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Friday, February 24, 2012

Looking Ahead to 2012 - Russell Martin

With spring training ramping up, it’s time to start looking at the Yankees’ projections for 2012.  I always start off with the starting catcher, which means for the second year in a row we start with Russell Martin.

With Jorge Posada officially gone, Yankee fans are going to have to come to grips with the fact that they won’t get premium offense from their catchers, at least in 2012.  That doesn’t mean Martin won’t hit well enough to be an asset, but he is not and probably will never be as good as Posada was.

2011

Martin had a torrid start to start the season.  He hit .293/.376/.587 over his 85 April PA, with 6 HRs.  He did that with a perfectly reasonable batting average on balls in play (BABIP).  Unfortunately, he could not sustain that performance over the rest of the season,  as he hit .225/.313/.368 with a .246 BABIP.

If you compare what Martin did to his 2011 projections, he was about as productive as projected, although the shape was different (lower in AVG and OBP, higher on SLG).  If you factor in the slightly lower run environment then he was probably better than that.

Offense
So while we should not expect Martin to hit like Posada, what is a reasonable expectation?  We can look at that using the following projections:

CAIRO, my own projection system.
Clay Davenport, formerly of Baseball Prospectus’s projections
An unofficial version of Tangotiger’s Marcel, which were run using code provided by Jeff Sackmann.
Oliver, from the Hardball Times Forecasts.
PECOTA from Baseball Prospectus.
ZiPS, courtesy of Dan Szymborski at Baseball Think Factory.

Here’s how these look for Martin.

Projection	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	GDP	HBP	avg	obp	slg	wOBA	BR	BR/650	BRAR
cairo	511	443	60	112	19	0	13	54	9	3	59	81	15	6	.253	.348	.383	.329	59	76	26
davenport	434	382	48	100	19	1	14	41	7	3	46	67	14	5	.262	.349	.427	.343	55	83	20
marcel	477	416	54	103	17	0	11	50	9	3	51	76	14	6	.248	.336	.368	.317	52	71	20
oliver	495	431	54	105	19	0	11	49	7	3	53	72	16	7	.244	.334	.364	.315	53	69	20
pecota	534	463	66	123	21	1	13	54	11	4	64	78	16	7	.265	.363	.399	.343	67	81	32
zips	488	422	60	105	17	0	13	58	10	4	58	76	15	6	.249	.347	.382	.328	57	75	24
average	490	425	57	108	19	0	13	51	9	3	55	75	15	6	.253	.345	.388	.329	57	76	25
2011	476	417	57	99	17	0	18	65	8	2	50	81	19	5	.237	.326	.408	.323	55	75	24
2011 AL	476	427	56	110	22	2	12	53	9	3	38	86	9	4	.258	.323	.408	.319	55	75

BR: Linear weights batting runs
BR/650: BR pro-rated to 650 PA
BRAR: BR above replacement level, adjusted for position
wOBA: Weighted on-base average

I’ve included his 2011 and the league average line for his 2011 PA as frames of reference.  I haven’t adjusted league average for DNYS, so mentally adjust that upwards if you want to account for disgraceful bandboxedness.

There’s a fair bit of range in these projections.  Oliver and Marcel don’t park-adjust so they’re probably a little low. The consensus paints a picture of a player who’d be worth about 24 runs more than a replacement level catcher offensively, which seems about right.

Since projections are basically an estimate of a player’s talent with big error bars it can be helpful to look at a range of projections built off the baseline, which I can do by showing percentile forecasts for CAIRO.  Here are Martin’s.

%	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	GDP	HBP	avg	obp	slg	wOBA	BR	BR/650	BRAR
80%	562	488	74	135	25	1	18	67	13	2	73	79	13	9	.277	.400	.443	.373	83	96	46
65%	536	465	67	123	22	1	15	60	11	3	66	81	12	8	.265	.379	.413	.351	71	86	36
Baseline	511	443	60	112	19	0	13	54	9	3	59	81	15	6	.253	.358	.383	.329	59	76	26
35%	460	399	50	96	15	0	10	45	7	4	50	77	15	7	.241	.342	.353	.310	47	66	16
20%	409	355	42	81	12	0	7	37	5	4	41	72	15	7	.229	.326	.323	.292	36	57	9

Martin’s baseline is probably what I’d expect in 2012. 

Base Running
Martin is a pretty good base runner for a catcher, if you believe the base running stats from Baseball Prospectus.

Year	gaR	aaR	haR	oaR	SBR	BRR
2008	-0.1	0.4	1.7	0.0	-0.44	1.5
2009	1.1	0.7	1.0	0.2	-0.03	2.9
2010	0.5	-1.1	0.7	0.0	-0.15	-0.2
2011	-0.3	-0.5	-0.4	0.0	0.51	-0.7
Projection	0.2	-0.3	0.4	0.0	0.1	0.4

gaR:base running runs above average on ground ball outs
aaR:base running runs above average on fly ball outs
haR:base running runs above average on hits
oaR:base running runs above average on wild pitches/passed balls
SBR: stolen base runs above average

Martin doesn’t really add value with his base running, but at least he doesn’t lose any.  We’ll have to pin our hopes for baseruining elsewhere with Jorge’s retirement.

Defense
Catcher defense is still a great unknown, but analysts are making inroads there.  Mike Fast did a comprehensive study going back to 2007 on catcher pitch framing and according to that, Martin saved more runs for his pitchers than any catcher but Jose Molino at 71 runs over five seasons and 15 in 2011.  If we’re projecting him for 2012 we probably need to regress that somewhat, but it’s probably fair to say that if the methodology used in the study was accurate Martin can save his team about 10 runs a season.  He projects about average in terms of everything else (wild pitches, passed balls, stolen bases).

Value
So how much does Martin project to be worth?  It depends on which projection(s) you look at it.

Projection	RAA	Rep	Pos	RAR	BRR	Def	WAR
cairo	0	16	9	26	0.3	10	3.6
marcel	-3	15	9	20	0.3	10	3.1
oliver	-4	16	9	20	0.3	10	3.0
pecota	5	17	10	32	0.3	10	4.2
zips	0	15	9	24	0.3	10	3.4
average	1	15	9	25	0.3	10	3.5
2011	0	15	9	24	-1.2	15	3.7

RAA: Runs above an average hitter, adjusted for park.
Rep: Replacement level adjustment (22 runs per 700 PA pro-rated to projected PA)
Pos: Position-adjustment
RAR: Runs above replacement (Rep + Pos)
BRR: Base running runs (does not include SB)
Def: Projected runs saved defensively
WAR: Wins above replacement (RAR + BRR + Def) divided by 10

A 3.5 win catcher is probably one of the top five in his league.  That’s plenty good enough for a team with title aspirations.

Martin’s playing for his next contract, and probably his biggest potential pay day, so I’d expect him to be extra motivated this year.  Whether it translates into his on-field performance is something we’ll just have to wait on.
I like Martin and was glad the Yankees picked him up last year.  That being said, I can’t help but wonder if acquiring Martin eventually led to losing Jesus Montero.  That’s not his fault though,

Time will tell how that works out.