The BBA Today #79 - You're Talking Performance Maps?

[RonCo]

It's mid-Augst in the BBA world, and Ted Schmidt and Ron Collins get together to discuss trades and signings and any hair San Antonio GM Mike Calvaruso might have left to pull out. Can Chris Kelly lift Rockville, is Brooklyn going to sneak in. What's the impact of the Kernels pushing a pair of Juan Garcias out the door? There's face gen, and pet peeves, and Ricardo Mendoza talk. And don't get us started on Cornelio Lozano, strike outs, and, yes, performance maps.

In other words, welcome to the jungle ... tangled up as it is.

GET IT HERE

[RonCo]

Listening to the discussion of Fernando Cruz and his BABIP, the following charts shows how his BABIP has fallen over the years of his career. Running some numbers, it's hard to see him dropping as hard as he's dropped without something big happening--even given the smallish sample size. I mean, it's possible, but somewhere in the line of one in a thousand. Unless he's still degrading--which is possible. It's fairly clear that Cruz has seen a stead decline through age 35, it wouldn't be shocking to see a 36 year-old baseball layer become suddenly unable to hit. That said, as Ted notes, Cruz's contact rating is still "7."

I note that SAC's ballpark hits AVG at the .91 level, so I could see it possible the park has made a big impact.

(NOTE: The Below is not Park Adjusted)

Cruz-2045-BABIP.PNG (10.98 KiB) Viewed 1203 times

[bigmike13]

Thank God for Whiskey or this season would have been worse

[RonCo]

Comparing Fernando Cruz to a couple other aging stars Ted and I discussed:

Mark Simpson: has a 5 Contact (vs. Cruz’s 7), but his AVK is not high … so that’s interesting. If you track his BABIP over the years, you get this:

Simpson-2045-BABIP.PNG (10.48 KiB) Viewed 1193 times

Bottom line, his BABIP was probably pretty solid until he hit age 32, whereupon it started to flag. He got 170 AB in Boise, and 169 more in Omaha (which is BABIP neutral). Bottom line, until this season’s big drop, Simpson’s curve can be said to look a lot like Cruz’s. Will Cruz come back with another 150 AB? That's the million dollar question.


Emilio Morales: Morales is obviously a high power, high AVK kind of hitter, which is quite similar to Cruz. He also plays in that BABIP-neutral park. I note that Morale’s Contact (estimated batting average) is “6” vs. Cruz’s “7.” Still, here is his BABIP across his career.

Morales-2045-BABIP.PNG (8.41 KiB) Viewed 1193 times

We can see here why, at age 32, Morales’ value dropped. That’s were his BABIP dropped to about .200. Unlike the others, he’s stayed pretty consistent there (note, we’ll see what happens with Cruz and Simpson if they stay in the league). I’ll note, too, that his GAP rating also seemed to decline at the same time—his 2B/AB and 2B/1B rates also feel around there. I suppose that’s related to speed falling off, too.

The fun of looking at Morales rather than Cruz and Simpson is that the ballpark didn’t really change for Morales.

What does it mean? I don’t know. I guess it’s interesting to get a sense of how BABIP can age. I should note, though, there are players who maintain BABIP out into older years, too. OOTP development is not “locked” in any particular way so much as it’s just unlikely to let 40-year-old hitters play with a .300 BABIP. [grin]

[RonCo]

Here's one of the guys who retained his BABIP out into 36/37.

Lucas McNeill: He was a positive WAR player until his last year, when his GAP and AVK also, dropped too far. BABIP dropped, too, but it wasn't down into the .200 range that some of the other older players have dropped to.

McNeill-Career-BABIP.PNG (9.59 KiB) Viewed 1192 times

[shoeless.db]

Fun listen... again, as always.

Re: Fernando Cruz --
2045 Home: 55PA, slashing .116/.309/.279
2045 Away: 60PA, slashing .065/.267/.065
Small sample size, of course, but his only extra base hits (1 double, 2 HR) came at home. I've been doing everything I can to make him as mad as possible so he'll hang up his low BABIP cleats after this season. I was hoping there was another morale level below angry... He'll be cut this offseason, anyhow.

Re: Mendoza's contract
With the plan to cut Cruz and not take Luis Gracia's team option, I was looking at $60m in cap space going into the off-season. My preference would have been to sign Simpson, but I couldn't stomach his firm asking price of 6/$162, regardless of how I could structure the deal. Mendoza is a Simpson-lite for a bit more than half the cash. I'm also in a situation where I have zero need to sign a pitching free agent as it's time to see what I have with my young pitchers. Plus, my bullpen is basically set. This left me looking to fill my holes on offense (RF, 3B, C, CF... et al). Perusing the upcoming free agents, there's just no one who I can overbid on to make me significantly better next season. I'm actually in a situation where I can still overbid for David Simpson and land him. So, I traded for Mendoza and extended him to ensure I at least spend some of my owner's money next year (and in 2047, tbh).

[RonCo]

Fun listen... again, as always.

Re: Fernando Cruz --
2045 Home: 55PA, slashing .116/.309/.279
2045 Away: 60PA, slashing .065/.267/.065
Small sample size, of course, but his only extra base hits (1 double, 2 HR) came at home. I've been doing everything I can to make him as mad as possible so he'll hang up his low BABIP cleats after this season. I was hoping there was another morale level below angry... He'll be cut this offseason, anyhow.

Heh...

Here's more interesting/odd info regarding Cruz's BABIP:

Versus Left 0.093 (61 AB, 54 BIP)
Versus Right 0.048 (28 AB, 21 BIP)

Even with the impact of the ballpark, I'd expect him to BABIP at least .180 or so.

[lordtoffee]

Great podcast gentlemen, and thank you for sharing your perspective on the Balun deal. Both Ron and Ted did make some great points on why I made the move. The two reasons that I think this can work is that with Ramon Martinez going down, I felt I needed to grab some help in the back end. Also, I do get some extra cap space in case something comes up on the trade block after tonight's sim.

[CTBrewCrew]

AND there was an Asseldonk spotting! - Kudos gentlemen

[Jwalk100]

I used this podcast as a drinking game. When someone went off on a tangent I drank. I'm Saturday drunk on a Thursday afternoon.

Great podcast guys!

[CTBrewCrew]

@Ted - everytime you warn @RonCo about something coming true i.e (deLaCruz) HRs in Louisville you remind me of this...

[HerbD]

good stuff fellas