by Ben Davey

Continuing with my outlook at the full season minor league teams, we are now at AA San Antonio Missions.

Last year the Missions made the playoffs by the skin of their teeth (winning the 1st half) but were quickly sent packing. They finished exactly at .500 (70-70), but never showed signs of the dominance that you would like to see. Many of the “top prospects” from the 2009 team either had a disappointing year (Hunter, Carrillo) or were injured for nearly the entire season (Kulbacki).

The 2010 staff will feature a surplus of great pitching sent from Lake Elsinore, and a shot at redemption for a few quality prospects. If players can stay healthy 2010 can be a big year for the Missions.

Read the rest of this entry »

by Daniel Gettinger

Generally speaking, I like what the Padres have done this winter.  The team has paid cheaply for upgrades at starting pitcher and a few bench slots.  The Padres also got better by trading Kevin Kouzmanoff for Scott Hairston and Aaron Cunningham, allowing Chase Headley to slide over to his natural third-base position and pushing Kyle Blanks to the much less demanding (at least in Petco) left-field slot.

That said, in retrospect, I would have handled the second base position differently.  I would have forgone signing David Eckstein and Yorvit Torrealba.  I would have used the savings to ink Orlando Hudson to a one-year contract.

The Padres will pay David Eckstein $1MM in 2010.  Torrealba will receive $1.25MM.  Although both may be worth slightly more than his salary, neither are different makers.  Orlando Hudson is due to earn $5MM on a one-year contract from the Twins.

According to Websoulsurfer, the Padres current payroll (which includes Eckstein and Torrealba) stands at approximately $38MM.  In December, Padres CEO Jeff Moorad said the Padres 2010 payroll would “start with a four.”  That suggests the Padres currently have at least $2MM to spend on payroll.

The following chart shows the salary and projected WAR for Torrealba and Eckstein, as well as Orlando Hudson.

Had the Padres not signed Eckstein or Torrealba, they would have had $4.25MM to play with ($2.25MM in saved salary plus the $2MM the team currently has to spend).  At that point, spending an extra $0.75MM to sign Hudson may have been approved.

Lets assume the Padres end up spending $40.075MM on their 2010 payroll.  The Padres three primary signings this season-Eckstein, Jerry Hairston and Torrealba-signed for an expected $3.36MM/win.  To reach $40.075MM, the Padres will need to spend an additional $2.075MM.  At $3.36MM/win, the Padres could expect to add 0.62 wins with their leftover funds.  0.62 plus the expected contributions of Eckstein and Torrealba totals 1.42 wins.

If the Padres had instead signed Hudson, their expected WAR would have been 2.5 for the same amount of spending.  Sure the Padres would have been a bit thinner at catcher, but under this calculation I am valuing Dusty Ryan at replacement level and the team still comes out 1.08 wins ahead.

Even if the Padres were unable to sign Hudson, they could have reached out to Felipe Lopez who is still a free agent.  It is unlikely Lopez will sign for more money than Hudson, and he provides similar expected value.  I prefer Hudson because his performance has been more consistent year-to-year than Lopez, but that extra risk is likely to result in a slightly lower salary for Lopez.

By re-signing David Eckstein, the Padres limited their options immensely.  They locked themselves in at second base with a pretty mediocre player.  This prevented the Padres from taking advantage of potential bargains at the position.  As a result, the team ended up spending much of their remaining funds on bench upgrades.  However, if Eckstein was not re-signed, the Padres could have forgone signing Yorvit Torrealba as well as whatever marginal upgrades they end up making with their remaining funds.  In return, they could have signed a quality player like Orlando Hudson (or Felipe Lopez) at a lower rate per win.

Edit: I realize Towers was the GM when Eckstein was signed.  I am not blaming Hoyer. I was merely suggesting that if we could “play” the off-season again, this is what I would do.

by Myron Logan

On Friday, Jed Hoyer and the Padres signed veteran catcher Yorvit Torrealba to a one year, $1.25 million deal, with a mutual option in 2011.

Assuming $3.5 million per win, the Padres are paying Torrealba like a .3-.4 WAR player. That is probably a slight bargain for Torrealba, who, as a part time catcher, has averaged about .8 WAR a year over the last three years.

While the contract is fine and Torreabla actually adds something at catcher for the Pads, he’s obviously by no means a difference maker.  He’ll be 32 years old and his wOBA has hovered around .300 in hitter-friendly Colorado. He hits the ball on the ground a lot — about 55% of the time — which might help to ease the transition to Petco, though generally is not a good sign for a slow-moving catcher.

What has to be applauded about the deal, though, is that rather than overpaying for a veteran catcher, Hoyer and company, if anything, underpaid on the free agent market. You could argue, like I have before, that they would have been better off going with someone making the minimum, and putting the $1.25M to use elsewhere. But, if it’s going to be spent on this year’s roster, at least it is being spent effectively.

by Ben Davey

Madfriars released my list of top 30 prospects on their site today. My list is slightly different from many of the other prospect lists because I have not bought into the Tate hype. I actually ranked him lower then both Sampson and Williams.

My top 5 were as follows
Jaff Decker
Simon Castro
Kellen Kulbacki
Aaron Poreda
James Darnell

One other interesting thing to note is that there were probably 20 names I considered for the top 10 and about as many names of players I have seen make other “experts” top 10. Combine that with the fact that of the top 30 only 2 (Poreda and Huffman) have any chance of making the team out of ST, and you see a list that is poised to move up even higher in the rankings, especially with another top 10 draft choice.

Madfriars will release their combined top prospect list at the end of the month, and we will concurrently release our interview with them on rankings, philosophy, and the new direction of the front office.

Also did you guys notice that apparently I look just like Denis Savage?

by Daniel Gettinger

Sky Andrecheck weighed in on the Garland signing on SI.com.  He rated the signing as one of the best starting pitching gambles of this offseason:

3. Jon Garland, Padres

Age:30
Projected WAR:2.3 Wins
Contract:1 year, $5.3 million

While San Diego doesn’t look to be a contender in 2010, the Garland contract is a real steal. Garland posted a 4.01 ERA in 200 innings in 2009, a figure that was slightly better, but not totally out of line with the rest of his career numbers. The Bill James, CHONE, and Marcel projection systems put his likely 2010 ERA in the mid-to-low 4.00’s — a very respectable figure. Besides that, Garland is durable (at least 190 IP in each of the last 8 seasons), and he’s young (just 30 years old). All of that sounds like a guy who would be in the market for a big multi-year deal, especially considering the crop of starting pitchers wasn’t particularly strong this off-season. After all, he was pretty much the same pitcher in 2006 when he signed a three-year $29 million contract — a contract on which he largely paid dividends.

How then, did new Padres GM Jed Hoyer manage to sign Garland for a one-year $5.3 million contract? That’s probably what a host of other teams would like to know as well. Last year, Garland had the misfortune of going to an extremely deep Dodgers team that didn’t really have space for him, which probably affected his perceived value. Garland’s not a Cy Young candidate, but he would provide significant value as a middle of the rotation starter to most teams. On the Padres, he probably provides even more value, as they’re not exactly teeming with quality starting pitchers. Critics may point out that the Padres aren’t likely to go anywhere with or without Garland, so why make the move (some of these critics may or may not be the same ones criticizing the Padres for not spending any money)? The fact is that even if the Padres aren’t going to the World Series, respectability matters to the fans and at the box office and these types of smart signings that can slowly improve the club are a path to a better future.

Basically, Andrecheck says in a few words what I tried to express in many words. “Respectability matters.”

by Daniel Gettinger

From an offensive perspective, players who get on base are good.  Players who hit for power are too. Players who both reach base frequently, and hit for power are really good.

Because a good measure of getting on base is on-base percentage (OBP), and a decent measure of power is slugging percentage (SLG), it has become somewhat mainstream to evaluate offensive performance by combining the two measures into OPS (OBP+SLG).

Unfortunately, adding SLG to OBP, while easy to calculate, is not an entirely accurate measure of offensive performance.  The main reason is OPS treats OBP and SLG as equals that are scaled in the same manner.  In fact, OBP is actually more important than SLG.  Given two players with the same OPS, the one with the higher OBP is better offensively.

Inside the Book Blog recently published an excerpt from PAAPFLY that illustrates the issue:

Continuing my bashing of Bengie Molina, allow me to show you how his terrible OBP can be quite detrimental. Bengie Molina posted a .727 OPS in 2009, which isn’t very good. Ryan Theriot managed to post an even lower OPS of .712 in 2009. He must be the inferior offensive player. Wrong. Molina’s wOBA is actually .308 to Theriot’s .318. Though Theriot slugged 73 points less than Molina, his OBP was 58 points higher, and, wOBA shows us that his 58 OBP points to Molina’s 73 slugging points were actually worth an additional 10 points in wOBA. This is just a quick example and a good way to illustrate just how much Molina’s extraordinary out making skills truly do hurt his team, offensively of course.

From a Padres’ perspective, I liken the Molina/Theriot example to that of Chase Headley and Kevin Kouzmanoff.  This is how Kouzmanoff and Headley stacked up in 2009:

	OBP	SLG	OPS	wOBA
Kouzmanoff	0.302	0.420	0.722	0.312
Headley	0.342	0.392	0.734	0.328

Although not a perfect example (because Headley’s OPS was slightly higher than Kouzmanoff’s OPS), we can see that Headley’s wOBA is 5% greater than Kouzmanoff’s wOBA, compared to only a 1.6% difference in OPS. The reason is Headley’s superior on base skills.

OPS is an okay estimate of offensive skill.  But the only advantage it has over a stat like wOBA, which properly weights OBP and OPS, is ease of calculability.  It would be nearly impossible to calculate a player’s wOBA based on the information given by the stadium scoreboard, or the Channel 4 stat-line.  However, outside of convenience, there is no good reason to use OPS.

by Myron Logan

Bloomberg Sports is launching new fantasy and professional baseball products. Today, they unveiled their products at their NYC headquarters, which had my Twitter page abuzz. David Appelman has some really cool screenshots at FanGraphs, including this one:

I’m not sure how much of what they are doing hasn’t already been done on the ‘net, but the presentation sure looks nice. Plus, the ability to easily toggle through all MLB players is a huge bonus. This is the major league product, so I don’t think we’ll be seeing much more of it. Sure is fun to look at, though.

by Daniel Gettinger

Earlier, Myron asked:

Would the $5.3M the Padres gave Garland be better utilized on, say, locking up young players currently on the roster, future draft pick signing bonuses, international signings, and improving the scouting, player development, and analysis departments?

Myron’s question is a good one, and some, including R.J. Anderson of Fangraphs have answered “yes, Garland’s impact on the club’s playoff aspirations is minimal, and therefore the money would be better spent in other areas.”

Tom Waits, in the comment section (2) of Myron’s post adds further complexity to the issue.  He writes:

If there was a good chance that the Padres would have spent the Garland money in other ways, I’d be on the same page with Myron. Using Garland’s 5 million in the draft or internationally could buy you 8-10 years of control each for multiple talented players. But if the major league and amateur budgets are separate, which doesn’t make a lot of sense but might still be true, then signing Garland isn’t robbing Peter to pay Paul. Peter was never going to get that money anyway.

Tom is mostly correct.  If the budgets for major league talent and “everything else” are completely separate (I doubt they are), then the Garland signing probably constitutes the best use of the Padres’ remaining budgeted funds, and is in a fact a good one.

However, as Tom alluded to, I bet that management has at least some flexibility to spend funds at their discretion.  If spending additional money at the major league level is not looking like a good investment, then it can probably transfer some of that to other areas.

Even in a world where management has full discretion over its spending, it may still make sense to spend money on a team not expected to compete for a post-season birth.

Sometimes we forget that marginal wins matter even for teams not expected to reach the post-season. Those wins still result in marginal revenue.

Furthermore, revenue generated is probably dependent not just on performance in the current season, but also performance in past seasons.  The Padres’ mediocre performance in 2009 is likely to negatively affect revenue in 2010. That the Padres were also bad in 2008 further magnifies the situation.  I believe a string of consecutive poor performances may have the ability to significantly drive the revenue curve down. That is, for any given level of wins, revenue will be lower if past performance was poor than if it was good.

If you accept such a model, achieving at least some reasonable level of success in  2010 can be important, and change the result of the cost-benefit analysis Tom and Myron were discussing.  A poor 2010 season would result in three consecutive bad seasons at the major league level, shifting the 2011 revenue curve even further downward (all else equal).

Because we do not have access to the Padres detailed financial information, it is impossible to fully analyze whether the Garland signing was a good one.  However, without adequate evidence to the contrary, I like to give the team the benefit of the doubt when it makes decisions on what areas of the organization it chooses to allocate funds.  Under such a framework, we must conclude that the Garland signing will result in a greater return on investment than the next best alternative.

by Myron Logan

Daniel analyzed the Jon Garland signing earlier, concluding:

Expected to perform at a $7MM level for only $5.3MM, Garland provides surplus value, at a position of need.  Not a bad signing.

Daniel is of course spot-on, and his approach to evaluating the deal is precisely how I would have looked at it. However, consider the question Aaron asked in today’s chat:

Why do you guys always use WAR as a universal stat. Aren’t wins worth more or less to different teams?

He makes a great point. A marginal win has a different value for each franchise. It is something that I’ve talked about along time ago, but neglected all too often. Let’s just consider one aspect; the team’s placement on the win curve. And just for the purposes of this post, let’s say the Padres were projected to win 79 games before acquiring Jon Garland. If you look at the chart in that linked post — Nate Silver’s wonderful research –a projected 79 win team has about a 12% chance of making the playoffs.

If we say that Garland’s addition adds two wins to the Padres projection, now they are an 81 win team. That increases their playoff chances by 6% — to a whopping 18%. If a playoff berth is worth $30 million — again, according to Silver, though obviously that figure is dated — Garland gets a $1.8 million playoff bonus. Now, are those two extra wins that he’s adding worth that remaining $3.5 million — the difference between Garland’s salary and the playoff bonus — without consider their impact on San Diego’s playoff chances.

Though Garland’s deal may have been a relative bargain, even in this year’s free agent market, the Padres are still paying a premium for his services. Due to his free agent status, and the fact that all teams can bid on him, his salary gets a major bump. Would the $5.3M the Padres gave Garland be better utilized on, say, locking up young players currently on the roster, future draft pick signing bonuses, international signings, and improving the scouting, player development, and analysis departments?

I don’t know the answer, but I think that consideration is definitely warranted. It is tough to criticize the Padres when they actually do spend money, putting them into a classic “damned if ya do, damned if ya don’t” situation. That said, their payroll sat at a mere $33 million before Garland’s acquisition, clearly showing that they are not necessarily trying to compete this season. Does it make sense to spend 13% of the payroll on one player, one player who likely is not going to change the season’s ultimate fate? Should they even be competing on the free agent market at this point?

Seriously, I ask questions because I don’t know the answers. $5.3 million is not going to cripple the franchise, but I’m just wondering if it could have been better spent elsewhere.

by Daniel Gettinger

Pitcher Jon Garland and the Padres have agreed to what is essentially a one-year deal worth $5.3MM guaranteed.   (Note: There is actually a mutual option for a second year at $6.75MM with a $600K buyout).

Garland has been consistently durable and has posted consistently average performances throughout his career.  He is a low strikeout guy, who gets away with a lack of stuff by minimizing his walks and homeruns allowed. Since 2002 Garland has thrown no fewer than 191 innings in any season, while posting WARs between 2 and 4.

The projections that are out are pretty much in agreement on Garland.  He is expected to produce a FIP around 4.5 in about 190 innings.  That is solid, valuable performance, and worth approximately 2 wins ($7MM) above replacement.

Garland takes the place of the Padres previously unnamed fifth starter.  Instead of running Stauffer, LeBlanc, or some other replacement type player currently in the Padres system, the Padres can throw Garland. If someone else in the system steps up, the team will probably be able to deal Garland to a different team.

Expected to perform at a $7MM level for only $5.3MM, Garland provides surplus value, at a position of need.  Not a bad signing.