Bay City Ball

The Giants avoided arbitration with Brad Hennessey by offering the reliever-slash-closer a 1-year deal worth $1.6M, a nice pay-bump from his 2007 salary of $400K. Hennessey had his best year yet in ‘07 when he took over the closers role for most of the year after Armando Benitez was traded. He saved 19 games while blowing 5 and posted a 3.42 ERA in 68.1 innings pitched.

Hennessey doesn’t have the flashiest of stuff, a nice 90mph fastball and a tight slider, that when it’s on, is a good pitch for him. Can the Giants expect Hennessey to continue to pitch well in the bullpen? Let’s take a look at some of Hennessey’s underlying stats from 2007.

Brad Hennessey
2007

K% - 13.9
BB% - 8.0
GB% - 46.3
FB% - 34.1
LD% - 19.6
LOB% - 80.3
HR/F% - 9.6
BABIP - .279

I’ve decided to use K%, BB%, GB%, FB%, LD%, LOB%, HR/F%, and BABIP as my measures to evaluate Hennessey’s ‘07 season. They all give a pretty good idea of how Hennessey pitched last year. I think one thing that you’ll learn about Hennessey is that he does a lot of stuff well, above league average, but not by much. I think that makes sense when you take into account his “stuff” which isn’t overly impressive but tends to get the job done.

The league average K% for pitchers tends to be around 16%, and as you can see, Hennessey was below average in the K-department. This was the only measure that Hennessey was below league average in. Hennessey also tends to throw strikes, with a BB% of 8% he’s right at league average for a pitcher. From what I can remember about watching Hennessey pitch in ‘07, was that he never seemed to strike a lot of guys out — only 40 strikeouts in 68.1 innings pitched — but instead he kept the ball on the ground as much as he could, letting hitters make contact. This idea is backed up by Hennessey’s GB% which is above league average at 46.3%. The league average GB% is 42% while the groundball masters like Brandon Webb and Derek Lowe induce groundballs at a 60% clip or better. Hennessey is good at keeping the ball on the ground but he’s not in the same class as Webb or Lowe. Because of Hennessey’s slight GB tendancies, his FB% is slightly better than league average at 34.1%. The league average pitcher gives up flyballs at an 36%.

Line drives are the worst type of contact that a pitcher can give up, because they fall for hits about 75% of the time. The league average pitcher gives up LD’s at a 20% rate. Hennessey was right around this number with his own LD% of 19.6%. Hennesey posted a really high LOB% in ‘07 with his percentage of 80.3%. League average LOB% is 70% and it’s often a way to figure out how lucky or effective — depending on your viewpoint — a pitcher was at stranding runners in a particular year. Hennessey’s career LOB% is 72.8%, or just slightly above league average. Good pitchers are more likely to have a higher LOB% because they have superior stuff — velocity, pitch quality, command, etc — to get outs but LOB% can fluctuate between seasons for pitchers who aren’t as good. Chances are that if a pitcher has a super high LOB% it could correct itself next season. I wouldn’t consider Hennessey to possess the type of pitching ability to consistently throw up a 80%+ LOB% from year to year and I think he could settle back closer to his career of 70% next year. If he pitches closer to a LOB% of 70%, his numbers should regress some next year.

HR/F% is also in the same vein as LOB%. Sometimes pitchers just get unlucky and see a boost in their HR/F% rate which tends to be around 11-12% for all pitchers. Hennessey could be considered lucky with his HR/F% of 9.6%, a few points under league average, but the difference between his percentage and the league average percentage isn’t so huge that I wouldn’t think he would be able to do it again. His modest GB% certainly helps him keep the ball in the park as it’s hard to hit a groundball over the outfield wall for a home run. For his career, Hennessey has a HR/F% of 10.2, so his 2007 performance isn’t hugely different from what he’s done over 251.3 previous major league innings.

Hennessey’s BABIP, batting average on balls in play, is also better than league average. BABIP tends to be around .300 for all pitchers. Hennessey kept this BABIP under the .300 threshold with his BABIP of .279. For his career, Hennessey has posted a BABIP of .283.

As you can see Hennessey does a lot of stuff a little bit better than league average but nothing hugely better. He’s got a modest groundball percentage but he doesn’t strike out many batters. I would wager that his groundball tendencies aren’t strong enough to offest his lack of strikeouts. His LOB% is also something that should regress next year will probably bring his ERA closer to 4 than in the mid-to-low 3’s.

All the projection systems that I’ve read — ZiPS, Bill James, Chone, Marcel — have Hennessey anywhere between an ERA of 4.01 to 4.46, which I think is reasonable. In today’s market, is an average relief pitcher worth about $1.6M? I think so. I don’t think that the Giants should try Hennessey at the closer slot anymore, I’d much rather see Brian Wilson take his chances as the closer or if he struggles and the Giants really want to get crazy, maybe give Jonathan Sanchez a shot (though, I prefer him as a starter).

Enjoy your newfound cash, Brad.

Nothing like arbitration news! to spice up the monotony of winter baseball. The Giants have recently made their decisions on who’s getting arbitration and who isn’t, from SFGiants.com:

The Giants announced late Saturday night that they offered salary arbitration to third baseman Pedro Feliz, although this hardly assured that the free agent would return to the club in 2008.

Not too surprising. I always thought that the Giants might offer Feliz arbitration because I think he’s got a good shot of getting a multi-year deal on the market. A team like Philadelphia or even the Twins (maybe not so much the Twins now that they’ve started selling) could sign Feliz for 2-3 years because even though we all know he’s a bad player, the Philly combo of Abraham Nunez and Wes Helms was horrific (Nunez had an OPS+ of 54 and Helms had a OPS+ of 68) and the Twins didn’t do much better with Nick “Worst MLB Regular” Punto manning the hot corner for them in ‘07 (OPS+ of 52). Feliz is no superstar but he’s better than both of those examples.

Also, if Feliz is signed by another team, the Giants will get compensation because he’s a Type-B free agent. That compensation will come in the form of a sandwich pick.

A lot of fans will probably moan and groan about offering Feliz arbitration but it’s not the worst thing that could happen. He could very well accept it and the Giants would have to pay him something in the neighborhood of $5-7M but depending on what Feliz wants, I still think he can get a multi-year deal on the free market. There’s got to be a few teams at least that love his gold glove defense and over-value his 20HR power and RBI numbers. What the Giants did was protect themselves. Worst case - Feliz takes arbitration and you have to pay him. Best case - another team signs him, you get the draft pick, and you can continue looking for a replacement. Feliz’s value will probably never be higher so if he wants to make more money on the market, now is the time to do so. Having to watch Feliz for another year isn’t something I’d call fun but it’s a decent fallback option so the Giants don’t have to trade the farm for a third baseman.

From the same article, on who wasn’t offered arbitration:

The Giants did not offer salary arbitration to their other free agents — left fielder Barry Bonds, first baseman-outfielder Ryan Klesko, right-hander Russ Ortiz and catcher Mike Matheny.

No surprises here. No reason to bring back Klesko or Ortiz (who’ll miss the year with arm surgery) and Matheny was still on the active roster for some weird reason. Bonds was also a no-brainer, his chances of playing now are minuscule and if offered arbitration, at this point, he would surely accept it.

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Another interesting bit-o-news regarding a possible non-tender in Xavier Nady:

The Pirates are prepared to trade outfielder Xavier Nady.

And, if they cannot do so within the next few days, according to one official with direct knowledge of their plans, they are considering non-tendering him before the Dec. 12 deadline to offer salary arbitration. That would allow him to become a free agent.

The Pirates organization is in transition right now and Nady is definitely available but if they can’t find the right match, they’d rather non-tender him than pay him in arbitration. The potential Nady non-tender is good news for the Giants, because he’s a Type B free agent the Giants wouldn’t lose a pick to sign him if he’s non-tendered, but also for the fact that the Giants wouldn’t necessarily have to trade a prospect to get him. If non-tendered, he enters the market as a free agent.

In 2007 Nady hit (.278/.330/.476) and he can play a corner OF spot or 1B. I would be interested in him at first base if non-tendered. He could be a platoon option (he’s hit well against LHP for his career) or a a starting option if the Giants can’t pair him with someone like a Geoff Jenkins. He could even be an insurance option if the club is still crazy enough to let Dan Ortmeier play first base. He’s a decent hitter at AT&T, too. In 53 career AB’s he’s hit (.302/.351/.434) which is an OPS of .785, that’s unheard of for a Giants first baseman. If I were to sign him, I’d hope to either get him on a 1 year deal or maybe even a 2-year deal similar to what Rich Aurilia got last offseason. A $2/8-10M deal for a career league average hitter isn’t too shabby this day and age.