What About Paginski?

Here's an interesting thought experiment from the Orioles Blog Camden Crazies (via BBTF):

This idea came up when discussing the possibility of the Yankees signing Matt Holliday on Twitter:

Doesn’t make sense for NY to spend that money on him now. The could put me in LF and still maybe make the playoffs.

Which begs the question, just how many wins could I cost a team if I played a full season? Any guesses, before I try to figure it out?

Seems easy enough to figure out. Same procedure would be used as when evaluating any other player. Take a guess, and then let’s work it out.

First off, the stipulation was that I would get 600 plate appearances in left-field, but I think it’s the case that if I had to play in the field all the time I wouldn’t actually make it to 600 PA. So instead, I’ll go easy on myself and just DH for the season.

The author, Daniel Moroz, is very conservative in projecting his offensive contributions, giving himself a .050/.100/.050 line for the season. Much of that comes from the assumption that if you just kept your bat on your shoulder, you'd work the occasional walk.

Click through to find out just how many runs and wins below replacement a .150 OPS is and to see whether or not the Yankees could hypothetically make the playoffs with him at DH.

It also reminds me of the following classic New York State Lottery commercial:



"Paginski" in the commercial was only batting .027 and he was also costing him team lots of runs with his awful defense at third base, meaning the Designated (Anti-)Hitter Moroz probably isn't the worst player in imaginary baseball history.

The moral of the story is that even the worst major leaguers are several orders of magnitude better than the average person watching from the stands or their couch at home. Although Joe Schmo would probably walk more than Bengie Molina, Yuniesky Bentancourt or Jeff Francoeur.

Swisher v. Abreu

This morning, Matt did a great job debunking the myth of Bobby Abreu's resurgent season and magical contagious plate discipline out in Anaheim. I also want to chime in on Abreu's production this season, but in relation to his ostensible replacement - another cheap acquisition via trade for the Yankees - Nick Swisher.

Although Xavier Nady was slotted as the starting right fielder and Swisher was supposed to man first base at the time the Yankees declined to offer Abreu arbitration on his $16M 2008 contract, Nady was done for the season by April 14th and Swish ended up getting over 600 plate appearances for the Yanks. Abreu sounded a bit like a spurned lover when talking about the Yankees cutting him loose but the reality is that at the time $16M was far too much to offer a corner outfielder with limited range when the market are held players like Raul Ibanez, Adam Dunn, Milton Bradley and Pat Burrell - even before taking into account the state of the baseball economy.

The decision made itself. The Angels waited out Abreu's attempts at a large, multi-year deal and got great value on highly productive hitter. Meanwhile, the Yankees signed Mark Teixeira and Swish ended up taking Abreu's place in right field of the New Yankee Stadium. They made essentially the same amount of money in 2009, so who got the better player?

Both guys love to work the count and put up solid OBPs, but that's pretty much where their similarities end. Let's take a look at the numbers (bold print represents an advantage):

A cursory look at the basic stats would give the nod to Abreu. His batting average is far higher than Swisher's and he batted in 14 21 more runs while stealing 30 bases.

However, while Abreu complied 41 more hits than Swisher, he actually had 14 fewer go for extra bases. The OBP advantage goes to Abreu, but more importantly, the slugging crown is Swish's by a wide margin. The home run totals are skewed by the New Yankee Stadium (although Swish only hit 8 at home), but not so much that Abreu would have hit twice as many there.

Abreu batted either second or third in the Angels' line up while Swisher was typically hitting somewhere between 6th and 8th for the Yankees, which explains the difference in RBIs. The 30 stolen bases at a 78% success rate do represent a major advantage for Abreu, but adding those 22 net total bases to Abreu's total isn't enough counteract Swisher's advantage in slugging percentage while subtracting the 8 times on base brings with OBPs closer together.

Usually, you would expect the guy who is a better base stealer to have the advantage in fielding as well, but that's not the case in this scenario. Swish didn't even attempt to steal a base all year long but still was better, or should I say "not as bad" as Abreu in right field.

Mainly on the strength of defense and power, Swisher had a higher value for the Yankees this year. Since Abreu hit all the plate appearance-based incentives in his contract this year, it means that Swish was the cheaper option by about $700,000 as well.

Both teams made out very well, but for different reasons. Swisher was cost controlled because of the deal he signed buying out his arbitration years and Abreu's contract was one of the most team-friendly in a historic buyer's market. The Yanks got an average fielding slugger while the Angels got a singles-raking base stealer. And with the teams meeting in the ALCS, I don't think there are too many regrets with how this scenario played out.

Risky Robby

Leading off the bottom of the 5th inning last night, Robinson Cano slashed at the first pitch he saw from Vin Mazzaro, sending it bending down the left field line and into the corner. It hit off the wall, just inside of the line and as the ball bounced directly to Matt Holliday and the cameras panned back to Cano, he was just rounding first, and I knew he was dead to rights at second.

It was part of that innate feel you develop as a fan. If you know who's at the plate, you've got a pretty good sense of how long the ball needs to rattle around before an outfielder gets his hands on it for your guy to get to second or third. You know when a balls rolls up to the wall and Jeter is running, he's thinking about a triple (and so are you). With that clean carom, it would have been a tight play even for Brett Gardner.

Replays showed that Cano paused for a second to see if the ball was fair or foul off the bat (understandable), and started down the first kind of slowly, which would have been fine if he was going to settle for a single. But inexplicably, as he was nearing first base, he broke into a full sprint, only to be gunned down at second about literally two full strides at the least. In the second picture on the right, it looks as if first base coach Mick Kelleher yelling at him to stop. That's probably because Holliday had already released the ball and Cano could have turned back.

As you can see, he was at barely in the fame when the ball arrived to Mark Ellis at 2nd base, and was out by 3 full strides.

This is an isolated incident, and it might seem like I'm dwelling on a baserunning mistake for way too long, but I think lends some insight into his lack of discipline at the plate and in turn his inability to hit with runners in scoring position.

His baserunning mistakes (he's 16 for 34 in SB in his career) say more about his level of risk aversion than his speed on the basepaths. The same can be said for someone with a lack of discipline at the plate. They are willing to swing at pitches that are harder to hit, thus increasing the likelihood of failure.

Cano has the 13th highest swing percentage in the Majors with 51.7%, but makes contact 91.2% of the time, which is 7th highest, where the leaders in that category (Luis Castillo, Marco Scutaro) have some of the lowest swing percentages in the game. Think about how good you have to be at putting the bat on the ball to rank so highly in both of those categories. He makes contact with 79.5% of the pitches he swings at out of the zone.

My contention is that his lack of plate discipline is what is eating away at his production with runners in scoring position and men on base in general. He's at .205 w/RISP this year as opposed to .356 without. For his career, he has a .743 OPS men on base as opposed to .895 with the bags unoccupied, and the former includes 14 intentional walks.

My half-baked theory goes like this: Pitchers are more reluctant to give a batter a pitch to hit with men on base, especially early in the count, but Cano goes up swinging like he always does, and puts the bat on the ball, but makes poorer contact as a result. His BABIP bears this out, as it is .297 with men on as opposed to .338 with the bases empty. We usually cite BABIP as a statistic to explain away fluky performances, but this is over his entire career, 2765 plate appearances. There are no more flukes at that sample size.

It's easy to imagine how good Cano could be if he was just more selective at the plate, but as Bill James has pointed out, it's not easy for a hitter to change his approach:

I think it is easier to learn plate discipline than it is to learn speed or to develop a strong throwing arm—but not much easier. A player who lacks plate discipline at age 18 will usually lack plate discipline at age 30. But not always; some players can adapt well to the challenge of learning to lay off certain pitches.

Robinson Cano is an excellent player as he is. Don't get me wrong. He's probably my favorite Yankees' position player and I love watching him take a ball 6 inches off the plate into the home bullpen as much as the next guy. But he will never be a scary, middle of the order type presence unless he can be more selective and make pitchers throw him balls in the strike zone with runners on base.