Are We Slightly Overpaying O’Flaherty? (and other arb agreements thoughts)
January 18, 2012 at 12:02 am by Franklin Rabon under Atlanta Braves
So in the last 24 hours the Braves reached agreements with the last of their arb eligible players; Eric O’Flaherty, Jair Jurrjens and Michael Bourn. Ben gave the relevant details in a brief posting earlier today here.
Bourn’s agreement is completely uninteresting and pretty much exactly what was expected. Sure, it’s a discount, but in the same way almost all great defensive players have their value discounted in arbitration.
Jurrjens’ figure was about what was to be expected as well. However, it is interesting that his agreement included IP bonuses. I’m sure this has happened before, but I honestly can’t recall another arbitration eligible player getting IP bonuses. This indicates that the Braves are concerned with Jurrjens’ durability coming off his knee injury. You have to believe that Boras was asking for more than the $5.5 Mill base that the Braves ended up giving him, and talked him into a discounted base rate with the bonuses to cover the difference, provided Jurrjens is healthy. However, I wouldn’t read too much into it one way or the other, and I would say it has little to no bearing on whether or not Jurrjens will be traded.
On the surface O’Flaherty’s raise, though substantial, seems relatively ordinary as well. Sure, it was a big jump (last year he made $895K), but EOF did put up insanely good numbers last year. Though that 389 ERA+ that Baseball Reference has him down for can’t actually be correct, can it? So in some sense, sure, he deserves his raise.
However, you don’t pay for past performance and deserves ain’t got nothing to do with it, you pay for current performance. And I’m not 100% sold that EOF will be worth the $2.49 Mill he’ll receive this year. This worry is based on 4 prongs:
First, I think it’s undeniable that O’Flaherty got lucky last year. He did put up excellent peripherals, but a 3.19 K/BB rate with a .2 HR/9 rate, while outstanding, don’t often equate to a 0.98 ERA. Such numbers, even for a groundball pitcher, will usually equate to somewhere around a 2.40 ERA. In my opinion, if O’Flaherty pitches exactly like he did last year, a 2.40 ERA is about the number we should expect.
Secondly, I don’t know that we can or should expect O’Flaherty to pitch as well as he did last year. In the point above, I was saying that given how he pitched O’Flaherty had better results than could rightly be expected. Here I’m saying that we shouldn’t expect him to pitch the same way. O’Flaherty lowered his batting average allowed, lowered his slugging percentage allowed, lowered his walk rate, raised his K rate and lowered his homeruns allowed rate. Basically everything a pitcher can do on his own to improve, O’Flaherty did last year. Not all of that can be sustainable. Sure, he probably made some real, sustainable improvements, but it’s also likely that he never ran into a rough stretch and managed to pitch as well as he possibly could, for virtually the entire year. That can’t be expected from relievers on a year to year basis. There is just too much volatility when you pitch 1 inning at a time. So, I expect EOF’s peripherals to also regress, not just his results.
Thirdly, our infield defense projects to be worse this year. The only change is from Alex Gonzalez to Pastornicky. Now, I’ve seen the kid play, and he’s a good defensive shortstop, defensively he’s certainly at a ML level. But he’s no Alex Gonzalez, few are. Even if Pastornicky keeps his head about him and plays as well as he possibly can defensively, we will take a step back at the most important infield defensive position. Furthermore, Chipper and Uggla will continue to lose range. Our 2nd base and 3rd base defense will almost certainly be, combined, the worst in MLB. So, we’ve gotten worse at 3 of the 4 infield positions. Two because of aging, one because of personnel change. Freeman should be the same slightly below average guy he was last year. Decent enough hands, but poor range. Best case scenario, the Braves are average at SS, well below average at 3rd, way below average at 2nd and below average at 1st. This doesn’t bode well for O’Flaherty, who isn’t a huge K guy and depends on a lot of double plays.
Finally, the presence of Venters and Kimbrel limit the amount of high leverage situations that O’Flaherty can appear in. While this certainly isn’t O’Flaherty’s fault, it does lower his value to the Braves. If O’Flaherty was the 8th inning guy or even the closer, he’d face higher leverage situations, making his performance worth even more. However, he’s not and the whole reason relievers are valuable is because late inning high leverage situations are worth more than earlier inning lower leverage situations. Otherwise they’d just be dudes who don’t pitch much. O’Flaherty, in a well managed bullpen, would be third in the pecking order for high leverage late inning situations. This fact limits how much he can be worth to the Braves.
Now, that all being said, I’m not sure that O’Flaherty still won’t be worth what he gets this year. 2.5 mill isn’t a huge deal, and there are worse things in the world to spend your money on than a reliever coming off the year O’Flaherty just had. I’m certainly glad he’s on the team. I just don’t think it’s an absurdly team friendly deal, like some had been saying earlier today. When you consider the four factors I outlined above, it’s at least possible that we may be slightly overpaying for a 7th inning guy who just had an anomalously good year last season.
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It’s possible, but if you look at 2010 as being a closer approximation of his true talent level going forward (7.1% HR/FB, 3.33 FIP) he was still worth 0.5 fWAR in only 44 innings, versus 1.6 in 73.2 last year (3.9% HR/FB, 2.54 FIP). If you assume he’ll have the peripherals of 2010 with the workload of 2011, he’d be somewhere in the neighborhood of 0.8-0.9 WAR, and there’d be surplus value on the contract.
We might have been able to find a cheaper option elsewhere, but I don’t think it’s an overpay.
Considering the issues FG had managing Venters and Kimbrel last year, the fact that he can pitch in some higher leverage situations without throwing in the towel and thus saving the other two innings, has to add some to his value as well, right? Perhaps just the memory of Linebrink and Proctor opened the Braves checkbook a little wider.
Also considering the stat line he put up, which would have helped his case in arbitration, I don’t see how the Braves could have improved their position significantly through the process, especially when the total is only 2+M.
@1
Yes, that addresses only 2 of my 4 points though. Our IF defense certainly won’t be as good as it was in 2010, hurting a groundball pitch to contact guy like EOF, and that value is calculated based on more like 8th inning leverage, not 7th inning leverage. It’s hard to say exactly where the value comes out in such a scenario, but it’s at least close to about 2.5 mill, and it’s at least POSSIBLE that it’s less than that, which the headline notwithstanding was all I was really getting at.
@2 AG
oh, I agree that he would have gotten the same or more through arbitration. I’m just asking the question “will O’Flaherty put up 2.49 million in value NEXT YEAR”
I don’t think leverage is going to be much of an issue. We’ll be relying on a hurt and/or young rotation that has well documented issues with going deep into games. Venters, Kimbrel, and O’Flaherty all had considerably high inLI last year.
I also honestly fear more regression/injury from Venters than O’Flaherty. The list of relievers who appear in 79+ games three years in a row is very small.
@3
Oh I agree. I don’t expect EOF to put up a 2.54 FIP again, but at the same time I don’t think it’ll be much higher than it was in 2010 either.
I also don’t really see much of a difference between 7th and 8th inning leverage either-especially since this account’s namesake seemed to turn to EOF more often than he did Venters to get out of tough spots vs. lefties.
Anything could happen for sure, and I wouldn’t expect him to put up $7.5m in value again. At the same time though I just can’t see him being less valuable than he was two years ago unless he gets hurt, due solely to the increased innings he’ll likely pitch compared to 2010. It’s a very interesting argument though-I’d expect the gap between his FIP and ERA to narrow considerably this year.
@6
yeah, to be clear to the more stat savvy readers, essentially:
point 1 is that I expect his ERA-FIP gap to narrow,
point 2 is that I expect his FIP to rise,
point 3 is that I expect the defense to negatively impact his relative value (FIP only helps so much, certain pitchers are more valuable to certain teams when the team’s defensive strengths and weaknesses leverage that pitchers strengths and weaknesses
point 4 is that your upside value is limited when you’re third in line for high leverage situations
@7
The only point I have a bit of an issue with is number 4-Fredi was ridiculously rigid in his bullpen deployment-EOF coming in during the 7th with two men on in a four run game is a much higher leverage situation than Venters starting off the 8th inning or Kimbrel starting off the 9th.
Well, I probably should have looked that up before making that assertion haha. Here are the LIs from last year (obviously small sample size, yadda yadda):
EOF: pLI=1.55, gmLI=1.44
Venters: pLI=1.79, gmLI=1.52
Kimbrel: pLI=1.89, gmLI=1.71
EOF finished with 2.51 WPA (2.03 REW), Venters with 4.28 (2.20), and Kimbrel with 1.51 (1.54).
So ultimately, it looks like EOF is being put into lower leverage situations on average but contributed more towards win probability than Kimbrel. Also, Jonny Venters is ridiculous.
@8/9
yeah, that’s why I was careful to state ‘a well managed bullpen’, haha. Whether or not Fredi will come closer to that ideal this year, well, one can only hope.
I don’t know. Some people in baseball would argue that players do get paid on past performance. That is all there is to base a player’s salary figure on.
Free agency, arbitration…all processes that determine a player’s market value is based on past performance. Unless the guy is like 40 and you can’t believe that the production is sustainable.
In regards to EOF, is it possible that with the return of Medlen to the bullpen, the likely assignment of Vizciano to the pen and even the return of a healthy Moylan, does he get dangled as trade bait near the deadline?
The point about defense is also not really a worry. As you’ve said, it should obviously contribute to some ERA regression, but we would expect any pitcher we signed to be affected in a similar way, so our team defense doesn’t really have an impact on how much we should pay O’Flaherty.
It is quite impressive to see Wren creating a bullpen in the most efficient way possible, though. You’ve got to be happy to see the front office and scouting team bringing together the best bullpen in baseball for less than most closers make in a single year. O’Flaherty and his measly $2.5MM will be the highest paid member of the pen this year.
@10
I wouldn’t hold my breath!
@11/12
well, you use past performance to predict future performance, but you also consider regression to means, you consider aging, you consider previous year’s workload, etc. EOF is in line for a LOT of regression to the mean.
And there’s a HUGE difference between paying for past performance and using past performance to predict future performance. The latter is of course difficult, but the former is just flat out wrong.
@14
Team defense impacts certain pitchers differentially. Especially when your team defense is as weird as ours, where our OF defense should be among the very best in the league and the infield defense among the worst, if not the worst.
Beachy, for example, likely won’t be harmed at all, due to his high K numbers and the fact that when he doesn’t K people he gets flyballs mostly. The negative of our infield defense will mostly be cancelled out for him by our outfield defense.
EOF on the other hand isn’t a huge K guy and he’s more of a ground ball guy. He got out of a lot of sticky jams last year with key double plays that were started with some mind boggling play by Sea Bass. WHile i think Pastornicky will be adequate at SS, he’s not going to wow you like AGonz did.
@13
Yeah, I could see EOF getting traded, we’ve talked about that before. I don’t think they have to trade him by any means, but they very well could.
And yes, as a whole, it’s absurd how efficiently well this bullpen has been constructed. The fact that the only reliever you can even think about questioning is O’Flaherty, who just came off 70+ innings of sub 1 ERA, is crazy. Major kudos to FW and the minor league development system here.
@9 – This goes without saying, but Fredi doesn’t understand what leverage is. I think his value would more closely approach his new salary if he was put in high leverage situations in the 5-7 innings (provided he sticks with the same ole 8 and 9 formula). The problem is when Fredi ignores a high leverage situation, or throws him in for a full inning in the seventh with a three run lead against a bad offensive team.
Games are rife with high leverage situations before the 7-8-9 innings…I hate that Fredi hurts his value. I wonder how much value he costs ownership in general with poor decisions.
I don’t neccessarily believe a regression in his peripherals are all but certain either. He’s a 26 year old getting into his prime. His stat lines show a player who learns from his mistakes. From 09 to 10, he lowered his OBP considerably, while his SLG rose. From 10 to 11, you see his OBP continue to drop while his SLG% against falls off a cliff. That one example could be explained by concentrating on getting weaker contact, and later maintaining the focus on weaker contact while keeping the ball down in the zone. Of course, as you point out, the defense behind him is an issue and could cause a possible regression…Weak contact pitchers are especially suseptible(sp) to this. Maybe Freeman will show some improvement in range, but you are dead on about the rest.
So now you have the infield possibly significantly affecting his value. Still, I see him building on what he has been able to do the last three years and having a good shot at maintaining or bettering certain peripherals (K/9, though probably not K/BB). His ERA will most certainly be higher, I agree with you there; especially if you start seeing him attempting to throw for more strikeouts, which for him would involve more pitches out of the strikezone. He would do this to make up for the bad defense behind him. Imagine the scenario where there are more people on base, a bleeder that would normally have been a double play turns into guys in scoring position. It doesn’t seem hard to imagine.
I’m just rambling though…sorry if you read through all of this.
@19 – here here!
It freaked me out for a second to see Frediot not in parody mode. I kept waiting for the punchline haha. Awesome comments, though.
@22
What are you talking about? We at CAC gave Fredi a crash course in sabermetrics, and now he’s fully conversant in things like FIP and gmLI. He will order the rotation and lineup based on such analysis next year.
@22
Yeah, I accidentally forgot to swap accounts. How very Fredi of me!
If Wren can find a GM that values EOF as a cheap closer, then he should probably make that trade. If all other GMs view EOF as a set up guy then it makes little sense to trade him. Afterall, it’s not like good LH BP arms grow on trees, especially not for $2.5M.
Funny thing is that next season he will probably regress to just being a “good” BP arm, and his new salary approaching $4M will make him a non-tender candidate.
So since EOF is at his absolute max value right now, Wren should trade him if he can get closer value for him from some team trying to find a cheap closer.
@25
yeah, I’m almost 100% certain EOF will be non-tendered after this year if he’s not traded.
Great read. At this point, though, what else are we going to spend it on? I’m likin’ the insurance against Fredi. Should be a great ‘pen.
@17
Whilst I agree with the team defense point that you make. Is it fair to penalise and individual because of the deficiencies of others?
@28
Fair doesn’t have anything to do with it. The only relevant concern a team should have is how much value is imparted to the team from the player’s performance.
@Franklin
Are you being sarcastic about the team non-tendering him? If he has another good year and is bumped up to even $4.5MM or so, I can’t see them non-tendering him. This is a team that paid $3.2MM for an injury-riddled 40 year old (Takashi Saito) in 2010.
And while our IF defense does look to be terrible, it’s still going to affect every pitcher we have. We should be bemoaning the doom of Tim Hudson and Jonny Venters while we’re at it. Despite the infield’s short comings, it’s still preferable to have a pitcher who keeps the ball on the ground.
No one should expect him to repeat a sub-1 ERA again, but even a regression to the pitcher he was in 2009-2010 makes him valuable enough to keep through another year of arbitration.
No, I honestly could see them non-tendering him if he jumps to mid 4′s. I could also see them sticking with him as well. THe 100% was an exaggeration.
Sure, it will hurt Huddy, but we weren’t talking about huddy (me and Ben have talked about how much huddy is going to be hurt by the D on twitter, if you follow both of us). Venters will be impacted slightly less, because while he is a ground ball guy, he also K’s a lot more than EOF. EOF is more of a weak contact guy than Venters is.
Well that’s a different story, if we’re saying “he could be non-tendered if he has a disappointing year.” I don’t think many people would disagree with that.
To your other point, Venters is an extreme ground ball pitcher. From 2010-2011, O’Flaherty averaged 13 GBs/9 innings. Venters averaged 15 GBs/9. They’ve put nearly the same amount of men on base (one of the few times you’ll see me use WHIP, but since 2010 Venters’ WHIP is only 0.05 better than O’Flaherty’s).
I’ve stated this before, but I’m more worried about regression from Venters than O’Flaherty.
@32
by ‘jumps to the mid 4′s” I meant mid 4 mill, not mid 4 era. I don’t see them paying EOF that unless he is absurdly dominant again this year.
To be honest, I expect regression from all three of our primary relievers. Which isn’t a knock, its just saying they were so absurd last year, that you can’t reasonably expect repeat performances. Again, it may seem like I was picking on EOF here, but that was because EOF was the one who just got the big raise the day I published this. I’m not saying Venters won’t regress and Kimbrel won’t regress.
As to which will regress the most? I think with Kimbrel, it just depends on if he maintains his control. He gets such an absurd percentage of his outs via K and flyballs, that his infield defense is as close to irrelevant as it can be for a pitcher. Venters and EOF, toss a coin. Venters gets more groundballs, but also more K’s. EOF gets fewer K’s, but more flyballs (compared to Venters). I’d say EOF regresses more, just because his FIP-ERA spread was so out of whack last year.
Adam at 32,
As to reduction in capability of performance based on injury, I agree that such should cause one to consider that Venters won’t match last year. As it relates to being insanely good, yes he will “regress”.
But barring effect of injury, Venters “regression” will still leave him as quite possibly the best left handed reliever to EVER pitch. His only weakness is if his control gets “squirelly.” He throws a 95 to 96 conventional 4 seam fast ball with about 2 inches of rise and 4 inches or more of arm side run. He throws a 94 to 95 sinker (and no daMn lefthander has EVER done this, AND very few righthanders) with about 6 to 8 inches of downward break and about 2 inches of glove side run. These pitches appear to not be “tipped”. So, exactly how does a batter have the heart of the bat at two different places approximately 13 inches apart and be able to do so AT THE SPEED OF A 95 MPH PITCH.
In fact, his sinker is so good he can ALMOST do like a knuckleballer and just throw to the middle of the plate and the break would still be very difficult to handle.
AND he has a “frisbee slider” that comes in around 88 and breaks flat to glove side about 8 inches.
No, if Venters develops even a very below average circle change, he actually becomes a fundamentally BETTER pitcher (because it would be a better weapon against righhanded hitters than the frisbee slider).
Agree with everything in the article, but it’s really up to Fredi as to how many “high-leverage” situations EOF pitches in, right? We saw last season how typically, 7th inning jams were EOF’s to clean up, leaving Johnny V and Kimbrel to start with bases empty 8th and 9th innings (mostly). So, true, he doesn’t serve as a set-up man or closer, but depending on how Fredi uses EOF (which we know Fredi’s bullpen management is…interesting) he could end up pitching in plenty of extremely important situations.
@35
a couple of things here. One is that last year, even with what you said being true, EOF still faced less important situations on average than Kimbrel or Venters.
Secondly, as far as how coming into the middle of ‘jams’ goes, that actually helps a reliever’s ‘numbers (mainly ERA). Those runners on base when a reliever comes into a game are not charged to the reliever, but the former pitcher. Yet, they’re still possible outs that will be credited to the current pitcher if made.
Take for example coming in with one out and the bases loaded. If the pitcher gives up a hit, those runs are not charged to the current pitcher. no effect there on his era. However, let’s say that he gets a groundball that results in a double play, then those outs are BOTH credited to the current pitcher. This is part of how EOF’s ERA was so low last year. He came in and got a lot of outs via double plays from guys he inherited, yet if they had scored they wouldn’t be his fault. While we here at CAC don’t really care about ERA as much, it is clear that EOF’s ERA was at least part of why he got the pay raise he did.
@Cliff
I’m going to wait ten more years before I declare Venters to be better than Billy Wagner and John Franco.
@36: true dat. Good point about EOF’s ERA. Don’t know how much of a factor that played into the pay raise, but here’s a good reason not to put all of our eggs in the ERA basket – any reliever habitually pitching with inherited runners who is good – and EOF is – can reap the benefits of how ERAs are calculated. Time (and Fredi) will tell if EOF plays a similar role in 2012.
@36
” This is part of how EOF’s ERA was so low last year. He came in and got a lot of outs via double plays from guys he inherited, yet if they had scored they wouldn’t be his fault.”
You know EOF only got 3 double play balls all year right??? A total of 2 extra outs that werent his runners.
If he threw 96mph and put up the same numbers he is the future…. but because he throws 92mph it was a lucky year.
The reason he had a good year is because he only had 13 un-intentional walks the entire season and a majority of those still seemed like he just wanted to face the hitter on deck.
I agree he will certainly not put up the same ERA as last year but he has always had good numbers with runners on base (whether they are his or not) and also a low slugging percentage against. If you don’t walk guys you can give up 2 singles an innings and come out of it just fine.
Venters and Kimbrel need to be used much less though this year because they could get hurt at the pace they are being used and are too valuable to keep running into the ground like that. I expect that all three of our main relievers will be very effective again this year.
@39
Thats interesting, didn’t realize that. THough the things you mentioned as explanations would have been accounted for in his FIP, and the bizarre thing wasn’t so much his low ERA, but EOF’s FIP-ERA spread. The fact that he only got three double plays makes that fact even harder to explain.
Franklin,
Projecting regression is still based on past performance. And even if his performance did fall somewhere in between what it was in 2011 and his prior work with Atlanta (had an illness in 2010, didn’t he?), 2.49 million isn’t bad for that type of RP….better value than what the market projects, I would imagine.
@41
He had mono in 2010.
Wouldnt 8 intentional walks hurt his FIP? that’s nearly 40% of his walks….. Never mind it looks like those are accounted for.
Only giving up 2 hr all year and striking out close to a batter per inning has to help the FIP. Not sure what’s hurting it so bad. Maybe these stats just love the K a lot more than the broken bat? I remember when EOF broke about 8 giants bats in a game back in April. It seems there is no real stat to measure a pitchers ability to get weak contact…. Even a good BABIP is usually followed by the words “regression” and “lucky”.
@41
of course, but there’s a difference between paying for past performance and paying for projected future performance (which is obviously based on past performance, but isn’t the same thing). A huge difference in fact. As to your second point, I mostly agree. As I said at the end of the article, I think he’ll probably be worth 2.49 mill. Though I think it’s a question at least worth considering. But nowhere did I say I think he’s definitely being overpayed.
@43
It’s not that EOF’s FIP is bad by any means. It’s just that his ERA was absurdly low. Unless you’re just striking almost every batter you face out and never walking anybody, you’re almost guaranteed to have a FIP over 1.00. ERAs below that are almost always at least slightly lucky.
Could the spread between his ERA and FIP be explained by stranded runners.
I seem to remember several times EOF put runners on base, then was lifted for Venters. Venters then stranded EOFs runners.
@45
Sure, I’d have to look up the numbers to know for sure what impact it would have had though. I mean it’s almost certainly just a LOT of factors combined. AGonz’s play, Venters, pure luck, consistent weak contact against EOF (some pitchers can consistently beat their FIP), etc
@45
“I seem to remember *several times* EOF put runners on base, then was lifted for Venters. Venters then stranded EOFs runners.”
A lot of stretched memories about eof’s season in this thread (the double plays and now Venters picking him up a lot). According to baseball-reference.com Venters inherited only 3 of oflaherty runners in 2011 and all 3 were in ONE game against Colorado.
Scott Linebrink inherited 7 though and only allowed 1 to score.
@47: Yeah, but Linebrink is terrible.
Braves just signed Scott Proctor to a minor league deal. wtf?
@49 /vivabeta
I can’t find a link. Please tell me this is a joke. *crosses fingers*