Trade Analysis: Delmon Young to Detroit

The Detroit Tigers acquired OF Delmon Young from the Minnesota Twins today in exchange for P Cole Nelson and the oft-traded PTBNL.


Young will likely take playing time from Magglio Ordonez.  How have they stacked up this season:

Young: .292 wOBA and 0.6 fWAR in 325 PA
Maggs: .260 wOBA and -1.0 fWAR in 289 PA

The Tigers have 42 games remaining.  If we replace Ordonez's expected production with Young's for the rest of the season at 4 PA's per game (and give 2 games off for math's sake), we get Young having 160 PA's remaining.  Over that many PA's Young will be worth about 8 more runs than Ordonez (at their current level's of production), about a full Win Above Replacement.

Detroit currently has a 2.5 game lead over Cleveland so, each and every win is important.

One thing to consider though, is that Young's defense has been worth 3.9 runs this year per UZR.  Young's UZR the preceding 3 seasons:
-10
-14
-19
There has been some improvement there, but it is entirely possible that Young is still a negative defender; most scouts would agree.  If we change Young's defense runs to assume he's actually a -10 defender then Young projects to be worth only about a third of a win better than Magglio over the rest of the season.

According to Cot's, Young is being paid $5.375 million this season.  That's means about $1.4 million remains on Young's contract this year.  If 1 WAR is $5 million then 1/3 of 5 WAR is $1.6 million.  Can't argue with the economics of the deal.  Though, I wouldn't argue with them anyway.  'Flags fly forever', they say, and making the playoffs brings a lot of money into an organization.  Teams in contention need to make these type of upgrades.

The player, Cole Nelson, going the other way is a big (6'7") live left-throwing-arm who strikes out a few guys and walks more than a few.  That describes a lot of guys who pitch in A-ball like Nelson does.  He doesn't appear to be anything to get too excited about.



*Stats from FanGraphs

Santiago Casilla is afraid to bat

The Giants' Santiago Casilla had his first major league at bat against the Florida Marlins.

Video here

He managed a 4 pitch walk.  But he certainly didn't look very comfortable in the box.

According to baseball-reference, Casilla had 14 minor league plate appearances in his career.  In those appearances he drew 1 walk, had 6 hits, 3 doubles, a triple, 5 RBI, a stolen base and a single strike out.  That's a career minor league batting line of .462/.500/.769.  

CC See ya later!

CC Sabathia gave up 5 home runs to the Tampa Rays tonight.

Here they are:

Top of the third, no outs, Casey Kotchman
Top of the third, no outs, Kelley Shoppach
Top of the third, two outs, Johnny Damon

Top of the fifth, no outs, Eliot Johnson

Top of the eighth, no outs, Evan Longoria

Prior to the game Sabathia was giving up .39 home runs per 9 innings.
This game Sabathia gave up 5.6 home runs per 9 innings.
Or 14 times as many home runs as the rest of the season.

Prior to the game Sabathia was giving up home runs on 4.9% of his fly balls.
This game Sabathia gave up home runs on 71% of his fly balls.
Also 14 times as many home runs as the rest of the season.

Batted Ball FIP says that pitching as Sabathia did today he'd be expected to give up .79 runs per 9 innings.

Probably more bad luck than anything, but as a non-Yankee fan, it was enjoyable to watch, over, and over, and over...

Royals release Kyle Davies: Worst pitcher of all time?

The Royals released Kyle Davies today.

Davies has the worst ERA in the history of major league pitchers with more than 100 career decisions - 5.59.

However, he does not have the worst adjusted ERA.  Davies' ERA+ of 77 is 2 points better than Phil Ortega's.

Ortega is 46 - 62 4.43 in 952 innings pitching for the Dodgers, Senators, and Angels.
Davies is 42 - 65 5.59 in 768 innings pitching for the Braves and Royals.

The era in which a pitcher plied his trade makes a big difference.

The Return of Wang

Nope, not a viagra commercial, though the following graphic may be appropriate for that as well.

Former Yankee and current National Chien-Ming Wang is fresh off of his best major league start since July of 2009.

Wang went 6 innings against the Cubs, giving up just 1 hit, 2 walks, and 0 runs while striking out 1.

So far on the season Wang has faced 64 batters.  Of those he has generated 32 ground balls while walking 4 batters and striking out 3.

Wang's ability to get ground balls looks to be intact.  Wang induced grounders about 60% of the time before his injury (closer to 55% of the time his last few seasons).  Thus far 32 of the 53 (60%) balls hit off of Wang have been of the worm burner variety.

He's not striking anyone out though.  For his career Wang had been striking out about 10% of batters and that number was steadily increasing.  This season he's only struck out 5% of the batters that he's faced.  His fastball velocity is down a full mile per hour since 2009, and 2 MsPH since 2006.

Only 5 pitchers this season have K% lower than 10% (minimum 50 IP): Sean O'Sullivan, Aaron Cook, Brad Penny, Joel Pinero and Carl Pavano.  O'Sullivan's in the lowest at 7.2%.  It'll be difficult for Wang to survive with such a low K-rate.  Even if they are mostly ground balls, too many balls in play will lead to too many hits which will lead to too many runs.

Wang has to pick up the K-rate to be successful.

*All stats from FanGraphs

Yakety Sax: Oakland A's (8/2/2011)

The latest yakety sax play comes from the Oakland A's infield who managed to turn a Brendan Ryan ground ball into a Brendan Ryan infield triple.

Fire up the music

and watch the video

Trade Review: Carlos Beltran

The San Francisco Giants acquired Carlos Beltran from the New York Mets in exchange for Zack Wheeler.  

The Giants' offense is the worst in the National League by wRC+ (83) and Beltran was the best hitter available.  The Giants' outfielders have combined for a 101 wRC+ on the season.  Beltran's wRC+ this year is 152, so he's an obvious improvement.

I'm not sure what current outfielder is going to lose the most playing time.  Beltran used to play CF but those days appear to be past him.  All of his games in '11 have been in RF and most defensive metrics rate him as an average fielder there.  That means he's unlikely to displace Torres and Rowand in CF.  That leaves Schierholz, Ross, and Burrell.  All are hitting similarly on the season:
PLAYER: OBP, SLG, wRC+
Ross: .342, .404, 108
Schierholz: .326, .438, 109
Burrell: .342, .419, 113

Schierholz has a reputation as a good defensive player.  His career UZR/150 is 12.
Burrell has a reputation as a poor defensive player.  His career UZR/150 is -6.6.
Ross has a reputation as an average defensive player.  His career UZR/150 is -1.1

Nice when it works out like that.

Those number don't quite hold up for this season, as Schierholz has a -2 UZR, Ross has a -17 UZR and Burrell has a -13 UZR.  But, larger samples are more reliable.

What's likely is that Beltran will continue in RF while Schierholz and Ross/Burrell platoon in LF.  Using that assumption Beltran will provide the Giants with about 2.2 WAR (assuming he continues performing at his current pace).  The other 3 Giants OFers were on pace to provide an additional 1.2 WAR over the rest of the season.

Using that, the trade looks to give the Giants 1 additional win over the season.  Since Beltran is a free agent after the season that is his total value to the team.

The Giants have a 3.5 game lead on the Diamondbacks and coolstandings gives them a 68% chance of winning their division.  Adding another win only increases these odds.

But, this trade wasn't really made for this regular season.  While the Giants' offense has been the worst in the NL, their pitching has been the best (behind the Philadelphia Phillies).  This trade was made with the playoffs in mind.  Instead of hoping for Ssory Doc style heroics, Giants GM Brian Sabean, is trying to force the action by adding to the Giants lineup.

What's a run at back-to-back World Championships worth?

Zack Wheeler.

Wheeler was regarded as the Giants' #1 or #2 prospect with Brandon Belt being the other.  Wheeler was the 6th pick in the 2009 draft.  His minor league career has been brief but intriguing.  In 146.6 innings he has a 3.99 ERA (3.99 in 2010 and also 2011) 5.2 BB/9 (13%) and 10.2 K/9 (26%).   His stuff is loved by the scouts but the control hasn't been where you'd want it to be from a top prospect.

All pitching prospects are dicey propositions.  Especially those who are 20 years old, pitching in A-ball and having control issues.

Still, the Mets did good to wrest him away from the Giants.  Beltran had little value to the Mets the rest of the way.  The Giants felt they had to take a chance to put themselves in position to win another WS.  With Lincecum, Cain, and Bumgarner they could afford to move another young pitcher.  The Mets are taking a chance with a high-upside pitcher.  They were able to increase his value as he was the best player available and could pit teams against each other in the bidding.

Wheeler was a steep price to pay for 2 months of Beltran but it was an aggressive move.  The Mets maximized their return.  No guarantees that this deal works out for either team, but neither team can really be faulted for making it.