Dissecting The DH Signings

So far this offseason, free-swinging goat roaster Vladimir Guerrero, World Series Hero and spousal sketch artist Hideki Matsui, and injury-prone on-base messiah Nick Johnson have all been signed as DHs for elite offensive teams.

According to the Dallas News Vlad's deal is for $5M with incentives making comparable to the $5.5M deal Johnson got from the Yankees and the $6M one Matsui received from the Angels. Johnson's contract includes bonuses for every 25 plate appearances over 400 and mutual option or buyout for 2011, giving it the largest possible value of the three. But for this coming year, the values are likely to be quite similar.

While Johnson is more than 5 years younger than either Matsui or Guerrero, he carries similar risk of injury, having spent far more than his fair share of time on the DL over the course of his career. Johnson may be capable of playing first base and Matsui may want to play the outfield, but all three figure to DH almost exclusively in 2010.

Offensively, each has a unique profile. By getting on base at a .400 clip, Johnson offers something much different than either of the other two aging sluggers, but when healthy each provides similar overall value to a lineup.

The biggest difference between Matsui and Guerrero is that Matsui is coming off one of the best years of his career (not to mention the World Series MVP), while Vlad just completed one of his worst, both in terms of games played and at bat for at bat production. Johnson, meanwhile, came to the plate 574 times, the second most in his career and got on base quite often, but his slugging percentage was the lowest of the three.

However, the Yankees would gladly trade points in SLG for OBP considering he's going to be hitting in front of Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez. Matsui and Guerrero are going to hit more towards the middle of the order and their higher slugging percentages will be more useful in driving in runs. In terms of a fit for the line up, it seems that Johnson and the Yankees are a perfect match.

So between Matsui and Guerrero, who figures to provide more value for their team next year?

The chart below shows Vlad's numbers since he came to Anaheim back in 2004 (darker numbers are better).

While it hasn't been an even decline across the board, it's easy to see that he's fallen a long way in every category listed above in the last six years. Conversely, Matsui's 2009 line (.274/.367/.509) was very similar to his career marks (.292/.370/.482) with the exception of his batting average being slightly lower and his slugging percentage slightly higher. While Guerrero is still (supposedly) younger than Matsui and had a higher, longer career peak, it seems as though Vlad is further into his decline phase.

Plate discipline has a way insulating a batter from the effects of aging and that is one category Matsui owns Vlad in. Vlad walked in only 4.7% of his plate appearances last year, the lowest of his career, while Matsui walked in 12.3%, sightly above his career average.

Was luck a factor? Matsui had a BABIP of .275, which was .23 lower than his career mark. Guerrero was down slightly to .314 from his mean of .322. Vlad hit more fly balls in 2009 than in previous years, particularly infield fly balls. His line drive percentage was actually up last year, but he saw a dive in his HR/FB rate (-4.6%). Matsui had the same underlying factors ( increases in FB, IFFB, LD%), but his HR/FB rate nearly doubled to 17.9%. You can chalk some of the difference up to the New Yankee Stadium, but it appears he was fortunate with his results as well.

In 2010, Matsui will be moving to a less favorable hitter's park while Vlad will be moving to a more favorable one. As Jack Moore points out over at FanGraphs today, Vlad has excellent numbers at the Ballpark in Arlington, but "the data from the last few years in Anaheim far outweighs the fact that he’s killed the Rangers at home over the last six."

If I were a GM, I would be worried about Vlad's slow downward spiral over the past couple of years. While he had a higher, more sustained peak than Matsui, he seems to be more susceptible to the aging process than Godzilla. His bat speed has already started to leave him and the results have not been good. This isn't to say that Matsui is a sure bet either with his balky knees and all, but his patient approach at the plate and solid production last year seem to make him a better value in 2010.

The Fallacy Of El Comedulce

Good morning Fackers. The completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 allowed for far easier and faster transportation from the East Coast to the West Coast than had previously existed. Yet, from what I've been hearing and reading over the past several months, the concepts of the base on balls and working the pitch count still did not make its way west until some 140 years later when Bobby Abreu signed with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Don't get me wrong, Bobby Abreu is a very good baseball player. Depending upon how the Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui situations work out this off-season, he might be a good option for the 2010 Yankees to explore. He was initially acquired in one of the best deals Brian Cashman has made and provided the Yankees with two and a half years of good to excellent offensive production, even if his phobia of outfield walls was downright comical by the end of his tenure in the Bronx. The Yankees rightly refused to offer him arbitration following last season, as the $16M he earned in 2008 would have made his 2009 arbitration figure far more than what he's worth. That coupled with the collapse of the free agent market last off-season in light of both the U.S. economy and the ever changing landscape of baseball economics allowed the Angels to sign Abreu for the bottom basement price of $5M for 2009.

While the prevaling narrative is that Abreu enjoyed something of a comeback season, the reality is that his OPS+ of 115 this year is worse than last year (120), essentially equal to his 2007 (114), and the second lowest total of his career since becoming an everyday player in 1998. Some of that can be attributed to the continued diminishing of his power late in his career. But while his OBP of .390 and his BB% of 14.1 are improvements on 2007 and 2008, they still rank as his third lowest marks since 1998.

Yet if you were to listen to the announcers during ALDS or any other nationally televised Angels' game this year, or if you were to google "Bobby Abreu influence on Angels", you would be subjected to scores of hyperbolic statements crediting Abreu with teaching the Angels, who have made the playoffs three straight seasons and six of the last eight, how to finally work a pitch count and take a walk. Nevermind that as recently as 2007 the Angels finished third in the AL in OBP, just as they did this year, with a mark .345, just a half percent lower than this year's .350.

In this post yesterday, Rob Neyer, vamping on Tyler Kepner's piece in The Times, pointed out that the Angels walked 66 more times this year than last, boosting their walk rate from 7.8% to 8.7% and rising from 11th in the AL in OBP back to third, where they had finished in 2007. Yet Neyer also notes that the difference can be entirely attributed to the performance of Abreu alone, who had 65 more walks than the man he replaced - Garrett Anderson, a notorious free swinger whose career high in walks is a whopping 38. In addition to Abreu, Chone Figgins walked 39 more times this year than in 2008. So outside of Figgins and swapping Anderson for Abreu, the rest of the Angels walked 38 fewer times than they did in 2008.

While their average pitches per plate appearance increased from 3.65 to 3.88, that only equates to about 12.5 extra pitches per game, of which about 5.5 can be attributed to Abreu and Figgins. So the rest of the line up saw, on average, one extra pitch each over the course of a game. And while the team's walk rate did increase by 0.9% this year, their IsoD is consisent with last year (.065 this year as opposed to .062 last year). Their 20 point boost in on base percentage is just as much due to a 17 point jump in batting average, which in turn can be attributed to a 23 point jump in team BABIP despite just a one percent increase in LD%. So much for Abreu's influence; it appears luck has far more to do with the Angels' surge in OBP than Abreu does.

Bobby Abreu was the best bargain of the 2008-2009 Crazy Eddie style off-season. You don't need FanGraphs to tell you that Abreu was a steal $6M ($5M base plus $1M incentives), but just to put a number on it, FanGraphs places Abreu's worth at $11.8M this year, nearly twice his salary. That's one helluva deal the Angels got for themselves, but it doesn't mean that Abreu, as one of the most selective hitters in the game, has bestowed his patience upon the rest of the lineup through his mere presence. Keep that in mind as Joe Buck, Tim McCarver, Ken Rosenthal, and the print media try to beat that story line into our head over the course of the ALCS.

Joe Girardi Reads "Fack Youk"

Back in January, I desperately pleaded for Joe Girardi to bat Derek Jeter leadoff due to his higher OBP but higher tendency to ground into double plays and effectively waste Johnny Damon's solid OBP.

According to fellow Mick blogger Kat O'Brien of Newsday, it appears that Joe G. has begun to follow my advice:

Derek Jeter will be the leadoff hitter and Johnny Damon will bat second, a top of the lineup switch the Yankees will use for the rest of spring training.

Manager Joe Girardi said the reason for the switch is because the team likes how Damon has looked batting second in spring training games. As long as the Yankees like what they see over the final week of spring training games, the team will bring this lineup into the regular season.

Very refreshing in various aspects. First of all, Joe Girardi clearly reads our blog. Second, if I fail to get a legal job, which looks like the case, I could be a Big League manager. Third, it is nice to have a skipper who is not scared of stats and to break away from horrid logic like "Derek Jeter has always batted 2nd. Therefore he should always bat 2nd".

Let's hope Giradi gives this line up a chance and doesn't let the small sample size of one week in Spring Training derail potential goodness.