Here's a little something to cheer up you Derek Jeter fans. Here's a pseudo All-Star team made up of players who have an OPS+ LOWER than Derek Jeter's 62.
1B: Carlos Pena (49 OPS+)
2B: Mark Ellis (35 OPS+)
SS: Hanley Ramirez (59 OPS+)
3B: Miguel Tejada (43 OPS+)
LF: Carl Crawford (41 OPS+)
CF: Alex Rios (52 OPS+)
RF: Vernon Wells (52 OPS+)
C: A.J. Pierzynski (59 OPS+)
For the American League, we'll even throw in Adam Dunn as a DH even though his OPS+ is actually 63, one point higher than Jeter. Designated hitters are graded on a curve.
That is about $100 million worth of ballplayers right -- $96,500,000 if you want to be exact -- and if you had been given that team at the beginning of the year, you would probably feel at least decent about your chances. Maybe by year's end, it will all work out.
One final thought: We all know Albert Pujols is struggling at the plate in a way that he has not throughout his career. He has one double all season. He has hit into 10 double plays -- TEN DOUBLE PLAYS -- and his batting average is almost 100 points lower than his career average. He's clearly starting to get a bit concerned ... he's talking about not watching video for a few days, just to freshen up, and as I wrote about Jeter it's not too good a sign when hitters start changing their swings or start talking about odd stunts to kickstart their season, stunts like not watching video.
That said, if you want to know how much offense is down in 2011: Albert Pujols is hitting .233/.309/.417, which is stunningly bad for him. His OPS+? It is exactly 100 -- league average.
Hitting into lots of double plays didn't keep Jim Rice out of the hall. Albert will be fine.
ReplyDeleteWhat would your ERA+ cap be for pitchers on this team? I want to see Ubaldo Jimenez (63) in here.
ReplyDeletePujols has hit into a DP once every 3.9 plate appearances with a man on 1st and less than 2 outs this season so far. In Jim Rice's historic 1984 season in which he hit into an MLB record 36 DPs, he hit into a DP once every 5.6 PAs.
ReplyDeleteRice's worst season ever for DP rate was 4.9. So, yes indeed Pujols is hitting into a disturbing number of DPs.
That 100 OPS+ for Pujols also takes into consideration that he's a 1st baseman, right? So, his hitting is league average for a 1st baseman, who should be above league average anyway, right?
ReplyDeleteSorry, slow math morning.
Usually, when Albert's in a "funk", his wife can spot what he's doing "wrong"... Somebody's gonna pay for Albert's slow start; as a Card fan, I hope it's somebody soon!
ReplyDeleteAlbert is probably pressing, stressed about turning down $250M guaranteed dollars (or whatever it was) in the hopes of getting $300M.
ReplyDeleteI think Albert caught whatever Billy had last season.
ReplyDeleteIt appears as if Carlos Pena's Cub career and probably his MLB career is going down to sleep with the fishes. The Tampa Bay Rays were so very fortunate that his contract was up last year. His power numbers were enough to barely keep him in their order but I'm betting that Joe Madden is breathing a sigh of relief; not so much Mike Quade in ChiTown.
ReplyDelete@Bobby: No, it's based on everyone, not just first basemen.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's a testament to how annoyingly stacked (as a Mets fan) the Marlins are that even with H-Ram struggling so much, they are one game behind Philly and the Indians for the BEST record in baseball. Seriously, up and down, every single one of their executives should win awards every year.
Now that I think about it, why don't the Marlins ever get any worshiping articles written about the way they put together a team? I mean, we've heard about the A's and Moneyball, the Red Sox and Theo Epstein, and the Rays and Andy Friedman. But how about the Marlins? They've as many World Series since their inception as all three of those teams combined!
ReplyDeleteMy blind, no-research assumption is that they're still reaping the benefits of buying up tons of guys for 1997 and then trading them all off for prospects. And then as those prospects matured, they ran all the way in 2003 and then traded everyone off. Is this true? I think it'd make an interesting blog post to trace all of their trades down.
If this is true, would being in a larger market hurt them, in that they'd keep more players and not have as many great young guys? Or am I wrong in this and it is simply just great scouting and drafting, mixed in with luck each time they make the postseason?
Maybe OPS+ should be age-adjusted. Most of the guys on that sub-Jeter list are, perhaps, post-peak.
ReplyDeleteAll over 30 except Crawford and Ramirez (29 and 27)
ReplyDelete@stephen - Yeah, the Marlins have won a couple of World Series, but they haven't generally been that great otherwise. Those two WS years were also the only two 90-win seasons in franchise history. Their horrible '98 season (54-108, last place in the NL East) pretty much cancels out the '97 World Series in the minds of most commentators, and they didn't fare all that well after '03 either (83-79 for two years before slipping back into losing territory).
ReplyDeleteOakland, on the other hand, had a run of sustained excellence in the early 2000s that the Marlins can't match. The Red Sox had a run of sustained excellence AND two world championships, and the Rays are the hot team right now.
Maybe the Royals can bottle whatever offensive elixer they have come up with and sell it to these guys.
ReplyDelete"In the minds of most commentators." How did you determine that, and what in the world does it mean?
ReplyDeleteNothing could ever cancel out the '97 World Series.
Flags fly forever.
@8d8...
ReplyDeleteBut isn't their organization structured to make runs once every few years at the cost of sustained suck between those performance spikes? If the goal is to win titles (and I'm betting it is, and ought to be), then they've, we'll, discovered a market niche conducive to satisfying that goal, given their constraints.
If commentators ignore that, the commentators aren't doing their jobs. (I've heard this analyzed before, though, so someone isn't falling down on the job of proper love-fest production.)
...thanking crawford for keeping Ibanez off this list.
ReplyDeleteAs a Royals Fan, I haven't noticed this dearth of offense. With some crazy offense (team OPS+ of 116) and bad starters (5.31 ERA) scoring in Royals games is at 9.93 runs per game. (AL average-excluding Royals games- 8.41)
ReplyDeleteUm, love ya Joe, but the fact that Pujols is hitting at league average tells me nothing about how offense in general has changed this year.
ReplyDelete@ Chip S
ReplyDeleteJoe's point is that a .233/.309/.417 slash line being league average tells you that offense is way down this year. In 2009, for example, .259/.331/.409 was a 94 OPS+. If Pujols threw up a .233/.309/.417 two years ago, he'd likely be under 90 and the world would end.
@Stephen: "My blind, no-research assumption is that they're still reaping the benefits of buying up tons of guys for 1997 and then trading them all off for prospects. And then as those prospects matured, they ran all the way in 2003 and then traded everyone off. Is this true? I think it'd make an interesting blog post to trace all of their trades down."
ReplyDeleteI did some research on it and some of their 1997 offseason/1998 trades did indeed pay off:
--Traded Kevin Brown for Derrek Lee (amongst others). Lee was the best offensive player on the 2003 champs.
--Traded Charles Johnson/Bobby Bonilla/Gary Sheffield for Mike Piazza & Todd Zeile. Piazza was traded around a week later for Preston Wilson and Wilson later became Juan Pierre. Pierre had his second-best offensive year and had a very good World Series on the 2003 champs.
(also, Ed Yarnall was received in the Piazza deal...more on him later)
--Traded Edgar Renteria for Braden Looper (amongst others). Looper was the closer on the 2003 champs.
--Traded Moises Alou for not much. But Mark Johnson was one of the guys received in return. Now he doesn't seem like much. But Johnson and Ed Yarnall (mentioned above) were traded in 1999 for Mike Lowell. Lowell was the 2nd best offensive player on the 2003 champs.
--Traded Al Leiter for AJ Burnett (amongst others). Burnett didn't do much for the 2003 champs due to injury but he had a good run with them before leaving as a free agent after 2005.
Also, after the 1997 offseason/1998 trades:
--Traded Mark Kotsay for Matt Clement in 2001 (amongst others). Clement was traded in 2002 along with Antonio Alfonseca (who was part of the 1997 champs himself) for Dontrelle Willis (amongst others). Willis won 14 games in his rookie year on the 2003 champs.
--Traded Cliff Floyd for Carl Pavano in 2002 (amongst others). Pavano won 12 games and had a very good playoffs run for the 2003 champs.
Not too shabby. For the 2003 championship team, most of the key guys were acquired as a result of the post-1997 trades. Those who weren't:
Luis Castillo and Jeff Conine - they were holdovers from the 1997 team.
Josh Beckett and Miguel Cabrera (who was just starting out and was not the Cabrera we all know now, as he had modest numbers) - draft picks.
Pudge Rodriguez - signed as a free agent
Not too shabby.
Tremendously funny post, Joe.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, the Mariners are showing that their historically awful offensive season of 2010 may not have been an aberration at all. Still more interestingly, the Twins and Padres seemed poised to put up even worse offensive numbers. A few days ago, the Padres were flirting with a .600 OPS, but they've gotten a boost lately by 5 balls clearing the wall in the last few games. I'm wondering if one of these clubs could post the first sub-.600 OPS since the 1972 Rangers.
ReplyDelete@Dave V: Thank you very much for that. As a Mets fan, I find it fascinating that the Marlins compete nearly every year despite being dwarfed in spending by the rest of the division.
ReplyDelete@Derek: Well, I think we just disagree. I find the Marlins more impressive than the Red Sox or A's (or Rays). Since 1997, they've been 1028-1,105 or .482, and that includes the awful 1998 and 1999 seasons you mentioned when they went a combined 118-206 (or a .362). They did that while finishing an average of nearly 27th place (26.928) out of the 30 teams in payroll from 1998 to this season.
About 10-12 teams in the league would love just the record alone, and the rest of them would sure love the bang for the buck.
http://www.stevetheump.com/Payrolls.htm
I think that, by season's end, the Sub Derek Jeter All-Stars will have pretty decent slash lines.
ReplyDeleteSSS
"Oakland, on the other hand, had a run of sustained excellence in the early 2000s that the Marlins can't match."
ReplyDeleteWell, that run of excellence also featured quick, embarassing exits from the playoffs every year. The Marlins have two championships. Given the choice, I'd take Florida's result.
I wonder when all the people who talk about how Billy Beane is God's gift to baseball are ever going to notice how long it's been since the A's have drafted and developed a good hitter. Or, really, how few good hitters they've drafted and developed period.
The reason that nobody talks about the Marlins is because Jeffrey Loria is evil.
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to let you know that this weblog is being featured in Five Star Friday - http://www.schmutzie.com/fivestarfriday/2011/5/5/five-star-fridays-148th-edition-is-brought-to-you-by-william.html
ReplyDelete>> Well, that run of excellence also featured quick, embarassing exits from the playoffs every year.
ReplyDeleteI think that's a bit of an oversimplification. In 2000, they took the Yankees to a deciding 5th game in the division series (beating Clemens in Game 4 in New York), where Terence Long lost a ball in the sun (the game was played in the late afternoon on the west coast so it could be prime time on the east coast) in a 6-run first inning, the A's pegged it back to 7-5 in the fourth, and the Yankees held on to win with no more runs scored.
The fact that Pujols' current OPS+ is 100 is striking. The NL league average OPS up to now is .708. It hasn't been that low since 1992 (.684). Are we seeing a post-steroid return to low scoring, similar to the 60s thru 80s?
ReplyDeleteThe average NL OPS from 1960 to 1992 was .693, while the average from 1993 to 2010 was .747.
The current .708 NL OPS is well below the lowest NL OPS since 1993, which was last year's .723.
Pujols is 31, 32 next January, the time when a lot of players drop off. It's all in the eyes.
ReplyDelete