Alex Anthopoulos and the Playoffs (Part 2)

Yesterday I posted part one, describing how we can measure the effectiveness of the Blue Jays' front office. I also analyzed the Roy Halladay trade, which showed that the Jays lost approximately 7.9 games because of the trade. In the post today, I want to look at the remaining meaningful trades made by the front office this year, in mostly chronological order.

To recap quickly, Alex Anthopoulos was promoted on October 3. His first move, trading Halladay, was completed on December 16. Just a week later, on December 23, he made his second significant trade. Looking for a shutdown late-inning relief pitcher, the Mariners believed that Brandon League could help the team as they challenged for a playoff berth this year (that turned out well!). In return, the Jays received Brandon Morrow, a highly anticipated starter with outstanding "stuff". The Mariners drafted him 5th overall in 2006, but never seemed to be able to decide whether to turn him into a starter or try to have him become a closer. Morrow never panned out in his years with Seattle, so he was traded to the Jays. He finally had his breakout season this year, showing occasional flashes of brilliance (see here) while finishing 10-7 with an ERA of 4.49. He ended the 2010 season with a WAR of 1.6, while League struggled, posting a -0.1 WAR. Assuming an "average" replacement for League in the bullpen, the Jays gained 1.5 wins from the trade. The trade was one-sided, even when it was made, that many people wondered if it was part of the Halladay trade (where Cliff Lee ended up going to Seattle), but that was not true. The Jays simply made a great trade, which paid off this year and should pay off for many years to come.


After the two big December trades, Anthopoulos mostly tinkered with the lineup until the season started, with only a couple of minor moves. On January 20, the Jays traded for relief pitcher Merkin Valdez, sending cash considerations to the Giants. Valdez ended the year with a -0.1 WAR. On February 6, AA traded for Dana Eveland, a pitcher with the A's. Eveland ended the year with a -0.8 WAR, but assuming an average replacement player, we have already counted his stats in the Roy Halladay trade (see part one), so we cannot count them again. Eveland pitched poorly enough to be sent to the Pirates on June 1 for Ronald Uviedo, who did not pitch in the MLB this year. There were also some insignificant moves scattered throughout the year where AA acquired minor league players such as Zach Johnson and Casey Fien.

The next significant trade was made on April 15. The Jays acquired outfielder Fred Lewis from the Giants for a player to be named later or cash. Lewis ended the year with a 0.8 WAR, which looks like it helped the team, but we must also take into consideration some other things. The plate appearances that Lewis had would have been given to someone else if he had not been acquired. The likely recipients of the PAs would have been Travis Snider and Dewayne Wise, with most going to Snider. In 319 PAs, Snider had a 0.9 WAR, so if assuming that 319 of the 440 PAs that Lewis had would have gone to Snider and Snider would have a constant performance, those 319 PAs could have been worth 0.9 wins. If we give the other 121 PAs to Wise, who had a 0.1 WAR in 118 PAs, he probably would have produced about 0.1 more wins. So overall, those 440 PAs would have produced about 1.0 wins if Lewis had not been acquired. So the net loss on the trade was actually -0.2 wins.

The final significant trade was made on July 14, when the Jays traded Alex Gonzalez to the Braves for Yunel Escobar and Jo-Jo Reyes (who did not pitch in the majors in 2010 for the Jays). Gonzalez had gotten off to a hot start with 17 home runs in the first 85 games of the year, only hit 6 more for the Braves. This trade was a classic case of selling high, with the 33-year old Gonzalez having a career year, while Escobar was in the doghouse in Atlanta but still had a lot of potential. Before the trade, Gonzalez had a 2.8 WAR, while Escobar only had a 0.9 WAR. However, after the trade, Gonzalez only had a 0.9 WAR while Escobar had a 1.0 WAR. So the net gain of the trade was 0.1 win, and considering the trade was made with the future in mind, turned out very well for this year (and should help out the next couple of years with Gonzalez slowing down and Escobar just hitting his peak).

Now that we have looked at each individual trade, we can see the overall result of the trading. Here is a quick summary:
Halladay trade: -7.9 wins
Morrow trade: +1.5 wins
Valdez trade: -0.1 wins
Lewis trade: -0.2 wins
Escobar trade: +0.1 wins

So the trades had an overall net of -6.6 wins (6.6 more losses). This means that had none of the trades been made, the Jays would have won between 6 and 7 more games this year. Looking at the AL East standings this year:

TB: 96-66 (won division)
NYY: 95-67 (won wild card)
BOS: 89-73
TOR: 85-77

So the Jays would have won between 91 and 92 games, putting them ahead of Boston but still out of the playoff picture. If we want to look at the best case scenario for this year only, then Halladay would not have been traded. If the Jays were going for the playoffs this year, they probably would not have traded Gonzalez, as he was the "rental" player in the deal, or the one that could help his team win now, not in the future. So if we assume only the Morrow trade was made (which may not be true, because the Mariners only traded Morrow after trading for Cliff Lee), the Jays would have gained 9.6 wins. That would have put them between 94 and 95 wins, ahead of Boston, and possibly one game behind or tied with the Yankees. Given that the Yankees somewhat tanked during the stretch in order to draw the Twins in the first round of the playoffs, they probably could have won more games if they were in a "real" race for the playoffs, and not just the division. So, we can say with confidence that the Jays still probably would not have made the playoffs (but you never know, if most of those extra wins had come against the Yankees, maybe they would have!).

Even in this fairly simple analysis, we can see that if the Jays really tried hard to make the playoffs this year, they still would have fallen just a little short, and would be sitting in a far worse position for the upcoming years. Seeing that almost every move this year besides the Halladay trade helped, or at least didn't hurt the Jays, the front office did a good job both strengthening the team now as well as building for the future. The jury is still out on the Halladay trade, and will be for awhile until all of Drabek, D'Arnaud, and Gose have played significant time in (hopefully) the majors. But the overall conclusion of this analysis is that Alex Anthopoulos and the rest of the front office did a very nice job with the trades this year, and hopefully the Jays will reap the benefits in the near future. 

Alex Anthopoulos and the Playoffs (Part 1)

This post started out as an analysis of how the Blue Jays could have possibly made the playoffs this year if they had not traded Roy Halladay, but it evolved into something much bigger. I want to look at all of the trades in the last 12 months and determine how well the Jays did in each trade for this year only, and then see if they could have made the playoffs by not trading anyone, or by only making certain trades.

The starting date of this analysis takes place on October 3, 2009, when the Jays, among other moves, fired J.P. Riccardi and promoted Alex Anthopoulos to general manager. This signaled a shift for the strategy of the front office, moving from signing older, high-priced veterans like Frank Thomas and A.J. Burnett to making the scouting staff the largest in the majors and developing the farm system. Although it has only been a year, the results are already palpable, and the future is looking bright for the Jays.

The first major move of Anthopoulus' reign as GM was to trade away Roy Halladay, who was set to become a free agent after this year and would not return to Toronto as he was in search of a playoff-caliber team. It was a difficult task, with one of the franchise's most popular players ever being traded, along with a very small market as many teams could not afford Halladay. Eventually, Philadelphia became just about the only option, which meant that they would have leverage over the Jays. Finally, on December 16, they Jays traded Doc to the Phillies for prospects Kyle Drabek, Travis D'Arnoud, and Michael Taylor. They then traded Taylor to the A's for Brett Wallace, another highly sought after prospect involved in the Matt Holliday trade. Later on this year, on July 29, AA traded Wallace to Houston for yet another prospect, Anthony Gose, who the Jays had been trying to acquire all along, but the Phillies had relented before shipping him to the Astros in the Roy Oswalt trade.

To determine the outcome of this trade (as well as every other trade), I am going to only look at this year's production. So even though the Halladay trade was to acquire prospects that will be major league ready in 2-3 years, I want to see how the trades played out this year. I am going to use the Wins Above Replacement statistic to measure each player's value to his team. Although it sounds simple, it can get complex (as it will in the Halladay trade), because we have to account for both the traded player's WAR as well as the WAR of the players who replaced the traded player.

This year, Roy Halladay had an overall WAR of 6.5, but -0.4 of that was due to offense, so if he had been playing for the Jays (with the DH), he would have had a WAR of 7.3. I am assuming all the of values would remain constant no matter what team the player is on. That was the easy part. Now we need to figure out which pitchers had starts this year that Halladay would have had if he pitched in Toronto. Doc made 33 starts this year, and conveniently, the top 5 starters for the Jays this year (Romero, Marcum, Cecil, Morrow, and Rzepczynski) had 139 starts, with 6 other pitchers recording a combined 33 starts. So presuming that Halladay would have started all of the other combined 33 starts, we can figure out exactly how much the Jays lost when they traded Halladay away.

The six other Blue Jays pitchers who started at least one game this year were (with starts in parentheses): Brian Tallet (5 starts), Jesse Litsch (9), Dana Eveland (9), Brad Mills (3), Shawn Hill (4), and Kyle Drabek (3). If we add up the WAR from each start, we can determine the total wins lost due to the trade. Tallet had an overall WAR of -1.4, but in his 5 starts his WAR was -0.35. Litsch only started, and had an overall WAR of -0.1. Eveland had an overall WAR of -0.8. In Mills' three starts, he had a WAR of 0.13. Hill had a WAR of 0.4, and finally Drabek had a WAR of 0.1. The total WAR for the 33 starts was -0.6, which means that if Roy Halladay were to make the 33 starts instead of these pitchers, the Jays would have won about 7.9 more games.

The Halladay trade was just the first of many trades this year by AA, so tomorrow I am going to post part 2, which will evaluate the rest of the trades and determine whether or not the Jays could have made the playoffs this year with certain trades. (See here for part 2)

Fact of the Week XI: Most and Least Valuable Blue Jays Postseason Games

As the playoffs move past the championship series' and on to the World Series, I wanted to take a quick look at valuable, and not valuable, postseason games by a Blue Jays player and pitcher. Considering the Jays have only played 41 playoffs games ever, and haven't made the playoffs since they won the World Series back-to-back in 1992 and 1993, all of these games will be from the mid-80s and early 90s.

The most valuable game ever by a Blue Jays hitter was by Devon White, in game 4 of the 1993 World Series. His Win Probability Added (WPA) for that game was 0.719, which is extraordinarily high. It is actually the 11th most valuable game ever in the postseason by a player. In the 15-14 Blue Jays win, White went 3-for-5 with 2 runs and 4 RBIs. The big hit came in the top of the 8th inning, with 2 runners on and 2 out, with the Jays losing 14-13. White hit a two run triple to put the Jays on top 15-14, and the play increased the Jays' win expectancy from 24% to 74%.

The least valuable game ever by a Blue Jays hitter was John Olerud, in game 2 of the 1992 World Series. His WPA for the game was -0.273, as he went 0-for-4 with a strikeout. The biggest blow came in the top of the eighth with 1 out and runners on first and third and the Jays trailing 4-3. Olerud popped out to the third baseball, which resulted in a decrease in win expectancy of 16%. Coincidentally, the Jays still ended up winning the game 5-4, in large part because of Ed Sprague, who hit a pinch-hit, two-run home run in the top of the 9th to give the Jays the 5-4 lead. His one at-bat in the game increased the Jays' win expectancy by 67%, which was actually the second-most valuable postseason game by a Jays' hitter behind Devon White.

For pitchers, the most valuable postseason game ever pitched was by David Cone in game 2 of the ALCS in 1992. Cone pitched 8 innings, giving up 5 hits and only one run, and the Jays won 3-1, resulting in a game score of 71 and a win probability added of 0.413.

The least valuable postseason pitching performance was by Todd Stottlemyre in game 4 of the 1993 World Series. This was the 15-14 Jays win in which Devon White had the most valuable position player game. Stottlemyre started the game for the Jays and went 2 innings, giving up 6 runs, and had a WPA of -0.486. Interestingly enough, the fourth worst pitching performance was by Al Leiter, who came in to relieve Stottlemyre, pitching 2.2 innings and giving up another 6 runs. Amazingly, the Jays still won, and in both cases of the least value performances they had comeback victories which overshadowed the bad performances by players.

Hopefully in the next couple of years the Blue Jays will be able to add some players to any of the lists above, which will mean that they made the playoffs again after a long drought.

Fact of the Week X: Multi Home Run Postseason Games

In game one of the NLCS last night, Cody Ross hit two home runs off of Roy Halladay. It is extremely hard to hit two home runs in the majors, let alone two against Roy Halladay in the postseason. Ross became only the 5th player to hit two home runs in the first game of a League Championship Series. As a comparison, there have been 10 players with at least 2 home runs in a LCS game two, 8 players in a game 3, 7 in a game 4, 2 in a game 5 or 7, and only 1 in a game 6. This is presumably based upon the starting pitcher on the opposing team, and the ace of the staff will usually pitch games 1, 4 or 5, and possibly 7. The lack of games in the later series games (5-7), is probably due to the lack of overall games (if a series ends in a sweep there will not be any game 5, 6, or 7), the quality of starting pitching, and the strategy of managers playing for one-run innings, so more sacrifice bunts and less at-bats.

Ross also became only the 4th player to hit 2 home runs in a postseason game while batting 8th in the lineup. More impressively, the other three players were all hitting with a position player behind them (a game involving the DH), so Ross became the first player to ever hit 2 home runs with the pitching batting behind him.

Finally, he became only the 19th player to hit at least 2 home runs in his first five postseason games in either the World Series or LCS (18 other players have hit at least two in their first five games in the LDS). All of these statistics are fairly impressive, and become more impressive when you consider that he did it against Roy Halladay, who threw the second no-hitter in postseason history in his last start.