Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Juan Pierre: King of Contact%

96 players stole at least 10 bases last year. That means that in a twelve-team league, it would be possible for each team to have 8 hitters steal over 10 bases. That sounds like a lot of players.

But how many of those steals are "clean;" how many of those stolen base threats have a decent chance of scoring runs and hitting for average? Nobody wants 10+ steals if they are attached to a part-time player who struggles to hit over .260 (yes, I'm talking about you, Bonifacio).

Well, here are the players who had a contact%* of over 83% in 2009:
*Total percentage of contact when swinging at all pitches.
93.2% Juan Pierre (1.00)**
93.0% Dustin Pedroia (1.64)
90.4% Robinson Cano (.48)
89.9% Denard Span (.79)
89.6% Todd Helton (1.22)
89.6% Martin Prado (.61)
89.0% Erick Aybar (.56)
88.7% Ichiro Suzuki (.45)
88.7% Shane Victorino (.85)
88.5% James Loney (1.03)
88.4% Jacoby Ellsbury (.66)
88.0% A.J. Pierzynski (.46)
87.8% Brett Gardner (.65)
87.3% Elvis Andrus (.52)
87.0% Yadier Molina (1.28)
86.9% Ryan Theriot (.55)
86.2% Julio Borbon (.54)
85.2% Asdrubal Cabrera (.49)
85.0% Nyger Morgan (.54)
84.2% Chris Coghlan (.69)
83.9% Alcides Escobar (.22)
**Eye (also known as Batting Eye), which is defined as walks divided by strikeouts, is in parenthesis. This metric is considered by some to be a good measure of a player's strike zone judgment. The very best MLB hitters have batting eye ratios over 1.00. Eye ratios of less than 0.50 are indicative of a free-swinging approach to hitting and poor strike-zone judgment. Players with eye ratios of .70 or better have a greater probability of maintaining a high batting average than players with eye ratios of .50 or less.

Here are some players that didn't break 83% contact% in 2009:
82.7% Andrew McCutchen
81.9% Everth Cabrera (.52)
80.6% Michael Young
80.2% Rajai Davis
79.4% Franklin Gutierrez
79.4% Howie Kendrick
79.3% Dexter Fowler
78.9% Michael Bourn
77.5% Matt Wieters
77.4% Carlos Gonzalez
76.0% Drew Stubbs

(I know that not all the players listed will steal 10+ bases, but I included them for one reason or another.)

All of this makes me feel pretty good about the hitters on the top list. That is, until I saw that Nate McLouth had a contact% of 84.1% in 2009 and batted .256 on the season.

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Sunday, February 21, 2010

2010 Y! Default Ranks: The Highs and Lows (Relative to MDC)


Yahoo's default rankings are pretty excited about a few players:
Ranked higher on Y! (ADP on Mock Draft Central / Y! default rank):
  • Denard Span (MDC 127 / Y! 63)
  • Julio Borbon (MDC 185/ Y! 113)
  • Andrew McCutchen (MDC 90 / Y! 60)
  • Michael Young (MDC 96 / Y! 64)
  • Asdrubal Cabrera (MDC 151 / Y! 106)
  • Chris Coghlan (MDC 225 / Y! 102)
  • Adrian Beltre (MDC 196 / Y! 159)
  • Wandy Rodriquez (MDC 115 / Y! 75)
  • Scott Baker (MDC 154 / Y! 98)
  • Stephen Strasburg (MDC 264 / Y! 200)
On the flip slide, there are a few players that Yahoo's default rankings seem to dislike and/or forget.

Ranked higher on MDC (ADP on Mock Draft Central / Y! default rank):
  • Carlos Gonzalez (MDC 121 / Y! 128)
  • Gordon Beckham (MDC 94 / Y! 136)
  • Chris Davis (MDC 160 / Y! 301)
  • Evereth Cabrera (MDC 228 / Y! 270)
  • Juan Pierre (MDC 213 / Y! 280)
  • Martin Prado (MDC 235 / Y! 294)
  • Alcides Escobar (MDC 244 / Y! 335)
  • Jake Fox (MDC 344 / Y! 1042)
  • Trevor Hoffman (MDC 164 / Y! 255)
  • Kerry Wood (MDC 222 / Y! 338)
  • Matt Capps (MDC 212 / Y! 393)
  • Brandon Morrow (MDC 363 / Y! 484)
  • Brad Lidge (MDC 217 / Y! 487)
  • Jon Lester (MDC 59 / Y! 78)
  • Scott Kazmir (MDC 174 / Y! 222)
  • David Price (MDC 171 / Y! 237)
  • Max Scherzer (MDC 145 / Y! 263)
  • Clay Buchholz (MDC 192 / Y! 290)
  • Joba Chamberlain (MDC 197 / Y! 316)
  • Francisco Liriano (MDC 220 / Y! 979)
  • Chien-Ming Wang (MDC 420 / Y! 1049)
Feel free to post any other outliers that I missed in the comment section.

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Thursday, February 18, 2010

MLB: 2010 Projected Lead-Off Hitters

Runs have, apparently, the highest correlation with fantasy baseball hitting success. So, if you believe that players who bat early in the line up get more at bats, and if you believe that more at bats leads to increased run production, then you might be interested to know who is going to be the leadoff hitter for each major league baseball team. I do not have this information, but what I do have is a list of 2010 lead-off hitter guesses / projections (I sometimes added Mock Draft Central ADP, the draft position in a recent Y! mock draft, and ESPN's projected Runs, Steals, and Batting Average):

Cubs: Ryan Theriot (81r, 21sb, .285avg)
Reds: Drew Stubbs (69r)
Hou: Michael Bourn (79r)
Brewers: Rickie Weeks (86r)
Pirates: Andrew McCutchen (100r)
STL: Skip Schumaker (78r)
ATL: Nate McLouth (95r)
Florida: Chris Coghlan (19th MDC, 10th Y!; 96r, 16sb, .292)
NYM: Jose Reyes (93r)
PHI: Jimmy Rollins (101r)
Nats: Nyjer Morgan (78r)
ARZ: Stephen Drew (10th MDC, 15th Y!; 87r, 8sb, .289)
COL: Carlos Gonzalez (81r, 11sb, .283)
LAD: Rafael Furcal (92r)
SDP: Everth Cabrera (20th MDC; 72r, 33sb, .263avg)
SFG: Aaron Rowand (64r)
BAL: Brian Roberts (101r)
BOS: Jacoby Ellsbury (92r)
NYY: Derek Jeter (103r)
Rays: Jason Bartlett (72r)
TOR: Jose Bautista (45r)
White Sox: Juan Pierre (62r)
Cleve: Grady Sizemore (97r)
DET: Austin Jackson (52r)
KC: Scott Podsednik (44r)
MN: Denard Span (12th MDC, 7th Y!; 92r, 21sb, .304avg)
LAA: Erick Aybar (72r)
OAK: Rajai Davis (62r)
SEA: Ichiro (91r)
TEX: Borbon (17th MDC, 11th Y!; 80, 38, .281)

The list of lead-off hitters available after the first ten rounds of mock drafts who are projected to bat over .280, steal 10+ bases, and score more than 80 runs is small:
  • Carlos Gonzalez (11th MDC, 10th Y!; 81r, 11sb, .283)
  • Chris Coghlan (19th MDC, 10th Y!; 96r, 16sb, .292)
  • Julio Borbon (17th MDC, 11th Y!; 80, 38, .281)
  • Ryan Theriot (22nd MDC, 19th Y!; 81r, 21sb, .285avg)
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