Bleacher Report - Articles by Patrick Nolan

Carlos Quentin Should Win the MVP Award and Why Cliff Lee Is Even Better

Patrick Nolan — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:22:43 -0400

Let's assume the season ends today, after Sept. the 3. The Chicago White Sox, the Tampa Bay Rays, the Boston Red Sox, and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are your playoff teams. Naturally, because we like to look for a good leadership story, we choose our MVP from one of these teams, unless a player from a different team is having an absolutely otherworldly season. In the American League this year, this is certainly not the case. So we limit the discussion to these four teams.

If we are only looking at hitters, the best hitters from each team are Quentin, Dustin Pedroia (Youkilis has been a better hitter, but the fact that Pedroia plays second base and Youkilis plays first base matters a ton), Evan Longoria, and Vladimir Guerrero (we are assuming Teixeira cannot win the award). Longoria's injury is largely preventing him from getting it, but without it, he was as eligible for it as any of these candidates. Vlad is out of the question. He simply has not had a good enough season.

So who do you give it to? The .314/.369/.458 second baseman or the .287/.394/.571 left fielder?

By just looking at the slash stats, it's obviously Quentin. However, Pedroia has a lead over Quentin in VORP, 55.6 to 50.3. VORP is defined by Baseball Prospectus as "the number of runs contributed beyond what a replacement-level player at the same position would contribute if given the same percentage of team plate-appearances." Basically, since offense is much harder to come by at second base than left field, Pedroia gets the nod in this category. It's also significant that Pedroia is a plus defender at second base, while Quentin is a minus in left field.

The reason that ultimately the award should go to Quentin is his heroics in late-game situations. Quentin is among the lead leaders in game-winning RBI and is hitting .351/.448/.757 in situations that qualify as "close and late," according to ESPN. Pedroia has also been good in these situations, with .375/.420/.538 to back him up. However, the decent difference in OBP and the tremendous difference in slugging suggests that Quentin has been able to take close games and turn the tide in his team's favor significantly more effectively than Pedroia. It's a close race, for sure, but Quentin has been the hero that has brought his team through stretches when not many people around him have been hitting. The nod should go to Carlos Quentin.

But let's say we change the question.

What if we were to hold a draft of all AL players before the 2008 season, and these players were guaranteed to perform exactly as they have this season (including injuries). Who is your No. 1 overall draft pick in such a draft? Is it the same as the Most Valuable Player? Sadly, the MVP award is typically restricted to hitters and people on playoff teams. Grady Sizemore has been the best offensive player overall in the American League this year, at a VORP of 61.3.

However, there have been two pitchers in the American league that top that figure. VORP for pitchers is defined as the number of runs that a pitcher prevents over what a replacement-level pitcher would prevent given the same amount of innings pitched. In the American League, Roy Halladay has a 63.2 VORP, but Cliff Lee absolutely takes the cake, at 70.3 runs prevented above a replacement-level player.

Comparing Lee and Carlos Quentin with respect to replacement-level, Lee has prevented 70.3 runs, Quentin has created 50.3 runs. Translating this to Baseball Prospectus's Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP), Cliff Lee has accumulated a 9.8 WARP compared to Quentin's 7.4.

10 points in VORP is approximately one WARP point. The rest of the difference between the two is made up for in fielding. Quentin is a slightly subpar defensive left fielder (VORP accounts only for the position one plays, not how well he plays it), and that reconciles the rest of the difference between the two in WARP. Quentin has certainly turned the tide of plenty of some games for the Chicago White Sox, but in 2008, no hitter can compare to the complete and utter dominance that Cliff Lee has exerted over the league.

To conclude, Quentin is your MVP because statistically, he is at least one of the three best hitters in the American League, plays for a contending team in a tight pennant race (which he is assumed to have won), and has swung the tide of multiple close games. But in the end, what prevents him from really being the BEST player in the American League is the fact that left fielders who hit well are a dime a dozen (only DH and 1B have higher offensive expectations), and that he doesn't field his position particularly well.

Cliff Lee, however, has been worth 9.8 wins more than what your classic swingman/middle reliever would have been worth in a starting role, while Carlos Quentin has only been worth 7.4 wins more than your classic back-up left fielder. For this reason, Cliff Lee has been the best player in the American League this season. He stands no chance to win the MVP award, and I can respect that. But if you were to start from scratch and have just one player to build your team around for the 2008 season, Cliff Lee's your man.

Barry Bonds's Opponents aren't Racially Motivated

Patrick Nolan — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:14:24 -0400

Let me just start by saying that this is an "opinion" column. By no means do I imply that what I say here is an absolute fact.

Barry Bonds is a jerk.

Barry Bonds lied under oath, challenged federal prosecutors to take him down, and has been an absolute poison in the Giants' clubhouse during every baseball season of recent memory.

You're telling me that a guy like this is only disliked by society because he's black? Does anyone think that a white guy with these characteristics would just be ignored or something?

That's a joke!

I'm aware that racism is a problem in this country. Despite being equal under the law, blacks are often treated unfairly in the United States.

But, Barry Bonds has been treated exactly the way he deserves according to his actions. Home-run records aside, the difference between Bonds and another certain steroid user, Mark McGwire, is that Bonds faces his opposition with challenges and stubborn arguments, while the latter simply remains quiet.

Now, think beyond McGwire to the man who is taking the brunt of the federal heat right now, Roger Clemens.

Is Roger Clemens black? No. Is he being treated with as much, if not more, scrutiny than Barry Bonds? Absolutely.

This mess is not a race issue—it is an issue of a man dishonestly gaining an edge in professional baseball while shunning the media and teammates. Personally, I never thought of this as a race issue until the complaints started to appear on television, with alarming and idiotic frequency.

To give closing thoughts on the matter, there is absolutely no evidence of Barry Bonds being treated unjustifiably different, both in the U.S. Judicial System and in the eyes of the general baseball population.

Whoever decided to make a race issue out of a clearly guilty black man getting what he deserves is simply ignorant.

Why White Sox Fans Should be Careful About Drinking the Gavin Floyd Kool-Aid

Patrick Nolan — Sat, 10 May 2008 08:38:42 -0400

The 2008 White Sox have seen several pleasant surprises this season, but no player fits that description better than fifth starter, Gavin Floyd.

The 25-year old right-handed hurler has posted a 2.50 ERA and a startling 0.96 WHIP on the young season. It was said by many in March that Gavin Floyd was the key to the success of the 2008 White Sox, and so far, he has been everything these hopeful fans could have asked for and much more.

So why not trust him?

In baseball, there are statistics such as ERA and WHIP that evaluate how well a pitcher has fared on the mound. What we are interested in here are not statistics that represent past performance, but others that are better indicators of how a pitcher will fare in the future.

In this article, we'll look at strikeouts per nine innings (K/9), strikeouts-to-walk ratio (K/BB), ground ball-to-fly ball ratio (G/F), and perhaps most important to the understanding of why the rest of these are important, batting average on balls in play (BABIP). We'll start there.

There is conclusive evidence that generally, pitchers do not have much control over whether balls hit into play turn into hits or outs. Therefore, BABIP (calculated by (H-HR)/(AB-K-HR+SF)) is a statistic that is influenced primarily by how lucky a pitcher has been, and how well his defense has played behind him, rather than the pitcher's own ability.

A good estimate of a league-average BABIP is about .290. Gavin Floyd's current BABIP? It's .144. That is an insanely low number for this statistic. In fact, it's the lowest total of any starter in baseball by a full 40 points (in front of Erik Bedard's .184). This suggests that Floyd has been incredibly lucky with regard to where baseballs land off of opposing hitters' bats. There's pretty much no way that something like this can be sustained over a full season.

So, you may ask, what can a pitcher do to be effective if he is so helpless to have any control over balls hit into play? There's four things, actually. Pitchers can strike out a lot of hitters, not allow many walks, not allow many home runs, or induce lots of ground balls (which are far less harmful than fly balls, as 11 percent of those are homers).

First, we examine strikeouts per nine innings. Currently, Gavin Floyd is at 4.31, which is very sub-par. That's even lower than what's typical of Mark Buehrle and Jon Garland, who are two low-strikeout guys that thrive on their ability to induce grounders (more on that later).

Here are the guys who finished close to that mark last year: Chad Durbin, Matt Morris, Braden Looper, Ramon Ortiz, Jon Garland, Brian Bannister, Odalis Perez, and the late Joe Kennedy. You'll notice a stunning lack of ace-like pitchers in this crew, and a few of them (Durbin, Ortiz) are flat out bad.

Next, we look at strikeout-to-walk-ratio. Right now, Floyd's is almost dead even, at 19/18 = 1.06. That is very dangerous territory for a pitcher to be in.

Check out this list of "aces" that finished around that mark last year (actually, only four pitchers threw at least 100 innings and did worse in this category). We're talking about Matt Chico, Brandon McCarthy, Lenny DiNardo, Livan Hernandez, Mike Maroth, Noah Lowry, the late Joe Kennedy, and the league-worst, Steve Traschel. What adjectives come to mind when you see these names? The most polite one I can think of is "innings-eater", and that's only if you stare at Livan Hernandez's name way longer than those of the other guys. More accurately, they are "rotation fodder" or "bad pitchers."

Finally, we take a look at groundball-to-flyball ratio (G/F). Gavin Floyd's 2008 G/F is 0.71. That's really, really, really low. Only six guys that threw at least 100 innings last season did worse. Just like the last two statistics, I'll show you the four guys that finished just above that mark and the four guys that finished just below that mark last season.

They are, in order from best-to-worst, Jeff Weaver, Ted Lilly, Matt Chico, Zack Greinke, Oliver Perez, Buddy Carlyle, Jason Bergmann, and Chuck James. You'll notice the only three good pitchers in this group (Lilly, Greinke, Perez) make up for their fly ball tendencies with a high K/9, a high K/BB, or both.

So as you can see, unless we are witnessing perhaps the only pitcher in history with a sustainable skill of consistently inducing weakly-hit fly balls as a primary means to get outs, Gavin Floyd's due for some regression to the mean, and worse luck than he's been having.

I am not saying that he will never be a good pitcher, but it's going to take some serious improvement in his abilities to miss bats and keep the ball on the ground if he's going to be successful in the big leagues. The fact that a pitcher with his skillset has come as close to a no-hitter as Floyd has TWICE is nothing short of unbelievable, as it takes far more luck than usual for a guy like Floyd to do it than it would for say, Javier Vazquez.

By all means, as a Sox fan, I hope that Floyd beats the odds and that I'm wrong. But I'm expecting a serious downturn from Floyd in the not-too-distant future. If struggling Sox hitters like Nick Swisher snap back to their old selves, that will certainly lessen the blow, and perhaps the White Sox will still be able compete despite the nearly inevitable struggles that Gavin "The Magician" Floyd has in his future.

Weakness of White Sox Bench Is Showing

Patrick Nolan — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:12:03 -0400

White Sox Nation cringed a little the second Nick Swisher drew a walk in the 9th inning to load the bases with one out, down by one against Toronto's closer B.J. Ryan.

This is of course, not a knock against Swisher, whose talent for walking is one of the major reasons Kenny Williams traded for him. Rather, it was the cringing of knowing the on-deck hitter was manager's pet and easily replaceable commodity, Pablo Ozuna.

Of course, with a guy of his speed, few would have predicted the game-ending double play that resulted. However, with the game on the line, why didn't the White Sox pinch hit for a hitter who has amassed all of a 0.5 VORP total over the last three seasons (505 plate appearances)?

The reason was simple: There was no one better available.

Joe Crede was out with a migraine. Toby Hall (who, admittedly, would have been an even worse option despite the fact that B.J. Ryan is left-handed) had already been replaced. Brian Anderson was pinch running and standing on third base. Alexei Ramirez was busy not being allowed into Canada.

This has been the most recent of several situations in which the White Sox have had to send a replacement-level hitter to the plate in a game-deciding situation. This is due in large part to the fact that the Sox insist on keeping 7 arms in the bullpen, rather than 5 hitters on the bench. I say that having 7 arms in the bullpen is a luxury, not a necessity, and that it's a luxury only teams with an adequate bench can have.

As of today, Brian Anderson is the best White Sox hitter off of the bench. Gone are the days of reliable pinch-hitter Ross Gload and solid 4th outfielder Rob Mackowiak. In recent memory, the White Sox have always had solid, if unspectacular bats off the bench, and it's something that White Sox Nation probably took for granted a little.

You almost have to wonder if the White Sox would be better served having a power bat like Brad Eldred on the 25-man roster. Eldred probably strikes out too much to cut it in the big leagues even as a bench player right now, but the thought of Pablo Ozuna having more at-bats like that with the game on the line makes Big Brad an intriguing thought.

However, the most likely aids for the ailing Sox bench are in the forms of Jerry Owens and Danny Richar returning from injury. Unfortunately, only one of these men can be considered a solution. Despite the "success" of Jerry Owens last year as a leadoff man and base stealer, the fact of the matter is, a player with his skill set simply isn't very valuable. Think of him as the outfield version of Pablo Ozuna. When you watch Jerry Owens play, you don't see anything wrong with him. However, he has such an utter lack of power that pitchers simply pound the strike zone against him to the point where his above-average batting eye is only good enough to make him a replacement-level hitter (-1.1 VORP in 2007). When's the last time you've seen a White Sox regular have a .312 slugging percentage? That's far below even Scott Podsednik territory! So it's what Owens doesn't do, rather than what he does do, that hurts the Sox.

And so, the White Sox can only pray that Danny Richar is on his way back in the not-too-distant future, or perhaps that some help from the free talent pool is available. The impact of bench players can easily be overstated, but there's no question that having a good bench as opposed to a bad one can be the difference between winning and losing a few games over the course of the season.

In any case, something needs to be done about this problem, because the crew of Anderson, Ramirez, Ozuna, and Hall is the worst backup corps the White Sox have seen riding the pines in this lifetime. I miss you Ross Gload. I really do.

Chicago White Sox: Pitchers Should Take Blame

Patrick Nolan — Sun, 04 May 2008 09:55:33 -0400

Anyone from Chicago who caught any given couple of innings of the series between the Chicago White Sox and the Toronto Blue Jays knows one thing for sure: Hawk Harrelson absolves the White Sox pitching staff of all blame for the losses.

There are certainly grounds for believing that the pitchers can't be held accountable for all that went wrong on the defensive side of things for the White Sox. In Friday's opener, with no one on base and two outs in the first inning, Joe Crede committed a throwing error, allowing Scott Rolen to reach base safely and the inning to continue. The Blue Jays then proceeded to score two runs, which were the difference in the 2-0 contest.

On Saturday, with the bases loaded and two outs, Octavio Dotel induced what should have been an inning-ending fielder's choice to Joe Crede. Crede, hailed by the White-Sox faithful for being a "clutch" player, botched the ball by trying to make his next move before having it in the glove. Rod Barajas scored on the play, and the bases were still loaded when Vernon Wells followed with a two-run single.

Sunday's game featured a wrong call by the umpiring crew. With runners on second and third, and nobody out, David Eckstein grounded to Orlando Cabrera, who tagged Alex Rios's leg before throwing out Eckstein. Due to the angle the second-base umpire had on the play, he thought Rios and Cabrera merely collided and that no tag was made. Replays confirmed that Cabrera tagged Rios's leg.

This was a failure on the part of the umpiring crew as a whole, for not colluding to get the call right. After a Scott Rolen lineout should have ended the inning, the Blue Jays scored three runs with two outs.

So why blame the pitchers? After all, each of these innings would have been over had the previously mentioned mistakes not happened. One interesting statistical finding is that pitchers who give up a lot of earned runs, tend to give up a lot of unearned runs as well. While defenses and umpires can open wounds, pitchers certainly can rub salt in them.

Suppose an error is made by the shortstop with two outs, allowing the inning to continue. Now the pitcher walks three-straight batters, then gives up a grand slam, then a double, then another home run.

Is it really intelligent to absolve a pitcher of his continuing responsibility to get outs, even if the inning should have ended already? At what point should these "unearned runs" start to affect our evaluations of the pitcher's performance?

Let's take a look at each of these three games, using Baseball Prospectus's Run Expectancy Matrix.

Run expectancy is a simple concept. It's the average amount of runs that baseball teams score in the rest of an inning, given a certain situation (e.g. One out, men on second and third). For example, in 2007, the run expectancy for having the bases loaded with nobody out was 2.35 runs, while it was 0.11 for having the bases empty with two out.

We will use the 2007 data here as a close approximation of our analysis here (there's little variation from year-to-year).

In Friday's game, Crede made the throwing error on the Rolen grounder with two outs in the first inning. Had he made the play, the expected amount of runs for the Blue Jays in the first inning would have been zero. It's not possible to score when the inning is over. Instead, his error led to a situation in which there was a runner on first and two outs. This situation has a run expectancy of 0.11.

However, Buehrle made the error hurt much more than 0.11 runs, as a ground-rule double by Vernon Wells and a single by somehow-DH Shannon Stewart, yielded two runs. We can blame Crede for the 0.11 runs, but Crede was not the one who gave up the hits that put the Sox behind.

Saturday, Crede's error was far more hurtful. When Crede botched the bouncer with the bases loaded and two outs, a run scored on the play, and Dotel was left with the same situation after the play, bases loaded and two outs. Had Crede not made the error, the inning would be over for the Jays. Zero expected runs.

However, they scored one directly on the play, and still had the bases juiced with two down, which had a 0.79 run expectancy. Crede's error costed the Sox 1+ 0.79 = 1.79 runs. Vernon Wells singled on the following play, and the Blue Jays scored three instead. Dotel should be held accountable for the other 1.21 runs.

On Sunday, the situation was a little different. The umpiring crew's blown call was not the difference between ending and prolonging an inning. Had the umpires colluded and gotten it right on the Rios tag, the situation would have been a runner on third, two out (0.39 expected runs). Instead, it was runners on second and third, one out (1.44 expected runs).

It is logical, therefore, to blame the umpires for 1.44 - 0.39 = 1.05 runs. What actually happened was that Matt Stairs hit a double and Vernon Wells hit a single, leading to three Toronto runs. Contreras can be held accountable for 3 - 1.05 = 1.95 runs.

Unlike the other two situations, this was the difference in the game. It was the events following the blown call, not the blown call itself, that cost the White Sox the victory.

What should you take away from all of this? The most important thing I'm pointing out is the fallacy of the "unearned run". Why should a pitcher get a free pass for all the runs in an inning just because one of his teammates made an error? In the same way that the defense is responsible for helping pitchers when they make mistakes, so too are the pitchers responsible to the defense.

So when Hawk Harrelson says at the end of Sunday's game, "It should have been a 3-1 Sox victory if it weren't for the missed call by the umpiring crew," don't listen to him. He's attributing too much damage to one cause.