Tools of Ignorance, a Giants Baseball Blog

My favorite baseball annual, Baseball Prospectus, lists statistics for the players it profiles, and uses its proprietary PECOTA system to project a player’s likely statistics for the upcoming season. PECOTA projects player performance based on comparisons with thousands of historical player-seasons. The annual also lists for each player his four highest scoring comparable players, as determined by PECOTA. These are the four most similar comparables, and not the entire sample from which PECOTA generates its projection.

The comparables are only supposed to suggest what a player might do in a particular year; if the top comparables for young outfielder Johnny Wetcougar, 22, are Dave Winfield and Ed Delahanty, the most you can infer is that the system likes him and thinks he’s going to be a good hitter in the style of those players at a similar point in their career. The comparables do not suggest either that Wetcougar will deliver 3000 hits like Winfield or get drunk and fall off of an open drawbridge like Delahanty. The PECOTA comps are not destiny, but they do represent a snapshot of how the listed player was performing at the same age as the current player. Thus, if a 23-year-old hitter is compared to Sammy Sosa, he’s actually being compared to a 23-year-old Sammy Sosa, not to Sosa at the age of 31, when he was one of the best hitters on the planet, or Sosa at 38, when he was an adequate DH who could stand to be platooned.

Having made that statement, I am not forced to admit that I like to take them as destiny, or at least a hint thereof.  Between now and Opening Day, I’ll be taking a look at the comparables for each of the players likely to get major playing time for the Giants this season, with the hopes of discerning what sorts of performances we might expect from them.  We start today with catcher Bengie Molina.

Molina’s top four comparables are Brian Harper, Darrin Fletcher, Bill Freehan, and Jeff Conine.  Harper’s age-34 season was his second-to-last, and marked a steep decline for him.  He actually caught in only 25 games for the 1994 Brewers, a significant decrease from the 130-odd he’s caught in each of the previous two years.  He had fewer than half the plate appearances he’d had in either of the two previous seasons, most of those at DH.  His rate stats (.291/.318./398) may have explained why Phil Garner used him so much less, but it also had something to do with the rise of 24-year-old Dave Nilsson.  For the first time in six years, Harper’s EQA was less than the league average.  The next season, he had seven plate appearances with the Athletics, and retired.

Darrin Fletcher at 34 had 453 plate appearances for the 2001 Blue Jays, which was way too many considering his rate stats fell off a cliff from previous seasons.  .226/.274/.353 (a .218 EQA) is unacceptable, certainly from a catcher not known for his defense.  But with Kevin Cash the best catcher in their farm system, the Jays were a bit stymied for a solution.  So desparate were the Jays for a catcher that for 2002, they signed minor-league journeyman free agent Ken Huckaby, whose claim to fame at the time was one major-league at-bat, albeit for the 2001 world champion Arizona Diamondbacks.  Fletcher’s EQA fell to .202 in 2002, and he retired.

Bill Freehan was one of the great catchers in the 1960s.  A five-time Gold Glove winner, he held the career record for fielding percentage until 2002, and was runner-up for the AL MVP award in 1968, when his Detroit Tigers won the World Series.  At 34, though, Freehan was in his last season, catching in 61 games, the same number as Bruce Kimm, and only two more than John Wockenfuss.  He retired at the end of the season.

At 34, Jeff Conine still had six more years of above-league-average hitting ahead of him, and would play until he was 41.  The fact that PECOTA sees Conine as a comparable for Molina is encouraging, but the fact Conine was not a catcher makes this comp perhaps less reliable.

It might be argued that Molina’s career highs in RBI (and double plays hit into!) last season was the result of career highs in games and plate appearances, something of a red flag for a catcher who will turn 35 in July.  Fortunately, Molina is in the last year of his contract, and Buster Posey should be ready to take over behind the plate in 2010.

Some assume that the reason Joe Crede is not today a Giant is that Brian Sabean didn’t match or try to match the Twins’ offer.  What they miss, though, is that Sabean could have done so, and Crede still might have chosen to sign elsewhere.  It’s not my job to defend Sabean, since much of what he’s done in recent years is pretty indefensible, but Sabean is not the only one making the decision about where Joe Crede plays baseball.

I know that in my own career, I’ve made decisions about what job to take or not take based on money, or on my marriage, or on medical benefits for my kids, or on long-term goals, or on my daily satisfaction with the work, or on the “culture” of the office.  The only person who might have grasped all these factors, or how they balanced, was my wife.

Now we hear and read a lot about similar decisions made by talented ballplayers.  We speculate that this guy followed the money, or the other guy went to a team in the region where he was raised.  We’ll assume that the agent actually makes the decision, or that the player picked the team because he hits well in their home park.

But at the end of the day, we have no idea what we’re talking about.  That’s because the decision about where to play, like our own decisions on where to work, is an intensely personal one that considers factors we cannot know.  Baseball players are like the rest of us.  They have wives and families, they like big cities or small towns, warm weather or cold, golfing or surfing.

For Crede, to take one example, this was the first time in his professional life he’d been able to negotiate anything other than his salary (and he hadn’t even had that opportunity much).  He was 18 when the White Sox selected him in the fifth round of the 1996 draft, and now, more than twelve years later, he’s been able to choose his employer, the city where he’ll work, and presumably, live and raise his family.  He’s never had that choice or one like it before, and as to his motives in selecting the Twins, let’s face it, we’re all just guessing.  Like a lot about baseball, and a lot about life, this is one where no one knows anything.

A friend of mine was lamenting Alex Rodriguez’s use of steroids, pointing out that three of A-Rod’s five highest single-season home run totals occured during the three seasons he admits to using illegal substances while a Texas Ranger, and, more damningly, that his time as a Ranger showed a marked jump in homers from the previous period in his career.  But this sort of analysis omits any context for Rodriguez’s accomplishments, the most important of which just might be the home field, at which he played half his games.

Comparing Rodriguez’s last three years in Seattle (1998 to 2000), during which most of his home games were at Safeco Field, the most difficult ballpark in the American League in which to hit home runs, with his three years in Texas (2001 to 2003), which was the easiest park in the league for the long ball, is instructive.  During those years in Seattle, Rodriguez averaged 17 home runs at home and 25 on the road; in his Texas years, he averaged 29 at home and 23 on the road.  The entire difference can be explained away by where he played.  (His five-year averages with the Yankees are 22 homers at Yankee Stadium, a more neutral ballpark, and 20 on the road.)   Another conclusion can be drawn: that Rodriguez began using performance-enhancing substances far earlier than he acknowledged or continued using them after he said he had stopped.

But his statistics in Texas cannot support the case that whatever substances he used during those years affected his homerun output.

It was a bit unsettling to see Jeff Kent’s notoriously gruff facade crumble during the press conference in which he announced his retirement last month.  Kent had always struck me as akin to another Giant, Bill Terry, a player who spent the better part of two decades making it clear that he did not love the game of baseball, but, realizing his talent was exceptional, found the game the best way to make a buck.  Just as Terry would have been content to serve as an executive for Standard Oil had they paid him more than did Charles Stoneham, so Kent would have worked his Texas ranch had punching cows paid more than did the major leagues.  Thus the sight of him fighting back tears was surprising, and, to me, affecting.

Less than two months shy of his 41st birthday, there’s little doubt it was time for Kent to say goodbye.  He hit .280/.327/.418 for the Dodgers in 2008, with just 12 homers, his lowest total since 1996.  He missed most of the final month of the season due to a torn meniscus that required surgery; though he rehabbed doggedly and made the Dodgers’ post-season roster, he was confined to the bench while Blake DeWitt took over at second base.  A future as a part-time player was unthinkable for Kent, who had once declared, upon being sidelined by a more minor injury, “I hate watching baseball.”

While Kent hasn’t received many fond farewells, the widespread consensus in the mainstream media is that he’s bound for the Hall of Fame.  From a traditional perspective, it’s not difficult to see why.  Although he didn’t debut in the majors until he was 24 and didn’t top 400 plate appearances until the following year, Kent nonetheless racked up 2,461 hits and 377 homers, reached the postseason seven times, made five All-Star teams, and won the 2000 NL MVP award.  The 351 home runs he hit as a second baseman are tops for the position, far outdistancing the second-, third-, and fourth-ranked second-sackers — Ryne Sandberg (277), Joe Morgan (266), and Rogers Hornsby (263) — all of whom are enshrined in Cooperstown.  He also leads all second basemen in RBI and extra-base hits, while ranking 12th in games played.

If Kent’s case for Cooperstown appears on firm footing from a traditional standpoint, it’s on shakier ground sabermetrically.  As odd as it sounds for a player who lasted through his age-40 season, he’s hampered by a lack of durability.  Kent topped 145 games just five times (including 2002, the season he infamously broke his wrist while “washing his truck“) and averaged only 133 games a hear over his last six seasons, the Houston/Los Angeles phase of his career.  By some sabermetric measures, he tops only one of the nine second basemen elected by the Baseball Writers Association of America, that being Jackie Robinson, whose career was shortened by the color barrier but who nonetheless had a peak that was well above average, to say nothing of his monumentally large role in history.

It won’t get much better for Kent, either.  By the time he actually reaches the 2014 ballot in the company of Greg Maddux and Mike Mussina, both Craig Biggio and Roberto Alomar will likely be enshrined.  The former is a lock given his 3,060 hits, while the latter’s round-number combination of a .300 lifetime batting average and 10 Gold Gloves probably put him into the no-brainer category of many voters.  All these factors may mean Kent doesn’t get in the first year he appears on the ballot.

Kent was a good player for a long time, and an often misunderstood one.  His lack of charisma and his businesslike approach made him an easy target, but he was passionate in his work ethic and respect for the game.  The more I look at his numbers the more I realize he’s actually a borderline Hall of Famer.  (Unless one attaches special importance to his leading his position in homers, which has much to do with his era, it’s difficult to draw the conclusion that he’s an elite or even average Hall-of-Fame second baseman.)  Nonetheless, were I a voter, I can’t help but suspect my own memories of his high level of play with the Giants would sway me into making him a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

High on the Giants’ list of off-season priorities is fixing the infield, and Brian Sabean appears to be trying to do that.  Pablo Sandoval will play more at catcher and probably some at the infield corners (giving the team a latter-day Brenly vibe); Travis Ishikawa will get his shot at first, with perhaps Josh Phelps platooning; Emmanuel Burriss and Kevin Frandsen will get their shots at second.  Barring trading Rowand, Molina, and/or Winn — options that Sabean should entertain, even if he really means it when he says he intends to contend in a weak NL West — the real problem area is the left side of the infield.

Bringing Edgar Renteria back to the National League — not cheaply, however — has its chances of working out reasonably well.  Adding a few points of OBP and SLG by moving to the weaker league, and adding Denver and Phoenix to his frequently-visited opponents’ parks, it isn’t hard to envision July headlines touting some sort of resurgence from a player whose skill set wouldn’t really change fundamentally.  Add in that he ought to be thoroughly adequate at the plate where the Giants got nothing of the sort last season, and I can see how this ends up being a slight improvement to the team.  (The Giants will give back some of their gains from Renteria’s offense due to his declining defense.)

This still leaves third base to stock somehow.  A full season of Sandoval at third would be a bit brutal defensively, so perhaps Sabean isn’t done.  Among the aforementioned veterans, dealing Winn remains the move I’d most like to see made, in part because I’d rather see the Giants add a rightfielder with some power, whether that’s taking another spin with strong-armed Nate Shierholtz or taking a low-end risk via free agency.  Counting on Sandoval, Ishikawa and Renteria, too, that adds up to an offense that might actually be average.

Putting the Big Unit in China Basin is yet another indication that the Giants take themselves seriously.  While one year ago I would have found that laughable, I’m just maybe starting to see things from Sabean’s point of view.  The Dodgers and D’backs haven’t made the sorts of moves that convincingly elevate them past 85 wins, and while so much of the Giants’ limited success last season depended on happy accidents in their record in one-run ballgames (going 31-21), there’s some reason to take them just abuot as seriously.  They’re not the team that fielded an almost entirely putrid lineup last April, they’re the one we saw in September, the one that had a few interesting prospects on the field.  The team needed help in the bullpen, and Sabean’s tried to scare some up.  The team needed a plausible regular at short, and whatever else you may say about him, Edgar Renteria is exactly that.  The team still needs some power in the lineup, which is why we keep hearing Manny Ramirez rumors, though the shame of that would be how it might suck playing time away from Fred Lewis, one of their better hitters, but if Lewis in turn reduces Randy Winn to a less-regular starter, even that could turn out well.  I admit, I’d be a little more enthusiastic if they came up with a power-hitting third baseman who lets them relegate Pablo Sandoval to sharing playing time at first with Travis Ishikawa and behind the plate with Benjie Moliina, but we’ll see if Joe Crede proves himself healthy enough to engender any interest in his coming workout.

So, put Randy Johnson onto that sort of team in this sort of division, and yeah, I like it well enough.  He’ll get his 300th win as a Giant.  (He’s just five away.)  He should be effective enough, he saves Team Sabean from having to count too heavily on Noah Lowry to round out the rotation, and I guess there’s something sort of amusing about having someone who reduces Barry Zito to not merely an expensive mistake, but the most expensive fifth starter ever in human history.