2013 Predictions

These predictions are offered solely in the spirit of fun. While rudimentary “analysis” has gone into them, they should not be viewed in anyway as a rigorous analytical exercise and they certainly should not be viewed as a reflection on the field of sabermetrics. All responsibility for any horrific predictions lies squarely with the author and no one else.

I’ve grown tired of writing an involved annual disclaimer, so I’ll keep it short. The standard error for predicting W% from aggregate season runs scored and allowed is around four games. That means that even if one could forecast aggregate team performance, playing time, in-season roster moves, and the like perfectly, their resulting win estimates would still have a standard error of four games--and that assumes that all of those components would transfer perfectly to the runs scored and allowed figures. Those who expect sabermetricians (or any other brand of baseball observers) to produce hyper-accurate preseason predictions expect the impossible. (Of course, the same scolding is due those who oversell their predictions when they should know better).

One might agree with my general point and still consider it a bit self-serving given the fact that the two teams I picked to appear in the 2012 World Series each went 69-93.

AL EAST

1. Toronto
2. New York (wildcard)
3. Tampa Bay
4. Boston
5. Baltimore

I (starting out by really going out on a limb) consider this the most competitive division in the majors; the only outcome that would surprise me is Baltimore finishing first. Toronto is the buzz team, which is usually a good one to bet against--the team that makes the big moves is always more exciting and thus likely to be a popular pick beyond what’s reasonable. But the Jays made legitimate, wholesale upgrades with Jose Reyes, RA Dickey, Josh Johnson, and Mark Buehrle. Add in a healthy Jose Bautista and the forever tantalizing promise of Brandon Morrow and I think they stack up well with the rest of the division.

There are a lot of baseball fans who despise New York and Boston. I am not one of them; I like the Yankees and have no issue with the Red Sox. I find the incessant media coverage of the two teams obnoxious, but I don’t hold it against the teams themselves. But the worst thing that can happen if you hate coverage of New York and Boston is for them to be down, because then the stories become insufferable. Whatever shortcomings the two teams have will be forever exaggerated as they are judged against not the standard of a normal major league team but against the ideal of what a Yankee or Red Sox team should be. The drumbeat has started already this spring, as some Yankee and Red Sox fans trip all over themselves to declare their nine the favorites to bring up the cellar in this division.

Both the Yankees and the Red Sox have obvious weaknesses. New York’s injury problems have brought the advancing age of their mainstays to the forefront, but assuming they can get Teixeira and Granderson back in a reasonable timeframe, there is no need to panic. Boston does not have the pitching to match New York on paper, and while I don’t think their offseason acquisitions (namely Victorino, Drew, Gomes, and Napoli) are long-term solutions, they figure to provide enough offense to keep the Red Sox competitive.

Picking Tampa Bay to finish third is by no means writing them off; the on-paper margin between the top four teams is razor-thin. But the Rays appear to have taken a step back in 2013 talent by trading James Shields, and other than health for Longoria I don’t see any particular reason to expect a significantly improved offense. Baltimore has a much tougher road.

AL CENTRAL

1. Detroit
2. Chicago
3. Cleveland
4. Kansas City
5. Minnesota

Last year I picked Detroit but claimed the inevitability of their victory was being overstated. While the preseason 2012 Tiger backers likely feel vindicated by their pennant, those in my camp can feel vindicated by the arduous slog that was required to overcome Chicago. But this year I do think Detroit stands out as the most likely team in MLB to win their division. What’s changed for me? Verlander’s repeat turn as a super-ace, Fister once again pitching well, Scherzer’s potential, Anibal Sanchez, the additions of Torii Hunter and Victor Martinez, that bad regression from Austin Jackson could be offset by good regression from Alex Avila and Jhonny Peralta…This is not to say that Detroit is untouchable, but they are a strong favorite for good reason.

Chicago is the choice for second by default. Cleveland and Kansas City both acted like contenders in the offseason, but the most obvious manifestation of both pushes is a better chance of finishing second. At least Cleveland did it by spending money rather than prospects. Things look bleak enough for the Twins that national writers are already warning the brass that they best not fire the sainted Ron Gardenhire.

AL WEST

1. Los Angeles
2. Texas (wildcard)
3. Oakland
4. Seattle
5. Houston

At least from the Angels fans that I encounter on the internet, it appears that there is a great deal of skepticism regarding their chances in 2013. I suppose that given the Rangers’ late season collapse and passive offseason, there must be a fair amount of pessimism in Texas as well. These team s look really close to me on paper. Los Angeles’ lineup will disappoint relative to what some people expect from Trout/Pujols/Hamilton, but I think the smart money is still that the first two will be in the thick of the AL MVP discussion. Texas may not have made any notable offseason moves, and obviously Hamilton is a big loss, but don’t overlook the impact of having out junkie Michael Young out of the picture. They also have upper level prospects on the doorstep (Profar, Olt, Martin) to provide depth. Oakland took a giant leap forward last year, and while I don’t think it was an illusion, they still appear to me to be less talented than the two teams that have taken turns running this division since 2006 with the exception of the A’s intrusion in 2012.

I try to avoid making predictions I don’t really believe for shock value, but I was oh so tempted to pick Houston ahead of Seattle just to be contrarian (not because I think there’s a very good chance it will happen). The Mariners strategy of collecting 1B/DHs while shedding one of their best offensive assets (who happened to be a catcher) was difficult to understand; pre-extending King Felix has no impact on the 2013 outlook but also strains this author’s understanding. Of course, we all know that Jack Z. operates on a higher cognitive level than we do. Houston is a terrible team, of course, but as is always the case, the extent of that will be blown out of proportion by the media. These are not the ’62 Mets.

NL EAST

1. Atlanta
2. Washington (wildcard)
3. Philadelphia
4. New York
5. Miami

I’m not bored (or vain) enough to systematically review my predictions, but if I had to guess, the two teams I’ve been wrong on most consistently have been Cleveland and Atlanta. The former is understandable, as even mild fandom can cloud one’s judgment. I have no good excuse in the case of the Braves--I prematurely predicted the end of their run of division titles, but in the last few years have consistently overrated them--except for last year, when they won the wildcard but I picked them to finish third. I may be falling into the same trap this year. Perhaps it’s that they have three of my favorite fifteen or so outfielders. Maybe it’s the suspicion that Washington is due for what Bill James used to call the Plexiglass Principle (Bill had several different flavors of regression to the mean). Maybe it’s a belief that their offense is solid, their rotation is good, and their bullpen is excellent.

Atlanta of course is not an outlandish pick by any means, as they would be seeking a fourth consecutive playoff appearance under the current system. The Nationals are certainly a strong contender as well, and to me the two teams are very close on paper, not just in terms of projected wins but also runs scored and allowed. The Phillies are a high variance team; they could have a last hurrah season in which Utley and Halladay are healthy, Howard is useful, and the like. Or they could waste 500 PAs each on Michael and Delmon Young as Utley goes to the DL, Howard is worthless, Halladay is hurt, etc. The middle ground appears to me to be another .500 season. The 2013 version of the Mets are a mess, but as with the Yankees and Red Sox, the big market will greatly amplify the extent to which that is true. Miami should challenge Houston for the #1 draft pick.

NL CENTRAL

1. Cincinnati
2. St. Louis (wildcard)
3. Milwaukee
4. Pittsburgh
5. Chicago

I was all set to pick St. Louis to win but backed off after news of Chris Carpenter’s injury broke. This is admittedly an irrational decision, since I never should have been counting on an effective Carpenter over a significant number of innings. In any event, picking the Reds always scares me because I don’t trust Dusty Baker to make good in-season personnel decisions. Last year the Reds got 161 starts from their Opening Day rotation (coincidentally, I happened to attend the one game which was started by Todd Redmond). Still, Baker managed to turn Aroldis Chapman into a traditional closer and give away an extraordinary number of outs by stubbornly leading off with Zack Cozart. With Baker seemingly pulling the strings in the decision to keep Chapman in the bullpen, one can only fathom the amount of damage he could wrought if forced to make difficult decisions in 2013.

The Cardinals don’t have the upside the Reds do, but should be well-positioned in case Cincinnati falters. Their pitching depth and the possibility of Oscar Taveras stepping up in case of injury to any of the bats makes them the safe pick. Milwaukee bringing in Kyle Lohse is not enough to keep them from projecting to jostle with Miami for the NL’s worst run prevention unit outside of Coors. Pittsburgh’s offense outside of McCutchen looks quite suspect to me, with a troublesome lack of OBA, although others see them as middle-of-the-pack. Chicago joins the Red Sox/Yankees/Mets as a team that will be underrated because of exaggeration of their flaws; I really don’t see much to distinguish three through five in this division.

NL WEST

1. Los Angeles
2. San Francisco
3. Arizona
4. San Diego
5. Colorado

One of the easiest ways a team can be overhyped in preseason predictions is to acquire a bunch of big names that outstrip the expected production of the players they belong to. Los Angeles is in that position to some extent, but there’s still enough expected production to make them the favorites in the West. It’s the pitching and not the offense that should shine for the Dodgers, as they have some holes at second and third, and question marks at catcher and in left. San Francisco will be wildly overrated thanks to their postseason success; talk of dynasty is laughable, which is not to say they won’t be in the thick of the race.

Rhetorically, at least, Arizona is positioning itself as the new great hope and symbol for traditionalists. Perhaps instead of running Justin Upton and Trevor Bauer out of town and talking about how they plan to exceed their Pythagorean record as in 2007 and 2011, they should focus more on improving their run differential so that they don’t need to outplay their Pythagorean record. On paper, they appear to be a low-to-mid eighties win team. San Diego has some solid pieces in Headley, Grandal, Maybin, and Quentin, but the supporting cast and starting pitching is not good enough. Colorado can’t get any worse starting pitching then they did last year, but that’s not a ringing endorsement. It’s all been downhill from here.

WORLD SERIES
Atlanta over Los Angeles A

AL Rookie of the Year: CF Aaron Hicks, MIN
AL Cy Young: Yu Darvish, TEX
AL MVP: 2B Robinson Cano, NYA

NL Rookie of the Year: SP Shelby Miller, STL
NL Cy Young: Yovani Gallardo, MIL
NL MVP: CF Matt Kemp, LA

First manager fired: Ned Yost, KC

Best pennant race: AL East
Worst pennant race: AL Central

Most likely to go .500 in each league: OAK, PHI

Team in each league most likely to disappoint mainstream consensus: CLE, PHI
Team in each league most likely to surprise mainstream consensus: HOU, NYA, CHN
Since it’s the Astros’ first year in the AL, I don’t think it’s cheating to list the Yankees as well.

Most annoying stories of the year: Overhyping the struggles of the Yankees and Red Sox; What’s the matter with Mike Trout?; Anything involving steroids, naturally; The attempt to cast Yasiel Puig as the Dodgers’ version of Mike Trout on the basis of some spring training hacking and admittedly freakish feats; Make sure to tune in as natural treasure Tim McCarver ends his career, leaving the distinction between a suicide squeeze and a safety squeeze forever unknown to the masses

Calculus

Those of us who are well-versed (or at least like to delude ourselves into thinking we are well-versed) in mathematics have doubtlessly encountered someone who uses "calculus" as a shorthand way of saying "complicated math that I don’t understand". For many people, calculus stands as the last branch of mathematics to which they were exposed in school (the progression might generally be arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, "pre-calculus") and is thus a convenient term under which to amalgamate any sort of math beyond one’s grasp. (I do realize that there exist broad dictionary definitions of calculus which extend beyond the specific branch of math to which the title generally applies).

These sorts of statements are harmless enough--while I certainly don’t want to encourage even more ignorance about math than already exist in popular discourse, a factually incorrect flippant reference to calculus never really hurt anything. I’ve even found one to be a welcome bit of levity for those of us who know a little calculus in the room on a particularly boring conference call.

It can be a little more obnoxious when "calculus" is brought out as a jab against those using quantitative analysis--in this case, of course, I’m thinking about sabermetrics. Those opposed to sabermetrics sometimes include snide references to calculus in the same vein one might talk about slide rules or spreadsheets. Still, these are easy enough to brush off or laugh at--bragging about one’s own ignorance is not impressive.

What prompted this post was not a calculus barb directed at sabermetrics, but one of the reactions to such a barb in a Baseball Think Factory thread: a flat out statement that "calculus has no place in baseball statistics". On one hand, I really should just ignore this. The statement itself is so outlandish as to be difficult to respond to. It’s akin to saying that "cymbals have no place in music" or that "rice has no place in one’s diet". Calculus is obviously not used directly by most sabermetricians, and one can certainly be a practice high-level sabermetrics without using any calculus. But to simply write off the possibility of using an entire branch of mathematics in the discipline is absurd.

At this point I need to issue a disclaimer regarding my own use of calculus. I am not by any means an expert on the topic--my calculus education consists of two years in high school and college. Calculus is an extensive branch of math and what I know only scratches the surface, and thus the sabermetric applications I use might only scratch the surface of what could be possible, but I’m not well positioned to speculate on what other applications might be.

Fundamentally, though, the type of calculus that I use is nothing more complex than examining changes in functions. Any time you have a mathematical function that varies according to one or more independent variables, a change in those variables results in a change in the output of the function. Calculus provides a systematic way to study that change.

It should be noted that calculus does not inherently involve complex computations--it certainly can, but for many simple functions, taking a derivative is a piece of cake. It is certainly easier to take the derivative of the function Y = 3X^2 + 6X - 2 with respect to X than it is to divide 15 into 309, but the former is something done by college students and the latter something done by fourth graders. Granted, the understanding of why the derivative of that function is 6X + 6 involves higher level understanding (by “why” I’m getting at the reasoning behind the rules of differentiation, not the application of those rules), and one can easily cite functions that are impossible to differentiate cleanly. Still, the level of difficultly need not be very high at all.

If you don’t think there are any applications of studying rates of change in functions to sabermetrics, then you must not use any mathematical functions in your practice of sabermetrics. (Which would mean that one would not really be a sabermetrician at all, but hey, let’s not get judgmental about it). In fact, questions of this nature come up all the time. For example, how do OPS and OPS+ value singles relative to walks? While there are a number of ways to infer an answer to such a question (many of which involve pseudo-calculus, such as the "+1 method"), it can be definitively and precisely answered using calculus.

Sometimes, the lengths to which authors of sabermetric articles will go to avoid using calculus defy belief. Take for example this article published at The Hardball Times. I do not wish to make a punching bag of the authors of this piece, but there’s no need for me to make up strawmen when a perfect example has been recently published.

You may read this and say to yourself, "Sure, I concede that calculus is useful for understanding how metrics behave and how they weigh various inputs. But those aren’t baseball questions--those are just math questions involving baseball metrics. Understanding how OPS values doubles tells us something about OPS, but OPS is itself a construct that provides a simplified model of the effectiveness of a baseball offense. Understanding how OPS works does not actually teach us anything about baseball."

To this, my rejoinder is that we create metrics to further our understanding of baseball and to distill the things that we know into a useable format. We know that there is a relationship between runs and wins, and Pythagorean formulas are a way of formally expressing that relationship. If we establish that the Pythagorean formula is a useful model that captures some degree of the real baseball relationship between runs and wins, then by extension we can learn more about that baseball relationship by understanding the equation. If we can’t learn anything about baseball from studying the behavior of the equation, then the equation is by definition not useful and we need to go back to the drawing board.

I do not wish to give the impression that I think the application of calculus is central to the current practice of sabermetrics. Clearly it is not, given the paucity of work applying it to sabermetric questions. But it is another tool at our disposal, and one that is perfectly suited to assist in the types of sabermetric questions that have always interested me. Calculus certainly has vast applications in understanding the mathematical relationships between sabermetric formulas. Why can you predict team runs scored fairly accurately (at least in a normal team context) using a dynamic equation like Base Runs or a linear weights equation? Why does any variant of the Pythagorean family of win estimators match up so well in practice with linear equations that follow the rule that ten runs = one win? Calculus is also inherent in any sort of exercise involving hypothesis testing, even if it is only implicit. After all, the normal distribution is defined as an integral of a particular function.

I will close with a list of links to articles on this blog that have used calculus in some manner. As you will see, the scope of topics that I have applied calculus to are fairly limited--mostly to understand how events are valued in various offensive measures and to estimate runs per win from non-linear win estimators. Hopefully those of you with more imagination and a broader range of research interests can come up with other applications. Even if what I’ve written about did represent the full extent of possible applications of calculus in sabermetrics, it should be clear that there is a place for it. And if there wasn’t a place for a branch of mathematics which has countless applications in the sciences, statistics, and probability in sabermetrics, I’d suggest it would be time to re-evaluate how we practice sabermetrics.

Intrinsic Weights for Steve Mann’s RPA

Intrinsic Weights for Mike Gimbel’s RPA

Runs Per Win from Pythagenpat

Bill Kross’ W% Estimator

Fibonacci Win Points

Intrinsic Weights for OPS and OPS+

Intrinsic Weights for “dq”’s OTSE

Intrinsic Weights for Bases per PA and Out

Intrinsic Weights for Equivalent Runs

Intrinsic Weights for Runs Created

Intrinsic Weights for Base Runs

A Big Push for Second Place

The Indians enter 2013 with an organizational philosophy that from a surface-level, outsider’s perspective appears very different than it did at this time two years ago. The 2011 Indians appeared to be conservative almost to a fault, allowing young players ample chances to develop, avoiding spending money on the free agent market, and backing the manager as steadfastly as the front office itself--after all, this is a team that had announced Eric Wedge’s firing before the end of the 2009 season and allowed him to manage out the last series of the year anyway.

The Indians enter 2013 acting like a different organization. They went on a free agent spending spree the likes of which the organization has not undertaken since the mid-90s, bringing in Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn on four-year deals, plus Brett Myers and Mark Reynolds on non-negligible one-year deals. They have a new manager in Terry Francona as Manny Acta was unceremoniously dumped, treated as a scapegoat in a manner that Wedge never was, despite presiding over much several campaigns much more disappointing than 2012 (you see there was 2006, and then there was 2008, and 2009…) And the team has finally cut ties with its mid-aughts contenders, as Grady Sizemore, Travis Hafner, and the former Fausto Carmona are all gone.

Of course, as an outsider it’s impossible to say how much of this was a change in philosophy versus a change in tactics given changes in the environment. Perhaps Acta had a fatal flaw as a manager that those of us on the outside are clueless too. Perhaps the new CBA, or the sale of Sports Time Ohio to Fox Sports, changed the organization’s computations regarding the value of a win purchased on the market. Perhaps ownership decided that the poisonous atmosphere around the city on sports radio and in the pages of the local rags was too toxic, and that money needed to be spent to change the conversation. I will never know what led to the changes, but it certainly feels different to me.

Carlos Santana will be the catcher and entering his age 27 season, it may be time to celebrate him for what he is rather than as the superstar some once thought he might be. A TTO catcher with a career .384 secondary average is nothing to sneeze at regardless of his batting average, and .247 is plenty high enough to support a strong OBA. If Santana could raise his average while preserving his power and eye, he could yet be a star, but as is he’s one of the top catchers in the AL.

First base appears to be the likely destination for the big free agent catch, Nick Swisher. It remains possible that he could slide to right on a full-time basis if dictated by injury or a lack of performance from Drew Stubbs, but for now it appears that first base is the plan. It is difficult for me to evaluate Swisher objectively, and so I’ll refrain from saying anything more.

Jason Kipnis starts his second full season at second base. His 2012 featured a strong first half (.277/.345/.419) and a powerless second half (.233/.322/.328). On the bright side, Kipnis’ walk rate ticked up as he struggled to hit. His overall season was a strong offensive showing for a 25 year old second baseman, and I’m probably a little more bullish on him than projection systems.

Third base will belong to Lonnie Chisenhall, whose major league career so far has not gone according to plan. He was called up in 2011 in a panic move with the Indians flailing for offense as their ill-advised attempt to win now fell to pieces. Chisenhall’s walk rate, never a strength in the minors, has been abysmal in the bigs, and various injuries have kept him from regular playing time. Chisenhall is young enough to retain promise, but should not be counted on as a major contributor in 2013.

At shortstop, Asdrubal Cabrera is back despite trade rumors that enveloped him all winter. At this point Cabrera is something of a known quality, as he was able to sustain some of the growth in his power to remain a valuable offensive player. In the field, he makes more than his share of spectacular plays, but metrics of all stripes consider him suspect. He’ll remain a prime trade candidate if the Indians fail to contend or in the offseason.

The outfield should be good defensively, featuring three players capable of handling center, but is a less-than-stellar offensive group. Michael Brantley will be in left; he made strides offensively in 2012, but that brought him only to an average level for a corner outfielder. Late surprise signee Michael Bourn will man center and leadoff, giving the Indians their first full-time leadoff hitter that fits the traditional profile since Kenny Lofton (Coco Crisp was never Cleveland’s primary leadoff hitter). Whether Bourn’s value will hold up over the four-year contract term is up for debate, but his addition improves the team’s 2013 outlook. In right, Drew Stubbs will be given the opportunity, at least initially, to revive his offensive game, but his poor hitting against righties could force him into a platoon with Swisher.

Mark Reynolds will serve as the DH and could get significant time at first if Swisher plays right. Reynolds gives the Tribe right-handed power that they have been sorely lacking in recent years, but that power comes at the price of low batting averages (and, most terrifyingly to the traditionally-minded, copious strikeouts). Mediocrity should be the expectation for production out of his spot.

Two sports on the bench are obvious. Lou Marson will be the backup catcher. Marson is a replacement-level offensive player, but in 2012 his usually strong throwing results took a nosedive as he threw out just 14% of runners on 78 attempts. Still, it would be a major surprise if Marson lost his job to Yan Gomes, who would also be an infield corner option. The other bench lock is Mike Aviles, utility man and potential stopgap replacement should Asdrubal Cabrera be dealt in the next two seasons.

Francona appears to be set on putting what’s left of Jason Giambi on the roster, which leads me to believe that Ryan Raburn has an excellent shot at claiming the final bench spot. Since Giambi will not play the field, Raburn’s ability to just about anywhere but shortstop will be more attractive. The other top option is Ezequiel Carrrera, who is out of options but whose center field ability is not as important given that three potential center fielders will man Cleveland’s regular outfield.

On the mound, the Indians desperately need to improve their starting pitching to turn their fortunes around. In 2012, Cleveland ranked third-to-last in MLB in both innings per start and starters’ eRA. While the performance was so bad that regression should be an ally and the Indians made an attempt to address the rotation, it seems doubtful that the situation will improve enough for the team to contend.

As of this writing, the first four spots in the rotation have been made official by Terry Francona with nary a surprise. For the second consecutive season, Justin Masterson has the opening day assignment. Masterson appeared to have turned a corner in 2011, holding lefties to a league-average batting line, but in 2012 lefties once again had their way with him (296/376/450 and a career line of 292/367/432). The question of whether there is the potential for Masterson to get back to respectability against lefties is better left to the PitchF/x type of analysts, but his 2012 performance was good for just 3 RAR.

Next up is Ubaldo Jimenez, who fell deeper into the abyss in 2012, with a strikeout rate of 6.8 versus a walk rate of 4.5 and a whopping 6.07 eRA. While it’s impossible to write off a talent like Jimenez, it’s equally impossible to predict that he will be an effective major league starting pitcher. While I am usually able to set aside emotion when watching the Indians, it’s tough to manage when Jimenez is on the mound given the combination of extraordinarily frustrating pitching and the huge price it took to acquire him.

Brett Myers will slot in as the #3 starter, Cleveland’s attempt to stabilize the rotation with a veteran innings eater (the 2012 version, Derek Lowe, started hot but imploded in a big way). Myers has been below average in terms of run prevention in three of his last four seasons as a starter, and the year spent in relief is not an encouraging sign. He may eat innings, but he shouldn’t be counted on for an effective performance.

The number four spot went to Zach McAllister, who pitched effectively at times for Cleveland in 2012, but for the season was below replacement level with a 5.81 RRA. McAllister has the potential to develop into something more, but counting on that would be a mistake.

The fifth starter job remains open, with the candidates appearing to be Scott Kazmir, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Carlos Carrasco, Trevor Bauer, and Corey Kluber. Kazmir appears to be the favorite: he has pitched well so far in the spring, would be the team’s only left-handed starter, and at least has a history of effectively pitching in the majors. Matsuzaka has suffered an injury setback that will likely knock him from contention. Carrasco is still recovering from Tommy John surgery and will be stashed in AAA, waiting to vulture one of the other starter’s jobs. The Indians obviously are high on Bauer, making him the centerpiece of the Choo trade, but may be inclined to patience and allowing him to break into the organization at AAA. Kluber is a generic replacement-level type arm who will remain an emergency option.

Cleveland’s bullpen is perceived very differently depending on who you talk to. Indians fans and announcers seem to think it is very good, but a baseball writer who’ll remain nameless cited it last year as the #1 reason why the team wouldn’t contend (which was bizarre given that the rotation looked shaky at the time, even before it was exposed to be an abject disaster). Over the last three seasons it has ranked seventh, seventh, and twelfth in the AL in eRA, which means that what had been average was bad in 2012. The heavy workload didn’t help, and the Tribe had a decent trio at the end of games, but struggled to find middle relief. It comes as no surprise then that the team’s primary offseason bullpen tinkerings were to add middle relief depth. The Choo trade netted Matt Albers and Bryan Shaw while Matt Capps was brought in as a NRI.

The key three pitchers at the end of the game are Joe Smith, Vinnie Pestano, and Chris Perez. Perez may be sidelined at the beginning of the year with shoulder discomfort, but for now I’ll assume he’ll be ready to go. Perez is a fairly average reliever who can be incredibly frustrating when his command deserts him and he pumps straight, hittable fastballs. He’s the type of player that I wouldn’t have expected the Indians to shell out $7.3MM for in the past. Paired with Pestano, he continues the recent Indians tradition of the setup man being the top reliever, best exemplified by Joe Borowski and Rafael Betancourt.

Smith’s sidearm delivery makes him an ideal ROOGY, working 70+ times in each of the last two seasons with just a shade under an inning/game. His LOOGY counterparts, will be new in 2013. For each of the past X seasons, Rafael Perez and Tony Sipp have served as the Indians lefties, although both briefly transcended LOOGY-dom. The pair combined for 100 appearances in 2009, 140 in 2010, 140 in 2011, and 71 last year as Perez was slowed by injury. The duo has been broken up as Sipp was dealt to Arizona in the Choo trade and Perez allowed to sign with Minnesota.

In their place, Rich Hill has been added to the 40-man and thus essentially assured a roster spot. I suppose it was too much to ask the Cleveland bring in an OSU star without sullying the team with a UM product. Nick Hagadone seems likely to join the pen as well, apparently forgiven for the incident in which he broke his hand punching a wall. Hagadone has exciting stuff for a lefty, but has yet been able to harness it (or perhaps stay healthy enough to do so). Scott Barnes and David Huff are other lefty options.

Matt Albers is a pretty good bet to take a generic righty job, which leaves one spot for Cody Allen, Matt Capps, or Bryan Shaw. Capps may be the best bet due to his veteran status and lack of options, while Allen is the more exciting young arm and Shaw falls somewhere in between.

Terry Francona is the new manager; while I was agitated by the firing of Manny Acta, I certainly have no qualms with the choice of Francona. While his time with a non-contender in Philadelphia was not particularly encouraging, that tenure ended thirteen years ago. Francona was successful in Boston and seems to be a relatively saber-friendly skipper, something that was likely sought by both
organizations.

As for the front office, though, the Jimenez trade marked the beginning of my disenchantment and the phony contention attempt of 2012 with corresponding bluster that was used to justify the Acta filing marked my complete disillusionment. The open wallet in the offseason has been attributed by many observers to the new CBA rules, and the opportunity for teams with protected picks to swoop in on the middle tier of free agents. There’s surely some truth to this, but in the case of the Indians, this observer feels that the most likely explanation is that management realized that fan sentiment had grown toxic and that something had to be done to restore people’s interest in the team.

Most analysts feel that the Swisher and Bourn deals are reasonable, maybe even good values. How they’ll look at the tail end is another story, but the real problem is that Cleveland is still several pieces short from being a true contender. Those several pieces all happen to be starting pitchers. The Indians starters were so dreadful last year that regression is their friend, but they can’t regress to the level of adequacy necessary to put this team in the playoffs. That would take real improvement, and while 2010 Jimenez + 2011 Masterson + rookie of the year Bauer might fit the bill, the odds of that happening are remote. Detroit looks better on paper this preseason than they did last year (at least to me), Chicago almost always finds a way to win in the 80s, and Kansas City preceded the Tribe into this offseason’s contention derby. Even if Detroit falters, the Indians have plenty of competition. Given the weakness of the rotation, it’s hard to pick this team to achieve much. As a baseline guess, I’m going with 76-86, third place.

Predicted lineup (generic):

1. 8 Michael Bourn
2. 6 Asdrubal Cabrera
3. 4 Jason Kipnis
4. 3 Nick Swisher
5. 2 Carlos Santana
6. 7 Michael Brantley
7. D Mark Reynolds
8. 9 Drew Stubbs
9. 5 Lonnie Chisenhall

Bench: C Lou Marson, IF Mike Aviles, UT Ryan Raburn, DH Jason Giambi

Rotation:

1. Justin Masterson (R)
2. Ubaldo Jimenez (R)
3. Brett Myers (R)
4. Zach McAllister (R)
5. Scott Kazmir (L)

Bullpen: Matt Albers (R), Matt Capps (R), Nick Hagadone (L), Rich Hill (L), Chris Perez (R), Vinnie Pestano (R), Joe Smith (R)

2013 World Yakyu Classic

The World Baseball Classic invokes a number of reactions from baseball fans. Many (particularly in the United States) are indifferent. Some, like the author, love it and consider it a huge bonus--competitive games being played throughout March as the initial thrill of exhibition games begins to dull towards counting down to Opening Day. And others hate it for one reason or another--the threat of injury to key players and a dislike of any sort of display of national pride, regardless of how benign it might be.

The latter viewpoint is the one that I am unable to comprehend for a number of reasons that aren’t really germane to a baseball post. I will simply say that I see no evidence that any of the effects that one might view as particularly harmful have come to pass or are likely to come to pass. I don’t see riots between opposing countries’ fans in the stands, nor a bleed-over of passions stirred by the World Baseball Classic to the regular major league season in a harmful manner. There is much more ample evidence of senseless, tribal conflict between fans of the Yankees and Red Sox than there is of fans of Country X and Country Y.

Organizing teams of ballplayers by country is no less arbitrary or silly than any other manner of doing it. In fact, one could advance the argument that American pro sports have one of the most bizarre means of assigning players to teams, since veteran players are acquired under a completely different structure than young players, teams are placed in cities by the sometimes irrational decisions of a cartel, and these teams have been locked into an organizational structure that is so entrenched that moving a team from one league to another long after the distinctions between leagues have been eroded still can invoke fan meltdowns.

One element of the WBC that is more difficult to defend is the constantly changing set of rules that determine which teams play (and the name, which is beyond awful). These changes have not all been bad by any stretch. For instance, in the initial two Classics (2006 and 2009), the sixteen teams were pre-selected by MLB, but in 2013, four spots were filled through qualifying tournaments. The twelve countries that won games in the 2009 tournament were automatically qualified (Australia, China, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, The Netherlands, Puerto Rico, United States, and Venezuela), and four modified double-elimination tournaments (modified in that the game between the winner’s bracket winner and the loser’s bracket winner served as a decisive championship game rather than a must-win solely for the loser’s bracket winner) filled the remaining four spots. These tournaments, held in the fall of 2012, resulted in Brazil (over Colombia, Nicaragua, and Panama), Canada (over the Czech Republic, Germany, and Great Britain), Spain (over France, Israel, and South Africa), and Taiwan (over New Zealand, the Philippines, and Thailand) qualifying. The net result relative to the first two tournaments was replacing Panama and South Africa with Brazil and Spain.

The countries have been divided into four pools for the first round, which once again has a new format. In 2006, the first round was conducted as a round robin between the four teams, which require the use of arcane tiebreakers. In 2009, this was modified to double-elimination, which was much easier to understand. However, the 2013 format has returned to round robin and all of the confusion that goes with it. If you want to keep your sanity throughout the tournament, then root for each pool to have one team go 3-0, another 2-1, another 1-2, and some poor country 0-3. Or two 2-1s and two 1-2s, although that is less likely given the often wide variations in team strength.

The teams with the two best records will advance. If there is a tie, a modified run differential (runs/innings batted - runs allowed/innings pitched) that for some reason the IBAF calls “Team Quality Balance (TQB)” will be used to break the tie. Only the games between the tied teams will be used to figure TQB. If there is a three-way tie, then the TQB tiebreaker will be applied, and if two teams remained tied, their head-to-head result will be the determining factor. If all three teams have the same TQB, then a TQB based on earned runs will be used and the process will begin again (this may be the single stupidest rule in baseball history)...at least until you read down to the next tiebreaker, which repeats the process with batting average. Batting average.

The likelihood of teams being tied after the TQB step is low, but that doesn't make it any jarring to read earned runs and batting average spelled out officially as components of a championship determination process.

A brief capsule on each first-round pool follows; the ranking listed for each team is their IBAF world ranking. These rankings are based only on international competition and thus provide no insight on these specific rosters; I’ve simply provided them for amusement. These rankings are especially harsh on countries like the Dominican Republic and Venezuela that often do not field teams for the second-rate international tournaments. Of course, given the non-existent sample size of the tournament, any predictions are beyond worthless (witness the Netherlands two victories over the Dominican Republic in 2009), but that doesn’t prevent one from making vague assertions on team strength. Dates are EST.

Pool A

Location: Fukuoka, Japan
Dates: March 2-6
Participants: #1 Cuba, #3 Japan, #18 China, #20 Brazil

Cuba and Japan are obviously the huge favorites to win here. The two countries have already built quite a history at the WBC, with Japan defeating Cuba in the 2006 title game. In 2009, they met in the first game of the second round, with Japan winning; after Cuba beat Mexico and Japan lost to Korea, they met again in a game to determine which would advance to the semifinals. Japan ran their record to 3-0 over Cuba en route to winning a second championship. Unfortunately, their meeting will be the final game in Pool A and both may already be assured advancement, and will be played at 5 AM EST. Japan has opted to go with all NPB players this time, so the names will not be as familiar to American fans (now 38 year-old Kazuo Matsui is the most recognizable).

Pool B

Location: Taichung, Taiwan
Dates: March 1-5
Participants: #4 Korea, #5 Taiwan, #7 Netherlands, #10 Australia

Pool B should be compelling as it is the only pool that features four teams with a relatively decent chance of beating any of the others. Korea, who lost in the 2006 Semifinals and 2009 Final to Japan, is the favorite along with home-standing Taiwan. Taiwan suffered an embarrassing sweep out of the 2009 tournament, including a loss to China, and national baseball pride will be on the line. The Netherlands continues to improve, bolstered by the now-burgeoning talent pool in Curacao. They will not have Jurickson Profar or Kenley Jansen, but Xander Bogaerts, Andrelton Simmons, Roger Bernadina, and Andruw Jones are all familiar faces. Australia went 0-3 in the 2006 Classic, but got their first win in 2009 against Mexico and lost 5-4 to Cuba before being knocked out in a rematch with Mexico.

Pool C

Location: San Juan, Puerto Rico
Dates: March 7-10
Participants: #8 Venezuela, #12 Puerto Rico, #13 Dominican Republic, #16 Spain

Pool C may have the lowest composite IBAF ranking, but it is the pool in which it is toughest to pick two winners and perhaps the strongest in talent. While Spain has no legitimate change to advance, the top three professional Caribbean powers should make this must-watch beisbol. Much has been written about the decline in Puerto Rican talent, and it’s true that the names aren’t as impressive as those for Venezuela and the Dominican, but if Puerto Rico can patch together a pitching staff (or in a short tournament with pitch restrictions, get one good ensemble performance), they could easily advance. It’s impossible to quantify home field advantage, but it shouldn’t hurt.

Pool D

Location: Phoenix
Dates: March 7-10
Participants: #2 United States, #6 Canada, #9 Italy, #11 Mexico

I’ll have more to say below about the US team and its performance in previous tournaments. The draw here is such that the US is the strong favorite, but as 2006 showed, Mexico and Canada are more than capable of beating the US in a single game. Italy is fortified by American players of Italian heritage, but not to an extent that makes them a strong threat (although they did send Canada home in Toronto in 2009). The key game here on paper would appear to be Canada/Mexico.

The two surviving teams from each lettered pool will advance to the second round, where the pools will be numbered and will follow a modified-double elimination format. Pools A and B will combine into Pool 1, played March 7-12 in Tokyo, while Pools C and D will merge into Pool 2, played March 12-16 in Miami. The second round will begin with the winner of one pool against the runner-up of the other pool. The winners and losers will meet; the winner of the winner’s game will punch their ticket to their semifinals, while the loser of the loser’s game will be eliminated. The remaining two teams will play for the other semifinal berth, and that team will then play the winner’s bracket winner for the pool title, which will only matter in determining semifinal matchups. (This all makes a lot more sense in bracket form). If the favorites were to win, this means Pool 1 might feature Japan, Cuba, Korea, and Taiwan, while Pool 2 would feature the United States, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela.

The final four will be played in San Francisco, with the semifinals on March 17 and 18 and the championship game on March 19. The semifinals will feature the winner of one pool against the runner-up from the other.

A few other points on the tournament:

Rules

* The tiebreaker rules were covered above, but there are a few other noteworthy rules. The pitch limits are oft-discussed and too detailed to repeat here, but the key rule is that pitchers are limited to 65 pitches/game in the first round, 80 in the second round, and 95 in the final four. Pitchers cannot work more than two consecutive games, and must have a day of rest if they exceed thirty pitches and four days of rest if they exceed fifty.

* Mercy rules are in place that will halt the game if the lead is fifteen after five innings or ten after seven innings in the first two rounds.

* Starting in the thirteenth inning, runners will be placed at first and second base, and should they score will not be considered earned runs (I only mention this last part due to the silly earned run TBQ tiebreaker).

* For some reason which I do not understand, there is a rule that says “Players shall not lie down or sit on the bases when time is called on the field.” This apparently is not in the MLB rulebook, but thankfully we will be spared the horrible sight of players lying down on the bases.

United States

The US team, as you know, has not acquitted itself particularly well in the WBC, needing a runs allowed tiebreaker to advance past Canada in the 2006 first round, then losing to Mexico and Korea in the second round. In 2009 the US was mercy-ruled 11-1 by Puerto Rico in the first game of the second round. After beating the Netherlands, the US needed a dramatic ninth-inning rally to slip past Puerto Rico and qualify for the semifinals, where they lost 9-4 to Japan. Overall, the US was 3-3 in 2006 and 4-4 in 2009.

This has led to a lot of armchair psychology, which is to be expected and isn’t really worth commenting on. It’s certainly not outside of the realm of possibility that the US players have a more casual mindset towards the WBC than players from other countries, or that the genius managing of Buck Martinez in 2006 was more spring training in style than competitive, or that the Asian players in particular are closer to their top physical condition in early-to-mid March.

However, it has also led to two ridiculous strains of argument that can be addressed factually. One is that the WBC results somehow demonstrate that the United States is not the #1 source for baseball talent in the world. (Obviously, this argument is only unreasonable when expressed in terms of bulk rather than per capita talent--but the construction of the argument is inherently a bulk argument, since it’s based on the performance of each country’s “best” roster). This is obviously absurd as the results of a small sample size tournament do not even begin to provide a counterpoint to the wealth of available data from major league play (as well as the performance of players crossing between professional leagues, particularly MLB and NPB).

The second is that the US WBC rosters have been unimpressive aggregations of talent, a second-rate collection of players that is inferior to the rosters used by the other top contenders. While it is undoubtedly true that no WBC roster for the US has featured the best possible roster, it is nevertheless silly to pretend that the US rosters have been less than sterling collections of talent. If the US team were instead a MLB roster, it would be my choice to win the World Series.

For a crude illustration, look at the possible US lineup for 2013 compared to a similar group from the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, the other top western contenders for the WBC title, the 2012 AL and NL All-Star starting lineups, and the Tigers, who are projected by Baseball Prospectus to lead the majors in runs scored. I’ve listed OPS and an average OPS as projected by CAIRO; obviously OPS is a crude metric and averaging it as I have is crude, but for the purpose here it should suffice just fine:



In this illustration, the US team does not rise to the level of an all-star team, but compares favorably to the Dominican and Venezuelan teams as well as the team projected to have the best offense in MLB. Could the US team be better? Sure...you could replace Mauer with Posey, Teixeira with Fielder, Jones with Trout, etc. But it’s still a really good lineup.

On the pitching side, there is a more pronounced lack of top stars. The US team does not have the services of Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw, Cliff Lee, Stephen Strasburg, Jered Weaver, Matt Cain, CC Sabathia, David Price, Cole Hamels, and the list goes on. And one could certainly argue that the strongest aspect of a theoretical perfect US team would be the starting pitching depth which swamps what any other country can offer.

And yet, the US still boasts two of the top NL Cy Young vote getters in RA Dickey and Gio Gonzalez, and solid major league starts behind them in Derek Holland, Ryan Vogelsong, and Ross Detwiler. The US bullpen features a number of solid arms, in Steve Cishek, Chris Perez, Vinnie Pestano, Luke Gregerson, Mitchell Boggs,... It’s not an all-world group, but it’s a strong real-world unit on paper.

One can argue that the relative dearth of high-profile starting pitchers participating in the WBC benefits the US, since it also hits the Dominicans and Venezuelans: the Dominicans only established major league starters are Wandy Rodriguez and Edinson Volquez, while the Venezuelans have Anibal Sanchez, Jhoulys Chacin, and Carlos Zambrano.

One thing that has been disappointing about the WBC from the US perspective is the failure of the first two tournaments to produce two of the three high profile potential matchups. US/Japan has happened twice, but we have yet to see the superpower showdown of US/DR or the politically-charged US/Cuba matchup. From a US-centric perspective, I’d say those are the three most intriguing WBC matchups. Other interesting games like Japan/Korea and Dominican Republic/Venezuela have occurred as the brackets have set them up.

Making predictions about who will win the WBC is a degree sillier than making predictions on playoff series, but on paper, the United States should be the favorite.

Omar y Amigos

Back in the mid-90s, the Indians radio network carried a pregame feature before Sunday afternoon games called "Kenny's Kids". It was your standard bolierplate schlock--little kids given tickets to the game through the Indians charities or Kenny Lofton's foundation or something of the sort would get to listen to Kenny talk to another Indian, or get to ask him questions ("Mr. Wofton, Mr. Wofton, how do I get to be a baseball player?")

Then Kenny got traded prior to the 1997 season, and this grave duty fell to Omar Vizquel. The segment was renamed "Omar y Amigos". When Lofton came back the next year, Kenny's Kids did not return; Omar y Amigos continued. So if you ever thought there wasn't an upside to getting traded, then returning to your former club as a free agent...you were wrong.

Title exposition aside, I'd like to discuss Omar Vizquel's place in history. This is a standard boring article written at a low level of sabermetric literacy, one you can safely skip if you're not interested in comparing players' careers across the years (or if you value peak over career). The goal is not to pinpoint a ranking and say that "Omar Vizquel is the fourteenth best shortstop of all-time" or anything like that, just to get a general sense of how he compares to other great shortstops.

One of the most common comparisons for Vizquel, particularly among mainstream thinkers, is Ozzie Smith. The comparison generally assumes that the two provided similar value in the field, and thus can be compared on the basis of their offensive production:



It is easy to see why many traditional, context-free glances at the stats result in considering Vizquel to be Smith's equal. He hit for a higher average, hit fifty more homers, and both drove in and scored over 150 more runs than Ozzie. He hit for a better slugging average while getting on base at the same rate. Smith does have an advantage in basestealing, swiping 176 more bases than Vizquel while getting caught 19 fewer times.

Of course, as a sabermetrically-informed reader you know that context is king. It makes a huge difference; Vizquel played in parks with a composite PF of 1.01, while Smith played in parks with a park factor of .98. Much more significantly, Vizquel played in leagues in which the average team scored 4.81 runs per game; teams in Smith's leagues averaged 4.15 runs per game. Combining the two, Vizquel played in a context in which 19% more runs were scored.

Any serious analytical approach is going to take that into account, and rather than emerging as the superior hitter, Vizquel will assuredly come out as inferior to Smith. Compared to a league average hitter (comparable to Palmer's Batting Wins, except counting stolen bases), I have Smith at +2 wins for his career and Vizquel at -23, with Smith’s RC/out relative to the league average bettering Vizquel’s 102 to 86. Not all methods think the gap is that large (see Technical Note below), but the other commonly used sabermetric methods concur that Smith was a better offensive player: he leads in TAv (.250 to .243), wRC+ (90 to 84), and OPS+ (87 to 82).

Even if one accepts that Smith and Vizquel were similar fielders, they are not particularly close in offensive value. Unless one wants to make the claim that Vizquel was a much better fielder than Smith, Ozzie is the more valuable player--easily.

Engaging in a little bit of unhealthy stereotyping (on both baseball and ethnic levels) one can find decent comparables for Vizquel in three players: Luis Aparicio, Bert Campaneris, and Dave Concepcion. I don't mean to suggest that these three are the most comparable players to Vizquel, but they are obvious comparisons as they are all shortstops, all Latin, all from the expansion era, and all are known for their glovework. One could of course compare Vizquel to players from other positions, or shortstops who arguably were roughly as valuable but with a different offense/defense split than Vizquel (like Jim Fregosi, Tony Fernandez, Junior Stephens, Edgar Renteria, or Miguel Tejada), but comparisons to the aforementioned trio are irresistible:



Once again, it is easy to see why Vizquel is highly regarded in the mainstream when looking at the raw statistics. Most people, presented with that data alone, would choose Vizquel. When park factors and league averages are considered, though, it is clear that Vizquel played in a much more offense-friendly time and place:



The final column is Vizquel's run environment (N*PF, where N is the league average runs/game) as a ratio to the others. Runs were 18% more common in Vizquel's games than Aparicio's, 25% versus Campaneris', and 17% versus Concepcion's. The result is that while Vizquel has -23 hitting WAA, Concepcion has -2, Campaneris -3, and Aparicio -10. (See technical note for an explanation of why the differences are greater than some other methods show).

Let’s suppose you refuse to consider sabermetric measures, and want to limit your offensive evaluation only to what you protest are “actual” runs--runs scored and RBI. For the sake of argument, I’ll play along, as long as you allow me to consider league context and outs made. (See this post for the full details on how these are figured, but essentially R+ is runs scored per out relative to league average, RBI+ is the same for RBI, ANY is the average of R+ and RBI+, and ANYA is the average of runs scored above league average and runs batted in above league average).

When you do, it becomes clear that Vizquel’s runs scored and batted in totals are not as impressive as those in this peer group:



Vizquel scored fewer runs per out than his league average; only Concepcion joined him, but Concepcion had the best RBI rate of the five. In terms of the average, Vizquel is well behind the others at just 83% of league average R and RBI per out.

I'm sure that any Vizquel partisan who is still reading is screaming "What about fielding?" I don't have any particular insight to lend on that question; all I can do is regurgitate the figures that others have published. Bill James, in Win Shares assigns fielders letter grades based on their Defensive Win Shares per inning rates. Vizquel (through 2001) is evaluated as a B- shortstop, with Aparicio and Campaneris earning Bs and Concepcion an A+. As you know, Win Shares fielding ratings are based on a top-down team evaluation without the benefit of play-by-play data.

Chone Smith's TotalZone method uses Retrosheet batted ball locations to estimate runs saved compared to an average fielder. Smith's RAA results for the four almost flip James' rankings on their head, with Aparicio estimated to have saved 149 runs (adding in the double play component) above an average shortstop, Vizquel 144, Campaneris 62, and Concepcion 50.

TotalZone certainly deems Vizquel to have been an outstanding fielder, but not to such an extent that it elevates him significantly above this pack. And thus, in Chone's WAR figures, Vizquel ranks comfortably head of Concepcion but behind Aparicio and Campaneris. Even with a more generous evaluation of Vizquel's prowess in the field, it's difficult to argue that he was clearly superior to the other members of this group.

In Baseball Prospectus’ FRAA, Vizquel ranks as the lowest of the four with just 14 (Campaneris 31, Concepcion 56, Aparicio 109). This contributes to Vizquel ranking 20 WARP behind Campaneris, 17 behind Aparicio, and 6 behind Concepcion.

That leaves the matter of his reputation as a fielder, which is considerable, and often in mainstream discussions is assumed to be nearly on par with Ozzie Smith. You can decide for yourself how much weight to place on non-statistical evaluation of fielding. The only strong suggestion I'd make is not to place too much emphasis on the evaluation of any one particular individual--including my own take on Vizquel which follows, which I offer not because I think it's particularly insightful but because it's my blog.

I watched Omar Vizquel play shortstop more than any other shortstop--I find it hard to imagine that I'll ever watch anyone more in the future. Most of this occurred during my formative years as a baseball fan, so it is quite possible that it has forever tinged my perception of shortstop fielding--that I am unable to fairly evaluate other shortstops I watch because my expectations for a major league shortstop have been set largely by watching Omar Vizquel.

In any event, I don't have much of a pre-Vizquel frame of reference to offer. I can't say that I was never impressed by Omar Vizquel because he didn't look as good to me as Ozzie did, or as Campaneris did. What I can tell you is that, in watching other shortstops after watching Vizquel, I have never felt that I was watching pale imitations of the master.

Vizquel certainly stands among the best shortstops I've seen myself, possibly even the best. But he does not tower over them. I do think that Vizquel did things with as much flair as anyone I've watched--the barehand grab-and-throws, the back turned to the plate catches of outfield pops. But when you rely on observation, flair can be misleading. It's flair that gets you on SportsCenter, not workman-like consistency. It's the flashy play that gets burned in most people's memories, not the routine play or even the tough play made in the hole with a strong plant-and-throw.

None of this is to say that Omar Vizquel was not an outstanding fielder and a fine all-around player. He was, but so were Aparicio, Campaneris, Concepcion, and others who don't form as natural of a comparison group. His reputation seems to place him in a higher class, at least at this time. These assessments seem to be based on a very rosy assessment of his fielding prowess, a lack of recognition of the high-offense era in which he played, or a combination thereof.

TECHNICAL NOTE

I did not make any allowance for players in DH leagues, which is part of the reason you'll see discrepancies between the WAA/WAR figures for players listed here and those from Pete Palmer, Chone, and other sabermetricians. Vizquel spent the majority of his career in DH leagues, but Campaneris is the only other player discussed who spent a significant amount of his career in them.

Swapping out pitchers for DHs has the effect of raising the league averages, which are used to set baselines for average and replacement level performance, and this is something that you want to be aware of. However, the increase in scoring which drives runs per win up is a real factor that should not just be adjusted out of existence.

And while Vizquel would benefit from a DH correction, I've implicitly assumed that the position adjustment for shortstops have remained stable from Aparicio's day to Vizquel's. However, shortstop offense reached its all-time low in the 60s and 70s. The matter of positional adjustments is thornier than simply comparing mean positional offense, but there is a distinct possibility that treating the positional adjustment as a constant is hurting the pre-Vizquel members of the group, canceling out much of the DH hit that Omar takes.

Also, I realize that some people are aware of the offensive environment in which Vizquel played, but ignore it because they chalk it up to steroids. Since Vizquel is not suspected of using steroids, we're supposed to believe that he could have transferred his raw offensive performance into a different era and been more valuable relative to the league. That's a nice story.

Returning Starters (and Success?)

2013 will mark Greg Beals’ third season at the helm of the OSU baseball program, and it promises to be an important season for the program. One reason for this is that the expiration date for the use of any excuses regarding the talent level inherited from the previous coaching staff is now gone. This is now Beals’ team, for better or worse, with a large number of key players recruited by him, and ample opportunity to bring in alternatives to any less than productive holdovers from the prior staff. On top of that, OSU will have a fairly large number of returning starters, and is expected by many to be a contender for the Big Ten championship.

The Buckeyes are likely to have a platoon arrangement, as neither senior Greg Solomon nor sophomore Aaron Gretz have hit well enough to seize control of the job. Gretz’ only real offensive positive as a freshman was his 19 walks to 18 strikeouts in just 91 at bats, an area in which he is the opposite of Solomon, whose plate judgment in two years in Scarlet and Gray (10 W/80 K in 311 AB) has been dreadful. Gretz is considered to have one of the best catcher throwing arms in the conference, although Solomon is also fairly solid defensively. Gretz bats left and Solomon right, so there is a natural platoon possibility. They will handle all the catching if healthy - walkon freshman Matt Emge and sophomore utility man Ryan Wonders round out the roster, but will only see the field in an emergency.

First base will be manned by senior Brad Hallberg, who has bounced between the infield corners throughout his OSU career, starting at third in 2012. Hallberg was one of the team’s better hitters last year at 311/414/431 and will once again figure in the middle of the order. Senior second baseman Ryan Cypret will be a three-year starter but is coming off a rough 2012 (236/350/304) after a very effective 2011 (323/400/428) and will be one of the key offensive players for OSU.

Third base is vacant with Hallberg’s move across the diamond, leaving slick fielding sophomore Ryan Leffel as the most likely starter. Leffel was used often in the field during his freshman campaign as a defensive replacement when Josh Dezse left first base for the mound, but only received 28 PA. According to Chris Webb, Leffel missed early practices with a wrist injury, opening the door for freshman Craig Nenning, also considered to be a strong fielder. Third base is thus a position of concern, especially offensively.

Senior Kirby Pellant will return as the shortstop. The most notable aspect of Pellant’s game both offensively and in the field is his speed (31 steals in 38 attempts), but to this observer he is a bit lacking as a pure fielder. Offensively, Pellant is similar to a number of his teammates in that he hits for a decent average while drawing some walks but rarely ever hitting for power (274/375/340). Other possibilities around the infield include freshman first baseman Zach Ratliff, freshman third baseman/OF Jacob Bosiokovic, freshman Troy Kuhn, and the aforementioned Wonders.

In the outfield, all three spots should be manned by at least partial returning starters. Left field figures to be a battle between senior Joe Ciamacco and junior Mike Carroll. Ciamacco was held back by injuries in 2012, but was a perfect 14-14 staling bases as speed is also his top asset. At the plate, he hit for a decent average (.291) but only a mediocre number of walks (8 in 103 at bats) and little power (.039 ISO). Carroll is a hit-first player who spent a lot of time at DH in 2012, with a better plate approach but similar overall production to Ciamacco (279/368/333). Both bat left, so a platoon is not in the cards.

Junior Tim Wetzel is the leadoff hitter and center fielder--stop me if you’ve heard this before, but he has speed (although a poor two-year base stealing record of 17 for 30), a good eye (63 walks in 390 career at bats), but no power (.049 career ISO). Wetzel has a chance to leave his mark on OSU’s career record books in counting categories as he has already started and played in 104 games and figures to be a four-year starter. Right field will belong to Pat Porter, who played left a year ago and hails from my hometown. Porter’s 266/370/322 line looks all too familiar for this roster, but as a freshman he seemed to improve as the year goes on and will be a key to the Buckeyes’ offensive success in 2013. Outfield reserves include freshman Jake Brobst, Bosiokovich, and freshman Joe Stoll, whose listed on the roster as LHP/OF.

The plan apparently is for junior Josh Dezse to serve as the DH rather than first baseman. Dezse, who has also doubled as the team’s closer, is considered one of the best pro prospects in the Big Ten, but has been something of a tease as a very good hitter but not the all-around offensive star OSU has lacked at a corner position since Ronnie Bourquin. Dezse’s career 318/425/447 line belies the fact that he has much greater power potential. He clubbed three homers in one game at Georgia Tech last year, but that represents one-third of his career total. Still, a healthy Dezse is needed to anchor the Buckeyes lineup. Carroll would seemingly have the first crack at this role if Dezse does not fill it for whatever reason, with Kuhn, Bosiokovich, or Ratliff the next line.

While the offensive starters are fairly well-established, roles on the mound are up for grabs. One that is not is the #1 starter, which will go to junior Jaron Long, a first-team all-Big Ten pick in 2012. Long is a soft-tossing right-hander who relies on his command (13 walks in 101 innings) rather than stuff (63 strikeouts). While watching him work may give the perception of doing it with mirrors, his .329 BABIP was little different than the team average of .331. Still, Long should not be counted on for a repeat performance, but should eat innings and feast on undisciplined lineups.

Behind Long, things are considerably murkier. There was a thought that Dezse could be used in a starting role, but his back issues make that considerably less likely. Senior lefty Brian King stayed in OSU’s weekend rotation throughout 2012 and thus is a good bet to be back. It was King, not Long, who was expected to be the key JUCO pitcher added to the staff, but was only an average performer. The third starter could be senior righty Brett McKinney, who started 2012 as the #1 but eventually lost weekend starting assignments before being pressed back into action at the end of the season.

Three others stand out as possible rotation options: freshman right-hander Jacob Post was apparently impressive in fall camp, and as a new option may prove to be enticing. Senior right-hander Brad Goldberg has sat out the last two seasons as a transfer and then due to eligibility issues, but is now cleared to pitch and will be a contributor in some manner. Junior right-hander Greg Greve has started 28 games over two seasons, but has never been able to keep a hold on a rotation job, and may now be slotted for the bullpen.

Dezse has been the closer for each of the last two years, but OSU planned to transition him to a starting role for 2013. However, Webb has reported that a back issue has sidelined Dezse throughout the fall and into spring practices, which I presume will leave the feasibility of that plan in jeopardy. Behind Dezse, the top setup man will be senior sidearmer David Fathalikhani. Sophomore Trace Dempsey throws from a slightly higher arm slot, but gives OSU a double dose of right handers with unorthodox deliveries. Beals loves to play matchup ball, but the last two years have seen him lose his lefties to graduation one at a time--first Theron Minium and now Andrew Armstrong. Candidates to fill this role include sophomore Matt Panek (who also throws from the side) and sophomore JUCO transfer Ryan Riga. Other pitchers on the roster include right-handers Logan Bowles (freshman), Tyler Giannonatti (a JUCO transfer who had to redshirt in 2012 with an injury), Shea Murray (walk-on freshman), Tito Nava (sophomore transfer from Duke) and left-handers Michael Horesjei (walk-on sophomore), Luke McGee (freshman), and Joe Stoll (freshman).

A constant complaint towards the end of Bob Todd’s career was that the non-conference schedule was week. Beals has beefed it up a little, but this year’s slate offers a striking dichotomy: as unambitious of a pre-conference schedule as one could credibly embark upon, but a few high-profile non-conference clashes during the Big Ten season. OSU will open its season the weekend of February 15 with three games in Sarasota against Mercer, Notre Dame, and St. John’s. The following weekend they are in Port Charlotte for two games each with South Dakota St. and Mt. St. Mary’s. The first weekend of March sees the Buckeyes in Florida yet again (Deland) to play UConn, Stetson, and Central Michigan. The following weekend OSU will play at Coastal Carolina, with two against the hosts plus single games with Harvard, Ball St., and Charleston Southern.

The final non-conference weekend is March 15, a three-game home series against Bryant. Big Ten play will go: @ Purdue, Michigan St., @ Minnesota, @ Nebraska, Illinois, Penn St., @ Northwestern, Indiana (this is the same slate as 2012 except with the home series flipped). OSU will not play Iowa or Michigan (and, if completeness is sought, Maryland or Rutgers).

Non-conference opponents weaved in throughout the schedule are the typical local foes in March and April--Toledo, Ohio University, Miami, West Virginia, Marshall, Akron, Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky. Where it gets interesting is May 7, a Tuesday on which OSU will open a two game home series against Georgia Tech. The Buckeyes and Yellow Jackets have met 22 times, the first in 1924, but never before in Columbus. That weekend (on which OSU is idle from Big Ten play), Ohio State will host Oregon for a three-game series, the first ever meeting between the two schools on the diamond. On the following Tuesday, OSU will host Louisville for a single game.

Such a stretch is, as best as I can tell, unprecedented in OSU history--8 days in which the Buckeyes will play six home games against teams ranked #10 (UO), #12 (GT), and #15 (LOU) in Perfect Game’s pre-season Top 25.

Will the Buckeyes be ready to face that gauntlet? Unfortunately, I’m inclined to think they won’t be, as they don’t look like a top-tier Big Ten team to me. One the positive side, the pitching depth is beginning to return to the level one would expect at OSU, with some reserves who appear to be capable of serving as weekend starters. The offense returns all of its returning starters except right fielder David Corna, and the freshman class appears to offer more promise than those of recent seasons. But in my (admittedly anecdote-based) observation, one of the best way for a college team in any sport to be overrated is if they return a lot of starters from a team that was only average in the prior season (with a 33-27 record, 11-13 in the Big Ten, and #94 ISR ranking, the 2012 Bucks fit this bill). Sure, returning starters means fewer question marks--but the degree of improvement anticipated can often be overstated.

And for me, the jury remains out on Beals. In year three, it’s time for his recruits to shine, and there’s far less ability to blame things on the prior staff. As I wrote about last year, Beals’ game management frustrates me to know end, particularly his obsession with a delayed steal of home that would embarrass many junior high coaches. The fact that he continues to try to pull it off, not just against unsuspecting non-conference opponents, but against Big Ten coaches that surely know it is coming, force me to question his judgment and his ego. It’s hard to look at college coaches through the standard, non-nuanced sabermetric lens (bunts bad, intentional walks bad, etc.) because so many would look bad, but Beals is especially grating. What’s really bizarre is that I have actually read OSU fans on the internet rave about how much more enlightened his offensive strategy is than Todd’s, which is a case of people seeing what they want to see.

My best guess (and it’s just that) at the lineup and pitching staff:

UPDATE: Today OSU announced that Josh Dezse will miss at least the first two months of the season with a "stress reaction in his lower back". This is obviously a blow to the OSU lineup and bullpen, so I have revised my projected lineup accordingly:

1. 8 Tim Wetzel (JR)
2. 4 Ryan Cypret (SR)
3. 9 Pat Porter (SM)
4. 3 Brad Hallberg (SR)
5. D Mike Carroll (JR)
6. 7 Joe Ciamacco (SR)
7. 2 Aaron Gretz (SM)
8. 6 Kirby Pellant (SR)
9. 5 Ryan Leffel (SM)

SP #1: R Jaron Long (JR)
SP #2: L Brian King (SR)
SP #3: R Brad Goldberg (SR)
SP #4 (midweek): R Brett McKinney (SR)
SP #5 (midweek): R Jacob Post (FM)

RP: L Ryan Riga (SM)
RP: R Trace Dempsey (SM)
RP: R David Fathalikhani (SR)
CL: R Greg Greve (JR)

MLB Has Lost Control of the Game

Many years ago, the powers that be in baseball sat down and drew up a set of rules to govern the game. These rules applied to the game on the field in an attempt to ensure that the game was contested in a sporting manner. However, an exclusive analysis performed by Walk Like a Sabermetrician regarding the 2012 MLB season reveals that these rules are routinely violated despite the penalties against them. Some may scoff at this analysis and say that some of these rules have not been broken intentionally. To do so is to coddle the rule breakers. These rules should have shaped the training of players and molded their behavior; instead, the players have failed to conform their physical actions to the sacred code of the game. Baseball is out of control, and it is out in the open for all to see, yet the powers that be have not taken any substantive steps to beef up enforcement. The shocking details:

* Pitchers have long been tasked with the simple job of providing a fair pitch to the batter, one that is within a zone deemed to be conducive to putting the ball in play. Pitchers have pushed the envelope, though, attempting to throw pitches that violate the spirit but not the letter of the rule. During the 2012 regular season, there were 14,709 separate occasions on which a pitcher failed to provide a hittable pitch and was penalized with a walk.

However, two additional details illustrate just how bad this problem has become. The first is that every single pitcher who logged a non-negligible number of innings issued at least one walk. The disregard for this rule and the attempt to deceive batters has infected the entire population of major league pitchers.

The second is that no fewer than 1,055 times did a pitcher intentionally violate this rule and make no attempt to provide a hittable pitch to the batter. This almost always occurred with expressed consent and even on direct order of the manager. Blatantly thumbing their nose at the code of the game, these pitchers and managers engaged in unsporting activity. The penalties simply must be increased to stamp out this behavior.

* Even more shockingly, there were 1,494 instances of a pitcher hitting a batter with a pitch. This act is expressly prohibited by the rules of baseball and the deleterious nature of this action is not limited to simply breaking rules. Hit batters have been linked to numerous cases of injury and even death. In choosing to play baseball, players should not be forced to make any decisions that could have an impact on their health, but batters risk extreme injury every game as they are forced to bat against these recalcitrant pitchers.

It has also become apparent that these violent acts are sometimes intentionally committed, often in a bizarre meld of revenge and tribal grudges that have more in common with gang warfare than gentlemanly sport. MLB has left the penalties for hit batters so toothless that these events continue, risking the health of batters and setting an awful example for the children of America.

* Any excuses regarding physical rather than moral failings go out the window when it comes to the matter of ejections. Umpires are given the power to remove disrespectful and violent offenders from the game. Such an awesome power should never have to be used in a civil game, but MLB’s product is anything but civil. 179 times an umpire had no choice but to remove a participant from the game for bad behavior. Again, the titular authority figures known as managers were frequently involved in these violations.

It is a matter of simple common sense that when rules are violated, it means that the associated penalties are insufficiently strong. This simple truth has been illustrated time and time again throughout human society. Any time draconian penalties are instituted, the associated behavior ceases. Examples include the lack of murders and non-existence of drug use in America, the strict adherence to all bylaws of the NCAA, and, of course, the complete lack of PED use in Olympic sport. MLB needs to learn from these examples and curb the culture of rule-breaking that prospers on the field.

Meanderings

* I don’t have anything of substance to add on the deaths of Earl Weaver and Stan Musial, but since both were favorites of mine I feel compelled to write a little something. Weaver of course is a managerial hero to many in the sabermetric community. He predated my time as a baseball fan by a significant number of years, but he still was an influence on me through the writing of Bill James and Thomas Boswell, his own book Weaver on Strategy, and Earl Weaver Baseball, which in its DOS form was the first baseball game I played (even though I’m sure he wasn’t writing the code).

The paragraph that follows is the kind of unsupported by evidence blurb I try to avoid writing, because in many cases you can get destroyed with a little cursory fact-checking. Weaver is famed for utilizing his roster to its fullest, particular his bench -- finding specialists whose strengths could help a club. The value of the bench has been greatly reduced in today’s game thanks to the roster crunch--the extra spots have gone to pitchers. Some of this is a natural result of the never-ending progression towards lighter pitching workloads, but some of it may be traceable to an attempt to counter the Weaver school. Once the bench was smartly utilized with specialists, it was necessary to have a counter-stocked bullpen. The verdict of the powers that be in baseball has been to prioritize stopping the other manager from gaining an offensive advantage through substitution rather than leaving one’s self with the tools to do so. One could argue that Tony LaRussa is the anti-Weaver in this regard.

Stan Musial was of course a great player, one who has gotten the short end of the stick--among his contemporaries on either bordering generation, there has been more celebration reserved for DiMaggio, Williams, Mantle, Mays, and Aaron among outfielders. He’s always been a favorite of mine, though--in fact, I have two framed baseball pictures hanging on my wall (the selection is more due to happenstance than a design to pick these particular two, but I wouldn’t hang a picture on my wall if I didn’t like the subject. One is of Babe Ruth’s sixtieth home run, and one is a picture of Stan Musial and various related Musial memorabilia (bats, uniform, ball, etc.)

* The various sports stories of last week (thankfully, not baseball-related) were a perfect reminder of why I have so little respect for sportswriters as a class (certainly I judge people as individuals, but it so happens that I have little use for the majority of individual sportswriters).

The best attribute of sportswriters is how ignorant they tend to be. When someone writes invective against sabermetrics, or displays a complete lack of understanding of statistics or economics or probability, it is easy to simply laugh them off. A huge number of sportswriters fall into this toss category.

As an aside, if I didn’t come to the table with a pre-conceived dim view of the world view held by most mainstream journalists (non-sports), it would be difficult for me to believe how ignorant they are. When I read news stories about topics on which I am well-informed, it is rare to go through an article that does not contain an outright falsehood, a statement of surprise at something that is blindingly obvious, or a quote from a clearly biased source that is allowed to pass without noting that bias. And when I see this occur in articles about a topic about which I know more than the journalist, it naturally gives me great pause about what I read about topics on which I am seeking to learn more.

Unlike many people inclined to interest in sabermetrics, I am not at all looking forward to the rapidly approaching day in which any aspiring young mainstream baseball scribe will be fluent in sabermetrics and not prone to dismissing non-traditional viewpoints. While this will have a limited positive effect of reducing the amount of idiocy we are all exposed to, it will make it that much harder to simply ignore a writer with cause.

My biggest problem with sportswriters is not that they are ignorant--it's that they are self-righteous, prone to pop psychology, and often downright nasty to their subjects. The new breed of baseball writer will still display all these traits, but without the casual ignorance of logic when it comes to strategy and evaluation of players. The perfect symbol of this new breed is Jeff Passan. Passan is as smarmy and as prone to being a jackass as your garden variety Murray Chass-era hack. But because Passan incorporates sabermetric statistics and thinking as appropriate, he is much more likely to get a pass for being a jerk than is a sabermetric ignoramus.

* The Armstrong and Te’o stories are also worthwhile as an illustration of how different my interest in sports is from the interest of the fictional public to which the stories are written. I have essentially zero interest in the private lives of athletes. I do not pick which athletes to root for because they seem like nice people, or because they have overcome some tragedy in their personal lives--I pick which athletes to root for because they play(ed) for/support the teams that I do, or because I enjoy watching them play the game.

When sportswriters single out a human interest story, it is their way of telling you who to root for. One could look at the roster of any Division I college football team with its 85 players and find someone who has been through a traumatic experience. Frankly, the notion that the death of a college-aged person’s grandmother would be a trauma worthy of making into a story is laughable. Certainly such an event is a terrible thing for the affected person and family, but it is also a fact of life and something that the majority of people in that age group have experienced. But journalists decided that Te’o was special, and that you should root for him--and they almost gave him an absurd Heisman trophy for it.

More broadly, I don’t care if Player X is a jerk to fans (and I certainly don’t care if he is a jerk to the media). I might care if I had any reason to interact with Player X--but I don’t, and the odds that I will ever interact with him are infinitesimal. Sportswriters are often incapable of realizing that the rest of us aren’t affected or interested by whatever inconveniences or petty issues Player X creates for them.

If I discover that Player X isn’t too friendly to fans who come up to him and ask for his autograph, I feel no reason to change my opinion of him. I know that when people who want something that I have approach me, I do my best to ignore them altogether (obviously no one is asking me for my autograph, but we all deal with panhandlers, charities calling for money, family members who need a favor, and the like). How can I fault Player X for behaving exactly as I would behave? Why would I factor this into the degree to which I like Player X, when the only reason I am even aware of his existence rather than that of another 1/7,000,000,000 of the world’s population is his ability to play baseball?

Of course, this can be easily looped back to the big baseball story of the month, the Hall of Fame voting. While the Hall of Fame was broken beyond repair before steroids made it a complete joke, the principle holds: I want to view baseball players as baseball players, nothing more and nothing less. Whatever else they are outside of that is of equal consequence to me as that of a mailman in Topeka.