Monday, November 2, 2009

The 09 Regular Season

I found a neat graph called Diamond View Composite made by the good boys at www.beyondtheboxscore.com They evaluated players and created a graphical representation on their findings. Here is their graph of Carlos Pena



Here is a link to their creation.

As you can see, the problem with their graphs is the inability to sum up a players negative worth without somehow affecting their positive worth in another category. For instance, Adam Dunn has huge Power and Hitting numbers while his defense is arguably the worst in all of baseball and somehow it effects his power and hitting numbers. There is an easy fix to solve this problem. While using a percentage of players that would qualify for the batting title in their league and taking the high/ low numbers and making them the 100/0 % rate for the league you can find what rate your player is in relation to the best and worst the league has to offer. Narrow that down to the position he plays and you get a better understanding of how your player fits into this conversation. So, that is exactly what I did for the Dodger regulars minus Hudson. I will evaluate the free agent 2B and possible trade targets in my next post.

ISO was used for power numbers ( Isolated Power (ISO) is a measure of a hitter's raw power, in terms of extra bases per AB. Its formula is ISO = (2B + (3B*2) + (HR*3)) / AB ) The ML leader for catchers had a .222 ISO and the bottom dweller was at .064. Martin was at .079. His ISO rate was at 9%. Not good.
Just the same as the Diamondview graph I used OBP for hitting, UZR/150 (The number of runs above or below average a fielder is, per 150 defensive games.) for defense and EqBRR for baserunning.

and here is the rest of the regulars.









My hand drawn graphs aren't as "pretty" but you get the gist of the exercise. The complete player will fill the graph. Someone like Manny will only fill half the graph, which isn't that bad if he were a DH. This graph puts an equal emphasis on all the divisions where in most cases some of them should be weighted differently based on your team needs and values. The Dodgers need an all around second baseman this offseason, so getting Dan Uggla might not be as necessary. I would expect better numbers from Loney, Furcal, and Martin next year and our need at second base would be for a guy who can handle the glove and contribute with the bat. A guy like Orlando Hudson...

Other teams, like the Mariners, have several holes and even more options. They need possibly a LF'er, a SS, a 1B-man, and possibly a 3B-man. SS and 3B might be an area where you look to upgrade (or in thier case) hold serve defensively. Beltre and Wilson might be the top of the class with the glove in their respective positions. However, they would certainly need to upgrade 1B and LF offensively while maybe sacrificing some defense. I'm not going to do the graphs for the Mariners, but it was a fun exercise on evaluating players. Maybe there isn't just one all encompassing stat that can express a players full talent, but there is a graph that can represent a players full talent. I'm sure there is a program out there that I can use to get the area of the graphs and convert it into a percentage and call it the players worth against the league maximum... something to look into.