What Alternatives Are There to Brian Roberts: 2011 Edition

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There is more and more of a concern as Brian Roberts misses more days and logs more time in the MRI.  It may be time to think about alternatives at second base.  The following is a list with MARCEL slashes (ZiPS if MARCEL is not available; MiL players) and projected defense at second base:

In-House Options
Cesar Izturis, backup MIF, Orioles
     251/301/307 +10 runs
Robert Andino, backup MIF/AAA, Orioles
     251/308/372 +5 runs
Brendan Harris, AAA 2B/3B, Orioles
     244/304/356 -5 runs
Nick Green, AAA UTL, Orioles
     239/303/372 0 runs
Ryan Adams, AAA 2B/3B, Orioles
     269/317/380 -10 runs

Free Agent Options
Willy Aybar, UTL
     247/321/387 -5 runs
David Eckstein, 2B
     254/316/330 5 runs
Julio Lugo, UTL
     256/323/344 5 runs

Out of Options
Ryan Roberts, 2B, Arizona Diamondbacks
     248/321/385 0 runs
Jonathan Herrera, 2B, Colorado Rockies
     261/323/329 5 runs
Emilio Bonifacio, UTL, Florida Marlins
     256/313/344 5 runs
Angel Sanchez, UTL, Houston Astros
     271/323/373 0 runs
Luis Cruz, UTL, Milwaukee Brewers
     257/287/372 5 runs
Chin Lung-Hu, UTL, New York Mets
     254/284/340 5 runs
Luis Hernandez, UTL, New York Mets
     250/310/370 0 runs
Brent Lillibridge, UTL, Chicago White Sox
     228/292/359 0 runs
Jarrett Haufpauir, UTL, San Diego Padres
     243/316/365 0 runs

Conclusion
There does not seem to be anything on the market any better than what the Orioles already have.  I would probably try to give Ryan Adams every opportunity to take the job, but hand it to Robert Andino or maybe Cesar Izturis.

Number of 2B Over the Age of 32 since 1971

 

Tom Verducci recently mentioned that the decrease in older 2B (32 and over with over 130 games at 2B) is due to drug testing.  I find that a bit presumptuous.  The data has not been entirely corrected and there is a greater focus on the value of defense over offense, so there are certainly several reasons why there may be a decrease in older 2B.  It should be noted four other players at the age of 32 had over 100 starts at second, so it might not be as big an issue as Verducci claims.  Then again, this would not be the first time Verducci makes a grand claim without actual evidence (i.e. the Verducci Effect).

Brian Roberts and the Aging of Second Basemen

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Concern has been mounting over Brian Roberts' back as he has been held out of several practices.  He has downplayed the severity of this injury.  This typically would not be of much concern were it not for two issues:

1. Historically, second basemen fall apart in their early thirties.
2. Last year, Roberts was injured during Spring Training and similarly played down concerns over an injury that wound up shutting him down for the majority of the season.

In this post, I would like to establish what could be expected from a population of second basemen who performed similarly to Roberts over their Age 27 to 31 seasons and how that population performed from Age 32 to 36.  I took this population from players whose Age 27 to 31 seasons occurred from 1950 to 2005 and who generated a WAR of 12 to 22.  This group includes Bobby Grich, Davey Johnson, Robby Thompson, Chuck Knoblauch, Lou Whitaker, Dick McAuliffe, Ray Durham, Johnny Ray, Bill Doran, Willie Randolph, Ron Hunt, Damion Easley, Tom Herr, and Johnny Temple.  As a group they had an OPS+ of 109 +/- 8, a WAR of 16.6 +/- 3.3, an OBP of .360, and a SLG of .401.  Brian Roberts, during his age 27 to 31 years, had an OPS of 115, a WAR of 17.9, an OBP of .369, and a SLG of .451. 

After the jump, a run through of graphs showing what can be expected in terms of plate appearances, WAR, chance of being an average player, and chance of remaining in the Majors.

Orioles 2010 Expenditures in International Free Agency

Baseball America reported their figures on what each team spent on international amateur talent during the 2010 fiscal year.  I have expressed it as a graph below.

Click on the graph to see it larger.  I have color-coded the teams in the AL East and provided a green line to mark the average amount spent on international talent.  The Orioles minor spending on this avenue of talent jives with what Andy MacPhail has said before during his University of Baltimore chat and in a conversation with Ken Rosenthal.  Based on those conversations and the Orioles habits procuring talent from international markets . . . it is fairly obvious that what resources the Orioles do have, they are not being spent on premier amateur talent.  Instead, their academy is being used to collect lower rung talent and bank on being successful at that rung.

Edit: It is also important to note that Cuban signings are not included in these figures.  Otherwise, you would see several teams jumping up by a few million (e.g. Red Sox) and the Orioles staying in place.

2011 Homerun King Mark Reynolds?

A reader told me to look over at Pinnacle Sports, a betting site that bets on pretty much anything.  The interesting part to us (and is shown below) are the odds on who is the favorite in 2011 to win the home run title in all of baseball.  It goes through Ryan Howard, Adam Dunn, Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder, Jose Bautista, and Adrian Gonzalez before it finds its 7th most likely winner: our very own Mark Reynolds.  This might strike some as fanciful, but Reynolds does have the 3rd most homeruns over the past two seasons and 8th most over the past three seasons.  Based on last year, homeruns were ~15% easier to hit at Camden Yards than at Chase Field.  That might increase his total by about 2 home runs.

 

In case, you were unaware, the lower the number . . . the better the perceived chance.

In other bets on the site . . . the Orioles 2011 over/under is set at 76 wins, which is about where I have them.

note: I have about 5 articles in various states of completion and have been sick as a dog for a week . . . I should have a flurry of posts some point soon . . . God-willing.

Simple Graph Comparing Cal Ripken Jr, Derek Jeter, and Chipper Jones

Eutaw Street Hooligans highlighted this atrocious use of statistics and colored spectacles suggesting somehow that Chipper Jones had a better career than Cal Ripken Jr.  Here is an amazing gem: "[Jones] might have been the better overall player [be]cause defensively; they are all about the same as well."

Here is a simple graph that communicates far more than that article.

All three look like great players.  One looks a bit better due to a higher peak.

¡Dia de los Presidentes!

 

I think it is a good time to remember Dennis Martinez (aka El Presidente) on President's Day and to wish everyone well today.

Isn't that an old school picture of the Inner Harbor?

Pier 3 or Pier 6.  I would lean toward pier 6.

Any thoughts?  I was just four then.

Why baseball players use human growth hormone? Part I: Addressing the debate.

Cheating comes in a lot of forms.

This is the first part of a two part series on human growth hormone.

Performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) are a difficult topic to discuss.  It is truly rare to find someone who is indifferent to them or at least not emotionally engaged in the discussion.  I find that we, fans, want to see amazing athletic performances, but want these to be as clean and pure as is possible.  We often create dividing lines between things like spitballs, corked bats, corrective lenses, cortisone shots, oxygen treatments, creatine, anabolic steroids, Viagra, caffeine, Ritalin, human growth hormone, and a bevy of other treatments that have been associated with improving performance.  Everyone typically has their own line and many fight for it vehemently.  The line drawn often rarely is with respect to how much certain aids helping in making a performance better and more often drawn by our emotional attachment to different approaches.

Emotional arguments are difficult ones to have as it is difficult to consider evidence that contradicts our position.  Turning a logical argument into an emotional one shifts the debate from one of merits of an idea to the mere capacity of intellectual thought.  This creates a conversational quagmire when trying to parse the data on a subject that is confusing and often misconstrued in the media, in the gym, and on message boards.  What I hope in this two part series is to set the emotional conversation back to zero and build it back up on the merits of the application of human growth hormone, in this case.  That way maybe we can strip the discussion free of our assumptions and weakly based convictions

More right after the jump.

Has the Orioles defense improved in 2011?

Motherwell's Mark Reynolds

Last week, I read through Andrew Gibson's work on using infield and outfield Defensive Efficiency on ground balls and fly balls, respectively.  I discuss that post over at the Baltimore Orioles Round Table (BORT), but on this blog I wanted to jumped in on something that I felt was slightly undone.  As you may have noticed, almost every statistic these days is converted over to runs.  It is the high falutin' goal of any respectable statistician to devise ways to convert all measures of player performance into how many runs are scored or given.  It permits a great deal of comparison and it is why when guys like us so repetitively use WAR and other run based numbers, others think we are making too much out of single statistics.  We really are not, we are just converting things over to a relatively easy model for comparison.  Converting numbers to runs does not remove problems with the original numbers.  We are all aware that a high WAR due to the defensive component is probably not an accurate portrayal of the player's talent.

My objective in this post is to take Andrew's numbers and convert them over to runs saved/given as well as compare that to other systems like DRS, TZL, and UZR.  All of that after the jump.

Oh, krikes!

I was just scooped.  I am halfway through my analysis on draft pick performance, doing almost the same exact thing.  I guess that is done for me.

Anyway, I have not yet gotten to it, but read this.

Looks like I will have something cool to read tonight.