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Monday, February 27, 2012

Looking Ahead to 2012 - Mark Teixeira

Next up, it’s Mark Teixeira.

2011
For the second straight year, Teixeira declined, as he hit a career low .248, which combined with his lowest walk rate since 2005 gave him the second lowest OBP of his career.  Texeira hit for a bit more power than he had in 2010 as measured by ISO (SLG - AVG), but was still below where he was in 2009. 

Here’s how Teixeira’s 2011 performance compared to his average 2011 projection adjusted to the same number of PA.

projection	PA	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	HBP	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	BR	BR/650
average	684	583	161	37	1	34	86	10	114	.276	.376	.515	.384	110	104
2011	684	589	146	26	1	39	76	11	110	.248	.341	.494	.358	99	94
delta		6	-15	-11	0	5	-10	1	-4	-.028	-.035	-.021	-.026	-11	-10

So he hit 11 fewer doubles and 9 fewer singles, while adding 5 HRs.  He also walked 10 fewer times than expected.  The chief culprit here was the big drop in Teixeira’s BABIP (batting average on balls in play).  Teixeira had a career low BABIP of .239.  The defensive shift teams play on him is at least part of that, but he’s gone from a .302 BABIP in 2009 to a .268 BABIP in 2010 to a .239 BABIP in 2011.  When I see something like that, my first impulse is to think that we’re seeing a trend, but things that appear to be trends in baseball are often just random fluctuations.

I thought it might be useful to look at players who’ve seen a similar drop in BABIP and what it meant for their careers.  So I pulled a list of all players since 1990 who had at least 300 AB in a season and then looked for the ones who had exhibited a similar overall drop in BABIP over a three year stretch and found what they did in the fourth year. 

Teixeira’s gone from a BABIP of .302 to .269 over the past thee years, a drop of .063, so I looked at all players who had at least a .050 drop in BABIP over a three year stretch, which gave me a list of 155 players.  I won’t put the list on this post, but you can look at it via this link.

Of those 155 players, 120 had a better BABIP in year four than they had in year three.  On average, players on this list improved on their year three BABIP by about .027.  I’ll note the caveat that there’s some selection bias in here because if a player didn’t improve on his BABIP in year four he would have had a harder time getting another 300 AB.  But I think this is pretty good evidence that Teixeira can recover some of those missing hits in 2012.  For whatever it’s worth, if you add .027 BABIP to Teixeira’s 2011 he’d have 8 more singles and 4 more doubles, and would move from a line of .248/.341/.494 to a line of .268/.379/.521 which is about as close to his average 2011 projection of .276/.376/.515 as you could hope for.

Anyway, I’ve rambled on long enough about 2011, so on to 2012!

Offensive Projections

Projection	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	GDP	HBP	avg	obp	slg	wOBA	BR	BR/650	BRAR
cairo	692	594	98	156	34	1	33	109	3	1	81	113	14	11	.263	.359	.493	.368	104	97	33
davenport	656	570	90	150	31	2	35	103	3	2	75	112	12	11	.263	.360	.509	.375	101	100	27
marcel	613	528	85	137	29	1	30	94	3	1	69	103	12	10	.259	.352	.489	.363	90	95	27
oliver	647	560	80	142	32	1	28	92	1	1	71	101	13	10	.254	.345	.464	.351	89	89	23
pecota	700	604	98	164	35	1	34	100	2	1	85	122	14	11	.271	.371	.501	.379	109	101	37
zips	655	562	88	148	32	1	32	109	2	1	76	112	13	11	.263	.359	.495	.368	98	97	31
average	661	567	94	149	32	1	32	101	2	1	76	110	13	11	.263	.357	.494	.367	99	97	31
2011	684	589	90	146	26	1	39	111	4	1	76	110	12	11	.248	.345	.494	.358	99	94	29
2011 AL	684	614	80	158	32	3	18	76	13	5	55	123	14	6	.258	.323	.408	.319	79	75

For more information about the projections above, you can read the first post in this series.

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 half of Teixeira’s games taking place in a farcical joke of a stadium.

The projections are all in the same general area.  They expect Teixeira to be a bit better in 2012.  It appears that PECOTA takes CAIRO and changes the underlying assumptions and components in a bunch of ways that make Teixeira look better.

CAIRO Percentiles Forecast

%	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	GDP	HBP	avg	obp	slg	wOBA	BR	BR/650	BRAR
80%	727	624	113	177	41	2	41	126	5	0	95	107	11	15	.284	.407	.556	.410	130	116	56
65%	706	606	105	166	37	2	37	117	4	1	87	110	11	13	.274	.389	.525	.389	116	107	44
Baseline	692	594	98	156	34	1	33	109	3	1	81	113	14	11	.263	.370	.493	.368	104	97	33
35%	623	534	84	135	28	1	28	94	2	1	69	106	14	11	.253	.357	.461	.350	85	89	21
20%	554	475	70	115	22	0	22	79	1	2	58	99	14	11	.242	.343	.429	.333	68	80	12

I know batting average isn’t all that meaningful, but it would be nice to see Teixeira hit in the .275-.280 range.  But I wouldn’t bet on it.  That being said, I wouldn’t be suprised to see him hit that 65% forecast.
Base Running

Year	gaR	aaR	haR	oaR	SBR	BRR
2008	-0.2	0.2	-1.4	0.1	0	-1.3
2009	-4.7	-0.2	1.0	0.0	0.08	-3.8
2010	-1.5	-1.3	0.3	0.3	0	-2.2
2011	-1.2	-0.7	-1.5	0.0	0	-3.3
Projection	-1.9	-0.7	-0.4	0.1	0.0	-2.9

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

I don’t really think of Teixeira as a bad base runner, but he appears to be below average.  We’ll have to see if he’ll be the one to carry on the torch of base ruining so ably handled by Jorge Posada.

Defense

Teixeira’s got a good defensive reputation and makes some good plays, but is probably overrated a bit by the average fan and writer.  I don’t think he has great range, but he’s got a good arm and makes some nice plays.  He projects as solidly above average in all of the various different defensive metrics I am using here.

Inn	DRS	UZR	TZ	ZR	avg
1281	2	4	5	4	4

DRS: John Dewan’s defensive runs saved
UZR: Ultimate Zone Rating
TZ: Total Zone
ZR: Zone Rating

These numbers are based on a weighted average of the past five seasons, with some regression towards the mean.  For 1B, the metrics don’t include scooping or foul popups but it shouldn’t make much of a difference.  Maybe a run in either direction.

Value
So what’s Teixeira’s projected worth given the above?

Projection	RAA	Rep	Pos	RAR	BRR	Def	WAR
cairo	24	22	-12	33	-2.9	4	3.4
marcel	19	19	-11	27	-2.9	4	2.9
oliver	14	20	-12	23	-2.9	4	2.4
pecota	28	22	-13	37	-2.9	4	3.9
zips	22	21	-12	31	-2.9	4	3.2
average	22	21	-12	31	-2.9	4	3.2
2011	20	21	-12	29	-3.3	3	2.9

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

Teixeira’s being paid more as a 4 win player ($22.5M this year) than a 3 win player.  So let’s hope PECOTA is closer than the others.

I don’t know what I expect out of Teixeira in 2012.  To be honest, the more I think about it, the more concerned I am about the Yankees’ offense this year.  I can envision scenarios where the Yankees get less offense than expected out of just about every position but 2B and CF.  That makes Teixeira even more important. 

Hopefully he’s up to it.