Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Looking Ahead to 2009: Brett Gardner

He's been named the Yankees' starting CF to begin 2009, so it's time to look at Brett Gardner.



2008
brett gardner PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO HBP AVG OBP SLG BR BR/650 BRAR/650 wOBA
2008 chone 469 427 55 108 18 4 2 43 35 9 40 91 2 .253 .320 .328 48 66 1 .288
2008 marcel 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0 .000
2008 pecota 483 428 58 102 17 4 3 31 25 7 44 100 3 .239 .308 .316 45 61 -5 .277
2008 zips 468 417 73 112 15 4 1 27 28 9 49 87 2 .269 .348 .331 51 70 5 .307
2008 cairo 325 292 43 74 11 3 3 23 9 3 30 61 2 .253 .325 .335 32 65 -1 .293
2008 average 349 313 46 79 12 3 2 25 19 5 33 68 2 .253 .325 .328 35 66 0 .291
2008 actual 555 485 72 119 15 11 2 45 43 11 63 111 3 .245 .333 .334 60 70 5 .298
difference 59% 55% 58% -3% -20% 146% -27% 18% 48% 34% 24% 6% 15% -.008 .008 .007 25 5 5 .006





Those projections were for Gardner as a major leaguer, so I added his 2008 MLE to his MLB performance for comparison's sake. As you can see, Gardner exceed his projections slightly, somewhere around 4 runs better than expected over a full season. That includes the disastrous start to his major league career, where he hit .153/.227/.169 over his first 68 PA before he was demoted on July 25. Gardner was recalled on August 15th and actually ended the season pretty well, hitting .294/.333/.412 over his last 73 PA.


Offense

It's been rehashed just about everywhere, but Gardner is the type of player whose game does not project to translate well to MLB, which can be seen in his projections below.


brett gardner PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO HBP AVG OBP SLG BR BR/650 BRAR/650 wOBA
2009 chone 502 446 75 115 19 7 2 34 33 9 54 104 2 .258 .341 .345 56 73 7 .305
2009 marcel 270 241 34 62 12 2 5 32 12 2 21 49 1 .257 .311 .386 31 74 8 .295
2009 pecota 498 430 69 109 19 6 4 32 32 9 55 99 3 .253 .334 .351 56 72 7 .300
2009 tht 506 447 66 112 15 7 5 35 31 5 56 97 3 .251 .338 .349 58 74 9 .305
2009 zips 501 446 74 111 14 6 2 30 41 8 53 101 2 .249 .331 .321 53 69 4 .294
2009 cairo 613 544 73 138 19 8 3 37 19 3 66 50 3 .254 .338 .334 64 68 3 .301
2009 average 482 426 65 108 17 6 4 35 28 6 50 85 2 .254 .332 .348 53 72 6 .300





Gardner projects below average on offense, but slightly above replacement level. Since the Yankees got replacement level out of CF last year, he may actually be an offensive upgrade. He has supposedly re-worked his swing and showed some more pop in spring training, but the quality and intensity of the competition he did it against means we shouldn't really read too much into it. It's possible he's changed his game, but we need to see it in games that count.



Gardner's CAIRO percentiles show that his chances for hitting for decent power are pretty slim.
brett gardner: cairo %iles PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO HBP AVG OBP SLG BR BR/650 BRAR/650 wOBA
80% 625 554 84 153 24 11 5 44 24 2 76 43 5 .276 .374 .383 82 86 20 .337
65% 619 549 79 145 21 9 4 41 21 2 71 46 4 .265 .356 .358 73 77 11 .319
baseline 613 544 73 138 19 8 3 37 19 3 66 50 3 .254 .338 .334 64 68 3 .301
35% 583 516 66 126 16 6 2 32 16 4 59 50 2 .243 .321 .309 53 60 -6 .284
20% 533 473 56 110 13 4 1 27 13 5 51 49 1 .232 .303 .284 42 51 -15 .266




Gardner's 80% forecast is essentially league average for a CF, with the stolen bases making up for the below average SLG.


One nice thing about running the Diamond Mind Projection Blowout is I can look at the results of 6000 Brett Gardner seasons and see what he did.

OBP >.350: 28.5% of the time.

OBP >.400: 1.5% of the time.

SLG > .500: 0.3% of the time.

SLG > .400: 6.8% of the time.



I have no idea what Gardner will do this season. He could hit anywhere from his 20% to 80% forecast and I wouldn't be surprised.



Defense
Luckily, offense is only part of the equation when looking at what Gardner brings the Yankees.
Year Age Pos GP Inn RS (ZR) RS (UZR) Avg (ZR/UZR) p162
2008 24 CF 22 161 3 5 4 38
2009 25 CF 40 303 3 4 4 17




Obviously we have severe sample size issues here, but Gardner was off-the-charts good in CF by zone rating and UZR in his brief MLB time. His +17 projection is probably still too optimistic even though I regressed towards the mean, but WTH, I'll assume that based on the fact that he has 80 speed and speed correlates very highly with OF defense that he's around a +10.



Baserunning

Gardner didn't really have enough opportunities to make his baserunning stats mean anything. He showed as average, but he should be better than that. The top baserunners in the league are typically around +5 in a season, I'll assume Gardner will be around a +3 since he's not likely to be on base as often as those runners.



Value

Category Runs Wins
Offense 6 0.6
Defense 10 1.0
Baserunning 3 0.3
Total 19 1.9
2009 Salary $400,000
Value if:a marginal win is worth: Value Difference
$3,000,000 $5,641,665 $5,241,665
$3,500,000 $6,581,942 $6,181,942
$4,000,000 $7,522,219 $7,122,219
$4,500,000 $8,462,497 $8,062,497
$5,000,000 $9,402,774 $9,002,774
$5,500,000 $10,343,052 $9,943,052
$6,000,000 $11,283,329 $10,883,329




If Gardner's really a +10 defender and a +3 non-SB baserunner, his projections think he's almost an average overall CF. Of course, there's a very good chance he won't hit either his offensive projections or defensive projections. Still, last year, Melky Cabrera was -0.1 WAR, so it looks like moving to Gardner will be an upgrade of at least a win and maybe two.



Conclusion

While I think that MLEs and projections are very valuable and useful tools, I think they break around the margins. Gardner's on those margins. A look at players who accrued similar minor league stats left me fairly unimpressed. That's not to say Gardner won't end up useful. It's just not the most likely scenario, but I'll be pulling for him. He should be able to at the very least provide some utility as a fifth OF/defensive replacement/pinch-runner. I hear that job pays pretty well.

No comments: