| The Case for Jack Wilson |
By Wilbur Miller
I’ve been cynical for years about defense-oriented team-building philosophies. They usually seemed more like an excuse to avoid paying good hitters, or to cling to the deadball-era cliches that appeal so much to some baseball people. Some of this stems from years of the Pirates using supposedly poor defense as a reason to bury players they disliked. Refusing to use Craig Wilson at first due to his glove and then bringing in Randall Simon springs to mind.
Consequently, this season has been an eye-opener. Through June 28, the Pirates have shaved nearly a full run off their staff ERA from last year’s nightmare, dropping from 5.10 to a hair above league average at 4.26 despite having largely the same staff. There’s no question the pitchers deserve much of the credit. Zach Duke and Sean Burnett are two of the most improved pitchers in baseball. Ross Ohlendorf and Jeff Karstens have been decent, and Jesse Chavez and Evan Meek have done well despite some control lapses. The absence of the many truly horrendous pitchers who plagued last year’s staff—Matt Morris, Tom Gorzelanny, Yoslan Herrera, John Van Benschoten, Denny Bautista, Franquelis Osoria—has played a big role. Another factor has been the absence for most of the year of the hugely overrated (at least by the team’s management) Tyler Yates and Craig Hansen.
Still, nobody seems to doubt that the defense is a major factor as well. If you go by the unfortunately named Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR), which is available at www.fangraphs.com, the improvement has been dramatic and across the board. UZR attempts to measure the number of runs a fielder saves, or costs, his team compared to the average at his position. UZR/150, which is what I’ll use here, pro-rates UZR to 150 games.
So why, given the problems associated with all defensive stats, should you pay attention to UZR? Uh . . . I can’t exactly explain directly. What I can do is point to two things. One is that many people who understand these stats better than I do seem to consider it about as reliable as any other publicly available defensive stat. The other is that it’s strongly corroborated in the Pirates’ case. First of all, there’s the dramatic reduction in staff ERA despite the continued, extremely low strikeout rate. Second, defensive efficiency, which simply measures the percentage of balls in play that a team converts to outs, shows an equally dramatic improvement. After finishing at or near the bottom in that stat for years, the Pirates are hovering near the top, generally in the top four in MLB, this year. Another interesting, and very simple, piece of evidence is double plays. The Pirates are tops in the majors in turning them this year despite a significant drop in opportunities; the pitching staff ranks just slightly below the NL average in WHIP now after ranking last by a huge margin in 2008.
Here’s what’s happened, position by position, this year (UZR doesn’t apply to catchers):
1B: Adam LaRoche has improved from -8.1 to -2.7.
2B: Freddy Sanchez, who clearly seemed bothered by the shoulder problem early last year, has improved from -1.8 to 4.1.
3B: Andy LaRoche rates a little above average at 2.4. Last year, with the Pirates, LaRoche rated a surprising 7.7, but nearly three-quarters of the starts at third went to Jose Bautista and Doug Mientkiewicz, who registered a dismal -6.2 and -16.7, respectively.
SS: Jack Wilson leads all MLB shortstops by a comfortable margin at 19.3. He was almost as good last year at 16.7, but he only started 80 games. Among his replacements, Luis Cruz was very good and Brian Bixler was below average. Luis Rivas and Chris Gomez were the equivalent, statistically and aesthetically, of putting the Kiner statue at short.
LF: There’s been an improvement here of biblical proportions. This year, Nyjer Morgan ranks first in the majors at 23.6. Last year, Jason Bay’s number was -14.4 with the Pirates. (Overall he ranked ahead of only Adam Dunn in MLB.) Among the players who manned LF after Bay was traded, Morgan and Brandon Moss played very well and Jason Michaels was terrible.
CF: Without reopening the debate over the Gold Glove award, Nate McLouth rated -14.3 in 2008. This year, before his departure, he improved to 2.9. That could be the result of the Pirates’ decision to have him play deeper or it could be that the improved pitching has meant he's not effectively playing in the equivalent of a missile range. Andrew McCutchen’s limited sample size works out to 3.6.
RF: Last year Xavier Nady rated 5.6 in 82 starts. The two players who started most of the remaining games, Michaels and Steve Pearce, were below average (-2.6) and terrible (-29.8), respectively. This year, Moss ranks first in MLB in right at 24.0. Of the others who’ve played there, Eric Hinske is almost exactly average (-0.5) and Craig Monroe was awful (-23.9). Neal Huntington’s recent comment that Delwyn Young is “average” may be true if you compare him to the general population, but among actual rightfielders his UZR/150 is -17.6.
Two things you can see here, if you buy into these numbers, is that the Pirates’ outfield has improved dramatically, especially if Moss is out there, and that the infield is well above average because of Jack Wilson. I don’t know whether you can estimate how much of a difference he makes to the team’s pitchers, but does anybody doubt it’s a major factor with Duke and Paul Maholm, in particular, especially with the double plays?
The alternatives to Wilson aren’t pretty, and that’s without even taking into account the fact that he’s having one of his good hitting years, currently about average in OPS among major league shortstops. Bixler’s prospect status is a thing of the past now. Cruz never was a prospect. Brian Friday’s bat never returned from his DL stint with the inner ear infection; he’s a year away at best. Jordy Mercer is struggling in high A and Chase D’Arnaud just got there. Realistically, the farm system isn’t going to provide an answer until at least 2011 and probably not quite even then. The free agent market isn’t any better. Finding a shortstop who isn’t completely hopeless with the bat is out of the question. The best-case scenario for the Pirates would be a no-hit shortstop with a good, and probably overblown, defensive reputation. Cesar Izturis is a good example of the sort of player the Pirates would wind up with; the Orioles were in a similar position last year, with no shortstop and no internal alternatives, and he's what they had to settle for. Izturis' career OPS+ is a pitiful 67. He’s supposed to be very good defensively, but UZR/150 gives him only a 0.7 this year. That would drop the Pirates’ infield overall from well above average to merely average. I don’t see how they can afford that with a pitching staff that remains last in the majors in strikeouts. If the Pirates can’t reach an agreement with Wilson on a less expensive extension, they need to give serious consideration to picking up his $8.4M option for 2010. With McLouth’s contract gone they can afford it.
I’ve been cynical for years about defense-oriented team-building philosophies. They usually seemed more like an excuse to avoid paying good hitters, or to cling to the deadball-era cliches that appeal so much to some baseball people. Some of this stems from years of the Pirates using supposedly poor defense as a reason to bury players they disliked. Refusing to use Craig Wilson at first due to his glove and then bringing in Randall Simon springs to mind.
Consequently, this season has been an eye-opener. Through June 28, the Pirates have shaved nearly a full run off their staff ERA from last year’s nightmare, dropping from 5.10 to a hair above league average at 4.26 despite having largely the same staff. There’s no question the pitchers deserve much of the credit. Zach Duke and Sean Burnett are two of the most improved pitchers in baseball. Ross Ohlendorf and Jeff Karstens have been decent, and Jesse Chavez and Evan Meek have done well despite some control lapses. The absence of the many truly horrendous pitchers who plagued last year’s staff—Matt Morris, Tom Gorzelanny, Yoslan Herrera, John Van Benschoten, Denny Bautista, Franquelis Osoria—has played a big role. Another factor has been the absence for most of the year of the hugely overrated (at least by the team’s management) Tyler Yates and Craig Hansen.
Still, nobody seems to doubt that the defense is a major factor as well. If you go by the unfortunately named Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR), which is available at www.fangraphs.com, the improvement has been dramatic and across the board. UZR attempts to measure the number of runs a fielder saves, or costs, his team compared to the average at his position. UZR/150, which is what I’ll use here, pro-rates UZR to 150 games.
So why, given the problems associated with all defensive stats, should you pay attention to UZR? Uh . . . I can’t exactly explain directly. What I can do is point to two things. One is that many people who understand these stats better than I do seem to consider it about as reliable as any other publicly available defensive stat. The other is that it’s strongly corroborated in the Pirates’ case. First of all, there’s the dramatic reduction in staff ERA despite the continued, extremely low strikeout rate. Second, defensive efficiency, which simply measures the percentage of balls in play that a team converts to outs, shows an equally dramatic improvement. After finishing at or near the bottom in that stat for years, the Pirates are hovering near the top, generally in the top four in MLB, this year. Another interesting, and very simple, piece of evidence is double plays. The Pirates are tops in the majors in turning them this year despite a significant drop in opportunities; the pitching staff ranks just slightly below the NL average in WHIP now after ranking last by a huge margin in 2008.
Here’s what’s happened, position by position, this year (UZR doesn’t apply to catchers):
1B: Adam LaRoche has improved from -8.1 to -2.7.
2B: Freddy Sanchez, who clearly seemed bothered by the shoulder problem early last year, has improved from -1.8 to 4.1.
3B: Andy LaRoche rates a little above average at 2.4. Last year, with the Pirates, LaRoche rated a surprising 7.7, but nearly three-quarters of the starts at third went to Jose Bautista and Doug Mientkiewicz, who registered a dismal -6.2 and -16.7, respectively.
SS: Jack Wilson leads all MLB shortstops by a comfortable margin at 19.3. He was almost as good last year at 16.7, but he only started 80 games. Among his replacements, Luis Cruz was very good and Brian Bixler was below average. Luis Rivas and Chris Gomez were the equivalent, statistically and aesthetically, of putting the Kiner statue at short.
LF: There’s been an improvement here of biblical proportions. This year, Nyjer Morgan ranks first in the majors at 23.6. Last year, Jason Bay’s number was -14.4 with the Pirates. (Overall he ranked ahead of only Adam Dunn in MLB.) Among the players who manned LF after Bay was traded, Morgan and Brandon Moss played very well and Jason Michaels was terrible.
CF: Without reopening the debate over the Gold Glove award, Nate McLouth rated -14.3 in 2008. This year, before his departure, he improved to 2.9. That could be the result of the Pirates’ decision to have him play deeper or it could be that the improved pitching has meant he's not effectively playing in the equivalent of a missile range. Andrew McCutchen’s limited sample size works out to 3.6.
RF: Last year Xavier Nady rated 5.6 in 82 starts. The two players who started most of the remaining games, Michaels and Steve Pearce, were below average (-2.6) and terrible (-29.8), respectively. This year, Moss ranks first in MLB in right at 24.0. Of the others who’ve played there, Eric Hinske is almost exactly average (-0.5) and Craig Monroe was awful (-23.9). Neal Huntington’s recent comment that Delwyn Young is “average” may be true if you compare him to the general population, but among actual rightfielders his UZR/150 is -17.6.
Two things you can see here, if you buy into these numbers, is that the Pirates’ outfield has improved dramatically, especially if Moss is out there, and that the infield is well above average because of Jack Wilson. I don’t know whether you can estimate how much of a difference he makes to the team’s pitchers, but does anybody doubt it’s a major factor with Duke and Paul Maholm, in particular, especially with the double plays?
The alternatives to Wilson aren’t pretty, and that’s without even taking into account the fact that he’s having one of his good hitting years, currently about average in OPS among major league shortstops. Bixler’s prospect status is a thing of the past now. Cruz never was a prospect. Brian Friday’s bat never returned from his DL stint with the inner ear infection; he’s a year away at best. Jordy Mercer is struggling in high A and Chase D’Arnaud just got there. Realistically, the farm system isn’t going to provide an answer until at least 2011 and probably not quite even then. The free agent market isn’t any better. Finding a shortstop who isn’t completely hopeless with the bat is out of the question. The best-case scenario for the Pirates would be a no-hit shortstop with a good, and probably overblown, defensive reputation. Cesar Izturis is a good example of the sort of player the Pirates would wind up with; the Orioles were in a similar position last year, with no shortstop and no internal alternatives, and he's what they had to settle for. Izturis' career OPS+ is a pitiful 67. He’s supposed to be very good defensively, but UZR/150 gives him only a 0.7 this year. That would drop the Pirates’ infield overall from well above average to merely average. I don’t see how they can afford that with a pitching staff that remains last in the majors in strikeouts. If the Pirates can’t reach an agreement with Wilson on a less expensive extension, they need to give serious consideration to picking up his $8.4M option for 2010. With McLouth’s contract gone they can afford it.