Orioles sign Yoshihiro Doi to a Minor League Deal

With a hat tip to Camden Chat, I noticed that the Orioles signed 35 year old Yoshihiro Doi to a minor league deal.  You might remember Doi from last year when he worked out for a third of MLB in California and displayed his pitches against a few independent league players.  That did not go very well as he topped off at 86 mph and was hit somewhat hard over the course of 30 or 40 pitches.  The Orioles were present for those workouts, but decided not to offer a contract.  Doi, committed to playing in the United States, proceeded to work solely to meet that goal and did not appear in the JPL in 2011.  Instead, he signed a deal with the Lancaster Barnstormers.  However, visa issues prevented him from playing with the club.  This may have been of a benefit to him as he has suffered from chronic shoulder and wrist issues (as far as I can discern from the information I have).

Doi had spent 2009 and 2010 in the Lions bullpen.  In 2009, it appears he was on the disabled list for three months.  In 2010, he opened his season with 2/3 IP and 5 ER against Chiba Lotte.  He followed that with a 2 ER 1 IP outing against Softbank and then spent three months without throwing a pitch.  He came back in July and his first outing was a 3 ER, 2/3 IP effort against Orix.  Then he went 22 outings with only three earned runs.  Those 22 outings constituted 15 2/3 IP.  It appears obvious that Doi was used as a LOOGY (Lefty One Out GuY) by Seibu.  This contrasts to how he was used in Yokohama from 2004 - 2008 where he appears to be an oft-injured, but relatively average starting pitcher.  Before then, from 1998 - 2003, he was a very effective set up man for Seibu.

Stuff
Using Pitch FX, I have data from 2009 and 2010 on Doi when he pitched for the Seibu Lions.  He is primarily a fastball/slider southpaw.  The fastball comes in at 83 mph and has flashed as high as 88 mph.  His slider is 77 mph and appears useful against left handed batters.  It is really his bread and butter pitch.  When forced to throw against righties, he mixes in an apparently inconsistent 76 mph change and low 80s two seamer.  The two seamer sometimes shows up as a show me pitch with lefties.

MLB Translation
Using the same method I used earlier for Yu Darvish, Tsuyoshi Wada, and Wei-Yin Chen, I predicted Doi performance in the Majors over a 50 IP run:

31 K, 21 BB, 8 HR, 5.21 FIP

That will not do in the Majors.  However, it should be mentioned that Doi's 2008 year was used in the translations and that includes time spent starting for Yokohama being exposed to right handed batters.  This inclusion may actually even out as he is going through what you would expect to be age related decrease in talent as well as not competitively pitching last year.  His numbers look better when adjusted to AAA:

39 K, 17 BB, 6 HR, 4.25 FIP

An he appears to be above average in AA:

49 K, 14 BB, 5 HR, 3.34 FIP

Conclusion
Yoshihiro Doi is unlikely to provide much value to the MLB squad.  He appears more as potential LOOGY depth for the Majors, but more in line to provide closer quality outings in Bowie or handed sensitive outings for Norfolk.

In others words, Doi is filler.  I think he is a good kind of filler.  Filler is needed in every organization.  The primary purpose of it is to enable higher probability prospects to put in at bats and innings to get better.  For instance, your young shortstop prospect needs to someone to catch the ball when he throws to first base.  In that simple way of looking at things, that is what filler is good for.  Once that level is met, there are other considerations for filler.  You want a player who wants to be there and will work hard to be there.  Doi fits that model.  He has worked very hard at coming over to the United States and has supposedly stated that if his American tenure is relegated to the minors then so be it.  He will work hard to get to the majors, but will be happy and content competing in the minors.  You really do not want any malcontents if their use is primarily as filler.

Additionally, you want a player who fits in with an organizational goal.  For Doi, he is part of the international expansion of the Orioles organization.  Doi may specifically not be particularly promising, but the trials and tribulations he faces acclimating to the Orioles' system and to the United States in general informs the Orioles how to make the system better to help future signings.  Having a personal trainer at the MLB level is fine because there is more money to throw around.  However, minor league players do not have that luxury.  The Orioles will need to understand how to best help international prospects succeed.

Perhaps with an eye even further on the horizon, Doi appears to be someone who is dedicated to baseball.  He is a 35 year old who has suffered multiple injuries and is trying to prolong his career in the United States.  I do not know his interests, but Doi may be someone who could be indoctrinated into the Orioles system and eventually be converted into someone who could help scouting lower level players in Japan, Korea, etc.  This is a very peripheral objective, but I do think the more the Orioles embrace all levels of foreign players that they will be more comfortable in effectively utilizing foreign talent.

Simply put, Doi is an important signing because it shows investment in foreign-sourced players.

Jorge Posada, Wally Schang, Jason Varitek, and Chris Hoiles

With Jorge Posada retiring, I wondered how his numbers stack up against the all-time greats.  The easiest and perhaps most effective way to do this is simply to look at the career WAR of a player. 

Every catcher who has been eligible for the Hall of Fame and has a higher WAR than Posada has made it.  Those above him fall into three basic tiers.  You have the best catchers ever according to WAR (66.3-71.3; Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, Gary Carter, and a not yet eligible Ivan Rodriguez).  The second tier includes one player (Yogi Berra) at 61.3, but will soon include Mike Piazza at 59.1.  The third tier (50.3-54.4) has three players: Bill Dickey, Mickey Cochrane, and Gabby Harnett.  All of these players have been or will be awarded with a place in the Hall.

What is interesting to me though is that Posada comes next at 44.9 during his 17 years playing and is basically equal to the following players: Wally Schang (43.8 during 19 years), Thurmon Munson (43.4 during 11 years), and Bill Freehan (43.3 during 16 years).  All four of these players share one thing in common: none are in the Hall of Fame.  The BBWA elected Roy Campanella in with a 36.2 WAR and the Veteran's committee voted in Ernie Lombardi (39.0), Rick Ferrell (22.9), and Ray Schalk (22.6).  Lombardi fits on the list right at 16th below Joe Mauer and Darrell Porter.  Campanella comes in at 18th right after Jason Kendell. Ferrell is 36th right behind Jason Varitek and Schalk is 41st right behind Ramon Hernandez.

This leaves a question as to whether or not Jorge Posada deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.  If he enters, he certainly will be a lower tier HOFer.  The players after him appear to be all questionable.  Why?  The three Posada is basically tied to have not been admitted.  There has been a bit of discussion about Munson, but I have never heard anyone make the effort for Wally Schang.  For me the sizable difference between the third tier run at 50.3 and Posada at 44.9 appears great enough to make that a line in the sand.  The Hall of Fame is full of arbitrary considerations though and I typically do not care one way or another what happens.  However, we can certainly say Posada was not one of the greatest catchers ever and I doubt anyone was claiming that anyway.

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As mentioned earlier, Jason Varitek comes in as the 35th ranked catcher with a 23.0 WAR over 15 years.  At 34th with 23.4 WAR over 10 years is Oriole Chris Hoiles.  I have always thought of Varitek as a very good catcher and Hoiles as a notch below.  It appears that I underestimated Hoiles as he put together as valuable numbers as Varitek with 5 less years to play.  That is pretty exceptional.  Without his career ending injury, his bat (never failing) would have put him in Posada territory.  Yes, there are many assumptions here.  However, I think if he was able to catcher 20% more games during his established career his number would be around 28 WAR.  His bat was good enough to pass by at first base on those awful turn of the century Os teams, so maybe he is able to play another six years with a 2 WAR average.  That would put him in at 40 WAR.  My point simply is that outside of the injury, Hoiles was actually heading toward performance on a Posada like level and by that I mean Hoiles was a good catcher and Posada was a good catcher with health.  Neither were exceptional, but both should be remembered.

Adam Jones' Potential

Well, this site is becoming Adam Jones Depot.  This past week Dave Cameron wrote an article on Adam Jones titled "Adam Jones, Unfinished."  The timing is right with such an article because there is a great deal of disagreement out there on Jones' current and future worth.  At the Depot, we tend to think of Jones as a promising left fielder while many professional view him as a promising center fielder.  I think that distinction is worth about 3-5 MM each season.  To me that means the Jair Jurrjens and Martin Prado deal is about a lower top 100 prospect away from being an even deal or two lower top 100 prospects if you think Jones really is a center fielder.  However, there has been a great deal of backlash from the Braves followers that Jones is not Prado's equal, which seems to be a bit of hyperbole.  Many who follow the Depot appear to be fine with a Jones for Jurrjens deal, which I think is also problematic.

Cameron's article tried to suss out part of Jones' value: his potential.  This was done by making a:

a list of all player seasons from the last 10 years where the hitter was 25 or younger, swung at 50% or more of the pitches they were thrown, and posted an ISO of at least .150 (to eliminate the middle infielders and catchers who are simply in the sport for their glovework). This group is essentially a collection of athletic players who got to the show based on their physical skills, but showed a significant lack of polish early in their career.

This produced 24 players who are rather interesting with respect to their future performance.  So 14 of the 24 players listed are useful regulars or better.  Nine star level players are in the group, including Matt Kemp and Adrian Beltre.  Five good players come in the next tier, which includes Hunter Pence.  Nick Faleris has actually compared the Pence deal to what the Orioles should expect for Jones if he is dealt to a team who sees him as a center fielder.  The tradeoff being Pence's average for Jones' center field.  That trade involved Pence and cash to the Phillies for Jonathan Singleton (top 25/50 1B prospect), Jared Cosart (top 100 pitching prospect), Domingo Santana (raw power OF), and Josh Zeid (maybe middle reliever).  That deal is similar to what has been mentioned on the Depot as a potential trade framework of a top 25, 50, and 100 prospects for Jones.  I would say that Jones currently skirts the role player/good player level.  With respect to the Braves package, I would call both Jurrjens and Prado are role players.

I do find Cameron's method a bit crude, but it is a useful exercise.  The idea is to look over the entire cloud of possibilities and recognize that the tools Adam Jones flashes are tools that may take time to package together.  Torii Hunter didn't learn how to take a walk until he was 27.  Dale Murphy doubled his walk rate at age 26.  This made me wonder what exactly is a decent projection for Adam Jones over the next three years (his two years of arbitration and one free agent year, which would be a good idea for an extension).

I used selected all players from 1961 to 2008 who by the end of the age 25 year had at least 1500 plate appearances, an on base percentage less than .330, an isolated slugging greater than .140, a batting average greater than .260, and an OPS+ less than 110.  This results in the following list of players: Tony Horton, Rich Gedman, Tim Wallach, Dale Murphy, Larry Parrish, Lance Parrish, George Hendrick, Rocco Baldelli, Cliff Floyd, Juan Samuel, Carlos Lee, J.J. Hardy, Stephen Drew, Juan Encarnacion, Zoilo Versalles, Aramis Ramirez, and Juan Uribe.  Due to the special circumstances surrounding Horton's and Baldelli's health, I removed them from the list as an outlier.  Adam Jones, according to batting runs, would rank 10th out of 17 on this list.  Batting runs does not consider position, so it is a good representation of the worth of a bat outside of any context.  Jones, of course, would be worth more when his bat is combined with a glove that can cover center field.  Using rWAR, Jones is the second highest rated player in this group.

What I am interested in for each player is how his batting average, walk rate, strikeout rate, and isolated power changed from his 25 and under years to his 26-28 years.  Those differences may then be able to inform us as to what we could expect from Adam Jones.  The follow are how certain metrics change from those two data sets for each individual in those data sets:

On Base Percentage = 4.7 +/- 10.8 %
Isolated Power = 6.9 +/- 24.2 %
Batting Average = 1.1 +/- 10.9 %
Walk Rate = 26.5 +/- 26.9 %
Strikeout Rate = -0.7 +/- 19.3 %

What is interesting is that as a group, there was basically improvement across the board.  This included marginal improvements for on base percentage and isolated power, but also a substantial improvement in walk rate.  Adam Jones is likely to improve and is pretty much certain not to walk any less.  It also is informative that although walk rate improve drastically, it does not greatly improve on base percentage.  This illustrates how poorly this group earns walks during their under 26 years.

What do the future Adam Jones' lines look like?  The following are three lines.  The first line is if Jones meets the 85th percentile for each metric, the second is if he hits the 50th percentile for each, and the final is if he hits the 15th percentile for each.  I am unsure how linked the metrics are, so obviously these lines do not mean Jones has a 15% chance to be great or a 15% chance to be unplayable.  The range of performance is likely to be far narrower around the 50th percentile line here.

85th: 308/369/520; 18 WAR; ~80MM
50th: 278/334/451; 11 WAR; ~50MM
15th: 248/300/382; 4.5 WAR; ~21MM

As you can see, Jones profiles as a solid center fielder over the next three years and that has a lot of worth.  The key to Jones becoming a superstar involves one of two paths.  The Aramis Ramirez path is thought of as the more likely one and that is to experience a massive improvement in making not only contact, but meaningful contact with the baseball.  He increased his batting average by 17% with a 50% increase in his ISO, decreased his strikeouts by 36%, and also manage to eek up his meager walk rate by 31%.  The second path is the Dale Murphy path, which is to drastically improve your walk rate (47%). Carlos Lee actually managed to up his 71%.  To boil it down, Jones needs to see a significant increase in making meaningful contact and either increase contact in general or improve his ability to earn walks.  The paths are not common, but certainly are not rare.  At worst, Jones is someone over the next three years is a marginal all star.

Now, if you are the Orioles and thinking of an extension, then you would likely look to offer something in the neighborhood of a three years for 40MM deal or a four years for 55MM.  That would cover two years of arbitration and one or two of free agency. 
If you are the Orioles looking to trade Jones...then you are certainly asking for more than Jurrjens and Prado.

A final note: this of course is a statistical exercise using an informed selection process to predict performance and should be treated as such.