Pre-Thanksgiving Random Links

As we've already discussed, the much-ballyhooed Rule V Draft is swiftly approaching. This year's draft will be held on Dec. 11th, which is also my birthday, so here's hoping the Pirates find something nice for me (and us) among the eligible draftees. Some big name players have been selected in recent Rule V Drafts, including All-Stars Josh Hamilton (2006), Dan Uggla (2005), and some guy named Johan Santana (1999).

And of course, our beloved inspiration for this blog, one Roberto Clemente, was a selection of Branch Rickey's in the Rule V Draft after the 1954 season.

In that same vein, Marc Hulet over at the Baseball Analysts put together a primer on some possible pitcher selections in this year's Rule V Draft that's definitely worth reading.

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There's been an interesting back-and-forth going on over wOBA, which is the child of the guys over at The Book (specifically Tom Tango). Rob Neyer posted about it on his (now free!) blog at ESPN.com yesterday, and much discussion ensued in the comments.

I don't know enough to speak about this intelligently, so thankfully Tom Tango took the time to respond to Rob's readers and provide more information on the creation of wOBA.

I mention wOBA because it gives me an opportunity to push FanGraphs on all of you once again. My interest in this site has grown exponentially since they decided to add more and more awesome things to their already very interesting site. In addition to being the one-stop shop for WPA graphs of every game throughout the regular season and playoffs, they have a full slate of stats on both major and minor leage players, as well as all the numbers for the various non-PECOTA projection systems for 2009.

Of course, they've also added wOBA to their stable of stats. It really is a fantastic place.

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Speaking of FanGraphs, Eric Seidman released the first half of the Top 10 pitching performances of 2008 (in terms of WPA), and you might be surprised that a Pirates' starting pitcher actually made the list. One of the alarmingly few bright spots for the pitching staff this year.

Rinku and Dinesh Go to Bradenton

I don't even know where to begin.

Look, this is not a high-risk move, so I don't have much of a leg to stand on when criticizing Team Neal for signing two young pitchers from India, who are pitchers only by virtue of winning a contest in their home country. Their ascent to the major leagues is not by virtue of, you know, actually playing baseball for most of their lives, like most other players, but because they won a reality TV show. There are movies that are less ridiculous.

But whatever. They've received something like $15,000 and $20,000 dollars, so it's not like the club is spending Burnitz money on these guys. It does, however, smack of quite a bit of crazy. I guess when your organizational pitching depth is as bad as the Pirates', and when more and more teams are starting to adopt a sabermetric-friendly model for doing business, you have to start thinking more and more "outside the box." In this case, that box appears to be the Western Hemisphere. After all, Moneyball is all about exploiting market deficiencies, right? Well, I can safely say that if there is a market for unknown pitchers from India (and with a billion people, the chances are at least decent), then the Pirates have cornered it.

I will also add that their blog is unintentionally hilarious.

Rule V Roster Deadline

As some might already know (some NOT including me, because I didn't until about 10 minutes ago), the deadline for setting the 40-man roster prior to the Rule V Draft is today. Unless there is unreported news out there about anyone being added to the 40-man, it will remain at its current 35 members, who are the following.

EDIT: Of course, the PG then reports that five were added to the 40-man roster:

Pitchers (22):
Jimmy Barthmaier
Denny Bautista
T.J. Beam
Sean Burnett
Matt Capps
Jesse Chavez
Dave Davidson
Jason Davis
Zach Duke
Phil Dumatrait
Tom Gorzelanny
John Grabow
Craig Hansen
Jeff Karstens
Paul Maholm
Evan Meek
Ross Ohlendorf
Romulo Sanchez
Ian Snell
Jeff Sues
Ronald Uviedo
Tyler Yates

Catchers (5):
Raul Chavez
Robinzon Diaz
Ryan Doumit
Steve Lerud
Ronny Paulino

Infielders (8):
Pedro Alvarez
Brian Bixler
Luis Cruz
Adam LaRoche
Andy LaRoche
Freddy Sanchez
Neil Walker
Jack Wilson

Outfielders (4):
Nate McLouth
Nyjer Morgan
Brandon Moss
Steve Pearce
Jose Tabata

For some reason, I always forget that Walker was drafted in 2004, and since he was drafted out of college, that means he had to be added to the 40-man before the end of his fourth year to be protected from the Rule V Draft. The same might apply for Steve Lerud, though why Sues, Uviedo and Tabata were added is beyond me, since none of the three needed to be protected.

Considering that there will be a signing of at least one outfielder and one utility man, as well as probably some right-handed bullpen help before spring training, it's safe to assume this won't be the 40-man roster on February 15th.

Runs by Position

Interesting post from Tom Tango today about the offensive performance by decade of the various defensive positions (pitchers excluded):

Offense by Position Groups by Decade

If you're looking for a nice tidbit, the final word correlates pretty nicely with the scale of defensive difficulty:

Merging everything, since 1980s:

SS -19.6
C -16.3
2B -9.6
CF -1.5
3B +0.4
RF 10.5
LF 10.5
1B 18.4

Not Entirely as Advertised

The reports of Nate McLouth's horrible defense have been perhaps exaggerated.

As you may already know, the aforementioned McLouth was awarded one of the three NL Gold Glove awards given to outfielders. Why they don't classify the awards among LF, CF, and RF is still beyond me, but whatever. As you also may already know, Mr. McClouth put up (down?) a whopping minus-40 on John Dewan's +/- system, which was the worst among all qualifying centerfielders in major league baseball. This of course led to much wailing and gnashing of teeth among the statistically-inclined community (myself included), who felt that this was another in the long line of stupid decisions made by supposedly intelligent "baseball people" like managers and the BBWAA.

What Dewan says in the post linked above dovetails nicely with my thoughts on McLouth's defense. When I first found out that he was -40 in the plus/minus system for 2008, I thought that number seemed unexpectedly low, not because I rated McLouth's defense highly, but because I just didn't think he was that terrible. When I voted in Tom Tango's scouting report, I believe I gave McClouth about an average rating, which is slightly generous, but my bottom line is that I consider him a below-average center fielder, but not by much.

McLouth's problem (as many sensible analysts have noted), is that he does not get to as many balls as he should, whether by poor reaction off the bat, or by taking bad routes to the ball. I think that supports Dewan's analysis showing that he makes sizeable numbers of "good" and "bad" plays. To a large extent with Nate, it's feast or famine with the plays that are not considered "average." It seems that he either gets a solid read right away and makes a good play on tough ball, or he misreads it and loses the battle while trying to chase it down. Since the official scorer has no concept of outfield errors other than dropping fly balls (or so it seems), Mr. McLouth isn't punished on the score sheet for his poor performance.

The good news is that he generally knows what to do with the ball once he gets it, which keeps his errors low, and subsequently keeps his fielding percentage high, thus he gets the love from the MSM and the managers when they manage to talk about defense. What we can all hope for is that McCutcheon the Outfielder is ready very soon, so he can take over center and move Nate to left field, where he will do less damage. Until then, the Pirates will continue to give up runs in center field, despite the fact that a guy with a Gold Glove plays there.

Year in Review, 2008

2008 Pittsburgh Pirates

Actual Record: 67-95 (6th Place, NL Central, 14th of 16)
Runs Scored: 765 (9th of 16)
Runs Allowed: 884 (16th of 16)
Pythagorean Record: 67-95 (15th of 16)

Other National League Rankings (Batting):
BA: .258 (9th)
OBP: .320 (15th)
SLG%: .403 (12th)
Walks: 474 (14th)
Strikeouts: 1039 (12th)
HR: 153 (12th)
WPA/LI: -5.23 wins (14th)

Other National League Rankings (Pitching):
ERA: 5.10 (16th)
FIP: 4.84 (16th)
HR Allowed: 176 (13th)
BB Allowed: 657 (16th)
Strikeouts: 963 (15th)
WHIP: 1.57 (16th)
WPA/LI: -14.27 wins (16th)

Team Defense:
DER: .675 (15th)
BABIP: .317 (15th)


What went right: Center fielder Nate McLouth won the starting job out of spring training, and easily cemented himself as the everyday starter, eventually making it to his first All-Star game, and winning an undeserved Gold Glove. Ryan Doumit did not shake the injury bug, but when healthy, served as a solid everyday catcher and bona fide offensive threat. Adam LaRoche struggled out of the gate yet again, but managed to post a well above average .271/.341/.500 slash line, with 25 HR and 85 RBI and played solid defense.

Paul Maholm was the only starter to play above serviceable, leading the starters by a considerable margin in every category that is even moderately relevant. Matt Capps and John Grabow turned in two more than solid performances as the back-end anchors of the bullpen (when they managed to get in the game). Zach Duke didn't post an ERA over 5.00, so I guess that's a step in the right direction.

What went wrong: Everything else. The starting rotation was abysmal, by far the worst in the National League (if not all of Major League Baseball). After Maholm, the odds were at least 2-1 that the starting pitcher would see the fifth inning of any given game. The pitchers put far too many men on base and put far too many balls in play, due in large part to the fact that they couldn't strike anyone out. The already shaky bullpen was overmatched all year, and devolved into a revolving door for anyone from Indianapolis who could pick up a baseball. Better starting pitching and a bolstered bullpen have to be priorities 1 and 2 for Neal Huntington this offseason, and we are most likely seeing that already with the trading of Jason Bay and Xavier Nady for a bunch of pitchers, Andy LaRoche, and Jose Tabata.

Team defense was basically awful, despite the lofty reputations of Jack Wilson (5th among SS in +/-) and Adam LaRoche (9th in RZR among NL 1B, clearly not as good as he supposedly used to be), and the fact that Nate McLouth managed to hoodwink the BBWAA into giving him a Gold Glove, in defiance of his -40 rating among ALL center fielders in baseball, by far the worst rating among ALL outfielders. What that means is that McClouth made 40 less plays than the average centerfielder. The argument against this is that he only made one error all year, and though that's great, you can't make errors on the balls in play that you never get to. The average center fielder made 40 more plays than Nate McClouth over the same number of games, but Nate McClouth managed to get a Gold Glove. I'm a Pirate fan, and I can't even begin to come up with a cogent defense of that. The BBWAA is perhaps the most inept and stubborn group of people ever.

The lone bright spot for the Buccos was perhaps the offense, but that faded quickly with the trades of Jason Bay and Xavier Nady. I spoke at length about those trades at the time, so I won't regurgitate that here. I think both were necessary and (at least right now), well executed. Bay will continue to play well in Boston, and Nady will have another year in New York to determine whether or not he really is an everyday player, but the Pirates have neither the resources nor the inclination to attempt to afford two aging outfielders who are never going to be superstars.

For all the talk about the patience the Pirates showed at the plate, as usual, the stats do not bear that out. They drew a whopping 11 more walks (474 from 463), struck out 2% less (18.5% from 20.4%), which isn't bad, but they swung at more pitches out of the zone (25.35% up from 24.91%), and less pitches in the zone (62.55% down from 66.24%). They did make more contact on both pitches in the zone (89.59% up from 88.07%) and pitches out of the zone (66.09% up from 60.22%), but their BABIP was down to .293 in 2008 from .307 in 2007. That might just be bad luck, but it also might be that they swung at worse pitches. Either way, they were once again in the bottom half in the offensive rankings, due in no small part to John Russell's insistence on putting the struggling Freddy Sanchez, he of the .271/.298/.371 slash line (a freaking .669 OPS!!!) close to the top of the lineup for as many games as possible.

What's Next?:
1. Stabilize the starting rotation. This is why Bay and Nady were traded for several starting pitchers. Ian Snell has to decide whether or not he can be a real starter, and Zach Duke needs to build on a non-disastrous 2008 campaign to regain some more of the mojo he had as a rookie. Jeff Karstens and Ross Ohlendorf will be ready to push them right at the start of spring training. Daniel McCutcheon is probably bound for Indianapolis, but he won't be waiting too long before getting a shot. Can Phil Dumatrait produce anything more than lots of fly balls? Pressing issues abound.
2. Bolster the bullpen. This will most likely be the only area of free agency in which the front office is active, since they cannot afford the free agent starters out there, and as Billy Beane has shown us all, good specialty relievers can be found at relatively cheap prices.
3. Hope Sanchez and Andy LaRoche contribute something above replacement level offensively, that McLouth and Doumit produce something close to their 2008 numbers, and that Adam LaRoche somehow avoids a spring swoon like every other year.
4. Pray, pray, and pray that Andrew McCutcheon is ready early in 2009 so that McLouth can move to left and flash his Gold Glove defense at a non-premium position.
5. Hope for one more decent year offensively, and another above-average defensive year from Jack Wilson.
6. Somehow get average play from a Brandon Moss/Jason Michaels (if he's resigned)/Random Guy outfield tandem.

I may be crazy in thinking that the Pirates can contend as early as this year or 2010, but I do think it's possible. The future success of the Brewers is murky at best, but the Cubs will be a force, as will the Cardinals as long as their first baseman still breathes. It's a tough climb, but at least I feel that we managed to get a hold of some hiking boots for the journey.