Project-a-tron part 5 - why trading Mark DeRosa was inevitable (and a great idea)

2009 Projections:

Player	PA	HR	OBP	SLG	wOBA	UZR	WAR	Salary
Fontenot	550	14	.352	.439	.348	+6	2.8	~$0.5
Mark DeRosa	620	14	.353	.423	.342	-5	1.9	$5.5

(salary data from Cot's)

What's the argument here? Most of DeRosa's perceived value last year was in his ability to play multiple positions. Really though, what made DeRosa valuable was that he had a great backup in Fontenot to fill in for him at 2b while he was moving around the diamond. If Cedeno (or true-talent Aaron Miles) had been his primary backup, DeRosa's ability to move around the diamond would not have much value at all, as you would be choosing to have a replacement level batter at either 2b or at DeRosa's 'supersub' position.

The other thing to remember is that while DeRosa's output looks great relative to other 2b, it's not quite as valuable when moved to other parts of the field, from a purely offensive standpoint at least. His defense certainly isn't helping him much at 2b either. In fact, since it appears that he can play decent defense in RF (a UZR of ~+6 based on regressing extra innings to the mean), he actually has more value there (2.2 WAR) than at 2b (1.9 WAR), despite the fact that his bat does not contribute as much compared to a replacement RF. Strangely enough, he put up good defensive numbers at 3b with the Cubs despite several poor performances there in the past.

Of course, trading DeRosa leaves the Cubs with a player that has less positional flexibility (and a lousier backup), and one who has a much bigger platoon split than Derosa (who actually hits lefties quite well). However, trading DeRosa helped free up $5mm that went towards signing Milton Bradley, which was definitely a wise investment, as well as stockpiling minor league arms. Hendry made the right decision selling high on DeRosa, and I think this was his second best transaction of the offseason (which enabled the best one - signing Bradley)

Amending some projections

As MB21 pointed out in the comments of my Aaron Miles post, my defensive projections for Miles away from 2b are not very realistic, especially at 3b, where he has only had 61 innings of big-league time. I'm zeroing out his numbers there (since I still feel that 3b is a *little* more difficult) than 2b, where I have him at +2 runs. I guess it's not that big a deal anyway, since he's going to get the bulk of his time at 2b. I still think it's a poor signing - I think we should have gone with a cheapo shortstop (think Alex Cintron from last year's spring training) or, if we were actually spending money on a utility guy, nabbed Nick Punto (who has obscene defensive numbers). Of course, that's not very fair to the Cubs since he signed with MIN in early December, well before the DeRosa trade. In general though, just don't feel that we should be spending much more than the major league minimum on a utility player.

Over in the Lee vs. Hoffpauir thread on BCB, a discussion with Colin about Lee's projections has made me change my mind on my projections as well. I leaned heavily towards the more pessimistic projections for Lee (especially Marcel), projecting him at a .362 wOBA. My opinion was that Lee's 2007 was an up year for Lee, and 2008 was closer to his true talent level (since it looked so much like 2006). However, what I did not take into account (and neither did Lee's Marcels, given how that works) was that 2006 was Lee's injury bounceback year, and the data point just before it was Lee's career year in 2005. This would suggest instead that 2007 was closer to his true talent, while last year was a down year for him. I'm still not as high as CHONE is (.381 wOBA), but I think bumping Lee's wOBA up to .375 would be more than reasonable. Here are the new numbers:

Player	PA	HR	OBP	SLG	wOBA	UZR	WAR
Lee	685	22	.370	.481	.375	+3.5	3.2
Miles	350	3	.328	.370	.305	+1 (2B) -9 (SS) 0 (3B)	0.1

Derrek Lee > Micah Hoffpauir

The theme of the day seems to be "Derrek Lee sucks! Replace him with Hoffpauir!" People need to settle down and remember 3 things

1. This is spring training we're talking about.


2. Even if you take spring stats seriously, this is a tiny sample size.


3. Derrek Lee is a better baseball player than Micah Hoffpauir.

Let's look at Lee's last three seasons, shall we?

Year	AVG	OBP	SLG	BABIP
2006	.286	.368	.474	.333
2007	.317	.400	.513	.367
2008	.291	.361	.462	.333
2009 (projected)	.290	.370	.474	.330

Lee's numbers look remarkably consistent. He had a good year, BABIP wise, in 2007, which led to his higher OBP (+30 in BABIP, +30 in OBP) and his other two years look remarkably similar. He's aging, and thus the power projection might be a little high. Contrast this with Hoffpauir's projection:

Year	AVG	OBP	SLG	BABIP
2009 (projected)	.282	.322	.480	.310

What do we see here? Hoffpauir looks a lot like Derrek Lee, but minus almost 50 points in OBP. Lee is also a slightly above average defender at 1b. We don't have a lot of data on Hoffpauir at 1b (which is why it is zeroed out in his projection), but all the subjective reports suggest that he is not good with the glove. Still though, disregarding defensive value (or lack thereof), 50 points in OBP is a lot to give up.

In Support of Sammy Sosa

I don't have time to put out a long post on this, but wpbc and wv23 (here, here, and here) have done a good job addressing the poor treatment Sosa as received from Cubs fans and the media.

Sosa, Zambrano, and Prior (in that order) have been my favorite players since I actually started following the team. Sosa and Zambrano remind me of each other actually - they're both kind of goofy guys who love playing baseball (and are quite good at it), and it's telling that Zambrano has been both my favorite player and my wife's favorite since Sosa was traded away. Our favorite memory of Sosa is the commerical he did for MLB's "I live for this" campaign a few years back (probably 2003) where he talked about how he was living the dream, playing for the Cubs at "Wrig-a-lee" field (we still often refer to Wrigley like this, from our love of Sosa). He gave his all to the team and poured his heart out for the fans, and deserves better from all of us. I hope Ricketts is a Sosa fan, because Sosa's number is the obvious next choice to be flying from the flagpoles.

Project-a-tron part 4 - Why Aaron Miles Sucks

Player	PA	HR	OBP	SLG	wOBA	UZR	WAR
Miles	330	3	.328	.370	.305	+1 (2B) -9 (SS) -5 (3B)	0.1

Hendry did many things right this offseason - most notably, signing Milton Bradley and not re-signing Henry Blanco. However, I think that signing Aaron Miles was a big mistake. We already had a player who could do what Miles could do, for a lot less money. His name is Ronny Cedeno. Here is my projection for him in Miles's role:

Player	PA	HR	OBP	SLG	wOBA	UZR	WAR
Cedeno	330	5	.311	.379	.304	+15 (2B) -2 (SS) 0 (3B)	0.5

This deal only makes sense in two scenarios: either Cedeno was part of a Peavy trade that was a lot closer than anyone thought, or Lou flat-out told Hendry that he wanted Cedeno traded. The problem here is that although Miles and Cedeno have very similar offensive numbers, Cedeno's defense makes a pretty big difference in his value. Miles can play 2B just fine, but he is lousy at SS and 3b. In my opinion you need to do one (or both) of the following to be a decent utility player:

1. Provide competent defense at multiple positions, especially at one primary defensive position (usually SS or CF, since they are the hardest to play


2. Be able to fake multiple positions on defense, but hit well enough to make up for the runs you aren't preventing

Cedeno satisfies #1. Miles satisfies neither of them, which is why the Cubs are still looking for someone who can backup 3b, though SS is my main concern. My defensive projection for Miles is pretty much a WAG, but I'm basing it off the fact that he has been a very poor SS. 3B is a little easier, in theory, but I think the rap on Miles is that much like Theriot and other short guys he has a second baseman's arm. If Hendry had waited he could have brought in, say, a better SS (Orlando Cabrera anyone), or even some other ACTUAL shortstop, who can be expected to handle the other IF positions than Miles, who is only really suited to 2b

Project-a-tron Part 3 - Ryan Theriot

Now, on to the middle infield

Player	PA	HR	OBP	SLG	wOBA	UZR	WAR
Theriot	610	3	.345	.352	.316	+4	1.7

Theriot is a pretty polarizing figure in the Cubs blogosphere. Love of (or disdain for) his scrap factor aside, he too is a decent (though not particuarly good) shortstop. He had a surprisingly good year last year, but I suspect that it was a career year for Theriot. He often looks bad defensively but his UZR grades him out to be a slightly above average SS. He also spawned the "TOOTBLAN" statistic due to his often boneheaded baserunning. Theriot's biggest problem though is his lack of power. He is a singles hitter, and thus his value is very tied into his BABIP. Take a look at these numbers:

Ryan Theriot:

Year	BA	OBP	BABIP	SLG
2007	.266	.326	.289	.346
2008	.307	.387	.340	.359

His BABIP jumped by 50 points, and, shockingly, his OBP jumped by 60 points! Everyone was pointing to Theriot's improved OBP as a sign that he made it, but I only see a marginal improvement. Singles hitters like Theriot live and die by how many balls make it out of the infield, and if teams start putting a shift on him (unlikely as it may be), he would be screwed. If you assume his BABIP to fall back down to typical values, Theriot's OBP will drop back down to the .340s, which combined with his defense and poor slugging puts him as a just-below average SS.

Project-a-tron, part 2 --- (some of) the infield

Next up is the Cubs infield. Here's what it is looking like right now

(Note: This was originally going to be about the entire IF, but I had so much to write about for 2B/SS that it got chopped up into 2 posts)

Player	PA	HR	OBP	SLG	wOBA	UZR	WAR
Soto	575	24	.365	.499	.369	5	4.5
Bako	100	2	.285	.299	.260	0	-0.2
Hill	100	3	.294	.360	.293	0	0.1
Lee	685	22	.370	.474	.362	+3.5	2.4
Hoffpauir	180	8	.322	.480	.340	0 (1B) -10 (LF/RF)	0.1
Ramirez	660	33	.362	.522	.376	-0.3	4.1

Soto is the most underrated player on this team, and is just a shade below my bullish projection for Soriano in terms of total WAR. Defensively, he's not vintage Pudge out there, but it's not like he's Mike Piazza either. His defense is good enough that he can stick at catcher, and even if it wasn't, having his bat at that position is a huge asset for this and future Cubs teams.

I get the feeling that Bako has the backup catcher job sewn up no matter how he performs, due to his 'veteran presence' tag and the fact that he won't make a very big impact on the team, given the number of PAs that Soto is likely going to receive. Hill is better offensively, and it's tough to tell who is better defensively (none of them particularly shine). Given the small spread in their abilities, I would pick Hill over Bako even if he were worse offensively, mainly because he is younger and thus less prone to the random breakdown injuries that old catchers get, which means that we don't have to do any roster shuffling if he goes down.

Derrek Lee is a slightly higher than league-average player at this point in his career. We will never see the 2005 MVP-caliber Lee again, and most criticism of Lee comes from unfair comparisions to that season and the fact that he is still batting third in the lineup when he should probably be moved elsewhere. In fact, while his power has been overrated for the past two seasons by most Cubs fans, his fantastic OBP has been largely ignored. I actually think that Lee's ideal lineup position would be second, since he still has *some* power, but if he moves anywhere it will probably be to 5th or 6th.

Aramis Ramirez is a good baseball player, and is probably slightly underrated by most Cubs fans. Ramirez can hit baseballs. A long way. But it's not just home runs (though he does hit a fair few of those) - he hits a ton of doubles. Add the fact that he can also adequately field his position and you have one of the top third basemen in the National League.

Micah Hoffpauir is a good bat to have on the bench, but let's not pretend that he's anything more. He's a statue in a corner OF spot (the UZR I gave above is probably too generous), and isn't that great defensively at 1B either. He doesn't have very much patience at the plate either. He will be an adequate replacement for Daryle Ward. Lou has said that Hoffpauir is pretty much a lock to make the roster this year.