First Pitch - September 4, 2007

Good morning everyone!

Today we will continue the recap of players in their contract years in 2007 that we started last week with the hitters.

Of the 50 hitters we looked at last week, 13 performed better than we expected last year, only 8 beyond our .05 FPI margin of error. There were 35 potential-free-agent-to-be hitters who underperformed this season, and after pruning those for margin of error, injuries and age, we were left with 25 statistically significant underperformers.

Here is how the pitchers fared…

Starting pitchers
Tony Armas (30) - $5MM mutual option for '08 -.65
Paul Byrd (37) - $8MM club option for '08 +.33
Shawn Chacon (30) +.39
Roger Clemens (46) -.24
Matt Clement (33) – sproooiiing!
Bartolo Colon (35) -.62
Josh Fogg (31) +.35
Casey Fossum (30) -.72
Freddy Garcia (32) -1.06
Tom Glavine (42) - $9MM player option for '08 -.05
Livan Hernandez (33)* -.24
Jason Jennings (29) -.69
Joe Kennedy (29) -.28
Brian Lawrence (32) -.96
Jon Lieber (38) -.06
Kyle Lohse (29) +.21
Rodrigo Lopez (32)  +.47
Greg Maddux (42) - $8.75MM player option or $11MM club option for '08 +.21
Eric Milton (32) -.21
Tomo Ohka (32) -.67
Odalis Perez (31) - $9MM club option for '08 -.23
Andy Pettitte (36) - $16MM player option for '08 +.09
Joel Pineiro (29) -.03
Curt Schilling (41) +.06
Carlos Silva (29) +.70
Julian Tavarez (35) - $3.85MM club option for '08 -.19
Steve Trachsel (37) - $4.75MM club option for '08 -.08
Jeff Weaver (31) -.39
David Wells (45) -.19
Kip Wells (31) -.33
Randy Wolf (31) - $9MM club option for '08 +.17

Closers
Armando Benitez (35) -.55
Joe Borowski (37) - $4MM club option for '08 -.46
Francisco Cordero (33) +.41
Octavio Dotel (32) - $5.5MM mutual option for '08 -.56
Eric Gagne (32) -.01
Jason Isringhausen (35) - $8MM club option for '08 +1.22
Todd Jones (40) +.03
Al Reyes (37) - $1MM club option for '08 -.44
Mariano Rivera (38) -.33
Bob Wickman (39) -.27

Middle relievers
Jeremy Affeldt (29) +1.17
Antonio Alfonseca (36) +.0
Jorge Julio (29) -.68
Joe Kennedy (29) -.28
Scott Linebrink (31) -.56
David Riske (31) - $2.85MM club option for '08 +.0
Russ Springer (39) +1.21
Julian Tavarez (35) - $3.85MM club option for '08 -.19
Mike Timlin (42) +.0
Luis Vizcaino (31) +.52

Once again, with the pitchers, we looked at 50 potential-free-agents-to-be, which represent the vast majority.  Of that group, 14 performed better than we expected at the beginning of the year in projections based largely on statistical trends. Given the inherent unpredictability of pitchers, we will widen our margin of error to .10 FPI either way (as opposed to the .05 we used with hitters). That leaves 11 pitchers whose performance was significantly better statistically than what could be expected based on their statistical history.

Two guys you would expect to be the type of players who would be able to simply will their game to a higher level when motivated, Curt Schilling and Andy Pettitte, did do better that expected this year, but marginally. Jeremy Affeldt, Russ Springer, and Luis Vizcaino did well as MRs but I’m not sure MRs provide reliable samples for this type of comparison.

Some pitchers likely earned themselves a few more $$$ this year, Paul Byrd, Greg Maddux, Randy Wolf ... Carlos Silva did very well for himself, but Jason Isringhausen is clearly the big winner among pitchers.

Take out the two flat liners and we are left with 36 pitchers who underperformed this year against projections based on their statistical trends. There are injuries at play here of course but guys like Scott Linebrink, Bob Wickman and The Warrior Mo Rivera simply misfired. Only 4 of those pitchers fall within our widened margin of error leaving 32 underperformers.

Now I got a few e-mails on this subject last week making some good points. Yes, it is important that we note who is in their contract years because they are more prone to being traded especially when the pitcher is decent and playing for a “small market” team. And there are other reason why it is useful to know who is in their contract year.

And one member speculated that these numbers might have been different in the steroids era because it was easier, and less threatening to juice up in a contract year. That is a great theory (I wish I had thought of it myself!) which probably has merit. While that potential reality may have contributed to our current bias however we need to deal with the current reality. This is another reason why I constantly emphasize the need to challenge your own beliefs and biases. Things change. What is true today may not have been true 4 years ago, and it may not be true 4 years from now. 

From a statistical performance standpoint however, we can crunch these numbers, and others, and come to many different theories. Nevertheless, having looked at 100 potential free agents in the last two weeks, 50 hitters and 50 pitchers, I think we all can agree that in 2007 at least, players in their contract years, as a group, did not raise the level of their performance. In a sample of 100 players, only 19 players performed significantly better than projected in their contract year.

At the beginning of the year, a draft plan based on filling roster spots with player in their contract years because those player generally up their game would have produced poor results. You would have missed on 4+ out of every 5 players based on that strategy. I see nothing in this sample of players to suggest that this year was unusual in that regard.

While it may true of some players (and again, this spring I wrote that I believed Curt Schilling fit that mold quite nicely), at some times, it seems pretty clear that a contract year does not mean a general boost in performance for free-agents-to-be.