Pinch hitting: A Connecticut Yankee
Posted by: Peter Abraham - Posted in Misc on Jan 26, 2009 
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January is traditionally a slow month for baseball news. So for the second year in a row, we will showcase other blogs with a series of pinch hitters.
Next up is Matt from A Connecticut Yankee.
Matt has been blogging since August of 2008. He is a senior English major at UConn (Go Huskies) and is from Greenwich.
Here’s his post:
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With the Yankees recent splurge on free agents and trades, there are a lot of people talking about who’s overpaid, who’s underpaid, responsible spending, irresponsible spending, and the like. For that reason, I’d like to take a look at the Yankees two acquisitions on the offensive side of things: Nick Swisher and Mark Teixeira.
To do this, I’ll be turning their projected runs above average using Marcel’s projections for hitters and their CHONE Defensive Projections.
My method will be the same as found on my friend Mike’s blog Fire Jim Leyland. For an example of how these calculations work, go to this post.
10.5 is roughly the amount of runs that equal one win and the two is used because a replacement player is two runs worse than an average player. To get the dollar amount, you multiply by five million dollars, the approximate value of a win. The positional adjustments Mike talks about are as follows:
Catcher: +12.5 runs
Shortstop: +7.5 runs
Second Base/Third Base/Centerfield: +2.5 runs
Left Field/Right Field: -7.5 runs
First Base: -7.5 runs
DH: -17.5 runs
Let’s run through the numbers for Mr. Swisher first. On the spreadsheet, we can find that he will be worth 5.8 runs over average. If we want to project Swisher as LF/RF, we find his defensive projection on the CHONE site and find that there, Swisher is projected to be a +5 defender. The equation:
5.8 (runs over average) -7.5 (position adjustment) = -1.7+5 (projected defense) = 3.3/10.5 +2 = 2.31 Wins Above Replacement. So, as a corner outfielder, Swisher projects to be worth 2.31 WAR player. Multiply that by five to get the dollar amount Swisher’s 2008 performance projects to be and you get: $11.55 million dollars. A quick trip over to Cot’s MLB Contracts and we find that Swisher will make $5.3 million in 2009. So if Nick Swisher plays to his projection as a corner outfielder, the Yankees are saving $6.25 million on him.
If you want to make Swisher the CF, switch the positional adjustment (+2.5) and the defensive projection (-2) and he comes out at 2.50 WAR, but only because CFs are harder to replace than corner OFs. Still, his dollar value there would be $12.5 mil, a money saver for the Yankees.
Now, we come to the big boy. Mark Teixeira. The Yankees just gave him an eight year, 180 million dollar contract, with an AAV of $22.5 million. That’s going to be hard for Tex to match. Via the spreadsheet, Teixeira will be 28.2 runs over average this year. So:
28.2 – 12.5 = 15.7 + 6 (projected runs at 1B) = 21.7/10.5 + 2 = 4.07 WAR x 5 = 20.35. So, Tex’s value projects to be $20.35 million this year. According to Cots, Mark will make a flat $20 million this year. So, the Yankees will, in fact, be paying Tex .35 million dollars less than he projects to be worth. It’s a small number, but the Yankees are “saving” with Tex.
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Nice job, Matt. I’ve been working at getting a better understanding of these metrics and I’m happy to present this sort of post on my blog. Coming tomorrow: Chris from Pinstripes Published.
Numbers make my head spin.
Great post, Matt.
This is nothing against Matt, but I was hoping nobody would write a post like this. You can’t introduce this and talk about it all in 500 words and expect people to take it seriously. There’s a whole lot of stuff going on behind these numbers that will create more questions than the post answers.
Matt,
great post… very well done. As dan said, this is just the tip of the iceberg with these #s but I found it interesting nonetheless.
Matt,
I’m assuming the #s are not park adjusted?
I’m not nit-picking (I thought the post was very good). I’m just curious.
Way to go, Matt. Now that is a little more interesting than some of the “I rememember `96″ stuff we keep seeing. Not to rip on that stuff, but everyone else remembers it, too. The potential improvements to the offense are indeed great. It’s important that the Yanks try to get at least league average in CF and at C(if Po can’t go), to scotchguard the steps they’ve taken to improve on last year’s suboptimal output.
““The Amazon sites review says “and a freak cloud of bugs on a warm September night in Cleveland forced him from a job he loved””
Oh, dear god…”
Lol. I’ll admit we would have won that series if Joba didn’t get irked by the midges. However he cannot blame that entirely.
Very interesting stuff, Matt. It’s the kind of thing you have to read several times to really wrap your head around what the numbers, formulas and projections all mean, but it’s well worth it.
And you also got your friend’s blog some free publicity, because now I’m curious what is so bad about Jim Leyland as to warrant devoting an entire blog domain to his ouster!
Then again, I guess everybody wants to fire someone in cyberspace. For two straight years, my friend and I referred to Tom Coughlin ONLY as “firecoughlin.com.” Man do we feel stupid now!
Al: I actually agree, that series loss quite frankly was more Wang’s fault than Torre’s and I almost always blame the players first…but Amazon’s use of sickly dramatic prose there was just more than I could stomach! I mean srsly, tell me it didn’t remind you of Costanza’s recounting of the Marine Biologist Affair…
Torre was phenomenally stupid to leave the team on the field when the bugs attacked. It was almost like he was trying to lose on some level.
BBB- That Costanza line is tragically accurate. Torre should have stopped the game because if Joba can see the K zone he was lights out the bugs got the best of him.
BBB: I think your harsh words have already begun to hit home:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9.....228111156/
Boston Dave,
I read through the other posts in the last thread. What was the point of you commenting about me asking ppl to read my post about 30 minutes after the fact? Do you just like to irritate people or what? I know we never agree on anything but that is no reason to make snide remarks. And the only reason i asked ppl to read it is because the thread was moving at a rapid rate and i thought some may have skipped it. I was just letting ppl know it was not the same stuff i always talk about but something new and relating to yesterdays post. I spent a good amount of time writing it as well and didnt want that time to go to waste. I can tell you didnt even read it when you said redundant – i have never discussed the topic i wrote about in that post and i prolly wont ever discuss it again.
Matt,
That must have taken a while – it was a little hard to follow all the math but i got the jist of it. Good job!
Nick-
What photography studio do you use? Really professional! I need it get some head shots done.
>>from previous thread:
jennifer, [this photobucket album](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v484/jenn7878/) was empty.
plus, there wasn’t a password dialog box.
apparently markdown doesn’t work
WHY MUST THE TEXT FORMATTING BE A MYSTERY TO US!?
Tex should be huge for us next year – i knew he was good but over 20 million dollars good is pretty freakin’ good. The value Im sure is his special ability to play far above average on both sides of the ball with his all star offense and gold glove defense. Not many players are the best in the league at their position at both offense and defense especially at first base where the offensive average value is so high. There is a lot that tex brings to the table and thus, why he was the biggest free agent in the sport this off season. Taking him away from boston made the signing all the better. Can’t wait to see him live and in pinstripes in 2009. Tex Should make for some very thrilling moments.
Buddy, my attempted witty reply didn’t show up
“The Yankees are still talking to free agent pitchers Andy Pettitte and Ben Sheets as they seek to add yet another veteran pitcher to their vastly improved rotation. The Yankees are believed to be offering less guaranteed money than the $10 million that was on the table for months for Pettitte but still may prefer to bring him back.”
Heyman is still talking about the yanks offering “less guaranteed money” to andy than 10 mil. As opposed to some other reports that still say the yanks are offering a deal of 10.5 million. I dont know how some reports have the offer going down while other writers have raised the offer by .5 mil. i CANT imagine the yanks would offer less as it seems more like a slap in the face than anything and I cant imagine andy as prideful as he is taking an offer lower than the original.
Im surprised there is still reports like this that just dont seem to make much sense on both sides of the table. AP deserves the 10.5 and they should just get the deal done already – we need andy back and he has nowhere else to go outside of retirement. I cant imagine a deal not getting done at this point after it being discussed the entire off season. After andy’s comments in october and the yanks retaining interest in keeping him, who thought he would still remain unsigned by late January? This seemingly simple transaction has turned into the longest and most agonizing soap opera of the off season.
Hey Matt,
Nice work. It’s good to see a post that delves in some more analysis (even if it is quantitative analysis), rather than “I remember when” stuff (those are fine posts too, but they became somewhat repetitive).
Quickly though, I thought I should point out that the Yankees will really pay Tex $25 million in 2009, since he has been awarded a signing bonus of $5 million. So, in this case, according to your analysis, they’ll actually be overpaying.
I’ve seen this sort of analysis before, but I don’t know where people come up with the value of the win. Why is it $5M per win? What information is used to get at this number?
By the way, there are only 8 managers in the long history of baseball that have more than half the World Series Championships that Joe Torre does.
Oops, that was a typo, only SEVEN managers have more than HALF the championships that Torre does.
Torre talks about Pavano, Steinbrenner’s health, how the Yankees do business and steroids.
http://bats.blogs.nytimes.com/.....n-between/
“I can tell you didnt even read it when you said redundant”
Despite your pleading for people to read your posts, you’re right, I stopped reading them long ago. I’m sure I’m not alone. As Pete told you already, cut down the post length and stop acting like your posts are more important than anyone elses.
“only SEVEN managers have more than HALF the championships that Torre does.”
an accomplishment for sure and Torre was a big part of those teams.
Robert Horry has more rings than Michael Jordan though. there’s more to the story than just counting an individual’s rings.
interesting article on predicting Joba Chamberlain’s 2009 innings:
http://www.rotoauthority.com/2.....erlai.html
Pete contributed to the article as well
(looks like a few likely Yankee haters think Joba will get hurt at some point)
Interesting stuff, Matt. Nice to see a baseball related topic after yesterday. Later today I’ll spend more time getting my head around the numbers.In the meantime, have you seen Bernie Williams’ misplaced kid anywhere?:)
Nice post, Matt! Very interesting. It’s great to know things could be even better than expected!
I have to admit, I was confused with all the numbers.
Interesting stuff Matt. Thanks!
So how much is a rain out worth?
Nice Analysis Matt. I hope you wear your Yankees hat proudly up in the Storrs CT area, which is so close to the MA. border and red sux country.
“To get the dollar amount, you multiply by five million dollars, the approximate value of a win.”
why is 5 million used for the value of a win?
i must be misunderstanding something because if a team won 81 games that would make the value of the wins 405 million . that obviously makes no sense, so could you explain the idea of 5 million equaling the financial value of a win.
“a replacement player is two runs worse than an average player”
A replacement level player is actually two Wins (or 20/21 runs) worse than an average player, not two Runs.
“i must be misunderstanding something because if a team won 81 games that would make the value of the wins 405 million . that obviously makes no sense, so could you explain the idea of 5 million equaling the financial value of a win.”
randy, it’s not really the value of a win, it’s the value of a MARGINAL win.
in other words, if you fielded a team of 25 guys all making the league minimum, your team would not win 0 games.
it would probably win about 50 games. which would make it one of the worst teams in history.
what this is trying to capture is the value of those ADDITIONAL 40 wins to get to roughly 90 wins, where there is a good chance to make the playoffs.
you forgot to carry the 1
this doesn’t mean anything to me. i mean these projections can only be used to a certain extent to help with personnel decision making. The most important thing is your gut. And the team winning the world series depends on them playing properly – getting bunts down, getting guys in from 3rd with less than 2 outs, pitching, defense, good baserunning, etc. We have enough talent to win the world series and if we play well enough we will. People will always be underpaid and overpaid and people will have great seasons and down seasons.
This post sucks, Matt.
Great job buddy.
Good post Matt. The stats get me confused but I enjoy reading them.
Great Post Matt, very informative, and gets right down to the stats (even though im to stupid to learn them)
Do you really need to start out all these guest blog posts by copying and pasting that same line over and over…. we get the point