SnakeBytes, 2/10: Last 'Bytes of Winter!

by Jim McLennan on Feb 11, 2011 7:37 PM EST in Snake Bytes

For the last time before pitchers and catchers report, we crack open the lid on the news-tubes, and peer into them to see what Diamondback-shaped nuggets may be contained therein. Should become a bit easier going forward, so I suspect the frequency of these may get ramped up. But that's down to kishi, I'm just a minion there... Anyway, plenty of stuff to talk about today, so let's get this linky party started! [And yes, those of you who follow me on Twitter might have spotted the pre-release version of this post earlier today... I'm not sure how this managed to get re-released, subsequently...]

Extremely Diamondbacks News

[AZCentral] Diamondbacks will try to do more with less money - "The reason our payroll is down is because our revenues are down," Diamondbacks CEO Derrick Hall said. "Our plan is, as we increase revenues and hopefully see a positive outcome, that would go right back into payroll. But because of the economy and the way we've played, our revenues have been down."
[dbacks.com] Diamondbacks break in Spring Training complex with organizational meetings - "We've got so many new faces and people in new roles that I think it's important to get everyone together," [Kevin] Towers said. "It's important for me to put faces with names. We want to share what our vision is, what our goals are and review our 40-man roster and prospects."
[FanGraphs] Free Brandon Allen! - "Brandon Allen is entering what should be the prime years of his career. He’s got power, can take a walk, and offers up to six years of team control. He’s the most logical candidate to start at not one, but two different positions in the Diamondbacks lineup."
[AZCentral] Johnson arb update; Hammock returns; 3 RHPs clear waivers; and other stuff - Nick reports that "Right-handed relievers Daniel Stange, Rafael Rodriguez and Brian Sweeney all cleared waivers and were outrighted to Triple-A Reno." He also discusses the possibility of flipping Joe Saunders mid-season.

Solidly Diamondbacks News

[NY Post] 3UP: 2005 Yankees, Washburn and Haren - "There has been previous reporting done that when the Yankees were looking into reuniting with Carl Pavano this offseason that they would involve a third team as a way to avoid losing their first-round draft choice... I have learned that the team was going to be the Diamondbacks, who essentially would have signed Pavano and then traded him to the Yankees for prospects." Also suggests that, if we had held onto Haren last summer, we could have got the Yankkes - now desperate for starters - to pay big for him. A similar plan with the Yankees was also mooted for Grant Balfour.
[Phoenix Business Journal] D-backs in Goldwater-Coyotes-Glendale saga - "Some people have noticed that Randy Kendrick — wife of Arizona Diamondbacks Managing Partner Ken Kendrick — serves on the Goldwater Institute board, which is considering a lawsuit to quash a deal between Glendale and prospective Phoenix Coyotes owner Matthew Hulsizer." Co-incidence? Or something more sinister? Tin-foil hats ahoy!
[dbacks.com] D-backs honor McCullough, Haley with organizational awards - The Arizona Diamondbacks announced that scout Howard McCullough received the Roland Hemond Award, while Single-A South Bend manager Mark Haley was honored with the Joe Garagiola, Jr., Award at the team's organizational meetings this week at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick.
[Arizona Daily Star] D-backs, White Sox to play March 7 game in Tucson - The Arizona Diamondbacks and Chicago White Sox will play a charity game at 1:05 p.m. March 7 at Kino Stadium, stadium district director Chris Bartos said. So that's nice.
[dbacks.com] D-backs president and CEO Derrick Hall chats with fans - "As for promotional items...All-Star specific include an MLB All-Star pin on April 16 and an MLB All-Star garden gnome on May 21. The gnomes were a huge hit last season." But will they be any better? Will there be any, how you say, gnome improvement?
[SI.com] The truth about Justin Upton talks - Tom Verducci says. "Kevin Towers never really wanted to move 23-year-old outfielder Justin Upton, but thought it was wise to gauge what kind of value Upton had among other teams. What he found was nothing came close to make him even think about moving Upton." Not much of a surprise there.
[Phoenix New Times] Justin Upton and Don Baylor This Season: What to Expect - "Ignoring ballparks, Upton can be a better hitter than [Carlos] Gonzalez. He's younger, too. Getting a better approach out of Upton is Baylor's challenge this season." A surprisingly-good baseball article from the New Times.

Not very Diamondbacks news

[MLB FanHouse] 2011 Farm System Rankings - We're #18 in these, up from #22. "Arizona has some outstanding young bats to lean on in Matt Davidson, Marc Krauss, Bobby Borchering and others, but the D'backs have some work to do in terms of depth."
[Replacement Level Yankees Weblog] CAIRO v0.6 and Still Too Early 2011 MLB Projected Standings - The D Backs were projected to win 74 games in December 28th and just 70 games on February 11th. That -4 change is the largest negative drop of any team in the league... [H/T to shoewizard]
[NWITimes.com] Players try to open doors -- or get back in -- at baseball showcase - An interesting glimpse at the far end of the scouting spectrum - the undrafted hopefuls.
[Stuff.co.nz] Kiwi softballer signs with Boston Red Sox "We believe he shows the aptitude and willingness to be a successful baseball player. He has also showed us the ability to hit the ball out of the park. There needs to be a few minor adjustments made from the softball swing to baseball with the ball coming from different angles."
[MLB FanHouse] Co-Authors Jim Joyce, Armando Galarraga in Perfect Mess With Book Deal - "Joyce should never again umpire one of Galarraga's games. Not because of the blown call, per se. But because Galarraga and Joyce are now business partners." A conundrum, especially if Galarraga ends up in the D-backs bullpen.
[WSJ.com] The Most Expensive Game in History - "Saturday's soccer match between Manchester United and Manchester City of the English Premier League..will be the richest match played in any sport, at any time, anywhere on the planet Earth." Suck it, Yankees.

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Oh man

Next time I come up with a really bad pun and stop to wonder if I’ve gone too far this time, I’m going to stop and remind myself: “gnome improvement.”

A couple nights ago, we had Mark Schlereth’s green chile for dinner. I told mrskishi that he played for the Broncos, and she looked confused for a moment. I added “His son pitched for the Diamondbacks, too,” and she nodded. She said “I thought so, the last name sounded familiar.”

I’m very proud of her.

"Can we consider killing me an open-ended discussion point to be filed away for future meetings and come back to this another time?"

by kishi on Feb 11, 2011 8:37 PM EST via mobile reply actions

Decided to get some generic D'Backs merchandise today

… as all player specific ones I own became obsolete last season and this offseason. It doesn’t speak well to the perception of the average D’Backs fan that 90% of everything I could find was XXL or larger

Bad doormat! No stock options!

by Clefo on Feb 12, 2011 12:50 PM EST reply actions

We're a big people...

literally, “a race of giants” straight out of the lore of old.

The Great and Mighty....

by NASCARbernet on Feb 12, 2011 2:03 PM EST up reply actions

Apparently

Giants with tiny heads, if the available fitted hat sizes tell me anything

Bad doormat! No stock options!

by Clefo on Feb 12, 2011 3:15 PM EST up reply actions

Man...

should’ve gone to FanFest.

Mr. Science Boy

by DbacksSkins on Feb 14, 2011 1:59 PM EST up reply actions

Wanted to...

…but that day was kinda busy for me. I eventually settled on this after some browsing

Bad doormat! No stock options!

by Clefo on Feb 14, 2011 2:07 PM EST up reply actions

I got to meet Jim!

Unless there is some dude named AZSnakepit.com running around. :)

No Julio Franco, no peace.

by Reynolds rapper on Feb 12, 2011 7:54 PM EST reply actions

Did he have a goatee

Might have been NegaJim- he’s been trying to bring down this website for years.

"Can we consider killing me an open-ended discussion point to be filed away for future meetings and come back to this another time?"

by kishi on Feb 12, 2011 7:56 PM EST up reply actions

[Phoenix New Times] Justin Upton and Don Baylor This Season: What to Expect – “Ignoring ballparks, Upton can be a better hitter than [Carlos] Gonzalez. He’s younger, too. Getting a better approach out of Upton is Baylor’s challenge this season.” A surprisingly-good baseball article from the New Times.

Still fixating on strikeouts, though: “Upton will never hit enough to justify striking out 150+ times”.

They also applaud Upton for earning more pitches per AB, and call this an area in which he needs to improve, which continues to confuse me — since high-strikeout guys continually show up among the league leaders in pitches seen. IIRC, Mark Reynolds led the league in pitches/AB in 2009.

Mr. Science Boy

by DbacksSkins on Feb 14, 2011 1:56 PM EST reply actions

Not to mention

the fact that Don Baylor’s 2010 team, the Rockies, was 3rd in the majors in Ks last year, behind only the Dbacks and Marlins.

Mr. Science Boy

by DbacksSkins on Feb 14, 2011 1:57 PM EST up reply actions

strikeouts are bad

it’s probably one of the most important peripherals for hitters

i think when i look at peripheral stats for hitters, i like to look at K%, BB%, ISO, and like a three-year average of BABIP. if you strike out a lot, it cuts into your value. that’s not saying you can’t have value if you strikeout a lot, but it’s an added burden, just like if you don’t walk that’s an added burden, or if you don’t have power, or if your BABIP is consistently low.

by blue bulldog on Feb 14, 2011 9:43 PM EST up reply actions

Reynolds' 85 RBI accounted for 12% of D-Backs' runs scored in 2010.

Compared with 14.1% in ’09 and 13.4% in ’08.

Reynolds and LaRoche accounted for 25.9% of D’Backs’ runs scored in 2010.

That’s plenty of value. It’s a pretty good sign that the “K reduction” quest is probably more hype than an actually useful way to build a club.

No Julio Franco, no peace.

by Reynolds rapper on Feb 14, 2011 11:28 PM EST up reply actions

the fangraphs dashboard is great

because i can look at all my favorite peripherals without any effort

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2010&month=0&season1=2010&ind=0

here is a leaderboard of baseball’s best hitters (not quite a perfect example, because it includes defensive value, but since Upton is a plus defender at RF anyway it’s sort of a moot point)

people thought Upton would be a top 10 talent in baseball. just a quick glance at the chart, and you’ll see that it’s EXCEEDINGLY difficult to be one of the best in baseball and still strike out. you have to get down to #13 (Rickie Weeks) to see someone with above a 25% K%. the next three all strikeout alot (my definition of strike out a lot, is arbitrarily, but not unfairly, 25%) however, Rickie Weeks and Kelly Johnson get a lot of positive positional adjustment, and UZR says Andres Torres generates 2 wins from defense alone. you get down to Jay Bruce (#21) and UZR says he generates 2 wins from defense alone. Dan Uggla #25 (positional adjustment).

and finally, you get to what I consider reasonable comps for Justin Upton, with Jayson Werth and Jason Heyward (both at 5 WAR). The JJ brothers both strikeout at what I expect Upton to strikeout at for his career (hovering around 25%). They have BABIP to what I expect Upton to have. The difference is, last year’s Heyward walked way more than Upton did, and last year’s Werth had more power than Upton did.

Can Upton show the plate discipline that Heyward showed? Probably not, I’m skeptical of his eye, and think even with pitchers afraid of him, Upton should be around where Werth’s current walk rate is. Can he match Werth’s power? I’m more confident of this, since he had as much power in 2009, and it’s possible he can gain some power as he grows older (though if he hasn’t shown an increase in power by age 25, then that’s probably that). Upton defensively is better than Werth, so he can probably gain 1 WAR on defense alone.

In that regard, I see Upton’s upside (if everything goes right as I detail above) as 6 WAR. If his strikeout rate is around 25%. Which would make him a great hitter, but not among the top 10 in baseball. Now do you see why strikeouts are bad? In the same way not taking walks or not having power is bad?

by blue bulldog on Feb 15, 2011 1:16 AM EST up reply actions

I'm more backward looking.

It strikes me that cutting K’s is not an end in itself.

Just like eliminating errors is not an end in itself.

In that sense, I don’t think the DBacks did a good job weighing all their needs and I’m angered by fans and the radio station that eggs them on.

No Julio Franco, no peace.

by Reynolds rapper on Feb 15, 2011 1:22 AM EST up reply actions

to me

in this matter, the only end is increasing your value as a hitter

i see four basic ways of doing it (as detailed above). can you really cut down on one without giving away equal ground in others? i don’t have a confident answer to that. fangraphs had an article once describing ryan braun, and they came to the conclusion that his adjusted plate discipline likely caused his power (ISO) to drop as well. it makes sense to that increasing BB% can also increase K% (see, Upton last year). so i don’t know.

maybe, at the end of the day, this really is the limit of Upton’s abilities. after all, it does seem like some hitters just have “it” and are beasts across all four of those skills (low K, high walk, high power, high BABIP), and maybe Upton never had that ability. i just don’t really want to admit that (though, it’s definitely a significant possibility).

by blue bulldog on Feb 15, 2011 2:23 PM EST up reply actions

How is Heyward a fair comp? He was a rookie.

If i remeber correctly rookies tend to see different pitchers than someone who has been in the league for several years

"A couple of years agoi was hitting 170 in 60 at bats and everybody was ready to kill me Guess what happened? Laser Show!

by BattleMoses on Feb 15, 2011 5:11 AM EST up reply actions

i just meant when comparing peripherals/positional value

by blue bulldog on Feb 15, 2011 2:18 PM EST up reply actions

blue bulldog is right....and wrong

It’s all a matter of degree.

First of all, we are talking about hitting. So I wouldn’t use WAR, as that includes defense. Lets focus on hitting.

I’m going to use Batting Runs, which is just a linear weights batting metric, available at BB-ref, and just as good as any other “add em all up” linear weights metric.

You can be an elite hitter and strike out over 25% of the time. You just need to hit an awful lot of homers, and take a lot of walks at the same time. Justin didn’t homer or walk enough in 2010 to support such a high K rate.

This first link is showing all the seasons with minimum 502 PA’s and a 25% or higher K rate, sorted by most batting runs:

http://bbref.com/pi/shareit/DvTdR

There have been 133 seasons in the history of MLB where a guy had a 25% K rate, (all since 1963 and nearly half since 2000) Justin’s season ranked 76th in batting runs among those 133 seasons. Of course it’s the only season he had such a high K rate.

Here is 2010 , min 502 PA’s, sorted by batting runs

http://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/share.cgi?id=zRzNn

Justin ranked 62nd out of 151st.

The ideal situation would be for Justin to lower his K rate and increase his hits, homers, and walks all at the same time. But if he can hit 40 homers, and walk 100 times, he will be an elite top echelon hitter, whether he reduces that K rate or not.

The worst major leaguer is better at baseball than I'll ever be at anything I ever do in my life.

by shoewizard on Feb 16, 2011 12:38 AM EST up reply actions

the thing is

i don’t think i’ve ever read a projection that Upton can hit 40 homers. and while i think there’s a greater probability that he can at least walk 100 times, that’s not a guarantee either

in general though, i agree. you can have a big strikeout rate but still be elite. but it then comes down to being amazing in BB%, ISO, and BABIP

by blue bulldog on Feb 16, 2011 1:28 AM EST up reply actions

I don't need a projection

Upton has a TON of power. There isn’t a question in my mind he is capable of putting up big homer seasons. And there isn’t anything in his performance to date that would disqualify him as being capable of such.

Justin has homered in 0.03955 of his At bats
Here is a link to a report of players with at least 1,200 AB through age 22 and minimum 0.039 % of HR/AB

There are only 24 guys on the list. Not all of them were 40 homer guys. But this is the right list to be on if you want to say there is a good chance he develops into a big time HR hitter.

I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen him in person, or seen him play. He’s a big strong kid, and the ball comes off his bat like rocket. It makes “that sound” when he hits it. And they go really really far when he gets into them.

And the link below shows that the frequency with which he has hit them so far at this young age indicates he can hit ALOT more of them.

http://bbref.com/pi/shareit/SpaLO

The only thing that is going to keep Justin from hitting a ton of homers is that shoulder. Thats a very real threat. But if that shoulder is truly healed and strengthened, and overall health is not an issue, he’ll hit a lot more homers.

The worst major leaguer is better at baseball than I'll ever be at anything I ever do in my life.

by shoewizard on Feb 16, 2011 2:43 AM EST up reply actions