2002 Playoffs: Why Did Torre Leave Stanton in to Face Wooten?

by Geoff Young on Oct 05, 2002 (Comments Off) Comments

So did Mike Scioscia use his bullpen properly last night? Or should he have summoned Percival in a tie to begin the eighth inning, rather than keep 20-year-old Francisco Rodriguez on the mound? If I follow the logic that some have employed over the past few days, Percy should have worked the eighth because he’s the Angels’ best reliever.

Now, consider this scenario: Percival holds the Yankees in the eighth but throws 25 pitches. The Halos do not score in the bottom frame. A tired Percival blows the lead in the ninth, Yankees win. It’s a possible–and not all that far-fetched–outcome.

I truly believe that rather than be criticized for being a slave to the one-inning closer, Scioscia should be applauded for having faith in the guys who got him this far. The more I think about it, the more I don’t have a problem with the way he’s managed his bullpen. But that’s just me.

Now over here in the infallible corner, we have Joe Torre. We have the curious case of Mike Stanton. I understand bringing him in to face Darin Erstad in the sixth. That was the right move. And I’m okay with letting him start the seventh against Garret Anderson, another lefty. And, yeah, once Anderson doubles, you might as well leave Stanton in there to walk Glaus. Then you can force the Angels to pinch-hit for Brad Fullmer, against whom you bring in the ready, willing, and able Ramiro Mendoza.

Or not.

What in the heck was Stanton doing in there against Wooten? Okay, Stanton’s splits aren’t that great (680 OPS vs LHB, 668 vs LHB). But here are the splits of the key Angels involved:

               vs LHP         vs RHP
Anderson  .284/.301/.514  .316/.346/.551
Eckstein  .302/.387/.448  .289/.354/.365
Erstad    .280/.305/.358  .285/.316/.403
Fullmer   .222/.231/.365  .301/.377/.560
Glaus     .298/.389/.534  .230/.337/.422
Kennedy   .275/.320/.449  .319/.350/.449
Spiezio   .368/.448/.539  .248/.336/.389
Wooten    .282/.329/.451  .310/.333/.429

Okay, what does this show us?

  1. Torre was correct in walking Glaus, who just abuses lefties and who has already done significant damage in the series, to get to Fullmer, the one Anaheim hitter who absolutely cannot hit southpaws. No problem there.
  2. Leaving Stanton in against Wooten wasn’t that bad after all. Wooten’s splits are almost nonexistent, and Mendoza actually fared worse against RHB (711 OPS) than LHB (694). So I take back what I said about this move.
  3. Leaving Stanton in to face Spiezio was a mistake. Yeah, I know that was Spiezio’s first career hit against him, but what are you going to listen to: 152 at-bats this year against lefties or 12 over a career against Stanton?
  4. Bringing Stanton out again to start the eighth against Kennedy, Eckstein, and Erstad, while on the surface justifiable because of the two left-handed hitters coming up, was not a good move given the fact that none of the players involved has a significant platoon split.

I don’t follow the Yankees enough to know what Torre’s normal usage of Stanton is, but the latter averaged just over 4 batters and IP faced per game. Erstad in the eighth was his 10th batter. Stanton ended up throwing 39 pitches. Presumably he stayed in so long because the Angels have a lot of lefties in their lineup. Only problem is, Stanton doesn’t have appreciable lefty/right splits and, with the exception of Fullmer, who was lifted for Wooten, neither do the Angels’ left-handed hitters.

So what gives? We never did see Mendoza. And Steve Karsay (756 OPS vs LHB, 642 vs RHB) closed the proverbial barn door long after the horses had fled.

I don’t mean to be overly critical of Torre here, because he knows his personnel better than I ever will. But I do wonder whether the same folks who took exception to Scioscia’s use of his bullpen the previous two games will criticize Torre’s managing in this contest. They probably should.

2002 Playoffs: Cardinals vs Diamondbacks

by Geoff Young on Oct 04, 2002 (Comments Off) Comments

How ’bout those Cardinals! First team in MLB history to win back-to-back playoff games on the road against 20-game winners. Just one more win, and we won’t have to see Bob Brenly again until April. Go Cards!

Closer to home, the North County Times has a couple articles on John Moores:

Even Moores likes Eugene Kingsale. What a joke.

On a brighter note, the new ballpark is actually starting to look like something. I work on the 20th floor of a building downtown and have a great view of the park. One of these days I’ll bring in my digital camera and take some pictures.

I don’t even know what to say about this one other than I wouldn’t want to be Beau Duran right about now. Idiot…

2002 Playoffs: Angels Steal One in New York

by Geoff Young on Oct 03, 2002 (Comments Off) Comments

Nice to see the Angels steal one in New York. I tuned in just as Andy Pettitte was finishing his self-destruct sequence. Stuck around just long enough to see Derek Jeter knock one out against Kevin Appier. Figured that was the beginning of the end, didn’t bother to watch the rest. Saw the highlights, though. Did Troy Glaus pick the right time to get hot, or what?

Anyway, Mike Scioscia has been taking a lot of heat for bringing in the likes of Brendan Donnelly and Ben Weber the past couple nights instead of Troy Percival. The theory is that Percival is the Angels’ best reliever and that managers are somehow stuck on reserving their closers to work only the ninth. But check this out:

             IP  H HR BB SO  ERA
Pitcher A  49.2 32  2 19 54 2.17
Pitcher B  78.0 70  4 22 43 2.54
Pitcher C  56.1 38  5 25 68 1.92

Okay, that’s Donnelly, Weber, and Percival, respectively. So, yeah, Percival has the best numbers of the three, but not by a wide margin. And consider this: Donnelly has been brought in to face guys like Bernie Williams and John VanderWal, left-handed hitters. How has he fared against lefties this season? How about Percy?

Donnelly: .242/.316/.379
Percival: .247/.366/.441

All five of Percival’s home runs allowed were to left-handers, in just 93 at-bats. Interestingly, both homers against Donnelly were by lefties, in 66 at-bats. The point is that maybe Scioscia isn’t an idiot for not bringing in Percival. There are many reasons the Angels made it to the playoffs this year, not the least of which is a deep bullpen. If you can’t ride the guys who got you there, then why even play the games? You’ve already admitted defeat. Sure, Percival is a terrific reliever, but Donnelly and Weber have been pretty darned good this year, too. And nobody knows that better than Scioscia.

Actually, Jayson Stark has a good piece on this very subject over at ESPN.

Padres in the AFL

Vince Faison, playing left field and batting second, was hitless in four at-bats; he also walked once and struck out once. Tagg Bozied, playing first base and again hitting cleanup, homered in five trips to the plate. Ben Risinger got the start at DH; batting eighth, he struck out twice in four at-bats.

. . .

I leave you with this interesting site: Mike’s Baseball Rants.

Contreras Defects, Playoffs Begin, Padres in the AFL

by Geoff Young on Oct 02, 2002 (Comments Off) Comments

This is interesting: Cuban pitcher Contreras defects (Baseball America). Any chance he won’t end up a Yankee? I remember watching that game he pitched against the Orioles. Granted, it was only an exhibition, and the O’s weren’t playing all their best players, but the guy looked real good.

So the playoffs began yesterday. The one game I actually almost cared about (Minnesota/Oakland) was over before I got home. I sat through a few innings of the Angels/Yankees contest; tuned in right after Troy Glaus’ first homer. You just had to know Jason Giambi’s grounder to the right side would find a way through. Honestly, even the baseballs have sold their souls.

Padres in the AFL

Vince Faison, playing right field and batting second, had two singles in five at-bats; he struck out once and was caught stealing. Tagg Bozied, playing first base and hitting cleanup, went hitless in five trips to the plate. Jake Gautreau, playing second base and batting eighth, collected two singles in five at-bats.

McAlister Returns Missed Field Goal 108 Yards

by Geoff Young on Oct 01, 2002 (Comments Off) Comments

So, was that, like, the weirdest play you’ve ever seen in any sporting event last night? In case you missed it, Baltimore’s Chris McAlister returned a missed field goal 108 yards with no time on the clock to end the first half against Denver. Longest play ever in the NFL. Bizarre.

Arizona Fall League begins play tonight. Several Padres are represented. I doubt I’ll get a chance to make it out there again this year. Too bad; it’s a blast.

Not much on my mind today. I’m having trouble getting into the playoffs this year. Basically I’m rooting for the Twins and, failing that, anyone but the Yankees and the Diamondbacks. I think that’s the problem; I still haven’t gotten over the World Series. Why couldn’t they have tied?

Season Over

by Geoff Young on Sep 30, 2002 (Comments Off) Comments

Mercifully, the season is over. Not that I’m happy to see baseball go away for awhile, but watching the Padres these past few weeks has been painful. At least they were able to end on a positive note.

Hey, and how ’bout those Chargers? I followed them seriously from the late ’70s through the time they fired the wrong Bobby. When Ross left, I kinda lost interest. That, followed by the whole Ryan Leaf debacle and, later, the way the club treated John Carney, never quite sat right with me. I still hope they do well, but I’d feel like a hypocrite if I jumped on the bandwagon now.

Minor Leagues

Several Padre minor leaguers have been named by Baseball America among their league’s best prospects:

  • Sean Thompson, LHP, IdF (R+), #19 PIO
  • Josh Barfield, 2B, FtW (A), #19 MDW
  • Oliver Perez, LHP, LkE (A+) #2 CAL
  • Xavier Nady, DH, LkE (A+) #6 CAL
  • Khalil Greene, SS, LkE (A+) #14 CAL
  • Mark Phillips, LHP, LkE (A+) #17 CAL
  • Jake Gautreau, 2B, LkE (A+) #20 CAL
  • Jake Peavy, RHP, Mob (AA) #1 SOU
  • Dennis Tankersley, RHP, Mob (AA) #10 SOU
  • Sean Burroughs, 2B/3B, Por (AAA) #6 PCL
  • Dennis Tankersley, RHP, Por (AAA) #14 PCL

Personally, I think they’re underestimating Greene and Phillips. Most of the others seem reasonable to me.

Places To Go, Things To Do

I haven’t yet cast my votes at the IBA. Off the top of my head, I’ll probably go with Barry Bonds, Randy Johnson, Jason Jennings, and Jim Tracy for MVP, CYA, ROY, and MOY, respectively, in the NL. In the AL, it’ll be A-Rod, Barekro Zitowetinez (one of Barry Zito, Derek Lowe, or Pedro Martinez; this is probably the toughest call for me), Rodrigo Lopez (maybe Eric Hinske; the party line says Hinske but I’m not 100% convinced), and I guess Art Howe. Maybe Ron Gardenhire. I mean, MLB didn’t even want his team to exist and they made the playoffs. How cool is that?

Speaking of which, is it just me or is it great to see — with apologies to their fan — the Milwaukee franchise so utterly and completely disintegrate? Karma is a beautiful thing…

Justin Germano, Part Deux

by Geoff Young on Sep 27, 2002 (Comments Off) Comments

TV Guide has named Diana Rigg the sexiest TV star of all time. One of my other non-baseball vices is The Avengers so this pleases me to no end.

. . .

Two stats I like to look at are PQS and Qmax. Each of these measures a pitcher’s effectiveness on a game-by-game basis. Let’s see how Germano does:

PQS No.
  5 11
  4  5
  3 12
  2  1
  1  0
  0  1

Ron Shandler, who created PQS, also has something he calls dominant (DOM) and disaster (DIS) starts. The former are starts that register a PQS of 4 or 5, while the latter are those that register a 0 or 1. By this measure, Germano had 16 dominant starts and just 1 disaster. Put another way, 53% of his starts fell into the dominant range, while just 3% were disasters. And it should be noted that the lone disaster was his final start of the season.

Just for the sake of comparison, here are some big-leaguers who have had similar DOM and DIS percentages in recent years:

Name         Year DOM DIS
Dempster,Ry  2000  55   3
Kile,Da      2001  59   3
Leiter,Al    2000  58   6
Moyer,Ja     2001  52   6
Schilling,Cu 2000  59   3

Again, none of this is meant to suggest how Germano might devleop, but rather is intended to give an idea of how his performance in 2002 relative to his environment stacks up against some recent seasons by big-league hurlers.

How about Qmax? Here’s how that breaks out:

GS    S    C    T SS ES HH PP TJ SF
30 4.03 2.47 6.50 47 20 27  0 20 17

So what the heck does this mean? It’s pretty esoteric stuff, especially all the two-letter codes at the right. For more on those, I refer you to the Qmax Glossary. While you’re digesting that, I’ll throw out Germano’s actual numbers broken down according to category of start:

     G   IP  H  R ER HR BB SO  ERA BB/9 SO/9 BB/SO HR/9
SS  14 69.2 44 14 14  4 10 57 1.81 1.29 7.36 5.70  0.52
ES   6 45.0 27  8  8  3  5 40 1.80 1.00 8.00 8.00  0.68
HH   8 43.0 70 29 25  3  8 32 5.36 1.71 6.86 4.00  0.65

First off, it should be noted that the Qmax tool was developed to measure the performance of big-league starters. I have no idea whether or how well it translates to minor-leaguers. I still think it’s interesting to look at because, well, to be completely honest with you, I have a fascination with numbers that transcends reason.

But beyond that, we may be able to learn something from looking at Germano’s performance in this light. First, he has impeccable control. Sure, but we already knew that from the 27 walks in 190.2 innings. So the 2.47 command number merely reinforces what we already knew.

But if we look at some of the other numbers (and I’m not going to go into a lengthy explanation of this stuff, because as I’ve said, it’s pretty esoteric), there are a few items worth noting. First, on a game-by-game basis, Germano’s hit prevention wasn’t all that great. He allowed fewer hits than innings pitched in just under half of his starts. This isn’t shocking given his high hit total for the season. But what’s intriguing is the fact that when he was able to keep the hit totals down, he frequently kept them way down (those are the six starts categorized as "ES").

Well, on further reflection, I’m not sure that we can learn a lot from looking at these breakdowns so much as reinforce what Germano’s seasonal stats already indicate: He is an extreme finesse pitcher. What interests me most is that despite this fact, Germano has shown the ability to dominate hitters over the course of an individual game. Whether this is a case of a polished pitcher taking advantage of inexperienced batters or of a kid who knows how to pitch starting to grow into his body and build velocity remains to be seen.

In parting, I’ll leave you to take a look at some big-league performances of the past decade that are similar to what Germano did this year (data gathered from Big Bad Baseball Annual 2000):

Name          Year GS    S    C    T SS ES HH PP TJ SF
Benes,An      1992 34 3.91 2.62 6.53 56 24 32  3 15 --
Brown,Ke      1992 35 4.03 2.43 6.46 46 26 26  0 14 --
Harnisch,Pe   1995 18 3.89 2.61 6.50 61 22 28  0 11 --
Lima,Jo       1999 35 4.14 2.31 6.46 57  9 31  0 26 --
Mulholland,Te 1991 34 4.03 2.56 6.59 53 32 26  0 12 --
Neagle,De     1995 31 4.16 2.42 6.58 52 13 26  6 35 --
Neagle,De     1996 33 4.03 2.58 6.61 55 24 24  3 15 --
Perez,Ca      1998 34 4.03 2.65 6.68 53 15 29  3 21 --

Once again, I don’t know how (if at all) predictive any of this is. But I find it interesting to look more closely at Germano’s season than cumulative stats allow. Maybe you will, too…

Bill Bryson, Rush, and Justin Germano

by Geoff Young on Sep 26, 2002 (Comments Off) Comments

One of the things I did up in Ashland was visit some cool bookstores. At one of the stores I picked up a couple of books: The B.B. King Companion by Richard Kostelanetz, and Made in America by Bill Bryson. I bought the former because I’m a blues fan and because I once ran a piece by Kostelanetz in a tiny literary magazine I published some years ago. The latter caught my eye thanks to an old college roommate of mine with whom I recently began corresponding after losing track of him for the better part of a decade.

I haven’t started in on the B.B. King book yet, but I’m about halfway through Bryson’s work. If you have any interest in the English language (and you should; you’re soaking in it) and/or the American (as in USA) culture, give this book a read. It’s well researched, eloquent, and humorous.

Rush

Saw ‘em last night. I’ve been going to their shows since the late ’80s, and they’re still the best rock band I’ve ever seen live. I could go on for hours about this, so I’ll drop it now. Just thought you should know. Oh, and Alex Lifeson is an absolute god.

General Apology

Sorry for all the non-baseball stuff lately. The thing is, my team, the Padres, have been out of contention since about 1999 or so. It’s like when the game is 14-0 in the fourth inning, and the announcers start talking about what they ate for breakfast or whatever. That’s kind of where I’m at right now.

Keep Feeling Fascination

Bruce Bochy is talking about moving Mark Kotsay to right field next season to accommodate — wait for it — Eugene Kingsale. You knew that was coming, right? In other news, the producers of Malcolm in the Middle are discussing moving Malcolm out of the middle to make room for the long-anticipated return of Vanilla Ice. Now do you understand why I spend so much time talking about non-baseball stuff? It’s to preserve what little sanity I have left.

On the bright side, it looks like the Pads may have found a couple diamonds-in-the-proverbial-rough in right-handers Clay Condrey and Brandon Villafuerte.

As the Glove Turns

In more possible position changes, Phil Nevin has volunteered to play left field next season. I like this move, if for no other reason than it buys time for Xavier Nady (well, and it keeps Burroughs at third, where he belongs). Then, once Kingsale proves he’s not an everyday player, Kotsay can move back to center, and either Nevin or Nady can move to right. The only downside is, that’s a pretty statuesque (not in a good way) outfield there. Keep those grounders coming, boys…

Minor-League Honors

Justin Germano earned honors as top pitcher, while Jon Knott and Josh Barfield shared Player of the Year honors. Let’s take a closer look at Germano’s season. Stats below are unofficial and include the Cal League playoffs.

       IP   H  R ER HR BB  SO  ERA BB/9 SO/9 BB/SO HR/9
Apr  36.1  36 14 11  2  5  28 2.72 1.24 6.94  5.60 0.50
May  31.1  31 12 12  2  4  22 3.45 1.15 6.32  5.50 0.57
Jun  35.2  38 16 15  6  5  31 3.79 1.26 7.82  6.20 1.51
Jul  41.2  44 13 11  2  5  31 2.38 1.08 6.70  6.20 0.43
Aug  29.2  29 11  9  2  5  25 2.73 1.52 7.58  5.00 0.61
Sep  16.0  22 10 10  0  3  15 5.63 1.69 8.44  5.00 0.00

Tot 190.2 200 76 68 14 27 152 3.21 1.27 7.17  5.63 0.66

There are a few things that stand out here. First, Germano’s numbers are ridiculously consistent across the board. The only numbers that really jump out as not belonging are his June home run rate and his September ERA. The former is skewed thanks to one start in which he surrendered four taters. The latter is hurt by his final start of the season, when he likely was running on fumes.

This brings me to point number two, which I’ve mentioned in the past. I worry about the innings total. Germano pitched most of the season as a 19-year-old. I haven’t seen him personally, so I don’t know anything about his mechanics. I do worry about the innings, but the one potential saving grace is the fact that he doesn’t issue many walks. I’m hoping that this efficiency kept his pitch counts down during the season. But the innings are a concern. Of the young Padre arms, he and Oliver Perez are the ones I’m not sure are being handled as well as they could be.

Gotta run for now. We’ll continue with Germano tomorrow…

Back from Ashland

by Geoff Young on Sep 25, 2002 (0) Comments

I’m back from a week on the road. Drove up to Ashland, saw some plays (Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale and Michael Frayn’s Noises Off for the curious), hung with the ‘rents. It was great to get away and relax for a bit. Vacations are always a little depressing, though. I mean, wouldn’t it be cool if you didn’t have to go back to work at the end?

From the Vault

Rummaging through the archives is always amusing. In order to save space, I’ll spare you all the things I said that turned out horribly wrong and limit myself to three (yes, amazingly enough I was able to find three) comments I made that actually look pretty smart right now.

  • Last August I brashly predicted that Ryan Klesko would knock 40 bombs this year, 10 off lefties. Well, he’s fallen short on both accounts, with 29 and 8, respectively, but that’s not bad. And even though he’s tailed off against southpaws of late, he’s still hitting a respectable .293/.378/.507 against them.
  • In October I suggested the Pads trade Phil Nevin to Atlanta for Odalis Perez and Wilson Betemit. To be honest, I’d completely forgotten about that, but wouldn’t Perez look good in San Diego right about now?
  • This January I made a WAG projection for Ben Davis this year: .254/.341/.393 in 280 at-bats. Through September 16, he’s at .257/.313/.395 in 210 at-bats. Now that they’re pretty much out of it, why aren’t the Mariners giving him more playing time?

Also rediscovered a few interesting sites. I’ve added these to the increasingly out-of-control list over on the right, so you have no excuse not to visit these:

All are well worth the trip…

Local News

USD product Ricky Barrett was named the Appy League’s pitcher of the year. Infielder Mike McCoy made that league’s post-season all-star team. Way to go, guys.

Five Great Singers

  • Bjork
  • Keli’i Kaneali’i
  • Pat Benatar
  • Kurt Elling
  • k.d. lang

Four Great Places

This has been sitting around, waiting for a rainy day. Well, it’s not raining, but I’m getting tired of looking at it, so here ya go. Some of my favorite spots in and around San Diego:

  • San Diego Zoo — This for my money is the best spot in San Diego. Both the zoo and its sister, the Wild Animal Park, are a great place to just hang out and relax. Weekday mornings off-season are best. Not too hot, and not too crowded.
  • Dudley’s Bakery — This is actually a fairly good drive from San Diego, in the tiny town of Santa Ysabel. The bread and pastries are excellent, and the people are friendly. A must stop on the way to Julian.
  • Adams Avenue — Cool part of town that features an impressive array of antique and book stores, along with some good eateries and the Ken Cinema, which shows everything “from independent fare to foreign language cinema to restored classics.” My personal favorite was watching Monty Python’s Holy Grail complete with spam toss. The theater is definitely old-school, but it’s got a lot of character.
  • Balboa Park — The zoo is here. The theater is here. A bunch of museums are here. Basically there’s a lot to do at Balboa Park. My favorite museums are the Aerospace Museum and the Ruben H. Fleet Space Theater. San Diego’s Hall of Champions is also worth a visit. Some neat memorabilia of local sports heroes, including Ted Williams, Tony Gwynn, and skateboarder Tony Hawk, among others.

Final Thought

Nothing profound. It’s good to be back. Hard to believe the season is almost over. I’ll be breaking out the pitching logs for Padre minor leaguers pretty soon, so stay tuned…

Storm Watch, USD Alumni, and Sickels and Win Shares

by Geoff Young on Sep 16, 2002 (Comments Off) Comments

Hey, the Chargers are 2-0. It’s early and they haven’t faced real stiff competition yet but that defense sure is looking good so far.

This will be my last post until probably next weekend, so I’ll try to pack it full of information. Meantime, while I’m gone, feel free to read through the archives, visit some of the terrific sites over there on the right, or do whatever else you want to (who the heck am I to tell you what to do, anyway, LOL).

So, without further ado…

Storm Watch

Stockton beat the Storm twice at Elsinore to take the Cal League championship. Still, it was a heckuva season for the Storm. Having lost two of their top hitters to promotion and another to injury, they managed to parlay a 10-game
winning streak to finish the season into a playoff berth and a chance to defend their title. But alas, it wasn’t to be.

Justin Germano took the loss in the finale; for the first time all season he failed to go five innings. Of longer-term concern is the fact that he made 30 starts and worked 190.2 innings as a 19-year-old. Not good. Here’s hoping the heavy workload doesn’t create problems for Germano down the road.

USD Alumni

Now that the season is done, I thought I’d take a look at how some former Toreros are doing as pros:

                IP  H HR BB SO  ERA
Ricky Barrett 63.2 49  2 25 79 1.27

             AB   BA  OBP  SLG BB SO
Joe Lima    258 .256 .304 .419 15 67
Mike McCoy  154 .312 .465 .461 42 23
Kevin Reese 514 .290 .385 .383 77 87
Greg Sain   387 .245 .323 .421 35 77

If you know of others, please let me know.

Sickels and Win Shares

I’m still collecting data on John Sickels and win shares. I’m through the R’s now, so the data set isn’t quite complete yet. Meantime, I’ve thought of something else to do with the numbers: look at peer groups. Basically there are a couple ways to do this. One is to examine players who were assigned similar grades at the same age. Another is to look at players who have similar Win Share totals over the course of their career.

Sickels assigned five outfielders a straight A grade in his 1996 book: Bob Abreu, Johnny Damon, Karim Garcia, Andruw Jones, and Ruben Rivera. Of these, Damon, Abreu, and Rivera were all 22 years old at the time of evaluation.

Here are their respective minor-league numbers through 1995:

         AB   BA  OBP  SLG  BB  SO
Abreu  1952 .295 .371 .456 240 397
Damon  1599 .318 .402 .480 211 194
Rivera 1357 .280 .381 .525 192 417

Now let’s look at their big-league stats through 2001. I’ve thrown in win shares per 500 plate appearances (at-bats + walks) at the end just for the sake of giving a rate stat. This is so we can see, e.g., the true difference between Abreu and Damon in terms of value (yeah, it’s kind of a bogus stat because win shares includes defensive value, too, but it’s quick and easy, and it makes the general point well enough):

         AB   BA  OBP  SLG  BB  SO  WS WS/500
Abreu  2417 .307 .408 .522 422 550 107  18.84
Damon  3701 .286 .346 .425 336 420  98  12.14
Rivera 1378 .218 .310 .405 163 451  32  10.38

The obvious conclusion is that not all players develop the same way. We have three players who were more or less evenly regarded as prospects back in 1996. One of them has improved his game across the board at the big-league level, one hasn’t developed to the extent anticipated but has still been a productive player, and one has seen every aspect of his game deteriorate to the point where he’s barely hanging onto a roster spot. The question, then, is what happened? The answer, unsatisfying though it may be, is that I don’t know.

Now let’s look at players who have similar win shares totals for each of these players. Analogs for Abreu include Brian Giles, Vlad Guerrero, and Andruw Jones.

Here are their minor-league numbers through 1995:

           AB   BA  OBP  SLG  BB  SO Age Grade
Abreu    1952 .295 .371 .456 240 397  22   A
Giles    2255 .306 .396 .429 333 287  25   B
Guerrero  558 .328 .379 .548  41  63  20   A-
Jones     775 .281 .371 .481  95 166  18   A

Big-league stats through 2001:

           AB   BA  OBP  SLG  BB  SO  WS WS/500
Abreu    2417 .307 .408 .522 422 550 107  18.84
Giles    2513 .303 .409 .560 454 355 116  19.55
Guerrero 2755 .319 .378 .587 234 361 119  19.91
Jones    2960 .268 .337 .487 294 610 122  18.75

All of these guys were rock-solid prospects, although it took Giles a while to get himself noticed. Three of these players have developed beyond what their minor-league numbers would suggest, while the fourth isn’t too far off and also, being the youngest of the group, might yet improve.

Analogs for Damon include Mike Cameron and Matt Lawton:

Minor-league numbers through 1995:

          AB   BA  OBP  SLG  BB  SO Age Grade
Cameron 1566 .243 .330 .361 179 398  23   C+
Damon   1599 .318 .402 .480 211 194  22   A
Lawton  1371 .282 .393 .425 228 204  24   B+

Big-league stats through 2001:

          AB   BA  OBP  SLG  BB  SO WS WS/500
Cameron 2449 .252 .344 .433 323 657 90  16.23
Damon   3701 .286 .346 .425 336 420 98  12.14
Lawton  2855 .275 .378 .424 430 369 90  13.70

Neither Cameron nor Lawton was as highly regarded as Damon as a prospect. I’d venture to say that if you’d told just about anyone back in 1996 that Cameron would be having a more productive career at this point than Damon, they’d have thought you were out of your mind. Cameron has developed well beyond reasonable expectations, while Lawton has pretty much matched what he did in the minors.

Analogs for Rivera are Juan Encarnacion and Torii Hunter:

Minor-league numbers through 1995:

              AB   BA  OBP  SLG  BB  SO Age Grade
Encarnacion  743 .264 .323 .425  51 206  20   C
Hunter       826 .258 .335 .369  67 180  20   C+
Rivera      1357 .280 .381 .525 192 417  22   A

Big-league stats through 2001:

              AB   BA  OBP  SLG  BB  SO WS WS/500
Encarnacion 1670 .269 .310 .444  78 339 32   9.15
Hunter      1301 .264 .310 .429  75 271 32  11.63
Rivera      1378 .218 .310 .405 163 451 32  10.38

The fact that Rivera’s big-league comps are a couple of guys who were considered vastly inferior prospects at the time is a rather damning indictment of his lack of development as a ballplayer. It’s hard to remember now, but Rivera once was considered on par with Andruw Jones as a prospect.

Torii Hunter appears to be one of those late bloomers (although even he’s not exactly old), and even Encarnacion has managed to make it as a big-league regular. Both of these guys are going to blow right past Rivera in career totals before too long. And I don’t think that’s something anyone could have imagined just a few years ago.

Anyway, I’m not quite sure where I’m going with all this. I think the real points are that (a) players with similar statistical profiles and pedigrees don’t necessarily develop the same way and (b) win shares is a really cool way to demonstrate this. Someone more clever than me might be able to do some interesting work with this. If anyone’s interested in seeing the data set, let me know and I’ll be happy to pass it along when it’s complete.

Final Thought

ESPN has an interview with Dr. Frank Jobe in which the inventor of Tommy John surgery talks about the procedure. It’s a good read.

Okay, I’m out of here. Be good to each other, and I’ll talk to you in a bit…