Artists Depiction (From Afar) of the Golden City

If you've followed Ghostrunner on First this offseason, you're familiar my Rushmore; the contention that a full building doesn't come part and parcel with winning or competitive team, especially in Toronto. Stopping just short of saving Latin, I examined the relationship between winning percentage and attendance; specifically percentage of seats sold. Later I tried to screw down and add some detail, looking for trends or relationships. One complaint was the year-end numbers didn't offer enough context, that meaningless wins in at the end of the year padded the attendance numbers.

Never one to shy away from blowing off work, I took it upon myself to get into that nitty gritty detail. I looked at three different Jays seasons (2006, 2008, 2009) and how the attendance reflected the team's standing. I also looked at the 2009 Colorado Rockies as something of a control - their fanbase generally has better things to do than watch a shitty baseball team. Charts ahoy! Click to enlarge as always, we'll start with the 2009 Jays.


Just so we're clear: the blue line represents attendance for Jays home games, the red line is their number of games out of the division lead on that day. The purple trendline tracks overall attendance for the season. The 2009 season went into the toilet in June yet the attendance more or less held steady as the year went on, with a late push making the September sales swoon look a little better. Interesting, let's compare 2008 and 2006 and see how they shake out.




Striking. In both seasons we see the attendance trend distinctly upward as the team slipped further and further out of contention. Other than dates hosting the Sox and Yankees, the day of the week weighs much heavier on the potential attendance than the actual performance of the team.

Other attendance thoughts? While every peanut gallery columnist crowed about the low turnout against the Twins this past Labour Day weekend, one quick glance at the 2008 chart shows a very similar dip at the same point of the season. The opponent and dates? A midweek series against the Twins on the heels of Labour Day. Could it be people in Toronto &mdash just like people in Minnesota &mdash don't give a shit about the Twins? Or perhaps the first week of school isn't an ideal time for baseball? Perhaps a very large percentage of Jays fans buy their tickets well in advance with no guarantees of seeing a competitive club?

For shits and giggles, I took a team with a historically fairweather fanbase (from this chart) and tracked a recent successful season. The 2009 Rockies roared into the National League Wildcard via an excellent second half. Did the fans respond?



Predicable and reliable. The team contended, the fans attended. That's been their MO over the years. The Jays fanbase is a little steadier, more loyal. Smaller but loyal. The contention that 2010 stands to test the faith of the Jays fanbase has truth in it, but we've proved we'll come out through thick and thin. Predictions of skinniness aside, the feeling of hope heading into 2010 and beyond should excite both the hardcores and casuals alike.

All data courtesy of Baseball Reference.

The Eyes Have It

With the Winter Meetings under way* and Roy Halladay's time in a Blue Jays uniform drawing to a close, I thought I'd look into one point of quasi-contention before he leaves town. If you think back to the series of posts I did on Halladay's fastballs. Pitch F/X thinks he throws (at least) 3 different types, most of our eyes suggest otherwise. Does he throw a true four-seamer? Is Mark Teixeira's assertion accurate?

Before we get to the colorful charty goodness, a little background into how and why I did what I did. Firstly, I don't believe anything Pat Tabler says. Secondly, because my SQL skills do not exist, I simply dumped a bunch of starts together and looked at the fastballs (anything throw at or above 88 miles per hour. I am a child of the eighties after all.) I ignored pitch f/x's built in distinctions and simply took them as they came. First we'll look at a more "traditional" movement chart, which the smart kids are calling "spin deflection" these days. Sometimes this approach makes pitch differentiation easier, other times harder. Because I've discounted slower pitches (i.e. Roy's changeup) this might help us. Click to enlarge. Natch



That's pretty compelling evidence. Two nice and distinct groups. The cutters tend to the run the gamut in terms of movement. Remember, this represents that amount each pitch moves up and down & side to side. The cluster on the left represent two seam sinking fastballs, moving down and in to right-handed hitters. Halladay typically throws this pitch on the outside corner against righties, coming in the back door as the kids say. Against lefties it sneaks under their hands to catch the inside corner after the batter gives up on it. The cutters move away from righties, starting at their hands and breaking towards the inside corner. Perhaps the wide variety of cutters suggests, as Jonathon Hale of the Mockingbird suggests, that Halladay throws two different types of cutters.

Let's examine the speed versus spin direction results. Again, this is a great way to group similar pitches. The spin direction indicates the axis on which the ball spins.



Hmmm. Not quite as clear, but still distinct. The group to the right are two seamers, they spin much more and at a greater angle (of spin.) I'm a little bit surprised this doesn't clear things up a little bit more, but I think we can still safely say that Roy Halladay DOES indeed only throw two types of fastballs. I don't think there's quite enough ambiguity to argue much to the contrary (for more on Halladay's stuff check out this Fangraphs post from July).

* - make sure you stop by Drunk Jays Fans for all your Winter Meeting Needs, they have that shit on lock down. Hopefully at least one sportswriter will make a Kurt Vonnegut reference when in the city that pigment forgot.

Trouble in the Henhouse!

On the heels of my earlier mission to discover the perfect facepalm, I thought it a good time to examine the relationship between WAR and wins a little further. As far as a simple man such as myself can go, that is.

Is WAR really a better indicator of team success than Pythagorean record? It would seem so, on the surface. Neither measure is perfect, but they must come close to predicting/indicating the true talent of a team. Let's see. My wasted morning at work lies below (click to embiggen):


You see the R squared is 0.6818, or a reasonable connection between WAR wins and actual wins. The Jays and Rays are the real outliers here, badly missing their projected win totals. Notice the Yankees and Red Sox bang on the line.

Does it seem as though the bad teams (or at least, the worse teams) are further from the line to you? Does this speak to luck being the only, true differentiator between the wide swath of mediocre teams in baseball?

What about Pythag record? What is the relationship like here?


Well shit. As much as I wanted WAR to be the more accurate of the two; it just isn't so in 2009. Pythag has a much stronger C.O.D. and it, every so slightly, breaks my heart.

Does this mean I'm going to become of an Amish Luddite and swear off technology and its awful minions? Hardly. I still think WAR is a great tool for evaluating individual players but in the team setting it breaks down slightly. Despite our best attempts, it is a human game. Timing is everything, and that is okay.

As for our fateful Blue Jays, king kommenter SP (who also suggested the two divisions thing a while back) made a great and salient point in the comments of the previous post:

As for the luck thing. It still boggles the mind. How can they be so monumentally unlucky 4 straight years? This stuff is supposed to correct itself over time, right?

It's not like things haven't changed either. The bad luck has persisted through 2 very different coaching regimes, 3 hitting coaches, with good to great pitching, defense, and fielding in each of those years.

What do we do? The Rays had extreme bad luck this year, one season after outperforming their Pythag (by 4) but nailed their true talent wins (96.9 WAR and 97 total wins)? I don't have that answer, but I'm going to try and find out.

What kind of things did the Jays and Rays have in common this year? What was different between the 08 and 09 Rays? Stay tuned, as they say.

All WAR data courtesy of Fangraphs and Pythag stuff via Baseball Reference. Doing the Lord's work

Niche Marketing

Everyone is good at something. Brandon League is good at confounding Blue Jays fans. For fun, let's check out Brandon League's splits by team. Who is he best again? Who has his number in 2009?

Split	G	PA	H	HR	SO/BB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	GDP	HBP	BAbip
California Angels	2	11	4	0		.364	.364	.364	.727	1	0	.400
Atlanta Braves	1	5	2	0		.400	.400	.600	1.000	0	0	.500
Baltimore Orioles	3	21	7	0	5.00	.350	.381	.450	.831	1	0	.467
Boston Red Sox	6	26	4	1	10.00	.167	.231	.292	.522	0	1	.231
Chicago White Sox	2	7	0	0	0.00	.000	.429	.000	.429	2	0	.000
Cincinnati Reds	2	10	2	0	1.00	.286	.444	.429	.873	0	1	.333
Cleveland Indians	4	25	9	1	1.00	.450	.542	.700	1.242	2	2	.471
Detroit Tigers	2	8	3	0		.375	.375	.375	.750	0	0	.429
Florida Marlins	2	15	7	2	3.00	.538	.600	1.154	1.754	0	1	.625
Kansas City Royals	2	9	0	0		.000	.000	.000	.000	0	0	.000
Minnesota Twins	1	3	0	0		.000	.000	.000	.000	0	0	.000
New York Yankees	8	35	6	0	6.00	.188	.235	.250	.485	1	0	.300
Oakland Athletics	2	13	3	0	0.00	.273	.385	.455	.839	0	0	.273
Philadelphia Phillies	4	16	4	1		.250	.250	.563	.813	0	0	.333
Seattle Mariners	1	3	0	0		.000	.000	.000	.000	0	0	.000
Tampa Bay Rays	8	43	11	3	2.40	.297	.395	.595	.990	1	1	.364
Texas Rangers	4	15	2	0	2.50	.154	.267	.154	.421	1	0	.250
Washington Nationals	2	5	0	0		.000	.000	.000	.000	0	0	.000
Inter-League	11	51	15	3	6.50	.326	.380	.652	1.032	0	2	.400

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 9/4/2009.

Wow. Somehow, Brandon League completely owns the Yankees. He has his entire career. The number one offense in baseball in terms of runs, home runs, wOBA, walks, pretty much any number you could use to evaluate an offense. Yet Brandon League holds them to .464 OPS. Also note his K/BB ratio of TEN TO ONE in 7 appearances versus the Red Sox. Try to ignore the savage beatings he took at the hands of the National League. How in God's name does this happen??

Last night he sandwiched a lonely double & sac bunt with a two fly outs and two strike outs (with the patented Brandon League wild pitch thrown in for flavor). He struck out Johnny Damon and Mark Teixeira, a feat unto itself. It makes such a small amount of sense that a team traditionally chock full of power hitting lefties gets run over by League consistently while a more slap-dash team like the Rays completely owns him. Let's revive the speed * vertical break graph from a few weeks ago to see what he had last night.


So the blue dots are a combination of three separate outings; some good, some bad. Green was last night's outing against the Yankees, red is the legendary 3 inning ball gag and whips outing in the Bronx. What does this tell me? His stuff during the extra innings marathon was nuts. Insane. Last night he kept the Yankees at bay with pretty much is standard arsenal. None of this explains why League owns the Yanks or why he's so inconsistent though. What about spin?



That is a little messy. Generally, speed versus spin direction angle charts show much more distinct patterns (like this), grouping pitches nicely to ease identification. With Brandon League we get a typical clusterfuck that leaves me scratching my head. Apparently Brandon League can't do a couple things:

1. Maintain a consistent release point/arm angle to support a repeatable breaking ball or
2. He throws a second breaking pitch so badly it is nearly indistinguishable from his splitter.

I could be wrong, but I think it's the former. League's split fingered pitch is essentially to keeping hitters off his dangerous fastball, especially on days when it isn't doing what it's supposed to.

The real question is: will I ever "crack the case" on Brandon League? Will I one day discover the key to his future success, to dozens of saves and healthy paychecks? Probably not. But if you've been reading this site for long enough you know I'm having a great time trying to figure it out.

Thanks to Brooks for the pitch data, B-R for the splits, and Daylife for the photo

Sado-Masochism: To Go!

The lively commentary in the post below is really inspiring and something I'm proud of. Awesome to see people come together and exchange ideas without a single person's sexuality being questioned. I chalk that up to my over-the-top Ace & Garyness. Anyway, two shaky points before I leave this topic for a while.

Team Salary Considerations

It is very true that six of baseball's playoff spots are currently inhabited by teams within the top 8 payrolls. BUT! Via Cots, we see the 13th and 21st ranked teams hold down the other two, with the 19th and 25th ranked teams within 3 games in the American League Wild Card and teams 12, 14, and 30 within shouting distance in the NL. The Rays - Rangers series this past weekend? Playoffs. The Rockies - Giants weekend tilt? Playoffs.

Meanwhile, in the salary capped NBA (from Hoopshype), three of the 4 teams contesting the conference finals fall inside the top 5 payrolls in the league. 6 of the 8 teams to reach the conference semis sit inside the top 10 ten.

Because I Can't Help Myself

2008 American League Angels Rays Red Sox Yankees White Sox Twins Blue Jays &mdash .531 Cleveland	2007 American League Red Sox Indians Angels Yankees Tigers Mariners Blue Jays &mdash .512 Twins	2006 American League Yankees Twins Tigers A's White Sox Angels Blue Jays &mdash .537 Red Sox
2009 NBA Eastern Conference Cleveland Boston Orlando Atlanta Miami Chicago/Philadelphia Detroit Toronto &mdash .402	2008 NBA Eastern Conference Boston Detroit Orlando Cleveland Washington Toronto &mdash .500 Philadelphia Atlanta	2007 NBA Eastern Conference Detroit Cleveland Toronto &mdash .573 Miami Chicago New Jersey Washington Orlando

Of course the Blue Jays currently sit 10th with a .463 winning percentage. Also, this pointless exercise makes no mention of run/point differentials over the same time frame. Well shit, why don't we dive right on in???

Team	Run/Point Differential	Rank
2009 Toronto Blue Jays	+15	12th
2008 Toronto Blue Jays	+104	4th
2007 Toronto Blue Jays	+54	T-11th
2009 Toronto Raptors	-2.81	23rd
2008 Toronto Raptors	+2.9	12th
2007 Toronto Raptors	+1.0	10th

I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore!

Playoffs!!! Fire JP! Make BC the mayor! Layoffs!!!1!

You Knew This Was Coming

Ahhhhhhhh Zaun. It had to be Zaun? This might be the problem with one trick ponies like Brandon League. A wily vet who happened to catch him over four seasons isn't going to be fooled. If you bisect the plate with a fastball he knows is coming, you're in trouble.



The blue dots are League fastballs, the red his splitter. The Xs are Zobrist's single and Pena's double. Fuck breakfast.

So what happened? How could he be so bad so soon after being so good? Location and getting ahead is one. Recall his Yankee outing, how everything was down in the zone? Sunday, not so much. Throwing strikes? That always helps. Against the Yankees, League started batters off like this:

1. Fastball called strike.
   
2. Fastball grounded to center for hit.
   
3. Fastball flown to centerfield.
   
4. Splitter high and wide, ball. ( runner is subsequently picked off by Raul Chavez's "works once in a liftime" snap throw)
   
5. Splitter flown to right field.
   
6. Fastball called strike.
   
7. Fastball called strike.
   
8. Splitter low and inside, ball.
   
9. Fastball grounded to second for out.
   
10. Fastball inside, ball.

So he threw the fastball for strikes or for converted outs while throwing the splitter outside the zone. Seemed to work. Against the Rays League went fastball fouled off, splitter swung and missed, fastball off the plate away, intentional walk (playing with fire!), splitter low and away, fastball low, and finally a fuck you fastball to BJ Upton's back. In the only two at bats that really hurt him (Pena and Zaun) he got behind 2-1 and couldn't recover. He did have Zaun 3-2, but served him up an old man gopher ball. So is that it? Perhaps not.


This image shows the speed of League's pitches graphed against their vertical movement. The blue dots are Sunday's Rays outing, red is the dominant outing against the Yankees. First thing you'll notice: the gas. League fired with reckless abandon against the Yanks, averaging 96.4 mph on his fastball. During Sunday's catastrofuck League checked in around 94.4 mph. According to Fangraphs, 95.3 is his average fastball this season, a number I'll trust as I believe Fangraphs uses the same data I steal. Also, League's fastball averaged 95.25 on Saturday night in Tampa and 95.45 in New York in July, so it isn't necessarily a difference between two parks/guns. So for Brandon League; speed is something but not everything.

One problem that League may experience from time to time is the flattening of his fastball. Again from Fangraphs, we see League's average amount of "rise" this season is 3.4 inches. Sunday he checked in at a much flatter and bangable 4.5 inches. Against the Yankees? Closer to 1.75 inches of "rise" or much more sink. More sink on his fastball is a good thing, as it already sinks more than the law allows. Less sink is just a high speed batting practice delivery, especially when you're his old catcher and you're looking fastball in.

I can't even pretend to explain why his splitter seems straighter, flatter, yet faster and more effective in that now quasi-famous outing against the Yankees, it was just one of those days when everything works. My hopes were sky high for Brandon League to emerge as a revelation during this dreary second half, and despite my excuse-making he seems to ALWAYS end up giving up the biggest of big hits. Relief pitchers who dominate meaningless appearances but struggle when it counts have a very limited shelf-life, and I wonder how long the love affair with Potential will last. He's obviously a gifted athlete and a pitcher with unique skills, but in that situation you simply can't make a poor pitch, one Gregg Zaun (!) can bang out of the park, and expect to keep your job forever.

I feel dirty insinuating such awful things about Brandon League, but I don't know how many more chances the team will give him. If Arnsberg's voodoo doesn't work on him and the Zen of Citocity doesn't work on him, what's left to try?

Assorted Nerditry

I've got something cooking for later (today, hopefully) on Scott Downs, but for now I'll point out a few awesome things I found in the internets today. Firstly, my hatred of football knows no bounds. Because I'm an irrational lunatic, I've never been quite able to articulate how and why football turns me off. Luckily, Craig Calcaterra of Shysterball is learned yet of a similar mind. I'll let him explain:

...there's a basic humanity about baseball that is almost nonexistent in modern football's, robotic, gladiatorial culture, and I just can't look past it and enjoy the game.

The context is, Craig himself says, silly but that doesn't change the sentiment. I'm insanely jealous I couldn't put it that way first.

Sky Kalkman of Beyond the Boxscore does what any good nerd herdman does: finds a new angle or perspective on an established norm. Sky gets the "who's the MVP?" discussion started early but with an awesome twist: using not just Wins above replacement but his own version of WAR, with win probability added subbing for base runs above average. A nice twist especially in an MVP context.

First interesting thing is the non-pitching WAR leader: Franklin Gutierrez. Alarming, no? The formula includes defense and clutchness as stated above, two things F-Gutz does really well. Something else I find interesting: Alex Rios and F-Gut are almost the same guy. The only real difference is 16 points of wOBA (.343 v. .327.) and Rios having a down year in the field as a right fielder rather than center. Strange, but on the whole they're very similar. Anyway, it is an interesting (though not bulletproof) way of calculating the MVP. I've used Sky's formula to calculate the WAR* for your Toronto Blue Jays. Clutch dreams!

Blue Jay	WPA Runs	Fielding	Replacement	Positional	WAR*	Clutch (1)
Marco Scutaro	12	6	16	5	3.9	-3
Aaron Hill	17	3	16	1	3.7	4
Scott Rolen (2)	16	3	12	1	3.3	5
Adam Lind	19	-1	15	-9	2.3	-3
Alex Rios	9	0	15	-4	2.0	10
Rod Barajas	0	N/A	10	7	1.6	8
Lyle Overbay	4	3	11	-7	1.1	-4
Jose Bautista	-4	0	7	-2	0.1	-5
Kevin Millar	-5	-1	7	-5	-0.5	0
Vernon Wells	-18	-20	15	1	-2.1	-10

(1)Clutch is the difference between the batting runs above average and WPA runs. It isn't included in the calculation, it's simply included for reference.

(2)Sigh.

Click here to see the standard WAR rankings for your 2009 Toronto Blue Jays.

Interesting and vomit-inducing stuff. Because UZR isn't yet able to quantify catcher defence, Rod Barajas gets a N/A. I'm hardly the man to judge but many people have positive things to say about his receiving skills. If you add handful of runs for defense and suddenly Rod isn't quite as disposable as I thought. He, as well as Alex Rios, benefit by their ability to hit in the clutch with 100% boosts to their WAR.

The sweet irony of Marco Scutaro being thought of as the team MVP in 2008 once again comes full circle by him being the non-Halladay MVP in 2009. His excellent defense and reliability (listed here as replacement, a reward for playing every day thus keeping a "replacement" level player on the bench) make up for his relative lack of clutch hitting.

Which brings us to Vernon Wells. Poor, poor Vernon. So unclutch in 2009 it doubles his negative value, to 2 wins BELOW replacement. That doesn't make it okay to boo him though. I think. Kevin Millar kills the Jays too, though it is on a much less frequent basis. Jose Bautista does exactly what he's supposed to do: fill in. He can't really play but he'll do it whenever you'd like. Other Jays not listed don't count because the fuck difference does Raul Chavez make? Well Snider matters, now that he's on his way back. He's worth a little less than Millar (-0.6), penalized for struggling under pressure. Unlike Millar, he's 21 fucking years old with the world his oyster. I'll cut him some slack.

A Nerdy Must Read

If you fashion yourself any kind of baseball nerd, I can't recommend this Beyond the Boxscore post on playoff probability added. It's like this: using third-order wins (luck and context neutral stats plus strength of schedule combine to establish a team's "true talent" record)and historical data (number of third order wins offers you a X% chance of making the playoffs) to get a percentage, based on WAR, that any given player gives his team to make the playoffs. Whew.

It's basically a way to sniff out the "he's the MVP because his team made the playoffs" argument. The Jays were a 92 win true talent team, meaning they had a 60% chance of making the playoffs. Roy Halladay, king of all creation, was a 7.6 win player in 2008. Remove Roy Halladay, you're left with a 84.4 win team with a 19% chance of making the playoffs. Badda boom, badda bing, Roy Halladay contributed 41% to the Blue Jays playoff chances, best in the American League. MVP Dustin Pedrioa only accounted for 16.42% of Boston's playoff team, the EXACT SAME amount as Jays shortstop Marco Scutaro. Scary stuff. I can't recommend a click through enough, but the author was kind enough to attach his/her giant spreadsheet with all the figures. I'll breakdown the Jays right here (PPA - Playoff Probability Added):

Offensive Player WAR P.P.A. Alex Rios 5.5 32.17% Scott Rolen 2.9 17.63% Marco Scutaro 2.7 16.42% Lyle Overbay 1.8 10.91% Joe Inglett 1.7 10.30% Vernon Wells 1.2 7.23% Rod Barajas/Gregg Zaun 1.2 7.23% Aaron Hill 0.5 2.97% Travis Snider/David Eckstein 0.3 1.78% Jose Bautista 0.0 0.00% Adam Lind -0.1 -0.59% Shannon Stewart/Kevin Mench -0.2 -1.17% John MacDonald -0.4 -2.32% Matt Stairs -0.5 -2.90% Brad Wilkerson -0.9 -5.45%

Pitcher WAR P.P.A. Roy Halladay 7.6 44.4% AJ Burnett 5.7 33.16% Jesse Listch 2.8 17.03% Dustin McGowan 2.4 14.60% Shaun Marcum 2.1 12.76% Scott Downs 1.4 8.45% B.J. Ryan 1.0 6.00% Scott Richmond 0.8 4.79% David Purcey 0.8 4.79% Shawn Camp 0.7 4.18% Jesse Carlson/Brian Tallet 0.7 4.18% John Parrish/Brian Wolfe 0.3 1.78% Brandon League 0.2 1.18% Jason Frasor 0.1 0.59% Armando Benitez -0.2 -1.17%

So yeah, Roy Halladay's good. Also, replacing Mencherson, Stewart & Stairs LLP with a full season of replacement level Adam Lind would increase the Jays chances of making the playoffs by nearly 10%. TEN PERCENT. Scary stuff. Please go forth and click the link to better understand the implications of this excellent research. Better yet, think of how high the Jays true talent will be for 2009! Boners.

Many thanks to the beyond incredible Eyes On Springfield Tumblr for the image

Stripmining the Positivity Vein

Of the myriad positive and amazing things that happened last night, I will naturally key on the least important. Scott Rolen's power, Vernon Wells hitting a home run in a win, and Scott Richmond's command are crucial, but the biggest takeaway for me was the return of Brandon League! League faced three guys, getting two ground outs and an ever-important strikeout. Better yet he threw 70% of his pitches for strikes -- Boners! Sure, it was literally a leverage-free situation (not literally the way people literally say literally all the time, I mean literally. 0.00 pLI); but he needed to get some swagger back if he's to keep his job.

Swagger is all well and good, but there was something more to Brandon League's solidly meaningless outing: release point. I mentioned a few days ago he didn't look comfortable and posited a possible mechanical problem. Turns out I'm a genius. With some help from the good people at Brooks Baseball, I checked out his recent release points. Here we go (click to englarge):



The blue dots are from good Brandon, commanding pitches and inducing groundballs. The lighter blue is yesterday's mop up outing, the other from an early season appearance that hardly lit the world on fire but wasn't awful. The red squares are two outings in Cleveland that went piss-poorly. Good Brandon throws under control and a bit more over the top. Bad Brandon slings and elevates and looks like he misses his mommy.

Hopefully Brandon League remembers that he's awesome and potentially unhittable. Like Roy Halladay and Francisco Liriano can be on any given night. Awesome matchup tonight in which the compubot loves the Jays. Exciting times. Exciting like the Shrimp! My liveblog turned into a shrimpfest last night, I couldn't have been happier. Thanks to everyone that came by and commented.

O Cito My Cito

Look, this isn't even about pinch hitting. To me, it's about mixed messages. Of course Cito is a master motivator, as Wilner points out. I'm not here to question his in-game decision making, not just yet anyway. For me, it starts and ends with the lineup.

Cito is, and always has been a "roles guy." I touched on this at the end of last year, admitting that while I'm not 100% comfortable with his "go get'em tiger!" attitude, the results can be difficult to argue.

Ahhh, results. Presumably they're what keeps the batting order set in stone. Scoots is off to a good start, leave him in there to ride it out. Adam Lind and Cito are totes BFF, why let his mind wander in the field. Travis Snider is a rookie that must be brought along slowly, so on the bench he'll sit against lefties. I get it. But why not shake up the order, just to see what happens? Maybe let Wells DH for a day, maybe slot the hot bat of Lind between Wells and Rios?

This isn't new for Cito, who's WAMCO days are the stuff of legend. Thanks to Baseball Reference, I learned how frighteningly accurate the legend is. I looked a few successful teams: Cito's WS Champion teams, the 116 win Mariners under old school Lou, the 2002 Yankees that avoided injury and won 103 games with the petrified Joe Torre growing into the bench. For the sake of bludgeoning home my point, I looked at Cito's 1995/1996 Blue Jays teams that lost far more often than they won. How often did they use the same lineup? How many times did they use a given lineup? The results are quite something.

Team	Total Batting Orders	Most Frequent Lineup Uses	2nd Most Frequent Lineup Uses	3rd Most Frequent Lineup Uses
1992 Blue Jays (96-66)	58	16	15	15
1993 Blue Jays (95-67)	71	20	13	12
2001 Mariners (116-46)	115	5	4	4
2002 Yankees (103-58)	108	9	6	6
1995 Blue Jays (56-88)	82	20	9	7

To throw fuel on a fire of my own creation; the only difference between Cito's A lineup in 1992 and his B lineup is Manny Lee in place of Alfredo Griffin. 31 games with a nearly identical lineup! Cito is obviously a man you can set your watch by. This little chart proves little, other than you can win with the same lineup and you can win with a variety of lineups. Though trotting the same 9 guys in the same order 20 times when you're losing 2 out of 3 games seems counterintuitive.

But why slavishly adhere to "sending the right message" when they're coming out so mixed? If I'm Adam Lind (or his agent, more accurately), I'm officially concerned with my client's long-term earning potential. A 25 year old DH that wouldn't be classed as a "bad body" is incapable of playing the field? In today's holistic baseball society, that won't fly. Not wanting to mess with a hitter's hot streak only applies when the hitter isn't a pet project? Are we really to believe these professional athletes, who have been playing baseball their entire lives, can't cope with the uncertainly of their position in the batting order? So much so that it effects their performance on the field? I should hope not.

Tinfoil Hat Update: After digging around a bit more on BR, I've come up with a conspiracy theory worthy of the Patrick Ewing Draft Lottery. Cito's best season as a player came in 1970, when he hit 29 home runs with an OPS+ of 144. That season Cito hit from the number 3 spot 133 times! He never again approached that level of power nor that consistency in the lineup. He blames never matching his career season on a constantly moving lineup! Conspiracy! Playoffs!! Mental Health Issues!

Let the Right One In

Seems like every vein of the vast Blue Jays deposits have been stripmined by writers and bloggers alike. First we had Brett Cecil Day and recently we all lined up for the Million Mills March. Johnny Mac, Matt Clement, Aaron Hill, Scott Rolen, and of course Vernon Wells have spit quotes and positivity for the coming year.

Somewhat frighteningly, aside from the occasional slip of chauvinism, we haven't heard much about Alex Rios. How can that be? Is there another player who's output controls the entire team's fortunes more directly? Which Alex Rios will we get?

For each of the past three season, Alex Rios has been two different players. Strong first half is interrupted by full blown itis leading to a weak second half. Strong first half gives way to home run derbyitis and a weak second half. Middling first half before an infusion of Citocity leading to a strong finish to the season. What gives?

Alex Rios is nothing if not frustrating, and we've all watched him throw at bats away. Last year Professor Hale uncovered some troubling posture issues that may have interfered with his power stroke. I've decided to go full nerd and examine his contact rate and out of zone swing numbers. Exciting stuff, I know.

Thanks to Fangraphs, I can look at Rios's monthly plate discipline splits. I decided to compare his monthly contract rate, starting with April 2006 with his monthly OPS splits over the same time frame. His OPS remains pretty steady over his career, with some huge months and a few real dogs mixed in. Mind my terrible Excel skills, but here we go:


The pink dot represents his career marks, with the one outlier being July 2006, a month in which he made only 14 plate appearances. What does this mean? Shockingly enough, the more Alex puts the bat on the ball, the better he does! How's your mind? Mine is pretty fucking blown right now. The R squared number indicates the relationship between contact rate and OPS in this instance. 61% of OPS is contact rate? Not likely. These sample sizes are pretty small and I have no fucking clue what I'm doing.

My next thought was "what will make his contract rate go up, since that is obviously the desired outcome?" Walp, let's so how Alex stacks up. Is swinging at out of the zone junk bad for his health?


This relationship is much weaker, but definitely shows a connection between swing at crap and putting the ball into play. July 2006 is off the reservation once again, were I credible in any way I'd have discounted it long ago. The Pink Dot again represents his career numbers; not to mention a tremendous scene in my favorite movie of all time.

So what can we expect from not-so-young Alex in 2009? Hopefully a disciplined yet aggressive approach. Both he and Vernon are free swingers, but need to ensure they're swinging at strikes to maximize their talents. I'm new to this "graphing and trying to figure shit out" business, so if any smart people have any feedback or if you'd like to see the raw numbers I stole, please help me out in the comments.

First Pitches and Last Whacks

Ahhh, the Superbowl. I split my prop bets this year, though I only bet on one thing: the half time set list! After my McCartney sweep of a few years ago, I was riding Born to Run hard as the show closer last night. I knew Glory Days would be there while others I know doubted. Either way, football season is over which means baseball is even closer! Right??

In my never ending search for remotely interesting baseball content and excuses to curse at Excel, I took notice of The Hardball Times doing some predicitably good work last week by using Pitch F/x to track first pitch fastballs and which batters see them the most. Josh Kalk of THT tracked what percentage of first pitch fastballs each hitter saw and whether or not the pitches were strikes. He also tracked overall swings, swings at balls and swings at strikes. The player's first pitch fastball average and slugging percentage are included, too. The Jays info provided a few surprises and perhaps some insight into their fortunes in the future.

Who sees the most heat on the Jays? Slappy middle infielders, of course! The no-bat gloveman at the center of our heart wastes the least amount of time, swinging at 63% of first pitch fastballs, including 43% of which were out of the zone. Hopefully Cito and crew can gear Johnny Mac down a little bit. Equally stout-hearted but marginally less shitty Joe Inglett took a lot of people by surprise in 2008, something he won't be able to do in 2009. Inglett saw and attacked the large number (73%) of FpFb (First pitch Fastballs) he saw in 08, to modestly Joe Inglett-levels of success. AL pitchers will likely adjust, can Doctor Joe? Marco Scutaro is a fine mayonnaise sandwich, sure to offend no one. He sees a lot of fastballs because he's not going to do shit with them. Shocking, I know.

One big surprise to me was the amount of fastballs used to start off Scott Rolen (73.25%). My assumption is word got around that Rolen's shoulder prevented him from catching up to hard stuff, but he jumped all over these pitches to record a .610 slugging percentage on FpFb. He remained patient (professional even!) only swinging at approx 52% of the first pitch strikes and only 12% of the first pitch balls. Not for nothing, but Scott Rolen the Blue Jay is still in the "President Barack Obama" stage for me. As in: holy shit, Scott Rolen is a Blue Jay! That is fucking awesome, I'm excited all over again!

How's your mind? Ready to be blown? Here you go: Vernon Wells is an aggressive hitter. Pitchers started him off with the fourth fewest fastballs, the second fewest for strikes. Do you think that keeps him from swinging away? Fuck and no. Vernon's got shit to do. Wiis need playing, checks need cashing. Wells flailed away at 43% of these FpFb, even a slightly absurd 23% of first pitch balls. Reckless? Not even a little bit, as Vernon Wells hit .430 and slugged .850 on all first pitch fastballs. Amazing. Vernon Wells doesn't give a fuck, and is probably twice as talented as we credit him.

One hilariously predictable trend that ever so slightly fractured my heart was JP's long lost crushes staring at meaty pitches like high school students at an exposed thong. Who swung at the fewest amount of first pitch fastballs? Kevin Mench and Brad Wilkerson. Who swung at the fewest first pitch fastballs outside the zone? Mencherson, with Jose Bautista right on their shitheels. This may seem like sound strategy, but these chumps were so awful, I'm willing to advocate doing the opposite of whatever Mencherson does. Incidentally, could Gary Denbo have been scapegoated for delivering the philosophy straight from JP's mouth? He obviously covets these kinds of players, in spite of their inherent crappiness. Are they the worst two (or three) Blue Jays in recent years? Balls.

As for the rest; Rios does well with an early fastball while Adam Lind prefers to chill the fuck out and wait. Lyle Overbay sees the fewest FpFb, which is a shame because he swings at 75% of the strikes, smashing them to the tune of .390/.550. As for Rod Barajas, too bad. I don't care what he does, because it matters so little. Hopefully Cito and his team of bat doctors encourage these obviously aggressive hitters going bombs away right from the jump this season. Making Vernon Wells and Alex Rios work the count isn't in their nature, nor is it in their best interests.

Grecian/Spanish Friction Hits All-Time High

My first thought when I heard Nick Markakis signed a very familiar 6 year, $60+ million dollar contract extension was "Alex Rios is officially overpaid." Markakis is often in my thoughts, while Alex Rios has become our reality. Not that I'm complaining, but initially they don't compare quite so well. Markakis is like Rios with a lot more patience and very similar power output. The Greek Rocco notched 43 home runs over the past two years to Winfield Lite's 39. He actually bested Alex's superlative 47 doubles in 2008 with 48 of his own.

But then I remembered that I'm supposed to be some kind of holistic baseball try-hard, it couldn't be so cut and dry. So I let some much smarter people than I do all the work, and I realized that despite their nearly identical numbers in 2007, Alex Rios was worth a full win more than Markakis. And despite having creating nearly 20 runs of offense above average fewer than Nick the Greek, Alexis was worth but a half win less overall. How can that be? The Oriole in question had Rios by nearly 40 points of wOBA, a stat that accounts for Rios sudden surge in base larceny??

Oh right, Alex Rios is one of the best outfielders in baseball. How could I forget? UZR, RZR, +/-, they all love Rios. Markakis is no slouch, but using Fangraph's evaluation system, Alex Rios makes up 13 runs because of his defense. He also picks up some bonus points for being able to play both CF and RF well. That doesn't even account for his outstanding arm. Sadly Markakis's gun, just like his ball fetching and forefather's cuisine, is very average.

So what was it? Why did I convince myself that Roccopolous was better than Alex Rios? Could I overlooked his much more offense-minded lineup and position in the order, allowing myself to be swayed by "traditional" numbers like RBI? I'd have to shut this whole blog down and start commenting at Torontosun.com, wouldn't I?

Thankfully, no. The value of Markakis getting on base an extra 50 times should not be diminished. The other point in Nick's favor is his age, especially relative to Rios. Alex Rios has what we like to call "Ryan Howarditis"; he's way older than you realize. Nick Markakis is headed into his 3rd full season at the age of 25, while the Jays right fielder will have reached the tender age of 28 before Opening Day. It should also be noted that Markakis has shown steady growth over each of his big league seasons, while Rios has ridden a roller coaster of staph infections, questioned effort and bastard children.

Realistically, both the Jays and O's are getting exactly what they must if they hope to compete in the AL East: excellent value for their money. Paying Markakis $10 million per year through his 30 year old season or Rios through 31 is sound business, considering their true worth starts somewhere in the neighbourhood of $16 million per year. A figure (plus inflation, naturellement) the Mets, Yankees, Red Sox or Dodgers will gladly pay them come 2013.

Straws Within Our Grasp

The good people at The Hardball Times recently took to changing the way we look at Batting Average on Balls into Play. A neat little stat we can use to determine who may have been lucky, who may have been unlucky, and who may be terrible. When predicting BABIP, one adds .120 to the batter's line drive rate. Where the .120 comes from I honestly have no idea. But these fine gentlefolk decided to dig a little deeper into BABIP, adding many more factors to create a more telling predication of a batter's success.

A quick look at a player like Vernon Wells, you can see how much BABIP hints at potential success. His BABIP goes up, he has a good year. It goes down, he's not so hot. But why? What does this number tell us? Using factors such as speed, patience and contact rates, park effect, GB/FD, line drive rate, spray and many others (read the full explanation here), they created xBABIP, or expected BABIP to determine when a player's been getting lucky and when he's been getting hosed. Their research uncovered quite a few guys that had huge or unexpected 2008's (Ryan Doumit, Milton Bradley, Shin-soo Choo and Giovanny Soto) as players that outperformed their xBABIP as well as potential bargains for 2009 (Nick Swisher, Jason Giambi, Willy Aybar) that didn't get the bounces. Here are the numbers for the Jays core over the last few years. Actual BABIP is simply their non-homerun hits divided by balls in play (PA-K-BB-HR).

Year	Scumbag in Question	BABIP (actual)	xBABIP	Point Diff	Percentage Diff
2008	Vernon Wells	.291	.280	-11	3.64%
2007	Vernon Wells	.260	.292	32	-12.14%
2006	Vernon Wells	.305	.309	4	-1.25%
2008	Lyle Overbay	.311	.310	-1	0.19%
2007	Lyle Overbay	.270	.321	51	-18.86%
2006	Lyle Overbay	.340	.319	-21	6.20%
2008	Alex Rios	.329	.314	-16	4.71%
2007	Alex Rios	.316	.320	5	-1.50%
2006	Alex Rios	.333	.320	-14	4.06%
2008	Scott Rolen	.283	.289	6	-2.12%
2007	Scott Rolen	.282	.290	7	-2.54%
2006	Scott Rolen	.295	.298	3	-0.92%
2008	Adam Lind	.313	.302	-11	3.44%
2007	Adam Lind	.265	.303	38	-14.29%

I believe these numbers tell us quite a few things about the Jays of the past as well as moving forward. Vernon Wells was, in addition to being injured in 2007, really unlucky. His shoulder was so bad it cut his Home Run per fly ball rate to nearly half is career number in 2007, not to mention he wasn't getting any love from the baseball gods. Vernon put up good numbers in 2008, numbers he should have no problem replicating in 2009 if healthy. One possible cause for concern could be the steady decline of his xBABIP for the past three seasons.

Lyle Overbay went from being really lucky in 2006 to freakishly unlucky (and injured) in 2007 to just about right in 2008. Overbay consistently puts the fat part of the bat on the ball, with high xBABIP year in and year out and a nice 20% line drive rate to go with it. Can we conclude that 2008 Lyle is about what we should expect in 2009? Without a marked improvement against left handed pitching, yes.

Alex Rios is a strange case. A little lucky in 2006 and 2008, unlucky in 2007 when he notched career highs in home runs and walk/k rate. Hmmmm Alex, put the bat on your shoulder?

Professional Hitter Scott Rolen steams along, grinds out at bats and hits line drives. One thing to watch is his HR/FB%, which finished a little over 7% for the year. His terrible month of July was the real outlier here, as he managed 0 home runs in 94 PAs. The rest of the year he sat near 12% HR/FB, a number that would suit me nicely for 2009.

Adam Lind is a little worrisome for 2009. He was so unlucky in 2007 with a correction coming in 2008. He really went into the tank in September, but his BABIP stayed high (.329) He's still young so I still have hope that he, unlike Overbay, will improve and show the kind of hitter he was in AAA.

A few other notes on important Jays. Aaron Hill is a player that exceeded his xBABIP in successive seasons but also improved his number from 2007 to 2006. Potential Jay scrap heap find Michael Barrett should take heart in getting terribly unlucky during his last full season .266 actual versus .292 expected. If you were wondering about Rod Barajas or Marco Scutaro; you shouldn't. Neither of them are important nor are they any good. Fine, Marco Scutaro got a little unlucky in 2008 while Rod Barajas's numbers don't count for much because he hits naught but home runs and gets on base less than Johnny Mac. Travis Snider didn't have enough at bats to quality, but surely his xBABIP for 2009 will be in the neighbourhood of .400. BECAUSE HE'S TED WILLIAMS RE-INCARNATE!

Go Ahead, Throw Your Outs Away

I'm not a bitter man (this is completely untrue, I'm more bitter than a pint of Guinness cut with Iodine), but the more I convince myself that bad luck and/or general cosmic misalignment caused the Jays to underperform their various expected records, the more I've begun resent the teams I deem lucky. Teams buoyed by soft schedules, lucky bounces, and general disregard for common decency.

I've made my feelings towards the Twins well known; I will beat that horse no more. The Angels are different. The Angels have some interesting pieces and excellent pitching. All season long they played "Angels baseball." An exciting brand that puts a great deal of pressure on the defense by forcing the issue with daring and guile. A great mode of attack when you are playing a bad team or one that doesn't prevent you (through bad pitching or poor defense) from scoring runs. The other side of Angels Baseball, as was on display during the series with the Red Sox, is the tremendous pressure they place on themselves.

Baseball is simple - you have 27 outs to play with, try and score as much as you can before they're all gone. When the team you are playing is excellent, you are playing fast and loose with your valuable outs. The Red Sox are definitely an excellent team. Their defense was good WITH Manny, adding the average Jason Bay only improved it. Once you start giving away outs trying to stretch singles into doubles, trying to go first to third when you are down 2 runs, you are making their job easier.

This style works well against terrible defensive teams like Seattle and Texas, the kind of teams the Angels made their hay against all season. Those were also bad pitching teams that will give you ample opportunity to recover the outs you lost by walking people and surrendering hits to all sections of your lineup. Once again, the Sox don't allow the Angels this luxury. Without the opposition handing out base runners and chances, the pressure is now on the Angels. You only have so many opportunities to drive in the key runs or you're fucked, especially when you don't hit many home runs coughBlueJayscough.

Fast forward to the 9th inning of Game 4, and the Angels find themselves with the go-ahead run on second base with nobody out and the game tied. Their number 8 and 9 hitters are due up, two decent fellows that Play The Game The Right Way but are either mired in horrible slumps or not just not capable of delivering a base hit. Bunt one precious out away to move the runner to third; now a run stands but 90 feet away. One failed suicide squeeze later and you've got the number 9 hitter up with 2 outs and 2 strikes against. One more quick exit from the playoffs and everyone is talking about a lack of delivery in the clutch. This despite a philosophy that either took the bat out of countless hands or demanded a very specific and difficult task with no margin for error.

I seem to be advocating some kind of Right Way structured baseball principals (how very un-FD of me), which isn't the case. You have to play to your strengths and recognize where your opportunities are most likely to come from. I don't think home runs are the only answer. The Blue Jays, Rays, and Dodgers are good teams that don't bash the opposition into submission. There is more than one way to manufacture runs; and there are many ways to skin a cat. Sadly, the Angels are yet to learn you can't always convince the cat to do it for you.