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Team Hitter Page:
This shows the 2009 projection for hitters who played in the majors in 2008 or at the upper 3 levels of the minor leagues.
Players are given a projection if they met my minimum plate appearance standard, which I think was 100 PA, or if I made an exception, such as adding
a player likely to play in 2009 who missed the previous season due to injury. Two players who fall into this category are Sea Bass Gonzalez and Kevin
Frandsen, and I only added them after getting a request from a reader – so if I missed anyone let me know.
- Most of the columns are self explanatory. The R150 column is linear weights runs per 150 games, or 625 plate appearances. This figure is based on
what the player projection would have looked like in a neutral park and league, not on the projected stats for the park they are playing in.
- Click on the “Expanded” link to get each hitter’s individual page. The first table is the projection again, and includes a speed score. This is
similar to the Bill James method; it excludes the range factor part and is based on stolen bases, triples, runs, and double play avoidance.
- The second table is the percentile projections. These are created by estimating the variance in the player’s rate stats (walk percentage, strikeouts
per non-walk, homeruns per contact, batting average on balls in play, etc.) and fitting them to a normal distribution. I don’t know how useful these
are. The main practical use I see is using it to create a weighted average for player valuation. For a star player, you won’t see much difference
between his weighted average and his 50% projection. For Carlos Pena, they are identical at 44 runs above replacement.
- For Terry Evans, on the other hand, they are not. At his 50% projection, he’s less than a replacement player. But what if we’re off on our
evaluation of him? He might be a bit better than that, or he might be worse. If he’s worse, then he won’t get a chance to play (at least in the majors),
and will be zero runs above replacement. But if he’s better, he just might get a chance to play. This report says “he probably isn’t very good, but
there’s a 10-20% chance he turns out to be an average hitter.”
- When teams trade for minor leaguers who are not top prospects, they don’t expect that each one will be capable of contributing in the majors, or even
playing in the major leagues at all. But they hope that some among their minor leaguers turn out to be good.
- Putting a dollar value on a big leaguer is easy. Just determine how many runs he’s worth and multiply by a dollar per win value. When Johan Santana
was traded, it was easy to figure that he was worth 25 million or so with a remaining salary of 13 million. But how valuable were the players received
for him? This tool would help you estimate their value.
- Next up is the 6-year forecast. It’s really nothing more than taking his current forecast and applying the next 5 years of age adjustments. How
accurate will it be? I have no idea, but it probably won’t be very accurate. How well do you think I (or anyone for that matter) could predict the 2009
season if I ignored all data later than the 2003 season?
- Finally, the simple player valuation tool. Using the percentile weighted batting runs table, I’ve added in a positional adjustment, an estimate of
baserunning value based on speed score, and allow the user to pick the defensive valuation. There is a lot of disagreement in the statistical defensive
evaluations out there, based on both methodology and input data source. We’re kidding ourselves if we think we can tell the difference between a +10
fielder and a +12 fielder. I’m a bit more comfortable putting fielders into larger buckets. The 5 defensive categories can correspond to the defensive
ratings found in simulations like Diamond Mind. So use whatever defensive metric you want, or the Fan’s scouting report, or your own opinion, and read across to
see what the player’s overall value is.
- A player like Anderson Rosario, an Angel farmhand, is such a poor hitter than he will not have a positive value, even if we consider him a +15 fielder
at his 90th percentile on offense.
Pitchers:
- The team page has all the self explanatory stats, and an additional one, R vs Rep, or runs over replacement level. This is calculated on the player’s
park and league neutral projection, and replacement level is set at an ERA of 4.55 for relievers and 5.54 for starters. It is not a rate stat, it is runs saved in the projected innings shown in the forecast.
- The percentiles, as with hitters, are used to calculate a weighted value over replacement. For ace relievers, this number is multiplied by expected
leverage index to determine wins above replacement, and finally dollar value based on 4.4 million per win.
- Expected leverage (ex Lev) is determined by the pitcher’s projected ERA. Starters will always have a projected leverage of 1.0.
- For the 6 year forecast, component rates are adjusted for each year of aging, and workload (batters faced) is reduced 10% per year to account for the
inevitability that pitchers will get hurt. My definition of a durable pitcher is this: A pitcher who hasn’t yet been hurt.
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