THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Ah, but you contradict yourself.

“He is a 29 year old journeyman corner outfielder with a .793 lifetime OPS and no arm.”(emphasis mine)

So you mean that in the past, which includes 110 games in 2003 in Qualcomm Stadium, he was that hitter. I figured you’d be the first to point out that we don’t care about that information. Yes, it is more valuable than knowing what he has done this year alone. But neither one is as important as what he is expected to do for the rest of the year (and next).

The last 3 years (which is all Marcel and most projection systems care about) he has had positive WPA/LI and WPA numbers, in addition to his very good first 88 games of this season.

I wouldn’t quote Damon on these kinds of things-- he publicly criticized Joba becoming a starter.

By Marcels, he’s an .813 OPS corner outfielder. I seriously doubt that additional .020 OPS points over his career line push him into being one of the best outfielders in the game.

Doing a quick updated Marcel, Nady is a bit over +1 win as a hitter, and the fans think he’s an average fielder in RF.  Putting in the positional adjustment, and he’s a bit below +1 win overall, per 162 games.  He’s an NL player, and with the low playing time, his WAR is right between 2 and 2.5.

I come up with a +.5 for Nady using RZR, and basically even for him using ZR. That’s projected.

I have him as +8 runs in offense per 150 (630 PA) projected.  I have him also as even in a defensive (UZR) projection.  His arm is bad.  -3 per 150 (depending upon whether he plays RF or LF of course - in LF it is better).  Baserunning about average (for all players).

That puts him at +5 which is exactly even for a corner outfielder using Tango’s positional adjustments. I think they are a little low for a corner outfielder (or at least rounded off a little low), so I have him as around 2-3 runs worse than an average corner outfielder.  That is 1.5 to 2 WAR in my book.

dan (#1), although I don’t know that “contradict” is the right word, I should not use “career numbers” any more than anyone should use current season numbers to imply a projection, although career numbers are likely to be closer to a projection than current year numbers, at least if the player does not have 15 or 20 years in the majors.

However, certainly if another player (Damon) is going to remark about someone being “one of the best outfielders in baseball” he ought to have some idea of a player’s career numbers rather than some recent 327 AB!

The point is that given what the Yankees are running out there for LF right now (a platoon of Brett Gardner and Justin Christian) and the likelihood that Matsui’s season is over, he is an improvement by sending Christian to the minors and Gardner to the bench. Is one of the best? No. But Damon tends to speak on the extremes, anyway, so take his words with a grain of salt.

His update CHONE projection is only a .779 OPS, but that’s for the Yankees.  Staying in Pittsburgh he’d be at .817.

He’ll miss facing the weaker NL pitching.  Total line is 272/329/450 for NYY and 285/344/473 for PIT.

But at least he provides cover for why they aren’t interested in Bonds.

I never said that it wasn’t a good trade or that it isn’t an upgrade.  I don’t know.  I do know that whatever it is, it adds a very small amount to the Yankees chances of making the post.  Marte is a very good reliever.  Always has been.  It has taken 5 years for the league to figure that out.

I’m still waiting for someone to answer the question though.

it’s ridiculous that the yankees traded for a corner outfielder when barry bonds is a free agent asking for league minimum.  The yankees could’ve gotten a better player (I think, though I haven’t added it up) for less money and gave up no prospects.

I highly doubt Barry is asking for the league minimum.  If he was, there wouldn’t be any point to “discussions”, “talks”, or whatever else, with his agent.  The fact that the Yankees are supposedly “in talks” with him/his agent, means that Barry and his agent are not immediately agreeing to whatever terms the Yankees are requesting.

According to the media, and to Barry’s agent, Barry will play for the league min and will even donate his salary to charity.  Whether that was or is still true, I have no idea.

In any case, we all know that Bonds would probably help a lot of teams.  However, the reason that teams have showed no interest in him is NOT because they don’t think he can help them on the field.  It is because, for whatever reasons, they don’t want him on their team.

So while it may be ridiculous that the Yankees made that trade (and I don’t know that it is), it has nothing to do with Bonds.

Nady has a career .880 OPS against LHP. He should platoon some with Abreu and Damon and should not face much RHP, which needs to be accounted for.

What should be accounted for is our best estimate as to his true platoon split, and not his observed split.

All RHB have a true platoon ratio of around 1.09 for OPS I think.

So if he is around .800 overall (true OPS), and has faced around 27% lefties, that puts his projected or true OPS versus lefties at around .851.

So I doubt that his true OPS versus lefties is .880 although you never know.

I agree that he should probably platoon with Damon (and Damon is a much better fielder, I think, despite what some Yankee fans think about Damon’s fielding), but that really diminishes his value, as he is only going to play in 14 games or so!  How much can an .859 OPS player be worth to a team in 14 games?

In addition to Nady being an offensive upgrade to the minor league options, he’s also a huge fielding upgrade over Abreu, who’s approaching Manny territory.  Giambi at first is better than Abreu in right, defensively.