Free Geovany Soto

After 87 major league plate appearances from 2005 to 2007, the Cubs made Geovany Soto their starting catcher prior to the 2008 season.  He answered the call by hitting 0.285/0.364/0.504 in 141 games (and 563 plate appearances), which contributed to a 0.371 wOBA, a 4.1 WAR season, and the 2008 NL Rookie of the Year Award.

In 2009, Soto missed 26 games in July and August and played in only 102 games.  At the time he was hitting 0.230/0.336/0.396, making him roughly a league average hitter.  When he came back, he wasn’t any better and finished at 0.218/0.321/0.381.

In 2010, Soto missed 16 games in mid-August and will miss the final 14 games of the season; as a result, he has played in just 105 games (starting only 97 at catcher).  Most of the other games Soto missed were in a month-long stretch in late May and early June when he started only 15 of 27 games.  At the time of his “benching,” Soto was hitting 0.256/0.408/0.393.  He had only four home runs and four doubles through 147 plate appearances, but he was still a much better than his backup, who had produced this line through the same time period: 0.209/0.227/0.256.  One of those is much better than the other.

Soto will finish the 2010 season with a 0.280/0.393/0.497 line on way to producing a 3.5 WAR season.  Over 600 plate appearances, that projects to a 5.4 WAR season.  Looking at Soto’s time in the big leagues, it’s not hard to see what happened in 2008:

Season	G	PA	HR	BB%	K%	AVG	OBP	SLG	GB/FB
2008	141	563	23	11.0%	24.5%	0.285	0.364	0.504	0.91
2009	102	389	11	12.9%	23.3%	0.218	0.321	0.381	0.98
2010	105	387	17	16.0%	25.8%	0.280	0.393	0.497	0.91

Season	G	LD%	GB%	FB%	IFFB%	HR/FB	BABIP	ISO	wOBA	wRC+	WAR
2008	141	21.0%	37.7%	41.4%	6.4%	14.7%	0.332	0.219	0.371	124	4.1
2009	102	18.1%	40.5%	41.3%	6.5%	10.3%	0.246	0.163	0.310	84	1.3
2010	105	24.4%	36.0%	39.7%	8.3%	17.7%	0.324	0.217	0.385	139	3.5

Soto was terribly unlucky in 2009.  His batted ball profile stayed the same; the slight shift from line drives to ground balls is not enough to explain an 86 point drop in BABIP.  His home run per fly ball dropped slightly, but not significantly.  He saw and continues to see the same set of pitches and, if anything, his plate discipline has improved since 2008.

Soto is one of the best hitting catchers in the major leagues; despite playing only 105 games, he ranks fourth among catchers in batting runs above average.

He’s only 27 years old and about to enter his prime; he needs to play as much as his body will allow.  Lou Piniella was making the Cubs a worse team in May and June by not having Soto in the lineup as much as he could.  Hopefully the new manager won’t make that same mistake.

*Sorry for all of those who are Koyie Hill fans.  Koyie Hill’s mom, if you read this, I really am sorry.  Your son is in the 0.1% of o.1% of terrific baseball players who make it to the major leagues.  You should be proud.

**Sorry for everyone who hasn’t yet forgotten the Eric Wedge Era.  Very insensitive to remind you as we approach October.

The Most Underrated Player in Baseball

He plays for a terrible team (that, to be fair, might be getting better).  He crushes baseballs, walks a lot, and doesn’t strike out too much.  He’s among the best defenders at his position every year.  He plays a premium position.  Fun fact, he turns 26 today (HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANONYMOUS PLAYER X!!!!!!!!!).  And I think at the end of the week he’ll finish second on my (self-given) National League MVP ballot.  That got your attention? Well, Ryan Zimmerman deserves it too.

The fact that I’m going to start by talking about his defense should also say something.  He’s been an above average defender every year of his career.  With the uncertainty surrounding the UZR data (typically about three years of data are needed to find a defender’s true talent level), it’s amazing that Zimmerman has never given back runs in the field.  Three of the last four years, he’s been otherworldly; excluding 2008, he ranked 2nd, 4th, and and 1st at third base and 9th, 8th, and 3rd in the major leagues.

He’s a career 0.288/0.355/0.484 hitter, but over the past two seasons (his age 24 and 25 seasons) those numbers are 0.299/0.375/0.518.  His walk rate has increased the last two seasons without a change in his strikeout rate.  He’s hit 69 doubles, 3 triples, and 58 home runs over the past two seasons, showing increasing power as he enters his prime.  Offensively, he’s only one of the best 20 or so hitters in baseball (which, by the way, is pretty good on its own).

When that’s packaged with his defensive abilities at a premium position (not to mention his contract*, which is already paid for), he quickly becomes one of the most valuable players in baseball.  He shouldn’t have to live in anonymity  because no one cares about Nationals’ baseball, nor should he be penalized by MVP voters next week for having bad teammates.  There was a lot of talk this summer about Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper saving the franchise, but the Nationals already have a franchise player that more of the country needs to watch play.

*Ryan Zimmerman 3b

• 5 years/$45M (2009-13)
  • 2009:$3,325,000
  • 2010:$6,250,000
  • 2011:$8,925,000
  • 2012:$12,000,000
  • 2013:$14,000,000
• 2008: $465,000
• 2007:$400,000
• 2006:$327,000

Cain Eliminates Rockies

I was going to write about Matt Cain’s big day yesterday, but it was done better here and here.  Still, I thought it would be worthwhile to post a couple of parts from Albert’s and Jack’s pieces.  First, Jack:

Cain had some help, particularly from home runs by Freddy Sanchez and Cody Ross, but Cain’s fantastic performance stands tallest for the Giants. Over a complete game, Cain only allowed two runs – a Melvin Mora pinch hit home run in the 8th inning. The Rockies could only muster two more hits and a walk off Cain while striking out eight times.Not only was Cain brilliant, but he was brilliant in the context of a close game. He took the 2-0 lead staked to him by the Sanchez home run and ran with it. The Rockies were within three until the 7th inning, and then after the Mora home run, Cain had to shut the door on a potent Rockies offense in the 8th and 9th. Overall, Cain earned a whopping +.469 win probability added in the start – as a total of +.500 is required for the team to win the game, you can almost say that Cain won the game by himself.

And now Albert, and I’m going to snip it almost to death, so read the whole thing:

Cain has been able to keep the HR/FB ratio down from 8.4% last season to 6.4% this season, reducing his HR/9 from 0.91 to 0.77. Dropping to 7.06 K/9 from 8.45 K/9 in his first full season (back in 2006) may be a concern, but overall, Matt Cain is enjoying the best season of his career in terms of FIP, with a career low mark of 3.54. Yesterday, Cain was able to induce 13 swinging strikes using all four of his pitches: four-seam fastball, slider, curveball, and changeup.

…

All effective pitchers will avoid the three ball count as much as possible, and Cain has thrown 38 3-0 pitches all season in 210.1 IP.

…

It’s interesting to note that Cain rarely uses his changeup against LHH on the first pitch (12.5%), but uses it more frequently in every other count (up to 33.7% with a 1-1 count) except when there are three balls.

Cain flies under the radar every year (not helping is this guy), but in almost 1100 career innings, he’s got an ERA of 3.41; he’s also pitched at least 190 innings and made at least 31 starts in each of his first five full seasons.  Matt Cain is the real deal, with talent to do things like lock down really good lineups.  If the Giants can find a way into the playoffs, facing Lincecum and Cain four times in a series (and Jonathan Sanchez) will not be fun for the opposing lineup.

Removing Votto from the Lineup

Here’s a game log (with hitter, pitcher, and play event removed), courtesy of FanGraphs, for one of Saturday’s games:

Inning	Outs	Runners	Score	LI	RE	WE	WPA	RE24
T9	0	___	3-3	2.18	0.41	41.8%	0.082	0.36
T9	0	1__	3-3	3.51	0.77	43.6%	-0.018	-0.16
T9	1	_2_	3-3	3.27	0.6	41.7%	0.019	0.21
T9	1	12_	3-3	4.62	0.81	49.2%	-0.075	-0.37
T9	2	1_3	3-3	4.81	0.44	48.2%	0.01	0.1
T9	2	_23	3-3	4.93	0.54	61.7%	-0.135	-0.54

The top of the 9th inning starts with each team having a 50% of chance of winning.  The win expectancy shown is from the perspective of the home team.  Therefore, the first event is a good thing for the team hitting.  The second event did not help them.  The third play helped a little.  The fourth play did not help, despite the runner on second advancing.  The fifth play helped a lot; without the game log, you can still see what happened.  The runner from first moved to second without the score or outs changing and the same runner on third – a stolen base/wild pitch/passed ball.  In this case, the speed demon on first stole second.  The inning ends with the sixth event.

So from the perspective of the team hitting, plays 1, 3, and 5 were good.  Plays 2, 4, and 6 did not help them.  Now here’s the context:

Pitcher	Hitter	Outs	Runners	Game Event
H Bell	D Stubbs	0	___	Drew Stubbs singled to center.
H Bell	O Cabrera	0	1__	Orlando Cabrera sacrificed to first. Drew Stubbs advanced to 2B.
H Bell	J Votto	1	_2_	Joey Votto was intentionally walked.
H Bell	S Rolen	1	12_	Scott Rolen flied out to right. Drew Stubbs advanced to 3B.
H Bell	J Votto	2	1_3	Joey Votto advanced on a stolen base to 2B.
H Bell	J Gomes	2	_23	Jonny Gomes flied out to left.

Drew Stubbs led off with a single.  He’s a fast man:

Fast people on base is a good thing.  Next up is Orlando Cabrera, who sucks (most of his 1.4 WAR this year has come from showing up).

Letting him hit in this situation probably isn’t a great idea.  With almost the entire 40-man roster available, there had to be someone available to pinch-hit.  But that doesn’t even bother me that much; what happened instead is even worse.  The worst case scenario for the Reds would be a double play, which would remove all runners from the bases and give the Padres two outs.  Also bad would be giving the Padres an out and removing the bat from the hands of the best hitter in the National League.  Which of course is what happened.

Cabrera bunted to move Stubbs to second with Joey Votto coming up.  With first base open, Votto is walked intentionally and Scott Rolen becomes the hitter.  So not only have the Reds given away an out, but they’ve also removed their best hitter from the lineup in order to put a man on second base.  For this, they got two chances with Rolen and Jonny Gomes instead of three chances with Votto, Rolen, and Gomes.  In all likelihood, Votto doesn’t get walked (intentionally) with one out and a man on first.  But with one man out and a man on second, it’s an easier decision (particularly when one run makes such a huge difference).  Usually, with a hitter of Votto’s quality, it’s a good decision to put
him on with first base open behind a runner on second.

It didn’t work out for the Reds, and I was almost screaming at the television watching it.  It’s things like “taking the bat out of your best player’s hands” that helps lose games, and games can’t be given away come a week from now.

Pitcher	Hitter	Inning	Outs	Runners	Score	Game Event	LI	RE	WE	WPA	RE24
H Bell	D Stubbs	9	0	___	3-3	Drew Stubbs singled to center.	2.18	0.41	41.8%	0.082	0.36
H Bell	O Cabrera	9	0	1__	3-3	Orlando Cabrera sacrificed to first. Drew Stubbs advanced to 2B.	3.51	0.77	43.6%	-0.018	-0.16
H Bell	J Votto	9	1	_2_	3-3	Joey Votto was intentionally walked.	3.27	0.6	41.7%	0.019	0.21
H Bell	S Rolen	9	1	12_	3-3	Scott Rolen flied out to right. Drew Stubbs advanced to 3B.	4.62	0.81	49.2%	-0.075	-0.37
H Bell	J Votto	9	2	1_3	3-3	Joey Votto advanced on a stolen base to 2B.	4.81	0.44	48.2%	0.01	0.1
H Bell	J Gomes	9	2	_23	3-3	Jonny Gomes flied out to left.	4.93	0.54	61.7%	-0.135	-0.54

Brett Myers

8th in the league in ERA, between Jaime Garcia and David Price, is Brett Myers.  This is the same Brett Myers who has never posted an ERA below 3.72 (currently 2.76).  Then there’s this crazy stat:

Brett Myers’ career-year continued last night with seven innings of one-run ball in a win over the Brewers and he also made some history by becoming just the seventh pitcher since 1920 to throw six or more innings in each of his first 30 starts.

The previous six: Bob Gibson (1968 and 1969), Fergie Jenkins (1972), Tom Seaver (1974), Steve Carlton (1980), Jack McDowell (1993), Curt Schilling (2002).

If there ever was a “one of these things is not like the others” situation, this is it.  So the question is easy: who is this imposter and what did he do to Brett Myers what, if anything, is Myers doing differently?

Here are a couple of tables to show his numbers over his career:

Season	Team	W	L	ERA	G	GS	SV	IP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	AVG
2002	Phillies	4	5	4.25	12	12	0	72	4.25	3.63	1.38	0.264
2003	Phillies	14	9	4.43	32	32	0	193	6.67	3.54	0.93	0.274
2004	Phillies	11	11	5.52	32	31	0	176	5.93	3.17	1.59	0.283
2005	Phillies	13	8	3.72	34	34	0	215.1	8.69	2.84	1.30	0.241
2006	Phillies	12	7	3.91	31	31	0	198	8.59	2.86	1.32	0.258
2007	Phillies	5	7	4.33	51	3	21	68.2	10.88	3.54	1.18	0.240
2008	Phillies	10	13	4.55	30	30	0	190	7.72	3.08	1.37	0.269
2009	Phillies	4	3	4.84	18	10	0	70.2	6.37	2.93	2.29	0.271
2010	Astros	13	7	2.76	31	31	0	212	7.30	2.46	0.68	0.247

Season	Team	BABIP	LOB%	FIP	GB/FB	LD%	GB%	FB%	IFFB%	HR/FB	xFIP
2002	Phillies	0.268	75.6%	5.46	1.61	19.6%	49.6%	30.9%	14.1%	15.5%	4.82
2003	Phillies	0.316	72.9%	4.22	1.81	22.5%	49.9%	27.6%	10.1%	11.9%	4.06
2004	Phillies	0.303	68.5%	5.18	1.4	19.3%	47.1%	33.6%	12.8%	15.9%	4.40
2005	Phillies	0.289	77.9%	4.06	1.51	23.1%	46.3%	30.6%	11.4%	16.8%	3.36
2006	Phillies	0.309	76.1%	4.14	1.26	18.3%	45.6%	36.1%	9.4%	14.3%	3.64
2007	Phillies	0.320	73.3%	3.75	1.31	19.2%	45.8%	35.0%	8.1%	14.5%	3.28
2008	Phillies	0.311	72.6%	4.52	1.45	20.4%	47.1%	32.5%	11.3%	15.6%	3.87
2009	Phillies	0.273	83.1%	6.14	1.36	18.4%	47.1%	34.5%	11.7%	23.4%	4.32
2010	Astros	0.297	78.0%	3.31	1.44	16.8%	49.1%	34.1%	7.0%	7.4%	3.72

Not much has changed.  He’s stranding a few more runners than we might expect, and his walks have gone down to a career-low, so that helps.  His line drive rate is down slightly, and he’s converting those to ground balls.  But the big change is in his home run rates, which currently sit at 0.68 home runs per nine innings and 7.4% fly balls becoming home runs.  That’s the entire difference; those rates are half of his career numbers and one-third of what they were in 2009.  Even stranger, he’s given up only 4 home runs at home while allowing 12 on the road.

So we’ve figured out why’s he better, now let’s see if there’s a how.  Here’s a table of his pitch selection over his career:

Season	Team	FB	SL	CT	CB	CH	SF
2002	Phillies	63.3% (90.9)			26.9% (78.6)	9.7% (83.8)
2003	Phillies	56.4% (90.9)	0.1% (82.0)		29.8% (78.6)	13.7% (82.8)
2004	Phillies	60.4% (91.0)	0.2% (83.0)		26.6% (78.8)	12.8% (83.1)
2005	Phillies	58.2% (91.4)	4.7% (85.4)	8.7% (87.3)	20.6% (79.5)	7.8% (83.9)	0.0% (87.0)
2006	Phillies	50.5% (91.4)	15.5% (83.8)	5.8% (87.1)	21.2% (79.1)	6.7% (83.9)	0.4% (85.4)
2007	Phillies	47.5% (92.1)	12.5% (84.9)	0.4% (87.4)	26.6% (78.9)	12.5% (85.4)	0.4% (87.8)
2008	Phillies	48.2% (90.1)	18.4% (84.5)	0.7% (87.5)	23.3% (77.5)	9.2% (83.6)	0.2% (86.9)
2009	Phillies	52.0% (89.3)	18.2% (84.5)		24.3% (77.6)	5.1% (83.5)	0.4% (85.8)
2010	Astros	44.0% (89.4)	27.9% (83.5)		20.4% (76.4)	7.7% (82.7)

It appears that he’s been slider-heavy, which is good choice because it’s been really hard to hit.  His curveball hasn’t been too bad either.  His two breaking pitches, thrown more than 48 percent of the time, are 28 runs better than average.  I looked to see if he had changed when in the count he’s throwing these pitches, but it looks like in every count, he’s throwing more sliders.

Count	Career	2010	Career	2010	Career	2010	Career	2010
	FB%	FB%	SL%	SL%	CB%	CB%	CH%	CH%
0 – 0	67%	57%	8%	24%	19%	15%	5%	4%
1 – 0	55%	46%	10%	28%	19%	14%	14%	12%
2 – 0	78%	64%	9%	29%	5%	3%	7%	4%
3 – 0	94%	89%	2%	11%	0%		3%
0 – 1	43%	37%	15%	33%	24%	21%	14%	10%
1 – 1	38%	33%	16%	36%	27%	19%	15%	12%
2 – 1	59%	51%	12%	30%	16%	7%	12%	11%
3 – 1	79%	63%	8%	25%	7%	4%	5%	8%
0 – 2	37%	34%	10%	18%	39%	41%	10%	6%
1 – 2	37%	26%	11%	25%	40%	44%	9%	6%
2 – 2	36%	27%	12%	28%	41%	37%	8%	8%
3 – 2	61%	38%	13%	38%	20%	16%	6%	8%

Starting to get a little frustrated because I don’t have an explanation other than “he might have better command of his slider and is throwing it a lot more as a result.”  Checking the Pitchf/x data from TexasLeaguers, there’s almost no difference in any of the analyses available from the 2008-2009 seasons and 2010.  To see if hitters are helping him, I looked at the plate discipline numbers:

Season	Team	O-Swing%	Z-Swing%	Swing%	O-Contact%	Z-Contact%	Contact%	Zone%	F-Strike%	SwStr%
2002	Phillies	13.0%	69.4%	45.7%	39.7%	88.6%	82.8%	58.0%	60.6%	7.7%
2003	Phillies	25.1%	65.8%	46.9%	53.9%	88.9%	80.2%	53.6%	61.2%	9.1%
2004	Phillies	17.0%	69.9%	47.7%	55.2%	87.0%	82.3%	58.2%	63.5%	8.2%
2005	Phillies	18.6%	65.3%	44.9%	43.8%	86.7%	78.9%	56.3%	60.7%	9.4%
2006	Phillies	23.8%	63.0%	44.6%	51.6%	87.8%	78.7%	53.2%	61.7%	9.4%
2007	Phillies	24.7%	59.6%	42.4%	54.2%	86.6%	77.3%	50.7%	61.4%	9.6%
2008	Phillies	23.3%	61.4%	44.1%	53.8%	88.8%	80.4%	54.5%	61.0%	8.5%
2009	Phillies	21.2%	63.3%	41.7%	65.0%	91.3%	84.4%	48.6%	53.3%	6.5%
2010	Astros	30.4%	61.5%	44.4%	65.7%	88.5%	80.0%	45.2%	58.7%	8.8%

Now we have some confirmation.  He’s getting more swings outside of the zone and more contact on those pitches.  Pitches that aren’t strikes are difficult to hit hard.  If he’s throwing more sliders and curveballs (down in the zone one would think), it would make sense that he’s getting more ground balls and giving up fewer home runs.

One more thing I wanted to check; what were the expectations for Myers coming into the season?  Houston signed him to a one-year contract for 3.1 million dollar contract before this season, so it’s safe to say teams didn’t expect too much from him.  Here are what several reputable projection systems saw from Myers, along with his 2010 stat line.

	W	L	ERA	IP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9
Bill James	9	10	4.37	171	7.74	3.11	1.42
CHONE	5	9	4.79	126	7.57	3.07	1.50
Marcel	6	6	4.55	99	7.55	3.27	1.45
Fans (18)	8	8	4.44	148	7.54	2.98	1.40
ZiPS	6	8	4.83	117.3	7.98	3.07	1.61
2010	13	7	2.76	212	7.30	2.46	0.68

All of the projection systems are very similar, and they all indicate that the big difference is the home run rate.  This type of change from a pitcher nine years into his career is almost unheard-of, but it has happened.  2011 will be a real test whether or not this is a fluke.  I have to be honest and say that I haven’t the slightest idea; I want to believe Myers is doing something to stop allowing home runs, but my head says a significant portion of it is completely random.

Lastly, from Aaron’s post linked earlier:

Myers put himself in position to potentially make a lot of money back on the open market, but opted against another crack at free agency by signing a two-year, $23 million extension with the Astros last month. He’ll make $7 million next season and $11 million in 2012, with the Astros giving him a $2 million signing bonus and holding a $10 million option or $3 million buyout for 2013.

Which would be great if the Astros were going to be anywhere close to good in the next 3 years.  But they won’t.  And who knows if Myers will repeat this season’s performance?  In my opinion, when teams were calling this summer about Oswalt, the Astros should have been throwing Myers’ name in every discussion.  Even when the Astros find a diamond in the rough…well, they suck.