As I mentioned last week, the Orioles have hired Loyola economics professor Stephen Walters to the organization. Walters worked with Dan Duquette previously in Boston, and has been with the Chicago Cubs most recently. CamdenDepot has links to several of his posts at Wages of Wins here, which make for some good reads - I especially enjoyed the comment sections.

After answering some questions I had regarding a paper he had co-authored regarding free agency returns for big and small market clubs, Professor Walters was kind enough to let me ask him a few questions about his baseball work:
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With newly acquired Japanese left-handed pitcher Tsuyoshi Wada likely being penciled into the Orioles' rotation for next year, it might not hurt to take a guess as to how he might do. Comparing NPB stats to Major League ones is tricky, but luckily Brian Cartwright (who does the Oliver projections) has looked into the issue:

"I started with a list of 33 Japanese pitchers who have come to MLB from 1995-2011. I’ll show their last 3 years in Japan, their projection, and their first 3 years in MLB... Last week I coded an adjustment for the new standardized ball in NPB in 2011... For a FIP estimate of a pitcher coming from NPB to MLB, increase HRs by 68%, increase BB by 11.6%, decrease SO by 9.6%."

Handy!

So here are Wada's stats for the last three years:

Year	IP	HR	BB	K	"FIP"
2009	84.1	13	24	87	3.99
2010	169.1	11	55	169	3.02
2011	184.2	7	40	168	2.52

The "FIP" uses the standard major league FIP formula, not adjusted year-to-year.

Adjusting for the new NPB ball in 2011 using Cartwright's Yu Darvish changes:

Year	IP	HR	BB	K	"FIP"
2009	84.1	13	24	87	3.99
2010	169.1	11	55	169	3.02
2011	184.2	11	44	153	3.05

So it looks like much of the 2011 "improvement" was a mirage due to the new ball, though he did walk (and K) fewer batters.

Adjusting using the NPB to MLB conversion:

Year	IP	HR	BB	K	"FIP"
2009	84.1	22	27	79	5.65
2010	169.1	18	61	153	3.90
2011	184.2	19	50	139	3.83

Those home runs in 2009... yikes. For '10-'11 these numbers would compare not too unfavorably to John Danks, Matt Garza, and Jonathon Niese (all have a K/9 within 0.5 points, BB/9 within 0.25 points, and HR/9 within 0.1 point of Wada's 7.4-2.8-0.9 for the two years). I'd wager that all three of those guys have better stuff than Wada does though.

A 3-2-1 weighting of more recent seasons would give Wada the following 2012 line:

Year	IP	HR	BB	K	"FIP"
2012	163	19	50	133	4.01

This needs to be regressed, but I'm not sure what* to regress it to... lefties with fastballs under 90 mph perhaps (for '10-'11, those with at least 200 IP total had an overall K/9 of 6.3, BB/9 of 2.8, and HR/9 of 0.9)?

* Normally it's league average, I think, but looking at a specific player I can throw some "scouting" in there maybe.

Doing so at 50% gives:

Year	IP	HR	BB	K	"FIP"
2012	163	18	50	123	4.03

Mostly it just decreased the K's a bit, but also the home runs a touch which kept the FIP about the same. Not regressing the HR would put the FIP at 4.14.

Lastly, there's some aging involved. A 5% decline in each category would leave:

Year	IP	HR	BB	K	"FIP"
2012	155	19	53	117	4.27

Which makes Wada pretty much Ervin Santana circa 2010 (pro-rated to 155 IP; 19 homers, 51 walks, 118 K's, 4.24 FIP). I'd be wary about such an optimistic projection (but it could happen!) - a 10% decline would instead give:

Year	IP	HR	BB	K	"FIP"
2012	147	20	55	111	4.5

That I'm a little more comfortable with; 6.8 K/9, 3.4 BB/9, 1.2 HR/9. If he can pitch almost 150 innings at that level, that's still a good win and a half - enough to make his contract a small bargain (even taking into account further decline in 2013). If he manages to pitch to the penultimate line, it's more like 2 wins, and Wada will earn his salary twice over.

It'll be interesting to see how well Wada transitions to the big leagues, but it looks like Dan Duquette might have made a nice little move here.

The Braves are trying to deal starting pitcher Jair Jurrjens. The Orioles want to bolster their starting rotation. Thus, Atlanta offered to trade Jurrjens to the O's - along with Martin Prado and a pitching prospect - in return for Adam Jones. And the Orioles said no. Was it a good call?

Jones is under team control for two more seasons. The past two seasons he's been at 2.6 and 2.9 fWAR, and calling him a three win player for his age 26-27 seasons doesn't seem unreasonable. There's the hope that he picks up his game and moves to the next level, but there are injuries and a drop-off in defense on the other side. That type of production would be worth around $31 M, but Jones will probably be paid only around $20 M in the two arbitration years. So that's ~$10 M in surplus value.

Jurrjens is about to turn 26, and is under team control for two more seasons as well. His 3.40 career ERA looks good, but his FIP (3.88) and xFIP (4.22) tell the tail of more of a middle of the rotation starter. Jurrjens K/BB ratio is only around 2, since he doesn't miss many bats (6.2 K/9 career, 5.3 K/9 last year) and his control isn't exceptional (3.1 BB/9 career, 2.6 BB/9 last year). He's been less of a groundball pitcher in recent years, but hasn't given up that many home runs (0.7 HR/9 career) - which I wouldn't expect to continue pitching in Camden Yards against the AL East teams. Same thing with the career .280 BABIP.

On top of the performance vs. peripherals disparity, Jurrjens has also been injured the past couple seasons, starting a total of only 43 games at the big league level. His fastball velocity fell off from 91-92 mph to just 89 mph in 2011. Given that the Braves seem somewhat anxious to trade him, I'd be a bit cautious. If he stays at the same level of production that he was at in '10-11 (1.2 and 1.5 fWAR, respectively), then he'd probably bring in only $5 M or so of surplus value.

Prado, ago 28, lost his second-base job to Dan Uggla last year. Like Jones and Jurrjens, he has two years of team control left. The .293/.341/.434 career hitter had a less than stellar 2011 as his BABIP fell to .266 (as his rate of line-drives dropped off), and without many walks (he's started to chase more pitches out of the zone, but isn't bad about it - he just makes so much contact he doesn't get into as many deep counts) or a ton of pop (double-digit homers and some doubles) he needs to hit for average to be a plus at the plate. If Brian Roberts can't play, Prado would probably move back to second for the O's. He has a career -8 UZR/150 at the position, though it was only around -3 runs recently (and he's at +3 career at third). Assuming his bat bounces back, Prado could be a 3-ish win player for the Orioles. Going with a more conservative 2.5, he'd have around $8 M in surplus value.

So right there, the O's have a decent chance of coming out even or ahead in the trade. The identity of the pitching prospect wasn't revealed, but I'd wager it wasn't one of the Braves' top young arms. Given that, I don't see the point of the deal for Baltimore. The only player they'd get who is scheduled to be around in 2014-2015 is the unknown pitcher. The point of dealing Jones is that he's getting closer to free agency, and the O's would still be in the same position with Jurrjens/Prado (who might be better than Jones on average, but I think carry more risk with similar high end). If the team is really going to trade Adam Jones, they need to shoot for at least one top prospect with more younger* players sprinkled in. That the O's turned down the offer** isn't bad news, as it would have been like a repeat of the Koji Uehara trade - picking up value, but not doing much to help the team contend (in the short or long term).

* Sure the team could flip Jurrjens/Prado for prospects, but I'd want that second deal in hand before trading Jones.

** Apparently, this exact offer wasn't made. The Orioles instead asked for Jurrjens, Prado, and two of the Braves' better pitching prospects which (a) would puts more emphasis on the correct area and (b) is kind of crazy (and so Atlanta said 'no'). Let them keep Jurrjens then, by all means - I'd want the prospects, and Prado if he'd come cheap (or not - another younger player is fine too).

Small change, but the O's have agreed to minor-league contracts with:

Right-handed pitcher Kyler* Newby; the soon-to-be 27 year-old sometimes starter (he's been shifted into that role a little bit in recent years) has spent most of his minor-league career in Double-A, where he's punched out some batters (8.3 K/9) but shown only decent control (3.0 BB/9) and a tendency to give up the longball (1.2 HR/9), as sometimes happens with flyball pitchers. Might be an OK reliever (don't have starting-relieving splits - maybe his non-knock-out seeming stuff plays up especially well out of the pen?).

* Was 'Kyle' just too boring of a name? Did it have to be made more "extreme"?

Right-handed pitcher Jon Link; he'll be 28 at the start of next season, and is almost exclusively a reliever. Career Triple-A numbers; 9 K/9, 3.9 BB/9, 0.8 HR/9. Seems to primarily use a low-90s fastball and a slider, though the fastball might have some sink to it since Link's been able to generate some groundballs (less so recently than in the lower minors, but still around a 50% rate). Based on five-minutes of looking, I like him better than Newby (though he's still probably only a 4.50 ERA type guy in the majors at best).

Outfielder Antoan Richardson; he's 28 years old, but still only has 40 career plate appearances above Double-A, where he's hit .260/.384/.321. He's supposed to be a very good defensive player, as a speedy center-fielder. Plus he's stolen bases at an almost 85% clip with almost 60 thefts per full season in his minor-league career (though only ~20 steals per at around 80% in Double-A). I love the walks (13.5% career walk rate at Double-A), but Richardson strikes out too much (~18% of the time) to hit for a high average even with a good BABIP (around .330), and he has virtually no power. It wouldn't be surprising to see the free passes decrease at higher levels as pitchers have little reason not to challenge Richardson, but if he could keep his OBP in even the .320-.330 range while saving 10+ runs per season in the field then he would be a decent back-up outfielder.

Outfielder/first-baseman Lee Cruz; this 28 year-old only even has 140 games in Double-A to his name. Given the side of the defensive spectrum that he plays on, it's not surprising to see that Cruz's game is about the power production; he's hit .255/.297/.433 in Double-A and .292/.330/.485 in the minors overall. He doesn't hit a ton of homers (~20 per season), but cracks a bunch of doubles to make up for it. He'll put the bat on the ball more than some other sluggers, but never walks (less than 5% of the time in the minors) and - unless his fielding is much more impressive than I'd assume (in the outfield he tended to play left) - he's unlikely to even be particularly close to a replacement level player in the majors. But hey, minor league depth!

I wonder if Stephen Walters* had a hand in bringing these guys aboard.

* Econ professor at Loyola who the O's just brought aboard (though he apparently advised Angelos in the past and also worked with Dan Duquette in Boston).

He's already "provided financial valuations — based on an undisclosed formula — which have aided the Orioles in their pursuit of several minor league free agents they have signed this offseason" and he "analyzes how many additional wins a player can create and how much a specific team should pay for those wins...

"If you incorporate 'Player X' into the mix, how many wins does that add and how much are those wins worth in that market?" said Walters, who also still works for Loyola. "It can vary from case to case, and there is a time dimension question with any player transaction — what are the future ramifications? … So the puzzle pieces come together, and ultimately, Dan is the guy who masterminds that information. But a lot of people supply him with the information.""

I'm not sure how much more complicated Walters' "formula" is than the freely available WAR implementations around the web (I'd assume he's using proprietary inputs, but is his formula different than the normal frameworks?). Plus, sometimes* economists will apply their models to baseball and get odd results instead of building models starting from the baseball. (Obviously not all economists are the same - Matt Swartz, for example, does some very fine work). I read Walters' study on the free agent market and came away not completely impressed (I guess in 2007 it might have been more ground-breaking, maybe). At least he didn't try to come up with his own measure of player production and used WARP instead, but that still leaves me wondering what Walters brings to the table relative to what the sabermetricians already have going.

* For example, one of the previous studies that Walters/Burger criticize was one that used slugging percentage as a proxy for overall player production, which is laughably wrong. 

The Orioles have signed outfielder Endy Chavez to a one-year contract (presumably for something like like $1-1.5 M*). The soon to be 34 year-old has a career .274/.313/.373 batting line, as he doesn't work free passes (5.5% walk rate) or hit for power (.099 ISO). That's not what he was signed for though; Chavez is a very good defensive outfielder, with a career UZR/150 of around +21 runs in the corners and +7 in center (the other metrics similarly see him as saving quite a few runs with the glove). If he hits .270/.305/.360 but plays close to his usual level of defense (and base-running), than he should be around a half-win player for the O's.

* Turns out it's $1.5 M, with another $0.5 M in performance bonuses.

Britt Ghiroli mentioned that the left-handed Chavez would be platooning in left-field with Nolan Reimold, but that doesn't seem to make much sense. Chavez has very slight reverse career platoon splits (.307 wOBA versus lefties, .302 wOBA versus righties), while Reimold actually has more prominent reverse* platoon splits, though in a smaller sample size (.345 wOBA versus righties, .332 wOBA versus lefties). One could argue that Chavez is actually the better player at this point (if, say, Reimold's defense is bad, his power falls off a bit, and his BABIP stays low), but the potential for an extra half-win (by giving Endy more playing time) matters less than finding out what the O's might have with Nolan. Chavez being around as a defensive replacement is fine - he's easily the best defense outfielder on the team now - and letting him give some outfielder or other a rest every now and again is OK too, but if he's starting 3-4 days a week that isn't great news.

* Interestingly, Adam Jones also has some reverse splits; .341 wOBA versus righties, .297 wOBA versus lefties.

The Orioles have agreed* to a two-year, $8.15 M contract (with a $5 M team option for 2014) with 30 year-old Japanese left-handed pitcher Tsuyoshi Wada. His career numbers include 1,260 IP of 3.37 ERA ball, 8.3 K.9, 2.5 BB/9, and 1 HR/9. Sounds like he throws in the mid to upper 80s with some solid secondary pitches. good control, and some occasional longball issues - if he's good a broadcaster will probably call him a "crafty left". That doesn't sound exciting at all, but it could be enough for 120 innings a year of 4.75 ERA ball out of the rotation  - which would be about sufficient to keep the contract from being a loss. As a reliever it would be harder to come out even, since I'd be quite surprised if he is able to increase his strike-out rate to the same degree that Koji Uehara did (and he seems to have only good control, as opposed to the exceptional control that Uehara does). Relatively low risk, low-to-medium return type move, though it does make the Dana Eveland trade look even worse (how many soft-tossing starters does one team need in the AL East?). It is nice to see the team going after international players though, and maybe if Wada has some success the O's can turn him into a younger player with some upside at the trade-deadline.

* This one is official, unlike the Chong Tae-Hyon deal, which fell through as he decided to stay in Korea.

A little over a year ago, I wrote a post about the Orioles potentially acquiring 28 year-old left-handed pitcher Dana Eveland. That deal was "supposed" to be for Dennis Sarfate. Today, the O's actually traded for Eveland, picking him up from the Dodgers for pitcher Jarret Martin and outfielder Tyler Henson. Not too much from what I said about Eveland last time has changed (except that his numbers have gotten worse):

"Dana was acquired by the A's in the Dan Haren trade with Arizona, and though he was pretty good in 2008 for them (4.34 ERA, 4.09 FIP, 4.55 xFIP), his career numbers aren't fantastic (5.54 ERA, 4.36 FIP, 4.65 xFIP). Eveland doesn't strike out a lot of batters (6.5 K/9 career) and his control leaves quite a bit to be desired (4.6 BB/9 career). He does induce a lot of groundballs though (50.1% career), which is handy. Not overpowering, with a sinking fastball in the high 80s and what appears to be a pretty mediocre couple of breaking pitches (a slider and a curveball) - along with a relatively straight change-up - Eveland is probably just a back-of-the-rotation starter...

My suggestion is to actually move him to the bullpen full-time, as sort of a younger and cheaper Mark Hendrickson (or, if you will, a left-handed Matt Albers). The groundballs are always nice, and being able to scrap the change-up could make him more effective. For his career, Eveland doesn't have huge platoon splits (1.26 K/BB vs. RHB and 1.85 K/BB vs. LHB) and though his OPS against is higher versus left-handed batters (.832 to .802) that's largely as a result of a BABIP split (.377 vs. LHB and .337 vs. RHB). His numbers as a reliever are actually worse (5.88 ERA, .884 OPS, 1.23 K/BB) than as a starter (5.48 ERA, .797 OPS, 1.43 K/BB), but he only has 41.1 career innings out of the pen."

Getting that kind of guy off the scrap-heap is fine, but I don't like giving up Martin for him (just Henson would have been fine, as the 24 year-old hasn't hit particularly well in Triple-A last year). The 22 year-old lefty hasn't put up the most impressive numbers as a starter in the minors (mostly due to poor control), but he's got good stuff. That he has a chance to be a starter is why I'd value him above Randy Henry (traded for Taylor Teagarden*), even if Henry's stats look better at the moment (out of the bullpen).  It's true that Martin is unlikely to ever be as good as Eveland is now, but I like the upside play. Not a huge deal, but even with #LoweredExpectations I'm not a supporter of the trade (especially given that Eveland is going into his first arbitration year). So it looks like the Quest for .500 lives!

* The PTBNL in that trade has turned out to be infielder Greg Miclat - he of the .268/.353/.336 career Double-A line. I was never a huge Miclat fan, but with that OBP he could be a solid utility infielder one day, which certainly down-grades the trade (from when it was potentially just Henry and then essentially nothing). So that's four relatively mediocre prospects for a 5th starter and a back-up catcher. Does that make sense for a 70-75 win team?

Dan Duquette on the trade: "We think Dana is a qualified Major League pitcher who won 15 games last year between Albuquerque and Los Angeles. He provides depth and can compete for a starting spot on our roster in 2012."

Ugh. The Orioles are in such bad shape they're talking up Dana Eveland as a good pitcher and, perhaps worst of all, he really might actually improve the team's rotation.