Evaluating the Trades

It's been about three weeks since the Red Sox traded Nomar Garciaparra away for Orlando Cabrera and Doug Mientkiewicz. Lets take a look at the early impact. The Sox have gone 11-6 in August, with improvements on both sides of the ball.

Sox Batting:
Year to date: 281 BA / 360 OBP / 468 SLG (5.71 runs/game)
August: 290 / 372 / 476 (6.24 runs/game)

Minky has been stinky (243/282/324), and Cabrera has been only fair-a (212/243/333) with the bat. Manny hasn't hit all that well, either, but Ortiz has hit like he has all year, and Millar (375/484/604), Mueller (365/468/538) and Varitek (422/500/756) have been on fire, carrying the club. The offense hasn't suffered for the lack of Nomar's bat - but they'd easily be putting up even bigger numbers if he were in the lineup. Note that the increase in OBP and SLG is all related to batting average. Despite the modest increase in BA, scoring has gone up by half a run per game (this despite "Wave 'em In" Dale Sveum). Why is that? Small ball? "Productive outs"? More timely hitting? It's not a "small ball" stat line, and the Sox are last in "Productive Out Percentage" so I'm going to go with more timely hitting as the reason.

(Oh, and I'm using "Year to date" instead of "April - June" only to save time. It's still an illustrative comparison.)

Sox Pitching:
Year to date: 4.14 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 6.95 K/9, 2.47 K/BB, .258 BAA, 4.81 RA
August: 4.20 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, 6.96 K/9, 4.00 K/BB, .245 BAA, 4.50 RA

There's your improved defense right there. The Sox have allowed 0.30 unearned runs per game in August, compared to 0.67 year to date. The opponents batting average has gone down some, but the pitching is allowing one less walk per game, too, which has helped the cause (and accounts for over half of the WHIP improvement). Lowe has displayed better control, and Pedro has had three terrific starts out of four this month. On the other hand, Wakefield and Schilling have had some tough outings, while Arroyo continues to have tough luck. Keith Foulke has rebounded nicely from a so-so July, but setup men Mike Timlin and Alan Embree have struggled. Ramiro Mendoza, surprisingly, has been one of the better bullpen arms this month.

So the Sox are scoring 0.5 more runs per game, which can't be attributed at all to the trade, while they are allowing 0.3 fewer runs per game, which is partially a result of the improved defense.

The fielding stats aren't all that cut-and-dried, though. Going position-by-position:

First Base: Minky has been far superior to everybody else, including McCarty. Minky has a Zone Rating of .862 vs. McCarty's .800 and Millar's .770 (the team overall is .791). That means that out of every 100 balls hit in the first base "zone", Minky gets to six more than McCarty and 9 more than Millar, and he's made no errors thus far. That said, if there are as many as four balls hit to first base per game (which I think is a high number), that's 7 extra plays per 25 games, or one every 7.5 games. That's not going to account for a ton of runs.

Second Base: Bill Mueller has been at second for most of the month, and his fielding percentage, range factor and zone rating are far below Mark Bellhorn's, to say nothing of Pokey Reese' (though Mueller has more innings at second than Reese this season already). The downgrade at second (ZR of .739 vs. .821 for Bellhorn) easily fully offsets the improvement at first. This is, however, unrelated to the trade.

Third Base: Kevin Youkilis has better across-the-board numbers than does Mueller at third base, so (until he got hurt), having him in there every day was an improvement at the hot corner (this surprises me, too). But, this is also unrelated to the trade, and you're only talking about three chances per game anyway.

Shortstop: Cabrera is killing Nomar in Zone Rating: .828 to .694. That's huge. That said, more of the games prior to the trade were played by Pokey than Nomar, and Pokey's numbers are much better than Cabrera's. Cabrera has been on par with the "average" Sox shortstop this year.

Outfield: Not much impact. Manny and Damon have been in the lineup all year. Manny missed a handful of games, so the Sox had a few more innings of Millar, Kaplar and Roberts in the OF - all of whom are an improvement over Manny. (Despite the common perception early in the year that Manny is fielding better, the stats no longer bear this out. He's got the worst RF and ZR of his career so far this year.) Damon is also having a subpar year for himself, though I don't know if he's improved any since the trade deadline. My perception is that he's been as good as usual this month, with just the occasional lapse, no different from the rest of the season. Dave Roberts has played a handful of games in RF, and he's good, but that means less Kaplar. Gabe Kaplar has been the Red Sox best glove in the outfield this year. His increased playing time seems to have more to do with his production with the bat and the few games that Manny missed, but I would say that his presence in the lineup has a lot to do with the defensive improvement, too.

So the defense has improved in the corner infield and corner outfield positions, but the middle infield defense is not improved from the "average" Sox lineup this year since the trade, other than the fact that Cabrera is an improvement from his immediate predecessor at shortstop. Again, based on the statistical evidence, it appears that the timing of the plays (or misplays), and the pitchers' performance after errors, also bears much of the credit for the improvement in the Unearned Runs category.

I have to conclude that the big trade has had little real impact in the on-field performance, inasmuch as the new guys haven't done a lot physically to improve the Red Sox' ability to outscore the opposition. I'll acknowledge that it's possible that moving an unhappy Nomar (or just making any kind of move whatsoever) had a psychological impact on the players, resulting in them relaxing more in pressure situations. If that's the case, that alone is enough to make the trade a success. What matters is the wins and losses, and right now it looks like the Red Sox are finally going to win more than they lose for the rest of the way.

Sea Dogs Monthly Luncheon

The Sea Dogs held their final monthly luncheon of the year (at least, I think it was the last one) Wednesday afternoon. After a meal of chicken wings and fried fish, topped off with some frozen lemonade, pitcher Greg Montalbano spoke for a few minutes and answered questions.

Montalbano was a very engaging and entertaining speaker, peppering his talk with some good natured ribbing and wry jokes. Montalbano was drafted out of Northeastern (where he is the all-time leader in wins) in the 5th round in 1999, but his status as a prospect was derailed by arm injuries and testicular cancer. After missing all of 2002 and only pitching 28 innings in 2003, Montalbano recently returned to the Sea Dogs and has pitched 4 1/3 scoreless innings thus far.

Montalbano answered questions about his post-game arm care (dumbell cooldown, ice therapy, playing catch the next day), how many pitches he throws (four-ish: Fastball, Curve, Change, and he's working on a cut fastball), and his plans for after this season (he hoped to pitch in the Arizona Fall League, but it looks like he'll play in one of the Latin American countries instead).

Asked about his post-baseball plans, Greg joked that he hoped to have earned enough money to spend his days golfing and fishing. On a more serious note, he mentioned that he is just a few credits shy of an engineering degree, but he also was considering working as a baseball radio or TV analyst, or even as a player agent, having learned a lot of the good and bad about agents over the years.

Montalbano also spoke at length about his bout with cancer (ten surgeries to remove 19 tumors!), and how it affects his approach to baseball. Montalbano doesn't seem to focus heavily on his bout with the disease, but noted that he gladly speaks to anybody about his experiences, and noted that he is keeping a lot of notes and plans to write a book once his career is over. With his genial manner and apparent ease with public speaking, I could see him working as a motivational speaker as well. I believe that he will be very successful wherever he lands (hopefully in the major leagues!), and wish him the best in his career.

I will reiterate what I wrote a couple of weeks ago - the monthly luncheons are a terrific program that gives the fans a chance to meet and talk to the players and other organizational personnel. At $8 for lunch and a speaker, it's a great deal. The event is usually listed at the Sea Dogs web site well in advance.

Curse of the SeaBlog, redux.

As predicted in this space, Stefan Bailie suffered the COTSB after being hyped in yesterday's blog entry. Bailie went 0-4 with a walk and three K's in Portland's 7-3 loss to Trenton. Fortunately, Hanley Ramirez bounced back by going 2-3 with a home run, two walks and two steals in a losing effort. The bullpen was shaky again, giving up back-to-back home runs to Aaron Rifkin (a tremendous shot) and Mitch Jones (#31 on the year for him) in the 8th to seal the loss.

At least the Famous Chicken was entertaining, giving Slugger most of the game off. And it didn't rain. That was cool, too. The Dogs are tied for 4th in the AL East with New Britain, a game ahead of the last-place, Yankee affiliated Thunder.

Curse of the SeaBlog?

On the very same day that he was hyped in this space, Hanley Ramirez went 0-6 with three K's in Portland's 4-3 victory over the mini-Empire (aka the Trenton Thunder). Mike Lockwood tied the game by hitting the big mitt over the right-center field fence (note to Charlie E., or the folks at Youth Alternatives (whoever is responsible) - it's time to upgrade the Mitt. It's definitely seen better days.). Stefan Bailie, who has taken a liking to the Sea Wall in left field and has quickly re-established himself as a prospect (344/388/622-5-19 in 24 games in Portland after hitting 306/383/568-11-48 in 58 games in Sarasota) after years of injuries, won the game with a double in the 12th inning.

So, I apologize to Hanley for jinxing him, and to Bailie, who will undoubtedly go into a slump starting tonight. Heck, I will even apologize to Charlie Zink, whose career went into a tailspin after I wrote about him in this blog. Abe Alvarez seems to be the only guy to have avoided the curse to this point. The beauty in baseball is, you can do poorly and your team might still win, and there is always another game tomorrow. Time to reverse the curse of the SeaBlog.

The Future

Sea Dogs defeat Thunder

This article is a recap of Portland's victory over the Trenton Thunder last night. Sheldon Fulse made a game saving grab of Aaron Rifkin's two out drive to deep center, preventing a three-run home run and preserving the Dogs 6-4 victory. That was a great play in a game that featured about six deep drives to the warning track in center, all of which Fulse handled ably. But I don't really want to write about that game. I want to write about Boston's future shortstop, Hanley Ramirez.

I'm ready to tell Orlando Cabrera to not get too comfortable in Fenway Park, because I don't think that he is going to keep this kid from taking his place by the 2006 season. In a post last week, I expressed some concern about Ramirez' range at shortstop, but last night's performance, combined with my friend David's own scouting report, have put those worries to rest. It was Hanley's second AA game, and it was played through a steady rain. He gets a mulligan.

Ramirez was only tested once defensively last night, but he was more than up to the task. Playing at double-play depth, he ranged far into the hole to snag a ground ball, then leapt to his and fired a laser to gun down the runner at first base. Range didn't look like a problem on that play.

Ramirez has also shown an ability to hit with authority to all fields. Last night he hit two long fly balls to the opposite field, resulting in a double and a home run. I may be overreacting to a small sample size (OK, it's very likely that I am), because he didn't show too much power in A-ball (1 HR, .389 SLG in 62 games at Sarasota). Still, his track record shows good doubles and triples power. Considering that Ramirez is still only 20 years old, there is a good chance that he will develop some home run power in the future. This much I can say - the ball sounds real good coming off his bat.

Ramirez has hit over .300 at every level thus far, save for his .275 average in Low-A Augusta last season, one in which he seemed to suffer from a few off-field problems. He doesn't walk a ton (approximately once in every 15 PA's in his career, none in 39 PA's in Portland thus far), but it doesn't seem to be a result of poor plate discipline. He hits the strikes and I haven't seen him chasing after bad pitches.

Putting all of the above together with his good speed (15 SB this year, 36 last year), and you have the makings of a five-tool player at the top of the lineup. It's no wonder he's rated Boston's #1 position player prospect.

But I don't want to get ahead of myself. Ramirez is still a ways away. His AA performance rates a .236 major league equivalent average per Baseball-Prospectus.com, and his Sarasota numbers only come in at a .209 MLE, which means he would likely be overmatched in the majors. Still, he's only 20 (very young for AA), and the incumbant hasn't done any better this year (.222 EqA), so there is room for optimism.

So step aside, Orlando. Make way for another Ramirez.

DePodesta Monkey Trial -- The Hardball Times

DePodesta Monkey Trial -- The Hardball Times

Here's a nice article by Larry Mahnken at the Hardball Times, talking about the backlash against Sabermetrics in general, and the media response to the Dodgers/Marlins trade of last weekend in particular.

Here's the gist:

The sabermetric debate has been categorized by some as a debate between opposing religions. It's not. This isn't the Crusades, it's more like the Scopes Monkey Trial. In 1986, writing of the misconception of Milwaukee County Stadium as a hitters' park, Bill James wrote:

Anyway, the "dispute" isn't a disagreement about the evidence, but a disagreement between people who are looking at the evidence and people who aren't. It's like asking a naturalist why he doesn't do a complete, once-and-for-all study on the evidence of evolution and creationism. The evidence is already conclusive; it's just that there are people who don't intend to accept it unless the hand of God appears in the sky one afternoon and writes "ALL RIGHT! I CONFESS! I DID IT BY EVOLUTION! IT TOOK ME YEARS! I'SE JUST KIDDING ABOUT THE SEVEN DAYS! AND BY THE WAY, MILWAUKEE COUNTY STADIUM IS A PITCHER'S PARK ... BE BACK NEXT MILLENNIUM. LOVE, GOD. P.S. IF YOU DO ANY MORE MOVIES I'D PREFER DEBRA WINGER TO GEORGE BURNS."

There are some who still refuse to look at the evidence, and they never will. I say nuts to them. They're not going to come around, and we shouldn't care anymore. Let them continue to overvalue heart, chemistry and other intangibles. The truth is on our side, and by focusing on the next generation of fans, the next generation of sportswriters, and the next
generation of general managers, the game will be better served, and objective statistical analysis will be given equal footing with subjective scouting.

It's worth a read, even by the skeptics. It's also worth noting that Larry Mahnken is a New York Yankee fan, and he's downplaying "heart, chemistry and other intangibles" that so many Yankee fans cite as the difference between their team and any other. The bottom line is, good players win games, and winning builds chemistry.

Scorekeeping Gig starts with a Splash

Literally.

As hinted at previously, the Baseball Gods have granted me a second chance to get paid to watch baseball. This time, it's an outfit called Baseball Info Solutions, who are actually well connected and respected people in the Sabermetric community. The company itself is an up-and-comer, but hardly fly-by-night!

So they are scoring minor league games for the rest of the season, and I am among a pool of 8 or so individuals splitting the duties (the founder of Total Recap is also involved). It's a lot of fun, using the Project Scoresheet method and a computer collection system.

It's fun in theory, at least. Last night's game (a 14-3 loss by the Sea Dogs to the Sea Wolves) turned out to be a miserable experience. First, the game was delayed by 45 minutes due to rain. Then there were off and on showers (and nearby thunder) for a few innings, before the steady rain decided to stay in about the fifth inning.

Steady rain and paper score sheets don't mix. Things got messy really quickly, though I think I was able to retain most of the information.

Worse still was how play deteriorated in the last two innings. The game was actually moving at a pretty good clip through seven innings, with Josh Stevens recording 9 junky strikeouts and blue-chipper Kyle Sleeth overcoming some early control problems to hold the Sea Dogs down. It was 3-2 heading to the 8th. Then things got real bad real fast.

Ryan Larson gave up two doubles and a hit to start the 8th, then turned things over to Bo Donaldson. Donaldson proceeded to walk the bases loaded again. When he found the strike zone, it didn't get any better. Erie scored 7 runs to take a 9-3 lead.

After the Dogs went quietly in the 8th, more trouble started, and some embarrasing weirdness. Colin Young came on to pitch and actually retired the first batter, then walked Scott Raburn. At this point, the Dogs seemed interested in just finishing the game, so they didn't hold the runner on. Young was using his "windup" motion, but since he always pitches from the stretch, the umps considered it to be a stretch pitch instead of a windup pitch.

When Colin Young is in the "windup", he pauses in the middle of his motion. This is a balk. The ump called a balk on the second pitch, then had a spirited debate with the Sea Dogs dugout. The Dogs contended that, since they weren't holding the runner on, he was pitching from the windup, despite how he started the motion.

"If he does it again, I'm calling it a balk," was the umps reply. (Note that I could hear this clearly from section 204 due to the fact that very few people were in the stands by then. A six-run deficit and steady rain will empty any park very quickly.) And the ump was true to his word. Young didn't change his motion, and the ump called the balk, sending the runner to third. Then Young balked the runner home.

Keep in mind that all the while the balks are treated as "no pitch". This means that, through five minutes of balking and bickering, no progress is being made on the batter. And it's still raining.

This was easily the biggest travesty that I have ever personally witnessed on a baseball field. Young was distracted and continued to get hammered until he was mercifully removed for second baseman Raul Nieves. Nieves had his own control problems, but induced a couple of popouts to limit the damage to 5 runs. That's 12 runs in the last two innings, for those of you keeping track at home.

The Sea Dogs and umps were kind enough to produce a 1-2-3 ninth inning, and we could all go home at 11:00, just as the rain stopped!

It was disappointing that this game was so miserable, from both a weather and performance standpoint. I was looking forward to watching top Red Sox prospect Hanley Ramirez, who was playing in his second Sea Dogs game. He got a hit and struck out a couple of times, but I will say that I wasn't impressed with his range at shortstop. I was also looking forward to seeing Sleeth, who has struggled at AA thus far but looked OK last night. He was wild, but he also displayed a lively fastball that tripped the radar at 93 mph with regularity. Seeing these guys was a treat, I just hope that I can see them under clear skies next time.

Nomar No more

You may have heard that the Red Sox were involved in a four-team trade on Saturday that sent local hero Nomar Garciaparra from the Red Sox to the Chicago Cubs, whose rabid fan base and storied, snakebit history will seem all to familiar to the All Star shortstop. In return for Nomar and '03 first draft choice Matt Murton, the Sox recieved two gold glove fielders, Expos shortstop Orlando Cabrera and Twins first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz.

Call me disappointed, both with the circumstances that apparently made it necessary for the Sox to move Nomar, and with the players they recieved in return. Nomar's troubled relationship with the front office is well documented, and it appears that he forced Theo Epstein's hand by suggesting that he may have to go on the DL in August to rest his ailing achilles heel. (Allow me a brief digression to address my peeve at people who claim "Nomar rejected a four year, $60 million contract. He obviously didn't want to be here." What Nomar did was counteroffer at a higher dollar amount - it's called negotiating - and the Sox ignored the counteroffer until months later, when they actually lowered their original offer. The lower offer made sense based on market conditions, but it was the start of the downward spiral that led us here). If that's true, I'm disappointed in Nomar's actions, too. Still, the Sox could have made out better in this deal.

The real "catch," as far as Red Sox fans are concerned, is Orlando Cabrera. Cabrera does have a gold glove in his trophy case (2001 NL), and would certainly improve on Nomar's play this season, and he has had a couple of good seasons with the bat. The problem is, there are a lot more not-so-good seasons with the bat on Cabrera's resume. Cabrera's 297/347/460-17-80 line from 2003 looks good on the surface, but the Olympic/Hiram Bithorn combination was one of the most hitter-friendly environments in the majors last year (park factor of 118), leaving Cabrera with an OPS+ of 95. That was the best of his career (excluding the 97 posted in a half season of play in 1998), but pales to Nomar's career mark of 135.

This year, the discrepancy has been huge. Nomar hit 321/367/500-5-21 in 38 games for the Red Sox, while Cabrera left Montreal hitting 246/298/336-4-31 in 103 games. Nomar leads in runs created/27 outs by a margin of 6.43 to 3.36, an enormous margin! Both players are free agents at the end of the year, and both were unhappy, but an injured, unhappy Nomar is far more productive than a healthy, unhappy Cabrera. The only way this switch helps the Sox would be if Nomar was going to miss more than half the games the rest of the way (which I suppose was a possibility).

Mientkeiwicz is a good-field, no-hit first baseman. The Sox already have one of those (David McCarty), the only difference being that Minky can't hit lefthanded while McCarty can't hit right handed. Mientkiewicz doesn't have a history of hitting well in Fenway, and from what I've seen, his swing isn't well suited to take advantage of LF. The Sox now have three first basemen (Ortiz, Millar, Minky) under contract for next season, as well as Manny and Nixon in the corner OF slots. Minky is a career 275/378/409 hitter (250/342/365 this season). You have to get a lot of glove to make that kind of hitting work at first base. Minky does have pretty good plate discipline and draws his share of walks, but he basically duplicates Boston's worst first baseman. Hooray for that.

So on the field the Red Sox sacrifice a ton of offense for improved defense. Boston's defense wasn't all that good, but they also have a power pitching staff that relies less on defense than any other team. Still, an error to lose a game looks a lot worse to the fans than having a player fail to start or continue a rally. I'm a strong believer in measuring the total offense+defense contribution, however, and this just doesn't measure up. The fact that the Sox also gave up a top prospect in this trade is salt in the wound.

Worthy of mention, on top of this trade, the Sox also dealt a minor leaguer for Dodger outfielder Dave Roberts. This is another case of filling a non-existant need. Robers basically duplicates Johnny Damon - a base stealer on a team that doesn't run. I guess he'll fill Gabe Kaplar's role, now that Gabe is in the lineup for Trot Nixon, as a pinch runner and defensive caddy for Manny Ramirez. I expect his impact to be minimal, too.

This feels for all the world like Theo Epstein throwing in the towel on this season (or, at the very least, throwing his hands up in desparation). At this point, the best that can be hoped for is for the rest of the team to come together as a unit and start winning games due to improved chemistry. In Spring Training the Red Sox appeared to be poised for a run at the World Series, so to be in this situation where "improving the defense" was the best they could get for a potential Hall of Fame player is a great disappointment.