Prospectus Hit and Run... (07/29)
the archives are now free.
4 comments have been left for this article. BP Comment Quick Links
| |
|
|
August 4, 2009 Prospectus Hit and RunGoing Down
Two seasons after they fell one win shy of a pennant, the Indians are flying the white flag over Progressive Field. For the second straight summer, they've traded the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner in exchange for prospects, this after a squad projected to win its division fell flat on its face out of the gate. Cliff Lee's trade to the Phillies was just one of five forward-looking deals general manager Mark Shapiro made to dismantle this lost Tribe, with Mark DeRosa, Victor Martinez, Ryan Garko, and Rafael Betancourt leaving town as well. It's tough to quantify disappointment, at least beyond "61 years without a World Champion." While we've already given the Indians their equivalent of a Golden Raspberry on the PECOTA front, that system's relatively brief existence (since 2003) requires turning to a different forecasting method for a deeper historical perspective. Years ago, BP co-founder Rany Jazayerli demonstrated that a team's recent history-their three previous years of performance, to be exact-is useful in predicting their winning percentage. Along the way, he confirmed a 20-year-old Bill James finding called the "Whirlpool Principle," the strong tendency of teams to be drawn towards .500, a concept that's more commonly known as regression to the mean. Based upon a multivariate regression analysis of 70 years of historical data, the formula Jazayerli emerged with was Y = .1557 + (.4517 * X1) + (.1401 * X2) + (.0968 * X3), where X1, X2, and X3 are the team's winning percentages one, two and three years ago, respectively. Whereas PECOTA uses performance and playing-time projections, Jazayerli's formula is blind to a team's personnel, their skills and deployment, but it's available and effective over a much larger historical range. Via this formula, the Indians projected to post a .511 winning percentage after showings of .481, .593 and .500 over the past three years. As such, they rank as this year's second-most disappointing team, even given their modest projections: Team Pro Act +/- Nationals .427 .314 -.113 Indians .511 .419 -.092 Diamondbacks .508 .438 -.069 Royals .462 .394 -.067 Athletics .487 .423 -.064 Mets .538 .481 -.057 Padres .460 .406 -.055 Reds .472 .433 -.039 Blue Jays .519 .486 -.034 Twins .525 .495 -.030 Brewers .523 .495 -.028 Orioles .448 .423 -.025 Astros .509 .495 -.014 White Sox .518 .509 -.009 Pirates .441 .433 -.009 Cubs .541 .534 -.007 Rays .520 .543 .023 Cardinals .513 .537 .024 Marlins .499 .524 .024 Braves .476 .505 .028 Tigers .495 .524 .029 Phillies .540 .573 .033 Red Sox .555 .596 .041 Angels .569 .612 .043 Yankees .543 .600 .057 Mariners .448 .514 .066 Rockies .485 .552 .068 Rangers .489 .573 .084 Giants .464 .552 .089 Dodgers .513 .619 .106 That 92-point shortfall would rank as the 22nd-highest of the post-strike era (1996 onward), while the Nationals' 113-point gap is one point out of 10th place. The Tribe figures to rise in those historical rankings given their recent trades; Clay Davenport estimates that their PECOTA-projected record for the remainder of the year dropped 50 points over the past 10 days, even while the team went 7-3. What's gone wrong in Cleveland? PECOTA's division-winning projection called for a meager 86 wins (around three more than the above method suggests) and a 38 percent chance of making the postseason, casting them as weak favorites over the Tigers. Despite injuries to Travis Hafner and Grady Sizemore, the offense has essentially lived up to expectations; projected to rank fourth in the league in scoring, they actually rank fifth. The pitching, however, ranks dead stinking last instead of the projected seventh.
The responsibility for that showing rests with both the rotation (13th in SNLVAR in the AL) and the bullpen (14th in WXRL). Blame Shapiro for assembling the rotation which has put up a 5.95 ERA beyond Lee. While his acquisition of Anthony Reyes was a worthwhile gambit that went sour due to elbow problems culminating in Tommy John surgery, his signing of Carl Pavano has brought plenty of bad (five disaster starts, those with more runs than innings pitched) to go with the good (10 quality starts), with a 5.37 ERA and 1.4 homers per nine. Wedge and his coaching staff own a share of the blame for failing to straighten out Fausto Carmona; hoping the sinkerballer would regain The bullpen's been worse, a major reason the team is an AL-high 7.7 wins behind their projected third-order record, their Pythagorean record after adjusting for scoring environment, run elements, and quality of opposition. Poor early-season performances by Kerry Wood, Rafael Betancourt (since traded to Colorado), Rafael Perez (since demoted), and Jensen Lewis (recalled this past weekend after a five-week demotion) dug the team an early hole; they were already 4.7 games behind their third-order projection by mid-May. That was around the time the buzzards started circling Wedge, who presided over an uncannily similar debacle last year, when the relievers he rode hard late in 2007 spit the bit. Wedge has now presided over three slow-starting teams in the past four years, and while his overall record stands at 540-537, just two of his seven teams have finished above .500, and they've fallen a cumulative 29 games shy of their Pythagorean projections. Shapiro will have to answer for his pledge to keep his skipper in place, and ultimately, for the drying up of the team's talent pipeline amid years of unimpressive drafts. From 1997 through 2008, the Indians' organization produced more major league talent than any other AL Central team, according to the Value Production Standings work which Steve Treder presented at the most recent SABR convention. Alas, an increasing proportion of that value, from Manny Ramirez and C.C. Sabathia down through Jeremy Guthrie, was delivered for other teams. As ESPN's Jerry Crasnick pointed out recently, Guthrie has been the most successful of the 19 first-round or supplemental pics on Shapiro's watch, but all of that success has been with the Orioles. Among those on their major league roster, top 2004 pick Sowers and top 2006 pick Huff, are among the glut of low-upside southpaws, while top 2005 pick Trevor Crowe looks like a card-carrying member of the Future Fourth Outfielders of America. Ultimately, a failure to produce top talent from within is the bane of a mid-market franchise's existence, for magnifies a team's more expensive mishaps, such as the injuries sapping the value of Hafner's four-year, $57 million deal and Jake Westbrook's three-year, $33 million pact. This season is bitter enough given the dashed expectations the Indians, and unless the prospects they've acquired in recent weeks can develop to cover for the system's recent mediocrity, it will only keep disappointing.
A version of this story originally appeared on ESPN Insider
|
Fantasy Beat: Coping with Swappery
This piece is far too kind and gentle on the subject of the horrifying 21st-century drafting of the Cleveland Indians. The word "horrorshow" would not be hyperbolic here.
It's not pretty, for sure. Space constraints and the fact that I'm not our in-house drafting expert prevented me from going into more detail - the Crasnick piece is certainly worth a read.
It's very interesting that much of the Indians' young talent has been developed after being acquired through trades rather than after being drafted by the team. The Indians have arguably one of the deepest farm systems, though lacking the high-end talent of some other organizations, despite Baseball America ranking all of their drafts in the 21st century with the exception of their 2003 draft as C+ or lower.