Last night after Baby Prof went to bed we decided to dive into one of our favorite rites of spring, Baseball Prospectus 2010. We were neck-deep in baseball statistics bliss when we came across Carl Crawford’s write-up which included this statement…

The Rays picked up Crawford’s $10 million option for 2010 amid reports that the move upset the outfielder, who allegedly had a handshake agreement that management would renegotiate a long-term deal instead.

First of all, there were no “reports.” There was one report. And the statement is of course referring to this post on New York Baseball Digest. In that report New York Baseball Digest claimed to have a source that said Crawford was “livid” over the Rays picking up his option based on a “handshake agreement” that the team would never pick up the option.

Of course the holes were big enough for Dioner Navarro to fit through and the story was debunked at several sites (including this one).

Let’s look past the idiocy of thinking both sides would first agree to a team option as part of a contract and at the same time have a “handshake agreement” that it would never be picked up. And let’s ignore how ridiculous it is for somebody to think that picking up an option means the two sides can’t continue to negotiate (something both sides say they are doing).  No, the post fails the “shit test” by not realizing the “management” that gave Crawford the deal (and the option) is no longer running the Rays. It would be impossible for Crawford to have a “handshake agreement” with Andrew Friedman in 2005.

We have yet to talk to a Rays fan or anybody that covers the Rays that thinks there is even an ounce of truth to the story*. Add that to the fact that New York Baseball Digest has zero track record of reliable sources in or near the Rays and there is absolutely no reason to think the story is true and even less reason to perpetuate a story from an unverified source.

But to our astonishment Baseball Prospectus did.

We have the utmost respect for the guys over at Baseball Prospectus. But to regurgitate this fecal matter in an actual book is beyond amateurish. We expect better from them. And you can be damn sure we are not reading the rest of the book as it now has about as much credibility in our eyes as New York Baseball Digest.

Shit is shit, no matter whose ass it comes out of. But the shit smells worse when we have to pay $15 for it.

*unless of course you think New York Baseball Digest were breaking the story that the Rays would not be able to extend Crawford, something that New York Baseball Digest and 32 million other sources have written.

Tampa Bay Rays (35 days until pitchers and catchers report)
[Update 1/15/08: We have added the Top 13 prospect list from Rays of Light.]

[Update 1/14/08: We have added Stacy Long's list of Top 30 prospects to the Meta-Analysis. Long's list is clearly needed in this meta-analysis as he has seen most of these players play on a first-hand basis while covering the Montgomery Biscuits.]

[Ed. Note: We have updated the list to include the rankings posted by the highly respected John Sickels at Minor League Ball. His list was just posted this morning. There was little change in the overall rankings]

Yesterday Baseball America unveiled their list of Top 10 Prospects for the Tampa Bay Rays. No big surprises. You can find the full write-up HERE along with their list of the Top Tools in the organization.

BA is the 5th website (that we are aware of) that has released a rankings list for Rays prospects. We decided to do a meta-analysis and compare the results from several websites. In the science community, a meta-analysis is what we do when we don’t want to do any work ourselves and instead want to take the work of a bunch of other people, tease the data a little, draw some conclusions that nobody had noticed before, and then pawn it off as our own.

A few notes on the Meta-Analysis..

1. We included rankings from Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, Minor League Ball, DRays Bay, Rays Digest, Riverwalk Talk, and Rays Anatomy.
2. When calculating the averages, we gave Baseball America a weight of 2. This is simply because, analyzing minor leaguers is what they do for a living. They are the experts and in many cases they have actually seen these prospects play and have been following them for several years. Not to mention their offices are in Durham.
3. If a player was excluded from a list, we gave that player a ranking of 2 spots lower than the lowest ranked player in the list for the purpose of calculating the final average.
4. The final list includes the 14 players that appeared in the Top 10 of at least one list.
5. We included our own Trade Value Index, which can be found in the side-panel. Our list differs from the others in that we incorporate more to our rankings than just how good of a major leaguer the player will be. Our rankings are based on “value” to the organization. For example, it is our thought that Wade Davis has the better chance of being a top major league starting pitcher, but we give Jake McGee a higher “value” because he is left-handed and a power lefty with a plus-breaking ball is a very rare commodity.
6. Notes on the individual rankings follow the Meta-Analysis.

• The top 5 are clear-cut with only subtle disagreements on the exact order. The only outliers are Desmond Jennings whom BP slots at #4 and our own TVI list which includes Jeff Niemann at #5 a spot ahead of Reid Brignac. The thinking is that Niemann is a pitcher, he is closer to the big leagues and while Brignac is still an elite prospect, he did raise at least a few doubts in 2007. If Niemann fails to make the opening day roster, he will begin to fall down the TVI…very fast.
• When it comes to strict major league projections, #8-15 are interchangeable in our eyes and while the names are fairly consistent across the lists, the actual order varies greatly.
• In our eyes, the top 7 are can’t-miss prospects. Not necessarily all-stars, but all seven should be contributing major leaguers. We would also add Eduardo Morlan to that list.
• We are not sold on Desmond Jennings. But, with the trade of Delmon Young and the injury struggles of Rocco Baldelli, Jennings and Fernando Perez will ultimately compete to be the third outfielder in 2009 or 2010.
• We are also not yet ready to anoint Jeremy Hellickson as a legit major league prospect. For a right-hander he is not very big and he is not over-powering, which translates very well at Low-A Columbus. He will get his first big test in 2008 at the hitter-friendly Vero Beach. Until he shows us he can compete at the AA-level, we will remain skeptical. We rank Chris Mason higher. Mason was a college pitcher, so he is more polished and while he is also a not very big, not very overpowering right hander, he has proven it at the AA-level. Still we are skeptical that he will be a very good major leaguer.
• BP and our own TVI give Eduardo Morlan his highest ranking of #7. Just look at the free agent market for relief pitchers this off-season and you will see that teams are starting to dish out big bucks for all relief pitchers, not just closers. For all the pitching depth spoken of in the Rays system, very little of it is relief pitchers. While starting pitchers that miss the cut will get a shot at the ‘pen, it is never guaranteed to be a successful transition. That gives Morlan a decided edge over others for an organization that is desperate for young talented relief pitchers.

RAYS PROSPECTS WEBTOPIA…

• Rays Digest breaks down the Tampa Bay Rays farm system. [Rays Digest]
• Future Considerations breaks down BA’s prospect list. FC is in the midst of revealing their Top 30 prospects but have yet to unveil their Top 10 so we could not include their rankings in our meta-analysis. We should note that earlier this week FC took their own stab at predicting the “Best Tools” categories and we questioned whether Evan Longoria would be named both “Best Power Hitter” and “Best Hitter for Average”. We thought it might be John Jaso. FC nailed it, as Longoria was named in both categories. *Tip o’ the cap* [Future Considerations]

Top 10 Prospects: Tampa Bay Rays [Baseball America]
Baseball America Names Rays Top 10, I Was Nearly Right… [Rays Anatomy]
Rays Prospect Preview [Rays Digest]
Rays Top 11 Prospects [Baseball Prospectus]
Baseball America’s Top Ten Rays Prospects [DRays Bay]
Top Rays Prospects [Stacy Long's Riverwalk Talk]

If you have been with us for a while, you know that we rarely throw a lot of numbers at you. We know as well as most that numbers rarely tell you the whole story. And while we believe there is a place in baseball for all the new-age sabermetric stuff, you won’t see it on this site very often. It is like food. We are not going to eat it, unless we know for certain what is in it.

Still we like dabble in the numbers every once and a while just to see how our Devil Rays are stacking up against the rest of the league.

One number that is starting to gain steam in baseball circles is VORP (Value Over Replacement Player), a stat invented by Keith Woolner of Baseball Prospectus. Without boring you with all the brain-surgery math behind the number, we will just say that it measures the contribution of a player to the number of runs scored/allowed by the team. The idea being that if you replaced Player A with a fictitious Player B what would the difference in runs be over the course of a season. The replacement player is an average fielder and a below-average hitter/pitcher.

let’s take a look at the eight worst VORP values for starting pitchers in the Major Leagues:

Three of the eight worst starting pitchers in baseball are Devil Rays. Combined the three pitchers have a VORP value of -31.7. In other words, the Rays could have signed three pitchers off the street before the season. Three pitchers that nobody else wanted, and the Rays would be on pace to allow approximately 30 less runs this season. Three bums from the alley would allow 32 less less runs than 60% of the Devil Rays starting rotation.

And on the positive note, James Shields currently has the 11th best VORP in baseball (+16.9).

Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus and SI.com recently released his list of “Baseball’s Top 50 MVPs.”

In concept, the UFD (Ultimate Fantasy Draft) is pretty simple: If you were starting a baseball team from scratch, which players would you want to build your team around?

Three members of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays cracked the top 50 and two others were named as honorable mention.

50. BJ Upton: There are parallels between Upton and Gary Sheffield, another player who had an awesome minor league pedigree but whose defense and attitude made for a difficult adjustment to the major leagues.

42. Delmon Young: Lost in the hubbub of the bat-throwing incident is that Young’s offensive development has been a little flat over the past year and a half.

33. Scott Kazmir: He just barely edged out Victor Zambrano for this slot (poor Mets fans, even Nate Silver is piling on…hehe). Kazmir has yet to have that one season that gets everyone buzzing — he had command problems in 2005, injury problems in 2006, and is off to a little bit of a slow start in 2007.

You might be asking “Where the #%% is Carl Crawford?” Inexplicably he comes in as an honorable mention.

Carl Crawford: Crawford seems like he’s been around forever, having become a big league regular at age 20, but he’s still just 25, and may have some further room for power development. He’s also one of the more likely major leaguers to take a run at 3,000 hits, as he’s even-money to have cleared the 1,000-hit barrier by the end of this season. Plus, he’s perhaps the best baserunner in the league, and one of the few left fielders that might be worthy of Gold Glove consideration. So there’s a ton to like here, but at the end of the day a .327 career OBP from a corner outfielder is too much to overlook.

We will forgive Nate Silver because he has obviously been in Botswana for the first month and a half of the baseball season and failed to notice that Crawford, who is still two years from his prime, has a .367 OBP this season. And while we will admit that C.C. does not play a critical position in the field, it is only because there are two more natural center fielders already on the team. Crawford could easily be a center fielder and would start in center for most teams.

The other honorable mention was last season’s first round pick, Evan Longoria.

Evan Longoria: Longoria’s minor league numbers this year — five homers and a .956 OPS so far (ed. note: actually 10 HR and 1.068 OPS as of today)– are significantly better than (Brandon) Wood’s, even though he has played in a much tougher hitting environment. Longoria plays outstanding defense and might even be a candidate for a move to shortstop; think Ryan Zimmerman, Part Deux.

We have no comment on Longoria because we are still flummoxed, flabbergasted, and F#@$$ed by Crawford’s non-ranking.

Baseball’s Top 50 MVPs [SI.com]

Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus talks to Derek Jacques about the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the upcoming 2007 season as part of their “Hope and Faith” series. The article on the website is very flattering towards the Rays offering previous examples of teams that exploded onto the scene when the stars were aligned and suggest that something similar could happen to the Rays in 2007.

As for the audio component, we don’t learn much except that there is sometimes a fine line between expert and someone pretending to be an expert. Jacques comes off as very uninformed which makes this very difficult to listen to at times. Among our favorite tidbits are….

• Apparently the Rays may send Delmon Young back down to the minors for more seasoning. Huh?
• He is another “expert” that seems to have not realized that the Rays have a new ownership and front office. He makes mention of the Rays historically being a “difficult team to deal with”. Never mind that the Rays made more trades in the last year than they made in the previous four years combined. He specifically mentions holding onto Aubrey Huff too long until most of his trade value was gone. Apparently Jacques doesn’t realize that the Rays were still able to obtain a major league shortstop and a top pitching prospect for Huff. Not bad for a pending free agent.
• Jacques says that if Ty Wigginton receives 600 plate appearances, that will mean something went wrong for the Devil Rays. Jacques refers to Wigginton as a player that typically has one good month and then disappears for the rest of the season. Of course anybody that was half paying attention in 2006 recognize Wiggy as the most consistent player and best clutch hitter on the team finishing with 24 home runs and 79 RBI despite missing 40 games.

Maybe next time they should interview THIS guy.

How the Tampa Bay Devil Rays Can Win the World Series [Baseball Prospectus]

Yesterday we presented the Baseball Prospectus PECOTA projections for the Rays position players. Today we take a look at the weighted mean PECOTA projections for the pitchers.

Please see yesterday’s post for an explanation of PECOTA.

1. Right off the bat we see Scott Kazmir’s numbers and we have to raise our eyebrow. Remember, these numbers are a weighted mean. In other words, PECOTA is saying that there is about a 50% chance of Kid K having a better season than these numbers and about a 50% chance of having a worse season. Kid K’s success in 2006 at such a young age is a rare achievement. A lot of players that have success and throw a lot of innings at a young age have broken down in the following season. So these numbers are probably more a reflection of risk of injury than of talent.
2. Now compare Kazmir’s projection to the Rays other young starter, James Shields. Shields is actually projected to pitch more innings in 2007. That shows that there is more injury risk factored into Kazmir’s numbers. Why? For one, Shields is two years older (25) than Kid K (23), and injuries are less common in older pitchers. The projections are also likely to consider that Kazmir is a power pitcher and throws more pitches than Shields making Kaz more at risk for injury. Again, this doesn’t necessarily say Kaz is going to break down this season. However, injuries and off-seasons are common in players that Kazmir compares favorably to from past years. If he make 28-30 starts this season, his numbers will be better than the weighted mean projection.
3. Jeff Niemann probably does not have enough of a resume to make any realistic projections.
4. Some of these projections are hard to read because PECOTA can’t predict who will be in the rotation and hence a lot of these projections include starter innings and reliever innings. For example, the projection for Jae-Kuk Ryu includes 39 appearances and 17 starts. PECOTA is not predicting that that Ryu will spend half the year in the rotation. Think of it as a simulation and the weighted mean is an average of many simulations. If you simulated the 2007 season 1000 times, some times Ryu is going to be a starter and some he is going to be in the pen. The weighted mean is averaging together both scenarios.
5. The bullpen? Awful. Not a single pitcher with a sub-4.00 ERA projection. That will mean a lot of blown leads…again. What are the symptoms for PTSD?

Those lost souls that actually follow the Rays closely know that there is talent on this team and several players have a chance to break out this season. We here at RI try to stay level-headed and not get too optimistic with expectations for individual players. We have an idea of what each player is capable of, and hope that those players at the very least make progress towards those levels. We know that a few players will achieve to those levels, a few players will maintain past levels and probably a few players will regress, whether it be due to injury, past overachievments, steroid testing or baby mamma issues.

That being said we would still like to have a realistic idea of what can be expected from our Rays this season. Enter Baseball Prospectus and their PECOTA playing cards. In short, Nate Silver of BP has developed an algorithm using Sabermetrics to predict future performance of individual players. We don’t pretend to know the math behind PECOTA, but our best understanding is that it uses past performances, age and predicted playing time and compares those numbers to similar players from past years. In doing so, they develop a probability distribution for each player, with predictive stat lines from the 10th percentile to the 90th.

Below we have presented weighted means for players that we expect to receive regular playing time with the 2007 Rays. The weighted mean “incorporates all of the player’s potential outcomes into a single average, weighted based on projected playing time.” For example, Carl Crawford has a 10th percentile stat line that looks like .268-8-41-22. In other words, he has a 90% chance of having a season at least as good as that stat line. His 90th percentile line is .343-20-78-54, but he only has a 10% chance of having a season that good or better. The percentile does not apply to the individual stats, but to the entire line. As Rays fans we realize that CC has a better than 10% chance of stealing 54 bases, but a .343 batting average is probably not in his repertoire yet. We have only included the most common stats. You can find more stats in addition to more players cards at Baseball Prospectus…Tomorrow we will present the Rays pitching staff.

1. In 2006, the Rays had the worst team OBP in baseball (.314). It looks like PECOTA predicts the team to take a jump forward in 2007, with 10 players in the .330-.360 range. The premise being that players become more patient and adept at reaching base as they get older. That would go along way to improving this team dramatically in 2007.
   
2. Carl Crawford showed at times last year that he has a power game and we will probably see more home runs this season. Also, if CC bats third as predicted, look for more RBI.
3. Rocco Baldelli’s numbers are about what we are expecting, although we think he will probably be closer to 20-25 stolen bases.
4. B. J. Upton’s numbers look to be inflated a bit as he probably will not see that many plate appearances. Still, it is nice to see that despite his recent struggles, PECOTA still predicts him to emerge as a solid offensive player. He is young, and talented and there is still plenty of time to develop.
5. Jorge Cantu and Jonny Gomes…you would think they were a Hollywood couple as often as these two have been mentioned together this Spring. We might need a Brangelina-type nickname. We kinda like Jornny Gomtu. No? Anyway, Cantu’s and Gomes’ numbers are probably the most difficult to predict because half there careers to this point have been affected by injury. So we suggest taking their numbers lightly.
6. Delmon Young and Elijah Dukes (if he gets enough ABs) look to be exactly what most people would realistically expect.
7. If Ben Zobrist can give the Rays a consistent glove and .350 OBP, Joe Maddon will be very happy. an>

• The Hardball Times have made a gallant effort to try and project Akinori Iwamura’s stats for 2007. The problem they face is that there have not been many comparable players that have made the jump from Japan to the Majors. The only similar player (ie. slugger) was Hideki Matsui. Well, Matsui was Matsui has become a solid contributor, but did struggle his first season. Using several predictive measures, it looks like we can expect .292/.348/.446 with about 20 home runs. Like many of us expected his batting average should be similar, with a slight dip, and a big fall off in power.
• Baseball Prospectus noticed that Dioner Navarro had some decent projections for 2007 and were surprised. That take a closer look and determine that major league experience at a young age for catchers almost guarantees that they become a good hitter.
• Earlier this week we worried aloud about Elijah Dukes’ weight. He is apparently at 245 pounds even though he has publicly said he would prefer to play at 220. Well we received some first hand accounts from the first day of workouts and the general consensus is that we should shut up and stop worrying. He is in shape. Just a little bigger. Also another feel-good story about leaving his problems behind. This one was an AP article and ran all over the country. If Dukes makes the team and plays in an all-star game some day look for a Sunday night movie.
• How bad is the Rays bullpen? Well apparently a 2006 campaign with a 4.68 ERA and 1.493 WHIP guarantees you a spot in the 2007 pen without having to compete in Spring Training. We thought Shawn Camp had a shot at the big league club, but figured he would at least have to work for it.
• The Trop. Only the 28th worst stadium in baseball! Wait…Taking the entire package into consideration (Ticket prices, concession prices, etc.) and The Trop jumps up to 25th. At least Ken Macha understands the need for domes. Personally we are sick and tired of the knocks on the Trop. The city was blackmailed by Major League Baseball into building a stadium on the cheap without a team to help foot the bill. And how many teams out there owe their new state-of-the-art stadiums to the threat of moving to the Tampa Bay area back in the 80s and early 90s? San Fran, Seattle, the White Sox, etc. So back off! Or we will shoot the stuffed animal.
• Don Zimmer, who will wear #58 this season to mark his 58th season in baseball, has spoke out on the on-going Derek Jeter-Alex Rodriguez story. This is what cracks us up about New York sports. For various reasons, we spend a lot of time in New York City and read the newspapers and listen to sports radio and talk to the local fans, and New York fans can get crazy about silly things. But this story has us shaking our collective heads. Seriously? Would we care if Rocco Baldelli and Carl Crawford used to be buddies but no longer hang out together? The way the New York media is spinning this story, we half expect both of these guys to die in drive-by shootings in the next year or two.
• This is a bit stale, but Baseball America has released their annual “Top 10 Prospects” list for the Rays. Delmon Young’s eligibility as a rookie keeps him at the top of the list. Evan Longoria debuts at #2. The best news? With all the talent in the minors these days, five of the top ten are pitchers, led by Jeff Niemann and Jacob McGee at four and five. And the list doesn’t even include Mitch Talbot who came on strong at the end of 2006. They also provide a projected 2010 lineup.
• Baseball Prospectus has ranked the minor league systems of every major league team. Not surprising is that the Rays top the list. Surprising is that the Rays not only rank first among hitting prospects but fourth among pitching prospects. To quote The best system in baseball and it’s not even close.