The Crawfish Boxes

Evan (HLP) is interviewed on Hotstove.com...awesomeness ensues.

2010-02-09T15:06:31Z

Evan (HLP) is interviewed on Hotstove.com...awesomeness ensues.

Do you want to sponsor a beat reporter?

2010-02-09T14:48:00Z

Do you want to sponsor a beat reporter?

The world of baseball coverage is changing. Newspapers are doing less and less due to budgetary constraints. Teams like the Nationals don't even have anyone covering Spring Training right now. So, this intrepid former reporter is raising money to go cover his team. I'd have asked you guys for the same thing, but was afraid I'd only get 25 cents.

Know Your Astros Relievers: Alberto Arias

2010-02-09T12:00:27Z

More photos » David Kohl - AP

A less heralded member of the bullpen, Alberto Arias.

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We've reviewed the relief prospects you might see in 2010. Now, let's get into the real bullpen nitty gritty. How about we look at some of the current Astros relievers with PItch FX data. First up is Alberto Arias.

For those of you unfamiliar with him, No. 50 is listed as 5-foot-11, 155 pounds. The 26-year old was signed out of the Dominican Republic by the Colorado Rockies in 2000. Arias made his big league debut on May 1st, 2007, pitching 3 2/3 innings in a 7-4 victory over San Francisco. Arias allowed one hit and no earned runs, striking out one and walking another to earn his first big-league victory. Unfortunately, it would be his only decision in six appearances that season.

In 2008, Arias threw 13 2/3 innings in 12 appearances for Colorado before being placed on waivers. Ed Wade and the Astros claimed him on July 31st but Arias spent his first month with Round Rock, where he pitched 23 2/3 innings over eight appearances and three starts. Arias was effective enough with the Express (5.7 K/9, 8.0 H/9, 3.0 K/BB) that the Astros called him up on September 8th once rosters expanded.

Arias did throw eight innings for the Astros in 2008, starting two games and throwing in relief in a third. His 6.75 ERA didn't impress anyone, but his

In 2009, Arias didn't break camp with the Astros, but only pitched 16 1/3 innings with the Express over four appearances and three starts. On May 6th, Arias was called up and stuck with the big league team until August 24th, when he was placed on the disabled list with soreness in his right knee. Team medical director Dr. David Lintner performed a successful arthroscopic surgery to remove a small fragment of bone from the back of his knee.

So, what did Arias look like when he did pitch in 2009? Let's go to the Pitch FX data, courtesy of TexasLeaguers.com.

Let's start off, as usual, with a look at what exactly Arias throws:

Type	Count	Selection	Velo.(mph)	Max Velo.	Vertical	Horizontal
FF	371	50.3%	93.0	96.3	5.33	-8.48
CU	223	30.2%	81.4	93.3	-5.09	7.37
FT	74	10.0%	92.2	94.4	2.21	-9.19
SL	68	9.2%	82.0	84.0	0.04	6.61

His four-seam fastball sits at 93 and touches 96. His curve is his second pitch and he uses both of them about 80 percent of the time. His average curveball is about 12 MPH slower than his four-seamer, which is a pretty sweet changeup. Arias does throw a two-seamer, and gets it up there almost as fast as his four-seamer. We'll look at these two pitches more in depth in a little bit, so just hold on to that information. His slider is a little slower than you'd expect from a guy with Arias' kind of velocity.

What kind of success does he have on the pitches? I'm glad you asked.

Type	Strike	Swing	Whiff
FF	72.5%	54.2%	4.0%
CU	48.9%	31.4%	13.5%
FT	54.1%	33.8%	8.1%
SL	47.1%	33.8%	11.8%

Arias is remarkably good at throwing his four-seamer for a strike. His other pitches are hit or miss, which may explain why he was put on waivers in the first place and why he relies so much on his fastball. He also gets a ton of swings at his fastball, while batters seem to have clued in that he's a little wilder on his other offerings and don't really swing as much on them. Unfortunately, he didn't miss many bats with that four-seamer, getting just 4 percent whiffs. His curve and slider did get some swing-throughs. In fact, his curve got a swing-through almost half the time Arias threw it for a strike. That's a pretty good pitch.

Where is he throwing these pitches?

Ignore the changeup graph. It's based on just two pitches and is the definition of an outlier. Instead, look at the similarity between both the slider and curve and the two fastballs. Both sets of pitches have similar movement and are located at similar spots. Arias loves finding that outside corner with his breaking stuff and pounds the interior part of the plate with both fastballs.

This is actually shows a little of what I saw above: the Pitch FX cameras may have some problems categorizing Arias' pitches. The stats on the four-seam and two-seam fastballs are very similar, as are the two breaking pitches. Look at the pitches from the side.

Here, there's a little difference between the curve and the slider. The curve dives down into the dirt a bit faster, but still doesn't deviate too much from where the slider is. The same can be said for the two-seamer. It breaks down a little more than the fastballs, but it's not very much of a difference. With the similarity in speed and in locations, it really makes Arias into a two-pitch pitcher.

Judging from his release point, it's not like he tips what he's going to throw. As you see below, Arias is pretty consistent with his release.

You could probably tell from pictures of his windup and delivery, but Arias is definitely a three-quarters guy. He has no problem hitting the same slot no matter which pitch he's throwing. So what's going on with these four pitches? Onwards to the movement chart.

Now, things become a little more clear. There are two distinct zones where Arias hits with his movement. While his curveball has some definite downward plane on its movement, the slider stays up a little more. Now, considering how many were thrown compared to the curve, it could be a matter of random noise on that scatter plot. Those 'sliders' could just be curveballs that don't curve as much. Whatever the case, it's a pretty textbook pitch going by this guide here.

The fastballs, though. Too many of those look like splitters to me. I'm not suggesting that Arias throws a split-fingered fastball instead of his four-seamer, but judging by its movement, it does look to have a little more downward plane than your normal fastball. That 'sink' is what gives Arias an 18 percent groundout rate.

Interestingly, though, Arias actually got more strikeouts by percentage (18.8%) than any other outcome last season. I'm not sure exactly why this is still, but I can guess that we're dealing with a smaller sample size, batters who aren't ready for both his velocity and his erratic movement and a reliable fastball he can throw for strikes early in the count.

I'm not sure from this data whether Arias could possibly be a closer candidate in the future, but he does have an interesting repetoire. Anyone who can hit 95-96 with his fastball has a place in this Astros bullpen.

That's all I've got. If baggs wants to chip in with any thoughts on Arias' mechanics, I'd certainly appreciate it.

TCB Community Projection #1: Roy Oswalt & Lance Berkman

2010-02-08T19:00:28Z

More photos » Matt York - AP

How many dingers will Berkman hit in 2010? You tell us.

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You have already heard from HLP about his projections on the Astros win total for 2010 using WAR. Over the next few weeks, you'll be hearing from DQ and clack on what they came up with. Since I'm pretty horrible with predictions, I thought it'd be more fun to come up with something a little different.

In the spirit of FanGraph's community projections, how about we band together here and predict what each member of the 25-man roster will do this season? You can be as scientific or as spontaneous as you like. Feel free to add whatever numbers or forecasts you'd like. So we have something to compare, for hitters let's include total plate appearances, a slash line, stolen bases and SB percentage and extra-base hits. For pitchers, let's go with total innings, ERA/FIP (whichever you'd prefer), strikeouts, walks and home runs allowed. Outside of that, you can put in whatever you'd like.

To get this done before the start of the season, let's go with a hitter and a pitcher each time with posts going up Mondays and Wednesdays. I'll keep track of what everyone projects and post the results each Friday. Sound like a plan? Good deal. Let's get to projecting!

First up, Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman...

How much stock should the Astros put in Tommy Manzella's glove?

2010-02-08T12:00:16Z

More photos » Al Behrman - AP

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This piece has to start with a strong preface: I don't know the answer to this question, nor will I by the end of this. All I can use is the information available, spotty, at best, due to the inherent shortcomings of defensive metrics and their required sample size. I can also rely on scouting reports and my own first hand account watching Manzella play defense in Round Rock. These, however, are all ways at getting the truth, but never actually arriving. It'll be an approximation, and that leaves plenty of room for error.

That said, I want to try and get to a general idea of how much probability we should be assigning to Tommy Manzella's glove. It's something we've discussed numerous times in the comments section this offseason, but it's something that hasn't receive the full attention of a front page article. It's something that's been brewing about in the back of mind for sometime now, but it's not something I've had the heart to actually sit down and quantify—or at least attempt to do so. That's the rub of being a blogger about your favorite team, you have to look at the ugly truth about your team far too often.

Now, I probably have a personal bias against Manzella's fielding because an un-scooped mis-throw of his almost took my head off back in April when I was in a camera well at Dell Diamond. But aside from the fear that either myself, or my friend's $600 camera, was going to get clobbered because of the errant throw, the rest of what I've seen of Manzella hasn't inspired a lot of confidence. My honest impression of seeing him play is that he has the range, but his arm isn't accurate enough; again, though, there's a huge potential bias on my end in terms of his throwing prowess.

I doubt you're reading this to read through my internal monologue about whether I'm being too harsh on Manzella's defense. So, we'll get to the numbers. We'll primarily be taking a look at TotalZone, a metric that was conceived of, and honed, by Sean Smith (the CHONE guy). Though not as advanced as UZR, its simplistic input allows for prevalent minor league data, which is what we need for this endeavor.

Obviously, as Astros fans, our logical benchmark for a great defensive shortstop is Adam Everett. Tommy Manzella is not the next Adam Everett just because I'm not entirely convinced we didn't watch the best fielding short stop ever in 2006. Failing to live up to the impressive glove work of Everett doesn't mean Manzella won't be a good, or even great, fielder. Just that I want to see if we can come to a more concrete way of predicting his success than what the Astros organization has touted about Mr. Manzella. So, after the jump, I'll give you my best effort at coming up with just that.

(If you're interested in what Manzella's bat might look like, relative to Everett's, click here for AstroAndy's excellent investigation of the subject last summer)

There are several ways of viewing Tommy Manzella's defense that have kept me up the last few nights thinking them through. The first, and somewhat valid, method would be look what Manzella's marginal impact our defense will be from 2009 to 2010. The process is pretty straight forward: Take Miguel Tejada's TotalZone Rating from 2009 and then using what we know about Manzella's defense determine what the marginal change would be.

Miguel Tejada, in 2009, had a TotalZone rating of -22, which we can approximate as runs. Not a stellar year for Miggy, and a drop of twenty-three runs from 2008. Since 2005, Tommy Manzella has posted yearly TotalZones of 2, 0, 2, 3, and 3 (via MinorLeagueSplits.com). Over a five year period, he averages a TotalZone of 2. I'm comfortable with assuming that Manzella's five year average is a reasonable—enough—approximation for his defensive skill. Thus, the marginal expected change in the Astros defense, at shortstop, in 2010, is 24 runs. That's an impressive change and would likely offset whatever Manzella's batting line is compared Tejada's.

However, it doesn't really answer the question we need answered. We don't want to know if Manzella will be better than Tejada at defense. What we want to know is if Manzella is plus a defender. Plus enough to offset a dismal/triple/slash, that is.

Our mythical benchmark is Adam Everett. And, even as unlikely that I feel it is that we'll see another Adam Everett-esque defensive shortstop again (until Jiovanni Mier, of course...), let's run with that concept.

After scouring the internet far and wide for what I could find in terms of defensive metrics for minor leaguers, I'm depressed. The goal was to find something that I could use to compare the development of Everett and Manzella using apples to apples. Unfortunately, the best statistic that's out there for evaluating minor league defense, Total Zone, can only go back so far (2005, to be exact).

I did, in the search, learn more about the utility of TotalZone ratings for minor league players. And it is something we should address before we push onward:

For the ratings to be useful, they need to correlate from one level to another. If we knew a player had a +15 rating one year, that would be of no use unless it told us that he was likely to continue to post good ratings in future seasons, at higher levels of the minors. Preliminary investigation shows that these ratings are more useful for infielders than outfielders. The correlation is much lower for outfielders, though at least they are (usually) positive. I’ve found that you can usually get a correlation of 0.50, meaning you regress 50 percent to the mean, at about 350 chances for infielders. This represents less than a full season of chances for second, third and short. For outfielders, you need about two full seasons of data to regress 50 percent, or about 1,000 chances.

The only season's worth of data that we have about Manzella where he has 350+ chances at a single level is 2009; the same season in which he posted his best career number of +3. That's something to consider as the other years that reported rely on incomplete samples as Manzella changed levels.

The other thing to consider is that Sean Smith has developed an MLE (major league equivalent) for TotalZone based on his regression analysis of defense from every level. For a SS, the MLE is -10 at AAA. However, these MLE's are based on 500 chances, aren't park adjusted, and are based flyball/linedrive tendencies in the minors. If we scale the MLE to Manzella's 400 chances at AAA, though, he'd be rerated as a -5. Still a full 18 runs better than Tejada was last year, but certainly no Adam Everett.

This has been a lovely digression, and something that should be variable in our evaluation of Manzella's defense, but let's get back to the task at hand. The only apple to apple comparison I could find for Manzella and Everett was Range Factor (click here to read Tango's critique of the metric). As imperfect as it is, it's what we have to work with. And, truth be told, fielding metrics are imperfect, so we could also just choose to view Range Factor as just being more imperfect and sweat it a little less (although, it looks like things are getting pretty damned close to accurate: here and here).

Age	Everett	Manzella
21	4.81
22	4.32
23	4.69	4.19
24	4.58	4.34
25	4.99	4.57
26		4.24

Manzella looked as though he were in a career arc of improvement, until 2009 saw him post a step backwards. I'm wiling to give him the benefit of the doubt in 2009 because John Gall was his first baseman (he's no Puma, we'll just leave it at that). There could have very well been plays that Manzella would have gotten credit for if he had a better first baseman, but the fact remains, Manzella remains a step behind Everett no matter how we slice it.

If we were to draw any conclusions on Manzella's defense, I'd say the following:

At every level, Manzella is behind Everett.
Manzella, however, does seem to be gradually improving, much the same way that Everett did—just never quite reaching Everett's height.
The prior to observations leads to a defensible conclusion that Manzella will always be a step behind (below?) Everett.
That conclusion doesn't necessarily impose a low ceiling for Manzella, though.

Obviously, the numbers aren't going to lead me to the conclusion I am so clearly grasping for—desperately. A case can be made that he has a ceiling that's high, but, thus far, our empirical knowledge of Manzella isn't as rosy of a picture we've heard. Sure, his Range Factor isn't terrible when we view it next to Adam Everett, but Manzella has yet to post a TotalZone that suggests he is going to be an above average defender.

Yet, all we've heard about Manzella is that he's a plus defender. But, we've mainly heard that from the Astros themselves, plus a few scouting reports. It's hard to really take an organization's evaluation of a propsect too seriously because they're only going to paint the rosiest of pictures possible. So I took to the internet to find any and every scouting report I could find on Manzella. What I found doesn't leave me convinced that TotalZone is just underrating Manzella.

First, there's the fact that Manzella has a been a perennial C prospect for John Sickels, who writes that Manzella is "a steady and reliable defensive shortstop. His bat isn't that bad, so that leads me to infer that really isn't bringing a truly plus glove, otherwise he'd be more than a C. BPro's, Kevin Goldstein had this to say of Manzella, "[a] fundamentally sound shortstop." I don't read that and get goosebumps. Of course, Goldstein follows that with "[h]e's a fantastic glove man whose instincts and 55 speed (on the 20-80 scale) give him plenty of range. Manzella also has outstanding hands and an above-average arm." Mixed signals from Goldstein, no love from Sickels...not the greatest start.

Mining other prospect sites brought the following comments (thanks to David for compiling most of these for me):

Ben Balder of Baseball America "He does have a solid arm, hands and footwork, but he's really more of a spray hitter without much pop, so it's hard to see him as more than a slightly above replacement-level player at best."
Gerry Fraley "With a combination of soft hands and a powerful arm, Manzella, 26, is the best defensive infielder in the organization."
Baseball America, from 2007, says Manzella "has solid range, a strong arm and fine instincts."
Baseball America, from 2009, probably has the most glowing review of Manzella, with "Defensively, he's a slick fielder in the mold of former Astro Adam Everett, with good feet and balance and good range going both ways. He makes strong throws across the diamond. His defense isn't quite as good as Everett's though his offense should be better."

First, saying someone is the best defensive infielder in the Astros farm system isn't saying a whole lot. They're not bursting at the seems with prospects, and least of all in the infield. Further, I don't see a single superlative describing his attributes. I see words that make me think "slightly above average" and "not great." David, who provided the Sickel's and BA quotes for me, took the same impression away. There's nothing that's been written about Manzella—really—that would lead to the conclusion that this a great fielding prospect we're looking at.

It's at this point in my odyssey that the real sleeplessness has set in for me (seriously, I woke up early, while on vacation to finish this up). We've done a lot of defending of the moves the Astros have made this offseason by crediting Ed Wade for bolstering defense behind a pitching staff that will certainly take advantage of it. But now I'm left wondering if that's the case. Certainly, Manzella is an upgrade from Miguel Tejada. That, however, doesn't mean he's going to be the kind of stalwart when need behind our ground ball heavy relievers.

The question that I've asked is how much stock should the Astros, or ourselves, put in Tommy Manzella's glove. What we've been able to determine, thus far, is that the numbers leave a glimmer of hope, but don't indicate great success. Basically Manzell's TotalZone indicates that he has floor of being just slightly below average at fielding SS, but a ceiling that could range higher. Based on Manzella's TotalZone, coupled with the scouting reports on him, I think that he has a ceiling of being a slightly above average defensive shortstop. That's about as high as I think we can place it.

So how much stock should the Astros put in Tommy Manzella's glove? I fear that the answer is that they've already put too much in it.

Pitching Mechanics/Terms To Look/Listen For

2010-02-07T20:46:57Z

Pitching mechanics have always been very interesting to me, and as a former pitcher I've paid much attention to the implications of pitching a certain way vs another. After much research and personal experience, these are the things that are of note when watching/listening to a ballgame.

(Warning, lots of pics after the jump)

Tall 'n Fall vs Dip and Drive

Before you look at the individual mechanical devices, all pitchers follow one of two pitching techniques. The classic "Tall and Fall" used by Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson or the "Dip and Drive" used by Oswalt and a slew of other small guys.

Main concept to get here is that The Tall and Fall method tries to capture the added length advantage of a tall guy with long limbs by "falling" forward and whipping his long limbs (some more than others). Where as a smaller pitcher tries to generate power by constricting, on concentrating their body, then thrusting off the rubber in an explosive movement towards home plate.

Arm Angles: There are 3 common arm angles. Over the top (High), Mid (3/4), Sidearm (Low)

Each generate different movement.

High: Downward/vertical movement, generally sinker-ballers with high groundball rates. Also, will usually have nice curveballs.

Mid 3/4: The most common. Very natural and gets benefits from both high and low arm slots.

Low/ Sidearm: Generates lateral/side movement. Great Sliders and two seam fastballs. Jake Peavy is a good example.

THE GOOD:

The "Power T": This is what all pitchers should strive for. This means to have the Pitching arm bent around 90 degrees with the elbow at or below shoulder level, and the hand straight up "showing the ball" the the 3rd baseman (for righties, 1st base for lefties), not CF. This should occur right as the frontside "stride foot" is about to touch the ground.

Examples:

Scapular Loading:

This term refers to a pitcher "loading up" by squeezing his shoulder blades together mid wind up. This generates slightly more force and can gain a couple mph of velocity if done right. Jake Peavy does this very well. (warning, trying to overdo this can cause an Inverted W)

Hip-Shoulder Separation:

This is a HUGE part of what makes Tiny Tim Lincecum throw so hard for being such a small guy. The goal here is once in the "cocked t" position, your hips are in-line with your shoulders. Meaning, if you drew a line from shoulder to shoulder that line would be straight aiming dead ahead at home plate. Same with your hips, again aiming straight towards home plate.

Next you begin to bring your hip around, so that a line going from hip to hip would point from 1st to 3rd base now instead of home plate. Meanwhile, having your shoulders still aimed directly at home plate. This hip action would generate a twisting force and would pull your shoulder forward with tons of force.

This is a popular photo because it shows what most other pitchers can't do. Tim is literally coiling his body and then whipping his pitching arm forward just to catch up with the rest of this body. This creates his ridiculously fast arm action, which is the reason most scouts aren't worried about his minor inverted L.

There are dozens of small little additions pitchers can add to try and generate a little more velocity and Tim uses just about all of them. (Ex. Extremely long stride; Tim is the only pitcher I've seen in the majors with a stride over 100% of his height. The goal is 80-90% your height.)

Some other popular tricks to gain velocity.

High leg lift. Creates longer stride and improves timing.

Corked Leg lift. Bringing lead leg up and angled back. Ex. Lincecum, Ted Lilly

PAS Pull. Pitching Arm Side Pull. Using your non-throwing arm to reach and pull back which helps generate force for the pitching arm.

Stepping back off the rubber instead of to the side. this creates momentum forward.

There are many others but these are the most common.

THE BAD:

Ian Kennedy inverted W while throwing the ever mysterious vulcan change-up, invented by Eric Gagne.

Billy Wagner Inverted V.

Oh god, that's hard to look at. Bj Ryan actually trying to break his arm off with The Inverted L.

Freddy Garcia; Hyperabduction. Pitching elbow above shoulder.

Kerry Wood; Inverted L/W

- You don't have to be a big believer in the consequences and importance of pitching mechanics to see a simple pattern. Pitchers who throw with improper mechanics get hurt A LOT more than those who don't.

- I read Nolan Ryan's pitching mechanics book a few years back and he stated that he could still throw in the mid 90's in his mid to late 40's solely because his mechanics allowed him to get the most out of his body without injury.

Astros Pitchers:

Roy Oswalt & Wandy Rodriguez both have near perfect mechanics so I will refrain from showing any pics of them.

Brandon Lyon:

Overall, looks pretty good. No major mechanical issues.

Brett Myers:

Overall, his mechanics look "OK" He has some problems but he does get to the Cocked Position on time which is most important. A plus is he has very nice hip-shoulder separation.

This is the only part of his mechanics I don't like. That elbow should never come above his shoulder. He does correct it, but it creates extra stress on his elbow and shoulder as well as disrupting timing.

Ignoring the "Golden Cup" trophy, you can see that he does get to the cocked position just in time as that lead foot gets down, which is good.

The best part of his mechanics. When you here announcers comment on a pitcher "staying closed" or "staying back" this is what they are referring to. Keeping that pitching arm back while the rest of your body "opens up" to face home plate.

Lastly, I would prefer he looked at his target, but I guess I am old fashioned. Haha

Bud Norris:

He has a significant flaw, but again does correct it seemingly in time. Bud has what's being called an Inverted V. which is basically, a raise Inverted L, or half of an inverted W. His elbows should never be above his shoulders. A good rule of thumb is that the ball should always be above the elbow. It's extremely difficult to use improper mechanics following this rule.

In his video, you can see that all things align just right at :04 when he reaches the cocked position.

Felipe Paulino:

Not too many pics/videos of him but from what I can see it looks pretty good. His timing is a bit unorthodox, but I think that has alot to do with his hurried delivery. Which is fine.

The Cocked position, just about perfect.

Matt Lindstrom:

Overall, decent. Pretty much the same as Bud Norris. Small Inverted V, but naturally corrects.

The issue with Lindstrom is that any pitcher who can throw 98+ mph has an increased chance of injury just based on the added stress by creating so much force. This means that even small issues can create significant injuries. I was taught that man was not meant to consistently throw anywhere near 100mph. Most of the ones that do get hurt. Enter Joel Zumaya.

This is a reason that Tim L. stopped throwing 96-97 and concentrated on 92-94ish.

Overall, The Astros are in decent shape. We are just lucky we aren't The Indians. Tons of problems over there.

Hope this helps some, if there are any other pitchers you guys want to talk about, just let me know. It's fairly easy to tell who is and isn't a high injury risk just by looking at them and that can greatly effect potential FA signings or draft picks.

Pitching Mechanics, Brad Arnsberg and the Letter W: The effect of all three on the Astros pitching staff

2010-02-07T12:00:22Z

More photos » David Kohl - AP

Roy showing off his solid pitching mechanics

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Even though the Super Bowl is today, this blog is Astro-centric, so baseball is still the National Pastime! Before I get to the good stuff though, here is the definitive Super Bowl 44 preview.

Now then, back to our regularly scheduled blogging.

The SBN blog, DrivelineMechanics, our baseball scouting blog, had a post earlier in the week concerning the Toronto Blue Jays' pitchers and how they were a "pitching coach's nightmare". Well, it just so happens that their old pitching coach, Brad Arnsberg, is our new pitching coach. David wrote an extremely well done piece last year about Arnsberg, and I'm not going to try to add to it. That being said, this most recent post about the Jays links to a pitching mechanics web page that is extremely, extremely interesting in my opinion.

The author, Chris O'Leary, does a fantastic job of explaining one of the more common mechanical flaws that face pitchers: the "Inverted W". As someone who has never played organized baseball, I love to find articles and studies like this because frankly I like to learn about areas of the game that are not readily accessible to the common fan. O'Leary states his case thusly:

I believe that pitchers who make the "Inverted W" are at a significantly higher risk of experiencing shoulder -- and in some cases also elbow -- problems.

At first blush, one would assume that if this motion causes significant injuries to pitchers, it would most likely be a bad habit that pitchers pick up during their formative years, while they play for managers and coaches who lack the expertise to teach them otherwise. Rather, this is a motion that is taught with regularity and as O'Leary notes, is praised by those in the pitching mechanics industry. John Smoltz, Kerry Wood and Mark Prior are three of the bigger name arms that have this inverted W motion and have suffered serious elbow injuries. Whether this is coincidence or causation is left up to interpretation.

The preferred, in O'Leary's estimation, motion for a pitcher is for the hurler to keep his elbows below his shoulders, thus creating the inverse of the Inverted W, a "Regular W". In getting into position to throw the ball, this motion reduces the amount of strain of the ligaments of the throwing shoulder, and lessens the force with which the pitcher's upper arm rotates outward. Essentially, this motion is 1) more compact, and 2) alleviates pressure on the upper arm and shoulder.

While the DrivelineMechanics post was made in January 2010, O'Leary's post was made in July of 2007. This is important to me because at the end of his post, O'Leary discusses the pitcher's whose motions he thinks are less prone to creating arm injuries, and those whose mechanics could potentially damage their pitching arm.

Pitchers whose mechanics were positive included veterans Mike Mussina and Roy Oswalt, a young pitcher named Dan Haren, and a pitcher who was in his first season of major league ball- Tim Lincecum. Exactly one year before SI writer Tom Verducci penned his now famous article about Tiny Tim and his ridiculous mechanics, Chris O'Leary had seen enough of Lincecum to believe that he had the sort of motion on the mound that would allow him to not only remain healthy, but perhaps generate the high velocity that a man his size possibly couldn't muster if he was an Inverted W style pitcher.

Anthony Reyes and Joel Zumaya were two other pitchers who O'Leary thought injuries may be in their future. In all both cases he was right.

Now, can Brad Arnsberg be blamed for the Blue Jays' problems, or could it just have been an organizational wide problem? After all, it isn't as if a pitcher is drafted and immediately dumped on the pitching coaches' doorstep. Most guys go through at least four pitching coaches before he reaches the bigs, so perhaps these negative habits developed long before these problem arms went north of the border. If nothing else, this is something to keep an eye on in our own pitchers this season, especially our young starters.

Power, Power, Bats Y'all: Astro Farmhands Topping the Charts

2010-02-06T12:00:33Z

More photos » Charles Rex Arbogast - AP

Good wood.

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While Astro fans wait with bated breath for the release of the team's ZIPS projection next week, CHONE has given us a morsel of clairvoyant thought to nibble on in the mean time. The results are not what you would call good. Or even "ok". I'll stop beating around the metaphorical bush and just come out with it...every team that is supposed to have a better record than the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2010, raise your hand. Not so fast, Houston Astros. A 73-89 record is worse than Baseball Prospectus' prediction of 76-86 and a whole lot worse than my optimistic 85-77 record that I threw out earlier in the week.

Breaking the list down player by player, it's clear that CHONE isn't all that high on either Felipe Paulino or Brett Myers. That's to be expected in a way. Myers is coming off an injury plagued 2009 season, and gives up an inordinate amount of home runs. Paulino is a young guy with very few major league innings, and less than stellar minor league credentials.

Still, both have the ability to out produce their projected lines. For instance, I look at Brett Myers projection and think, If Brett gives up 21 home runs in only 126 innings pitched, good for a home run every 16.66 innings he pitches I will type a thousand words about my love for Jim Edmonds. It's well known that Myers has a propensity to allow the home run ball (that's a nice way to put it!), but it's not like he's trending upward in that category. 70.2 innings of work last season aren't really a fair representation of his talents. I realize that the Projectatron 3000xi or whatever is used to spit out these numbers doesn't know that, but we do. So beware the low balling of our record, or least as far as Myers is concerned.

The other side of the coin doesn't have the same upside as the pitching staff. Our offense by and large is a very fair representation of what could happen in 2010. Definitely on the low end of what I think will happen, but there were no egregious projections in my estimation.

What is really lacking with the offense is power hitting. A patient approach at the plate, high contact rates, avoiding the dreaded ground ball double play and savvy base running are all important characteristics that a hitter should strive to exude. Above and beyond these traits, the ability to hit for extra bases can do wonders for a club's propensity to score more runs than they allow on a night to night basis. Outside of purely statistical reasons, just think about how much a double down the line, or an out of nowhere three run homer can swing games around, forcing the manager's hand in utilizing his bullpen. In the war of attrition that is a 162 game baseball season, extra base hits are the heavy artillery.

Help, perhaps, is on the way. Kellen Clemens and Collin DeLome have made proven themselves to be proficient power threats while minor leaguers. Caveats abound though, as both have played in either the hitter friendly California League or the hitter friendly Texas League.

DeLome's opposite field power stroke is promising if only because recognition of pitches, patience and strength are all crucial to the ability to hit to the opposite field. He isn't going to be knocking on the door of the majors in 2010, but a steady ISO% from High A to AA is promising nonetheless.

With Jonathan Gaston and Jay Austin making their way into at least one top ten Astros' prospects list, there is definite power potential down low on the organizational totem pole. As with all minor leaguers, it's a fine line between potential major leaguer and career minor leaguer. What really interests me, is the supposed "lowish ceiling, high floor" prospects at the top of the Astros' prospects pecking order such as Jio Mier, Jason Castro and Jordan Lyles, and the perhaps higher ceiling, lower floor outfield prospects like Austin, Gaston, and TJ Steele. Combine these players with the aforementioned DeLome and Clemens, and our other offensive draftees from 2008 and 2009, and more pop may be in the offering sooner than we think.

A peek at Astros' hitting zones --- Baseball Analysts

2010-02-06T01:16:43Z

More photos » David J. Phillip - AP

Is that pitch down and in...hard to tell. But Hunter Pence hit a 2 run home run. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

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BaseballAnalysts.com writer Jeremy Greenhouse comes up with an interesting analysis: who are the best and worst hitters by hitting zones. Greenhouse used pitch f/x to break down each hitter into nine zones. He then calculated run value for each swing by a hitter in each of those zones in 2009. His article shows the top five and bottom five hitters for each zone; I'm not going to summarize those results, since you can read the article yourself. The sample sizes diced up in this fashion may be a matter of concern, but we take what we can get.

The most notable Astros hitter on those lists is Hunter Pence. Hunter is the third best hitter for the down/in pitch (+2.4 runs). Hunter was also the third worst hitter swinging at the up/in pitch (-7.1 runs). The article links a googledocs spreadsheet for all batters by zone, and we'll peruse that.

Down/In pitch

This appears to be a difficult pitch to accumulate run values, but the Astros had several hitters who caused damage on this pitch. In addition to Hunter Pence, above, Carlos Lee and Miguel Tejada weren't far behind, with +2.1 and +1.9 runs, respectively. Kaz Matsui was among the worst hitters when he swung at this pitch (-5.4 runs).

Down/Middle pitch

This seems like a typical sinkerball pitch, or perhaps a diving slider. In any event, this pitch caused the Astros problems. No Astros showed up at the top of the list, but several of the Astros' sluggers were among the worst. A lot of good HR hitters are among the worst at this pitch, and Lance Berkman (-10.3) was right there with sluggers like David Ortiz and Adam Dunn (-11 and -11.1). Carlos Lee and Hunter Pence also had trouble when they swung at this pitch.

Down/Out pitch

This is a tough pitch to do much with. Leo Mazzone, the former Braves' hitting coach, demanded that all his pitchers learn how to hit this corner with precision. Pedro Feliz is the worst of the Astros hitters when he swings at this pitch (-11.8 runs). This pitch location seems to be krypotonite for Hunter Pence, if you watch him flail at the low outside breaking pitch; and his run value is predictably bad here (-8.3).

Middle/In pitch

Hunter Pence (+3) and Michael Bourn (+2.9) were the best Astros' hitters swinging at this pitch location. Cory Sullivan (+1.9) had some success with this pitch location. Miguel Tejada (+1.4) also liked swinging at these pitches.

Middle/Middle pitch

This is the ol' groove one down broadway pitch. Some fine hitters (e.g., Braun, Fielder, Texeira, Pujols) create major havoc when they get this pitch. Miguel Tejada and Carlos Lee were the Astros' best at dealing with the "hit me" pitch with +6.7 runs and +5.9 runs, respectively. Hunter Pence racked up some runs (+4) on this pitch too. Geoff Blum didn't fare too well when the ball was served up on a platter for him (-5.9 runs).

Middle/Out pitch

No particularly good Astros' performers on this pitch. But Pedro Feliz is the 6th worst hitter on this pitch (-10.1). Given his similarly bad numbers on low and away pitches, maybe Feliz should quit swinging at outside pitches.

Up/In pitch

No particularly noteworthy Astros' performers on this pitch. But Hunter Pence (-7.1) and Miguel Tejada (-4.7) didn't succeed when they swung at this pitch. Carlos Lee gets tied up with this pitch (-3.7).

Middle/Up pitch

The high hard one? Lance Berkman excelled on this pitch location (+6.7) and was 6th best in the league on this pitch--just above Albert Pujols. Miguel Tejada, who sometimes swings from the heels at high pitches, should do less of that; he was -3.7 runs.

Up/Out pitch

This is the location where Pujols leads the league (my mind wanders to a certain up/out pitch by Brad Lidge.) Miguel Tejada was the best Astros' hitter at handling this pitch (+0.6). Carlos Lee held his own too (+0.2).

OK, that's all I've got today. Have a nice weekend.

Friday Astros Minor Thoughts

2010-02-05T12:00:27Z

More photos » Will Powers - AP

This is NOT who the Astros want with the No. 8 pick. How you still haunt me, Chris Burke.

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If you haven't been able to tell, I really enjoy covering the minor leagues. I even have a (very neglected) blog on the subject. I could talk about the Astros farm system every day. But, I try to control myself and think I'm going to settle on writing a Friday column with all sorts of little tidbits throughout the season. Sometimes, like this week, a couple of the stories I picked up for this were already FanShotted. I hope you don't mind seeing them twice. At any rate, let's get to the good stuff:

With the debut of some college seasons, talk of the June draft is starting to percolate. The Astros have four picks in the first two rounds in the 2010 draft. Judging from this article, the best they will get the best bang for those picks by taking hitters, either college or high school. If they have to take a pitcher, it's better to take a high school arm than a college one. If you look at Bobby Heck's profile since joining the Astros, he's already following a very similar model. He's picked a college bat high, high school position players, high school arms and not one college arm in the top three rounds. Either his people have broken down this kind of data, or he just intuitively understands how to get good value from the draft. Whichever it is, I feel even better about the Astros prospects.

Interestingly, over at insidethebook.com, Tangotiger makes the point that any pitcher outside the top 25 college and high school arms is like throwing darts blindfolded. Everyone talks about Mike Piazza being found in the 62nd round as evidence that you can find value late. In the future, though, it's going to be late-round pitchers who have the best chance to make the majors. Look at a guy like Danny Meszaros. Because There's No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect (TNSTAPP), pitchers from late in the draft have an easier time flying up the organization. If there are injuries which hurt depth, there's an even greater chance. Now, I'm not suggesting that teams will start finding stars in the 40th round. But Tango's article does suggest that it's easier to find big-league pitchers late than you'd expect.

I know there are some good people doing stat-oriented prospecting, but it's still jarring to see someone on MLB.com use things like ISO when discussing Mike Stanton. I was kind of surprised to see Stanton ranked so highly, since he strikes out a ton. Still, clubs are always searching for power and Stanton seems to have that in droves. I still don't know if he's much different than Mike Jacobs, though. I guess he's cheaper, at least.

Let the Bryce Harper talk continue. The 17-year old made his debut for the College of Southern Nevada and hit his first home run in Game No. 4. Here's a video of it.

Mayo also has an article up talking about his predictions for the 2010 draft. His list of the top 10 players in the 2010 draft isn't a suggestion of when they'll be picked, but one of the most talented. If the Astros ended up with Zach Cox, would you be happy? If Cox and Harper are both sitting there at eight, who do you pick? I'm sure the Astros could move Harper off to either second or third if they needed to (I'm not sure his defense would be better than Castro's). If Harper comes in with a price tag 2 million over Cox, does that influence your choice? I like the idea of taking Cox simply because he's a polished college bat that could arrive in a year and a half a la Ryan Zimmerman. Harper may have more upside, but he's also very overhyped to this point. I could see him falling a bit on merit once scouts see him in college.

On second thought, this tweet from Lincoln Hamilton at Project Prospect makes me less excited about Cox. A 29% strikeout rate? Yikes! That's almost as bad as Willy Taveras...oh, wait, that was yesterday's post. It's still early in the evaluation process, but I think I like the idea of taking a college hitter with the eighth pick. If he can play third or second, that's great. A power-hitting first baseman also wouldn't hurt (depending on how you view Phil Disher -- I'm not high on him).

I found a great new draft site by Andy Seiler. He's already done a couple mock drafts for 2010 and has the Astros landing a high school outfielder in LaVon Washington and two high school arms with the first three picks. Interesting stuff, to say the least. I would almost bet they don't go outfielder with that first pick, unless Houston really would move him to second base. I still see them going third base at the top but the 'best available player' card is also in play.

A big tip o' the hat to Farmstros for linking to this article in the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. Some interesting tidbits about guys like Brad James and Johnny Ash, or the "Mayors of Corpus Christi." The real conversation starter for me is why in the heck everyone is so hyped up about T.J. Steele. This just started happening this offseason, where Tal Smith goes around and tells guys like Richard Justice that Steele is Cesar Cedeno 2.0. I might be missing something here, but Steele has been injured. A lot. He didn't play nearly a full season in 2009 and injury concerns dogged in through college. I know evaluators fall in love with talent over production in the minors, but I'm a little tired of this rhetoric with Steele. Remember when Mark Prior was the second coming of Cy Young and Kerry Wood was a new Nolan Ryan? How'd that work out?

Earlier this week, McTaggart tweeted this note about the Venezuelan Winter League championship. While Gustavo Chacin may end up on the big league roster, it's more likely that he ends up at Round Rock. His line in the VWL championship (7 inn, 6 K, 5 H) shows he can still be an effective pitcher at times. If he's healthy, he definitely adds solid depth to the Triple-A rotation.

The Astros have also signed an 18-year old first baseman named Mesac Laguna out of Nicaragua. Houston's Nicaraguan scout Leo Guevara said Laguna has a powerful arm, can hit for power and is athletic. He'll start next season in either the Venezuelan or Dominican Summer Leagues. Guevara also compared him to Jose Offerman and Carlos Gomez, which doesn't seem to gibe with the whole 'powerful' thing or the whole 'first baseman' thing. Also of note: Guevara mentioned the Astros expect to sign four or five more players out of Nicaragua next season.

If you're in the Houston area Friday morning, you can be part of the Astros' team picture. Well, it's a picture taken by the team of you and 1,499 of your closest friends all wearing red for a good cause. I'm in meetings all day and 90 minutes from MMP. Anyone that goes, feel free to keep us updated on how it turns out.

One quick programming note: I'm waiting on the Baseball America and Sickel's books to come in before I can start writing about the possible returns for Oswalt and Berkman. I'm hoping to get each next week, but don't know for sure. If you have the Top 100 list from BA or Sickel's Top 50 lists, shoot me an email.

Should the Astros make a move for Willy Taveras? A Response

2010-02-04T12:00:30Z

As I was contemplating what to write today's article on, I stumbled across this blog post by the Chronicle's new Astros beat writer Bernardo Fallas. It was entitled 'Should the Astros make a move for Willy Taveras?' I chuckled to myself, thinking this was a tongue-in-cheek headline. After all, the Astros already have a centerfielder that does everything Taveras does and more, a full bench with bats more potent than his and prospects to take their place for cheaper if needed.

Why on earth would the Astros want Taveras?

Well, friends, Fallas was being serious. He laid out his argument for Taveras, saying he owns a home here and works out with his former teammates. While the idea was ridiculous to me on the surface, I gave Fallas the benefit of the doubt. That is, until I came to this:

Also, if healthy, he can put up decent numbers - his career high for stolen bases is 68 in 2008. He is a career .276 batter with a .321 OBP.

'Decent numbers' revolve around a solid batting average and stolen bases, apparently. I mean, he wasn't referring to a .320 OBP as decent, right? When the league average was .333, anything below that has to be considered something other than decent, right? But, maybe I'm being to harsh on him. After all, Mr. Fallas just moved over from the soccer beat. He may just not have had the time to read all the wonderful articles about sabermetric thinking yet. Heck, I'm sure he hasn't even had time to read about Moneyball or how Branch Rickey used to emphasize OBP back with the Dodgers.

That has to explain why Fallas tries to reason out where Taveras will land, since Oakland surely doesn't want to lose him for nothing and will try to trade him. Maybe he doesn't realize that BIlly Beane is a shrewder negotiator than that; if he wants to trade a player, he doesn't put himself in a postion where he HAS to trade said player. Not to mention the fact that any team trading for him assumes his contract as well. You know, the one that pays 4 million dollars who has a -.3 WAR the past two seasons and .7 WAR in the past three.

No, he's probably still picking up on things like that. Now that my snarkiness is out of the way, let's go to some bullet points to better illustrate why this would be a bad idea.

Oakland basically acquired Taveras to pick up Adam Rosales, a young utility infielder. The A's already have a ton of outfielders and they weren't going to let Taveras clog up that rotation. He probably views Taveras as the opportunity cost to pick up Rosales and treated him as such by DFA'ing him hours after acquiring him.
What skillset does Taveras offer? I already mentioned his low OBP, but how about his 5% walk rate or his 16% strikeout rate? Or his .35 BB/K ratio? Or his .045 ISO? Does that sound like a good bench player to you? He'd basically just be a pinch-runner, right? No one would run him out there to pinch hit unless he was the last guy on the bench, right?
At least his defense is pretty sound. Outside of posting negative UZRs in spacious Colorado, Taveras has had a pretty good track record in the field. His range is good, he has a sneaky good arm and can cover some ground. Of course, he's also getting older, slower and more brittle, thus more susceptible to injuries. That sounds like the perfect defensive replacement in the outfield. Or Darin Erstad. Your pick.
As I mentioned, Taveras has been almost exactly useless by WAR standards for the past two seasons. This in spite of the fact that he put up relatively good defensive numbers. Do you know how bad you have to be with the bat to post a negative WAR with 8.3 fielding runs above replacement? Try negative 27 runs above replacement. It appears Taveras was hitting too many fly balls and not enough ground balls, as his GB% was the lowest of his career and his FB% was the highest. Granted both of these came in a very limited sample size, but it's not encouraging.
The other factor here is that the Astros already have to fairly decent defensive outfielders who can hit a little on the bench. If they needed a defense first guy, they'd look no further than Yordany Ramirez. If they needed a guy with a little more pop, they've got Brian Bogusevic. While Jason Michaels and Cory Sullivan don't light up the eyes of Astros fans, they're still better than Taveras.
There is always a touch of nostalgia that comes with players returning to a team. With Taveras, he played on two of the most successful Astros teams in the history of the franchise. In 2004, his team won the first postseason series in club history. In 2005, of course, he went to the World Series. People quickly forget that his offensive struggles were also a reason why the Astros didn't score enough runs against the White Sox. Time heals all fan memories, but statistics don't lie. I'm betting Ed Wade will rely more on the latter than on the former. UPDATE: timmy rightly checked my facts on this. I didn't do my due diligence and am rightfully shamed.

Now, I know how this probably comes off. The snobby blogger takes down the hard-working sports reporter. I don't mean to be like that. Fallas is a good reporter that did some great work on the Dynamo the past few years. He even helped me out on a story with The Eagle a few years back, getting me hooked up with the Dynamo's front office. And I get the point of posts like this. You want to generate comments by stirring things up. Goodness knows I've made some pot-stirring posts in the past, playing devil's advocate on losing Manny Acta, exploring trade possibilities for Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman, etc. It's what we do until real baseball happens again. I get that's what he was trying to do. I just also know that I haven't seen Zach Levine, Brian McTaggart or, most tellingly, Richard Justice making this same point.

Should the Astros bring back Willy T? The short answer is, Ahhh, no. I guess I could have saved us all some time by writing that at the beginning, eh?

Los Astros de Houston firma un jugador a beisbol de Nicaragua

2010-02-04T04:34:26Z

Los Astros de Houston firma un jugador a beisbol de Nicaragua

El nombre del jugador es Mesac Laguna. Laguna fue la primera base por Chinandega, un equipo en Nicaragua.

If someone actually speaks Spanish, I apologize for my terrible attempt to write in that language.

Bidge and Bags No. 8 on list of Best Statues

2010-02-03T22:30:57Z

Bidge and Bags No. 8 on list of Best Statues

This coming on the heels of this story ranking the Astros nickname as one of the 10 best. Hey, we may not have been to the playoffs since 2005, but our ballpark looks good and our nickname is cool.

To Trade or Not to Trade: Roy Oswalt & Lance Berkman

2010-02-03T20:43:23Z

More photos » Jim Mone - AP

What should the Astros do with the Wizard of Os?

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In TCB's recent interview with Brian McTaggart, he suggested that the Astros may not keep Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman around till they retire. Instead, these players may request trades to play with, you know, actually competitive teams. Crazy idea, right?

With that thought circling around my brain, I saw this article over at MLB Trade Rumors last weekend, discussing Carlos Lee's relative trade value. Last summer, I ran through some of the trade values of current Astros using Sky Kalkman's excellent Trade Value Calculator spreadsheet. This all gave me a good basis to start wondering, should the Astros trade either Berkman or Oswalt? Would anyone want them? What could the Astros get in return?

This is the first in a series which will delve into these questions. This first installment will look at what kind of value the Astros can expect to receive based on trades made this offseason for big-name players. After the jump, we'll get into the particulars on Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Curtis Granderson, Edwin Jackson and Javier Vazquez.

I've cited a lot of the articles I used at the bottom of this page, but the two that you might want to familiarize yourself with are the first one on Victor Wang's prospect valuation research and the actual article that introduces the Trade Value Calculator. The first takes a look at what a particular prospect will be worth to a team, using probabilities of big league success based on where they show up on different prospect lists. The second uses a spreadsheet model that the user then plugs in contract numbers and projected WAR data into to get a net value. This is then added up for each player to get a total trade value.

To control for differences in the different prospect lists, I took the 2009 lists from Baseball America, ESPN's Keith Law, John Sickels of Minor League Ball and Project Prospect and dumped them all into an Excel file.* I then added all the lists together to aggregate the data and sorted based on this new number. For instance, Matt Wieters was ranked No. 1 on all three lists, so he had a total value of 4. I used this when deciding on Top 100 hitters and pitchers and went to Sickel's grading system for anyone who didn't show up on these lists. Since I was looking at trades made back in November and December, I used the prospect lists from 2009, since the new lists are just coming out now. When analyzing possible landing spots for Oswalt and Berkman, I'll use a similar list for 2010. For now, though, I went with last year's data which tended to undervalue guys like Kyle Drabek.

*If you're interested in what this list looks like, I've uploaded it to a Google Document here.

In my estimation of the WAR data, I used FanGraphs to look up 2009 WARs and to get the CHONE projections when I could. If they only had fan projections available, I tended to downgrade the WAR slightly and then either control or show a slight decline in WAR for future seasons.

What I got was a good model to analyze what kind of value teams got for trades made last offseason. The interesting thing was there weren't many comparables for Berkman, since only one (relatively) big name hitter was traded. I did get some good information on pitchers, though, as this was a fertile winter for arms. Let's look at the value of some of these guys:

Roy Halladay, one-year contract for 15.8 million in 2010. His trade value was at 16.7 million.
Cliff Lee, one-year contract for 5.8 million in 2010. His trade value was at 26.7 million.
Javier Vazquez, two-year contract for 14.5 million in 2010 and 15 million in 2011. His trade value was at 18.2 million.
Edwin Jackson, two years of arbitration left. Went with high arb. figure for 2010 of 6.3 million and 80 percent of total value for 2011. His trade value is 12.3 million.
Curtis Granderson, four-year contract for 5.5m in '10, 8.3 in '11, 10 in '12 and 13 in '13. His trade value is at 40.1 million.

Four of the five guys mentioned above were involved in three-team mega-deals. However, each could be broken down into components that play out like two-team trades. Let's look at each situation individually.

Halladay - Doc went from Toronto to Philadelphia for catcher Travis d'Arnaud, pitcher Kyle Drabek and outfielder Michael Taylor. d'Arnaud and Taylor were each given 'B' grades by Sickels but were not listed in the Top 100 hitters in 2009. Drabek had a 'C' grade thanks to some arm injuries but was young enough to have some value. The two hitter were worth 5.5 million each and Drabek was worth 2.1 million, though that should probably be bumped up some. At any rate, their total of 13.1 million was 78.6 percent of Doc's value next season, which was a pretty good return on the trade, as you'll see later.
Lee - The Phillies brought in Halladay but had to ship out Lee to afford the big Toronto ace. Philadelphia got pitcher Phillipe Aumont, outfielder Tyson Gillies and pitcher Juan Ramirez in return. Aumont was a top 100 pitcher, so was worth 9.8 million but neither Gillies or Ramirez made that list and were both grade C guys. Gillies was worth .7 million and Ramirez 2.1 million. This brings the prospect total to 12.6 million or 47.23 percent of Lee's total value. It appears that the Phillies really didn't get much value back from Lee, but that may be offset by the gain in value from Halladay.
Vazquez - This trade was a little different than the two previous, because it included a proven big leaguer instead of all prospects. Cabrera is still arbitration eligible, signing for 3.1 million in 2010 and was projected at 80 percent his total value for 2011. His trade value was then at 18.9 million, accouting for two bounce-back seasons in WAR. The Braves also got Mike Dunn and Arodys Vizcaino in return, each worth 2.1 million in value. This meant the Braves actually came out ahead with 23.1 million in value or 127.3 percent of Vazuez' total value.
Jackson - This trade also featured a non-rookie in Scherzer, but one who's a little harder to project. Though Scherzer posted a WAR of 3.6 in 2009, most scouts view him as a bullpen arm in the long term. Since Detroit controls his value for four more seasons, I kept his WAR at an even 3.0 for each of those. This still leaves his total value at 34.1 million after he plays out the last year of a four year, 4.3 million draft day deal. Detroit also got Daniel Schlereth, who was not a Top 100 guy, but was a grade B by Sickels as the second-highest prospect in the Arizona system. Detroit then got 41.4 million in value for Jackson or 337.1 percent of his trade value.
Granderson - This was a bit more complicated of a deal, but from Detroit's perspective, they got two prospects from Arizona for Jackson and two guys from the Yankees for Granderson. Thus, we can evaluate trade value from Detroit's perspective, without Ian Kennedy messing up our numbers. Austin Jackson was a Top 50 hitters and was worth 23.4 million while Phil Coke was a grade C guy but was over 23 years old, so was only worth 1.5 million. This give Detroit 24.9 million or a 62.2 percent return on Granderson's trade value.

So, what does this mean for the Astros? Since Oswalt will have 7.8 million in value in 2010 and Berkman will have a value of 10.5 million. If you notice, all the other guys we talked about had much higher trade values than either Puma or Roy-Boy. Ultimately, this will hurt the Astros position when contemplating trades, as will the fact that teams generally get less at mid-season for a guy than they can during the winter. On average, teams got 23.2 million in return for these big name players while shipping out 12.3 million in value. At this rate, the Astros should expect to get something like 1.8 times the value of each of those guys. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Next time, we'll look at which teams may need Roy Oswalt and what kind of prospect package it may take to get him there.

References:

Erik's post summarizing Victor Wang's prospect valuation research

Fangraphs

Baseball-Reference

Cot's Baseball Contracts

MLBTradeRumors

The Trade Value Calculator from BtB

Am I a trend-setter, or what?

2010-02-03T16:46:36Z

Am I a trend-setter, or what?

But seriously, this is a much more well-done review of Sugar and the inherent problems than I mustered earlier this week.

About Matsui: The Astros and WAR Predictions

2010-02-03T16:02:12Z

No, I'm not going to throw out my own predictions about what Houston's WAR total is. I was struck by some of the commentary between OremLK and clack going on in that last post. I thought I'd expand that a little here.

Clack basically stated that through his work on expected BABiP, Matsui was unlucky last season and should bounce back to be a 1.5-2.0 WAR player. Here's the money quote:

Also, based on watching him the last two years, I don’t think his range has deteriorated very much. The negative UZR results last year surprise me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he could improve that part of the WAR.

My impression of Matsui's defense has been that his range is pretty good; it's his glove work that's the problem. If you look at his advanced stats on Baseball Reference, his total number of errors was down from 2008, but he had zero throwing errors for the first time in three years. It's safe to say he'll chalk up a couple throwing errors in 2010. Matsui did have the most fielding chances in his career in 2009, and converted about his career average of them into outs (94%). He also turned more double plays in 2009 than he had in his career, including more 6-4-3 twin killings. How will those numbers be affected by Tejada's departure? Will having a better defensive shortstop next to him increase his fielding opportunities?

So I guess I just wanted to discuss Matsui's defense with the community. Is there a good chance of Matsui bouncing back in his range but regressing with the glove? Does that make him the anti-Tejada, a solid fielder who lacked enough range to play short? Talk amongst yourselves...

Baseball Prospectus: Astros' Top 11 Prospects

2010-02-03T03:15:44Z

Baseball Prospectus: Astros' Top 11 Prospects

1) Jio Mier...

Profile on Bud Norris over at Minor League Ball

2010-02-02T21:31:27Z

Profile on Bud Norris over at Minor League Ball

I thought it telling that Sickels noticed how unlucky Norris was in the minors with win-loss record. He attributed it to poor offense and shoddy defense. At least he won't have the same problem in the majors...

Know your Astros Relivers: The Prospects, Part III

2010-02-02T20:42:00Z

Meszaros, Danny (via Cotuit Kettleers Baseball)

We have arrived at the third and final installment of the Pitch F/X data from the Arizona Fall League. Our last subject will be Danny Meszaros, a right-handed pitcher out of the College of Charleston.

For those of you unfamiliar with the 24-year old, he was drafted in the 48th round of the 2008 draft as a senior. In his one full season in the minors, Meszaros pitched 74 1/3 innings with an ERA of 2.91, 67 strikeouts, 20 walks and seven home runs allowed while reaching Double-A Corpus Christi last season after starting out in Lexington.

He is now one of 29 players to be drafted out of the College of Charleston, with the first being drafted in 1998 and 13 of those being drafted in the past two seasons. After a disastrous senior year (9.63 ERA over 18 appearances

and seven starts) where he gave up a team-leading 16 home runs and 19 doubles in 52 1/3 innings, Meszaros plummeted down the draft boards.

Still, the senior had struck out 62 batters in those 52 1/3 innings while walking 36. He was also coming off an unknown injury which caused him to miss the entire 2007 season. In his first two years with the Cougars, he was 15-3 over 40 appearances and 13 starts with an ERA of 2.78 over 132 2/3 innings. Meszaros struck out 120 and walked 48 during those first two years and gave up just eight home runs. He was also named a Freshman All-American in 2005.

What's interesting is that while Meszaros is listed at 6-foot, 190 pounds, this article on the College of Charleston's website suggests he could be shorter than that. The author listed his height at 5-foot-9. Now, that was two years before he got drafted and four years ago to this writing, but I wonder if he could have grown three inches in the meantime? Indeed, between the 2006 and 2007 media guides, Meszaros gained an inch. Whatever his true height, he has turned into quite the late-round find. Let's look at what the throws after the jump...

Meszaros threw 11 2/3 innings for the Peoria Saguaros with an ERA of 4.63 while striking out 15 and walking three. Over those innings, Meszaros threw 138 pitches in front of Pitch F/X cameras. Below is a quick breakdown of what pitches he threw.

	Count	Selection	Avg. Velo.	Max Velo.	Horizontal	Vertical
Four-Seam	95	68.8%	92.6	93.9	-9.87	9.93
Curve	30	21.7%	76.9	79.3	2.88	-4.93
Change	13	9.4%	82.7	84.1	-10.76	3.57

Meszaros didn't have the hop on his fastball that Chia-jen Lo had or that he had at the College of Charleston, when his fastball sat at 95. However, he did get good movement on the pitch and has a very effective curve. His changeup wasn't used very often but, as you will see below, did miss some bats.

This next chart shows the percentage outcomes on the three pitches:

	Strike %	Swing %	Whiff %
Four-Seam	65.26%	44.21%	5.26%
Curve	73.33%	46.67%	16.67%
Change	69.23%	53.85%	15.38%

While he doesn't get hardly any swing-throughs on his fastball, his curve and changeup are pretty decent off-speed pitches. Again, going back to Harry Pavlidis' article I referenced in the Lo feature, you can see that none of the pitches are great in and of themselves, but Meszaros has one of the highest strike rates around. At .6739, his strike percentage would have ranked second on Pavlidis' list. Money quote:

With the extra movement, [the two-seamer's] a harder pitch to control than a four-seam fastball.

Here's a different way to look at his pitch movement:

If we use this reference chart again, the first thing that jumps out is his fastball is actually more like a two-seamer. This helps explain the break into right-handers, and also helps explain why his splits are so skewed. If his two-seamer is so effective to righties, it makes sense that it wouldn't be as effective against left-handed batters. It also means that Meszaros should be able to somewhat maintain his .240 BABiP against righties in the future.

However, since he gets more swing-throughs on his breaking stuff than his fastball, I looked at what he threw for his 'out-pitch', or when he had two strikes on a batter. 48 of his pitches came with at least two strikes on the hitter. 30 times, he used his fastball while he used his curve 15 times and his change three times. Those percentages (62.5% FF, 31.2 % CU, 6.25% CH) show more reliance on the curveball as his out pitch than when he uses it normally. If you look at number of times used in two-strike counts to total times used, you get even more skewed percentages. Basically, Meszaros used his curve half the time on two-strike counts, while the fastball was roughly 1/3 of the time and the change was used one-quarter of the time.

Why does he work off his fastball to set up the curve? Let's look at the general movement of the two pitches.

	Break Y	Break Angle	Break Length
Curve	23.83333333	-6.173333333	12.27
Four-Seam	23.78210526	48.34947368	4.947368421

The Break Y column shows the distance in feet from home plate when the pitch has its most break. Notice that both the fastball and the curve break about the same time. The Break Angle is an angle from 50 degrees to -50 degrees, with 0 degrees denoting a pitch with no break at all. This column is also a bit backwards from the other movement chart, since negative angles move away from a right-handed hitter and positive move towards. Notice that Meszaros' fastball bears down extremely hard on right-handers, while his curveball is almost exactly 12-6. The curve also has about a foot in 'hump' or break length, showing how much the pitch actually deviates from the straight line.

Looking at this, I can see why the curve works as an out pitch. If Meszaros uses his fastball as over 60 percent of the time and the curve and fastball break at about the same time, it must be hard to differentiate them, especially if a batter is only seeing him once a game.

So, what does this tell us? Meszaros uses a good sinker to set up his curveball and is effective at getting strikeouts with these two pitches. His changeup wasn't used in a small sample size in the AFL, but with its location, could also be an effective pitch to slow down left-handed batters. Throwing as many strikes as Meszaros does means he has the command to move up the system still and could find himself in Houston sometime this season. I don't think he'll break camp with the club, but I do think he will make an impact in 2010.

Next up in this series is a look at what some of the entrenched relievers for 2010 will bring. Pitch F/X profiles of Jeff Fulchino, Alberto Arias and Matt Lindstrom are in the hopper. Anyone else I should be looking at?

An Estimation of the Win Total for the Astros in 2010

2010-02-02T12:00:27Z

More photos » Kathy Willens - AP

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Last week I read a post from DRaysBay, which attempted to predict the win totals for the Rays, Yankees and Red Sox this season using WAR to estimate how many wins the various eastern powers would accumulate in 2010.

I decided to do this for our Astros, but I didn't think enough of my rough calculations to post them. On Sunday though, in the comments section of another one of my posts, a handful of us got into a fairly spirited discussion about what fate would meet the team in the upcoming season.

I used the same method as the Rays' writer did and came out with anywhere from 77-80 wins, depending much like OremLK noted yesterday, on how well Myers/Norris/Paulino/Manzella/Feliz do. Injury concerns, young players on the rise and an older player on the decline all weigh heavily into how this quintet fare in the world of WAR.

Essentially, I counted up the WAR values for our starting rotation/closer/relief pitcher du jour and starting offensive lineup, added them together and got somewhere around 37.5 WAR. I realize that the AL has a DH and the Astros do not, so I subbed in a 1 WAR player for pinch hitters/rare DH opportunities, etc. This isn't the most scientific way to do things, I realize, but I figure that while the AL clubs get an extra win from offense, their pitchers lose a win by having to face that extra hitter rather than a pitcher. After that, I added 48 to this total to get 85.5 eW.

So, if the season goes according to CHONE/my own appoximation of WAR, Astro-life could optimistically look something like this:

Starting Offensive Lineup:

Astros' Offensive WAR
Position	Name	WAR
C	J.R. Towles	2.0
1B	Lance Berkman	4.2
2B	Kazuo Matsui	1.8
3B	Pedro Feliz	2.0
SS	Tommy Manzella	1.0
LF	Carlos Lee	2.4
CF	Michael Bourn	2.5
RF	Hunter Pence	3.3
BN		1

Total: 20.2 WAR

These WAR values are either directly from CHONE or are an average of my own estimate and CHONE. The least reliable projection is that of Manzella. That 1 WAR reflect my belief that he will approach a .310 wOBA and play above average defense at shortstop. Of course, it remains to be seen whether he can do either.

Pitching WAR
Position	Player	WAR
SP1	Roy Oswalt	3.7
SP2	W. Rodriguez	4.2
SP3	Brett Myers	2.4
SP4	Bud Norris	2.2
SP5	Felipe Paulino	2.1
RP		1.4
CP	Brandon Lyon	1.2

Total: 17.8

Brandon Lyon's WAR value came from my looking at his past three seasons worth of work with Arizona and Detroit, toning down his walks a tad but also bringing up his peripheral stats that can be influenced by BABIP. Other relievers' is reflected by me looking at the values of the AL East clubs and knocking our guys down by 1/10.

Roy and Wandy, if healthy, should be able to produce those WAR values, as they are in my estimation extremely reasonable. Brett Myers' 2008 season with Philadelphia may be similar to what the Astros are getting in 2010. I gave him the benefit of a little better control, and fewer home runs allowed to get him to 2.4 WAR. Then again, betting that he hits 190 IP may be foolish.

As for Bud and Felipe, my hope is that they pitch injury free, beat out Brian Moehler and both pitch over 150 innings. My guess is that if they're able to pitch that many innings, their natural talents will shine through and boost them to those WAR values.

Estimated Wins
eWAR	eW
37.5	85.5

This is 9 more wins than PECTOA has projected for the Astros. Of course, their data probably has Oswalt and Myers as regressing with age, ditto for Berkman, Matsui, Feliz, and Carlos Lee. Michael Bourn's game is so influenced by "placing" the ball in certain areas of the field, that his BABIP may decline, and along with it his WAR.

The other side of the coin has players like Manzella, Norris, and Paulino are younger players ho haven't had a tremendous amount of success in the minors. Their methodology almost certainly will mean rather low projections for all three. However, with Paulino and Norris, their peripheral statistics are solid. Combine this fact with the relative youth of the duo, and they may see favorable numbers from PECOTA when it is all said and done.

Hunter Pence may be the one offensive player I listed above (maybe J.R. Towles as well) who PECOTA projects as seeing improvements from 2009. Both are entering their age 27 seasons which for many players means peak seasons are approaching.

To sum this all up, do I think the Astros will win 85 games in 2010? No. This is a glass half full, rose colored glasses, homer, grey skies are gonna clear up, put on a happy face, projection. It's optimistic (overly so perhaps) and not precise in it's calculations. However, I hope that this post helps continue the discussions we've had going the past few days.

I can't emphasize enough that this is the just the first attempt by the Crawfish Boxes' "staff", to do project the team's win total for 2010. DQ is in his lab tinkering with an Excel spreadsheet which will yield a much more scientific result to this question. Until he's ready to roll, I thought I would throw this out there as an appetizer of sorts.