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Kevin Kouzmanoff Should Not Win a Gold Glove This Season

August 16, 2009 in Daniel Gettinger, fielding, Kevin Kouzmanoff, player evaluation, San Diego Padres with 11 Comments

by Daniel Gettinger

Last week, Corey Brock pointed out Kevin Kouzmanoff has the highest “fielding percentage of any Major League third baseman (.988) and the fewest errors (3).”

Brock argued, “the number of errors and fielding percentage the Padres’ third baseman has in 2009 certainly show that he should be, at the very least, in the discussion for the holy grail of awards for fielders.”

I disagree.

Kouz’s lack of errors are great, but not making errors on balls a player gets to is only one component of defense.  The other major defensive component for a third baseman is range.  And Kouzmanoff does not have great range.  UZR feels Kouzmanoff’s range has been -1.4 runs below average.

His overall UZR of 2.3 (3.4 UZR/150), seems about right to me.  It reflects Kouz’s consistency on balls he gets to (4.1 errors runs above average), but dings him for his below average range.

Baseball Prospectus is even harsher.  Their fielding metric sees Kouzmanoff’s fielding as about 5 runs below average this season.

The problem with fielding metrics is they are not very precise.  Over long periods of time, they seem to do a pretty decent job, but even a sample of 115 games (the number of games Kouz has played this season) is not sufficient to reach any definite conclusions.

That said, in 2008, UZR saw Kouzmanoff as 2.7 runs above average.  Like this season, Kouz made few errors, but displayed only passable range in 2008.  Based on his stats this year, as well as last year, I feel comfortable stating that Kevin Kouzmanoff has been a slightly above average fielder this season and projects to play the same way the remainder of the season.

Average fielding is fine, but it is not gold glove worthy.  The N.L. gold glove winner at third base should be Ryan Zimmerman.  It is not a close call.

Due to his phenomenal range, UZR feels Zimmerman has been 16 runs above average with the glove this season.  Zimmerman’s past suggests such a positive UZR may not be a fluke.  He struggled with injuries last year, but in 2007, Zimmerman was 17.4 runs above average at third base.

No other N.L. third basemen is within 10 runs (approximately one win) of Zimmerman defensively. Pedro Feliz and Casey Blake, both of whom trail Zimmerman but lead Kouzmanoff in UZR, have been 4.7 and 4.3 runs above average defensively.

Kouzmanoff has been solid with the glove, but to even consider him for the gold glove is ludicrous considering how good Zimmerman has been.  Limiting errors is great, but getting to the ball is important as well.

James Darnell Scouting Report

August 15, 2009 in links, Mat Latos, Mike Rogers, pitchf/x, player evaluation, prospects, scouting with 1 Comment

by Mike Rogers

Over at Project Prospect, there’s a nice and informative scouting report on the swing of 1st year pro, James Darnell. I had a three part series that looked at the 2008 college bats the Padres took in June of 2008 and I loved everything about James Darnell’s college statistics. I’m still a big time Darnell fan and think the former South Carolina Gamecock can be, at the very least, an average right fielder in the majors (not sure he can stick at third).

The scouting report makes a very interesting swing comparison: Justin Upton. Now, Steve Carter (who is using an alias but did play college baseball), cautioned he’s not expecting near the offensive production of Upton, but that they do have similar swings. An excerpt from the conclusion:

Darnell has the tools, ability, and swing to be a very solid offensive 3rd baseman. Eighteen home runs and a .998 OPS between Low-A Fort Wayne and High-A Lake Elsinore is certainly nothing to scoff at. But, the real test for Darnell will come at the Double-A and Triple-A levels. Then we will find out if he is just a polished college hitter pounding A-ball pitching, or a legitimate prospect. If he can improve his upper body pattern and make a few other refinements, he could go from a potential Casey Blake with patience type, and move toward his ceiling of a pre-2009 breakout Ryan Zimmerman with a higher on base percentage.

So, there’s some things to like. Casey Blake with patience definitely isn’t anything to scoff at and Ryan Zimmerman with better OBP is very good outcome as well. There’s a lot to like about Darnell.

Now, while you’re perusing the Project Prospect website, feel free to read my PITCHf/x look at Jake Arrieta, a Baltimore Orioles right-handed pitcher. Yeah, it’s self-promotion and I will not be ashamed of it! Why should you read about an Orioles pitching prospect? Well, because I’ll be writing these types of pieces for Project Prospect when prospects make their debuts. So, I want you to get used to the format for when I pen my piece on Mat Latos (which I already looked at his debut right here for FF) through the PITCHf/x lens.

More From the Obvious Department: Eliezer Alfonzo is not Good

August 6, 2009 in Daniel Gettinger, player evaluation, San Diego Padres with 3 Comments

by Daniel Gettinger

Often when writing a post, I cite a player’s season stats.  For pitchers, K/9, BB/9 and HR/9 get a lot of play around here.  Position players are typically reduced to impossible to pronounce abbreviations such as OPS, OBP, and UZR.*  That said, at any given moment, I only have a vague notion of how well a player has been playing.  Without looking it up, I could not tell you what Chase Headley’s OBP is.  Likewise, I have no idea what Chad Gaudin’s ERA is.  I do not sit around memorizing the stat lines of every Padre player, and frankly, I don’t really care to.

*As much as I love it for being a useful tool in player valuation, I sometimes feel the best part about wOBA is that the vowel in the acronym rests in a linguistically elegant position, giving it a word-like pronunciation.

Because I do not keep close tabs on the season stats of every Padre, I find it productive to occasionally “re-calibrate” by browsing through the Padres page on Fangraphs (or even ESPN).  Every time I do so, I learn something new.  For example, a few days ago I was reminded that the Padres briefly employed Duaner Sanchez, and that he was an absolute disaster.  Today, I stumbled across the stats of another disaster: Eliezer Alfonzo.

This season, Alfonzo has an OBP of 0.211 and a SLG % of 0.274.  He has a BB rate of 2.8%, and a total of 5 extra base hits in 109 plate appearances.

Let me put this in perspective for you.  His 0.214 wOBA is second worst in the major leagues amongst players with at least 100 PA.  Alfonzo’s 0.485 OPS only slightly exceeds Albert Pujol’s 0.446 OBP. Think about that for a moment.

Look, I recognize that Alfonzo’s stats do not reflect his true talent; that is, going forward, we expect Alfonzo to hit better.  I also realize that Alfonzo was not exactly the Padres first choice catcher.  The team picked him up just so it would have a body to fill in in case Nick Hundley or Henry Blanco got injured.  But that does not make Alfonzo’s play this season any less comical.

There is not a single type of pitch he has been able to hit.  Per 100 pitches, Alfonzo is -2.11 runs below average against fastballs, -3.83 against sliders, -2.97 against curve balls, -3.32 against change-ups, and -4.92 against splitters.  His specialty, if you can call it that, has been hitting the cutter, where he is only 0.23 runs below average per 100 pitches.

To add insult to injury, Alfonzo appears to be terrible on the base paths.  His “speed score” of 0.7 this season is third worst amongst catchers with at least 100 plate appearances.  Bengie Molina is infamous for his lead filled feat, but even he has huffed and puffed his way to a 1.4 speed score.

Alfonzo’s atrocious play does not actually bother me.  Very few people think he is a good player, and he is almost certainly not in the Padres long-term plans.  I just get a kick out of how bad he has been this season.  In an odd sense, his awfulness is sort of fun.  At least in my convoluted mind.

Jake Peavy Trade

August 4, 2009 in links, Mike Rogers, player evaluation, prospects, Sabermetrics, San Diego Padres, trades with Comments Off

Just a little shameless self-promotion from me today (and I normally don’t do this, but…). I joined the writing team over at Beyond the Boxscore, and my first article went up today evaluating the Jake Peavy trade last Friday.

I’d really like it if everyone that reads this would go there and read the entire thing, since it’ll please Padres fans to read the outcome. Thanks.

Clayton Richard Debut in PITCHf/x

August 3, 2009 in Jake Peavy, Mike Rogers, pitchf/x, player evaluation, scouting with 8 Comments

by Mike Rogers

Clayton Richard made his San Diego Padres debut on Saturday against the Milwaukee Brewers after being acquired by the Pads for Jake Peavy (trade valuation coming from me sometime tomorrow on Beyond the Boxscore where I’ll be joining the BtB team of writers) on Friday. Before we jump into the PITCHf/x, lets look at the start through the numbers:

5.2 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 5 K, 90 pitches (49 strikes), 8 ground outs, 4 fly outs.

Now, onto the graph-y goodness. First up is the release points (click images to enlarge):

Richard stands 6-foot-5 and weighs in at 240-pounds, but he was consistently “releasing” the baseball at just under 6-foot. So, he comes from a 3/4 arm slot. But, he repeats his delivery well and comes from a very consistent release point.

Now, the strikezone plot:

He only threw 49 strikes out of the 90 total pitches, so he was a bit wild. The view is from the catcher’s perspective, so he worked away from right-handed hitters for most of the night, but given the amount of right-handers he faced, that’s not surprising.

And speaking of how he attacked right-handed and left-handed batters, here’s a couple pie graphs:

Typical platoon split: drops the change-up versus left-handed hitters, and picks it back up against right-handers. Overall, though, he worked the fastball (either four-seam [FF] or two-seam [FT]) all night.

And now the pitch flight graph (again, courtesy of Harry Pavlidis):

My breakdown of Clayton Richard differs a bit from Myron Logan’s. I attempted to split up the four-seam and two-seam fastballs as best I could, but I still might be/am probably wrong on some of them. I wound up with 48 four-seamers and 21 two-seamers while averaging 91.7 MPH on the former and 90.4 on the latter. His four-seamer seemed to have a bit more arm-side run, but less sink (minimally). Just keep in mind that I was eye-balling the fastballs and made some judgement calls, so they aren’t anywhere near 100% accurate (and if they are, it’s absolute luck on my part).

As far as his breaking ball goes, MLB Gameday classified three of them as curveballs, but after graphing them out, there was virtually no difference in flight path from his slider. I don’t know if he throws a curveball or a slider, but on the flight paths I went with curveball as I believe that’s what the scouting report on him says. As you probably noticed, I classified them all as sliders on the other graphs — that’s just a little mistake on my part, but they’re still depicting the same data set. Either way, he’s got a bit of “sweep” on his slider and some decent downward movement.

Meanwhile, his change-up has some arm-side run but very little sinking action.

On the whole, Richard looks to have pretty average stuff for a big, tall lefty, but his results speak for themselves thus far: 4.32 FIP in 142.1 big league innings pitched. So, he’s definitely a back-end starter, but he’s got value as he’s probably above-average for a number 5 starter.

Overall, the Padres got a good haul in the Jake Peavy deal.

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