New York Nine: Tell me this isn't a little weird looking

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Tell me this isn't a little weird looking

I mean aside from the goatee, which seems to be part of the red sox uniform, isn't it a litte off-putting to see Smoltz as a Red Sox after 20 years as a Brave? 20 years? I was four years old 20 years ago, this is kind of crazy. Anyways, as a Yankee fan its interesting to see the contrasting off-season for the rival sox. While we've gone out and bought virtually every big ticket free agent the Steinbrenner money can buy, the Sox in contrast have picked some names off the scrap heap and compiled a great deal of depth in their rotation and the bullpen. With Smoltz, Penny, and Saito as well you have three guys who have great reputations and a long line of success with their previous teams, but have subsequently been discarded because of injury concerns. Now these guys are no sure bets, Smoltz in perticular at 40 years old and a bad shoulder you have to wonder if he has anything left in the tank, but these three are only a year removed from dominant All-Star performances. Take a look at Penny's numbers

ear	Tm	Lg	G	GS	W	L	ERA	H	IP	Hit	K	BB	HBP	WHIP	SLGA	BFP	Pit	HR	TB	ER	DP	SB	CS	PO
2004	FLA	NL	21	21	8	8	3.15	0	131.3	124	105	39	3	1.24	.386	545	2098	10	192	46	15	13	4	0
2004	LAN	NL	3	3	1	2	3.09	0	11.7	6	6	6	0	1.03	.333	45	189	2	13	4	1	1	0	0
2005	LAN	NL	29	29	7	9	3.90	0	175.3	185	122	41	3	1.29	.417	738	2784	17	286	76	15	17	5	1
2006	LAN	NL	34	33	16	9	4.33	1	189.0	206	148	54	9	1.38	.430	813	3234	19	318	91	25	20	8	2
2007	LAN	NL	33	33	16	4	3.03	0	208.0	199	135	73	5	1.31	.359	865	3227	9	275	70	30	14	5	0
2008	LAN	NL	19	17	6	9	6.27	0	94.7	112	51	42	3	1.63	.465	426	1690	13	171	66	14	8	3	0

Now I know what people are going to say "hey he's injury prone, weren't you just moaning and groaning about another former marlin with an injury history signing with the yanks?" Yes true, but the difference is the Red Sox are buying low, signing him to a one year deal with no lost draft pick like how the yankees' lavish spending on Burnett that meant not only five years of paying Burnett, but giving up a draft pick to the Blue Jays. Simply put, if he sucks, well you weren't depending on him to giving you innings anyways and you just kick him to the curb and you're out of 5 million, big deal. If he comes anywhere to near approximating to his performance in the last few years, well they've got themselves a steal on their hands. Same thing with Smoltz

Year	Tm	Lg	G	GS	ShO	W	L	ERA	S	Op	IP	Hit	K	BB	HBP	WHIP	SLGA	BFP	Pit	HR	TB	ER	DP	SB	CS	PO
2004	ATL	NL	73	0	0	0	1	2.76	44	49	81.7	75	85	13	0	1.08	.363	323	1142	8	111	25	10	2	1	0
2005	ATL	NL	33	33	1	14	7	3.06	0	0	229.7	210	169	53	1	1.15	.363	931	3298	18	314	78	19	10	6	0
2006	ATL	NL	35	35	1	16	9	3.49	0	0	232.0	221	211	55	9	1.19	.393	960	3535	23	347	90	22	10	4	0
2007	ATL	NL	32	32	0	14	8	3.11	0	0	205.7	196	197	47	4	1.18	.375	853	3062	18	295	71	10	11	4	1
2008	ATL	NL	6	5	0	3	2	2.57	0	1	28.0	25	36	8	0	1.18	.367	117	449	2	40	8	1	1	0	0

I don't think I'll get any argument that those are some pretty decent numbers from a sure-fire hall of famer and one hell of a competitor. Of course those numbers do come with conditions, like the fact that he's 40 and you have concerns whether he'll ever be completely healthy but again, if you can take a flier on John Smoltz, why wouldn't you? If he's not healthy and he can't pitch, you're out 5.5mil, but if he is healthy, well that's a pretty damn good sixth starter in the second half of the season.

Now I'm sure for many sox fans these guys are little consolation for the fact that they missed out on the big prizes, namely mark texiera, but as the rays showed us this year to win in this league you need pitching, pitching, and more pitching. Guys get hurt all the time thats the nature of the game and if you don't have the arms to replace them, as in the case of the yankees, you're going to be searching your rolodex for the sidney ponsons of the world. Instead the sox have two guys who can come into their rotations and potentially do more than just man the ship, but who can actually come in and dominate, and they have the pedigrees and the history to back that up. Especially with the World Baseball Classic looming and Lester and Dice-K putting extra stress on their arms with innings in march and april I wouldn't be the least bit suprised if they need those guys down the road. Time will tell, but I think these low risk, high-reward moves will pay off, nicely done Theo.

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Some Key Terms to Know When Reading

I throw around a lot of numbers and stats so I figured I should probably explain some of them:

wOBA - a new one I'll be using, short for weighted on-base average is essentially an improvement on OPS. Scaled to average OBP (with .330 the league average) wOBA more properly weighs on-base percentage higher than slugging percentage and more accurately weighs extra base hits (a double isn't worth double of that of a single which is what SLG does) to give a better picture of a batter's worth.

.000/.000/.000 is the industry shorthand for the split stats for batting average, on base percentage, and slugging percentage, in that order, these are some of the more commonly used stats to indicate how productive a hitter is.

OPS - shorthand for On-Base Percentage Plus Slugging is becoming more in vogue in the mainstream media to get a better idea of the raw production of a hitter, instead of saying how often they get a hit OPS shows how productive those hits are.

BABIP - Batting Average on Balls in play, its pretty much what it says, how often that a batter puts in ball in play that it becomes a hit, its a stat that shows if a hitter is just having a lot of bad luck or a hot streak is just fluky. For instance a BABIP of .200 is considered unlucky its not that he's not hitting, he just isn't hitting where the fielders are not there.

OPS+ - as the name implies, OPS+ is OPS but with adjustments to park effects and other outliers to normalize the data. Indeed, as most people know some parks are harder to hit at than others, which this stat compensates for, 100 being the baseline of league average

WAR - Wins Above Replacement, as its name suggests, provides an exact number of wins a particular player is worth above what your average AAA player, or replacement player would provide in his absence. Although this is a very difficult stat to explain (I don't totally get it personally) the stat is beautifully simple in that it provides a precise value of either a pitcher or hitter to his particular team, which enables teams to monetize their worth and properly assign a dollar value.

ERA+ - similar to OPS+ its a more highly sophisticated way of evaluating a pitcher's performance adjusted for park effects, this also is on a numerical basis with 100 as league average.

FIP - short for fielding independent pitching, FIP measures the only aspects of the game that a pitcher has total control over, strikeouts, walks, and home runs. Scaled to ERA, FIP gives a truer indication of a pitcher's true talent by removing the luck apparent with balls in play.

WHIP - Walks and Hits per innings pitched, a little more well known stat, but a good indicator of how effective a pitcher is. Chances are if a guy is walking a lot of guys and giving up a hot of hits, he's not pitching all that well.

xFIP- a variation of FIP which normalizes home run rates as a way to discount aberrational home run rates that are either too high or too low to reasonably sustain.

UZR- Short of Ultimate Zone Rating, this is the number of runs above or below average a fielder is in both range runs and error runs combined. This is a difficult stat to understand because it's not one of those stats you can figure out at home, because it includes a bevy of factors including park effects and speed. As a consequence, its not a perfect stat, but its the best defensive stat we have. Also seen as UZR/150 is the Ultimate Zone rating per 150 games.

RngR - Range Runs is defined as the number of runs above or below average a fielder is, determined by how the fielder is able to get to balls hit in his vicinity. Also not a perfect fielding stat, but one of the many fielding stats that help as as fans get a fuller picture of a player's defensive prowess.

New York Nine

Baseball the way it was meant to be, down and dirty with brutally honest analysis

Tell me this isn't a little weird looking

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