The Outfield Chronicles Part 1: When Should Heyward Get The Call?
February 8, 2010 at 2:40 pm by Capitol Avenue Club under Atlanta Braves
Should the Braves begin the 2010 season with Jason Heyward as their starting right fielder? It’s a complicated question that deserves a complex answer, or at least a blog post full of mostly bullshit, given the uncertainty of it all.
At this point–and barring an unexpected (at this point) Johnny Damon signing or some other scenario that involves Frank Wren waving a wand and an outfielder coming out of a hat–it appears that the Braves will begin the season with Jason Heyward in RF. The organization isn’t saying that, of course. They’re saying things like, “We’re going to give him the opportunity to win the job this spring”. Which, to me, means they’re going to give him the job. There was a somewhat similar scenario last season when Jordan Schafer was given the opportunity to win the starting CF job, and he won it out of camp. He was actually probably the best outfielder on the team at 22 years old until he hurt his wrist and hid the injury from the organization for nearly two months, which speaks volumes about the quality of the outfielders the Braves possessed last spring. Anyway, I digress.
The outfield depth chart is significantly better than it was a year ago, but Heyward could still be a huge upgrade to the roster. First of all, let’s look at who he’d be replacing.
On the roster, he’d be replacing some run-of-the-mill AAAA outfielder, probably. That’s who would sit in his roster spot for the first couple of months while his service clock doesn’t tick in Gwinnett. However, that alleged AAAA outfielder wouldn’t be playing very much, Heyward would be the team’s starting right fielder.
If Heyward fails to win the job out of spring training, the Braves will likely enter ’09 with an outfield alignment of Diaz-McLouth-M. Cabrera, left-to-right. If he does, we’re looking at a Diaz/Cabrera platoon in LF, McLouth in CF, and Heyward in RF. So, if Heyward makes the team, Diaz doesn’t hit against righties and Cabrera doesn’t hit against lefties. Cabrera doesn’t have much of a platoon split, but he’s hit .255/.325/.355/.680 against lefties and .275/.333/.397/.730 against righties in his career. A RF’er sees ~60 PA’s against LHP over the course of two months, so that’s 60 PA’s from Melky at .255/.325/.355/.680 to Heyward. Diaz? Enormous platoon split. He has hit .276/.334/.387/.722 against RHP, which is below-average for a corner OF, but he has hit .347/.384/.537/.921 against LHP in his career. It’s not a BABIP thing, probably, it’s absurdly high for both splits, he just strikes out a bunch more against RHP and doesn’t hit the ball as hard (9 fewer doubles, 12 fewer homers in 52 more PA’s). The 140 PA’s Diaz would see against RHP go to Heyward.
So, essentially, you’re talking Diaz and Cabrera’s weak platoon sides and throwing them away. Combining their career good half platoon numbers on a 70-30 playing time split leads to a hitter that hits .297/.348/.439/.787 with something closely resembling average defense in LF. Their weak platoons yield a .270/.331/.377/.709 line, and since Diaz is the RH hitter (and thus plays more than 50% of the time in this theoretical reverse-platoon scenario), you’re looking at, at best, -2 or so defense at a corner. And that’s all Heyward has to do to be an upgrade on the roster–be better than the outfielder you get when you combine 70% of Matt Diaz vs. RHP and 30% of Melky Cabrera vs. LHP. That’s basically replacement level production, and that’s if Diaz’s .350 BABIP vs. RHP is sustainable.
Bringing Heyward up immediately has tangible disadvantages apart from the risk he doesn’t hit .270/.331/.377/.709 with at least -2 defense for two months. As always, service time politics play a role, here. Spending two weeks without Heyward on the roster nets the Braves an additional year of service and keeping him down six more weeks essentially makes that additional year of service free. The Braves say they won’t consider that when making their decision, but don’t buy that, they aren’t so incompetent they’ll completely ignore future finances when making such an important decision. So that’s the most important part of the downside to bringing Heyward up to begin the year.
The other part is his development ain’t done, he hit only 17 homers last season and he’s amassed a grand total of 208 PA’s above class A advanced. Of course, he did hit .323/.408/.555 with 51 walks and 51 strikeouts, 25 doubles, 4 triples, and 10 SB’s (1 CS) last season in 422 PA’s. Still, no matter how well a player does, 195 PA’s at AA and 13 PA’s at AAA generally isn’t enough professional experience to complete a players’ development, especially at twenty years old. There are some people in the, “if you bring a player up before he’s ready he’ll never recover” camp. I’m not so sure I am, though it does seem like a bad thing to call a player to the bigs before he’s ready.
However, he’s the number one prospect in all of baseball for a reason and some people (probably including people in the organization) believe he’s ready, despite his relative lack of professional experience. Regardless of what the numbers tell me, he’s the type of player whose scouting reports are constantly ahead of the numbers unless he’s doing his best Barry Bonds impression. So maybe the Braves’ scouts think he’s ready come late March. In that case, I’m forced to trust the Braves’ scouts, because they’re the best in the business at knowing their own.
Anyway, no way to quantify that, so I won’t. We’ll only consider the arbitration politics when making this assessment–the quasi quantifiable part of the picture.
I figure now’s as good a time as any to break out the Time Adjusted Trade Value Calculator (by the way, big problem with the arbitration percentages. Don’t use the arb%, just estimate salaries for now. I’ll correct and re-upload soon.) I’ve got three images, one of Heyward’s trade value if he begins the year with Atlanta, one if he spends two weeks in the minors, and one if he spends two months in the minors. I’m assuming he’s a 3-win player in 2010 if up for the entire year, a 4-win player in 2011, and a 5-win player for the remainder of his contract.
So, keeping the youngster down for two weeks nets the Braves $4 million in surplus value, and keeping him down for six more weeks nets them an additional $6.2 million.
It seems completely obvious to me that keeping him down for two weeks is the correct financial decision. The probability of Heyward being even a +1 win player in a two week span is so minuscule I don’t think you even blink about keeping him in the minors for two weeks. After all, over two weeks a player gets ~50 PA’s. Assuming he adds a full run on defense during those two weeks (good for a +12 pace, an extremely ambitious goal), the break even point for 1 win is a wOBA of about .530, which equates to about a .550 on base average and .750 slugging percentage (1.300 OPS). There’s a non-zero probability that Jason Heyward hits like that for two weeks, anything can happen over 50 PA’s, but not too much greater than zero, and it’s foolish to run a franchise based on those odds. That doesn’t even account for the fact that we already gave Heyward credit for 0.2 wins in the two week period. And he needs to be even more valuable than that, seeing as the Braves don’t pay $4 million per win (unless they’re paying Derek Lowe).
Like I said, keeping Heyward down for six more weeks nets the Braves an additional $6.2 million in surplus value. Considering the position on the Braves’ win curve, Heyward needs to be a ~2.4 win player (0.8 replacement plus 1.6 (6.2/3.88)) over the six week period in order for calling him up two weeks into the season to be a solid financial move. In that case, assuming the same stellar defense as the last scenario, he’ll need to post a .470 wOBA (about a .460 on base average and .675 slugging percentage or a 1.135 OPS) to be worth 2.4 wins. I am willing to bet that Jason Heyward will have at least one six-week stretch of his career in which he posts a .460 on base average and a .675 slugging percentage, but picking out that six week period in time is something I’m not willing to do. And I’m especially unwilling to predict that the first six weeks of his MLB career as a twenty year old will be that stretch.
Basically, it’s going to be impossible for the decision to bring Heyward up before early June to be a financially sound one on paper, but that’s far from the end of the story. If you look at this thing closely enough, it’s impossible to really know what the correct decision is. The real answer gets lost in a cloud of untested variables. For instance, is bringing Heyward up a good baseball decision (good for him, good for others, in some way we can’t quantify)? Is bringing Heyward up on opening day the difference between making the post season tournament? Will the Braves and Heyward agree to a long-term extension at some point before the 2015 season, changing the overall structure and the 2010 implications? How will Heyward’s call up effect ticket and merchandise sales? All of these questions, along with many others, we have little idea of knowing the answer to. The Braves probably have a better idea than we do, as always.
All things considered, I honestly can’t give a definitive answer. After taking everything in, digesting it, and spitting it back out, I’m only a little bit closer to an answer than I was at the beginning of this thought exercise. If I had scouting experience and had seen him play multiple times in, say, AA or the AFL this past year, maybe I’d be better equipped to answer this question, but I’d probably have to see him this upcoming Spring to really make my decision. This won’t be the first question I attempted to answer and came back with, “I have no idea”, but I have no idea when the Braves should call Heyward up. I’m willing to say that keeping him down for at least two weeks is probably the right decision, but I ultimately trust the Braves to make the correct decision. This is pretty much what they do better than anything–develop players.
As a fan, I want to see Heyward starting in RF on opening day, hitting two 5-run homers and throwing out Alfonso Soriano trying to stretch a single into a double.
At this point–and barring an unexpected (at this point) Johnny Damon signing or some other scenario that involves Frank Wren
waving a wand and an outfielder coming out of a hat–it appears that the Braves will begin the season with Jason Heyward in
RF. The organization isn’t saying that, of course. They’re saying things like, “We’re going to give him the opportunity to
win the job this spring”. Which, to me, means they’re going to give him the job. There was a somewhat similar scenario last
season when Jordan Schafer was given the opportunity to win the starting CF job, and he won it out of camp. He was actually
probably the best outfielder on the team at 22 years old until he hurt his wrist and hid the injury from the organization for
nearly two months, which speaks volumes about the quality of the outfielders the Braves possessed last spring. Anyway, I
digress.
The outfield depth chart is significantly better than it was a year ago, but Heyward coult still be a huge upgrade to the
roster. First of all, let’s look at who he’d be replacing.
On the roster, he’d be replacing some run-of-the-mill AAAA outfielder, probably. That’s who would sit in his roster spot for
the first couple of months while his service clock doesn’t tick in Gwinnett. However, that alleged AAAA outfielder wouldn’t
be playing very much, Heyward would be the team’s starting right fielder.
If Heyward fails to win the job out of spring training, the Braves will likely enter ’09 with an outfield alignment of
Diaz-McLouth-M. Cabrera, left-to-right. If he does, we’re looking at a Diaz/Cabrera platoon in LF, McLouth in CF, and
Heyward in RF. So, if Heyward makes the team, Diaz doesn’t hit against righties and Cabrera doesn’t hit against lefties.
Cabrera doesn’t have much of a platoon split, but he’s hit .255/.325/.355/.680 against lefties and .275/.333/.397/.730
against righties in his career. A RF’er sees ~60 PA’s against LHP over the course of two months, so that’s 60 PA’s from
Melky at .255/.325/.355/.680 to Heyward. Diaz? Enormous platoon split. He has hit .276/.334/.387/.722 against RHP, which
is below-average for a corner OF, but he has hit .347/.384/.537/.921 against LHP in his career. It’s not a BABIP thing,
probably, it’s absurdly high for both splits, he just strikes out a bunch more against RHP and doesn’t hit the ball as hard
(9 fewer doubles, 12 fewer homers in 52 more PA’s). The 140 PA’s Diaz would see against RHP go to Heyward.
So, essentially, you’re talking Diaz and Cabrera’s weak platoon sides and throwing them away. Combining their career good
half platoon numbers on a 70-30 playing time split leads to a hitter that hits .297/.348/.439/.787 with something closely
resembling average defense in LF. Their weak platoons yield a .270/.331/.377/.709 line, and since Diaz is the RH hitter (and
thus plays more than 50% of the time in this theoretical reverse-platoon scenario), you’re looking at, at best, -2 or so
defense at a corner. And that’s all Heyward has to do to be an upgrade on the roster–be better than the outfielder you get
when you combine 70% of Matt Diaz vs. RHP and 30% of Melky Cabrera vs. LHP. That’s basically replacement level production,
and that’s if Diaz’s .350 BABIP vs. RHP is sustainable.
Bringing Heyward up immediately has tangible disadvantages apart from the risk he doesn’t hit .270/.331/.377/.709 with at
least -2 defense for two months. As always, service time politics play a role, here. Spending two weeks without Heyward on
the roster nets the Braves an additional year of service and keeping him down six more weeks essentially makes that
additional year of service free. The Braves say they won’t consider that when making their decision, but don’t buy that,
they aren’t so incompetent they’ll completely ignore future finances when making such an important decision. So that’s the
most important part of the downside to bringing Heyward up to begin the year.
The other part is his development ain’t done, he hit only 17 homers last season and he’s amassed a grand total of 208 PA’s
above class A advanced. Of course, he did hit .323/.408/.555 with 51 walks and 51 strikeouts, 25 doubles, 4 triples, and 10
SB’s (1 CS) last season in 422 PA’s. Still, no matter how well a player does, 195 PA’s at AA and 13 PA’s at AAA generally
isn’t enough professional experience to complete a players’ development, especially at twenty years old. There are some
people in the, “if you bring a player up before he’s ready he’ll never recover” camp. I’m not so sure I am, though it does
seem like a bad thing to call a player to the bigs before he’s ready.
However, he’s the number one prospect in all of baseball for a reason and some people (probably including people in the
organization) believe he’s ready, despite his relative lack of professional experience. Regardless of what the numbers tell
me, he’s the type of player whose scouting reports are constantly ahead of the numbers unless he’s doing his best Barry Bonds
impression. So maybe the Braves’ scouts think he’s ready come late March. In that case, I’m forced to trust the Braves’
scouts, because they’re the best in the business at knowing their own.
Anyway, no way to quantify that, so I won’t. We’ll only consider the arbitration politics when making this assessment–the
quasi quantifyable part of the picture.
I figure now’s as good a time as any to break out the Time Adjusted Trade Value Calculator (by the way, big problem with the
arbitration percentages. Don’t use the arb%, just estimate salaries for now. I’ll correct and re-upload soon.) I’ve got
three images, one of Heyward’s trade value if he begins the year with Atlanta, one if he spends two weeks in the minors, and
one if he spends two months in the minors. I’m assuming he’s a 3-win player in 2010 if up for the entire year, a 4-win
player in 2011, and a 5-win player for the remainder of his contract.
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Recognizing that we are outh there in space somewhere, I understand the need for conjecture. My first impression is that there wsn’t as much differnce between option 1 and option 3 as there should be, so I went snooping for possibilities.
Option 3 salaary for 2010 needs to be lowered to .25 million. He would lose 1/3 of a year of Major League Minimum and get minor league pay (unless his contract has ML minimum guaranteed as a minor leaguer). He wouldn’t even be eligible for the $150,000 optioned back pay rate because he doesn’t have to be added to the 40 man roster. But, this is “chicken feed.”
The bigger issue is the assumption of output as a 5 win player for each year 2012 through 2016. I would suspect that the odds are that a major league player good enough to be a regular at age 20 and improving in his age 21 season, not ocntinuing to improve from age 22 to 26 are very low. Among :”good young” ballplayers a few had had their best season by then (Eddie Mathews, Stan Musial, Johnny Bench and for catchers it seems more common), but most will be better significantly at age 26 than the average of their age 22 through 25 seasons. And, I think a profile of 4.5 wins in 2012 and 2103, 5 wins in 2014 and 2015, and 5.5 wins in 2016 is more in line with probable reality. And an adjustment like that would significantly increase the differential value between option 1, option 2, and option 3. Differential value rather than increasing 16% or so from 1 to 3 would probably be more like 25% and in raw nubers about 5 million bigger.
All of that is to say, Johnny Damon for $5 million would save probably even more than the 10 million you have estimated. Further, if you run Damon’s work against righthanders, the odds are that he would produce more “wins” by being the man in the mix for that first 60 days (and maybe the whole season) than Heyward. And Damon’s plays better (apparently) as a leadoff hitter and the Braves seem to be limited with preferable options there.
However, dollar for dollar, I agree that Heyward being “up” will raise merchandise and ticket sales and that could offset the cost in “the long run” (after which, we all shall be dead).
Good analysis.
Thanks.
Guillermo
Thanks for the post.
I didn’t realize the implications of the Braves holding him back for just 2 weeks, which might be the option I prefer, simply because I fear the Braves will need every game they can possibly get (even if, in that span, it only nets them 1 win) and that option seems to be a bit of a compromise between the two.
This is a bit off topic, but do you think the Braves HAD to take Cabrera in the Vasquez trade for the Yankees to accept? It just seems to me that he’s a rather expensive 4th outfielder, considering the lack of funds to improve the OF to begin with.
I think the Braves actually wanted Cabrera. I don’t really know why, it’s nice to have a guy around who raises the replacement level by a win or two I guess. Given he comes with fairly significant upside, he’s probably worth keeping around at $3.3 million, even if the plan is to use him as a spare part, more or less.
What would prevent the Braves from playing Diaz (LF), McLouth (CF) and Melky (RF) against lefties, with Hinske and/or Schafer spelling Diaz against right-handed starters?
Melky does have a small platoon split over his career, but put up nearly identical OPS marks last year (.763 right-handed and .747 left-handed). Looks like there is a reasonable chance he’ll be able to repeat and possibly improve upon that line. Hinske’s career OPS against LH pitchers is .804, and he can play either corner OF position.
Seems to me they can keep Heyward’s spot warm Hinske’s at-bats against RH pitchers and Melky’s at-bats against LH pitchers – combined, projects around a .780 OPS. Heyward will certainly make a .780 OPS look pathetic (perhaps as early as this year) but getting that production out of Heyward’s placeholders for 2 months should do little, if any, damage to the Braves’ chances. And on the plus side, as you say, there are the dual benefits of 1) Heyward gets some seasoning time in AAA; 2) Braves gain an arb-year of Heyward in the prime of his career, which should be a tremendously valuable asset.
I think the thing to take away is that, if Heyward breaks camp with the big-league club, the Braves will give be very likely to give him a long-term contract very early in his career.
That’s fine, so long as he’s interested in signing one :).
Like Drew, I didn’t realize the implications of holding a player down for 2 weeks. Why in the world would any club ever break training with a promising prospect instead of waiting 2 more weeks? It seems like it would just about always be smarter to use even a replacement level player for 2 weeks in order to gain an additional year of an up and coming prospect.
Is there any resourse that explains all of the rules regarding players and service time issues?
good job-
so melky was much better last year hitting on the right side than 08- hopefully he will continue to improve.
what’s the deal with shafer now and in the future?
Mike F.,
Schafer is not accruing service time again until he is put on the 25 man roster. He will go to Gwinnett to start the year unless a devastating run of injuries occurs.
Roughly, if he comes up on day 1, he is in the first of three pre-arb years to be followed by 3 arb years. His time last year is insufficient to give him a “super two” year. If he comes up more than 10 days later than when he was optioned to AAA last year (DL time, I think, accrues to Major League time UNLESS, he is optioned and I think he was optioned later, like after McLouth was acquired, but I don’t know) Schafer would basically be under “Option 2″ as described by P. W. That is, the remainder of this year and the next two years at ML minimum, followed by 4 arb years.
If Schafer comes up 60 games or so after option date from last year, then it is this partial year and 3 more at ML minimum with 3 arb years. If the date of call up pushes after the September 1 roster expansion, then I don’t think the time counts on any counter (but not sure).
thanks cliff
I would love to see both Schafer and Heyward starting at some point this season (probably wishful thinking for Schafer’s part), with McLouth shifting to left in a platoon with Diaz.
Was Schafer (pre-wrist injury) always prone to getting blown away by fastballs, or was the difficulty getting around more a product of his injury?
Cliff,
Schafer also got a month of service time in September because he was called up and placed on the 60-day DL to make a spot on the 40-man for Tim Hudson, so he has ~3 months of service right now.
At some point I think Schafer and Heyward will be starting this season, perhaps with Schafer and Diaz platooning (w/ McLouth playing center against LHP).