Manny Alternatives Number One

by meercatjohn on Feb 12, 2009 9:37 AM PST Comment 14 comments

With Dunn and Abreu gone our non Mannny alternatives are shrinking. Each day until he signs I'm going to post a possible alternative that does not include Juan Pierre as our starting left fielder. None of these idea's are as good as Manny in LF but it is Feb 12th and Manny is not here.

With Dunn being signed by the Nationals, BABlue pointed out that they now have a plethora of outfielders. Dunn is going to be the 1st baseman. That leaves three outfield spots for Austin Kearns, Lasting Milledge, Elijah Dukes, Josh Willingham, Willie Harris, and Wily Mo Pena. It also leaves Nick the Stick on the bench and he's not happy about it.

So the proposal is to give the Nationals a middling prospect for Nick the Stick and stick him at 1st base moving Loney to LF. Loney in RF didn't work out very well, but Loney should be able to handle LF.

The Good:

Nick when healthy" can match Dunn with the bat. He doesn't have Dunn's home run power but he actually gets on base at a much higher clip and can slug over .500 to boot. Unlike Dunn, Nick has a good glove to go with it (+6 from 2005-2007). He has posted an OPS+ of 138, 93, 137, 149, 123 over the last five years that he's seen action(missed all of 2007) and is at the end of a contract that will pay him 5.5 million in 2009. In his last healthy season in 2006 he had a triple stat line of 290/428/520. His lifetime OBP is just a notch below .400 at .396.

The Bad:

After thumb ('01), knee, wrist ('02), hand, back ('03), back, cheek ('04), heel ('05), hand, leg ('06), leg ('07), wrist ('08) no one is larger health risk then Nick Johnson. He claims to be healthy now but you that could change by the time the next Santa Ana's hit us. That is why he could be had for cheap.

Why:

Because the payoff could be huge. Many people were willing to sign Dunn and move him to 1st and put Loney in LF. Nick Johnson in his best year was better then Adam Dunn by 2.7 wins. He just need his health. The gamble isn't huge because the cost to acquire him should be minimal and his salary is certainly worth the gamble. He came up with Torre and Mattingly for whatever that means.

Here are some comparisons between the two. Soon we will be building a sabremetric glossary but if you want to know the difference between EQA, WARP-3, or OPS+. Click on the links provided.

Dunn Versus Johnson
Year	Player	OPS+	EQA	WARP3
2003	Adam Dunn	116	.284	4.1
2004	Adam Dunn	146	.311	6.2
2005	Adam Dunn	141	.309	6.3
2006	Adam Dunn	114	.286	4.5
2007	Adam Dunn	136	.311	5.8
2008	Adam Dunn	129	.304	6.9
2003	Nick Johnson	138	.318	4.4
2004	Nick Johnson	93	.261	1.5
2005	Nick Johnson	137	.310	6.9
2006	Nick Johnson	149	.331	9.3
2008	Nick Johnson	123	.303	1.3

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Comments

Nick Johnson would be a good 1B pickup

But why do you think that Loney would make a good translation to LF? Tom Tango suggests that LF and RF play relatively similar in terms of defensive premium, and the addition of a strong OF arm (in differentiating RF and LF) is surprisingly small. UZR says that Loney is not a good 1B, and FRAA has him at exactly average. If we believe Tango’s defensive spectrum, those numbers would make Loney roughly a -1W LF/RF.

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by Andrew Martin on Feb 12, 2009 9:48 AM PST reply actions 0 recs

Re:

I said he could handle LF I didn’t say he’d be good at it. That said I don’t see how you can translate a first baseman’s defensive skills into what he’d do as an outfielder. What does groundball range, scooping, and throwing in the infield have to do with reading fly balls which is the main job of the outfielder? To me it is the much easier position to play then RF. It is why players like Ibanez, Manny, Sheffield, Gonzalez, Luzinski, and countless others are in LF instead of RF. On a personal note I’ve always liked my left fielder to be left handed. Just something graceful about the left handed left fielder catching the ball ala Sandy Amoros.

by meercatjohn on Feb 12, 2009 10:15 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I need to remember to not comment on defensive anything

So much of it is anecdotal.

I’m making all my references to this: http://jinaz-reds.blogspot.com/2007/10/player-value-part-2c-offense-positional.html

My thought on moving players is typically just thinking what would be the worse defensive dropoff if a player was moved out of position. I guess Johnson can’t very well move to LF, and Loney’s young enough that he won’t break upon entering the OF.

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by Andrew Martin on Feb 12, 2009 10:20 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I just don't think Tango's spectrum works in anything more than the theoretical sense

You can’t convert everyone’s fielding ability into one raw number, because different positions take different skills that don’t necessarily translate from one position to the next.

by Brendan Scolari on Feb 12, 2009 10:28 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Well here's the thing

Tango bases all his research off of just piles upon piles of data, specifically UZR data.

He’s mostly modeling Mark DeRosa types of players to see what the UZR difference is between positions. Problem is, and we brought this up on Purple Row, is that it doesn’t really account for specialization or skill sets at all, rather, just observed what actually happened. It only really works for guys who tend to be utility players or move around a lot over the course of their career, like DeRosa, or maybe Bill Hall.

That said, I’m not definitively saying that Loney is gonna lose you guys a 1win a season, but more suggesting that based on his current UZR ratings at 1B, he’d be worth around -10 runs/season defensively, or -1W.

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by Andrew Martin on Feb 12, 2009 10:35 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Right

but the problem is not everyone is a Mark Derosa type player, him being a player who can play a lot of positions. Some guys can be good second baseman but bad outfielders and vice versa.

But I agree with you point that Loney would probably not be a very good outfielder, because he’s just not very quick.

by Brendan Scolari on Feb 12, 2009 10:41 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Oh I agree with you, we're on the same page

It’s just nifty to see when it lines up (see: Soriano, Alfonso) and I can go “HA TOLD YOU SO”

and then the 40 other examples that weren’t even close make me feel foolish

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by Andrew Martin on Feb 12, 2009 11:31 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Haha

Hey, Loney led our team in triples last year! Deceptive speed baby!!!

by Brendan Scolari on Feb 12, 2009 11:37 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Hey, you can't use WARP for Adam Dunn!!

You don’t care about corner OF defense remember? :)

I think that could be a relatively good solution. I don’t think Ned would make a trade that would move Loney to left though. But either way I would wait to make sure we can’t get Manny before trading for anyone else. It looks like we’re the only suitors, and I fully expect him to sign with us.

by Brendan Scolari on Feb 12, 2009 10:25 AM PST reply actions 0 recs