Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 95: Switch-Hitters Who Shouldn’t Switch-Hit/What We Learned from The Book/Dan Haren vs. Edwin Jackson/The Yunel Escobar Trade and the Yankees

Episode Date: December 5, 2012

Ben and Sam answer listener emails mostly (but not entirely) about things that happened on day two of the Winter Meetings.

Good morning and welcome to episode 95 of Effectively Wild, the Baseball Perspectives Daily Podcast in Nashville, Tennessee for the third episode in a row and the final episode. I am Ben Lindberg and in Long Beach, California, new BBWAA member, Sam Miller. Congratulations on being admitted to the official baseball writers club. Thanks, Ben. Yeah. How do you like it? How do you like being in it? It's been good for me. Did it get you anywhere this week at the winter meetings?

Did it get you any access? It got me into the media workroom, and I might have been able to get in there anyway but we had a bunch of people here from BP who were requesting passes so not necessarily so yes it helped me this week and helped me throughout the season it is it is nice to be able to wander into a ballpark whenever you feel like it yeah that's the primary benefit yes Yes, definitely, yes. At any inning with no notice. As it is now, it usually requires a day of notice or two days on the weekend, and you can't go into the park until about three and a half hours before the game, which is actually not really quite early enough a lot of times.

And you have to ask your boss to put in some requests so and if you go to a visiting park there is no telling what will happen that's true that's true i went to the yankees park and i was allowed to talk to the angels only which i had never run into that yes all, certain teams are strict, but no longer a problem for you. All doors are open. Yeah, all right. So that's good. Let's answer some emails.

Shall I do the reading today? Okay, sure. All right, so we have some emails. The first email question is actually two emails from two separate individuals. One is named Mike, and he asks, at what point should a switch hitter stop being a switch hitter? When there's a large discrepancy between their performance,

at what point is it better to scrap the platoon advantage and hit from the favorable side? Meanwhile, a gentleman named Joel asks the exact same question. So the most interesting part of this for me is, why do you think we got two questions? Who do you think the player is? Was the wording, the wording was verbatim the same or just? Different, different words.

This one is what does the gap in OPS or OPS plus need to be between there? Maybe as a LH and RH hitter. Explain those abbreviations for you. And for how long, et cetera. So do you, I think that it's clear who this is talking about. Do you? Oh, I wasn't even thinking about a particular person. This brought to mind an article at BP from a couple years ago because he asked if anyone had ever done research on it.

And there was someone who did research on it. Tommy Bennett came up with the term Shino or Shino or whatever, how you pronounce it. Switch hitter and name only. Exactly. Yes. So he came up with. Yes. Switch hitter and name only. Exactly, yes.

So he came up with this term, and then Eric Seidman, who was at BP at the time, looked into it to find out who qualified as one of these people. And he was looking for, I think, over a 25-year span prior to that point, and he found very few people who satisfied this condition and the way Eric looked at it and I think the way that makes sense is not just to compare the switch hitters performance from one side to his performance from the other side but to compare the performance from his weaker side to the league average, basically. Right. So, I mean, he used Lance Berkman as an example of a guy who had a very big split and was much better from one side than the other, but was so good from his strong side that even when you took away all that production when he was from his weaker side, he was still better than the typical batter from that side. So it's still...

That seems questionable to me. Well, he acknowledged that, I mean, you also have to account for how well they would do if they were only facing, if they didn't have the platoon advantage and they were always from that one side. And so he kind of acknowledged that maybe it depends on how comfortable they are against a same-handed pitcher, especially after years of never facing one.

Well, there are people who have switched, who have abandoned, which is interesting to see how quickly that stabilizes. Yeah, he mentioned JT Snow as one guy who probably should have switched and then did switch. He also mentioned John Valentin as another guy who I think late in his career did switch or almost totally switched, and the numbers suggested that he should have done that. But he only identified something like 13 people over 25 years who he thought it might have made sense for them to bat exclusively from one side. So yeah, you can quibble with the

methodology, but I think the basic idea is that you don't get to be a switch hitter in almost all cases unless you can do that it's not something that teams are inclined to let people do uh if they haven't demonstrated the ability to do that but there are probably a few guys here and there who what player did you think it was referring to uh victorino okay so um i uh i've uh often thought in you in a moment of passion that some particular player should give it up. But as I think Tommy probably noted, it takes a long time before platoon splits mean anything anyway that are statistically significant. you know, that are sort of statistically significant. And it would, I mean, I think that before you could say that,

you really have to determine how much worse than the league average against, you know, same side hitters, the guys who have switched have done. And they're probably, there maybe just aren't enough in the major leagues. I think, you know, maybe if you had access to, I mean, if you, if you looked at minor league numbers, that introduces a whole lot more noise, but you might, I'm sure you would see a lot more players who ditched a switch hit in, um, you know, in low A, but in the majors, JT Snow, incidentally, His OPS as a lefty against lefties in his career was about 100 points higher than lefty as a righty. And now that's, I don't know if that's controlled for where he was in his career. I think he was older. It was 98. So he was probably, I don't know, 30 or so when that happened. probably, I don't know, 30 or so when that happened.

And it looks as though he kind of, he did actually increase his OPS year by year for each of the first four years. And then it was very old and limited. So that's only one case, and it might not be a telling case, but it's interesting. Do you know how big Victorino's split is? Lately, it's been massive The thing is it's a three year trend And the average fan slash analyst sees that And thinks well three years

Goodness gracious that's a lot of years But it's really not is the problem It is I don't know I think I actually plan to talk about Yeah I was going to say that would be Kind of a good segue for another question that we plan to answer. So let's do that. So the next question is from Scott Cummings, who referred to this as trivia. I'm not sure why. Oh, I shouldn't have said his full name.

I've heard other podcasts divulge full names i don't know i feel bad for you because i you might not have wanted i mean for instance i'm going to give away a little bit of personal information should i not do that uh it's barely personal i don't know uh well let's just say that no i think it was it was a twitter interaction so it's it's out there mine was not a twitter okay all right anyway, it's his birthday coming up and he asks if his birthday gift we could answer his question about the book by

Tango and MGL and Dolphin that Ben Lindberg suggested to him. He wants to know what are some key takeaways that you and other prospective writers have learned from it and why do so many... I can't read the rest because something is blocking it. A window is blocking it something all right so uh what do you uh the book is an interesting i mean obviously i think the book is one of those things like seinfeld where even if you've never seen an

episode you've seen every line from every episode right i've seen it uh do you have a particular favorite it sounds like you do and it well yeah i don't Do you have a particular favorite? It sounds like you do, and it's mine. Yeah, I don't know if that was my favorite, but that was certainly one of the takeaways was just how long it takes for platoon splits to stabilize or to mean anything. And so since the book came out, there have been millions of blog posts written about projected platoon splits using the methodology from the book. And I mean, the conclusion is always that it seems to take longer than you think it should for those things to become significant and for you to be able to trust them. And I don't know, I wish I had my copy with me. I am in Nashville and do not, And, I don't know, I wish I had my copy with me.

I am in Nashville and do not, or I would have flipped through it. But it has come in handy many, many times as I've written things or just thought about things. I guess the stuff on lineup order has been sort of the last word on that, I guess, at this point. But kind of hopeless, too, like kind of not really useful at this point. But kind of hopeless, too, like kind of not really useful. Right, because they made these divinitive conclusions about where you should bat each player, but then the conclusion was also that it doesn't really matter that much. And it's sort of a non-starter with, you know, like probably 28 to 30 current managers. Like it's just a total non-starter.

Yeah, because it just doesn't fit those archetypes of who's supposed to bat where very well. Do you think they'll ever get there? Do you think they're... How many years are we until we start seeing optimized lineups? I don't know that they'll ever match the books lineups perfectly. Uh-huh. Oh, I do.

You do? You think so? Why would anybody... I mean, once it became, if it sort of starts to become normal enough, why would anybody not do it? I feel like it's not a big enough advantage to jolt people out of the set ways, maybe. But I don't know. You'd think someone would want to do that.

Other stuff, I don't know. 18 years. I'd think someone would want to do that. Other stuff, I don't know. I'm trying to think of... 18 years. I'd say 18 years. I guess also the, not just the platoon splits, but the matchup stats stuff in the book is interesting in that they really pretty rigorously tried to find out whether there was anything to be concluded from any reasonably sized sample of batter versus pitcher matchups and concluded that there really wasn't. And I think they've said since that maybe with PitchFX they could do a better job than they did at the time

because they sort of divided pitchers into families of pitchers based on certain stats and what sort of pitcher they were, but it wasn't like a pitch by pitch level thing. But, but they pretty much concluded that even if a batter has owned a pitcher over a, over a pretty large sample, those batters are no less likely to do well than anyone else. So that was something that,

that sticks in my mind also. I don't know. Is there anything else that reminds you of the book? I guess the stuff about ground ball, fly ball splits and how if a ground ball hitter faces a ground ball pitcher, then the advantage is with the pitcher, I think, and it's like a multiplier sort of thing. It's like, or they basically concluded that the ground ball fly ball split, while not as significant as the lefty-righty split, is still significant. So, I don't know.

Off the top of my head, that stuff sticks out. Yeah, it's a spectacular book. I use it much more as a reference. I've never actually read it from cover to cover. Have you? And do you recommend it? Is it useful? that I didn't necessarily need to know or wouldn't remember anyway. And they have those helpful little boxes at the end of each section that tells you basically what you're supposed to learn from that section. But yeah, I flip back to it often. Okay, well, Scott, I'm sorry for telling everybody your name.

And if you want to let us know why you called this trivia, if you're suggesting that this show is trivial, I would understand. But I probably would have been less likely to answer your question in that case. All right, let's talk about Dan Heron because it's timely. This is from a gentleman named Corey who says, as a Philly fan, I've been paying close attention to what other teams in the division are doing. This morning, Dan Heron signed with the Nationals,

and many of my Philly friends started complaining that Amaro hasn't made any moves yet, while division rivals have added some big names. This got me thinking. Dan Heron is basically replacing Edwin Jackson in their rotation. Years ago, this would be a pretty substantial upgrade. But at this point, is it a lateral move? Heron has injury problems and hasn't been the same pitcher lately. I'm no Edwin Jackson fan, but I think he would be cheaper and probably more reliable than Heron next year. Am I wrong

in that thinking? What's your thought? I don't know about the cheaper part. Not significantly. I mean, I would think that he would maybe command a multi-year deal, which is, of course, what everyone thought last winter, and he ended up signing for one year, so you never know, I suppose. But it seems like this year he will probably get his multi-year deal, and I wouldn't expect it to be for much less annually than Heron got for one year. So I don't think it would be a discount. I guess the question of whether he would be better or not is interesting. Before this year, I certainly would not have said so. But

given all the injury stuff and the velocity stuff that you wrote about in the transaction analysis of the Heron move, I'm not sure who I would trust now. I was talking to Dan Evans today, who was telling me just how ordinary Heron looked in the second half of last season and just kind of looked like he had lost it. And you would think that the Nationals wouldn't commit that much money

if they weren't pretty confident that he could be better than that again. But I don't know that it would be safe to expect him to be better than Jackson. Yeah, you know, this is, I think that the Dan Heron move has kind of been seen as a move that's either going to pay off great or pay off not at all. That he's either healthy and you're going to get a good pitcher uh a pitcher of heron's kind of past or he's going to be injured and he's going to you know get um you know he's going to get bounced out of spring training and have you know back surgery or hip surgery um and i actually um i think i i don't know i might and when i wrote the

transaction analysis that actually might have been the kind of paradigm that I was looking at it through. But now I sort of think it's not that way. I kind of feel like Heron is maybe in a way not that unsafe, that he's probably not going to be a great pitcher anymore, and that they're paying a little bit of a premium for the potential that that is there, but I would say it's unlikely. But he was hurt last year. I mean, I think it's pretty obvious he was hurt last year. Mark Saxon of ESPN LA said that he's been dealing with the hip since 2005, and he was very clear. I think it's pretty obvious that

he's either hurt or he is in that phase of his career where he's probably not going to get the velocity back. But he wasn't a terrible pitcher. And if you kind of, I don't know, I mean, if you adjust a little bit of home run luck for him, you know, he's essentially a, you know, kind of a league average pitcher in that state. And my guess is that if he is, you know, willing to, um, you know, pitch through a little bit of pain and if the doctors say that it's not going to get worse than if he passes his physical, that he is probably an average pitcher with a little bit of upside. Now, an average pitcher doesn't cost 13 million for the most part. Uh, but it's only one year. It's only $13 million. I find myself with much less appetite to quibble over a few million dollars here and there when you look at how many of these moves either turn out great or turn out terrible and very

few end up in that kind of sliver of a margin between what we call a good trade and what we call a bad trade. I think I'd rather have. So, yeah, I don't know. I think I'd rather have Edwin Jackson, but I don't hate the move for Heron. The big thing with Heron is just obviously that not only do the Angels know him better, but the Angels need him more. They need an opening in their rotation. They have the money to fill it.

They have the outfield defense to support a fly ball pitcher. They have the baseball park to support a fly ball pitcher. They have every reason in the world to sign Dan Heron. And the fact that they were less willing to than the Nationals is a humongous piece of information. piece of information. On the other hand, as I noted in the transaction analysis, they did try to re-sign him. So they tried to re-sign him for less. They thought he was worth less, but they didn't think that he was going to implode getting off the plane in February. So I think that's also significant information. And I don't know, it's not a bad move. The Nationals probably are less desperate for that arm than almost any team. And so in a weird way, they can handle the downside more than anyone. And I'm not sure that Heron is even in their plans for the season unless things go right with him or really wrong with someone else. Yeah, I think maybe Heron might be less scary, paradoxically,

if he had missed more time with the injury, if we hadn't seen him pitching with it quite so much uh because it clearly affected him if he had just been on the dl that whole time and we could have said well he was hurt and now he'll be healthy again and he'll be the old heron again whereas you wonder if now he's just always going to be pitching with that and always going to be pitching like he did uh but if he's a league average pitcher i don't really expect more from edwin jackson than that um edwin jackson had a 98 era plus last season and a 98 era plus over the last 10 seasons so that's kind of wow edwin jackson's been pitching for 10 seasons. Yes, he started when he was 19. Holy moly.

But yes, so he's basically been a league average guy. Better than that in some seasons, but not consistently. There's no reason to expect him to get better at this point. So that's kind of who he is. Yeah, we don't really have reliable pitch velocity for more than a few years. But, I mean, what I would love to see is a list of pitchers who lost, you know, three miles or more of velocity after they were, say, 25 and regained it without getting cut open. I wonder if that list is greater or longer than one. It's got to be short, very short.

All right. Do you have a particular question that you would like to choose, or should I just choose another one? Just choose another one. All right. Well, I guess since it's timely and it's quick, Aaron asks, should the Yankees pursue, you know, Escobar with A-Rod expected to miss many games,

any other realistic trades for agents? And obviously, you know, Escobar was traded today to the Rays there was a headline in Florida that said Escobar was ready to move on from the Marlins which is the funniest straight line that I have seen this offseason and you know it seems like not much to give up for Escobar who who is, I think, signed, including options for three more years and $15 million total. Escobar, if you believe his defense, is actually fairly valuable. If you don't believe his defense, he's not valuable. It's an interesting move.

I would commend the Rays for it. But you've been in the winter meetings. Since you live in New York, I would think that you might have a little bit extra interest in the Yankees. I just wonder if you can share any sense that you're getting from the people around you or from the Yankees pressers or just from the general excitement or lack of excitement around their winter meetings if you have any insight. I don't think anyone knows who's going to be playing third base for the Yankees, including the Yankees. Anyone knows who's going to be playing third base for the Yankees, including the Yankees. It seemed like they were making a bit of a push for Marco Scudero, but he has now been re-signed by the Giants, so he's off the table too.

And from everything I've heard, Steven Drew wouldn't want to be a third baseman or a part-time guy, and that kind of leaves Jeff Kepinger, maybe, as far as free agents go, who's someone that they've expressed. Sorry, forgive me for not knowing this, but Euclid is still out there, isn't he? Yes, yeah, and he has been somewhat connected. I mean, basically everyone who has ever played third base

and is available has been connected at this point. So I don't know. I kind of feel like maybe some sort of trade that no one sees coming could happen here, but based on everything I've heard here, everyone I've talked to, no one really has any sense of what's going to happen, and the Yankees have a bunch of holes to fill, and as we've discussed, they don't seem to bees have a bunch of holes to fill. And as we discussed, they don't seem to be willing to spend all that much to fill them. So I don't know. I don't know

what they're going to do. Just curious if you, if they say in the next two years when they're doing their austerity push, if they miss the playoffs both years, are there any long-term or short-term impacts on the Yankees as a business besides the loss of direct postseason revenue? Do they have any... Are they at a point where they don't even have to really worry about fan credibility at this point?

Because they've just built up so much of it over the last however many decades of winning. There's not really another show in town at this point. Yeah. It probably helps that the Mets are going through a dry spell right now too um I don't know it certainly wouldn't be any kind of blow that they couldn't recover from the Yankees have been bad before and then got good again and were just as popular and profitable as they ever have been. So I'm sure it would affect their bottom line to some extent, but from everything you read,

it seems like they must be making tons of money as it is. So I doubt it would be any sort of major crippling blow. I'm sort of impressed that the Marlins took all the heat a couple weeks ago and then waited like two weeks and then they're like, I'll do it again. Yeah. No shame. No, not a bash at all.

I almost kind of respect that at that point. And you wonder if Nolasco is next because he has, I think, indicated that he would like to be traded without formally requesting it. You almost don't have to request it because you just assume it will happen at this point. And if Nolasco goes, then they will just have no payroll, no payroll at all. And it's hard to... Sorry. Yeah, go ahead. Do you know the trade request rules? I can't remember. Do you know if Nalasko has the rights? I think you have to have been traded to the team, right? You can only request a trade if you would already been traded to that team, right?

I do not know that rule. It's the Javier Vasquez rule. So we'll look it up, and maybe I'll do an unfiltered about it. I mean, you figure they're just going to keep signing a few players here and there to sort of appease the players' union. Like they signed Juan Pierre, and they were rumored to be interested in Marc De Rosa, who Jonah Carey mentioned earlier. He told me about that rumor and said he didn't even know that Marc De Rosa was still playing baseball.

At one wrist. Right. So I feel like they're just going to spend a little bit of money here and there just to appease the players' union and not get a slap on the wrist or worse for not spending any money. But you wonder how low they can go at this point. You do. All right, well, we're going to end it.

That's the end of this show. We'll be back tomorrow with our Thursday episode, and we hope you have a wonderful day.