Sunday Morning Astros, etc Round Up

by HighLeveragePerformer on Aug 16, 2009 6:00 AM CDT in Link Dumps Comment 7 comments

Congratulations go out to Kazuo Matsui for collecting his 2,000th career hit. The Astros may not be all that good, but damn it, we have guys that break records. Puma, Pudge and El Caballo hit their 300th home run in the same season, and now Kaz joins Miggy as members of the 2000th hit club. Only 567 of Kaz' have been in the big leagues...but still! Let's take a bright spot whenever we can get them.

RJ did a run-down on his blog of Ed Wade's history as GM of the 'Stros. The bottom line, according to him:

Wade took over an organization that was in shambles. He appears to have done the right things to rebuild the farm system while keeping the big league team competitive.

He'll face a long list of tough decisions in the off-season ahead. Are the Astros going to stay the course and patch here and there and try to remain competitive? Or are they finally going to tear it down and start over?

Drayton McLane has been against a full-blown reconstruction, but he ought to at least take a look. The problem is that his three highest-paid players (Berkman, Oswalt and Lee) all have no-trade clauses, so while Wade maybe didn't make all great deals, he inherited a mess.

Sounds like Mr. Justice has been reading TCB....Anyways, Drayton should consider all options this offseason, and should a situation present itself where the Astros can improve themselves for the future Ed Wade should be given the green light to make a move. If McLane wants to cut the payroll to the mid $90s (milllion), then Roy Oswalt will most likely have to be traded, because Wandy Rodriguez and Hunter Pence will be due raises this offseason. Miguel Tejada may well be back as a third baseman, but at a reduced ($5-6 million, perhaps?) price. It should be interesting, regardless.

Chris Sampson is going to do everything he can to make it back to the majors. He plans on working with Doug Brocail and RR pitching coach, Burt Hooten to do so. He has given up runs in six of his past nine appearances after giving up runs in only seven appearances before this recent bad stretch. Rule of thumb: if a reliever has 47.2 innings of work at the All Star Break, he's been overused. This can be a result of bad starting pitching and/or a manager failing to utilize his bullpen correctly. While the Astros haven't been the 1990s Braves in terms of their rotation, they pitched acceptably in the first half. Coop, I think this one is on you.

Stat-Heads of the world unite, tRA is on FanGraphs. It's a nice stat to use in order to supplement FIP, as the article indicates. Just another tool at your disposal to evaluate pitchers. Here is an ERA, FIP, tRA comparison for Bud Norris:

ERA	FIP	tRA
3.00	3.81	4.23

His sample size is small (21 IP) but he is above average in all the categories. In the case of tRA, league average is in the high 4s, so Bud is off to a nice start. Essentially, tRA shows us how hard a pitcher is being hit, in terms of line drives/hard hit balls. He hasn't made it that difficult for his defense to help him out, which is nice to see.

Before anyone gets crazy with FIP, tRA, and the like, read this primer on what fluctuations within and difference between ERA estimators and ERA itself actually mean from The Hardball Times.

On the farm, Jordan Lyles continues to draw rave reviews, and Chris Johnson gets an honorable mention from the Baseball America staff:

The transition to Triple-A hasn't gone too smoothy for Astros 3B Chris Johnson, but you wouldn't notice that based on his numbers this week. Johnson hit .409 this past week and slugged 1.091 with four homers. On the year, he's batting .264/.304/.438 for Round Rock.

Taking a walk now and again would help his cause dramatically, but as it stands now, he shouldn't be on the Astros' radar as a solution at 3B in 2010.

However, if the Johnson is unable to develop the eye for a walk, Miguel Tejada revealed to Brian McTaggart that he would gladly slot over to the 3B if it allowed him to stay with the Astros. There is no word on whether he'd settle for a lot less money.

Finally, BtB has great piece on the fallacy of making year-to-year comparisons with several defensive metrics—UZR being the headliner.

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the "problem" of comparing yearly UZR/150 data for a player....

is not really a “problem,” as mgl points out in the comments on the BtB article. It all depends on what you are trying to measure. If the purpose is to measure a player versus average performance at the position each year, that is in fact what you are getting in the UZR result. As mgl has pointed out in other blogs, UZR does not measure talent level or absolute defensive ability.

It is true that a player could be just as good defensively as he was last year, but still show a decline or increase in UZR/150, because the overall level of play increased or decreased. However, that’s result is appropriate, so long as the purpose for using the measurement is to compare players to the average each year.

I have seen previous discussion (either on The Book blog or fangraphs, I can’t recall) that the “average” defensive performance has increased at several positions in recent years, probably because of teams’ renewed emphasis on defensive qualities. This can have the effect that a player continues fielding at the same level but continues to show a year to year decline in UZR. In essence, this means the player’s defensive value declined (value is a relative term) even if his absolute defense has not. I think we should keep that in mind when we draw conclusions that a player has gotten better or worse based on UZR.

I’m not certain about this, but I think you can avoid this issue if you view year to year Revised Zoner Rating (RZR) numbers at Hardball Times. The issue arises when you attempt to convert the absolute defensive ratings to a runs value abover or below average.

by clack on Aug 16, 2009 9:11 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

I think you're correct on RZR

Bourn which shows Bourn having a marginally better 2009 than 2008.

Tejada back to his more recent career performance.

And Lance just being marginally worse at 1B. compared to 2008.

The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.

by DyingQuail on Aug 16, 2009 9:34 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

when using RZR, keep in mind that HT separates out of zone plays from RZR....

so you should consider both OOZ and RZR when evaluating defense based on Hardball Times’ metrics. Bourn’s RZR for 2009 is not only better than 2008, but his OOZ plays are on pace to be among the best ever, as I mentioned in my previous article about Bourn’s defense. Tejada’s RZR is down, compared to last year, but it appears that he will make more OOZ plays than last year. Lance is below last year’s pace on both RZR and OOZ.

by clack on Aug 16, 2009 11:43 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Isn't it amazing how many pitchers

look forward to working with Burt Hooten, and are glad they did afterward, upcoming guys and seasoned veterans alike. My meopry is nonexistnet on this but I wonder how the Astrtos pitching staff arms held up when Hooten was the Astros pitching coach.

Based on Hooten’s credibilty with pitchers and his results, I think the Astros should . . . . Nevermind – the idea makes too much sense to be implemented.

Astros fan for life

by Joe in Birmingham on Aug 16, 2009 11:20 AM CDT reply actions 1 recs

This could be the comment of the year

I think the Astros should . . . . Nevermind – the idea makes too much sense to be implemented.

by DyingQuail on Aug 16, 2009 11:45 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Hooten was the guy that Oswalt give a lot of credit for his success. And, when you combine that with the number of young pitchers who come up to the big club and give Hooten credit, you’ve got to wonder why he hasn’t been given another turn as pitching coach for the Astros. At one time, the Astros also had Mike Maddux as pitching coach in their minor league system, and the Astros let him get away to become the Brewers pitching coach. And he became viewed as one of the best pitching coaches in the game. When Nolan Ryan took over in Ranger-land, one of the first things he did was to steal Maddux from the Brewers….and we know the Rangers have shown pitching improvement.

by clack on Aug 16, 2009 11:49 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Ed Wade and Astros future

I agree with Richard Justice’s overall assessment of Ed Wade. He took a franchise in shambles (I still get angry thinking of Tim Purpura – anybody out there think Purpura deserves another chance to be a GM – or director of minor league operations? – maybe with the Mets- or better yet with the Cardinals or Cubs)

I was not pleased with the choice of Ed Wade originally. In fact I strongly disapproved of him – and who knows what would have happened if Ihad my way.

But his relationship with Drayton McLane has been constructive. Similarly his hiring Bobby Heck and his relationship with Heck is exemplary. Heck, Bobby Heck is the most important person in the Astros management. The Astros’ future rests on his shoulders -and I for one like it that way.

As far as next year or two , there will not be a full blown reconstruction project. Ed Wade and Drayton McLane will continue piecing together the best team they can – free agents and Rule 5 draft players (they are good at that Rule 5 thing) and not engage in big trades losing top upcoming talent. They will not enter into a Carlos Lee type contract that handcuffs a team beyond the players longevity and abilities- and probably not a Kaz Matsui type free agent contract again. (They may with a special pitcher under the age of 30 but I doubt it)

Sometime in 2010 , or 2011 at the latest, they will incorporate the first wave of Wade- drafted players;and hope a Bagwell/ Biggio leadership emerges.

and that’s the truth (unless I need to rethink it)

Astros fan for life

by Joe in Birmingham on Aug 16, 2009 11:48 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

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