The Omnipresent Schatz

Aaron Schatz has an article up on The New Republic about the spread of Sabermetrics in MLB front offices. His point - the "Moneyball revolution" that allowed the A's to compete with teams with larger payorlls is not a revolution but a market correction. The eventual end result? A more efficient market, where the rich teams still get all the best (and now properly valued) players.

Schatz himself is seemingly everywhere I look on the internet. His relatively new FootballOutsiders site exploded onto the scene this past fall, rocketing up to Alexa's top 50,000 websites in Nov-Dec. And that kind of internet phenomenon is exactly what Schatz has been studying for his "real" job over at Lycos, pumping out "The Lycos 50" each day.

I like his style, and apparently, so do a lot of people. He's getting a lot exposure all over the internet. Kudos Aaron. Keep up the good work.

HOF Bound?

Great synopsis of HOF chances for active players.

Are Sheffield and Larkin really sure bets for the Hall? I feel alright about Sheff (299/401/527 over 16 seasons - and going strong), but Larkin's numbers looks suspicious to me. He has hit 295/371/446 over 18 seasons as a shortstop, but he's never led the league in any offensive category. The only time he's ever finished as high as second in any category was in his MVP 1995 Season when he stole 51 bases, 5 behind Quilvio Veras for the league lead. I'll defer to the Win Shares as far as total career value goes, but I think Larkin's going to have a tough time sneaking past the BBWA.

Thanks to baseballgraphs for the link.

The $8M Win

Let's take a quick look at the Cubs 2004 pitching staff pre-Maddux and then with him. We'll just pro-rate 2003 Win Shares by Innings Pitched, with the goal of adding up to about 1,460 IP (Cubs total in 2003). Basically, a pitcher who was credited with 5 win shares for 100 innings of work will get credit for 10 win shares over 200 innings of work. (Thanks to BaseballGraphs for the 2003 Win Share data)

Cubs before they added Maddux:

	2003 IP	2004 IP	Pro-rated 2003 Win Shares
Mark Prior	211.3	211.3	22.5
Kerry Wood	214.0	214.0	17.6
Carlos Zambrano	211.0	211.0	17.6
Joe Borowski	68.3	68.3	14.0
LaTroy Hawkins	77.3	77.3	13.2
Matt Clement	201.7	201.7	10.5
Kyle Farnsworth	76.3	76.3	7.2
Kent Mercker	55.3	55.3	5.9
Mike Remlinger	69.0	69.0	5.9
Gary Glover	62.7	62.7	3.0
Hector Carrasco	25.3	25.3	1.6
Jamey Wright	38.3	38.3	1.5
Juan Cruz	61.0	61.0	0.4
Ryan Dempster	115.7	75.0	0.0
Sergio Mitre	8.7	8.7	0.0
Total		1455.3	121

Cubs after adding Maddux:

	2003 IP	2004 IP	Pro-rated 2003 Win Shares
Mark Prior	211.3	211.3	22.5
Carlos Zambrano	214.0	214.0	17.6
Kerry Wood	211.0	211.0	17.6
Joe Borowski	68.3	68.3	14.0
LaTroy Hawkins	77.3	77.3	13.2
Matt Clement	201.7	201.7	10.5
Greg Maddux	218.3	180.0	8.9
Kyle Farnsworth	76.3	76.3	7.2
Kent Mercker	55.3	55.3	5.9
Mike Remlinger	69.0	69.0	5.9
Gary Glover	62.7	35.0	1.6
Juan Cruz	61.0	61.0	0.4
Total		1460.3	125

Adding Maddux only adds 4 Win Shares, which is equal to one-and-a-third wins (3 win shares = 1 win). At eight million dollars, that's one expensive win.

I'm working on using this same approach for every team in order to make a (wildly inaccurate!) set of predictions for the 2004 season. My predictions will likely show that the Cubs are out in front of the NL Central pack by about 5-6 games, making the additional $8M Maddux win unnecessary. Of course, the Maddux signing does add depth, a potential mentor, maybe some additional revenue(?) and a chance for the Cubs to partially redeem their past failure to keep Maddux. I'm not arguing that the deal is all bad, just that it's not going to improve the Cubs by a whole lot.

The Baseball Savant agrees that Maddux isn't going to dramatically improve the Cubs, but he disagrees with my prediction for the division. He thinks the Astros will take the NL Central. Read both of the Savant's posts. Well written and interesting - hard to complain about that. Seems like Savant, however, overlooks the contributions from the bullpens and benches of the various NL Central contenders. Maybe that's why our projections are so different.

The Babe

Growing up on the west coast, I always discounted the talk about Babe Ruth. Characters in movies like The Sandlot were always in awe of Babe Ruth the way I was in awe of Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire. So, I naturally assumed that they were all on about the same level. Later, Willie Mays took the place of the Bash Brothers in my mind as the Babe's equal. My dad wasn't a huge baseball fan, and I didn't know any Yankee fans yet (thank god). There was no one around to correct my faulty assumptions.

But as I've gotten older and started reading more baseball books and actually looking at the numbers, I've been forced to readjust my perspective. Reluctant though I was to give a Yankee his due, Ruth's performance cannot be ignored. As Rob Neyer points out in his article, Nobody better than the Babe, Ruth is head and shoulders above everyone else. He's incomparable.

But those other guys Neyer mentions are alright too...

The Grabber

AthleticsNation has posted a Q&A with the A's Jason Grabowski. Go check it out. It's interesting to see the world from his eyes, a player on the bubble for making the big club.

That ARod fella

There's a rumor that some guy named "ARod" is getting traded. You might have heard a little something about that this weekend... Well, what does it mean for the A's? Let's take a look at how the two players have fared against AL West's 2004 pitchers in their careers (AVG/OBP/SLG):

Soriano vs. the A's (2004 pitching staff): 203/232/278 (.510 OPS)
Soriano vs. the Angels: 274/314/463 (.777 OPS)
Soriano vs. the Mariners: 214/258/429 (.687 OPS)

Rodriguez vs. the A's: 267/333/470 (.804 OPS)
Rodriguez vs. the Angels: 333/426/729 (1.155 OPS)
Rodriguez vs. the Mariners: 267/351/500 (.851 OPS)

That's a decrease in OPS of .294 against the A's, .378 against the Angels and .164 against the Mariners. Overall, the AL West should be thanking their lucky stars that they won't have to deal with ARod so often, but this deal doesn't really improve the A's chances in the AL West. If anything, this tilts the playing field towards the Angels (however small that tilt may be).

Billy Beane = Bill Walsh ??

From the Depodesta post on Elephants in Oakland:

Billy Beane mentioned he would love to accomplish what Bill Walsh had in the BayArea (yes, it is one word). Building a championship team with interchangeable parts on the field and in the front office and those who left the organization being successful with the same strategies. Of course, what Beane may have meant was that he would like to accomplish what Paul Brown was able to accomplish.

I think that the Billy Beane/Bill Walsh comparison is fair. Where Paul Brown was certainly the patriarch of the Walsh "family," Sandy Alderson gave Beane his start and introduced him to the work of Bill James.

Parts of the West Coast Offense (or WCO) approach were conceptualized and implemented by such historical football figures as Paul Brown and Sid Gillman, but it was really Walsh who brought the system to fruition. - ProFootballProspectus.com

Try that statement again like this: "Parts of the approach were conceptualized and implemented by such historical baseball figures as Sandy Alderson, but it was really Beane who brought the system to fruition." Doesn't that sound about right?