Revised WAR Stack: FIRST BASEMEN

TOTALS SO FAR:

REPLACEMENT: 48.0 W

Adam Moore: 1.7
Rob Johnson: 0.8
Josh Bard / Eleizer Alfonzo: -0.1

Now let's deal with the first base situation.

We have a complicating factor now that we can see Sweeney is still an outstanding hitter when he's fresh and the club is going to have to make a tough call regarding his roster candidacy. They're going to need to weigh the off-field contributions he makes, the possibility of his managing to stay healthy enough to produce all season, the needs of the pitching staff, and the possibly large upside with Ryan Garko, and it's probably going to go right ot the last days of camp before we know for sure who's getting what playing time. If I had to guess, I would say that even if Sweeney breaks camp with the club, he's not going to get many starts at first base - Zduriencik seems committed to his belief that Kotchman has untapped potential and could be valuable to the club and the other side of that platoon would still likely be Garko. If Sweeney makes the team, it will either come at the expense of a 12th pitcher or an injured player. But that's just a guess. My projections will reflect this guess with a nod to uncertainty.

CASEY KOTCHMAN: .710 (.255/.320/.390)

The club has high hopes that Kotchman, in a more comforable environment can get back to his 2006/2007 form and, when combined with his above average defense at first, be a passable first baseman. I feel, however, that it is important to note a few things.

Kotchman is moving from an a park which has (overall) tended to be neutral to slightly hitter-favorable for BABIP to a park that is BRUTAL on BABIP. Angel Stadium has a .308 BABIP over the last five seasons. Safeco Field sits at .292. Don't expect Kotchman's BA to climb unless he starts hitting the ball a lot harder.
Kotchman's groundball rates are increasing, which is a bad sign for future power potential
He's also getting slower, which will further cramp his offensive game.

Defensviely, he looks solid for now, but he'd have to be a major impact glove over there for it to drastically change my gut feeling that he's going to start losing playing time to Garko later in the season.

RYAN GARKO: .800 (.285/.360/.440)

Safeco does tend to zap right handed pull power like Garko's, but an ordinary projection would include a return to the power hitting levels he was displaying in 2006/2007 and the first half of 2009 (ISO of .178, .194 and .169 respectively) based on a steady and consistent HR/Fly, GB/FB, LD% and contact statistics and a solid approach at the plate (~4 P/PA). In fact, Garko has been steadily improving his K/BB, which is a sign that he's making adjustments and still growing as a hitter. So I've projected that minus a Safeco penalty (ISO of only .155...no penalty on the road, 30 point penalty at Safeco). I'm actually significantly underselling his upside with this projection. If he were used exclusively against lefties, it would be reasonable to project something like .290/.370/.500...but I'm figuring he might struggle in a part time roll on and off and eventually, he'll be getting more of Kotchman's at bats against righties. Defensively, he's about a -5 run first baseman, so there's a penalty there as well.

MIKE SWEENEY: .780 (.290/.335/.445)

Sweeney hit extremely well in the second half of 2009 once his back problems cleared up enough to allow him to turn on a pitch. At his age, he is day to day every single day when it comes ot back and lower body aches and pains that can throw off his game, and you have to wonder how much playing he'd get as a 14th-bat DH semi-platoon mate for Griffey...however, none of his skill statistics (things like pitch recognition, swing aggressiveness, and batted ball trajectories) are showing any kind of unusual trend that would signal alarm, and many projection tools put extra weight on the second half of the previous season. The real question will be...how many plate appearances will Sweeney get as a first baseman even if he makes the team at all? I'm guessing he'll be a rather minor factor at this position.

WAR Stack (Player: PA, RC, WAR)

Ryan Garko: 335, 45, 1.0 (-0.3 for defense, 1.3 for offense and this accounts for bad baserunning)
Casey Kotchman: 295, 20, 0.5 (-0.5 for offense and baserunning, +1.0 for defense)
Mike Sweeney: 45, 5, 0.2 (only as a first baseman...more of Sweeney in the DH segment)

TOTAL FOR FIRST BASE: 1.7

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Incidentally...

I'd just like to thank Klat for continually improving the functionality of this blog system. It's getting easier and easier to post without weird formatting errors and it makes my stuff look better. :D

Ya Matt

It is SOOOoooo nice to have big-time admins standing behind yer like the Verizon mob. Totally aside from the page-load and other issues at DOV.

How sweeeet it is...

And like HOF umps, they let the game go on without ever being noticed...

I think you're really underselling Kotchman here

1. It's hard to imagine that Safeco is going to affect Kotchman's BABiP very much, because as a, he hits a lot of ground balls and b, he's left handed. My guess is that most of the reason Safeco suppresses BABiP is right handed hitters hitting balls into left field that in most parks would be home runs, but at Safeco become lazy fly balls. Lefties get the short porch in right which is generally aided by the wind.

2. Looking at Fangraphs Batted ball splits, it looks like Kotchman's ground ball percentage went up in 2008, but down in 2009, admittedly still higher than his successful 2007, but, if you look at his splits page on fangraphs, you'll see something that should provoke hope that Casey changes his worm killing ways at Safeco. At home, since 2007, his ground ball rates have been: 52.2%, 56%, and 57.6%, whereas on the road, they've been: 49.3%, 49.2%, and 45.4%. Why? If you look at this article
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/home-run-park-factor-a-new-app...
you'll see that Angel Stadium rates out as slightly below average for homeruns to Right, Turner Field significantly below average, and Fenway downright awful. Obviously these fields don't outright kill left handed pull hitters, but clearly Kotchman has limited power and he knows this, so my guess is that as he began to notice his batting practice cuts fall on the warning track, he adjusted his swing to not hit flyballs, on the road however, in parks that didn't necessarily supress right field homeruns, Casey let himself elevate pitches a bit more. The evidence shows up in his home/away splits, since 2007: 9 homeruns at home, 23 on the road. Since 2008: 4 at home, 17 on the road. If you look again at the stadium factors, Safeco grades out among the easiest to hit a homerun to right field, and I think Kotchman will take advantage of that.

3. I don't know where you get the idea that he's getting slower, he was caught advancing on the bases (on hits) once in 2009 compared to 4 times in '08 and 4 times in '07. And he hit into a double play on only 6.2% of his groundballs in '09 compared to 7% in '08 and 8.2% in '07. If anything, it looks like he may be getting faster.

The problem is that Kotchman

The problem is that Kotchman is an extreme opposite field hitter.

His HR power only translates to his pull side, but all of his hits/2Bs are to left field.

Hes a career 877 OPS hitter to left, 681 to center, and 725 to right.

Heres to distribution of his FB%:

Left - 44.4%
Center - 33.2%
Right - 19.9%

His swing is actually a pretty poor fit for the park.

I wish there were home/road splits for everything

Although I suppose at this point it would be divided up a little too much to be worth it. But this is kind of my point about him, I don't think he's trying to pull fly balls at home at all, because too many would end up in the right fielders mit. But in regards to his hits to left field, I still don't think it would affect him much because my previous point stands. The BABiP reduction is probably highly linked to homeruns turning into flyball outs, whatever magic Kotchman is using to OPS .877 to the opposite field, doesn't use homeruns. In his career, he has 2 of his 40 homers to left, so I don't think Safeco will have very many of his left field hits to eat on the warning track. His line drive rate to left though, is easily his best rate at 23% career, and I think that will remain very strong helper for his opposite field numbers, especially considering how large left plays at Safeco.

Yes, but left field eats hits

Yes, but left field eats hits up in addition to HRs in Safeco (due to the wind). A high FB% to left field and a minimal one to right won't translate well to the park either.

Hes not as bad of a fit as an extreme righty pull hitter, but his swing isn't ideal for the park.

Then no Left Handed Hitter is

Virtually all Left Handed Hitters experience this. Adam Dunn's Flyballs from left to right (career) 69.7%/53.5%/31.5%, Russell Branyan 75.9%/60.4%/28.9%, Raul Ibanez 57.3%/39.6%/22.5%. The same effect happens to right handed batters too, when they pull the ball, hitters are simply more likely to hit it on a lower plane, the effect isn't unique to Kotchman. Yes, he may lose a hanging double or two down the left field line to the wind, but he's also likely to see a handful of his flyballs to right turn into homeruns and overcome that loss. Really, he stands to benefit more from Safeco than Russell Branyan did, because Russell Branyan is likely the same or better at parks that are more evenly distributed (this isn't to say that Kotchman will perform better than Branyan did) as he won't lose as many homers to left and probably wouldn't lose any to right.

Ya, but the difference is

Ya, but the difference is that the majority of Kotchman's production is to left field which is rare for a lefty (most guys produce more to their pull sides).

This is interesting, though.

Stop and think about what's being discussed for a moment. Before he came back to Seattle, Ra(7u)l Ibanez was pretty pull-conscious. After getting here, he became a spray hitter. John Olerud was always kind of a spray hitter with his best work going to LCF if I remember correctly. The only lefties who rake to RF seem to be road teams in Safeco...

Is it as simple as every pitching staff pitches away to the lefties, so what we ACTUALLY want is Ryan Howard, who gets more than half of his HR's to straightaway left (or something silly like that)? Would that, in turn, cause the pitchers to come inside and let him take advantage of the RF fence, or will it just mean that instead of 25 home dingers he gets 17?

I think you could seriously

I think you could seriously mess with guys like Mauer and Ryan Howard by pitching them predominantly inside. FORCE those guys to react quicker and they'll be less effective.

Pitchers tend to pitch dumb sometimes. Despite the fact that Mauer eats fastballs on the outer end of the plate, pitchers pitched him MORE often to that part of the zone last year than your average lefty hitter.

Ibanez actually isn't an oppo hitter at all (asides from statistical blips in '02 and '09). All of his production is to right and right-center.

759 OPS career left
987 OPS to center
1.012 OPS to right

His swing was perfect for Safeco.

Olerud was an extreme pull

Olerud was an extreme pull hitter too actually. His career OPS to RF (minus BBs+Ks) was 1.251.

Check that... data error.

Check that... data error. :-)

Ibanez's career OPS (minus Ks+BBs):

768 to left
793 to center
1.312 to right

Hes an extreme pull hitter as well.

Whereas Ibanez

Actually pulls his balls in play at a ratio of a little less than 1.5 to 1. And once again, I feel like you're ignoring the suppressive nature of Safeco on balls hit to left and center. That Ibanez' balls in play OPS to left and center are even respectable indicates that he is not an extreme pull hitter. Jose Lopez, who has a 2.2:1 pull ratio is where despite the advantages of the short porch in right, he has a career OPS of .576 compare to .950 going to the harsh left field. In fact, as Kotchman pulls a higher percentage of balls in play compared to Ibanez, a higher percentage of his balls in play (overall) are in the air towards right, 9.2% to 8.9%. If both players were to get 600 PA in a season, you could expect Kotchman to slap 46 balls in the air towards right, and Ibanez to hit about 40 balls in the air towards right.

No, it's not

He just has his highest OPS to Left. Since 2007, he's hit 272 balls to left, and 585 to right for better than a 2 to 1 ratio to right. The average for left handed hitters in 2009 was about 1.5 to 1. And as I've already stated, I think most of the reason for his lack of production to right is batting in home stadiums that suppress left handed home runs. For instance, http://katron.org/projects/baseball/hit-location/ allows you to transpose hitters (from last year) between parks. If you take Kotchman's balls in play from Turner and put them in Safeco, he gains 3 home runs easily, and as many as 5. If you add just those 3 homeruns to Kotchman's Atlanta batting line, his OPS goes up 40-50 points (I calculated the Slugging, but nothing else) making him a low .800 OPS hitter, which at least isn't bad for a firstbasemen.

I missed the Branyan

I missed the Branyan comment.. but theres no way Kotchman benefits like Branyan.

Branyan's power is massive and he has the power to go out in all parts of the park even in Safeco. He is also predominantly a pull hitter, though hes strong to all fields.

Kotchman singles and doubles to leftfield are going to float in the Safeco air. Hes not going to face the penalty that someone like Lopez will face, but he really isn't the greatest fit for the park despite being lefty.

Which is why I say

Branyan barely benefited at all. He was simply unaffected. If you moved Branyan's balls in play to Great American Ballpark for instance, he would gain maybe one home run, whereas Kotchman, moving from his 2/3 season at Turner to Safeco would easily (as I've already commented elsewhere) gain 3 homeruns and as many as 5. Branyan would gain 1 moving to the easiest park I can think of to hit home runs in (by dimensions) and Kotchman would gain 3-5 moving to Safeco, that's a bigger benefit.

Interesting.

Hey malcontent...I love this little debate we're got going on here. You and taro are trading interesting data, that's for sure. I was unaware of Kotchman's Home/Road splits in terms of GB/FB...that, however, would make me concerned that he doesn't handle pressure well. Hitting at home improves for guys who enjoy feeding off the crowd. If Kotchman is hitting considerably worse at home in Anaheim...that could be a bad sign for his psychological game.

Or your theory could be correct...we won't know til we see more of Kotchman.

BTW, the BABIP suppression at Safeco is not just flyballs dying in left. It's also long infield grass. BABIP on ground balls only at Safeco vs. league average:

SAFECO: .309
LEAGUE: .318

(remember...BABIP on grounders is higher than on flies)

I'm really curious where you got those stats

Is there a website (I've been trying to find something that did stats by stadium)? Actually, Anaheim isn't what killed him, his career line at Angel Stadium is .286/.351/.444/.796 with a .302 BABiP, not too bad. I really think it was just Turner Field and Fenway that made him look like a schmuck.

That could also have been...

...the schmuck at Turner and Boston could also have been the league change to NL (getting used to a new league...even an easier one...can sometimes take a bit) and then mid-season trade...he may never have been all that comfortable with his playing time situation either. So there's that possibly working in your favor.

As for park split data...you poke around Baseball-Reference.com in the splits sections and add things up to get the numbers I post on park splits.

Good work Champ

I'm learning a lot from your lefty scattercharts.

And am feeling even queasier about Mr. Ex-Angel-Hype.

The good news is that he'll

The good news is that he'll be really easy to replace if hes slugging .380 in June.

Ya, making $4m

I suppose that once a good chunk of the year is gone, you can write the last $2m+ off as a sunk cost.

I mean, they did it to Silva and Batista at 2-3 times the jack.

Kotchman apologist

While I actually have no love or particular optimism about Kotchman, there are some things I will note:

1) Each one of his BAD spells in the majors was immediately after being traded in the middle of a season. Remove THOSE periods, and his career numbers jump up - and he's a high .700s guy at EVERY other point in his career.

2) While I have no sense of how Safeco will impact him - I think the Angels are a REALLY bad team to go and start making assumptions about "park effect" based on BABIP. The club, which once upon a time had some really nice defenses, have let their DER plunge in recent years. Simultaneously, they went out and specifically assembled a team that is bulging with over-the-norm BIP guys, (like Chone, for instance).

Sorry, but if you have a sucky defense, plus a team BUILT for screwing up BABIP tables ... then your park is gonna "look" hitter friendly. So, while I accept that Safeco does have a legit pitcher edge ... I think attempting to paint Anaheim as beneficial overstates the case.

I also get the sense that there is a lot of work being done to find reasons to support the notion that "unliked" guys will fail. Until this thread, I've never heard it argued that ANY lefty-hitter is going to be significantly hurt by Safeco. But, suddenly there's a bunch of spray-hitting data that is being used to imply Kotchman is going to be beaten down like a righty?!?

My perspective is we've gone past the forest, the trees, the branches, the leaves, and we're starting to try and base total production of a hitter based on the bruising on the the belly of a tree beetle.

1) Hitters hit MOSTLY because of how good/bad they are.
2) Years of data says: Safeco helps lefties and hurts righties.
3) Hitter state of mind ROUTINELY overwhelms all other variables.

He's a career .742 OPS (.749 in the AL). His WORST OPS for any team he started a season with (with reasonable ABs) was .764 in the first half of 2009.

I cannot think of a single 27-year-old in history that would be assumed to hit 40 points under their career OPS (in about 2000 PAs), for no particular reason.

He's a .750 lefty hitter, moving into a park that favors lefty hitters, and moving into a situation where the organization is quickly getting VERY adept at making previously underappreciated players feel like they are truly valued.

What just KILLS me is that Kotchman is numerically ... Carlos Pena minus 5 HRs ... at least until Pena landed in Tampa at age 29, and got one more shot to prove himself. Pena's best season before Tampa was .810.

Not saying Kotchman is going to start hitting 40 dingers. He's not the same type of player. But, Kotchman is ONLY 27 ... and in the perfect situation to give him a CHANCE to rekindle some of that '07 magic. And based on how miserably he hit after both mid-season trades - I'd put a TON more weight on his state of mind than on some phantom "he's not the right KIND of lefty hitter in Safeco" theory.

Darin Erstad.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/e/erstada01.shtml

Once the league booked his hitting style, he never hit effectively again. Ever. And his first truly awful season...was his age 27 season.

David Segui

The upside of Kotchman that Jack is trying to get is David Segui - not a lot of power, but terrific glove, decent ability to walk, dead-even batting eye, who grew into better power (.150 ISO) in his late 20s and was able to keep his BA high. With Segui getting popped for PEDs though, it throws his profile into question (yes, I know he said they were medically necessary).

Segui was pretty bad offensively in his first 1500 ABs, much as Kotchman has been (though Casey's whipsawed from "adequate" to "pathetic" while Segui was just bad until 28, then got to be a decent 1B as a total package).

Can Casey do that? I don't have any faith in it. I'm gonna use pitcher type to illustrate my problem with Kotchman.

Segui never struggled against power pitchers and feasted on finesse pitchers the way that Casey consistently has (.683 OPS vs power, .726 vs. average, .868 vs finesse). His best year in the bigs (with a 119 OPS+ for the year)? He hit .794 vs power pitching with a .362 BABIP and an ISO of .097. He had a hundred lucky ABs where singles fell in. He can't hit anybody with a plus FB.

The first few years of his career, Segui's spike was actually against average pitching, not finesse. For his career, he hit all types fairly evenly. Having a slow bat wasn't his issue, while i think it is with Casey. I don't have hopes for Casey to crush hard pitching. He hangs on in the league by hitting #5 pitchers and long-relief guys.

Carlos Pena has more trouble with power than finesse pitching too, but the majority of that is average-based. He still has the same amount of power no matter the quality of pitcher he's facing - he just turns singles into outs against the fireballers.

I guess in that way Kotchman and Pena ARE similar: Kotchman has an ISO of .135 vs power, .137 vs average, and .155 vs finesse. It's his average that moves a HUNDRED points when facing finesse vs. power. If Kotchman had Pena's .230/.255/.270 ISO figures I would have far fewer concerns about his weaknesses, but Casey has never and will never display power like that. Pena was running .200 ISOs far before this point, and before his "breakout."

Losing a hundred + points of power is the difference between a useful 1B and a harmful one. I think Kotchman is gonna cost us more runs with his bat than he can make up with his glove - so I REALLY hope they see something in his swing or approach that they can tweak to either get him some power or improve his BA against harder throwers.

Garko, FWIW, has .780ish numbers against the Power and Average categories, and high .880s vs finesse. He can hold his own in ways Kotchman can't. He's more likely to get a breakout with the bat than Kotchman, IMO.

I just can't figure out why, aside from a shift in the way he approaches his hitting, we would expect more from Kotchman than he's already given.

I can't see him being the answer at 1B.

Well

He does have 10 of his 40 homers against power pitchers, which makes sense since about 26% of his plate appearances have been against power pitchers. The biggest difference is his BABiP, which is .242 against power, .272 against power/finesse, and .327 against finesse, whereas the league last year was pretty evenly split. I do know that last year, he hit 2 homeruns off Cole Hamels, and one off Josh Johnson on a 96 mile per hour fastball.

Gotta synchromesh that in a front-pager G

If it's okay with you.

Your usual freshness.

Safeco is a park that favors

Safeco is a park that favors lefty pull hitters mostly.

Kotchman has the majority of his career production to LF.

I think the catcher WAR is a

I think the catcher WAR is a bit high... Moore would have to really hit the ground running.

I'd be ok with 1-1.5 WAR. Its a position with long-term upside.

I like how you've got those -WAR benchies in there :- )

But correct me if I'm wrong -- with the thick pyramid base Capt Jack has now, we should save several L's from black-hole fringe guys, no?

IIRC, the M's lost about 5-6 W's last year just from the worst 6-7 guys on their roster. Easy spot to save W's.

Betancourt, Olson, and

Betancourt, Olson, and Corcoran were significantly below RL last season.. We should have a lot less of that this year.

You're correct, Doc.

At least IMHO, the Mariners' biggest strength this year is depth of replacement level or better scrubs and no major holes in the starting roster. The -WAR benchies that will show up in my WAR-stack articles, when you add them up...will be a considerably smaller problem than they were in 2009.

Taro...

Read the catcher article. My WAR projection for both Johnson and Moore comes directly from looking at guys with similar OPS numbers to my projections. If you don't think Moore is likely to hit .740 and Johnson to hit .700...I guess you aren't much of a fan of either of them. I don't think my projections are at all unreasonable.

I think its a little high..

I think its a little high.. Not improbable. I'd certainly take it. :-)

No one churns up pixels like Kotch

The Official Z Brain Trust story, as I understand it, is:

2005: "real" Kotch -- 111 PAs vs. RHP, .906 OPS
2006: injured
2007: "real" Kotch -- 424 PAs vs. RHP, .852 OPS
2008: "real" Kotch with LAA -- 309 PAs vs. RHP, .721 OPS (.262 BABIP)
2008: "troubled" Kotch (mom nearly dying, traded out of comfort zone) with ATL -- write it off
2009: "real" Kotch with ATL -- 235 PAs vs. RHP, .808 OPS
2009: "troubled" Kotch (disastrous trade to BOS) -- write it off

I'm not taking the time to get the math to the penny, but I think that's just about .284/.342/.460/.802 in 1079 PAs vs. RHP (when you exclude the "write off" periods). As it happens, just last year, while in ATL, he ran .288/.366/.442/.808 vs. RHP, before falling off the deep end in Boston, just as he had in ATL the year before.

I'm not saying they're right, I'm saying this is their argument. He's here to play against RHP, and they think you can argue that his track record is an .800 OPS guy vs. RHP.

(I'm not saying he will be.)

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