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Friday, February 23, 2007 |
In Lieu Of An Actual Post: More About Cabrera
I had a brief exchange with the owner of The Baseball Savant which I thought might be interesting to my readership here:
Baseball Savant wrote:
†Bill Hall is listed as a shortstop but he played multiple positions for the Brewers; the fielding win shares total is therefore a composite.
So Julio Lugo, who is actually a much worse performer overall than Cabrera, both offensively and defensively, ended up with a 4-year/$36M deal with the Red Sox as the offseason's only available top-tier free agent shortstop. Cabrera is actually cheaper and better. Much as I hated on the Cabrera deal at the time, it's also true that he now looks positively cheap. Compared to what Brandon Wood might bring to the table? Maybe even then; I'm very skeptical of Wood's ability to hit the ball consistently enough to have a reasonable OBP. He'll need to show that he can do that in a league where they don't have a mess of hitter's parks. For his first year or so in the majors, I'm willing to go on record as saying that Wood offensively may well be a step down from what Cabrera offers currently.
As to Cabrera's defense... well, his fielding Win Shares show him to be the second-best defender in the league. Of course, fielding statistics vary wildly (all listed as shortstops). Here's Baseball Prospectus's Rate2:
Ultimately, the question of liking Cabrera comes down to his durability. It was the major concern that (in my mind, at least) was a good justification for letting David Eckstein walk; so far, Cabrera's been able to stay in the game, preventing the team from installing the far worse Izturis at shortstop on a longer-term basis. Meantime, Eckstein's health problems, while not catastrophic, have definitely lingered. Much as it pains me to say it, Cabrera's signing has been basically a good one, and compared to current market pricing, a positive steal.
Baseball Savant wrote:
The weakness of this argument starts when you use OPS+ to judge his offense. A more neutral approach is to use position-adjusted rankings and go from there to figure what he could have brought in the current environment. Let's start with win shares. Here's a list of the top 30 shortstops in MLB ordered by descending total win shares:Dear Rob,Good point about Cabrera. Let me ask you, at what point can you no longer tolerate the offense that bad? I guess I was basing my opinion on the fact that Cabrera is no longer a top notch defensive SS and if you base his defensive success agaisnt his offensive failure, you'd wind up in the negative. Obviously you can't judge a player in a vacuum and SS isn't exactly a posistion of abundance, but how much of Cabrera do you tolerate as the Angels organization before think he's hurting the team more than helping it? I know you guys have him for a couple of more years.What do you think about that? Am I looking at that the right way?
Cabrera lives in the bottom half, but in the middle overall, which is what we expected. Of these players --+---------------------+----------+--------+--------+ | name | field_ws | bat_ws | tot_ws | +---------------------+----------+--------+--------+ | Derek Jeter | 4.7 | 28.0 | 32.7 | | Jose Reyes | 3.1 | 26.3 | 29.4 | | Rafael Furcal | 6.8 | 20.1 | 26.8 | | Michael Young | 7.7 | 18.5 | 26.2 | | Jimmy Rollins | 6.1 | 19.8 | 25.9 | | Carlos Guillen | 4.3 | 21.5 | 25.8 | | Hanley Ramirez | 5.3 | 19.6 | 24.9 | | Miguel Tejada | 5.0 | 18.0 | 23.0 | | Bill Hall | 3.7 | 17.2 | 21.0 | | Omar Vizquel | 4.6 | 14.2 | 18.9 | | Orlando Cabrera | 7.4 | 11.4 | 18.8 | | Edgar Renteria | 4.9 | 13.8 | 18.6 | | Jhonny Peralta | 7.9 | 6.4 | 14.3 | | Khalil Greene | 5.7 | 6.9 | 12.7 | | Jason Bartlett | 4.8 | 8.0 | 12.7 | | Julio Lugo | 2.7 | 9.9 | 12.5 | | Adam Everett | 8.6 | 3.7 | 12.4 | | Yuniesky Betancourt | 5.4 | 6.9 | 12.3 | | David Eckstein | 4.8 | 7.1 | 11.8 | | Marco Scutaro | 4.8 | 6.4 | 11.2 | +---------------------+----------+--------+--------+
- Team slaves (i.e., pre-arb): Hanley Ramirez
- Under contract: Derek Jeter, Jimmy Rollins, Rafael Furcal,
Michael Young, Carlos Guillen, Miguel Tejada, Omar Vizquel, Bill Hall*†,
Orlando Cabrera, Edgar Rentaria, Jhonny Peralta*, Jose Reyes*, Khalil
Greene*, Jason Bartlett*, Adam Everett*, Yuniesky Betancourt*, David
Eckstein, Marco Scutaro*
- Free Agents in 2006/7: Julio Lugo
†Bill Hall is listed as a shortstop but he played multiple positions for the Brewers; the fielding win shares total is therefore a composite.
So Julio Lugo, who is actually a much worse performer overall than Cabrera, both offensively and defensively, ended up with a 4-year/$36M deal with the Red Sox as the offseason's only available top-tier free agent shortstop. Cabrera is actually cheaper and better. Much as I hated on the Cabrera deal at the time, it's also true that he now looks positively cheap. Compared to what Brandon Wood might bring to the table? Maybe even then; I'm very skeptical of Wood's ability to hit the ball consistently enough to have a reasonable OBP. He'll need to show that he can do that in a league where they don't have a mess of hitter's parks. For his first year or so in the majors, I'm willing to go on record as saying that Wood offensively may well be a step down from what Cabrera offers currently.
As to Cabrera's defense... well, his fielding Win Shares show him to be the second-best defender in the league. Of course, fielding statistics vary wildly (all listed as shortstops). Here's Baseball Prospectus's Rate2:
Player Rate2
==========================
Jhonny Peralta 119
Adam Everett 116
Rafael Furcal 109
Jimmy Rollins 108
Khalil Greene 106
Derek Jeter 106
Miguel Tejada 104
Omar Vizquel 101
Orlando Cabrera 100
David Eckstein 100
Marco Scutaro 100
Jason Bartlett 99
Hanley Ramirez 98
Michael Young 98
Carlos Guillen 97
Bill Hall 93
Edgar Renteria 93
Jose Reyes 89
Yuniesky Betancourt 91
And this more-or-less agrees with my own estimation of his ability:
he's mediocre, not bad. Underneath Cabrera are a number of
better-hitting shortstops: Hall, Ramirez, Renteria, Reyes, Vizquel, and
Young all outhit him, but none of them (save Renteria) were really
available in the 2004/5 offseason when Cabrera was signed. And since
Bill Stoneman knew he was going to be moving into service an entire
raft of young pitchers, Renteria's suspect defense (he hasn't even been
league average according to Rate2 since 2001) wasn't going to be an
asset.Ultimately, the question of liking Cabrera comes down to his durability. It was the major concern that (in my mind, at least) was a good justification for letting David Eckstein walk; so far, Cabrera's been able to stay in the game, preventing the team from installing the far worse Izturis at shortstop on a longer-term basis. Meantime, Eckstein's health problems, while not catastrophic, have definitely lingered. Much as it pains me to say it, Cabrera's signing has been basically a good one, and compared to current market pricing, a positive steal.
Labels: angels
Comments:
Now the obvious question becomes: why do believe Maicer Izturis is "far worse" than Cabrera at shortstop? Looking back over the past three seasons, they have comparable Rate 2, and Izturis had a more impressive offensive year than Cabrera last season. Seems like ill-considered overstatement.
# posted by 
: 2/23/2007 06:32:00 PM
: 2/23/2007 06:32:00 PM
Matt -- you're right. My initial queries were screwed up there.
Anon -- Izturis posted VORP and win shares numbers about half those of Cabrera. Granted, there are playing time issues there, too, but I doubt with more playing time that Izturis acquits himself at the same level.
Anon -- Izturis posted VORP and win shares numbers about half those of Cabrera. Granted, there are playing time issues there, too, but I doubt with more playing time that Izturis acquits himself at the same level.
Granted, there are playing time issues there
That's where you should stop...if you seek an honest argument, natch. You're comparing his value playing out-of-position at 3B, with slightly more than half of Cabrera's playing time. Not to mention six years difference in age, an overachieving season from Cabrera, and Maicer's first full season in the Majors. Should we compare total hits and HRs next? Sheesh.
Maicer's VORP last season, in 200 fewer ABs, exceeded that of Orlando in '04 and '05. If we're going to pick cherries, I want a few.
That's where you should stop...if you seek an honest argument, natch. You're comparing his value playing out-of-position at 3B, with slightly more than half of Cabrera's playing time. Not to mention six years difference in age, an overachieving season from Cabrera, and Maicer's first full season in the Majors. Should we compare total hits and HRs next? Sheesh.
Maicer's VORP last season, in 200 fewer ABs, exceeded that of Orlando in '04 and '05. If we're going to pick cherries, I want a few.
# posted by : 2/23/2007 08:27:00 PM
: 2/23/2007 08:27:00 PM
Heaven forbid I bring up anything but stats, but in the 1,457 games that Vladimir Guerrero has played at the Major League level, Orlando Cabrera has been his teammate for all but 200 of them.
Ex-Expo Bill Stoneman knew exactly what he was doing when he signed Cabrera - even if he fills SS with a league average player, he is making Vlad's life in Anaheim more familiar and comfortable and has someone he can get to talk to the big guy if there ever is a problem.
Ex-Expo Bill Stoneman knew exactly what he was doing when he signed Cabrera - even if he fills SS with a league average player, he is making Vlad's life in Anaheim more familiar and comfortable and has someone he can get to talk to the big guy if there ever is a problem.
# posted by : 2/23/2007 11:31:00 PM
: 2/23/2007 11:31:00 PMNewer› ‹Older
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