Facts, absolute in the abstract, are often twisted like pretzels when they refuse to conform to preconceptions. How else to explain the invasion of Iraq or the Occupy movement?
After a year of reporting the facts -- as I see them -- it's time to turn towards Cooperstown and reflect upon a year of blogging. The philosophy here is to swing hard in case you make contact, which provides for some entertaining whiffs.
Let's fire up the Wayback Machine and reprise the first three months of 2011:
After a year of reporting the facts -- as I see them -- it's time to turn towards Cooperstown and reflect upon a year of blogging. The philosophy here is to swing hard in case you make contact, which provides for some entertaining whiffs.
Let's fire up the Wayback Machine and reprise the first three months of 2011:
Grand slams deserve a tip of the cap, but the colossal stupidity of Anaheim's Mike Napoli-Vernon Wells trade was a hanging curve that Ron Kovic could have doubled off. Still, a win's a win, so forgive me for mentioning once again how I called this one back in January. (Synopsis: the Angels sent Toronto a better player in exchange for Vernon Wells and the worst contract in Major League history, a deal so bad it literally cost Anaheim the division.) Okay, okay, so did every other multi-celled organism not named Arte Moreno.
On the other hand, I might have been alone hitting into this ninth-inning double-play with the bases loaded. In his previous 13-year career, Adrian Beltre had rolled out the cannons on two conspicuous occasions -- both in contract years. A prescription for one- or two-year contract, right? When the Rangers dropped 96 large on Beltre for six seasons, I dropped 96 large bric-a-brats on the deal and predicted performance regression in the area of Bank of America stock. I'm not sure .296 batting with 33 homers and Gold Glove defense is quite what I had in mind. The Beltre signing may yet come back to haunt the Rangers, but not the way I suggested.
I was just the messenger, a suspicious one at that, but it's nonetheless instructive to review the sabermetric projections for Royals second-year first-baseman Kila Ka’aihue. The Baseball Prospectus abacus pegged the otherwise nondescript Hawaiian at .262/.387/.473 with 25 homers and as much value as Ryan Howard in 2011. Well, Howard's decline continued, but still left him four wins clear of Ka'aihue, who played just 23 games and batted .195. Thhhhppppp!
I used up valuable Internet space to document the utter futility of Brandon Wood with a bat in his hand and wondered why the Angels would allow him to keep a roster spot. Well, they didn't for long, shipping the lumber-impaired infielder to the waiver wire, and thence to Pittsburgh, where, unburdened by the need to deliver, he didn't. But he was less worse than usual. In the most plate appearances of his career, Wood slugged .216/.270/.340, a 228-point upswing in his OPS and a mere half win below replacement level. Wood has the valuable ability to not hit at three infield positions, but he's arbitration-eligible this year. I see a minor league jersey in his immediate future.
You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll never forget this post from March in which I touted a fascinating new pitcher measuring tool called SIERA. If you bought any shares, you went bust, because the stat monkeys who gave SIERA life took it away, arguing that no matter how they tweaked it, its projections failed to outperform existing tools.
In a nutshell, SIERA proposed to replace a pitcher's actual ERA with the ERA he had earned based on the way he pitched, stripping out defense, park factors, luck and other elements out of his control. Other metrics claim to do the same -- FIP (fielding-independent pitching), FRA (fair run average) and their ilk -- so SIERA was retired during its rookie year. Frankly, they all add marginal value and not much more at this early stage of their development.
This, of course, is not a failure but a spectacular success, as I mentioned in a subsequent post. Creative destruction is not just a free market phenomenon; it marks the world of scientific research. Rather than hang on defensively to an outdated or counter-productive theory, SIERA's inventors admitted noble defeat and consolidated their lessons learned.
SIERA did leave us a legacy, as noted in the blog post under discussion. SIERA suggested that four luck-challenged pitchers from 2010 would rebound in 2011 -- Aaron Harang, Dan Haren, Brandon Morrow and Josh Beckett. You can see for yourself how Harang, Haren and Beckett fulfilled their prescribed destiny, but Morrow hiccupped. Morrow remains a fascinating case in that he pitched more innings in 2011 with more quality starts and an even better WHIP and K/BB ratio, yet his ERA continued to rise. Something is going on there (too many home runs, for one) that is eluding SIERA (and FIP and FRA, for that matter) and may suggest a common hole in all these accounting systems.
Another March post from the mountaintop espied the dreck clogging the backstop position in NY and Boston after a decade of excellence and noted how the mighty had fallen. It was true that neither Jason Varitek nor Jorge Posada donned the gear much last year (indeed, Posada did just once), pressing Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Russell Martin into service. Each delivered about what you might expect: Salty, .235/.288/.450 for the Sox and Martin a Jekyll-and-Hyde .237/.324/.408 in which he lit up April and August and fizzled the rest of the season.
With the expiration of Posada's four-year, $52 million contract, an inability to catch and an almost complete lack of value as a DH, it would seem 2011 was his unfortunate swan song. Any re-signing by the Yankees would be an act of charity; it's inconceivable that anyone else would offer him a uniform. A Hall of Excellence receiver for championship teams, Posada would make a great coach and goodwill ambassador in the Yankee system.
Speaking of which, it said right here that Derek Jeter might bounce back at the plate in 2011 and flirt with .300 even as his fielding continued to deteriorate. Naysayer that you are, you snickered at his slow start, hooted for his retirement, and panned his All Star no-show. How many teams would like a shortstop whose stick is good for .297/.355/.389, including .327/.383/.428 in the second half? Snicker now, while I take my victory lap. The post also advised that you write off the Yankees and their pitching woes at your peril. They won 97 games, smart guy.
Those are the runs, hits and errors of the first three months of 2011. Next installment we'll examine last spring's blog posts while we contemplate the spring that awaits us, devoid just yet of those pesky . . . facts.
b
I was just the messenger, a suspicious one at that, but it's nonetheless instructive to review the sabermetric projections for Royals second-year first-baseman Kila Ka’aihue. The Baseball Prospectus abacus pegged the otherwise nondescript Hawaiian at .262/.387/.473 with 25 homers and as much value as Ryan Howard in 2011. Well, Howard's decline continued, but still left him four wins clear of Ka'aihue, who played just 23 games and batted .195. Thhhhppppp!
I used up valuable Internet space to document the utter futility of Brandon Wood with a bat in his hand and wondered why the Angels would allow him to keep a roster spot. Well, they didn't for long, shipping the lumber-impaired infielder to the waiver wire, and thence to Pittsburgh, where, unburdened by the need to deliver, he didn't. But he was less worse than usual. In the most plate appearances of his career, Wood slugged .216/.270/.340, a 228-point upswing in his OPS and a mere half win below replacement level. Wood has the valuable ability to not hit at three infield positions, but he's arbitration-eligible this year. I see a minor league jersey in his immediate future.
You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll never forget this post from March in which I touted a fascinating new pitcher measuring tool called SIERA. If you bought any shares, you went bust, because the stat monkeys who gave SIERA life took it away, arguing that no matter how they tweaked it, its projections failed to outperform existing tools.
In a nutshell, SIERA proposed to replace a pitcher's actual ERA with the ERA he had earned based on the way he pitched, stripping out defense, park factors, luck and other elements out of his control. Other metrics claim to do the same -- FIP (fielding-independent pitching), FRA (fair run average) and their ilk -- so SIERA was retired during its rookie year. Frankly, they all add marginal value and not much more at this early stage of their development.
This, of course, is not a failure but a spectacular success, as I mentioned in a subsequent post. Creative destruction is not just a free market phenomenon; it marks the world of scientific research. Rather than hang on defensively to an outdated or counter-productive theory, SIERA's inventors admitted noble defeat and consolidated their lessons learned.
SIERA did leave us a legacy, as noted in the blog post under discussion. SIERA suggested that four luck-challenged pitchers from 2010 would rebound in 2011 -- Aaron Harang, Dan Haren, Brandon Morrow and Josh Beckett. You can see for yourself how Harang, Haren and Beckett fulfilled their prescribed destiny, but Morrow hiccupped. Morrow remains a fascinating case in that he pitched more innings in 2011 with more quality starts and an even better WHIP and K/BB ratio, yet his ERA continued to rise. Something is going on there (too many home runs, for one) that is eluding SIERA (and FIP and FRA, for that matter) and may suggest a common hole in all these accounting systems.
Another March post from the mountaintop espied the dreck clogging the backstop position in NY and Boston after a decade of excellence and noted how the mighty had fallen. It was true that neither Jason Varitek nor Jorge Posada donned the gear much last year (indeed, Posada did just once), pressing Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Russell Martin into service. Each delivered about what you might expect: Salty, .235/.288/.450 for the Sox and Martin a Jekyll-and-Hyde .237/.324/.408 in which he lit up April and August and fizzled the rest of the season.
With the expiration of Posada's four-year, $52 million contract, an inability to catch and an almost complete lack of value as a DH, it would seem 2011 was his unfortunate swan song. Any re-signing by the Yankees would be an act of charity; it's inconceivable that anyone else would offer him a uniform. A Hall of Excellence receiver for championship teams, Posada would make a great coach and goodwill ambassador in the Yankee system.
Speaking of which, it said right here that Derek Jeter might bounce back at the plate in 2011 and flirt with .300 even as his fielding continued to deteriorate. Naysayer that you are, you snickered at his slow start, hooted for his retirement, and panned his All Star no-show. How many teams would like a shortstop whose stick is good for .297/.355/.389, including .327/.383/.428 in the second half? Snicker now, while I take my victory lap. The post also advised that you write off the Yankees and their pitching woes at your peril. They won 97 games, smart guy.
Those are the runs, hits and errors of the first three months of 2011. Next installment we'll examine last spring's blog posts while we contemplate the spring that awaits us, devoid just yet of those pesky . . . facts.
b
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