March 28, 2012

Orioles Scouts Banned in Korea



This is not a new story, but I wanted to update it with the fact that Orioles Scouts were in fact banned from all Korean Baseball Association (KBA) sanctioned games, which include the national high school and college tournaments as well as pro games.  The picture above is actually hanging outside stadiums in Korea right now.  I don't know why they needed an exclamation point for the Korean version of the message, but not the English version.  From the version that I can understand, it's certainly clear enough without it.  I guess they really wanted to make their point to any Orioles scouts that could maybe speak some Korean.

Let's take a step back here and talk about what actually happened to lead to the scouts being banned.  On January 17th, the Orioles reached an agreement with 17 year old Seong-Min Kim to sign with the team for $550,000.  Almost immediately, the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) protested the signing.  The KBO filed an official protest to Major League Baseball saying that the Orioles didn't follow the proper protocol in signing the player.  Their protest was successful, and MLB ended up not approving the contract.  The KBA also suspended Kim from playing and coaching in Korea indefinitely for making contact with a pro team before his final year of high school.

Apparently, if a major league team wants to sign a Korean player, the team has to submit a status check on the player to MLB, which would then forward the request to the KBO.  The KBO would determine whether the team can contact the player, and tell MLB whether the team has it's permission.  Then, MLB would tell the team whether they could in fact get in contact with the player and sign him.

The Orioles did not follow this protocol.  They signed Kim with out going through the proper channels.  Reportedly, Kim didn't even have an agent and the team worked out a contract directly with Kim's parents.  Dan Duquette was known for signing many Asian players during his tenure with the Red Sox.  The fact that he didn't know and/or didn't follow the proper protocol in this case is troubling.  The international market was supposed to be one of Duquette's strengths. 

Duquette issued an official apology during February.  From Roch Kubatko of MASN: 

"On behalf of the Orioles organization, I offer a sincere apology to the Korea Baseball Organization and the Korea Baseball Association for the club's unintentional breach of protocol in failing to tender a status check in the process of signing Seong-Min Kim. The Orioles respect Major League Baseball's recruiting policies and the governing bodies and people that contribute to the growth of baseball around the world."
I am troubled by the Orioles front office's lack of knowledge in the way the international signing game is played. However, there's another aspect to this story that's just as troubling. Baseball America reported that the player the Orioles tried to sign, Seong-Min Kim was considered a non-prospect by the other organizations they spoke with. From Baseball America: 
Baseball America surveyed 11 other teams that scout Asia (two of which did not have a report on him on file) and could not find any organization that had interest in signing Kim or had a similarly glowing scouting report. While scouts often disagree about the futures of international teenage prospects, most of the other teams' reports on Kim's present ability and future potential were consistent with each other.

According to the other teams, Kim's fastball ranged from 78-85 mph. The maximum velocity another team had on Kim was 87 mph. Other scouts called his breaking ball a slurvy curveball in the mid- to high 60s and graded it from 20-30 on the 20-80 scouting scale, which rates as well below average. Scouts say he's likely an inch or two shorter than his listed height of 5-feet-11, has little projection and some funkiness in his arm action.


Many believed the Orioles were the only team interested in Kim. Several teams turned him in as a non-prospect.
This is the part of the story where I become really concerned. Are we supposed to believe that the Orioles scouts saw a different player than the scouts from other organizations that Baseball America talked to? According to reports, Orioles scouts recorded Kim throwing 88-90 mph with a plus curveball. Obviously, there's a big difference between a kid throwing 78-85 mph and 88-90 mph. The Orioles did a lot of shuffling around in their front office this winter. This makes you question how successful they were in getting the right people in the right spots.

Reportedly, the Orioles will again attempt to sign Kim once they are allowed to. It isn't clear when that is going to be. In the meantime, Kim is going back to high school in South Korea and is banned indefinitely from the Korean Baseball Organization so he can't play professional baseball in Korea. That severely limits his options as a 17 year old. I'm not familiar with how often Korean players go play in Japanese or Taiwanese leagues, but I doubt it would be his first choice.

The Orioles are left with a lot of egg on their face in this debacle. The sign outside Korean baseball stadiums is just an ugly reminder of this episode. The KBO doesn't strike me as an organization that forgives and forgets easily so this ban could last for quite some time. This wasn't the start to his Orioles tenure that Dan Duquette was hoping for. Let's hope it gets better from here.

March 23, 2012

Season Preview: Orioles


Photo by Steve Nesius/Reuters


I don't think anyone will be surprised that the Orioles are projected to come in 5th place in the AL East this season by my method or by anyone else's method of projecting team records this season.  The AL East has 3 of the best teams in baseball in the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays and another in the Blue Jays that is quickly taking the steps to get to their level.  Unfortunately, that leaves the Orioles in last place for the foreseeable future.  With a terribly tough division, the Orioles just don't have enough talent to seriously compete.  But let's see what they project to bring to the table this year.  The fielding component is from the Fangraphs fan projections, so it has the least amount of reliability of all the projections.  The hitting projections are from Dan Szymborski's ZIPS system.  To see how I compiled these projections and analysis, see my introduction to the series here.

Catcher

RolePlayerBatsPAZIPS BAZIPS OBPZIPS SLGFieldingWAR
StarterMatt WietersS6000.2680.3340.42954.5
ReserveTaylor TeagardenR1000.1970.2640.34500

Wieters is projected to have a very strong season at catcher for the Orioles this year with 4.5 WAR, which is actually a little bit lower than last season's 5.0 WAR.  The hitting projections are similar to his season last year, while the defense projects him to be closer to human after being other worldly last year.  I think this projection could actually underrate Wieters for the upcoming season as he could easily improve further in what will be his age 26 season.  The power really started to emerge towards the end of 2011, as he hit 12 home runs in August and September combined. If he carries his power surge over into 2012, Wieters could actually come close to all of the crazy expectations he had when he was coming up through the minors. 

As long as Teagarden's back injury doesn't sideline him too long, he should see about 100 pretty dull plate appearances.  If he misses time, odds are Ronny Paulino will fill in as Matt Wieters' caddy and provide similar nondescript performance.  This is the only position where the Orioles are projected to get the most WAR in the division. 

First Base

RolePlayerBatsPAZIPs BAZIPs OBPZIPs SLGFieldingWAR
StarterChris DavisL4500.2500.2990.44000.5
3B ReliefMark ReynoldsR2200.2180.3200.36100.5
C ReliefMatt WietersB100.2680.3340.42900
DepthNick JohnsonL200.2230.3500.31800
ProspectJoe MahoneyL200.2540.2990.38000

The team is only projected to get 1.0 WAR out of first base this season.  Largely, that is the result of a poor season being projected for Chris Davis.  ZIPS does project him to hit 23 home runs with 72 RBI's so the projection isn't all terrible.  However, he'll really have to bring his thunder stick to the plate if he wants to make up for his projected .299 OBP.  The playing time projections imply that Davis loses his job at some point to Mark Reynolds, likely in August or so.  The only way that happens is if the O's find someone else to play 3B.  Maybe they could move Betemit to 3B and find someone else to DH, whether that's Reimold, Davis himself or maybe even Nick Johnson.  That is providing that Johnson makes it to August in one piece; realizing with his history that's pretty unlikely.

Second Base

RolePlayerBatsPAZIPS BAZIPS OBPZIPS SLGFieldingWAR
StarterRobert AndinoR5000.2490.3010.35831.5
ReserveBrian RobertsS1500.2650.3320.411-10.5
ProspectRyan AdamsR500.2600.3070.381-10

Brian Roberts is still recovering from his concussion problems, though he recently began taking batting practice and fielding ground balls. Still, there isn't a time frame for him to return to action so 150 plate appearances is all we can reasonably project at this point and even that is just a guess. The projected starter at the position, Robert Andino is projected to be slightly below average and accumulate 1.5 WAR. As the Orioles second baseman, his triple slash is projected to be .249/.301/.358 with a positive fielding number. The 28 year old is more than adequate as a back up infielder at 3 positions, but he's stretched a little bit in a full time role. Though his game winning hit to end the season against the Red Sox last season was a sublime moment for Orioles fans.

March 14, 2012

Intro to Team Previews

Last week, Fangraphs ran a great series called Positional Power Rankings where they ranked each position by organization one by one.  The series analyzed the entire position for each organization including the projected reserves playing time as well as any minor leaguers who are projected to get called up.  ZIPS projections were used to project the offense, while the expected fielding ratings came from the FAN's projections.  These numbers were mashed together with each writer's expected plate appearances and a rough approximation of expected WAR was created.  They were then ranked and each position was given its own post.  I thoroughly enjoyed the series, but wanted to take it a step further.

Since I am a one man operation, I don't have the time to put together a projection for each player on each team.  And since Fangraphs just did that, I don't see any value in re-creating it.  What I do think could be interesting is to take these WAR projections from the Fangraphs series and use them to create a projected WAR for each team.  By doing that we should be able to project the number of wins for each team for the upcoming season.  Considering that a team full of replacement level players would win about 48 games, we'll use that as our baseline.  Every WAR that is projected to be earned by a team will be added to our baseline to come to our projection of wins for each team.

There are a lot of season previews out there.  Some go team by team, and others go by division or league but I haven't seen one that tries to project the WAR for each team to figure out their projected place in the standings.  I will admit before going into this that things usually don't go as planned and I don't have any idea how accurate these projections will turn out to be.  But I think it will give us a good idea of where each team stands at this point in time.

I'm going to start with the AL East to get an idea of where the Orioles stack up.  After that, we'll see how much of the AL we can get through.  Please provide any feedback in the comments.

March 9, 2012

Did the Orioles Change J.J. Hardy?

J.J. Hardy created a minor stir the other day in an AP interview when he claimed that the Orioles told him to change his approach during his first batting practice session with the team last year.  During his time with the Minnesota Twins in 2010, the hitting coaches told him to focus on hitting line drives the other way instead of using his natural ability to pull the ball.  Jim Presley, the Orioles hitting coach apparently told him to re-focus on pulling the ball, hitting for power, and hitting homeruns.  Since it's pretty rare to hear about a player saying that the Orioles changed him for the better, I figured I'd check into the validity of Hardy's statement.

We know that Hardy hit much better in 2011 than in 2010.  His triple slash in 2010 was .268/.320/.394 with a .313 wOBA.  In 2011, he slashed .269/.310/.491 with a .343 wOBA.  So he slugged .100 points higher, gained .030 points of wOBA and also hit 30 homeruns compared to 6.  But did he get better because the Presley told him to pull the ball?  Or was it just a good year and him finally being healthy?

Here is a picture of his spray chart from 2010 to get a better idea of where he was hitting the ball.

The spray charts in this post come courtesy of the great site Texas Leaguers.  J.J.'s 2010 chart looks pretty evenly balanced with a lot of fly balls to center and right field, but not that many to left.  It looks like Hardy followed the directive he received from the Twins pretty closely except for the few homeruns that he did actually hit out to left.  Now, here's his spray chart from last summer with the Orioles.

The 2011 chart has many more hits to left field than either center or right.  Look at all of those homeruns that Hardy hit either to straight left field or right down the line in left.  Hardy actually hit 26 homeruns to left field last season, while only hitting 4 to center and none to right.  Homeruns are good, right?  I wonder why the Twins didn't want him to hit them.

While following the Twins suggestion during 2010, Hardy basically turned into a light hitting shortstop whose only value came from playing good defense.  On balls that he hit to left field in 2010, his ISO (isolated power) was .168.  He showed similar power to all fields as his ISO to center was .125 and .159 to right.  But look at what he did in 2011.  His ISO to left field was an absurd .443!  The easiest way to calculate ISO is to subtract a player's batting average from his slugging percentage.  Anything over .200 is great.  His marks to center and right were similar to 2010, .111 to center and .099 to right.  ISO is a good way to measure a hitter's raw power, and looking at Hardy's numbers it's clear that he had a lot of success pulling the ball in 2011.

It's not often that we hear about the Orioles changing players for the better.  But this is a clear case of the Orioles hitting coach looking at a player's approach and making a change to help him.  Hardy turned from an all defense shortstop in 2010 to one of the Orioles best hitter's in 2011 because of Presley telling him to pull the ball.  Hardy definitely got his career back on track in 2011 by following Presley's advice and even earned himself a 3 year extension from the Orioles for $22.25 million.  Let's just hope that he can carry over his success from last year into the upcoming 2012 season.

March 6, 2012

Duquette on Defense - Part II

In the last post, we looked at the Orioles infield defense in terms of John Dewan's Defensive Runs Saved (DRS).  In this post, we'll examine their outfield defense.  The idea spurned from comments made by Dan Duquette on Clubhouse Confidential.  The projected outfield for the O's this year is Nolan Reimold, Adam Jones, and Nick Markakis.

We'll start with Reimold.  Though this will be his 4th season in the major leagues, due to injuries and management decisions he has only received a little more than a season's worth of innings in the outfield.  Starting with 2009, his DRS by season are -3, 1 and 2.  UZR disagrees with his defense in 2009, giving Reimold a -7.9 UZR and a -13.9 UZR/150.  2010 and  2011 are fairly similar under both systems.  I'm not sure how to determine which system was better in 2009, so we'll just say that he didn't have a great year in the field in 2009 but he's been about average in 2010 and 2011.  There's nothing wrong with having average defense in left field as it's considered more of an offensive position.  Though the Brett Gardner's of the world would maybe like to change that perception.

Adam Jones is the most controversial player on the team in terms of measuring defense.  None of the systems seem to agree on the quality of Jones' defense.  The gold glove recipient in 2009, he has been all over the place in the defensive metrics.  The best way to look at it may be in a simple graph detailing his defense since he became the O's starter in 2008.
  
DRSUZR
2008115.8
20095-7.6
20101-4.3
2011-9-8.7


The only time that there is any agreement on his defense is from last year when both systems agreed that he was really terrible.  DRS says Jones was a great defender in 2008 and progressively got worse each season.  2011 was the only year that DRS says he was a below average defender.  On the other hand, UZR thinks Jones was a poor defender going back to his gold glove year of 2009.  My opinion from having watched him over the years is that while he has really good range in going after balls because he's a good athlete, he doesn't take the best routes to balls or get the best jumps.  Both of these things would hurt him in the metrics since they both measure the number of balls he does or doesn't get to.

In right field, the hope is that Nick Markakis will be ready for opening day after his offseason abdominal surgery.  Assuming that he's ready or that he's ready shortly thereafter, let's see how he's done on defense.  Nick put up a +20 in 2008, but then put up lesser marks of -4, -2 and -4 the last 3 years.  +20 is incredible; he should have won the gold glove in 2008, not in 2011.  Maybe it was a makeup call. Nick seems to have turned into a slightly below average fielder.  Already 28 years old, we probaby don't have a lot of improvement to look forward to.

This was a fun look at the DRS statistics of the projected starting Orioles defense this year.  It seems that some of the O's are overrated on defense such as Jones and Markakis.  But maybe Wieters is even better than we thought and Reynolds may not be as terrible as everyone thinks.  I'd be interested in looking at how Duquette uses DRS to acquire or get rid of players.  That's a little hard to look at considering the Orioles didn't pick up any hitters of note in the offseason.  We'll save that one for sometime down the road.

March 4, 2012

Dan Duquette on Defense

This is my first post ladies and gentlemen.  I will be primarily focusing on the Orioles but I may write about general baseball from time to time.  Everything I write about will have a sabermetric slant to it. I hope you enjoy my writing.

During this offseason, the show Clubhouse Confidential hosted by the great Brian Kenny on the MLB Network has quickly become a favorite of the sabermetrically inclined baseball fan.  Earlier this week, Dan Duquette, the GM of the Orioles was on the show to discuss the O's offseason and in particular his approach to advanced stats.  While the whole interview was extremely interesting for any fan and I'd recommend watching the whole thing here, the part that interested me the most was when Kenny asked Duquette what he thought was the biggest change in statistical analysis since his time as GM with the Expos in the early 1990's.  Duquette responded by saying the biggest change was in quantifying defensive statistics, and that he specifically likes John Dewan's Defensive  Runs Saved.

Defensive Runs Saved measures how many more or fewer plays a defender makes than league average and uses the compilation of the player's statistics to come to a final number of how many runs each player saves over the course of the season.  It is generally referred to as the plus/minus system.  After all of the plays are added up, a players's contributions are summarized in a nice round number.  Please follow the link for a more detailed explanation than I can provide here.

Since the General Manager of the Orioles claims to use the system, I figured I'd take a look at how the Orioles players fare to get a better idea of how the front office sees the players in terms of their defensive value.  The 3 O's players who are generally considered the best defenders are Adam Jones, Matt Wieters and J.J. Hardy.  Let's see if that holds up using DRS while looking at 3 years of data where possible.  Even the folks who created the various defensive statistics state that you can't make a determination on defense with less than 3 years of data.  The chart below gives some context to the numbers.


Defensive AbilityDRS
Gold Glove Caliber+15
Great+10
Above Average+5
Average 0
Below Average-5
Poor-10
Awful-15


Matt Wieters had a fantastic year with the glove behind the plate in 2011.  Donning the tools of ignorance, Wieters compiled a DRS of +14, which led the league for catchers by a considerable margin.  That total added about 1.5 wins of value to the team on defense alone.  And he's gotten better each year in the majors, starting with a -1 in 2009, following that with a +5 in 2010 and finally ending with the +14 we just talked about from last year. Wieters has also gotten better each year at throwing out runners.  Check out his percentage of runners caught stealing since his rookie year of 2009; it's pretty impressive.

2009 - 32%
2010 - 45%
2011 - 59%

Last summer, the Orioles traded Koji Uehara for Tommy Hunter and Chris Davis.  Since Chris Davis is projected to start at 1B this year, let's see how he fares in terms of DRS.  I'm only going to look at how he did at 1B since that is where he's projected to play this year, but it's safe to say he plays a below average 3B as well.  The last three years, the 26 year old has put up the following marks: -5, +1, -4.  Keep in mind that he hasn't been playing full seasons at 1B in the Texas Rangers loaded organization.  I think it's fair to say the Orioles projected first sacker this year is average to slightly below average at 1B.  If he's hitting for power, that's fine.  If not, he doesn't have his defense to rely on to provide value.  So he'll have to hit in order to keep his job.

It's impossible to know what the team is going to get out of Brian Roberts this year because of the concussion issues, but let's take a look at his defense if he does play.  Mired with injuries over the past 3 seasons, Brian compiled marks of -4, 0 and 1 over the last 3 years.  The 34 year old put up some great defensive seasons way back in 2003 and 2005, but it's safe to say his days of great defense are over.  The best we can hope for is average defense from the keystone position this year.

Shortstop J.J. Hardy was known for his good defense before he exploded for 30 homers last year.  In terms of DRS, he compiled a mark of +3 in 2011.  The two prior years were very similar.  It's safe to say that J.J. is still an above average shortstop but is no longer the gold glove caliber shortstop he was early in his career.  While he's hitting the way he did last year, he's an extremely valuable player.

Much has been made of Mark Reynolds' miserable defense at 3B last season.  According to DRS, the negative reaction was warranted.  He cost the team 29 runs more than an average third baseman.  That figure was more than twice the next worst third baseman.  However, there is a theory that players have off years in the field just like they have off years at the plate.  If there was ever a player who had a chance to test that theory, it would be Reynolds.  The two years prior, he was worth -3 and -6 runs below average.  Still not great, but not nearly the disaster we saw last season.  For the Orioles sake, let's hope that he had an off year and won't be this bad going forward.  If he is, I see a permanent move to 1B in his future.

Next time, we'll take a look at the outfielders.