Orlando Cabrera just landed with the Oakland A’s, signing a one-year deal worth $4 million, which could hardly be more illustrative of the difference between Billy Beane and Brian Sabean. Sabean makes moves out of desperation, acting hastily, and either ends up getting fleeced or overpaying for mediocrity; while Beane cannily outmaneuvers whoever he’s dealing with, and waits for the exact moment when he can maximize his efforts and the team’s success.
Looking at their last three seasons, the two shortstops are almost identical in terms of offensive production. Renteria has a slight edge in home runs, and OBP, while Cabrera has played in more games, and consequently accumulated more hits, runs and RBI. BP’s VORP has Renteria at 10 and Cabrera at 18.8 for last season. In ’07, Cabrera was at 28.8 and Renteria 48, and in ’06, Renteria was at 38 and Cabrera at 28 again; so using VORP, it appears that Renteria has been more productive (96 total VORP over the last three seasons), albeit inconsistent, while Cabrera has been consistently average (77 total VORP for the last three seasons)
Of course, defensively, they’re not so similar. Renteria has never turned 100 double plays in a season, while Cabrera has reached that mark six times, including each of the last three. Cabrera also has many more assists, putouts, and total chances, indicating that he gets to more balls, and turns more of them into outs. The Hardball Times defensive metrics indicate the Cabrera’s better than Renteria across the board, and in some cases, quite a bit better.
In fact, looking at the two players side by side, it’s hard to imagine how Renteria landed a two-year, $18 million dollar deal while Cabrera sat and twisted in the wind, until I remember who absolutely had to get a shortstop, right away, even though our primary need was a big bat. So, while the Giants did not address their number one priority this off-season, a big bat, they did fill a position that some would argue was already manned, or at the least, one that could have been filled by someone commanding a far smaller salary. Instead, they went out and got the far weaker defensive player out of the two 30-something shortstops available (remember, only grownups can be counted on to play well), and they paid four times as much to get him.
In fact, the Giants could have taken the $18 million they’re burning in Renteria’s honor and landed both Cabrera and Adam Dunn, which would have, again, actually contributed to the possibility of contending.
Spectacular.
UPDATE: Even John Shea agrees with me:
…. With the A’s agreeing to a contract with shortstop Orlando Cabrera, it’s the Giants’ move, and anything less than a Manny Ramirez purchase gives the clear edge to the A’s in the competition to upgrade the most powerless offenses in the majors.
…. The A’s have added 65 home runs and 241 RBIs (based on last year’s numbers). The Giants have added 10 homers and 55 RBIs.
[...] and O-Hud (a second baseman, but still) had to wait a veritable eternity? (Answer: Brian Sabean) [Only Baseball Matters]• STEW NEWS: Remember to eat your Big League Stew Twitter!• Speaking of [...]
…. The A’s have added 65 home runs and 241 RBIs (based on last year’s numbers). The Giants have added 10 homers and 55 RBIs.
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Protestations to the contrary. Those numbers tend to confirm what most of us are willing to accept. The Giants are little changed from the type of team thet gave been the last several years.
This is not surprising.
Any organization that continues with the same operational people that have created a succession of on-field failures by running out has-beens with q ratings, but have made a profit for the stockholders, and thereby ensured their own job security, has no real motiviaion to change direction.
If you’re a shareholder, you’re happy. You have a milquetoast manager. A team full of non-controverseys. Big fat radio and cable contracts. The end of the tunnel in sight in paying off stadium debt. If you have replaced the managing general partner who was a self-described fan, with a multi-national corporate lawyer extraordinaire who specializes in being invisible while watching over your millions, than you are perfectly happy with a crappy team that simply has to sell 35,000 people, on the notion that they will be getting their money’s worth.
And that silly carnival will continue to take place in that amusement park at Third and King. As it mirrors its East Coast bretheren, Camden Yards, where “the ballpark experience” will continue to hold sway over “winning championships”.
Fucking keyboard!
The Giants are little changed from the type of team they have been the last several years
Shea like you totally fails to see how much of an upgrade Renteria is offensively over those that played shortstop for the Giants last year. A reasonable projection for Renteria is as I have already shown that he will add 50 runs to the Giants offense compared to the Shortstops we had last year. There is no other single move the Giants could have made that would have added this much and that goes for both Mark Teixeria and Manny Ramirez.
Your obsession with Home Runs is becoming rediculous. Home Run Power is valuable but it is not a requirement to score runs.
Yes, Frucal is younger but he is not better he is the same. Cabrera is the better of the three defensively while Renteria and Frucal are better offensively and about equal both offensively and defensively. I could post links to all the projection systems and past year’s stats but clearly there is no point as your mind is made up and you don’t care about the facts.
Are we looking at the same projections? The gap between Furcal and Renteria is about a win…
According to FanGraphs their Bill James, Chone, Marcel, and Oliver projections are as follows:
Furcal’s wOBA projections are .341, .347, .336, and .335.
Renteria’s wOBA projections are .334, .335, .336, and .331.
Personally I project them both to hit at a .336 wOBA level. Seems to me you have to be using Chone to see a difference of a win. Marcel see’s (as I do) no difference while Oliver sees about a third of a win difference and Bill James sees about a half of a win difference.
Take a look at their last two years:
Furcal had wOBAs of 311 and .440 (just 164 PAs) for an average of .337
Renteria had wOBAs of .381 and .308 for an average of .344
Seems to me to be perfectly reasonable to project that they will be the same.
Except for the fact that Renteria appears to be at the beginning of a steep decline phase of his career. Or maybe he’s a quitter. Or he just decided to come to camp fat and out of shape last season, even though he was about to be a free agent. Or maybe he just doesn’t care. Who knows. Sabean doesn’t, I can guarantee you that.
Sure, Renteria’s been a decent player. So was Edgardo Alfonzo. The similarities between the two are chilling. Scouts were saying that Alfonzo’s back was a huge problem, and that he’d never be the same. Sabean signed him and announced that he never even considered the back to be an issue. He basically said, well, it’s only $28 million dollars, why should I question whether the numbers are telling the truth? He’s a proven veteran.
Using your stats, anyone can see that Renteria posted a 25% decline from ’07 to ’08, yet you’re perfectly comfortable projecting him to be just fine, and revert back to his pre-2008 numbers, even though 33 year olds are far more likely to be actually declining, rather than just having tough years. And let’s not forget the injury risk older players bring to the party. You’re using the exact same kind of reasoning Sabean uses. That’s why we’ve had a roster of ancient mariners for most of the last ten years. Sabean says, well, he was good once, who cares that every metric invented tells us that once players reach their early thirties, the wheels start coming off. But no, he did it once, we certainly can commit millions of dollars of resources counting on him to do it again.
And then those players get hurt, or simply fail to perform, and the team is hamstrung by their contracts, which means that not only do we have a backup at their position, we also have no cash to upgrade area of real need. Hence the endless stream of cast-offs and retreads in our bullpen. The endless stories out of the Giants offices about how we can’t afford this guy or that guy.
And as for my obsession with home runs, well, all I will say is that getting on base and hitting for power are only the two most important things a hitter can do well, and are, in fact, intertwined, since, if you don’t hit for power, you will find it very difficult to draw many walks, right.
And here I am rooting for a team that seems to think home runs and walks are luxuries they can do without. A team that has been at the bottom of the league in both categories at just about every position on the diamond for most of the decade –and once Barry was shoved aside, and Superman wasn’t there to carry the team anymore– surprise surprise, they’ve been one of the worst offenses in the league.
So, yeah, I guess you could say that I am obsessed with home runs, sort of like every single player, coach, and GM in baseball, well, every GM other than Sabean, who seems to be trying to prove that you can win without them, which is laughably, provably wrong.
Annomous scouts were doing this dissing of Renteria. The Giants scouts loved how he performed in the 2nd half of last year once he got in shape. All indications are he is in even better shape to start this year. The Giants scouts seem to think we will get the same Renteria the Braves got. I am not this optomistic but I see no reason to believe he will not come close to the average of his last four years that includes the 2 bad AL years with the two good Braves years. 2008 was not decline anymore then 2005 was. It was spending a year in the AL and not being able to get comfortable. He is back in the NL where he is comfortable. A return to the form he had with the Braves would not suprise me but I am not projecting it.
Your Egardo Alfonzo comparison is not valid for at least two reasons. Renteria hasn’t suffered a career inhibiting back injury like Alfonzo did and Edgar’s contract is just two years not four.
By the way, as Aaron B. noted above the A’s (like the Giants) first choice was Furcal and Renteria (not Cabrera was their second choice. The A’s were willing to match both the Dodgers and the Giants but Furcal wanted to stay in the NL and Renteria wanted to return to the NL. Cabrera was the A’s third choice and they were not willing to pay him anywhere near what they were willing to pay Furcal or Renteria becuase they didn’t think he was as good and they didn’t think they had to. When Cabrera became the last SS standing the A’s knew his price would have to come down and it did.
I do not happen to agree with the A’s, Giants, and Dodgers that Cabrera is the lessor player. I rate all three as even just with different strengths as I indicated above. I would have been fine with the Giants waiting on Cabrera to accept the market didn’t value him as much as it valued Furcal and Renteria.
But I am also fine with the Giants striking early as they did. 2 years just does not bother me at all even if you are right and $18.5M is an overpay. The Giants get the largest possible offensive upgrade that can get from any one position and they make no long term commitment to get it. I just don’t see what is not to like about this.
By the way, do you ever plan to stop ignoring how bad the offense was we got from SS last year and and thus how much of an upgrade Furcal or Renteria are compared to what we had last year? Even Cabrera would have been an offensive upgrade compared to last year’s shortstops of more value the Manny would be compared to any of our current outfieders. This is not saying Cabera is somehow equal to Manny offensively but it is saying that our shortstops last year were that bad offensively. When are you going to see the light here? Is trying to make your point really worth ignoring this obvious fact?
By your harsh criticism of Fred Lewis, I couldn’t tell you liked walks and power. Fred Lewis “only” walks around 10% of the time, posted an ISO power (a better indicator of power than raw slugging) better than league average, and had a well above-average OBP, all while playing his home games in a hugely unfavorable home park and a lot of games in two other parks (Petco and Dodger Stadium) that also depress lefties’ power.
On a side note, isn’t it awesome how the Giants keep trying to get power lefties to hit in a park that’s not suited for them? Kind of like how the Mariners under Bavasi kept trying to throw out righties in their park that was righty-unfriendly.
Lol. Bavasi. At least we are not alone.
Have to disagree with you here- Lewis is the perfect player for AT&T. AT&T suppresses home runs to right field – so you’re right that it depresses lefties power. However, it also has a huge gap in right center, perfect for guys with gap power and speed. I see Lewis as a gap power/speed type hitter, not a big home run hitter no matter where he plays. So even though it cuts down on his home runs, it can also turn singles into doubles and doubles into triples to make up for it. Overall, AT&T played exactly league average for hitters last year. A player like Adam Dunn, though, would be the perfect example of a guy who would be hugely affected (negatively) by AT&T.
Furcal is younger and better than both of these guys, although he’s been injured most of the last two seasons. And anyway, his deal was simply horrible, given his injury issues.
And it’s not hindsight. It was a terrible deal the minute it was announced. Sabean rushed out and got a shortstop when everyone was talking about how the team needed a hitter. It’s not hindsight to say that the consensus around the blogosphere was that Renteria played last season like he was done, and it’s not hindsight that he was released by the Tigers, who chose to forgo their compensatory draft pick rather than take the chance that the fat, out of shape, uncommitted Renteria would accept arbitration and possibly stay with the team.
It’s not hindsight when I was writing that the team needed to do something about shortstop two years ago, before Vizquel’s arms –predictably– fell off, and Sabean went and re-signed him instead of addressing the problem then.
This guy is gonna be another Edgardo Alfonzo, another signing in which Sabean was competing only with himself to acquire a player who appeared to be on his way out baseball.
BTW, the A’s offered Furcal pretty much the same deal as the Dodgers got him for… and Renteria was apparently their backup plan, though that was probably because of Cabrera’s Type-A status.
There are three big problems with this view.
1) It is pure hindsight. Maybe Beane and you were smart enough to see that the economy would cause this much colapse in the free agent market but I highly doubt it. More likely Beane’s resources were just to limited to buy early and thus by pure luck he benifited from this colapse.
2) There were actually 3 pretty simular SS’s available in free agency this offseason as you are fogetting about Rafael Furcal. He signed with the Dodgers after the Giants signed Renteria for a much larger commitment (3 Years and $30M) then the Giants made to Edgar.
3) You continue to fail to see just how big the offensive hole at SS was last year and thus how much Renteria improves the overall Giants offense. From a couple of my replies in your previous “Backtalk” thread.
600 PAs from Vizquel, Ochoa, Bocock and Burriss in 2008 produced a .238 wOBA and 23.9 wRC. In these same 600 PAs I am projecting Edgar Renteria in 2009 to produce a .336 wOBA and 74.4 wRC. This is a wRC increase of 50.5! The Giants couldn’t get this much improvement by replacing last year’s firstbasemen with Mark Teixeria.
Edgar Renteria’s wOBA of .336 in 600 PAs breaks down as follows:
PA/AB 600/540
BB/HBP 51/3
SH/SF 6/0
1B/2B/3B/HR 108/30/3/12
AVG/OBP/SLG .283/.345/.417
Aside from the fact that the Giants would’ve had to give up their 2nd round pick to the White Sox (and why would they want that, since their scouting [note: scouting, not including player development] department is the most competent lot in the whole organization?) and that Renteria’s contract this season is only $7 million dollars, you’re pretty much spot on. Since I’ve been harping on how Ruben Amaro jumped the market in signing Raul Ibanez (an inferior player to Pat Burrell and Adam Dunn who got a better contract), I pretty much have to say that Sabean did the same thing.
My side by side comparison between Edgar and Orlando has Edgar ahead in offense* 10.3 above average to -25.5 over the past three seasons, Orlando ahead defensively^ 23.7 to -6.6, giving Edgar the advantage in hitting plus defense 3.7 to -1.8, or about 4 runs. However, Edgar’s two best years out of the three were in a weaker league, the NL. If you factor in the difference between the leagues for two of Edgar’s seasons at ~ 5 runs per season, Orlando has the advantage of ~9.8 runs to Edgar’s 3.7. And this is not including baserunning, for which Orlando handily has the advantage.
On the bright side, it does help that Emmanuel Burriss now gets to develop in Triple A (where apparently he wants to add a little more power in his swing so he doesn’t get Pierre-d every game).
*Baseball-reference’s park-adjusted Batting Runs, which actually model reality better than VORP since they weight the different events correctly
^Ultimate Zone Rating using Baseball Info Solutions fielding data, courtesy off Fangraphs.com; it includes the ability to turn the double play
I forgot about his $2 mil signing bonus, sorry. Also, for some reason John, I always get an error when I try to submit a comment, then when I go back to your main entry, my comment appears. Any idea what’s going on here?
No. It happens to me everywhere, also.