reading something recently and I kinda forget.
That's the rough conversion (rule of thumb)
It’s actually based on how many runs are being scored across baseball. Since the number of league wins is fixed by the total number number of games, then if there’s more runs, each runs translates into less wins (a run is relatively less valuable) and vice versa
To nervous to make this a fan post
Would it be insane to sign Tim Wakefeild to a 1 year deal. Let him compete for a possible 5 spot in the rotation and if that doesn’t work put him in the bullpen? I know it is very rare to have a kuncleballer in the bullpen and it would be a lot to ask JPA to handle but imagine having him between flamethrowers like Marrow and MaGowan. Mathis could be his personal catcher. However that would mean Mathis would have to play. He is 45 but he has pitched in the AL east for 17 years, but Boston has never faced him. I think he could be a .500 pitcher in the 5 slot. Toronto has a lot of hard throwing young starters. I think Wakefeild could really throw off another teams line up. Plus he could bring a lot of advice to our young guys pitching against the AL hitters. Fire Away!
it wouldn't be crazy
but he actually isn’t all that good. Last 2 seasons his xFIP has been in the high-4’s and 2 seasons before that in the low-5’s. He can certainly throw a lot of innings, so that’s good, but I’m not sure he’s much better than internal options (McGowan, Litsch, Cecil, Drabek, etc). If he can be gotten for cheap or a minor league deal, then I couldn’t really argue with acquiring him but I don’t really see how he makes the team substantially better other than providing depth.
Always hated Wakefield
But yeah, it would hafta be a minor league contract.
Pass for me
Sure, he could eat some innings, but really is it comes to that it’s a development season anyway, so you may as well run out younger guys part of the long-term picture and figure out what you’ve got
And a different look?
Don’t know if it would throw off other teams. I think he is banking on Botson picking him up, and that may not happen. So he may still be out there close to spring training. 1 year minor league contract, with a shot at the rotation in camp. If anything he may buy our young arms time. However it always takes the right battery mate to make it work. If it’s just gonna freak JPA out it may not be worth it. Is there any value in his knowlege?
by Gruber17 on Jan 1, 2012 12:05 PM EST via mobile reply actions
what knowledge are you referring to?
I don’t think Wakefield is privy to any specific knowledge or wisdom that the Jays don’t know about. And he wasn’t particularly effective last year even with the change-of-pace in the rotation between him and fireballers Beckett and Lester, so I don’t see how the “different look” would make him better in Toronto than he was in Boston
Good point
It’s not like he can say “throw this guy a slider down and in” all he has ever Thrown are knucleballs.
by Gruber17 on Jan 1, 2012 12:33 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
even if he did have such knowledge
every team is baseball has access to advanced and detailed scouting reports on every player. Acquiring a player who says to “throw a slider down and in” is not an advantage.
Santos, Janssen, Oliver, Frasor, Carreno, Perez (LOOGY), Litsch, Villanueva
that sounds like a pretty sweet bullpen to me. In fact, we have 8 solid guys for 7 spots right now.
Methinks one of the young guys in the logjam at the back of the rotation (McGowan, Cecil, Drabek) may be on the move soon.
Carreno likely won't be in the bullpen
AA wants to groom him as a starter. Small sample size in the MLB anyways, some of his peripherals were out of wack too. (95% LOB%, minor league LOB% is around 74%, GB% was 53%, significantly lower in the minors etc. etc)
Carreno in AAA makes sense for now
They can better see what they have in him if he starts down there. He can easily transition back to the bullpen later. I’m also wondering whether there’s a possiblity that Litsch might find himself in Vegas. I think he has one option remaining?
I'm not sure
But I like how you think. I think starters are so much more valuable than relievers that I would be tempted to never convert a starter into a reliever. If we were to trade somebody like Morrow for a reliever we could probably get 2 bullpen pitchers more talented than Morrow could ever be coming out of the pen.
but not all starters will be good, that's a fundamental point
say the Jays are convinced Marc Rzepczinski won’t be a good starter in the Majors. there is a pretty darn good chance that even if he’d be a poor/mediocre starter, he’ll be a plus reliever just because starters are generally so much more talented than relievers. that’s one of the main reasons starters are so much more valuable besides the playing time issue
Re: How Are We Going to Replace our Departed Players?
Simple, AA just reacquires them
by siggian on Jan 3, 2012 9:13 AM EST reply actions 4 recs
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