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Padres, Heath Bell avoid arbitration

January 15, 2010 in contracts, links, Myron Logan, San Diego Padres with 1 Comment

by Myron Logan

According to Corey Brock, the Padres and Heath Bell have come to a one year deal worth $4 million, avoiding arbitration. The Padres closer, who made just over $1.25 million last season, gets a large (and well-deserved) pay increase. Bell, 32 years old, is under San Diego’s control through 2011.

Since joining the Padres in 2006, Bell has posted a 2.72 ERA in 241 innings, striking out 252 batters and allowing just 11 home runs. According to FanGraphs, Bell has been worth about $23 million over the last three years (on the free market), while making just over $2 million. While he should easily be worth more than $4 million in 2010, the gap between his free market value and actual salary should begin its decline phase.

Storylines for 2010: Everth Cabrera’s fielding

January 13, 2010 in Everth Cabrera, fielding, Myron Logan, Sabermetrics with 13 Comments

by Myron Logan

Recently, I have been thinking about possible storylines for the upcoming season; what we are going to be watching. I think, for the most part, they involve sorting out the future of this team, and not necessarily winning games (though we will accept winning games, too).

I thought we could run through some different issues in separate posts, as sort of a disjointed season preview, touching on major topics (like where Adrian Gonzalez will play his games post all-star break) and micro ones (Cabrera’s fielding or Gwynn’s bat, for example).

Anyway, Everth Cabrera broke onto the scene with a surprising rookie year, making the huge jump from A-ball to the majors as a rule 5 pick. He not only stuck in the bigs, he clearly turned himself from borderline prospect to potential long-term contributor. He had shown plenty of offensive talent in the minors, so perhaps his season with the bat — .255/.342/.361 – should not have been that much of a surprise. He is not a power hitter, and probably will not turn into one, but he combines enough speed and patience to be a solid offensive contributor, especially at shortstop and in Pecto Park.

The CHONE projections, despite pegging him as nearly a league-average offensive player (again, quite a feat coming from a guy who had never played above A ball until last year), have him as a 1 WAR player next year. That is not bad, but it is not exactly earth-shattering either. Why so low? His fielding. CHONE projects his fielding to be 10 runs worse than the average shortstop next year. Considering that is a projection, and not raw numbers based on relatively few opportunities, it is somewhat disheartening.

UZR, available on FanGraphs as well, was also not a fan of Cabrera’s glove-work last year, putting him at nearly 12 runs below average. It was not just an error issue either, as he was equally bad in error runs and range runs (about –6 in each category). The only bright spot was his double play rating, which was just slightly above average.

For even further evidence of his defensive shortcomings, by the numbers, the data available at THT is also not encouraging. Cabrera came in last in the NL, among qualifiers, in RZR (plays in his zone turned into outs). His play out of his zone was respectable, but overall he still comes out well below average.

The good news is that Cabrera is young and talented, so these early numbers do not necessarily show who he is going to turn into on the defensive side of the ball. The other good news is that they may be wrong, or at least too pessimistic. Baseball America 2009 called Everth’s shift to short in 2008 “seamless,” and reported that he showed solid range and arm strength there. The Fans Scouting Report results were also positive, ranking Cabrera as the tenth best SS in the majors, and giving him excellent grades in “first few steps,” “speed”,” and “arm strength.”.

It is possible that the numbers do not represent his actual performance from last year; that due to whatever biases, they did not grade his fielding properly. It is also definitely possible that, despite a bad initial showing, he could develop into an average (even elite) fielder, with good coaching and hard work on his part. Of course, it is also possible that he just is not good with the glove.

Whether Everth Cabrera becomes a staple at the 6 hole for this Padres team may very well come down to what kind of value he ends up providing in the field. His development in this area of his game is something to keep a close eye on this year.

Padres links

January 13, 2010 in links, Myron Logan with 3 Comments

by Myron Logan

SDPads is on a roll with his new blog, and has a couple of posts on the Padres marketing efforts, and an interview with Padres President and COO Tom Garfinkel. The interview is definitely an entertaining read.

Melvin at The Sac Bunt follows up on SDPad’s marketing posts, with some ideas of his own. I agree that Everth Cabrera, Kyle Blanks, and Mat Latos provide a nice trio to build (and market) around.

jbox listened to Jed Hoyer’s interview, and reports:

  • Hoyer says we need to invest in the future here, build up scouting staff, hire a ton of new people, keep spending a lot of money in the draft.  The Padres are spending a lot of money outside of the Major League Payroll.

MadFriars gives us a detailed overview of the changes to the Padres scouting staff.

Geoff Young shares the Ducksnorts’ community projections (and results) from last year. It is interesting that a group of intelligent fans that follow the team so closely can be so far off on many players. Predicting the future is tough.

Behind the paywall

January 8, 2010 in blogging, media, Myron Logan with 14 Comments

by Myron Logan

Okay, so I mentioned it in yesterday’s post, and I’ve been thinking more and more about re-subscribing to Baseball Prospectus, which announced some changes on Monday.

The short back story: I found out about Baseball Prospectus somewhere around 2004 after reading Moneyball. I quickly bought one of their annual books and subscribed to the online content. I was hooked. BP was essentially my Bill James, piquing my interest in sabermetrics and a deeper understanding of the game. Articles by Nate Silver, Dan Fox, and Keith Woolner (among  others) were always insightful, entertaining, and thought-provoking. Not to mention, I had access to PECOTA and the rest of the stable of solid BP writers. $40? That was a bargain.

Somewhere in the last few years, however, I realized myself visiting BP less and less often. $40 a year still was not breaking the bank, but was it worth it for something I rarely used? Nate Silver left the site for his political endeavors, Keith Woolner joined the Indians, and Dan Fox similarly found himself in an MLB front office. It is a credit to BP that about half of their stats-based authors seem to eventually get scooped up by MLB teams, but it also left an unfilled hole in their content.

Now, it seemed to me at this time, BP made a concerted effort to become more “mainstream,” to appeal to a wider audience. They had gained tremendous popularity through the years, and were now serving a broader demographic of people, with maybe only a small percent really caring about which pythagorean win estimator worked best. This was fine, and probably a good business decision, but it did not really appeal to my specific tastes.

At the same time, it seemed like sabermetric writing was popping up all over the net. The Hardball Times was as good as ever, Beyond the Boxscore had been rejuvenated, FanGraphs added a writing element to complement their great stats section, and Tango’s Inside the Book Blog was being updated daily. There were more, too, like Baseball Analysts and Statistically Speaking, not to mention countless team-based blogs.

With all that considered, I let my subscription run out, and have gone without it for a good year or so. Say, for instance, you are an avid bowler, and you have three local alleys to choose from. Two are free, and one is two bucks a game. If the one happens to be vastly superior to the other two, then maybe you will fork up the extra $2 dollars to bowl there. But if the three alleys are essentially equal, well, in time you are probably going to quit going to the one that costs money, and spend your time at the free ones. That is basically what happened. BP shifted their content away from what I wanted, and other sites emerged or improved to fill the void. And I saved $40 a year.

In Kevin Goldstein’s announcement, however, it appears that BP is going to again put a much stronger emphasis on pure sabermetrics, with the additions of guys like Russell Carleton/Pizza Cutter (whose work has been featured primarily at StatSpeak) and Colin Wyers (StatSpeak and The Hardball Times). Both guys are super active in the saber-community; they are smart, creative, and they write well. BP has also brought in Tommy Bennett (Beyond the Boxscore) and Jeff Euston (proprietor of Cot’s Contracts), adding to a group of saber writers that also includes recently hired Eric Seidman (graduating from about eight different baseball sites) and Matt Swartz.

To get back to my original question, is the subscription worth $40, when I can still get a bunch of analysis, research, and stats for free at the above-mentioned sites? That is certainly an individualized question; personally, I am not sure yet, but the decision is harder than it was a few days ago. What is your take?

Ducksnorts is back!

January 7, 2010 in blogging, links, Myron Logan with 4 Comments

by Myron Logan

Geoff Young’s Ducksnorts, after being down for a few months due to hosting problems, is back online! Geoff is abandoning the long, feature length articles he tried last year, and is returning to shorter, more frequent posts. I think that is a good idea, but I am glad Geoff’s Padres blog is back, no matter what form his writing comes in.

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Sdpads, who ran the aptly named Sdpads1 blog, has created a new Padres blog called RJ’s Fro. He has added a couple of partners and a real nice setup. I am looking forward to reading more of his stuff.

Also, I recently came across another new Padres blog – the Friarhood. Check it out.

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Finally, the last thing I wanted to mention was the recent changes announced at Baseball Prospectus. Joe Sheehan, one of BP’s most prolific writers for a long time, is gone. Added to the fold, however, are talented folks like Colin Wyers, Russell Carleton (Pizza Cutter), Tommy Bennett, and Jeff Euston (Cot’s Contracts).

About a year ago, I let my BP subscription run out, after subscribing to the site for four or five years. The combination of great research and writing, from guys like Nate Silver, Keith Woolner, and Dan Fox, was gone. It appeared to me like BP was pretty clearly trying to shift to become a more mainstream site, with smart analysis but little new research. While that still has its appeal, it did not seem worth the cost, with so much free stuff out there.

However, if Baseball Prospectus is going to return to its roots, and again foster innovative ideas and methodologies behind guys like Wyers and Carleton, then I may definitely have to consider re-subscribing.

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