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Napoli tops Angels’ bargains
December 27th, 2008, 10:41 am · 18 Comments · posted by Sam Miller, The Orange County Register
Fangraphs has added positional player values to its site, so we can see which players offered the most production per dollar spent in 2008. The most valuable player in baseball? No shock there, as Albert Pujols was worth about $40 million (and paid just $14 million).
Let’s look at the Angels values and salaries last year. The best bargain on the team? It may surprise you — or, it may have if I hadn’t given it away in the headline. All figures are in millions, and if you want to know how these values are determined, I’ll post the methodology in the first comment to this post.
.
| Player | Value | Salary |
| Torii Hunter | $10.8 | $16.5 |
| Vladimir Guerrero | $11.8 | $15.5 |
| Garret Anderson | $6.3 | $12.6 |
| Mark Teixeira | $30.5 | $12.5 |
| Gary Matthews, Jr. | $0 | $9.4 |
| Chone Figgins | $10.2 | $4.8 |
| Juan Rivera | $0 | $2 |
| Casey Kotchman | $4.6 | $1.5 |
| Maicer Izturis | $5.9 | $1.2 |
| Erick Aybar | $8.6 | $0.4 |
| Mike Napoli | $14 | $0.4 |
| Howie Kendrick | $5.7 | $0.4 |
A few observations: 
- Would you believe that, of all the Angels returning in 2009, Mike Napoli –in just a couple hundred at bats — was the team’s most valuable position player, and its best bargain, in 2008? Fangraphs doesn’t measure catcher defense, so if you think he’s a bad one feel free to dock him a few ticks. But that .374 OBP and .578 slugging percentage blow my mind every time I look at his page.
- Figgins’ value suggests I might want to reconsider what I wrote earlier this week about him. There are a few caveats to his estimated value, though. One is that his value is entirely in the strong defensive year the Fangraphs stats gave him at third base. Given that the same system rated him poor at third the previous two years, I’d like to see another strong season before I fully believe the defensive stats. And as a left fielder, his value would have been much less. Regardless, Figgins was a bargain in 2008 despite his awful hitting.
- Those Teixeira and Kotchman numbers are for the full season. While he was an Angel — a third of the season — Teixeira was worth $15.2 million. Kotchman’s time with the team was worth $5.2 million, but he went backward in Atlanta.
- Erick Aybar’s defense is seriously valuable.
- Fangraphs’ metrics, on the other hand, don’t believe Hunter is a very good defensive center fielder. But maybe he is. Baseball Prospectus loves his defense; John Dewan’s plus/minus system doesn’t. If we just consider him average and adjust his value accordingly, he’d be worth just about his salary.
- In his five years as an Angel, Guerrero has been worth $75 million, and paid $67 million. Bill James’ projection system has him having a big bounce back year, which would make him worth about $18 million or so. Not all forecasts are so rosy, of course.
Do any of these values seems outlandish to you guys?
Posted in: Angels • Chone Figgins • Juan Rivera • Maicer Izturis • Mike Napoli • Planet VORP • Torii Hunter • Vladimir Guerrero
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18 Comments
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I’ll try to make this simple, but if it’s not let me know and I can try to clarify:
Generally speaking, a player who creates 10 runs above a replacement level is worth about one win. (Twenty runs equals two wins, etc.) Also generally speaking the value teams placed on a win — based on what they’ll spend on free agents and such — was $4.5 million in 2008. So a player who was worth 35 runs above replacement level was worth 3.5 wins or $15.75 million.
To figure out Teixeira’s value, Fangraphs figures out how many more runs than an AVERAGE player he created, then they add 20 runs for every 150 games he plays, because an AVERAGE hitter is about 20 runs better than a REPLACEMENT-level hitter over 150 games.
Then, they figure out (based on a zone rating) how many more runs than an AVERAGE fielder he was worth. They dock him 12.5 runs from that because he played first base for a full season. Each position is adjusted differently; shortstops and catchers are credited with extra value because few defenders could play there, while corner outfielders and first basemen get docked.
So Teixeira is worth 45.7 runs as a hitter; plus 22.8 runs for the replacement-level adjustment. He was worth 11.7 runs as a fielder, minus 12.2 runs for the positional adjustment. Add that all up and he’s worth 68 runs, or 6.8 wins, or $30.5 million.
Sorry, that wasn’t simple at all. Any questions? Ask away.
Great article. Essentially, it appears that I had the same value to the team as GMJ last season.
Technically, you were worth more, Drew. Fangraphs gives GMJ negative value, but since there are no negative salaries I didn’t see the point.
Fansgraphs? What is that? Two guys listening on a phonograph to “Revolution No. 9″ backwards, so they can find new and different baseball numbers to amaze and amuse friends who don’t know anything about baseball either?
If Fansgraphs followed the Angels from even nine miles high, they would have known that Jeff Mathis was their most valuable catcher. The Angels were 26 over .500 when he caught, 13 over when Napoli caught, and their ERA was 0.80 lower with Mathis, and Mathis was the everyday catcher from early July to early August when the Angels were their hottest.
Napoli crushed 20 homers in 78 games. He also had a nice playoff. He also hit .222 or lower in April, May and June and had an OBP of .293 on July 29. You have to make adjustments quicker than that to become a credible hitter.
Mathis is much more athletic behind the plate and commands a game better.
Having said that, Napoli has undeniable strengths. It’s a good and underrated catching combo and it might flip-flop next year, but Mathis was the Angels’ MVC in ‘08.
Mark -
Are you kidding me?! If YOU watched the Angels all year, you’d know how stupid you just sounded.
Mathis’ CERA is a fluke stat that no one can deny. Napoli caught Garland (at his worst), Adenhart (!!!) and bad Moseley games in April that completely KILLED his CERA. Mathis, however, caught Santana, some Lackey and some Saunders. Now you tell me which catcher got the better hand. CERA (falsely) assumes that every run allowed is the catcher’s fault. That is, it assumes the pitcher makes every pitch, thereby making it the catcher’s fault when the pitch gets hit (or a run scores). If that’s not one of the most useless stats I’ve ever heard of, I don’t know what it.
Let’s talk about how great Mathis’ defense is…. 13 errors in 94 games, and many of those cost the team runs because they were throwing errors, allowing the base-stealer to go from 1st to 3rd. Yeah, that’s definitely valuable. Well, maybe if you’re the Pirates…
“You have to make adjustments quicker than that to be a credible hitter.” So Mathis’ .194/.275/.318 line meant nothing to you?
OC Register? What is that? Two guys sitting around and pretending that press credentials are a proper substitute for any type of clue?
Mark, you might as well have openly declared, “these new-fangled perspectives are going to cost me my job, I just know it.”
“You have to make adjustments quicker than that to become a credible hitter.”
Fortunately for you, no adjustments seem necessary to continue writing for the OC Register.
In case you haven’t noticed, Mark, hobbyists (with families, full-time jobs, and mental capacities beyond your own) do your ‘job’ more capably than you.
You couldn’t have made yourself sound older and more out of touch had you walked into a Mexican restaurant and ordered yourself a plate of “frajeeters.”
My god, man, you should be embarrassed. Are you for real? I’d recommend that you not quit your day job but, really, you should hold onto it as tightly as possible….or at least until the lights go out over there.
I’m not a big believer in CERA. Not saying catchers don’t have an impact on run suppression, but I don’t know how we would measure it and I know for a darned near fact that CERA isn’t the way. Matt gives a good explanation why above, but if that’s not enough, Keith Woolner, who used to write for Baseball Prospectus but was hired by the Cleveland Indians a few years back, wrote the definitive piece on this topic. Here it is:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1489
Regardless, as noted, Fangraphs doesn’t have a metric for catcher defense, so it’s not a part of Napoli and Mathis’ value. (By the way, Mathis was worth -.1 million, according to Fangraphs.) Folks should feel free to adjust accordingly in their minds, but I’d have a hard time believing that Mathis’ defense was $14 million better than Napoli’s — especially without any reliable evidence.
I agree with Sam and Matt and feel it necessary to add that Mathis’ defense was, for much of the season, atrocious.
Mark would have been better off pointing out Mathis’ skills as an option quarterback….they’re probably more relevant to his poorly conceived argument.
This seems like another disagreement in the Bill James vs. Sparky Anderson school of thought. I don’t think you can totally disregard this formula, but there is also no substitute for watching game after game.
Something is wrong when Dustin Pedroia, who won a Gold Glove at second base, has less value as a fielder than Brian Giles.
Because the voting on gold gloves carry so much credibility…
Re: Pedroia vs Brian Giles, Fangraphs actually doesn’t rate Giles more valuable than Pedroia. The positional adjustment for second base is much more than for right field, so Pedroia is worth about 11 runs above average as a defender, while Giles is worth about three runs. Both are excellent.
I have a big problem looking at CERA or any stat when comparing catchers. What about looking at the ump? Did he squeeze the pitcher or have a generous strikezone? Did Scioscia leave the pitcher in the game one batter too long which he seems to do a lot with Weaver. I’ve seen Napoli do a great job catching a game only to see a Scioscia decision ruin it. Can we add in manager’s CERA too?
I’d be interested to know what Halocidal’s job is. At least he doesn’t sound like he’s in our newsroom.
I would advise him that my job consists of a lot more than just using acronyms to make people think I’m a baseball maven.
As far as my being fearful of the new-fangled, I would also be comfortable laying a bet that I was using on-base-plus-slugging in columns before he had learned how to use silverware.
He sounds like one of those “My stats are great, your stats are garbage” guys who goes into seclusion 12 hours before his Fantasy League cutdown date.
For the record, I think most stats are worth looking at and none are all-inclusive, and none are more important than actually watching players and talking to those people who are actually around the game.
I’ll repeat, for the logic-impaired: The Angels were at their best when Mathis was the everyday catcher. Napoli was an All-American out for the first three months of the season. And both guys are fortunate to have each other.
As for Matt, welcome to our blog.
Get it? Welcome? Matt?
OK.
As far as the CERA argument goes, Napoli caught Lackey quite a bit. And I wasn’t referring to Mathis’ offense, just Napoli’s. It was being presented by Sam’s brothers-in-gibberish that Napoli gave the Angels the most bang for their buck because of his great offense. If you take April, May, June, July and August off the calendar, perhaps so.
Mark -
Mathis playing had nothing to do with the Angels being hot! Check out his splits from Baseball reference - http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/bsplit.cgi?n1=mathije01&year=2008. He was nowhere near as good as you’re claiming.
The Angels were good then because the entire offense was clicking for the first time all year (Mathis aside). Guerrero’s knees stopped barking for a bit, Juan Rivera was having a stupidly good month, and this guy by the name of Teixeira just joined the team. That’s the ONLY reason the offense was good.
Not fair to call folks “logic-impaired” right before dropping the most famous logical fallacy: Correlation does not imply causation. This is especially true when the Angels winning and Mathis catching share a confounding variable: Ervin Santana.
This is an entertaining topic, and I’m going to look at it in a bit more depth on Wednesday. Because there’s a bit more here than my earlier casual disregard of CERA.
[...] like it so much better when Whicker makes himself look old and crotchety by insulting Sam and SABRmetrics; it’s a much better schtick, [...]
“Fansgraphs? What is that? Two guys listening on a phonograph to “Revolution No. 9″ backwards, so they can find new and different baseball numbers to amaze and amuse friends who don’t know anything about baseball either?”
In what other industry is ignorance encouraged? What is FanGraphs? Look it up. You get paid to search the Internet and read/write about baseball and other sports. Don’t tell me you don’t have five minutes to go check it out for yourself. Learn something
“If Fansgraphs followed the Angels from even nine miles high, they would have known that Jeff Mathis was their most valuable catcher. The Angels were 26 over .500 when he caught, 13 over when Napoli caught, and their ERA was 0.80 lower with Mathis, and Mathis was the everyday catcher from early July to early August when the Angels were their hottest.”
No, because eyes are subjective. Correlation does not imply causation. Look up the term, man. Google–do you know what Google is?–it!
“Napoli crushed 20 homers in 78 games. He also had a nice playoff. He also hit .222 or lower in April, May and June and had an OBP of .293 on July 29. You have to make adjustments quicker than that to become a credible hitter.”
Mathis was bad at hitting all of the time, rather than some of the time.
“Mathis is much more athletic behind the plate and commands a game better.”
Right. You, Mr. trained talent evaluator, are able to determine that by watching him. Yeah, ok.
“Having said that, Napoli has undeniable strengths. It’s a good and underrated catching combo and it might flip-flop next year, but Mathis was the Angels’ MVC in ‘08.”
Why use data or evidence to back up a claim when you know better than us? We should just trust your eyes.
You are an idiot. By the way, Bert Blyleven should get in the Hall. You are right for voting for him. Your logic, however, is flawed. He was done in by bad teammates, which killed his record, and most of which was not his fault. Had his teammates been better, he surely would have lucked in to 14 more wins to reach 300. Wins are the worst stat to evaluate a pitcher. Do some research before you write.
The guys at FanGraphs forgot more about baseball than you will ever know.