skyking162

If you don’t think Troy Tulowitzky was better than Ryan Braun in 2007, then you don’t think Ozzie Smith is a Hall of Famer.

Ok, that’s a little extreme, but as I’ve said before, Tulo’s edge in fielding value far outweighs Braun’s advantage on offense. In fact, Ryan Braun wouldn’t have even appeared on my ballot, which only goes three deep for some reason.

NL Rookie         TVAR
Troy Tulowitzky    50
Hunter Pence       35
Tim Lincecum       30ish?
Chris B. Young     25
Kevin Kouzmanoff   25
Josh Hamilton      25
Ryan Braun         25

But enough of that (except to point out that Steve Phillips picked Braun while Rob Neyer picked Tulo.)

There’s an even bigger travesty in the Rookie of the Year voting over in the AL. Yes, Dustin Pedroia is a fine choice, but second place was ridiculous, unless Delmon Young and Jeremy Guthrie recently swapped names. Let’s take a look at Delmon Young first.

Rookie         RBI   Runs   AVG    OBP   SLG   RAR   FAA   TVAR
Delmon Young    94    65   .288   .316  .408    4    -10   -10

Obviously the voters looked at the RBIs and batting average and stopped there. But the on-base and slugging percentages are both below average and Young was a poor fielder. Overall, he was worse than replacement level, about on par with Nick Punto. If only Punto was a rookie…

Once we remove Young from second place, we need to move Daisuke up there and slide Guthrie into third, banishing Bannister to wherever we put Young. Here are the numbers for the three notable AL rookie starters:

AL Rookie Starter    IP   ERA   K/9  BB/9  HR/9  BABIP   FIP  xFIP
Daisuke Matsuzaka   205  4.40   8.9   3.5  1.11  .299   4.35  4.42
Brian Bannister     165  3.87   4.4   2.5   .85  .261   4.52  5.14
Jeremy Guthrie      175  3.70   6.6   2.5  1.23  .270   4.52  4.41

How Bannister received votes while Guthrie didn’t, I have no idea Maybe it’s because of their win totals, which I refuse to post. Guthrie had a better ERA and more innings pitched. If you look at their peripherals, summarized by FIP (fielding-independent ERA), they’re all pretty even. Both Guthrie and Bannister had lots of help from their fielders, according to BABIP.

Bannister’s main strength was preventing homeruns, which was more fluke than skill according to xFIP, which uses flyball percentage to control for homerun rate. Pitchers don’t really control what percentage of outfield flyballs become homeruns and Bannister was pretty lucky in that department. If the Royals were smart, they’d trade him now — do you think there’s any market for a young pitcher who’s showed 3.87 ERA potential?

Guthrie and Matsuzaka had similar adjusted ERAs, but Daisuke threw 30 more innings. That’s pretty significant, and one of the reasons CC Sabathia deserves the Cy Young Award over Beckett and Bedard. To me, Daisuke was clearly the best rookie pitcher, with Guthrie a step behind. If you assume replacement level starters have a 5.50 ERA, Daisuke was one run better than replacement per 9 innings, or about 23 runs total. That’s almost good enough to challenge Pedroia’s 28 runs above replacement.

In summary:
Tulo, good. Braun, decent.
Pedroia, good. Young, bad.
Guthrie, decent, Bannister, bad.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Who were the best of best baseball players in 2007? Here are the third basemen.

1B | 2B | SS | 3B | DH | LF | CF | RF | CA

A quick review of the stats presented: RAR is offensive runs above replacement, FAA is fielding runs compared to positional average, TVAR is total value (the important one), and wOBA is a rate stat measuring offensive performance on the OBP scale. For more complete explanations, check out the original article.

2007’s Top Ten Third Basemen

10 - Troy Glaus (25 RAR, 6 FAA, 30 TVAR, .354 wOBA)
Hmmm, another Blue Jay who can field. I smell a pattern.

9 - Adrian Beltre (31 RAR, 4 FAA, 33 TVAR, .347 wOBA)
Beltre’s a rare breed — someone who was overpaid based on one fabulous season, but for some reason isn’t held to an insanely high standard. His 2007 would be worth $15 million on the open market today. Maybe that’s why.

8 - Mike Lowell (37 RAR, -1 FAA, 35 TVAR, .363 wOBA)
Lowell also created 7 character runs above average.

7 - Chone Figgins (40 RAR, -1 FAA, 38 TVAR, .368 wOBA)
That’s right, Mr. Figgins was the second-best third baseman in the AL. How’s that for a trivia question? Evidently he isn’t just useful as a cheap source of steals in fantasy baseball.

6 - Aramis Ramirez (39 RAR, 1 FAA, 40 TVAR, .368 wOBA)
Congratulations to ARam, who’s now underrated for a change. Why? He learned to field.

5 - Ryan Zimmerman (24 RAR, 18 FAA, 41 TVAR, .340 wOBA)
When can we start making the Scott Rolen comparisons? Maybe when Zimmerman kicks the offense into a higher gear. If not for Pedro Feliz, he’d be the Troy Tulowitzki of the hot corner.

4 - Miguel Cabrera (67 RAR, -14 FAA, 51 TVAR, .390 wOBA)
Cabrera is definitely NOT the Tulo of the hot corner, but he sure can rake. When someone with his bat is only the fourth-best player at a position, you’ve got some talented guys.

3 - Chipper Jones (71 RAR, 10 FAA, 80 TVAR, .423 wOBA)
Most fans don’t realize how great Chipper was in 2007. The rest seem to be willing to tell you about it ad nauseam. He and Chase Utley should be third and fourth in the NL MVP balloting.

2 - David Wright (76 RAR, 15 FAA, 89 TVAR, .420 wOBA)
And this guy should be first. He was a stud with the bat and a decent choice for the Gold Glove. I’ll have more on DWright later in the week when I make a guest appearance on a popular Mets blog.

10 - Alex Rodriguez (100 RAR, -2 FAA, 97 TVAR, .438 wOBA)
Some MVP seasons fly under the radar. This one didn’t. What if ARod’s contract allowed him to opt out after the 2006 season? Would he have? What sort of contract could he have signed? Is it a stretch to say that his 2007 earned him $50 million? $100 million? Crazy.

Here are the guys who finished in spots 11 through 25:

Player/TM		RAR	FAA	TVAR	wOBA
Feliz,PedroSF		2	28	28	.296
Kouzmanoff,KevinSD	26	-1	24	.347
Rolen,ScottSTL		9	15	23	.316
Braun,RyanJMIL		46	-23	22	.412
Inge,BrandonDET		9	14	21	.299
Izturis,MaicerELAA	18	3	21	.335
Reynolds,MarkAARI	19	-2	16	.341
Gordon,AlexJKC		14	3	15	.310
Blake,CaseyCLE		23	-6	15	.333
Mora,MelvinBAL		11	4	14	.321
Blalock,HankTEX		16	-2	14	.366
Iwamura,AkinoriTB	20	-6	14	.339
Encarnacion,EdwiCIN	24	-10	13	.342
Counsell,CraigMIL	-2	13	11	.273
Hannahan,JackOAK	6	4	10	.351

Pedro Feliz was not only the best fielder in the majors relative to his position, he’s right in there with the best fielders overall (Granderson and Tulowitzky). He’s worth considering signing as a shortstop this off-season, and could turn out to be the steal of the free agent class if his bat returns to anywhere near average.

Ryan Braun deserves all the credit in the world for a stellar two-thirds of a season with the bat. But his fielding truly does put a huge dent in his value. And it might not be a fair criticism yet, but he really should learn to take a walk.

Jack Hannahan rated one run better than Eric Chavez, in only 169 plate appearances. Melvin Mora’s career path is in sync with Miguel Tejada’s. Alex Gordon and Delmon Young need to get together and figure out the difference between potential and performance.

Finally how about the worst third basemen of 2007 — those that played poorly, yet enough to really hurt their teams? Here’s the bottom five:

Player/TM		RAR	FAA	TVAR	wOBA
Castro,JuanCIN		-7	-2	-10	.188
Callaspo,AlbertoARI	-10	-1	-11	.224
Punto,NickMIN		-14	2	-11	.258
Castillo,JosePIT	-9	-4	-13	.252
Gonzalez,AndyCHA	-11	-9	-21	.229

In 47 games, Joe Crede was 7 runs above replacement. His replacements, Josh Fields and Andy Gonzalez, combined to be 26 runs worse than replacement level. Is there anyone who didn’t see Nick Punto’s offensive collapse coming?

The rest of the best baseball players by position:
1B | 2B | SS | 3B | DH | LF | CF | RF | CA

Popularity: 12% [?]

The Silver Sluggers were announced yesterday, a nice recent addition to the crop of off-season awards. They’re analogous to the Gold Gloves, but for the league’s “best offensive producers”. Because managers pick the winners, it’s an interesting test of how well the game’s best minds actually value production.

I’ve ranked their decisions, comparing runs above replacement of the actual winner to the best player according to my own calculations (which include things like SBs, GIDPs, and HBPs, but not general baserunning or game context.) In general, the choices are much better than with the gold gloves, because offense is a lot easier to measure and the difference in value between players is much wider than for fielding.

Nailed It

• AL 3B - Alex Rodriguez: ARod was further ahead of second place (Chone Figgins, believe it or not) than Figgins was ahead of replacement level.
• AL 1B - Carlos Pena: Nobody else was within 35 runs of Pena, making this the easiest non-ARod decision.
• AL DH - David Ortiz: Another no-brainer. This was Ortiz’s best season in a great career and he deserves more MVP love than he’ll get.
• NL 2B - Chase Utley: Utley holds the largest gap at any NL position, lapping the field by 25 runs. He’s the only player to win both the skyking162 gold glove and silver slugger awards.
• AL OF - Magglio Ordonez: Maggs was the most productive hitter who didn’t play the hot corner in Yankee Stadium.
• AL CA - Jorge Posada: Victor Martinez also made a decent showing, but had the benefit of playing first base once a week.
• AL OF - Vlad Guerrero: 2007 wasn’t a monster season by Vlad, but he still got on base and drove runners home.
• NL CA - Russell Martin: He’s the right choice, although “slugger” seems inappropriate. Martin was the least productive winner, only 34 runs above replacement. Do they have to award one of these to every position?
• NL OF - Matt Holliday: He’s both overrated and awesome.
• NL 3B - David Wright: Chipper Jones and Miguel Cabrera were both within 10 runs of Wright.
• NL 1B - Prince Fielder: There’s just something in inherently valuable in hitting 50 homeruns. Albert Pujols was only a couple runs behind.
• AL 2B - Placido Polanco: Brian Roberts was actually decimal places ahead of Polanco, but given the large error bars on this sort of thing, I’m not going to worry about that.
• NL P - Micah Owings: I actually don’t have offensive values for pitchers, but when you hit .333, slug .683, and make Dontrelle Willis look like Tony Pena Jr. at the plate, I’m ok just going with those numbers.

In The Ballpark

• NL OF - Carlos Beltran: Ok, so he was only a couple runs worse than Adam Dunn. But you had to know I’d do anything to recognize Dunn for his accomplishments.
• AL SS - Derek Jeter: I have Carlos Guillen as three runs better, but that probably counts as nitpicking.
• AL OF - Ichiro Suzuki: Curtis Granderson was five runs better than Ichiro, who was in a dead heat with Grady Sizemore. Given than Granderson was screwed out of both a Gold Glove and Silver Slugger, I doubt he’s going to finish as high in the MVP voting as he should — at least third and probably second.

Let’s Try That Again

• Ok, so nobody actually falls in this category. I’m just leaving it in to point out how awful the two choices in the last category were.

Might As Well Give It To Joe Carter

• NL SS - Jimmy Rollins: Ok, so Rollins gets an undeserved Gold Glove and an undeserved Silver Slugger? Can I still put money down on him winning (an undeserved) MVP? In all fairness, this award is Hanley Ramirez’s, the offensive force who was one of the top dozen hitters in all of baseball in 2007.
• NL OF - Carlos Lee: Seriously? Not Barry Bonds, the guy who was the best offensive NL outfielder in 2007? Is “Carlos Lee” code for any of Raul Ibanez, Bobby Abreu, or Ken Griffey Jr.? Because I’ve got those guys exactly as valuable as Lee in 2007.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Who were the best of the best in 2007? Here are your shortstops.

1B | 2B | SS | 3B | DH | LF | CF | RF | CA

A quick review of the stats presented: RAR is offensive runs above replacement, FAA is fielding runs compared to positional average, TVAR is total value (the important one), and wOBA is a rate stat measuring offensive performance on the OBP scale. For more complete explanations, check out the original article.

2007’s Top Ten Shortstops

10 - Miguel Tejada (20 RAR, 6 FAA, 31 TVAR, .333 wOBA)
It’s strange to think Miguel Tejada was merely league-average on offense last season. At least he continued to be an asset in the field. Does he have another high-octane season left in him or have we lost another one to the aging curve?

9 - Jack Wilson 24 RAR, 4 FAA, 32 TVAR, .325 wOBA)
This is actually a typical Jack Wilson season. He overachieved a bit with the bat, but his glove was a little worse from what Pirate fans have come to expect. You don’t want your team to overpay for a guy like this, but he’s surprisingly useful.

8 - Orlando Cabrera (29 RAR, -1 FAA, 34 TVAR, .332 wOBA)
Yup, he’s a Gold Glove winner. Actually, Cabrera’s the epitome of modern shortstops — a solid defender with a league-average bat. No more of that old-school all-field, no-hit crap.

7 - Edgar Renteria (35 RAR, -2 FAA, 36 TVAR, .379 wOBA)
Any real discussion of BABIP should include Edgar Renteria as a case study. Let’s see if he likes the AL any better this time around.

6 - Khalil Greene (26 RAR, 10 FAA, 41 TVAR, .329 wOBA)
Greene’s offensive contribution gets a seven run bump because of PETCO. He gets a five run bump for being a shortstop and a ten run bump for being a really good shortstop. Therefore, if you’re just looking at Greene’s raw offensive numbers, you’re underrating him by almost 2.5 wins. You shouldn’t do that.

5 - Carlos Guillen (43 RAR, -4 FAA, 41 TVAR, .355 wOBA)
Guillen’s defensive numbers actually weren’t as bad as I would have guessed. That being said, the Tigers needed somebody to outhit Sean Casey at first base and it’s believed Guillen’s knees could benefit from not playing shortstop full time. He’ll become a plus defender at first, but won’t be any more valuable overall unless his bat gets a boost from less daily stress in the field.

4 - Troy Tulowitzky (24 RAR, 22 FAA, 51 TVAR, .334 wOBA)
It’s true that Tulo’s bat is overrated by playing in Coors. It’s also true that he saved his team as many runs with his glove as Hanley added with the bat (at least relative to each other).

3 - Hanley Ramirez (67 RAR, -19 FAA, 53 TVAR, .413 wOBA)
Hanley’s offensive contribution was on par with Barry Bonds and Ryan Howard, and was half a win better than Matt Holliday. Even when your glove is bad, I’m ok with that.

2 - Jimmy Rollins (51 RAR, -3 FAA, 54 TVAR, .369 wOBA)
I’m sure to discuss how Rollins is a poor choice for MVP a few more times this off-season, so for now I’ll just point out how impressive it is to have four shortstops worth five wins above replacement in the same league. It’s strange to consider Rollins as the old guy of the bunch.

1 - Jose Reyes (39 RAR, 15 FAA, 60 TVAR, .345 wOBA)
That’s right, in a down year Reyes was still the best shortstop in the majors. His hitting skills tapered off from 2006, but his baserunning and fielding skills were perhaps the best they’ve ever been.

Here are the players who finished between 11th and 25th:

Player/TM		RAR	FAA	TVAR	wOBA
Bartlett,JasonAMIN	14	7	25	.319
Jeter,DerekNYA		41	-24	22	.363
Escobar,YunelATL	21	-2	21	.365
Young,MichaelTEX	26	-11	20	.332
Hardy,J.J.MIL		16	-2	19	.329
Gonzalez,AlexCIN	11	4	18	.329
Keppinger,JeffSCIN	15	-1	15	.367
Vizquel,OmarSF		-8	19	15	.263
Furcal,RafaelLAN	6	4	15	.309
Eckstein,DavidSTL	16	-5	15	.331
Peralta,JhonnyCLE	23	-13	14	.335
Guzman,CristianWAS	14	-3	12	.377
McDonald,JohnTOR	-7	16	12	.258
Pena,TonyFKC		-8	13	10	.267
Theriot,RyanSCHN	2	4	9	.297

That’s a fun list of players. Jason Bartlett gave Ron Gardenhire one big “I told you so” performance. Yunel Escobar was Brian McCann-lite. Derek Jeter had an off year with the bat, bringing down his overall value to just about league average. Yup, 20 million bucks for league average. Tony Pena, Omar Vizquel, and John McDonald were truly awful hitters, yet helped their teams just as much as Jhonny Peralta and David Eckstein.

Finally, how about the worst shortstops of 2007 — those that played poorly, yet enough to really hurt their teams? Here’s the bottom five:

Player/TM		RAR	FAA	TVAR	wOBA
Wilson,JoshWAS		-2	-3	-5	.216
Uribe,JuanCHA		-3	-7	-5	.275
Lopez,FelipeWAS		2	-14	-8	.298
Wilson,JoshTB		-3	-8	-10	.281
Zobrist,BenTTB		-9	-4	-12	.177

Both the Nationals and Rays have two players in the bottom five. At least the Rays eventually found someone (Brandon Harris) who’s competent, and it’s nice to hear they’re looking to upgrade again.

Links to entire series, as they’re published:
1B | 2B | SS | 3B | DH | LF | CF | RF | CA

Popularity: 12% [?]

Who were the best of the best in 2007? Here are your right fielders, left fielders with good arms.
1B | 2B | SS | 3B | DH | LF | CF | RF | CA

A quick review of the stats presented: RAR is offensive runs above replacement, FAA is fielding runs compared to positional average, TVAR is total value (the important one), and wOBA is a rate stat measuring offensive performance on the OBP scale. For more complete explanations, check out the original article.

2007’s Top Ten Right Fielders

10 - Jeremy Hermida (28 RAR, 5 FAA, 30 TVAR, .373 wOBA)
This is why I love these articles. Off the top of their head, who would ever name Jeremy Hermida as a top ten right fielder? He’s the epitome of the type of player small-market teams should have in their system. He doesn’t do anything spectacularly, but he’s good and cheap. In a few years, let some other team overpay via trade or free agency.

9 - Shane Victorino 18 RAR, 15 FAA, 30 TVAR, .342 wOBA)
Speed doesn’t slump, even on defense. And defense wins championships. New cliche: don’t play the Rockies in September or October.

8 - Jayson Werth (22 RAR, 11 FAA, 31 TVAR, .378 wOBA)
How about that, a second Philadelphia right fielder in the top ten. Werth played about a quarter of his innings in left and only had slightly over 300 PAs on the season. But he hit the crap out of the ball and fielded like a mad man.

7 - Brad Hawpe (39 RAR, -3 FAA, 33 TVAR, .356 wOBA)
To be honest, I thought 2006 was a fluke. I was wrong. Hawpe is proof that skinny guys can hit for power, too.

6 - Austin Kearns (25 RAR, 14 FAA, 34 TVAR, .340 wOBA)
Walks and defense. Don’t forget about ‘em. Partnering with Ryan Church in left, Kearns gives the Nationals the best defensive corner outfield tandem.

5 - Jack Cust (43 RAR, -4 FAA, 36 TVAR, .397 wOBA)
This ranking isn’t quite fair to the rest of the right fielders. Yes, Cust played more games in the field than at designated hitter, but because I don’t have data on “defensive” innings played at DH, his positional adjustment thinks he’s purely a right fielder. We should probably chop five to seven runs off this rating.

4 - Corey Hart (39 RAR, 2 FAA, 39 TVAR, .371 wOBA)
Corey Hart is 6′6″ and weighs only 200 pounds. Just thought you’d like to know. There are thoughts of moving him to center field next year, but it doesn’t look like the defensive ability is quite there. Although, it would be fun to make Bill Hall change positions again.

3 - Alex Rios (43 RAR, 5 FAA, 44 TVAR, .359 wOBA)
Rios’ first half was awesome, culminating in a trip to the All-Star Homerun Derby. His second half? Pretty similar except for a drop in power. Offensively, 2007 was pretty similar to 2006 except that Rios played in 33 more games. Nothing wrong with being consistently good.

2 - Vlad Guerrero (75 RAR, -6 FAA, 64 TVAR, .376 wOBA)
Vlad’s homerun power continued to decline in 2007, although tying a career-high with 45 doubles kept his slugging percentage from dipping too much. We may have seen the last of Vlad the Impaler, however.

1 - Magglio Ordonez (86 RAR, 3 FAA, 84 TVAR, .430 wOBA)
In a dump trade at the end of 2006, I had the option of trading for either Rocco Baldelli or Ordonez in my big-time bragging rights fantasy league. I chose poorly. Nobody else broke the 80 RAR barrier in 2007 except Alex Rodriguez. A .363/.434/.595 line in 679 PAs? Yeah, that’ll work.

Here are the players who finished between 11th and 25th:

Player/TM		RAR	FAA	TVAR	wOBA
Winn,RandySF		29	  2	 28	.343
Francoeur,JeffBATL	26 	  7	 28	.335
Giles,BrianSD		27	  5	 28	.347
GriffeyJr.,KenCIN	41	-10	 26	.354
Buck,TravisOAK		20	  8	 26	.367
Abreu,BobbyNYA		41	-11	 25	.360
Ethier,AndreELAN	23	  5	 25	.325
Markakis,NickBAL	39	 -9	 24	.359
Scott,LukeBHOU		23	  0	 20	.357
Gutierrez,FrankRCLE	11	  9	 19	.332
Kemp,MattRLAN		21	 -2	 17	.383
Guillen,JoseSEA		36	-17	 15	.356
Ankiel,RickSTL		13	  1	 14	.363
Teahen,MarkTKC		19	 -2	 12	.319
Drew,J.D.BOS		22	 -7	 12	.330

Whenever I see Randy Winn’s name, I always think of Quinton McCracken. Other than being Devil Rays in the late nineties, they have nothing in common. Winn’s actually an underrated asset. Two young Dodgers make the list — Andre Either and Matt Kemp. Remind me again why they’re looking to add an outfielder? Rick Ankiel did more to help the Cardinals in 47 games than JD Drew did to help the Red Sox in 140 games. Which one will have the better 2008 season?

Finally, how about the worst left fielders of 2007 — those that played poorly, yet enough to really hurt their teams? Here’s the bottom five:

Player/TM		RAR	FAA	TVAR	wOBA
Rivera,JuanLAA		-1	 -2	 -4	.298
Eldred,BradPIT		-5	  1	 -5	.144
Mackowiak,RobSD		-3	 -1	 -5	.247
Young,DelmonDTB		 4	-10	-10	.310
Pena,WilyMoBOS		-4	 -9	-13	.283

I still can’t get over Delmon Young’s line. He didn’t hit and he didn’t field. He still has potential, but how long will he continue to play every day without showing improvement?

Links to entire series, as they’re published:
1B | 2B | SS | 3B | DH | LF | CF | RF | CA

Popularity: 18% [?]