The Cleveland Indians and Walks

The 2010 Cleveland Indians were not an offensive machine, as we could point to any number of statistics and find a ranking somewhere in the bottom third of the American League.  Ryan over at Lets Go Tribe summarized the Tribes inept offensive numbers here.

To summarize the write up by Ryan at Lets Go Tribe, the Tribe ranked 10th or lower of 14 AL teams in Runs Scored, Hits, Triples, Home Runs, Batting Average, On-Base %, Slugging %, and total bases, not to mention the Tribe struck out the third most times in the American League.  To compound all of the negative offensive data, the Tribe was shut out a total of 15 times in 2010.  The one thing the Tribe was able to do in 2010 was walk as the team ranked sixth in the AL with 545 walks.

How do the Indians draw so many walks and still lose 93 games?  To answer this question, I've taken the Indians record in games where they drew 0-7+ walks and compared the frequency of these events to the AL average and their corresponding win percentage in these games to the AL League Average.  The table indicates that the Indians overall had less games than league average drawing 1,2, or 3 walks and a greater than league average in frequency of drawing 0, 4, 5, 6, or 7 or more walks in a game.   The Indians win percentage exceeded the league average only for games where the team drew 6 walks.

INDIANS RECORD IN GAMES BY WALK TOTAL
BB	W	L	Win %	Freq	AL Win %	AL Freq	±AL Win%	±AL Freq
0	2	10	0.167	7.41%	0.301	6.00%	-0.135	1.41%
1	7	15	0.318	13.58%	0.403	14.99%	-0.085	-1.41%
2	11	14	0.440	15.43%	0.445	19.93%	-0.005	-4.50%
3	12	19	0.387	19.14%	0.493	19.22%	-0.106	-0.09%
4	10	17	0.370	16.67%	0.548	15.21%	-0.177	1.46%
5	8	10	0.444	11.11%	0.633	11.07%	-0.189	0.04%
6	10	2	0.833	7.41%	0.627	5.91%	0.206	1.50%
≥7	9	6	0.600	9.26%	0.667	7.67%	-0.067	1.59%

Did the Indians improve their overall W-L percentage when they drew 4 or more walks as opposed to 3 wallks or less?  From the table belwo, the Indians had a .356 winning percentage when drawing less than 3 walks but a .514 win percentage when drawing 4 or more walks. 

DRAWING 3 WALKS OR LESS IN A GAME
AL Rank	Team	W	L	Win %	Freq%	AL Win %	AL Freq%	±AL Win%	±AL Freq
1	Rays	41	29	0.586	43.21%	0.435	60.14%	0.151	-16.93%
2	White Sox	62	51	0.549	69.75%	0.435	60.14%	0.114	9.61%
3	Yankees	39	33	0.542	44.44%	0.435	60.14%	0.107	-15.70%
4	Red Sox	44	45	0.494	54.94%	0.435	60.14%	0.059	-5.20%
5	Blue Jays	49	56	0.467	64.81%	0.435	60.14%	0.032	4.67%
6	Rangers	44	54	0.449	60.49%	0.435	60.14%	0.014	0.35%
7	Angels	49	67	0.422	71.60%	0.435	60.14%	-0.013	11.46%
8	Twins	37	52	0.416	54.94%	0.435	60.14%	-0.019	-5.20%
9	Athletics	39	57	0.406	59.26%	0.435	60.14%	-0.029	-0.88%
10	Orioles	45	75	0.375	74.07%	0.435	60.14%	-0.060	13.93%
11	Mariners	40	67	0.374	66.05%	0.435	60.14%	-0.061	5.91%
12	Royals	39	67	0.368	65.43%	0.435	60.14%	-0.067	5.29%
13	Tigers	34	59	0.366	57.41%	0.435	60.14%	-0.069	-2.73%
14	Indians	32	58	0.356	55.56%	0.435	60.14%	-0.079	-4.58%

DRAWING 4 WALKS OR MORE IN A GAME
AL Rank	Team	W	L	Win %	Freq%	AL Win %	AL Freq%	±AL Win%	±AL Freq
1	Twins	57	16	0.781	45.06%	0.606	39.86%	0.175	5.20%
2	Tigers	47	22	0.681	42.59%	0.606	39.86%	0.075	2.73%
3	Angels	31	15	0.674	28.40%	0.606	39.86%	0.068	-11.46%
4	Athletics	42	24	0.636	40.74%	0.606	39.86%	0.030	0.88%
5	Rangers	42	24	0.636	39.51%	0.606	39.86%	0.030	-0.35%
6	Blue Jays	36	21	0.632	35.19%	0.606	39.86%	0.025	-4.67%
7	Yankees	56	34	0.622	55.56%	0.606	39.86%	0.016	15.70%
8	Red Sox	45	28	0.616	45.06%	0.606	39.86%	0.010	5.20%
9	Rays	55	37	0.598	56.79%	0.606	39.86%	-0.008	16.93%
10	White Sox	26	23	0.531	30.25%	0.606	39.86%	-0.076	-9.61%
11	Indians	37	35	0.514	44.44%	0.606	39.86%	-0.092	4.58%
12	Royals	28	28	0.500	34.57%	0.606	39.86%	-0.106	-5.29%
13	Orioles	21	21	0.500	25.93%	0.606	39.86%	-0.106	-13.93%
14	Mariners	21	34	0.382	33.95%	0.606	39.86%	-0.224	-5.91%

Having a healthy Grady Sizemore and Carlos Santana back in the lineup should increase the Indians walk total in 2011 and help increase the frequency of games where the Indians draw 4 or more walks in a game.   If the trend of winning percentage increasing when drawing 4 or more walks a game continues, the Tribe should be able to increase its win total from 2010 to 2011.

Anthony Reyes: A Look Back & Ahead

As a freshman at USC, Reyes was the dominant counterpart to Mark Prior as USC advanced to the College World Series.  Reyes sophmore, junior, and senior seasons at USC were cut short due to nagging elbow injuries which dropped him into the 15th round of the 2003 draft.  After missing 6 weeks due to shoulder inflammation at the beggining of the 2004 season, Reyes dominated A ball hitters and advanced quickly to AA where he continued to show the promise that he once flashed as a freshman in USC. 

As noted earlier, Reyes was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 15th round of the 2003 Amatuer Draft and quickly moved up the Baseball America Top 100 Prospect Rankings to #47  prior to the 2005 season and up to #41 prior to the 2006 season.  In 428 minor league innings, Reyes struck out 446 while walking just 101 but he was never able to translate that dominance to the major league level. The St. Louis Cardinals traded Reyes to the Cleveland Indians for Luis Perdomo on July 26, 2008. 

Reyes had success with the Tribe in 2008 by going 2-1 in 6 starts with an impressive 1.83 ERA.  By the end of the 2008 season, the Indians had high hopes that Reyes had turned a corner and could lock down a starting job in the rotation in 2009.  Reyes returned to USC prior to spring training of 2009 to work with ptiching guru Tom House in an attempt to rework his delivery to remove stress from his elbow which had been causing him discomfort at the end of the 2008 season.  Reyes pushed himself through 8 starts in 2009 but finally succumbed to the pain on May 22nd and faced the realization that his elbow would require ulnar nerve transposition surgery and ligament transplant surgery (Tommy John Surgery).  The surgery was performed by Dr. Lewis Yocum on June 12, 2009 with an expected recovery time of 12-18 months.

Anthony Reyes is currently in Goodyear, Arizona working his way back from elbow reconstruction surgery performed  by Dr. Lewis Yocum on June 12, 2009 with an expected recovery time of 12-18 months.   Reports from Tony Lastoria at Indiansprospectinsider.com are very positive and even have him hitting 96 mph on the radar gun.

Many Tribe fans may remember the Anthony Reyes of 2009.  That Anthony Reyes, according to data researched at Brooksbaseball.net, averaged nearly 87 mph on his fastball with a maximum velocity of around 90 mph.  Is this falls 96 mph a radar gun oddity for Reyes or is the increased velocity something that made Reyes the top prospect in the St. Louis Cardinal Orginzation in 2005 and 2006?   Baseball America's 2005 scouting report suggest that Reyes was up to 94-96 mph on his fastball and generally worked between 90 and 95 at the end of the 2004 season.   Baseball America's 2006 scouring report also echoes the 2005 scouting report suggesting that Reyes sat in the 92-93 mph range and occassionally hits the mid-90s.

Tribe fans can hope that the Anthony Reyes who is pitching in Goodyear, Arizona this fall is the same Anthony Reyes that reports to Goodyear, Arizona to compete for a starting job in February, 2011.

American League Draft WAR Review

Every major league baseball organization has a different roadmap to success, but drafting and developing young talent is important.  The question I initially had was how well do teams draft and how does good drafting affect performance on the field.  If a team doesn't draft well, is it reasonable to assume ownership has to support a higher payroll to achieve success?   For each Amercian League team, I've included a brief look at the performance from 1997 through 2010, a recap of the 1999-2006 draft results with associated Wins Above Replacement (WAR).  Additionally, since a teams drafting record isn't the number one deciding factor for organizational performance (latin america/asian signings, trades, etc), I've included attendance and payroll data for each team as well as W-L record.

I wanted to examine each teams drafts over a select period of time.  The Point in Time Analysis method always leads to questions as to how the period of time was determined.  Was the period of time cherry picked to fit some preconcieved notion, was it arbitrary, or was there some reasoning behind it?  I chose to look at the 1999 to 2006 draft results for the Amercian League as I felt that players drafted in that 8 year period have had ample opportunity to develop and make their mark in the major leagues.

The next hurdle I had to overcome was to find a way to judge a drafts success or failure.   It can not be looked at by the number of players to make it to the majors, since that percentage is betwen 8 and 13 percent for all teams and  making it to the major leagues is no guarantee that the player made a significant impact.  Additionally, I wanted to look at how well a team targeted talent, this would include players taken that were unable to be signed.   Like a salesman that has to dollarize a product to the customer, I was looking for a way to dollarize the strength or weakness of a MLB draft.  To do this, I chose the statistic for Wins-Above-Replacement (WAR).   The WAR statistic, like Point in Time Analysis can lead to many differring opinions on its utility.  In this case, the statistic is used as a way to capture a number that may help dollarize the draft results.  As mentioned earlier, I wanted to be able to look at the overall talent recognized by the organizations draft team as well as how the players fared in that drafting teams uniform; therfore, the WAR is broken down into Total WAR and Team WAR. 

AL DRAFT RECAP 1999-2006

CLEVELAND INDIANS

MINNESOTA TWINS

CHICAGO WHITE SOX

DETROIT TIGERS

KANSAS CITY ROYALS

NEW YORK YANKEES

BOSTON RED SOX

TAMPA BAY RAYS

BALTIMORE ORIOLES

TORONTO BLUE JAYS

LOS ANGELES ANGELS

TEXAS RANGERS

SEATTLE MARINERS

OAKLAND ATHLETICS