Pretty Please Gardy?????

[soldoncass]

Sounds like K-I-R-B-Y P-U-C-K-E-T-T .....and about half the ML players. Down and away....down and in= LOTS of OUTS

[B. Amish]

The scouting report on Cuddy is widely known now. His weakness is pitches from a righty down and away.

that's been the way righties pitch to righties since the game was invented. sheesh.

[SledNeck]

that's been the way righties pitch to righties since the game was invented. sheesh.

and some batters consistantly go after them and some dont

[thatoneguy]

The Twins are paying almost $9.5 million for a guy who will likely finish the season with fewer than 20 HR and 80 RBI. He's a below-average defensive player (look at some of the advanced fielding metrics on baseball-reference dot com or things like UZR if you don't believe me. There is more to defense than having a rocket arm. Cuddyer's UZR was the third-worst in all of baseball at his position last year). And he has a history - his hot finish to last season notwithstanding - of being not great in the clutch (career avg w/2 out and RISP of .237).

I don't see any reason to bring Cuddyer back once his contract ends. They're already grossly overpaying for what he produces, and at his age, there is no reason to believe that he will improve. This isn't Cuddy-bashing; it's just the facts.

FWIW, Delmon Young's career batting average with runners in scoring position - CAREER, not just this season - is almost 40 points higher than Cuddyer's. And while the jury is still out, it sure appears that Young is ascending while Cuddyer is quickly declining. Letting Cuddyer go is a no-brainer once his contract runs out. It would be great if they could trade Cuddy and get something of value for him, but that's not likely. And because the Twins don't have any replacement-level talent in AAA that could step in, we're stuck with Cuddy for now.

Here's hoping he finds a swing sometime soon.

[Scott K]

Lol, you guys just dont stop do you? Cuddy is an above average player, Delmon has become an above average player this year. Neither are great, neither hurt the team. Cuddy will have to take a pay cut, if he expects to play for the Twins in the future, and I dont doubt for a minute that he wont. Cuddy is a good guy, and loves the Twins. I have no problem if the Twins did a 4 yr, between 6-9 million for Cuddy.

Delmon, if he continues to play like he has been, he too will be getting a raise for his next contract. I dont have an issue with either player, playing for the Twins for another 4 years. We are talking the Twins here, if we dumped either player, we would have to pull their replacement from the minors, or settle with a less mediocre vet then we have now.

Sorry back to your Cuddy/Young bashings!

[thatoneguy]

Lol, you guys just dont stop do you? Cuddy is an above average player, Delmon has become an above average player this year. Neither are great, neither hurt the team. Cuddy will have to take a pay cut, if he expects to play for the Twins in the future, and I dont doubt for a minute that he wont. Cuddy is a good guy, and loves the Twins. I have no problem if the Twins did a 4 yr, between 6-9 million for Cuddy.

Delmon, if he continues to play like he has been, he too will be getting a raise for his next contract. I dont have an issue with either player, playing for the Twins for another 4 years. We are talking the Twins here, if we dumped either player, we would have to pull their replacement from the minors, or settle with a less mediocre vet then we have now.

Sorry back to your Cuddy/Young bashings!

What are you basing your "Cuddy is an above-average player" on. I backed my argument with facts. Yours is backed with...?

I'm not taking a shot at you, I'm just curious. Cuddy is a FAR below-average fielder by any metric other than assists. He hits into FAR too many double plays. He doesn't hit with runners in scoring position, and he doesn't hit in the clutch.

I'm not sure how all that translates into "above average."

[Scott K]

Can you name more then 16 right fielders you would rather have then Cuddy?

Looking at the list, and making that assumption, thats all. No science at all involved, just looking at his competition in the same position.

[Big Dave2]

The Twins are paying almost $9.5 million for a guy who will likely finish the season with fewer than 20 HR and 80 RBI. He's a below-average defensive player (look at some of the advanced fielding metrics on baseball-reference dot com or things like UZR if you don't believe me. There is more to defense than having a rocket arm. Cuddyer's UZR was the third-worst in all of baseball at his position last year). And he has a history - his hot finish to last season notwithstanding - of being not great in the clutch (career avg w/2 out and RISP of .237).

I don't see any reason to bring Cuddyer back once his contract ends. They're already grossly overpaying for what he produces, and at his age, there is no reason to believe that he will improve. This isn't Cuddy-bashing; it's just the facts.

FWIW, Delmon Young's career batting average with runners in scoring position - CAREER, not just this season - is almost 40 points higher than Cuddyer's. And while the jury is still out, it sure appears that Young is ascending while Cuddyer is quickly declining. Letting Cuddyer go is a no-brainer once his contract runs out. It would be great if they could trade Cuddy and get something of value for him, but that's not likely. And because the Twins don't have any replacement-level talent in AAA that could step in, we're stuck with Cuddy for now.

Here's hoping he finds a swing sometime soon.

UZR is one of the most worthless stats ever created.

Thu Jan 07, 2010 1:06 pm EST

Everything you always wanted to know about: UZR

By Alex Remington

What does it stand for?: Ultimate Zone Rating. Devised by baseball statistician Mitchel Lichtman, it's based on Zone Rating, a defensive stat kept by STATS, Inc. that measures a fielder's success at getting to balls determined to be in his "zone" of the playing field.

How to calculate UZR: The baseball field is divided into 78 zones, 64 of which are used in UZR calculation. (As Lichtman explains, infield line drives, infield pop flies, and outfield foul balls are ignored. Pitchers and catchers are not included.)

Here's what is calculated for each zone: the out rate and the percentage of balls in that zone that turn into outs. The league average out rate is then subtracted from the player's out rate — if this number is negative, it means the player is worse than league average. If it's positive, it means he's better than league average.

That rate is then multiplied by the number of balls that hit in that player's zone. This yields a Zone Rating. To obtain the run value, it's multiplied by the Zone Ratings that are calculated for each zone the fielder covers, and then summed. This sum is a simple, unadjusted UZR. It is then further adjusted for park factors, batted ball speed, which side of the plate the batter was hitting from, the pitcher's groundball/flyball ratio and the number of baserunners and outs at the time. The adjustments are made because each of these variables can significantly affect the average out rate in a particular zone. Using run expectancy charts, these rates can be converted to runs.

Got all that? Yes, it's rather complicated.

What UZR is good for: This part is easy. UZR attempts to measure how good or bad a fielder is, as compared to the league average. There are serious sample size problems and UZR often has major fluctuations from month to month and even year to year. Because of that many people prefer to look at three-year UZRs in order to have stable data.

But if you keep the sample size caveats in mind, UZR is an excellent way to eyeball a player's defensive impact on his team in terms of the runs he personally prevents. Because UZR is stated in terms of runs, it can be compared to the number of runs a player personally puts on the board for his team. (On FanGraphs, those batting runs are often expressed in terms of Runs Above Average, calculated from wOBA.) These comparisons can be eye-opening — sometimes the best sluggers are such poor fielders that they literally give back with the glove everything that they add with the bat. For example, in 2008 and 2009, according to FanGraphs, Adam Dunn(notes) had 61.9 batting runs and -64.3 fielding runs. Because UZR is parallel to batting run measures, they can also be incorporated into a more general all-purpose stat like WAR.

When UZR doesn't work: As with batting average, there are frequent, serious sample size problems associated with UZR. (These sample size problems mean that FanGraphs' UZR/150, a pro-rated version of UZR that prorates performance to a 150-game season, should be used at one's peril. It's useful to have a standardized number to compare across players, to compare their defensive impact across the exact same number of outs — but 150 defensive games is not generally a sufficient sample size for UZR.)

A player's one-year UZR is not a good measure of his true talent level as a fielder, nor is it a good predictor of future performance. UZR also frequently conflicts — or at least it doesn't perfectly align — with the other major defensive stat in use, John Dewan's Plus/Minus, which is published in The Fielding Bible and on Bill James Online.

These differences can often be significant. While Adam Dunn had -64.3 fielding runs by UZR in 2008 and 2009, by Plus/Minus he was only at -45 — still appallingly bad, but 20 runs is a major difference.

Lichtman discusses the contrasts between his stat and Dewan's stat here. Both ultimately make use of a lot of the same data, which is determined by humans watching video of every play and assigning numerical values to what happened. They use different methodologies, but both are predicated on the same concept, trying to determine how many balls a fielder got to at a particular place on the field that other fielders would not have gotten to. Lichtman clearly prefers his own, but rather than discarding either, it's probably best to just keep both in mind when assessing how good a fielder is, rather than trying to get by on UZR alone.

Also, as The Sports Ph.D. has written, "UZR has one large minus: It is almost completely inaccessible to any but the most devoted sabermetric fan. Casual fans can understand it and look it up on sites that list it, but they don't have access to the data necessary to calculate it easily." We're simply not at a point where defense can be measured both accurately and precisely without a very large sample size.

Why we care about UZR: It's a very easy to use stat — provided, of course, that you can just look it up. While it's not the ideal defensive stat, because it conflicts with Plus/Minus and requires a large sample size, it's infinitely better than what we had before, which was essentially fielding percentage, the dubious list of past Gold Glove winners, and nothing else.

[Big Dave2]

The Twins are paying almost $9.5 million for a guy who will likely finish the season with fewer than 20 HR and 80 RBI.

Cuddyer has more HRs and RBI than Joe Mauer. Who are the Twins grossly overpaying?

[thatoneguy]

Quote:

Cuddyer has more HRs and RBI than Joe Mauer. Who are the Twins grossly overpaying?

If HR and RBI were all there was to baseball, you might have a point. Mauer is an elite defensive player at a key position; Cuddy is one of the worst overall defenders in RF (though I will definitely give him credit for a strong, accurate arm). Mauer has done a phenomenal job handling the pitching staff from day one.

Mauer is always among the league leaders in average and on-base percentage (even this year when he is "slumping" a bit), providing tons of RBI opportunities for the middle of the order guys. Mauer also provides terrific production at a position where you don't normally get a lot (position scarcity) which further increases his value.

Mauer is still young, and still has upside - a scary thought for pitchers. Cuddyer is certainly on the decline, and only has two decent years to his credit in his entire career.

And finally, one of the most important factors in determining a player's salary (but one that most fans overlook): Mauer sells tickets. He sells merchandise. He generates ratings. Cuddyer does none of that. From the ownership perspective, they assess not only a player's on-field production, but their impact on the bottom line, and there is no player with a greater impact for the Twins in that area than Mauer.

I could go on, but I'm hungry and I'ma go eat some lunch

[thatoneguy]

Re: the UZR

You miss the fact that

A) The author of your articles admits that "But if you keep the sample size caveats in mind, UZR is an excellent way to eyeball a player's defensive impact on his team in terms of the runs he personally prevents."

and

Cuddyer's terrible UZR ratings aren't one-year blips; he is just a very limited outfielder

and

C) There are other advanced fielding metrics that say the same thing - Cuddy is not a good OF. go to baseball-reference dot com and look up Cuddyer...plenty of into there.

and

D) Cuddyer's career is long enough that there really aren't any sample-size problems to be found on the whole. Individual seasons, such as those shortened by injury, may be skewed because of this, but not the overall career numbers.

Thanks for the post - I appreciate different perspectives and a good discussion.

[Big Dave2]

In your post you specifically said that his UZR ranking was poor "last year", thats a 1 year sample.

[Big Dave2]

If HR and RBI were all there was to baseball, you might have a point.

You are the one who used those two stats as a benchmark to judge Cuddyer, I'm just using your same benchmark to judge the Baby Jesus.

[solbes]

I like Cuddyer for the kind of player he is and has been.

I just want to see more of Delmon! He's had some good season finishes. He's never started out a season like this. He's just behind Morneau in RBI's and has fewer at bats. His average is very close to .300 and he is on pace to hit near 20 dingers; exactly the kind of hitter we had in mind when we traded for him. With Morneau's great batting average this year, lets put a red hot bat behind him.

[Scott K]

I think they should at least try it for a series. If it dont work for Delmon, maybe Cuddy will see that he needs to step up a little.

[knoppers]

pretty please gardy, can you make a change at the 3rd base coaching position. two terrable moves in two days. send a slow runner around for a in the park homer, with no outs, very great. he has had more runners thrown out at the plate than anyone, and thrown out bye a mile!

[SledNeck]

Delmon= clutch

[harvey lee]

Cuddyer has more HRs and RBI than Joe Mauer. Who are the Twins grossly overpaying?

[Jarrod32]

I like Cuddyer for the kind of player he is and has been.

I just want to see more of Delmon! He's had some good season finishes. He's never started out a season like this. He's just behind Morneau in RBI's and has fewer at bats. His average is very close to .300 and he is on pace to hit near 20 dingers; exactly the kind of hitter we had in mind when we traded for him. With Morneau's great batting average this year, lets put a red hot bat behind him.

It is probably worth pointing out at this point that Delmon's average is over .300, and is nearly 30 points higher than Denard Span. Another gem for all the impatient Delmon haters: Coming into today, Delmon has 10 fewer strikeouts (23 to 33) than Span.

[PierBridge]

Not sure if you guys caught Twins live today after the game but Gardy chimed in on how important it is to have consistency as far as the line-up go's. Newman who was fired by Gardy agreed whole heartily how import it is versus caving into to the disgruntled frustrated fans views.

I do envision in the future after O-Dog who is on his last legs is gone for Delmon to be a 3 hitter and contrary to most opinions I'd like to see Mauer who lacks power in the 2 spot versus 3. I know he doesn't have the speed you'd like to see in the 2 spot but he gets on base so often it makes up for the difference. Plus Delmon could be perennial .300 25 and 100.

So Span, Mauer, Young, Morneau sounds good for years to come to me anyway.

[Jarrod32]

Ben Revere will likely be holding down the #2 spot in a couple years.

It is interesting how things turn around so quickly...just last season, people seemed to be thinking that Span was the second coming and they couldn't run Delmon out of town fast enough.

[Big Dave2]

Plus Delmon could be perennial .300 25 and 100.

He should probably do it ONE time before we start talking about perennial!

[Big Dave2]

Thats a joke right? Lets look at what they have both done in the past 3 years.

Cuddyer could not even start to fill Mauers shoes even with a slow start.

Lets look at what they have done. What exactly has Mauer done that makes him worth 2-1/2 times more than Cuddyer who is already being paid a handsome sum?

Yes, Joe had a really good batting average last year, I get that but if you break down the numbers, how much more valuable is Joe Mauer really?

In 2009:

Cuddyer played in 15 more games than Mauer,

Mauer scored 1 more run than Cuddyer,

Mauer had 31 more hits than Cuddyer,

Cuddyer had 4 more doubles than Joe,

Cuddyer had 6 more triples than Joe,

Cuddyer had 4 more HRs than Joe,

Mauer had 2 more RBI than Cuddyer,

Cuddyer had 2 more stolen bases than Mauer,

Plus Cuddyer probably played 4 or 5 different positions in the field compared to Mauer's 1.

Is the performance difference between these 2 players really 9 mil. vs. 23 mil.? Those numbers look pretty similar to me.

[Rippinlip]

Big Dave I will not argue with your offensive points, but 1 little factor is his ability to work with pitchers and call games. Is it worth the Mega bucks difference, probably not.

[greebs]

in all fairness to Mauer, his salary is year is $12.5 mil and I believe harvey lee mentioned three years worth of stats as opposed to just 2009.

either way, both of them are coming up short so far this year with the production that was expected of them. time to get it going boys. the tigers are right on your tails and if playoffs started today, there would be no home field advantage for the Twin with 5th best record in A.L.

[Nick Kuhn]

He is also comparing RF, where you expect 100 RBI/season out of, compared to a catcher which most teams hope to get 50RBI and a 250 avg out of. It would be the equivalent of saying a 30 goal/50 assist defenseman is the same as a 30 goal/50 assist winger.

As far as Delmon's impatience goes, that's the way he needs to hit. Go up there, swing aggressively and hit the ball hard more times than not. If you start taking pitches you start thinking, and while that may benefit some hitters it certainly hurts others. Besides, the first pitch is often the best pitch to hit.

[DonBo]

As far as Delmon's impatience goes, that's the way he needs to hit. Go up there, swing aggressively and hit the ball hard more times than not. If you start taking pitches you start thinking, and while that may benefit some hitters it certainly hurts others. Besides, the first pitch is often the best pitch to hit.

Hey, don't knock his impatience. He's already got more walks this year than he had all last year. He's a much improved hitter than he's been in the recent past.

[Big Dave2]

He is also comparing RF, where you expect 100 RBI/season out of, compared to a catcher which most teams hope to get 50RBI and a 250 avg out of. It would be the equivalent of saying a 30 goal/50 assist defenseman is the same as a 30 goal/50 assist winger.

No, I am comparing Mauer to other Marquee players because of the contract he signed this year. He has now opened himself up to being compared with players like A-Rod because of the contract, not just other catchers.

[Big Dave2]

in all fairness to Mauer, his salary is year is $12.5 mil and I believe harvey lee mentioned three years worth of stats as opposed to just 2009.

His salery is 12.5 this year and last but those numbers were what the salery increase was based upon. I doubt that his production can get much higher in the future.

[Coach1310]

Lets look at what they have done. What exactly has Mauer done that makes him worth 2-1/2 times more than Cuddyer who is already being paid a handsome sum?

Yes, Joe had a really good batting average last year, I get that but if you break down the numbers, how much more valuable is Joe Mauer really?

In 2009:

Cuddyer played in 15 more games than Mauer,

Mauer scored 1 more run than Cuddyer,

Mauer had 31 more hits than Cuddyer,

Cuddyer had 4 more doubles than Joe,

Cuddyer had 6 more triples than Joe,

Cuddyer had 4 more HRs than Joe,

Mauer had 2 more RBI than Cuddyer,

Cuddyer had 2 more stolen bases than Mauer,

Plus Cuddyer probably played 4 or 5 different positions in the field compared to Mauer's 1.

Is the performance difference between these 2 players really 9 mil. vs. 23 mil.? Those numbers look pretty similar to me.

Funny how you only put into NUMBERS the stats that favor Cuddy or are almost the same in favor of Mauer...... someone could easily write...

Joe Mauer is a far superior hitter to Michael Cuddyer regarding average, but is basically the same regarding other offensive statistics.

In regards to Mauer... there are a lot of reasons he is getting PAID..

#1. He is the hometown boy and when it comes to marketing that is a HUGE factor.

#2. Having him on the Twins results in a LOT of $$$ regarding jerseys, team apparel, merchandise etc...

#3. As far as super stars go he is as solid and squeaky clean as they come.

#4. He plays a position where world class hitting and offensive skills are very rare.... His abilities at his position can't even be discussed except when mentioning some all time greats... no catcher in the majors even comes close to him... and to use the same arguement vs. Cuddy... Right fielders with stats like his are kind of a dime a dozen

#5 And as far as stats go... IF you locked up Cuddy for the same $$$ for the next how many years, what would the stats look like. It is easy to look at just one year and say this or that, but the TERM of the contract is pretty important in this case