AL Not Embracing Any Smallball

Another simple graph today. I thought it might be interesting to look at how the prevalence of sacrifice hits have changed over the years. Conventional wisdom seems to state that there has been a great embrace of small ball . . . well, that does not seem to correlate to the incidence of sacrifice hits.



It would be interesting see what conditions these were hit under. I poked my nose through the rather basic classifications provided at Baseball Reference and found no real difference of bunting occurring during better scenarios (i.e. man on 2nd, no outs).

Comparison of the Last Three Drafts

One of the problems with drafts is that it is always difficult to recognize how one year might different from the next. How does Bryce Harper compare to Stephen Strasburg? How does this year shape up with 2008? These are important questions to ask and devising some sort of answer helps us determine value by relating it to other experiences. Today's graphic does exactly that.

Stotle and I put our heads together and compared our notes over the past three years to determine our top 30 ranking for the past three drafts. The values placed on each player are the values they held on draft day or, in the case of the 2010 class, value they currently hold. This crosses out all of the 20/20 hindsight as he have all of our notes from these past three years. Also included in the table are valuations of each year's top 5 worth.

After the jump, the table, and some commentary.


From the table, you can see that the 2008 draft class had a number of elite talents (roughly the top ten of this rankings table). Not were considered in the class of Strasburg or Harper, but there was great value. It was the kind of draft that very much benefited teams outside of the first couple picks as a team would still be getting great talent, but at a slightly lower cost.

This was not the case last year where if you were outside of the first pick and were worried about Matzek's public stance on going to Oregon, you might cut your potential losses and draft a second tier talent. 2009 was a very top heavy draft. Strasburg's perceived value exceeds anything available in either the 2008 or 2010 drafts. The closer comparison is the 2010 draft, which appears to be 2009's weaker sister. Bryce Harper is a less valuable Stephen Strasburg. Jameson Taillon is a less valuable Tyler Matzek. 2010 though is clearly behind 2009 in talent in the first round. The 2009 season had a strong crop of second tier talent. This year not so much.

Be sure to click on the image below to make it larger.



The next draft posting will put this year's draft prospects' value against the accumulated value of those selected in the 2008 and 2009 draft.

2010 Season Wins Update: Week 6

And here is our weekly record update. As you can see, all three projection systems were slightly depressed from the last week. Not as badly as the Astros though who have narrowed the Orioles projected first pick lead to six games.




After the jump, the somewhat unneeded playoff odds.

PECOTA odds: 0.003%
Camden Depot odds: 0.014%

Beneath the Surface: Frederick Keys Update

I think the big story here in Frederick is LJ Hoes. After being drafted in the third round of the 2008 draft, Hoes made quite a statement in the GCL with a slash of 308/416/390. As an 18yo, the lack of power was forgiven with the contact rate and walk rate taken notice. Hoes was also being introduced to second base. Keith Law mentioned Hoes as a favorite to break into his top 100 prospect list in 2009. We saw him as the 10th best prospect in the organization.

In 2009, Hoes was challenged with much adversity. The Orioles, impressed with what they saw in short season ball and spring training, decided to challenge Hoes in the South Atlantic League. At 19, he was one of the youngest players in the league. Performance-wise, it was rather horrific. The year before he earned 30 walks over 191 plate appearances. In Delmarva, he managed 23 walks in 465 plate appearances. He also showed less power. His final slash was 260/299/318. His defense was poor, but was a definite improvement from the season before. During the summer, he also had to deal with losses in his family. It was a very difficult season for him. The loss of plate discipline concerned me enough to drop him from 10th to 17th in our organizational rankings. The developmental staff was impressed though and thought he deserved to be promoted to HiA Frederick for the 2010 season.

In 2010, Hoes has basically made many of us look like we made a hasty judgment. No one had given up on him, but perhaps we too quickly downgraded him. The needed gap power has yet to arrive, but everything else came back in his performance. He currently is sitting at 301/429/398. He is getting good contact on the ball and is working the count. He is on pace to cut his error rate by more than half and his range has appeared to expand (small sample size) by about 25% (which means that his placement and footwork is better). If he continues to do this well, I know I will be arguing with Stotle about putting Hoes in our top 5 next season. I believe these traits are real and with a little more age on him, I think he will see a slight increase in his gap power. I imagine the year after next, Hoes will be in the top 100.

More thoughts after the jump.


Pitchers

Brandon Cooney - 63.4%GB, 9.8%LD, 9.5 k/9, 2.62 FIP
Impressive relief candidate.

Bats

Xavier Avery - LF/CF - 309/369/418, 384babip
Swing improving with more line drives, great contact, promising.
Kyle Hudson - LF/CF - 240/363/269, 316babip
Great fielder, no arm, great eye, no bat, great speed, poor baserunning. Going to be difficult for him.
Joe Mahoney - 1B - 277/333/479, 319babip
SB are gone and power appears to be back, sleeper who has a chance to break out.
Greg Miclat - SS - 314/397/392, 364babip
Some fielding troubles, offensive numbers appear unsustainable.
Billy Rowell - 3B/DH - 328/415/503, 434babip
Beginning to be noticed again, but without position and some batted ball luck.
Ronnie Welty - RF - 247/333/495, 296babip
Batting average should rise, good defense, interesting prospect.

2009 AL FIP Divided into Tiers

The following is a simple graph of last year's starting pitchers grouped by innings and then subdivided into fifths.



A crude way to interpret the above graph is to view every 0.25 in FIP as equal to about 5 runs over the course of a season. In other words, if your fifth starter throws a 4.75 FIP instead of someone with a 5.25 FIP (league average 5th tier starter), your team should win one game more.

Nothing after the jump.