This is a typical, rambling post with no real theme. After I get done discussing something completely unrelated to baseball, I’ve got some thoughts on Dave Bush and Josh Banks, along with some links …
I was just thinking, with finals coming up, why aren’t college (and high school) grades adjusted in any way? I would say the class that I learned the most from this year — a history class — is also the one that will get me the lowest grade (probably a C or C+). I am perfectly fine with that because, in general, I’m not all that worried about grades. I’d like to go to a class, put in the amount of work that I usually put in, and learn something from it. Now it’s nice when that also comes with a decent grade, but with the amount of work that I do put in, that is not always possible.
Anyway, there are two main reasons why my grade will be lower in that class than the others: the teacher (whoops, I guess it’s “professor” now) is pretty difficult and the material is difficult, at least relative to my other classes. If I had to guess I’d say the class average will be like a C and the class average in my other four classes will be in the B area.
Now let’s figure somebody takes five ‘easy’ classes (B averages) and sombody else takes five tough ones. Obviously, it’s not hard to see what’s going on here. One kid can get a C overall and be completely average, compared to the class averages, and another kid can get a B overall and also be completely average. One has a 2.0 gpa or whatever and the other a 3. But, really, they both performed similarly. Like I said before, I don’t really care all that much about grades. But when so much depends on them (playing sports, academic awards, scholarships, staying in the school, getting a job, etc.), why is there no effort to normalize them? Hah! Scholasticmetrics — a new field.
If I write four paragraphs on adjusting school grades, you know it’s going to be a relatively long post. Well, is anyone interested in seeing the Pads pick up Dave Bush? The Brewers just sent him down to the minors. Whenever I see the idea of dealing for pitching brought up, I usually see a similar response from Pads’ fans – “Sure, if we needed pitching, he’d be fine” or something like that. There are two reasons why I don’t particularly agree with that notion:
1. Due to Petco (I’m sure you know what’s coming), the pitching always looks overrated and the hitting always looked underrated. Take a look at BP’s projected final standings — NL averages: 774 RS, 776 RA; Padres: 692 RS, 708 RA
Initially, they look like a team with a great pitching staff and a terrible offense. But, after you throw in the .92 park adjustment, you get: 752 RS, 769 RA. Now they look like a team with a slightly above average pitching (actually, run prevention) and slightly below average hitting. Yeah, it’s quite a difference. Suddenly, trading for a pitcher doesn’t seem that absurd. Combine that we the fact that the Padres have significant injury risks in the rotation (Wolf, Young, even Maddux if you buy PECOTA, not to mention Prior if you’re counting on him) and I think it makes all the more sense.
2. The second reason is that even if you believe the pitching is that much better than the offense, there is still value to add there. If you can create a situation where you give up even less runs, you’re going to win more games, regardless of the performance of the offense. You may be able to gain more wins by adding an impact bat, but it’s not like there’s a point where it stops making sense to reduce the amount of runs you allow. As quickly as somebody says, “you can’t win if you don’t score,” I can say, “you can’t lose if you don’t give up any runs” or something of equivalent ridiculousness.
The real crux of the issue, though, is Dave Bush and his ability to pitch in the majors. MGL has his normalized component ERA over the last four years at:
04: 3.61
05: 4.44
06: 3.42
07: 4.47
Average, for MGL’s version, is 4, by the way. That’s an unweighted (but weighted for inning, of course) average of 3.98 — so he’s been very much an average pitcher over the last four seasons. This year, in a measly 23 innings, it’s 4.87. Of course, the Padres don’t get bonus points for finding a guy who has pitched well in the past. What they want is a guy who will pitch well in the future. I’d certainly argue that four years of average pitching outweigh, by far, 23 innings of well below average pitching, if we only can use the numbers.
If, for whatever reason, Bush is a different pitcher, the usefulness of the numbers is obviously going to be lessened. If you look at his fan graphs page, Bush’s fastball velocity has dropped about 1.5 mph from his 05-06 level (his other pitches have dropped as well). This could be due to, in my best guess, a myriad of factors: the data recorders are off, Bush is a slow starter, everyone starts slow, he’s aging, parks/mounds, there’s trouble with his mechanics or arm, randomness, etc.
But I think that Bush, or a guy like him (that a team ditches early), is a great candidate for the Padres to investigate. One other good thing about him, before I move on to something else, is his contract; he’s under control for 2009 and ‘10. So he’s a legitimate investment and not just a guy that will patch a hole this season.
The Padres picked up a pitcher, Josh Banks, off waivers the other day. If you look at his First Inning card there, you can see that he has great control and what I would assume is not dominating stuff. His strikeout rates are not very impressive and he also gets absolutely pounded quite often (157 extra base hits in ‘06 and ‘07 combined). I’ll be the first to tell you that I don’t trust an analysis which merely glances over his minor league numbers, but I’m not impressed with Banks really. That said, maybe the Padres see something … maybe they figure his power numbers against will be suppressed by Petco or something. Maybe the scouts see something. I don’t know. I’m not expecting much.
Now for some links:
Jonathan Hale has a fascinating look at the Peavy vs. Webb battle from Sunday. That’s just fun stuff. And it’s great to watch these guys, with such different styles, battle for Cy Young’s every year. Then you throw in Johan Santana, and his lefhandedness and great changeup, and you’ve got another different type of pitcher in the mix.
Eric Seidman has a detailed analysis of Matt Cain with PITCHf/x up at Statistically Speaking.
Speaking of Statspeak, Geoff Young was in a round table over there. Regarding what stats I’d like to see on tv broadcasts, I’d personally be fine (thrilled, actually) with BA/OBP/SLG. To make everyone happy, they could throw in runs and rbi and steals and whatever else. It’s not really because I think the masses need to be educated on stats; it’s simply because I’d like to know how the guy is playing! .200, 8 home runs, 20 rbis really means very little to me … but if they show .200/.387/.521, 8 home runs, 20 rbis then I know it’s Adam Dunn in a mid-May. And, more importantly, I know the guy is having a nice offensive season. Most fans know about obp and slg. and they would not be really hard to explain or display. In fact, I’ve seen them listed a few times on various telecasts. Another thing I hate is when they stop showing seasonal numbers after each players’ first ab and switch to game stats. I know NESN used to do this (and still may; I haven’t noticed).