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Friday, March 11, 2005
Link-O-RamaSorry about the lack of a new entry yesterday. I don't have a good excuse, other than that I'm still trying to get used to my new schedule (which includes not only being awake in the morning, but actually working). However, in an effort to make up for the tumbleweeds that blew through this blog yesterday, today's link dump is super-sized.Let me know when you stop clapping and we can get started. Okay, ready? Here we go ... The required texts for the class include Moneyball and The New Historical Baseball Abstract. During the third week of class, the discussion will focus on the "limitations of traditional batting statistics," "count vs. rate stats," and "details of OPS, OPS+, and Runs Created." Required reading for Week 3? Jay Jaffe's DIPS page and a Bill James essay entitled "Mark Fidrych and the K." Wait, there's more. In Week 5 the class will discuss "The Mazzone Effect." Week 6 focuses on "shortcomings of traditional fielding statistics" and assigns 40 pages of James' Win Shares book as required reading. Week 7 includes discussion of VORP and Win Shares, and assigns Nate Silver's "Introducing PECOTA" essay from Baseball Prospectus 2003 as required reading. Are there classes like this at other schools? And if so, why was I not informed of this, say, four years ago? In the immortal words of Henry Hill: Puh-leeze. In addition to that big move, friend of AG.com John "Twins Geek" Bonnes has moved his Twins Geek operation over to a new site called Twins Territory. John is hoping to create more of a Minnesota baseball community at the new digs, complete with comment threads, multiple bloggers, and the ability for readers to post "diaries" of their own. I doubt there are many Twins fans reading this who haven't yet checked it out, but if you're one of the few, get over there. Today at The Hardball Times: - Rick Ankiel, Ex-Pitcher (by Brian Gunn) - Another True (Outcomes) Hero (by Tom Meagher)     
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
The KneeLet's talk about The Knee for a moment.After catching seven total innings over the course of two days, Joe Mauer began to experience what is being called "mild soreness and swelling" in his surgically repaired left knee. Nothing serious, Mauer and the Twins said, but then again we've all heard that before. If you have surgery to repair a major part of your body, take extended time off from using the repaired part in a stressful way, and the suddenly begin using it again, I don't think some "mild soreness and swelling" is necessarily unexpected. Of course, that's me pretending to be an optimist, rather than pretending to be, say, a doctor. Obviously everyone involved would have felt a lot better about this whole thing if Mauer could have somehow made it to Opening Day without any problems. A completely healthy and pain free spring might have even made a few people forget about The Knee for a while. Instead, regardless of how mild the soreness and swelling is and how expected they were, all the same questions come up again. Can Mauer's knee hold up to the rigors of catching every day? Can he be a part-time catcher, at least? Does Mauer have a low threshold for pain? Will he have to switch positions? When will he have to make the switch? Third base or designated hitter? Who will catch? What will the Twins do with Michael Cuddyer or Lew Ford? Will the injury hurt his hitting too? And on and on and on. I feel a little silly saying this, but I literally think about Mauer's knee every day. I don't see how I could avoid it, actually. If you're thinking about the Twins (which I do constantly) and you're thinking about the season ahead, how can you have those thoughts without wondering about the health status of the team's best position player? Until he plays a full season without any problems whatsoever or gives in and switches positions, Mauer's knee will forever be the pink elephant in the room. I still have a small bit of hope that everything will turn out just fine and that Mauer will have a nice, long career as a major-league catcher. But I would no longer bet on it. And if he doesn't -- if The Knee eventually just can't take squatting behind the plate -- it will be one of the cruelest jokes the baseball gods have ever played. A small-market team passes on a sure-thing in the form of a dominant, polished college righthander named Mark Prior to draft a hometown boy, a high-school catcher, with the #1 pick. The hometown boy hits .400 the moment he steps foot on a pro field, blitzes through the minors leaving a trail of opposite-field singles behind him, and takes his place as the team's starting catcher at the tender age of 21. The hometown boy then proceeds to show every imaginable skill, as if he were created in a lab somewhere using equal parts Johnny Bench, Mickey Cochrane, Ivan Rodriguez, and Carlton Fisk. He's big, he's strong, he's smart. He hits, he hits for power, he works counts, he controls the strike zone. He calls a great game, he throws out runners, he manages the pitching staff. The hometown boy is an unequivocal baseball stud in every conceivable way. Much like John Shaft, the ladies want to be with him and the men want to be him. But mostly everyone just wants to see what a .300-hitting, Gold Glove-winning, Minnesota-born superstar catcher looks like. And the amazing thing is, they saw it. They saw it hit .308/.369/.570, they saw it gun down 39% of baserunners, and they saw it do so with about 15 years left in the tank. Or so it seemed. Then, two games into the start of one of the greatest catching careers in baseball history, some catching gear gets caught in the Metrodome turf while the hometown boy goes chasing after a foul ball. A knee tears, a Hall of Fame career goes flashing before our eyes, and suddenly nothing is certain. Can he play? Can he catch? A surgery and a long rehabilitation later and we still know nothing more than to say, "We'll see." The offseason was supposed to get us closer to knowing whether The Knee can make it, but each time a problem arises we go right back to the beginning, to knowing absolutely nothing. So now, for yet another time, the news on The Knee is good news. Mauer took batting practice yesterday, along with some anti-inflammatory drugs, and says the knee is already feeling better. "It felt great today, waking up," Mauer told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "It's getting better. It's just a matter of getting the rest of the inflammation out. I was prepared for it, but it was still disappointing to see. I should be back in there the next couple of days. I want to make sure I ice and do the right things. I should be fine." That's the first step, version 4.0. The next step will be in a few days, when he is (hopefully) able to resume playing in games. Then, for the fourth time in less than a year, we'll see if The Knee can handle catching. Today at The Hardball Times: - Tony O's Beef? (by Aaron Gleeman) - Offseason Rankings: Part Two (by Ben Jacobs)
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Projecting MorneauJohn Sickels and his growing MinorLeagueBall.com community have been coming up with their own set of 2005 projections for various young hitters. They did Nick Swisher, Dallas McPherson, and Corey Patterson earlier this month, and yesterday they looked into their collective crystal balls for Twins first baseman and cleanup hitter Justin Morneau. Most of the projections were pretty similar to each other and fairly close to the .271/.340/.536 Morneau hit in 74 games with Minnesota last year.I'm going to chicken out and go along with the general consensus over at Sickels' blog, along with the .277/.346/.515 average projection Morneau had when I combined the numbers from three different projection systems last month. I think there's a pretty good chance he'll hit for a higher average than last season, but with a little less raw power. Morneau's overall rate stats are going to depend an awful lot on how well he does against left-handed pitching, as well as how much left-handed pitching he faces. So far in his career Morneau has faced a lefty in about 25% of his plate appearances, which is on the low side, although nothing out of the ordinary for a left-handed hitter. As I looked at last month when discussing Michael Cuddyer, the Twins as a team faced a lefty in 31.4% of their plate appearances over the last three years. And if you're wondering, Morneau has hit just .218/.264/.366 against lefties, compared to .274/.347/.537 against righties. To get a feel for what your own projection for Morneau might look like, here is what he has done at each level throughout his professional career: LVL G AVG OBP SLG IsoD IsoP K/BB SO%There are adjustments that can be made for ballparks and leagues and levels of competition, but those are increasingly difficult to make accurately the lower you go in the minors. Plus, I think the raw numbers are good enough as a starting point. While his numbers have certainly fluctuated, Morneau has been reasonably consistent in Isolated Discipline (on-base percentage minus batting average), Isolated Power (slugging percentage minus batting average), and Strikeout Rate (percentage of at-bats ending in a strikeout). I think we can safely peg Morneau's expected Isolated Discipline at around .070 and there isn't much doubt that he is capable of an Isolated Power in the .200s. That means if he is able to hit .280 in the major leagues, he would have a .350 on-base percentage (.280 + .070) and a .480+ slugging percentage (.280 + .200). And players tend to add both plate discipline and power as they mature, so that is just a starting point for Morneau, who was 23 years old last season. Of course, you may have also noticed that Morneau's batting average has dropped each time he has moved up a level, going from .367 in rookie-ball to .259 so far in the majors. For the most part, I think that is to be expected. The important thing to look at is the fact that, while his strikeouts rose in the majors, they didn't skyrocket. Plus, his batting averages in the high minors (.293 at Double-A, .288 at Triple-A) were essentially the same and not far off from what he has done in the big leagues. The pessimist in me has a sneaking suspicion that the overwhelmingly high expectations for Morneau are setting him up for a disappointing year, but it also wouldn't surprise me if he was one of the best power hitters in baseball. The power he has shown over the last couple seasons is really quite remarkable, and the fact that Twins fans are predicting such huge things for him in what will be his first full season in the major leagues is a credit to just how great he looked in 312 trips to the plate with the Twins last year. Regardless of anything else, given a full, healthy season, I don't see any way for Morneau to avoid becoming the first Minnesota hitter with 30 or more homers in a season since -- get ready for this -- Kent Hrbek, Tom Brunansky, and Gary Gaetti all did it in 1987. In the long term, Morneau looks very capable of posting .280-.300 batting averages, on-base percentages in the high .300s, and slugging percentages in the high .500s. That is the type of player the Twins haven't had in a very long time.
Monday, March 07, 2005
Opinions PleaseWith Opening Day right around the corner (how great is it to have actual boxscores to check again?), I would like to get your thoughts on a few different things in preparation for the 2005 season.1) I will be writing a weekly column centered around fantasy baseball over at Rotoworld.com. I have been brainstorming with my bosses over there about potential topics for the column, but I am not satisfied with what we've come up with so far. So, I'd like to hear from you guys about what sort of fantasy-related columns you would be interested in reading on a weekly basis. For instance, you could e-mail me and say, "I would love to see a weekly column on good waiver wire pickups." Or you could e-mail me and say, "I would love to see a weekly column on strategy geared specifically to Diamond-Mind leagues." You get the general idea. I'm sure there are all sorts of things you'd like to see covered, so let me know. 2) We are doing some slight remodeling over at The Hardball Times. I am assuming most of the people who read this blog also head over to THT on a regular basis, so I would like to get your feedback on the site. What do you like about the site? What don't you like? What would you like to see us add? I'm talking more in regard to the layout and formatting of the site, as opposed to the content, but I'd listen to opinions on anything. 3) Similarly, are there any things you would like to see me add to this blog for the 2005 season? Are there things I've done in the past that you would like to see me bring back? Do you have any ideas to improve the layout and look of the blog? Do you have any ideas for a running series of entries I could do throughout the season? Basically, today is the day to spill your guts about all the stuff you've been thinking about telling me. If you have an idea for a way to improve something I'm involved with, let's hear it. All you have to do is drop me an e-mail. Thanks! Today at The Hardball Times: - Reading the Fine Print (by Studes)
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 Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com OFGoAG.com Timeline: Heidi Klum (8/2002 - 12/2003) Jessica Alba (12/2003 - 10/2004) Elisha Cuthbert (10/2004 - 11/2006) Vacant (11/2006 - 6/2008) Keeley Hazell (6/2008 - 3/2010) Mila Kunis (3/2010 - Present) OFGoAG.com Candidates: Marisa Miller Jenna Fischer Kate Beckinsale Keeley Hazell Diora Baird Top 40 Twins Prospects of 2010: 1. Aaron Hicks, CF 2. Kyle Gibson, SP 3. Wilson Ramos, C 4. Miguel Angel Sano, SS 5. Ben Revere, CF 6. Angel Morales, CF 7. David Bromberg, SP 8. Danny Valencia, 3B 9. Matthew Bashore, SP 10. Billy Bullock, RP 11. Rene Tosoni, RF 12. Chris Parmelee, RF 13. Adrian Salcedo, SP 14. Joe Benson, CF 15. Jeff Manship, SP 16. Tyler Robertson, SP 17. Carlos Gutierrez, RP 18. B.J. Hermsen, SP 19. Anthony Slama, RP 20. Max Kepler, CF 21. Alex Burnett, RP 22. Robert Delaney, RP 23. Luke Hughes, 3B 24. Ben Tootle, RP 25. Deolis Guerra, SP 26. Shooter Hunt, SP 27. Trevor Plouffe, SS 28. Michael McCardell, SP 29. Reggie Williams, 2B 30. Estarlin De Los Santos, SS 31. Derek McCallum, 2B 32. Jose Morales, C 33. Chris Herrmann, LF 34. Bobby Lanigan, SP 35. Danny Rams, C 36. Josmil Pinto, C 37. Steven Tolleson, 2B 38. Anderson Hidalgo, 3B 39. Loek Van Mil, RP 40. Joe Testa, RP |
