Did we underperfom or overperform expectations? - Offense

by GiantFan on Oct 13, 2009 5:15 AM PDT Comment 47 comments

In the latest post on Extra Baggs, the question is raised as to whether we underperformed on offensive? Now, it's difficult to say whether we underperformed because there's uncertainties over the true talent level. One way of looking into this question is using the pre-season projections to see how well we matched our expectations both individually or as a team.

To do this i'm going to list every non-pitcher who had more than 50 PA's and compare his projection with his performance. To calculate the projections I've taken an average of the Marcel, CHONE, ZIPS and Oliver projections, choosing not to use the Bill James one as it breeds controversy. For players with minimal experience prior to this year I've taken the average of the last 3 as Marcel doesn't include minor league numbers. The players are listed by PA's and as well as actual and projected wOBA I've also added the corresponding run difference over the amount of Plate appearances that player received.

Outperformed Their Projection

Pablo Sandoval: wOBA = .396, projected wOBA = .335, Run difference = 33.6
Juan Uribe: wOBA = .351, projected wOBA = .302, Run difference = 18.4
Andres Torres: wOBA = .379, projected wOBA = .314, Run difference = 9.6

Underperformed Their Projection

Randy Winn: wOBA = .302, projected wOBA = .335, Run difference = -16.9
Aaron Rowand: wOBA = .323, projected wOBA = .337, Run difference = -15.4
Bengie Molina: wOBA = .308, projected wOBA = .321, Run difference = -5.9
Edgar Renteria: wOBA = .283, projected wOBA = .332, Run difference = -21.5
Travis Ishikawa: wOBA = .313, projected wOBA = .329, Run difference = -5.1
Fred Lewis: wOBA = .327, projected wOBA = .334, Run difference = -2.0
Eugenio Velez: wOBA = .309, projected wOBA = .315, Run difference = -1.5
Nate Schierholtz: wOBA = .301, projected wOBA = .346, Run difference = -12.1
Emmanuel Burriss: wOBA = .258, projected wOBA = .294, Run difference = -7.9
Eli Whiteside: wOBA = .266, projected wOBA = .277, Run difference = -1.3
Rich Aurilia: wOBA = .236, projected wOBA = .318, Run difference = -9.5
Ryan Garko: wOBA = .289, projected wOBA = .342, Run difference = -5.9
Freddy Sanchez: wOBA = .274, projected wOBA = .321, Run difference = -4.4
John Bowker: wOBA = .271, projected wOBA = .320, Run difference = -3.1
Matt Downs: wOBA = .231, projected wOBA = .322, Run difference = -4.7
Kevin Frandsen: wOBA = .182, projected wOBA = .323, Run difference = -6.6

There are a number of interesting things to note one of which is it's clear than we had more players under-performing (16/19) their projections than over-performing (3/19). If you total up the differences you end up with -62.0 for the team as a whole. If you're dealing with the team as a whole, you have to include the variance in team totals and individual components. According to calculations we outperformed our components by around 30 runs, so that means we under-performed our offensive expectations by around 30 runs.

On the whole a difference of 30 runs over a whole team isn't a huge amount and shows that the projections on a team wide scale were pretty accurate. Of course that tells us how we under-performed our pre-season expectations this year but it doesn't tell us anything about how we'll perform next season. The projections for these players next year will, on the whole be reduced due to their poor performances this year. There will be a lot of changes in terms of personnel and playing time next year and it'll be interesting to see how the projections are when they come out. I'll done a similar analysis for the pitching which I'll post in a day or two.

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We sucked, that's what we did

But with the steaming pile that was there to work with, what really could have been done differently? Maybe Nate gets closer to his projection if he gets regular playing time over Winn. More of a role for Torres could have helped if it didn’t expose him to bad matchups. Other than that it was as bad or maybe slightly worse than everyone though it would be, rigorous projectors and casual predictors alike.

The upside of Pandamonium is probably due to his game. He’s one of those players that just doesn’t fit into a nice statistical frame.

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by S.F. Giangst on Oct 13, 2009 7:27 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

But with the steaming pile that was there to work with, what really could have been done differently?

For one, not stuck our 2nd best hitter on the bench? Not given the second most PA’s on the team to a player, who out of 157 players with 500+ PA’s, was the 9th worst hitter in MLB (Winn). Not given 510 PA’s to a player, who out of those same 157 players, was the 3rd worst hitter in MLB (Renteria). Not batted a player cleanup all year long, who out of those same 157 players once again, was the 15th worst hitter in MLB (Molina). You’re right we didn’t have much to work with, but let’s not act like there was nothing we could have done differently.

“The upside of Pandamonium is probably due to his game. He’s one of those players that just doesn’t fit into a nice statistical frame.”

A lot of its just going to be the fact that good projections will basically never project someone to have the type of year Sandoval did based on his lack of history. The reason for this is because most players fall short of those expectations (see: Wieters, Matt), so projecting players closer to the mean rather than farther will make for more accurate projections. Glad Sandoval really is as talented as we all hoped in our wildest dreams.

by Missing Barry on Oct 13, 2009 9:04 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs

I think projections would have an easier time with a player with 100 career PA if he had a conventional approach. A guy who hits a ball a foot out of the strike zone for a double? Forget it.

by S.F. Giangst on Oct 13, 2009 9:25 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

True, but even so, a lot of it is just probability. There are always big time prospects out there. There are always young guys who do well in a SSS out there. Most of them don’t continue that pace. The projection system will go with the “most”, because that makes it more accurate overall. Panda doesn’t fit that category, though, he really is that good…

by Missing Barry on Oct 14, 2009 6:49 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Nice work. The first thing that strikes me about those numbers is how uniformly our youngish players underperformed. Pablo was great, and every single other player who came up through the farm system was a disappointment.

by Evan on Oct 13, 2009 7:33 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, the performance of the position players coming up from the farm system (Pablo aside) has been disappointing. It would have been nice to see at least one of them stand up and perform as expected.

Proud parent of Waldis Joaquin!

by GiantFan on Oct 13, 2009 8:22 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

They are all full of suck.

Matt Cain: throwing complete game shutouts since 06'. No big deal.

by cain1rstballothof on Oct 13, 2009 8:58 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

THIS

Why isn't Sabean held accountable for leading the Giants into many years of mediocrity???

by oldrips on Oct 13, 2009 9:03 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I wonder how much of the young players underperforming had to do with them being used so infrequently as opposed to how much them being used so infrequently had to do with them underperforming.

Of the guys on that list, only Travis Ishikawa, Eugenio Velez, and Pablo Sandoval got what I would call consistent playing time. Did we screw the other guys by screwing them out of the lineup, or did we have enough insight into their suck to mean that screwing them out of the lineup the smart thing to do?

Interesting to note that this question doesn’t concern a HUGE portion of that underperforming list. A small portion, even.

Context, people. More context is good. Less context is bad. If you're willing to be reductive, then you're willing to be wrong.

by howtheyscored on Oct 13, 2009 9:05 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Also, Velez underperformed offensively? I mean, I know the guy wasn’t as good as he looked (and he didn’t even look all that good), but it’s hard to believe his projections had him coming out better than he actually did. Weird.

Context, people. More context is good. Less context is bad. If you're willing to be reductive, then you're willing to be wrong.

by howtheyscored on Oct 13, 2009 9:06 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, there are a few things to consider here. My immediate assumption is that terrible coaching is to blame, but that’s just me being blinded by hatred.

The irregular playing time surely has some effect, but the projection systems have built-in adjustments for that to some extent.

Possibly the park factors and league translations are out of date or erroneous in some other way, causing all the projections to think Fresno/Norwich players were better than they actually are.

Or maybe it’s just a fluke. Realistically, having eight mediocre players underperform and one good one turn into a superstar is a trade any team would be happy to make.

by Evan on Oct 13, 2009 9:15 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Well Velez was actually pretty poor this year and so his projection of a wOBA of .315 isn’t actually very high. in terms of the projection, Velez actually wasn’t that much better this year than last (a couple of runs over similar playing time).

He’d also put up ok numbers in Fresno last season and AA the previous year. The projections do seem a little high though.

Proud parent of Waldis Joaquin!

by GiantFan on Oct 13, 2009 9:23 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Well according to supposed real baseball analyst owlcraft not playing regularly does, on average, have a negative affect on players offensive performance…

by Missing Barry on Oct 13, 2009 9:08 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

How can it not?

Utter frustration and futility.

by Johnny Disaster on Oct 13, 2009 4:33 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Because players play to their ability all the time whenever chance they get? Because the effect is too small? I don’t know, theorizing about why is usually stupid and futile (and you can always make the case for both sides), so that’s why I tend to go with evidence…

by Missing Barry on Oct 13, 2009 5:00 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Simple.

Bench players tend to be used disproportionately in favorable platoon situations.

I don’t know if playing part time has a negative effect on the whole (pinch hitting, for instance, has a hugely negative effect, to the point that it cancels out the platoon advantage in most cases), but it certainly varies depending on usage pattern.

VAE PVTO DEVS FIO

by Bhaakon on Oct 14, 2009 7:53 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I don’t think it had a huge amount to do it to be honest. Lewis and Schierholtz both had over 300 PA and had decent spells in the side. Burriss also had consistent playing time. Counter examples would be Uribe and Torres both of whom had mixed playing time but managed to perform well. The bottom three obviously didn’t have enough PA to judge properly.

Proud parent of Waldis Joaquin!

by GiantFan on Oct 13, 2009 9:14 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Which would lead to the question of how can a guy be among your best 4 hitters and still be benched for almost half the season? Lewis’s glove work is shaky but it is not THAT bad.

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Brain SabeanOranother.

by daveinexile on Oct 13, 2009 9:50 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I’m not sure exactly how good or bad Lewis is defensively, but there’s a case he’s an above-average defensive LF despite how bad he looks out there. Whether that’s true or not, he certainly isn’t bad enough to not play (especially given our alternatives)…so it’s just ridiculous to take our second best hitter out of that lineup (unless you think Uribe or Torres are as good as they performed this year, then he’s our 3rd or 4th best hitter).

by Missing Barry on Oct 13, 2009 10:03 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yes , I was giving the counter group the best terms I could logically grant them and it still looks damning and ugly.

Who’s brain did you bring me?
Brain SabeanOranother.

by daveinexile on Oct 13, 2009 11:08 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Haven’t got a clue as to why Lewis got benched when he was one of our better players. Well, i do, but the reasons are pretty poor ones.

Proud parent of Waldis Joaquin!

by GiantFan on Oct 13, 2009 10:46 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

/ nods & grimaces

Who’s brain did you bring me?
Brain SabeanOranother.

by daveinexile on Oct 13, 2009 11:08 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Well, the only point I’d argue is that if Giants management had the “insight to their suck”, then why did they continue to stay on the major league club? It seems to me that if you know a player isn’t that good, you wouldn’t waste a major league roster spot on him. Obviously not every prospect’s going to pan out to the high end of their expectations, but it still would have been nice to see the young guys get consistent playing time. It’s unfortunate, but for the most part, the Giants are in the same situation they were in at the beginning of the year in regards to knowing which prospects deserve to start and which deserve to sit/go to Fresno.

by deuce deuce on Oct 13, 2009 9:14 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

They are still there because not a single one of them has any real trade value, and there is no one that they are blocking. The position player suckage on the Giants is not to be fucked with.

Matt Cain: throwing complete game shutouts since 06'. No big deal.

by cain1rstballothof on Oct 13, 2009 10:22 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Lewis pretty much did exactly what he was projected to do.

HA HA HA LOOK AT ME I'M ALL HAPPY AND STUFF NO REALLY CAN WE STOP WITH THE COOKYMAN IS SAD JOKES?

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by Cookyman on Oct 13, 2009 10:24 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Cause every problem in the world?

Bay City Ball

by xanthan on Oct 13, 2009 10:29 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

True, i was really thinking of Lewis, more the other candidates.

Proud parent of Waldis Joaquin!

by GiantFan on Oct 13, 2009 10:48 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I wonder if cnce again we’re seeing something here about the value of paying attention to age relative to league in following prospect development. Being young for your leagues is important. Getting to the major leagues at 22 rather than 25 is important. It says something valuable about your development curve. Pablo’s the only one of our youngish players who didn’t amble his way languid way through the minor leagues, and he’s the one who’s outperforming projections.

My Bucardo is better than yours.

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by Roger on Oct 13, 2009 12:36 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

True, age is an issue. Another possible ( andrelated) issue is scouting. Despite the fact that we’ve held out hope they’ll be different, they’ve all been pretty poorly rated by external sources and none have been good prospects. That’s probably a reason they’ve underperformed that statistical based projections. Of course, it could just be random fluctuations.

Proud parent of Waldis Joaquin!

by GiantFan on Oct 14, 2009 4:54 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

FrandsLOL

STEVE HOLM! refuses to be the odd man out.

by UnleashTheGore on Oct 13, 2009 8:00 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Are the runs adjust for playing time?

I R 5

by say hey nation on Oct 13, 2009 8:26 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

sorry I see that it is

I R 5

by say hey nation on Oct 13, 2009 8:26 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Is it? So Lewis’ .007 underperformance in wOBA in about half a season is a -2.6 run difference? That seems like a lot to me.

by Missing Barry on Oct 13, 2009 9:06 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Checking it, i made a mistake on the Lewis calculation, it works out to be a -2.0 run difference.

Proud parent of Waldis Joaquin!

by GiantFan on Oct 13, 2009 9:10 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

30 Runs Is 3 Wins And If One Was Against The Rockies This Is Enough To Get Us In The Playoffs!

by giantsrainman on Oct 13, 2009 12:56 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

So what you’re saying is if Renteria, Winn and Rowand didn’t suck as much as they do, we’d get into the playoffs? The problem is they do suck that much. Great signings, Sabean.

by Missing Barry on Oct 13, 2009 1:57 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

We finished 4 GB of the Rockies. What did you mean to say there?

My Bucardo is better than yours.

by Roger on Oct 13, 2009 2:36 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Beating the Rockies in one game is a two game swing in the standings?

Utter frustration and futility.

by Johnny Disaster on Oct 13, 2009 4:37 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I understand that — but it’s not a 5 game swing in the standings. I suspect he meant to say that if all 3 of those theoretical wins had come in losses that we sustained to the Rockies, we would have passed them for the playoffs, though of course, I don’t think that’s the way these kinds of things work — otherwise you could just carefully assign all your 30 runs in two-run increments to 15 different one-run losses and turn the team into a 103 win juggernaut!

My Bucardo is better than yours.

by Roger on Oct 14, 2009 12:06 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Nope, Just Saying That Tieing The Rockies Would Have Put Us In a 1 Game Playoff.

by giantsrainman on Oct 14, 2009 7:41 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

they set the bar low so they should overperform next year amirite????

by speedyt72000 on Oct 13, 2009 6:15 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Here'a another approach.

This one uses a metric called TOP (“Total Offensive productivity”), which is essentially what a lineup composed of nine exact clones of a man would normally score in a season. In this, I used 2009 data and also career data including 2009, because that is the best approximation we have of a man’s ability. (There is no allowance made for park factors, but that wouldn’t change things much if at all.)

What I did was take each man’s 2009 TOP and subtract his career TOP, giving the amount by which his 2009 over- or under-performed his career. I then pro-rated each such difference by playing time (individual PA divided by team PA) and rounded to the nearest whole number. I make it that the team lost about 54 runs compared to career data. That needs some somment, but first the numbers:



Winn, Randy       	-19

Renteria, Edgar   	-18

Rowand, Aaron     	-10

Aurilia, Rich     	- 9

Garko, Ryan       	- 6

Burriss, Emmanuel 	- 5

Lewis, Fred       	- 5

Sanchez, Freddy   	- 4

Frandsen, Kevin   	- 3

Schierholtz, Nate 	- 3

Molina, Bengie    	- 3

Bowker, John      	- 2

Ishikawa, Travis  	- 1

Downs, Matt       	  0

Guzman, Jesus     	  0

Posey, Buster     	  0

Whiteside, Eli    	+ 0

Rohlinger, Ryan   	+ 0

Holm, Steve       	+ 0

Velez, Eugenio    	+ 1

Sandoval, Pablo   	+ 6

Uribe, Juan       	+14

Torres, Andres    	+13

Team                  -54

The first obvious comment is that this isn’t quite fair: Aurelia, for example, could scarcely be expected to match his career values. On the other hand, why do you give a man who, however charming a person, is at the end of his string 133 PAs?

The second is that most of the ups (+34 runs) and downs (-88 runs) come from only a few players: Winn, Renteria, Rowand, Aurelia, and maybe Garko on the downs, and Torres, Uribe, and maybe Sandoval on the ups. Some of both sorts of swings can be attributed to playing time—too little for Garko, too much to Aurelia, and some to other factors (notably Renteria’s injuries).

Also remember that on any team, we expect to find a scatter of men doing better and worse than “expected”, and the Giants weren’t radically off a normal scatter. It would be easy to cherry-pick, and say “if Winn”, “if Rowand”, or whatever. But, to my eye, the bottom line is not that any material number of men had bad seasons—it is simply a team composed of far too many men who, when performing as expected, weren’t very good.

Professional baseball analyst since 1980.

by owlcroft on Oct 13, 2009 9:09 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

It just shows you with enough data how accurate or inaccurate projections can be.

Did the projections tell us how few walks the giants would take as a team? I think Lewis’s numbers were ok, but the giant’s brass’s expectations of what he would do, were probably way to high. I thought most of the projections on Pablo pre season were a tad too low. I had the belief that he was the real thing. Of course I could have been wrong. Some guys will have tremendous scatter between year to year to year, while other guys will remain unbelieveably consistent. Kind of the way we are as humans.

by bradleybear on Oct 13, 2009 9:48 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Aurelia!

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by Natto on Oct 13, 2009 10:10 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Eric Walker?

Aaron King is still my homeboy... iffy mechanics and all

McFAQ for all you newcomers out there.

GET THAT VORP AND WHIP SH!T OUTTA HERE!!!

by baetown415 on Oct 14, 2009 1:43 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

For the likes of Downs, Ishikawa, Whiteside and other without much MLB experience coming into ‘09 were you using some sort of adjusted MLE’s for career numbers or just straight MLB numbers thus " nulling them out" on purpose to get a clear picture of the more established players impact? I am asking so I understand the tool better. Thanks for any reply.

Who’s brain did you bring me?
Brain SabeanOranother.

by daveinexile on Oct 14, 2009 8:04 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs