Mike Cameron, Savior
Posted by: Sky in Baseball, tags: beer, Brewers, Fielding, Mike Cameron
I’d like to nominate Milwaukee’s signing of Mike Cameron as the best free agent move of the off-season. It’s basically a one-year deal for $7 million and triggers an avalanche of changes on defense:
- Cameron takes over in center field. For 2007, my simplistic zone rating numbers put him as slightly below average, but Dave Pinto’s system puts him slightly above average. From 2003 to 2007, UZR puts him at +15 per season. Sure, he’s aging, but +10 runs in 2008 is a reasonable expectation.
Bill Hall has only played center field for one season, but he didn’t play it well. I’ve got him at -5 runs and Dave Pinto says more like -15. Let’s call it -10 and say Cameron is a 20-run improvement.
- Bill Hall takes over at third base. From 2003 through 2006, UZR calls Hall +6 runs at shortstop and -5 runs at third base, per season. It’s strange for a player to be worse at third than short, but it’s probably a sample size thing. Let’s split the difference and go with exactly average.
Ryan Braun has only played third base for one major league season, but it was awful. In only two-thirds of a season, I’ve got him at -23 runs and Dave Pinto agrees. Over a full season, I’ll go with -30 runs, showing a bit of conservatism. That makes Hall a 30-run improvement.
- Ryan Braun takes over in left field. Braun’s main weakness at third base is a terrible throwing arm — the Fans Scouting Report shows his release and accuracy are awful. Moving to left field will make that much less important. Learning a new position isn’t easy, but the Fans think Braun’s first step and range are just fine and similar to Geoff Jenkins’. Jenkins has better hands, however. Asking Braun to be league-average in left is probably too much, but -10 runs seems reasonable.
Gabe Gross was the default option before Cameron signed and is basically a league-average corner outfielder. Switching from Gross to Braun is a 10 run drop-off.
Ok, let’s add it all up: +20 in CF, +30 at 3B, and -10 in LF results in +40 runs overall. That’s a four win improvement just on defense. Put another way, Milwaukee pitchers can expect to see their ERAs drop by over a quarter of a run. Isn’t it amazing what you can achieve by signing good fielders and moving others to positions that fit their skills?
Cameron’s not just as asset on defense, either. He can draw walks and hit for some power. Sure, his offensive numbers were down in San Diego, but that park is brutal on hitters, reducing run scoring by 20%. Cameron’s .328 OBP and .421 SLG in 2007 translate to a .335 OBP and .443 SLG in a neutral park. 2006 was even better: .359 OBP and .486 SLG.
If the Brewers hadn’t signed Cameron, they’d be batting Gabe Gross, a career .245/.343/.410 hitter. If Cameron repeats his 2007 numbers, he’s similar to Gross offensively. If he hits like 2006, he’s 15 runs better.
Including both offense and defense, the Brewers are between 4.0 and 5.5 wins better with Mike Cameron than without him. At $4 million per win, that’s worth between $16 and $22 million on the free agent market, all for only $7 million. We can’t give all that credit to Cameron (the Brewers technically could have moved Hall and Braun without signing Cameron), but acquiring a good center fielder forces the issue. It’s a great signing and the Brewers are now back to competing with the Cubs for first place in the NL Central.
(By the way, you’ve got to love that a guy who’s admitted to playing baseball drunk is now a member of the Brewers.)
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Sky is a baseball fan and racket sport afficianado living in upstate NY. His favorite color is orange and is just about ready to give up on his life-long dream to become the next Magnus ver Magnuson (World's Strongest Man). His favorite baseball teams are the Yankees and Red Sox, proving that there's hope in the Middle East.
January 13th, 2008 at 1:38 am
The caveat to all of this, of course, is that Cameron will play a maximum of 137 games next season because he failed a drug test. So it’s probably worth it to drop your estimates by 85% to 3.4-4.7. Still, that’s $13.5-$19 million in value, so the point still stands…
-j
January 13th, 2008 at 3:00 am
I was fiddling around with some ‘07 team stats tonight and thought this was interesting:
By numbers, Milwaukee’s pitching + defense was 13.6 runs above average (allowed 13.6 runs fewer than the average NL team would have in ‘07, given their number of innings played, as estimated via BsR after using park factor adjustments). Hard to win a division with an average run prevention, even in the Central.
However, their pitchers were 51.2 runs above average if you estimate their production using FIP instead of BsR. This ranks their pitching staff 4th in the league, again after park factor adjustments (if, indeed, that’s an appropriate thing to do, which is debatable).
So that’s an approximate difference of ~38 runs that can be (mostly) attributed to some combination of bad fielding and bad luck. And those ~4 wins are easily the difference between finishing 1st or second in the NL Central.
Your numbers indicate that they’ve essentially closed that gap with this move.
-j
January 13th, 2008 at 10:50 am
The caveat to all of this, of course, is that Cameron will play a maximum of 137 games next season because he failed a drug test.
I purposely didn’t mention that, but I’m not sure why. There’s also the chance that Cameron’s performance will suffer because he won’t be taking the illegal substance anymore, but I don’t consider that much of an issue.
Hard to win a division with an average run prevention, even in the Central.
You know, I don’t think this is true, actually. Using B-Ref’s league pages, the “five” NL playoff teams last year sported the following offensive OPS+:
PHI 111
COL 103
ARZ 89
SDP 101
CHC 97
Only one out of five significantly above average and three total. As for defense, the playoff teams were exceptionally good in ERA+.
PHI 97
COL 111
ARZ 114
SDP 108
CHC 115
You can probably chalk some of that up to “defense wins championships”. But I also think good teams can be perfectly average in either offense and defense and really good in the other one. Perfectly average starts at 81 wins. You’d just need to be 10 games better in the other half of the game to be a likely playoff team.
January 13th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
[…] wanted to link to a nice but simple analysis of the Cameron signing. They have it as a 4 to 5.5 win […]
January 13th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
What about Cameron playing 25 less games in the season?
What about the difference between an above average Jenkins numbers and a -10 Braun?
3rd base and SS are different positions. How can you split the difference? Hall goes from -5 to 0 just because he has played better at SS?
I don’t see nearly as much improvement.
January 13th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Geddy, Cameron’s suspension is a valid point — dock the 4-5.5 wins by 15%. Still a great move.
I didn’t compare Braun to Jenkins because he was gone no matter what. If you want to compare the Brewers to last year, that’s fair. But if you want to compare the current Brewers with Cameron to without Cameron, you’ve got to use Gross (or whoever) instead of Jenkins.
Yes, 3B is different from SS, but SS is a much hard position. There’s nothing inherently more difficult about 3B. Shortstops should be at least as good at 3B. The other option is to play JJ Hardy at 3B and Hall at SS. But that obviously doesn’t sound as good as Hall at 3B.
January 14th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
The Cameron signing really is a steal.
And the Brewers have been grabbing players linked to PED’s this offseason. Three of them to be exact …
http://homerderby.com/archives/1736
January 14th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
[…] Cameron, Savior skyking162 » Mike Cameron, Savior […]
January 14th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
[…] Cameron, Savior skyking162 » Mike Cameron, Savior […]
January 15th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Nice signing by the Brewers. Somebody’s agent misread the market rather badly.
August 6th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
[…] on Cameron’s comments, also provides some more analysis on the his signing. Check it out at skyking162, where the writer predicts a 4- to 5.5-game improvement due to the Cameron signing and the position […]