Morneau and the Future of First Base in Minnesota

I've been leading the 'trade Morneau for whatever you can get' bandwagon for the last 14 months, but today I'm reversing course 180 degrees. Not only do I hope the Twins hold onto him for the rest of this season, but I'd be in favor of re-signing him for next season as well.

The glaring and most obvious reason to re-sign Morneau is 'why not?' Neither of the Chris's (Parmelee and Colabello) have shown they deserve the first base spot in 2014 and there aren't any other options on the farm. Morneau is the best current option and, despite age, has the most upside. Furthermore, Mauer's inevitable switch from catching looks more and more distant by the day. First base is basically wide open for Morneau.

So what? Why pay a 32 year old with middling production (.267/.327/.436 for 2012-2013) $5 million or more? Most of the time I'd agree with you, I'd much rather see the money go towards an international free agent or perhaps a starting pitcher on the market. 

I think this case is different, I think Morneau might be closer to the all-star level of play we saw from 2006-2010. I know, I know, one month does not a good hitter make. BUT I have a larger argument than that! Morneau has had hot streaks before, take July and August of 2012 in which he hit for an .850 OPS or this May/June when he hit above .300. Why should his latest hot month be any different?

For one reason, in those months he was 'hot' in the sense that he had a pretty batting average but still lacked the power you would expect from a first baseman. Despite what you may have thought, Morneau never was a premier hitter but it's fair to expect 25 round-trippers per year and he's barely approached those modest expectations. This August, however, he's launched seven bombs in 88 plate appearances - a 57 home run pace. His seven homers are also a monthly high since July of 2009. And that's not all, he'd also be on pace for 49 doubles. All this while hitting .294 supported by a very sustainable .295 babip. 

It's impossible (and let's be honest, stupid) to say that he's going to be Chris Davis clone for the rest of the season. But the one major missing component from Morneau's game since his 2010 concussion has been his ability to hit for extra bases, as his batting averages have been above average and his defense is still something of an asset at first base. This season he's already just one XBH shy of his 2012 total in 62 fewer plate appearances. If Morneau's power surge is a harbinger of his power ability returning, he's a valuable middle of the order bat and could probably net some serious value in a trade next July ;)

Now the question is, how legit is the newly returned power stroke? Again, only time will tell, but it seems like he's hitting the ball hardly both subjectively (the feeling I get watching the games) and objectively - his 24.1% HR/FB is his highest in any month since July 2010 and four of his seven homers have been classified "Plenty" home runs by ESPN's home run tracker meaning they cleared the fence by more than 10 vertical feet (aka clear home runs). For me, these signs point to Morneau being a 5 HR/Month type of hitter or 30 HR/season. 

That is, if he continues to hit the way he's been hitting. Although he hasn't shown this kind of power since his concussion, his other primary foe (besides lack of power) is his inconsistency. So this is where the 'time will tell' argument comes into play. However, if he can ride this streak into the off-season it'll be a great sign for things to come. The final stretch of each season is often ignored by fans because it's difficult for a struggling player to really make a significant impact on his batting average, wOBA or whatever other metric you prefer. However, guys like Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Melky Cabrera and plenty of others had their breakout seasons foreshadowed by strong finishes. Perhaps a strong finish from Morneau should be looked at no differently.

EDIT: I completely neglected an Option C: trade him and then re-sign him in the off-season. My worry here is that if he continues raking on a contender, his market will be much hotter this off-season. Rightly or wrongly the market will likely recognize a strong finish from Morneau on a team that is playing meaningful games, if the past is any indication.

Salty

What separates the disappointment of the 2012 Red Sox (69 wins) and the first-place 2013 Red Sox (94.5 win pace)?

It's hard to point to any one thing; their pitching has improved, as has the offense and defense. The improvement in the offense is, I think, the most interesting because it hasn't been a result of the superstars stepping up, necessarily:

D. Ortiz     2012 OPS: 1.026    2013 OPS: 0.985
D. Pedroia 2012 OPS: 0.797    2013 OPS: 0.770

Nevertheless, the team has clearly improved to the tune of about a half a run (4.53 runs per game to 5 in 2013). Some of the increase has resulted from better health and the play of Jacoby Ellsbury, however, a surprisingly large amount of the improvement is unaccounted for until you get to Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who's sneakily developed into one of the best offensive catchers in baseball.

'Salty' has long been considered a potential masher behind the plate. He came up as the top prospect in the Braves deep farm system, topping out as the #1 ranked minor leaguer (BA) in 2007 - ahead of Elvis Andrus, Matt Harrison and Yunel Escobar among others. That same year he headlined a trade package for Mark Teixeira. Within the next 12 months he was buried by fellow tradees Neftali Feliz, Harrison and Andrus in Texas and was left in a rotation that left him in AAA more often than not. That said, he didn't exactly dominate the PCL (a notorious hitters league) and spent much of his time on the DL.

Exactly three years later after constituting a large part of the Teixeira deal, Saltalamacchia was dealt to Boston for three decent but not impressive prospects. The Red Sox hoped he could inherit the catcher position from Jason Varitek smoothly, but he ended up falling relatively flat. Despite significant power (41 home runs) he didn't crack a .300 OBP in his first full two seasons as a Red Sock (2011-2012) and by all accounts was an average (at best) backstop defensively. The mediocre catching was/is basically expected, he's a big dude at 6'3" 245 lbs. The offense was basically underwhelming. For example, in 2012, he posted a .222/.288/.454 batting line. Needless to say - less than impressive.

In 2013, though, Salty has made a huge jump and is a big reason for Boston's improvement as a team. In a pretty much full-time role he's been great across the board .272/.341/.456 in near full-time work. Compare that to the average MLB player .261/.327/.414. And that includes all players; consider that Salty is significantly above this mark as a catcher. That's been marked improvement for Boston. And while it doesn't account for the entirety of their improvement it's a significant reason they're sitting atop the AL East.

Nothing Tonight!

I didn't write anything tonight because Liriano. I can't take my eyes off of it now and when I shut my eyes tonight it's all I'll see.

Week in Review Plus Other Stuff

Obviously, my toxic fandom is just what the Doctor ordered for my new "teams". Pittsburgh lost two out three games to both their division rival Cardinals and the Diamondbacks including a 15-5 blowout with their supposed ace on the mound and three losses in extra innings. Boston is 2-3 this week with a chance to each .500 on the week tonight against the Yankees, I'd wait to post this until after that game is over but it's not entirely likely it will finish until Monday. Lastly, Oakland managed to somehow lose a series to Houston (seriously) but bounced back to take two from Wild Card competitor Cleveland.

I'm not concerned about the Pirates or Red Sox, they're suffering minor bumps in the road that every team endures, but I am slightly concerned with Oakland. With Big Fat Bartolo Colon (that's actually on his birth certificate, no lie) tumbling onto the disabled list, they're going to have to count on Jarrod Parker to lead the rotation, which would be fine if Parker wasn't exactly average. In fact, of their remaining starters only Sonny Gray has been better than average and he's only logged 18 innings. Unlike in Gray's case, it's not a small sample size anomaly for Tommy Milone, AJ Griffin and Dan Straily; they've each made 20+ starts to establish themselves and haven't stood apart. As such the A's will continue grinding away at their bullpen for three or four innings a night and pray that Balfour and co. are still fresh in late September. The upshot of having such a decidedly average rotation isn't that Oakland will fade out of the WC race necessarily, but that the pressure on the offense, defense and bullpen is significantly amplified, reducing their margin of error to near zero.

Actually, I do have similar reservations about the Pirates offense but it's a degree of magnitude smaller. McCutchen alone makes the offense passable and along with the flawed but talented Neil Walker, Starlin Marte, Pedro Alvarez and Russell Martin there isn't reason for concern yet. Speaking of the supporting cast, Andrew Lambo made his debut this week (I've written about him before). His first week looks bad (1 hit and 1 walk in 10 PAs) but he showed some impressive strike zone judgement seeing 4.2 pitches per plate appearance* and striking out just twice. His lone hit went for a double. I'm thinking he could actually be a key reinforcement for Pittsburgh both in the outfield and off the bench.

I'd like to quickly make some notes about the team's schedules going forward. Oakland's is particularly intriguing/worrisome, they face the Mariners next in a three game series that they'll have to win because after that it's Baltimore, Detroit, Tampa and Texas. After that they have a pretty easy rest of the schedule with seven games against the Twins and another Houston series. After the A's finish that difficult stretch (Bal, Det, etc.) they could be far enough out of it that they'll have a difficult time making up enough ground. So the next two weeks are crucial for the A's.

Pittsburgh's schedule from here on out is basically playing sub-.500 teams with a few series against Cincinnati and St. Louis and one against Texas. Clearly these will be crucial but for the most part the Pirates' schedule isn't much of a hurdle for the remainder. Boston actually does have a tough test ahead of them with 19 of their remaining 36 games against division rivals Tampa Bay, New York and Baltimore along with one series a piece with Detroit and the Dodgers.

We're getting to the point in the season where the schedule is actually a factor for most teams. Back in June it wasn't really a concern because it would basically average out for most teams. Now with about 35-40 games left, the matchups are significant and should be treated that way. Just another fun part of the stretch run.

*Pitches per plate appearance is a stat that will be gaining momentum in both saber and popular media circles in the next few seasons; I think. It seems to be one of those stats that many people ignore but are important to teams, smart teams. Gabe Kapler has talked on Keith Law's podcast about the metric completely unsolicited as a piece of data Boston presented him with often when he worked with their organization, for one example. I personally see it as one of those obvious 'no duh' type metrics that's somehow not really a large part of outsider analysts' discourse. Clearly, the more pitches a hitter sees, it's to his advantage: the pitcher tires, the hitter sees more of the pitcher's repertoire and walks are more common. There's a whole separate debate about whether or not more pitches is a positive, it'll slow down the game when all the Delmon Young level hackers are out of the league. But like a good Coen Brother's movie, the magic is in the build up. I should note that Lambo's 4.2 pitches per plate appearance would rank ninth in MLB, directly behind Joe Mauer and Jose Bautista. Not bad company.

Smoke and Mirrors

If I asked you last night who Pittsburgh's best starting pitcher is, there's a good chance you'd say Jeff Locke. Locke led the Pirates with a 2.43 ERA, behind only Clayton Kershaw and Matt Harvey for all pitchers. You'd be quite wrong.

A shiny ERA is easy to comprehend and an appealing way to quickly assess a pitcher. The metric does a good job of basically measuring what it says it will and isn't hiding behind any gory mathematics. Given this, Locke's ERA is very impressive, to be sure, but it doesn't take much digging to realize that it is headed for a correction the size of the subprime mortgage bubble.

According to DIPS theory (Defense Independent Pitching Statistics), a pitcher essentially can produce three outcomes and the rest of the play is independent of that work. These three outcomes are strikeouts, walks and batted ball type.

These three components come together to produce a predictive statistic called Fielding Independent Pitching or FIP. FIP has been proven to be more predictive of future ERA than ERA itself (if you care to check this, it's easily google-able). Knowing this much, a basic rule of thumb for superficial use of ERA and FIP could be that ERA tells a story about what happened and FIP predicts what will happen going forward.

For example, Pitcher A throws 6 innings and surrenders 3 hits and 4 walks while striking out 2 en route to allowing 2 runs, that pitcher's day would be better described by ERA but to say his true talent is that of a 3.00 ERA would lose a gambler many bets.

All that to say that what Jeff Locke has accomplished over his first 23 starts is significant. He's produced tons of value for his team and is a huge reason they're sitting atop the NL Central. According to FanGraphs he's been worth 4 wins if you simply use results.

All that also to say that Jeff Locke and his mediocre 3.74 FIP will not continue to produce at a level that rivals Matt Harvey. This stat is fueled by below average strikeout (6.64 k/9 or 17.8% of batters) and walk (4.37 BB/9 or 11.5% of batters) rates. Truthfully, I would argue his FIP may undersell just how mediocre Locke has been as it credits him with keeping fly balls in the park, which he hasn't demonstrated as a skill in the past and therefore is probably not sustainable given his skill set. Given this paradigm, Locke has only been worth 1.4 wins according to FanGraphs.

How is this disparity between ERA and FIP created? A large portion can be explained by babip; his, .256, sits well below the standard average, .300. Over the course of a season that's a difference of about 30 hits. It's been demonstrated time and again that it's nearly impossible for a pitcher to control his babip and therefore should be expected to regress to the mean, .300. The Pirates exceptional defensive positioning and general skill will likely depress his babip below the league average (the team babip is .274) sympathetically hedging Locke's regression to some degree.

Locke has been an okay pitcher but he's produced at exceptional levels in 2013. There's a distinction there that's evident if you've read this far and what he has been will be more predictive of what he will produce going forward.

The regression monster showed himself to Locke tonight in a game which he allowed 8 runs in 2.2 innings against the Diamondbacks. His ERA jumped to 2.90. In all likelihood it will continue to rise; and if there's any gamblers out there, I'd be happy to bet on it.

On the Pirates

Of the three contending teams chosen by yours truly to dedicate this space, one has ran away with my heart. Oakland is just too lacking in stars or stories and the Red Sox, well, they're from Boston. The Pirates are the team that has piqued my interest and inspired a fandom that nearly rivals my allegiance to my hometown Twins.

Pittsburgh feels like a 'team of destiny' to the extent that that's possible. They're a group of big name vets and journeymen, top prospect studs and barely on the radar rookies; all surrounding a superstar having an MVP season. Everyone is contributing at what seems like their max potential too, it's not like the Tigers who have been dragged to first place by a handful of all-stars.

They're pretty obviously typecast as David to St. Louis' and Cincinnati's Goliath in NL Central race; any conversation about them begins with their 20 year streak of losing seasons. Despite this being a manufactured storyline to some degree - hard to feel bad for Steelers/ Penguins fans and they are legitimately good - it certainly is easy to buy into.

My lone reservation about the organization is Clint Hurdle. Not many managers are more old-school than he is. At his direction the Pirates have 49 sacrifice hits already, good for the 5th most in baseball, and have issued 32 intentional walks, fourth in baseball. (Interestingly, the Reds blow everyone else away in this category giving free bases to 52 opponents).

One thing I will commend Hurdle on is his readiness to use extreme defensive shifts. The strategy, preached by former Baseball Prospectus writer and current Pirates front office member Dan Fox, is described in great detail here in a very informative article. The shift is a big reason the Pirates are the top defensive team in the National league and it's fruits can be observed in just about every game as a single up the middle is robbed by a perfectly position Clint Barmes or Neil Walker seemingly floating between the first baseman and right fielder.

There will be questionable moves made by Hurdle this year, but it's going to take more than that to take this team that seems to do everything else right out of contention. And I'll be rooting for them with the same gusto as I did with the 2002 Twins.

A Day with Gray

If you're going to watch an A's game from here on out, make it a Sonny Gray game. He made his second career start today against the Astros and looked spectacular. Here's his line:

8 Innings 4 hits 1 walk 0 runs allowed and 9 strikeouts

Now, take that with a grain of salt as he was striking out Brandon Barnes and Marc Krauss twice each and his toughest competition was Jose Altuve (Read: The Astros are bad). Nevertheless, the Astros have scored 452 runs this season and the point is that zero of them have come of Sonny.

Anyway, Gray showed off why the A's made him their first round selection in 2011 today. He basically survives off two nasty offerings: fastball and a 12-6 curveball. Sonny's fastball sits between 91 and 95 mph. He keeps the ball down early in the count but can also dial it up with swing-and-miss high heat. I was also impressed by how well he maintained his velocity, hitting 94 mph multiple times in the 8th inning.

Sonny's fastball is certainly effective, but it's barely an appetizer to his wicked curveball. A quote from the visiting play-by-play broadcaster:

"Sonny Gray has a good curveball... That thing is nasty" - Bill Brown, Astros' TV Broadcaster

And right he is. It's a Zito-esque bender with a big sharp break right in front of the plate. More impressive still is his ability to throw it for strikes. Coming into tonight's matchup, the pitch only resulted in a ball 30% of the time. The other 70% consisted of 22% whiffs (nearing on Kershaw's slider type levels) and just 3% line drives. Extreme small sample warning here, but it's all we have and it's impressive enough for me to include here.

Here's where the million $$$ question comes in. Can he be a starter long term or is he best suited for the bullpen?

The big facts working against him are that he is basically a two-pitch pitcher, only 9 change ups in 146 total pitches before tonight, and his small stature, just 5'11" 180 lbs. Gray is obviously set on proving the skeptics wrong as he's stayed very healthy in his career to date and as his 118 pitch performance tonight showed, he has the potential to stick in the rotation.

Only time will tell, ultimately, but for now he's carved out a space in the A's rotation. It'll be interesting to see if Oakland has him on an innings limit as we near the playoffs. He's already about 15 innings short of his career high.

What is clear is that Sonny will be a crucial and much needed weapon in the A's pitching staff from here on out.