Orange County Register

Baseball Prospectus notes that, for the fifth year, the Angels are doing something that isn’t supposed to happen:

“According to our Adjusted Standings page, through Sunday the Angels were 11.5 games above their third-order Pythagenpat projection, a fancy way of saying that they’ve won over 11 games more than the combination of events on the field—their hits, walks, total bases, stolen bases, and outs of all kinds, as well as those of their opponents, all adjusted for park, league, quality of competition and temperature of porridge—would suggest. That’s by far the top mark in the majors this year, and while it’s not enough to break the single-season record of 16.0, set by last year’s Anaheim team, it does crack the all-time top 10, and place them in select company.”

This will make for a nice off-season project. I earlier looked at teams that have outperformed their run differential and found no evidence that some teams “repeat” as over- or under-achievers. I think it’s fair to conclude that the Angels may be history’s first exception to the rule, which of course requires we rethink some things. Says BP: “Quite simply, we’re in Almost Neverland.”

The truly weird thing is that this Angels team has almost none of the characteristics of last year’s team — they’re basically a slugging homer-hitting team with a sketchy bullpen, not last year’s bullpen-and-small-ball crew. So it might be hard to find that characteristic that should predict overachievement. The simplest explanations may be that the Angels have been extraordinary in “clutch” situations; or that the Angels are extraordinarily bad in blowout situations.  Not sure if either of those facts is actually true, but a place to look.

It’s time for another installment of “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a blog,” regular conversations we’re having with prominent Angels bloggers. Sean (sometimes Chone) Smith, who blogs at Anaheim Angels All the Way, is no ordinary blogger; he’s one of the most prominent sabermetric writers going, and the creator of the CHONE projection system, by some measures the most accurate statistical forecaster for hitters.

We talked about this season’s surprises (i.e. stuff I got wrong) and about the nature of statistical projections.

me: I want to take about some of the mistakes I made in anticipating this season. Since I lean heavily on your projections, I figure I can just blame you.
Sean Smith: I didn’t anticipate the injuries - I’m pretty sure I had Ervin set for a big year.
me: Before I go to some players outperforming or underperforming projections, though, this is quoting you… you were asked which Angel could collapse, which would break out: “If I have to pick one maybe Howie Kendrick. I’m worried about the injuries and inability to lay off the slider outside stalling his development. With his lack of patience, he has to hit .300 to be an asset, .270 would be a disaster. … Weaver will take the step forward to become an ace, like Lackey, Santana, and Saunders have before him. My projections see him as the equal to Lackey and Santana.”
You’re a witch!!!
Sean Smith: That looks pretty good. But I take no pleasure in Kendrick’s struggles.
me: Is there a small part of you that roots for the projections to be right? Basically rooting for the world to behave rationally? Or do you not care, so long as the Angels win?
Sean Smith: Angels winning is the most important part. I would be ecstatic if I was wrong every time I made a bad projection for an Angel.
Incidentally, I have both Weaver and Kendrick on my fantasy team.
me: Ha, awesome/bummer. OK, my biggest miss was Chone Figgins. I probably spent 5,000 words saying that it was foolish to expect a bounce back, that 2009 isn’t 2007. The projections seemed to back me up. And he’s going to get MVP votes. What didn’t the computers see?
AND, more importantly, what happens for the next 350 PAs?     Read the rest of this entry »

During the offseason, when I suggested the Angels ought to trade Chone Figgins and install Brandon Wood at third base, somebody brought up a good point: Who would lead off? Figgins is the only one who fits the classic look of a leadoff hitter, getting on base and stealing bags. Secretly, I thought that was the wrong question – lineup analysis tools are pretty adamant that Bobby Abreu should be the Angels’ leadoff hitter, and that Figgins should be hitting eighth or ninth. (The real question is whether Figgins’ defense is good enough that he’s become undervalued, which I’m coming around on.)  But I didn’t push the point because, I figured, having the right “type” of lineup is probably something the Angels take seriously, so it’s no use spitting into the wind.

Then Vladimir Guerrero went down, and Scioscia’s lineups started to look a bit funny, and now I wonder: Does Scioscia care about lineups at all?

If he does, why was Maicer Izturis his No. 3 hitter on Friday? We all know what a No. 3 hitter looks like: He’s traditionally the best hitter on the team (or something like the best). He typically has a bit of pop. He’s the star. Maicer Izturis is a fun little hitter, but his name obviously stuck out.

OK, maybe it’s a late scratch, a hasty fix. So I look the next night and Izturis again. Then on Sunday, Robb Quinlan is the No. 3 hitter. Well, now. Of everybody on the Angels’ active roster at the time, Quinlan was the second-worst hitter last year, ahead of only Jeff Mathis. The projection system PECOTA forecasts that he’ll be the worst this year, and as many of you know, it’s not like PECOTA is rosy on the rest of the Angels. Putting Quinlan in the third spot can only be Scioscia showing a sort of self-aware mockery of the system. Like the guy who did the network dubbing of Snakes on a Plane:

Right? So maybe Scioscia simply doesn’t care about lineups. How else to explain the fact that, last year, the No. 2 hitters in the order had the second-lowest OPS on the team, a meager .674 that was easily outshined by the eighth hitters (.733) and the seventh hitters (.707), who get 100 fewer at bats? How else to explain Mike Napoli hitting eighth all the way through the end of the season, even though he was the team’s second-best hitter on a per-at bat basis? How else to explain that Napoli started the season in the eighth spot this year, and has batted seventh or eighth in every game but one? In 2006, his eighth hitters outhit his third hitters.

I half admire this non-adherence to traditional lineup orthodoxy, especially because traditional lineup orthodoxy is often wrong — indeed, the best hitter shouldn’t even bat third, despite what history has decided. Billy Martin famously pulled a lineup out of a hat to shake his team up; they won the game. (And lost the nightcap of the doubleheader when they reverted to the team’s traditional batting order.) Lineup maintenance doesn’t matter a whole lot, and mostly on the margins, so it’s not worth pulling one’s hair out. But as long as Scioscia is going to go rogue, he might as well go all the way. Courtesy of the lineup analysis tool at Baseball Musings, here is what the Angels’ lineup should be tonight:

1. Bobby Abreu
2. Torii Hunter
3. Howie Kendrick
4. Juan Rivera
5. Mike Napoli
6. Brandon Wood
7. Kendry Morales
8. Erick Aybar
9. Chone Figgins

According to the model, that lineup would score 5.0 runs per game. The difference between that lineup and any other is only worth perhaps two or three wins per year, but right now, two or three wins looks like a pretty big deal.