On Waiting, the EBay Paradox and Dominos

There's usually a lot of offseason waiting that goes on between XMas and New Year's Day, and that's a shame, because somebody is going to end up dead. Or at least that's what I could conclude based on random outbursts in the #Twins Twittersphere. Waiting might literally kill some people.

This story is why there has been so much waiting. And why we might have a lot more activity real soon.

I can understand the frustration. To be totally honest, the Twins have brought this attitude on themselves. Twins fans associate late season signings with names like Tony Batista and Sidney Ponson, and are understandably cynical about the process. And so the contrasting logic suggests that signing someone RIGHT NOW virtually assures the Twins of ending up with a very attractive player at either second or third base.

The problem is the ebay paradox. You know how you go out to ebay to buy that really slow scrolling scene Miller Lite beer sign that you spent, oh, roughly 3/4 or your college senior year staring at in the campus bar? It's there, it's for sale, the auction closes a week from Monday, and you can maybe get it for really cheap? Or, you could click on that "Buy It Now!" icon and pay roughly 50% more but be absolutely sure you get it?

Of course you do. Who hasn't tried to buy a really slow scrolling scene Miller Lite beer sign?

You have two choices in this scenario. You can either "Buy It Now!" and likely overpay. Or you can wait until 1 minute before the auction closes and put in your high bid. The one thing you don't want do is bid on it now. All that does is tell other buyers that you're out there, you're bidding, and they should probably raise their bids appropriately.

And like the really slow scrolling scene Miller Lite beer sign (And I mean REALLY SLOW. So slow you didn't even notice it was moving until your junior year.) free agents aren't cans on a shelf that Bill Smith before the blizzard hits. Most free agents don't sign until the more desirable player in front of them signs, knowing that the teams that miss out on the superior player will then enter the bidding for him. And, if you haven't noticed, the top two hitters on the market haven't signed yet.

Those guys would be Jason Bay and Matt Holliday, who reportedly have very good, but not exceptional, offers on the table from the Mets and Cardinals respectively. What neither has, but both would love, is a bidding war. And there are two very good reasons they are waiting for that.

The first reason is that there are a lot of teams that just don't have much money to spend this year. The free agents are waiting for them to find some cash, and the teams have been doing their best to oblige:

• The Tigers traded away Curtis Granderson and Edwin Jackson, two really good, affordable, and young players, just to reduce payroll this year.
• The Reds just extended 33-year-old Scott Rolen's contract two years, which is odd consdering he may well need a walker by then. But by doing so, they were able to reduce his salary THIS year, reducing their payroll by a few million dollars.
• The Dodgers traded away Juan Pierre and $10 million to the White Sox so they could save just $3 million this year.
• And earlier this week, the Braves traded away Javier Vazquez, (and his $11.5 million salary) to the Yankees for pennies on the dollar.
• Meanwhile, the Marlins are reportedly shopping Dan Uggla, a legitimate second base slugger, so they can reduce payroll.

So the free agents are waiting for teams to figure out a way to come up with some money so the market loosens a bit.

The second reason that the big names are waiting is because the two teams that traditionally lead the league in spending have been uncharacteristically quiet. The Red Sox made an offer to left fielder Bay early, but pulled it back when they signed Mike Cameron. However, Cameron can also play center field, and rumors abound that Red Sox center fielder Jacob Ellsbury is being shopped around for a big infield bat, like Adrian Gonzalez. If the Red Sox trade Ellsbury (or think they would), they could easily re-enter the bidding for Bay or Holliday. In fact, reports tonight suggest they might be doing just that.

And the Yankees, who traded for Granderson earlier, might also be entering the market. They traded away their left fielder Melky Cabrera in the Vazquez deal. While they are publicly saying they only have $4 million to spend on an outfielder, it would be a first if the Yankees showed any kind of restraint financially.

If either the Red Sox or Yankees get interested in Bay or Holliday, the players could see their offers increase considerably, and the dominos could start to fall. If the Yankees sign Holliday, perhaps the Cardinals make an offer to Bay. If either the Mets or Cardinals are left in the cold, then they make on offer to Mark Derosa. If Derosa goes with one of them, them maybe the Giants, who made a 2-year offer to Derosa, get involved with Felipe Lopez or Orlando Hudson.

And so while the Twins can make fair offers now to Lopez, Derosa or Hudson, it would be borderline shocking if any of them would accept an offer now. They want as many teams in on the bidding as they can get, and those teams are waiting on bigger names right now. So the Twins have a choice. They can either "Buy It Now!" and overpay, or they can wait until the player is ready to make his choice and submit their highest bid. What DOESN'T make sense is to give a fair offer now, which will just be announced to other interested parties to drive up the price.

So the good news is that the Twins are likely playing this the right way. The bad news is that they aren't guaranteed to get anyone. And in fact, they might not really be interested in getting anyone. With as close as Smith plays things to the vest, he certainly hasn't indicated that another decent signing is on the way. Of course, he also hasn't announced that the Twins are done, either.

Either way, it's starting to feel like the big money is making a decision and the dominos are starting to fall. The results might not ultimately be what we want, but at least the waiting shouldn't kill anyone.

What is Kenny Williams Up To?

On August 10th of this year, the White Sox acquired outfielder Alex Rios, who had hit .291 with 15 HR and 32 SB the year before, from Toronto for absolutely nothing. They got this bargain by accompanying Rios would be the long-term contract he signed with the Blue Jays, which would pay him $59 million over the next five years.

It was the second big ticket acquisition that GM Kenny Williams had made in a month's time. The first had happened on July 31st at the trade deadline when he had traded prospects for NL Cy Young winner Jake Peavy, who came with a $52 million deal over the next three years. The deals also added approximately $4 million to a payroll that had started the season around $96 million. So it wasn't too shocking that once the White Sox faded from the pennant race they quickly traded away Jim Thome ($13M salary in 2009) and Jose Contreras ($10M). Doing so provided some relief for the previous buying spree.

But as the White Sox look towards 2010 those big salaries are on still going to be on the books, and tying up almost $25 million. Since the White Sox won the World Series in 2005, their total payroll has hovered around $100 million:

Yr - $(M)
2009 - 96.1
2008 - 121.2
2007 - 108.7
2006 - 102.8
2005 - 75.2
2004 - 65.2

As Williams looked at the committed money to contracts and various arbitration awards, $90 million was already spoken for, and there were plenty of holes to fill. For starters, that money didn't include the optional $12 million salary that the White Sox could pay Jermaine Dye. They chose not to, so there was a spot in right field. There had also been a giant sucking sound at second base throughout 2009.

A few weeks later those gaps are filled and three additional veteran backups are on the roster, all at a bargain price of $12 million. First the White Sox acquired Mark Teahan from the Royals, who were going to non-tender him. The White Sox instead signed him to an affordable three-year, $14 million deal and gave him the 3rd base job (and moved Gordon Beckham to second base). Teahan's career OPS is 750 and that's close to the average third baseman in the majors. Plus, it moved Beckham to a position where he can be a difference maker.

Then Williams signed a couple of veteran bench bats, gettting Omar Vizquel and Andruw Jones for a couple million dollars plus some incentive clauses. It's doubtful either will play full time, but it gives manager Ozzie Guillen some options in case shorstop Alexei Ramirez remains clueless or left fielder Carlos Quentin is hurt again.

Yesterday the White Sox filled their other vacancy by acquiring outfielder Juan Pierre from the Dodgers for a couple of pitching prospects. The genius in the deal isn't Pierre's contribution. It's the Dodgers' contribution to Pierre's enormous salary. Of the $18.5 million that are owed him over the next two years, the White Sox only need to pay $8 million of it, and only $3 million this year.

And Pierre is a decent fit. He plays center field well and gives them a leadoff hitter that isn't Scott Podsednick, with whom the White Sox limped through last season. The unfortunate result is that it moves Rios to right field where he isn't nearly as valuable, but at least it really upgrades the outfield defense from what the White Sox had last year. And, looking at the free agent outfielder market, it sure isn't clear that the Sox were going to do any better for the money.

One other move raises the question whether Williams is done. Last week he signed reliever (and former closer) JJ Putz to a $3 million contract. That's significant because the White Sox current closer Bobby Jenks is up for arbitration, and could command a salary of $7-9 million. Trading him would both cut payroll and recoup some prospects from the bevy that the White Sox traded away for Peavy, Teahan and Pierre. So is Putz insurance or a replacement?

As things sit now, the total payroll (assuming Jenks gets about $8 million) is around $102 million. It's not clear if that's high, low or just right. And things look shaky on the farm, with all the young talent the Sox have traded away to extend their competetiveness. But on the field, the White Sox look like a complete team. And if Peavy, Rios and Quenting can bounce back, they should be a formidable opponent in 2010.

Phoning It In: The '69 Twins & Billy Martin

One regret I have about not publishing GameDay this last year was that we had a GREAT series of stories lined up about the 1969 Twins team by Will Young. The '69 Twins were coached by Billy Martin and included oddities like Rod Carew steal home seven times and Martin get into a fistfight with a member of his rotation.

Fortunately, Will shared his research on the team with Chris Jaffe, a talented writer for The Hardball Times, who is including it in his book Evaluating Baseball's Managers. You can find an excerpt here which is all about Martin and that '69 team. It's fantastic:

The ultimate Billyball moment came on May 18 when both [Cesar] Tovar and [Rod] Carew stole home plate in the same inning—in the same a- bat. Carew stole his way around the bases in that plate appearance. At the plate during this maniacal base running was Harmon Killebrew. Harmon Killebrew! It boggles the mind: With one of the greatest home run hitters of that or any other generation up Martin wanted his men running wild.

And later....

The man most comparable to Billy Martin was not Herzog, but Hernan Cortes, the Spanish conquistador who defeated the Aztecs. In 1519, he landed in Mexico to face the hemisphere’s mightiest warrior nation with only 600 men. Upon arrival, he burnt his boats, giving his men no way to leave. That move was pure Billy Martin. Safe to say, that in the military science version of sabermetrics a general would be poorly regarded for intentionally destroying his communication lines, supply routes and exit strategy. It was possibly even worse than having two men steal home with Killebrew batting.

Anyway, it's better than anything I'm going to write tonight, so click over and check it out. It's worth it.

On Craps Shoots and ERA

Pitching(1) is a craps shoot(2).

That's the primary reason I haven't written about pitching. Getting an additional reliable starting pitcher is the biggest remaining issue facing the Twins this offseason. And part of the reason I haven't written about that issue is that the rest of the remarkable Twins blogosphere(3) has it covered. As does, of course, the TwinsCentric Offseason GM Handbook.

But the bigger reason is that I have trouble being too opinionated about pitching. And that's because pitching is a craps shoot. My gut reaction is that the more passionate you are about predicting a pitcher's performance next year, the stupider you are. And I say this because I've been pretty passionate about predicting pitching in the past, and I've ended up feeling pretty stupid. Because all we really know is that pitching is a craps shoot.

And this is something you can show statistically, and I'll do so in my typical half-as ... er ... back-of-the-napkin way. Let's take a look at starting pitchers from 2008 and starting pitchers from 2009 and see which of their stats from 2008 could've best predicted their ERA in 2009.(4)

We'll do this by deriving something called a "correlation coefficient." Ooh, I lost a lot of you with those last two words, didn't I? Let's try again.

We'll do this by giving each statistic a rating between 0 and 100. Zero means the 2008 statistic had almost no relation at all to the player's ERA in 2009 - you couldn't have predicted it at all. 100 means it would have been in lock step with the ERA in 2009, so you could have predicted the ERA exactly. (5)

Here are the results:

2008 Stat	Rating
FIP	46
RAR	45
SO	45
K/9	40
ERA	38
RE24	36
WPA	36
HR/9	34
Strikes	32
LOB%	31
Pitches	31
IP	30
CG	28
Balls	26
K/BB	25
HR/FB	25
AVG	24
GS	22
W	21
BB	20
WHIP	20
LD%	20
HR	17
H	15
BABIP	15
L	2
BB/9	2
GB%	0
GB/FB	0

I could go on for awhile about this rating, and I still might, but let's talk about the top of the table a bit first.

The best predictor is FIP, which is a fairly new pitching metric that stands for Fielding Independent Pitching. It measure a pitcher's effectiveness with something that looks like ERA, but is based only on plays that do not involve fielders: home runs allowed, strikeouts, hit batters, walks, and, more recently, fly ball percentage, ground ball percentage, and (to a lesser extent) line drive percentage. It's worth a longer entry later.(6)

Anyway, FIP edges out a close race over RAR (Runs Above Replacement) and ... Strikeouts? Notice that it isn't strikeout rate. That's next on the list at 40. It's just plain strikeouts. I guess it's not shocking that for starting pitchers the total number of strikeouts is a better indicator of next year's ERA than a pitcher's strikeout rate, but I didn't anticipate that.

Anyway, fell free to fill up the comments sections with questions/observations about the values in this list. I would love to dissect these values more in a later entry.

But back to the craps shoot. What is most striking to me is that the highest number is just 46. Why? Because of this....

Let's say you were taking a look at a list of all batters last year but your list of stats was missing the RBI column. You wanted to figure out about how many RBI a player had based on the other stats they had. Could you come close using home runs? How about hits?

You probably could. HR would have a rating of 93 in predicting the number of RBI. And hits would have a rating of 94.

But you wouldn't expect to be able to predict it very well with triples, right? We don't associate guys who hit triples with guys who put up big RBI numbers. The Twins leaders in triples this year were Denard Span, Michael Cuddyer and Carlos Gomez. Needless to say they didn't drive in the most RBI.

Well, you would be right about that, too. Triples are a crappy indicator. They only have a rating of 51 in predicting the number of RBI. But that is five points higher than the best indicator we have for next year's ERA.

Which makes our indicator a little worse than crappy. Because pitching is a craps shoot.

(1) There's lots of reasons to write. Sometimes it's because you're inspired. Sometimes it's because you have a passion about something. Sometimes it's to stretch.

And sometimes it's just because you have a blockage. That's today. I don't know exactly where this will go, but I'm pretty sure it's been blocking all other writing for the last few days.

(2) And, by the way, that's how I'm going with "craps shoot." As opposed to "crapshoot" or, god forbid, "crap chute." I'm pretty sure the term is supposed to refer to throwing dice in a game of craps. If it is something closer to the latter spelling, please, don't tell me.

(3) And while we're interrupting this entry half a dozen times before it finds its legs, let's talk about that remarkable Twins blogosphere. Does everyone know about MNGameDay.com? Where you can find a feed of the latest entries from something like 50 Minnesota Twins blogs? No? That's because I don't think I've mentioned it here in something like two years. Because I'm an idiot.

(4) Some specifics are in order for those geeks playing along at home. I'm limiting the study to those pitchers with more than 15 starts in 2008 and in 2009. That gets me (by my computations) 94 pitchers, which isn't a huge sample size, but not half bad either.

(5) Again, for the geeks: I'm computing a correlation coefficient between the arrays, taking the absolute value of it (since I'm just as interested in negative correlations) and multiplying it by 100.

(6) Especially because Carl Pavano's FIP last year was just 4.00, compared to his ERA of 5.10.

Cabrera's Value

On the local SABR mail list there's been a discussion on what Orlando Cabrera is worth. We've seen a similar debate several places the last week. One side looks at his stats and points out that he topped out at "servicable" offensively and "suspect" defensively. The other side looks at the run the Twins made with him in the lineup and looks for impacts beyond the stats.

This debate gained a little momentum this weekend when Ron Gardenhire suggested that the Twins might still like Cabrera at second base as if this is a realistic possibility. It isn't. The Twins can find plenty of better free agents to play second base at a salary that is less expensive than Cabrera. And Cabrera can find a lot better offers that allow him to play shorstop. Sometime managers just want to say something nice about their ex-players. That's all this means.

But Cabrera's value takes a little twist when one looks at a neat statistic that's growing in popularity called Win Probability Added or WPA. To borrow from Denny Green, it is what is says it is: it adds (or subtracts) the affect a player had on the game by measuring how that player affected the probability of his team to win.

For instance, if player hits a single in four at-bats his WPA could vary significant depending on when he made those outs or got that hit. If he struck out three times while the bases were loaded and there was one out, his WPA for that game would likely be horrendous (and he would replace Punto as the voodoo doll of choice amongst Twins fans). If, on the other hand, he made three innocuous outs but got a key single in the bottom of the eighth that drove in the tying and winning runs, his WPA would be quite high (and he might be the player of the game.)

In other words, WPA goes beyond a player's overall statistics and beyond the myth that those hits are spread out more or less evenly. Some of those hits (or outs) are exceedingly more valuable than others, both positively and negatively. It often explains why fans who watch games thing a player had a better (or worse) year than his stats indicate.

It certainly could with Cabrera. His overall stats were mediocre, but in two months he posted a WPA of .527, which ranked fourth on the Twins hitters over all of 2009. Here's the list, by the way:

Name WPA
Joe Mauer 3.64
Jason Kubel 2.20
Justin Morneau 0.78
Orlando Cabrera 0.53
Michael Cuddyer 0.48
Matt Tolbert 0.30
Joe Crede 0.12
Jose Morales -0.12
Delmon Young -0.14
Denard Span -0.15
Brian Buscher -0.29
Mike Redmond -0.43
Alexi Casilla -0.61
Nick Punto -0.84
Brendan Harris -1.35
Carlos Gomez -1.97

Cabrera might not have had a great stint with the Twins statistically, but he absolutely made a difference in whether or not they won games in his two months here. Now that doesn't mean a thing for the future. It doesn't justify resigning him, and I'm far more excited about getting JJ Hardy here than I would have been if he returned.

But the love for Cabrera isn't just blind homerism. Indeed, it suggests a level of attention beyond overall stats, and an awareness of the situations in which those stats were compiled.

Coupla Notes
1. I haven't mentioned it much lately, but you can still download 1/3 of the TwinsCentric Offseason GM Handbook absolutely free at TwinsCentric.com. I have no idea why you wouldn't. What else are you doing today?

(You can also now by the hard copy, too!)

By the way - wanna guess who our very first trade target was? Yep - J. J. Hardy.

2. A couple of days ago I mentioned that Twins fans shouldn't discount the possibility that some top-notch Type A free agent second basemen might be available without needing to give up a draft pick. Recent news supports that.

First, we found out that the Tigers are desparate enough to cut payroll that they're willing to trade Curtis Granderson or Edwin Jackson. These guys are key cogs on their team, and they're both going to be WAY below market value next year. If they Tigers need to part with them, they certainly aren't going to offer Placido Polanco arbitration that could pay him at (or above) market rate next year.

And now we've found out that the relationship between Orlando Hudson and the Dodgers is icy, but the Dodgers have been talking to the Mets about Luis Castillo. It sure sounds like both sides are ready to move on, but the Dodgers have to realize that if they offer arbitration, Hudson will have to take it. I'll be surprised if they offer it. I'll be shocked if he doesn't accept it if they offer it.

Dumbass Blogger Joins a Podcast Late

No writing today, but I appeared on a Fanatic Jack's podcast last night and we talked a lot of Twins and Twins blogging.

Unfortunately, I appeared about 30 minutes later than I was supposed to because I lost track of time while paying bills, so I joined at about the halfway point. I haven't heard the first half of the podcast yet, but I sure hope they spent it ripping me a new one.

I will, however, listen to it today, and you can too by going to the link above, or by subscribing to their RSS feed. I'll hopefully be back tomorrow, provided I get these bills done.....

Twins Could Sign Type A Free Agents

Know how a pendulum works?

Me neither. It has something to do with gravity and Newton's Laws of Motion and the spin (or wobble?) of the earth. Any self-respecting geek should know this stuff, and I remember learning it at least three times, but I'll be darned if I can explain it now. I basically remember two things:

1) It goes back and then it goes back.
2) It repeats that pretty consistently forever.

Offseason markets can work like that, too. Things change. And then they change again. And that’s why the Twins might still be able to sign some Type A free agents.

Which would be nice, because these "Type A" free agents aren't exceptionally tense overacheivers who will die of a stroke before their daughter's wedding. They are some of the better free agents available, as decided by Elias Sports Bureau, based on a statistical formula. All free agents are categorized this way, with the best being “A”, the next being “B” and the rest getting no grade at all.

This is supposedly done so that teams that lose a free agent can get compensated with draft picks the following year. For instance, losing a Type B free agent gets a team an extra draft pick after the first round, as a gift from Major League Baseball for their pain and suffering. But losing a Type A free agent not only gets them the extra draft pick, they get another first or second round draft pick from the team that signed the Type A free agent.

Last offseason the pendulum swung and the market decided those draft picks were pretty valuable. As a result, Type A free agents got screwed. Some very good players who usually would have cashed in on multiple year contracts were forced to accept one-year, low-base salary contracts because no team wanted to sign them and give up their draft pick.

In part, it's those players (or their agents) fault, because there’s a catch for the teams that the players glossed over. In order to get the compensation picks, the team needs to give the player a chance to come back on a one-year basis at market price, which they do by offering him arbitration. If the player turns down the arbitration, he is a free agent and the team gets compensation when he signs with another team. But if the player accepts the arbitration, the player rejoins the team and they agree on a market level salary with the help of an arbitrator if necessary.

A really good example of a player who was screwed by this last year was the Twins own Orlando Cabrera. Cabrera had butted heads with White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen the year before in Chicago, so everyone knew he wanted to leave. When the White Sox offered him arbitration, he turned it down, since he was arguably the most sought after shortstop on the free agent market. But instead of getting a huge deal, his Type A status resulted in a one-year, $4 million contract with Oakland.

So last year, rejecting that arbitration offer was a major mistake. Had he accepted it, strained relationship or no, he likely would have made $10 million. If he had to do it over, you can be sure that his agent would have informed the White Sox that they would accept if Chicago offered him arbitration. Which likely would have meant that Chicago would NOT have offered him arbitration.

That summarizes the way the pendulum will swing back this year. Type A players are going to be a lot more willing to accept arbitration. Which means the pendulum might swing again, because then teams will likely be a lot less willing to offer it. And that means a lot of teams are going to be able to sign Type A players without having to give up any draft picks.

So how does it affect the Twins? Well, these two second baseman might just be available, despite their Type A status:

Placido Polanco – Like I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, if the Tigers offer Polanco arbitration, it’s a no-brainer for him – he accepts it. So there’s no guarantee he will be available. But if he is available, he’s not going to cost a draft pick. And given the Tigers already bloated payroll (and the fact that they're located in the most economically depressed city in major league baseball), one can afford to be optimistic he won't be offered arbitration.

Orlando Hudson – Hudson is the toughest arbitration call in this story, and he might be the toughest in the major leagues. He was hurt by this process last year when he rejected arbitration from the Diamondbacks. He didn't end up signing a contract until spring training, and it was a one-year, $4 million base contract with the Dodgers, though he made about $7.5 million with incentives. If the Dodgers offered arbitration this year, that experience should be fresh in his mind.

That's why I suspect he would accept arbitration, especially because the market is thick with free agent second baseman. So the Dodgers need to decide if they want to essentially offer Hudson a one-year contract worth $8-$10 million. That's not a bad value for them, but they also sat him towards the end of the year so he wouldn't make so much from his incentives. Financially, it seems like a risk they shouldn’t want to take. So like Polanco, Hudson could be available, and if he is, no draft picks will need to be given up.

But it's not all good news. There are some other guys that Twins fans might be dreaming of that probably won’t be options because the Twins would still need to give up a draft pick for them:

Chone Figgins – The speedy third baseman wasn’t a great option to begin with because he’s going to be expensive and want a multi-year deal. The Twins won’t want to block the route for third base prospects Danny Valencia or Luke Hughes. But Figgins will be offered arbitration, will reject it, and will sign someplace else for a lot of money and that team will need to give up a draft pick.

John Lackey and Randy Wolf – They’ll be two of the top starting pitchers on the market, and some team will give up the draft picks to sign them to a multi-year deal. It won't be the Twins, most likely.

So question the doomsayers who write-off Type A free agents. They're following where the pendulum was last year. And pendulums swing back and forth incessantly. This much I know.