Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
November 23, 2007
Guillen or Jones?

The Royals are looking for a bat, not a fielder:

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim agreed to a five-year, $90 million contract with free-agent outfielder Torii Hunter late Wednesday, providing Vladimir Guerrero some protection in the batting order.

And it ends the Royals quest to land the power-hitting outfielder and refocuses their efforts on trying to land outfielder Jose Guillen.

The Royals have long viewed Hunter and Guillen as the only free agents available capable of filling their need for a right-handed, power-hitting outfielder -- unless Andruw Jones significantly lowers his asking price.

Jones is a tough case. His 2007 season looks like a fluke in the context of his career. But his 127 hits in 572 at bats are outside his 95% confidence interval. A batter with a .263 career average would be expected to collect between 130 and 171 hits in that number of at bats. The fact that Andruw came in below 130 indicates this change in his ability has a high probability of being real.


Posted by David Pinto at 09:53 AM | Free Agents | TrackBack (0)
Comments

I wouldn't normally be too excited about a 40 point drop in batting average at age 30 from a career norm. What would worry me in Jones' case is that his BABIP has been in the .240-.260 range for the last 3 years with loss of speed a likely culprit. In 2005-06, he maintained his batting average by exhibiting tremendous power. Not so in 2007. His IsoP and HR/fly rates were way down. The lively question is whether he can get (at least most of) his power back.

Posted by: Mike Green at November 23, 2007 10:48 AM

I suppose that's one way to look at it.

Another way is that it just emphasizes how flukey it was. Moreover, you'd expect on in 20 players to be outside their 95% confidence interval (unless your're making some sort adjustment for simultanous intervals, which I'm not sure how you could do), which is almost one per team. Doesn't seem particularly compelling evidence to me.

But I guess you're right that it may add some risk for prospective suitors....

Posted by: mraver at November 23, 2007 01:02 PM
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