A Post About Daniel Murphy and Why He’s Not Terrible

Like many others, I still don’t know what to make of Daniel Murphy.  In this lost year for the Mets, despite the fact that so many veteran regulars have been hurt, he’s the only position player under age 25 who has seen significant playing time.

Unfortunately, he hasn’t exactly risen to the occasion. After last year’s tantalizing .313 BA, .397 OBP, and .473 SLG in 151 plate appearances, Murphy’s performance has been much more pedestrian in 2009: .260 BA, .316 OBP, and .390 SLG in 425 plate appearances.

Part of this difference is definitely due to Murphy hitting into good luck in 2008 – he recorded a .382 batting average on balls in play (BABIP) which has fallen to .288 in 2009.  The overall BABIP for the NL in 2008 and 2009 has been .298 – so this season’s version of Murphy probably has been hitting into more average luck and probably therefore better represents the quality of ballplayer that he is right now.

Certainly a first baseman/left fielder who posts a 2009 Daniel Murphy-type stat line is not going to cut it on a good team and Murphy’s performance this season has, overall, been a disappointment. 

However, I would argue that its definitely too early to give up on Murphy.  One interesting use of Baseball-Reference.com’s Play Index is to find other players who have had similar seasons to one another.  In this case, I searched for other players in the expansion era who posted OBP and SLG% close to Murphy’s 2009 stat line during the first three seasons of their career and between the ages of 23-25.  The point of this is to see what caliber of player has posted similar numbers in a season to Murphy’s during a similar point in their careers. 

Here are the results:

Name	Year	Age	OBP	SLG
Daniel Murphy	2009	24	.317	.395
Michael Young	2002	25	.308	.382
Chad Curtis	1994	25	.317	.397
Ed Sprague	1993	25	.310	.386
Von Hayes	1982	23	.310	.389
Carney Lansford	1980	23	.312	.390
Warren Cromartie	1977	23	.321	.395
Garry Maddox	1974	24	.328	.398
Jesus Alou	1965	23	.317	.398

Admittedly, there are no hall-of-famers on that list. However, all 8 of the guys on that list played more than 1000 games in the major leagues.  And Young, Sprague, Hayes, and Lansford were All-Stars at some point in their careers.  And, as far as I can tell, this list is pretty complete – so, there haven’t been any total flame-outs who put together a season like the 2009 Daniel Murphy early in their careers.  If he can end up somewhere between Ed Sprague and Carney Lansford, I think the Mets would be more than satisfied.

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Injuries, Injuries, Injuries

With today’s news of the (merciful) end to Oliver Perez’ season, let’s look back the the 2009 Mets’ Opening Day Roster, along with the individual players’ salaries and the # of games missed and expected to be missed with injuries:

Name	Salary ($)	Games Missed w/ Injury
Carlos Beltran	19,243,683	100
Johan Santana	18,876,139	41
Carlos Delgado	12,000,000	136
Oliver Perez	12,000,000	104
Billy Wagner	10,500,000	120
Francisco Rodriguez	9,166,667	0
David Wright	7,750,000	at least 15
Luis Castillo	6,250,000	6
Jose Reyes	6,125,000	126
JJ Putz	6,000,000	110
Brian Schneider	4,900,000	39
Ryan Church	2,800,000	13 (before trade on 7/10)
Ramon Castro	2,625,000	3 (before trade on 5/28)
John Maine	2,600,000	108
Tim Redding	2,250,000	37
Mike Pelfrey	2,237,500	5 (missed one start)
Alex Cora	2,000,000	62
Fernando Tatis	1,700,000	0
Pedro Feliciano	1,612,000	0
Marlon Anderson	1,150,000	0 (released 4/10)
Jeremy Reed	925,000	0
Angel Pagan	575,000	70
Sean Green	471,000	0
Brian Stokes	409,500	0
Darren O’Day	406,000	0 before release 4/16
Daniel Murphy	401,000	0
Bobby Parnell	400,000	0
Gary Sheffield	400,000	at least 22

That’s 1,117 total games missed by the Opening Day Roster, which is a lot (in case you’re keeping track).

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Who’s Ripping Off the Mets?

Let’s make a list.  The following people are responsible for effectively stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the Mets ownership:

 

The Bernie Madoff story has been told elsewhere – the real effect for the Mets will be noticed when they don’t sign any significant free agents this offseason.

Now, here’s how Omar Minaya gets to rank up there with the perpetrator of the biggest fraud in American history.

Fangraphs has an interesting statistic where they attempt to use a player’s “VORP” and “WARP” to calculate how much their performance has been worth in terms of millions of dollars.  To get there, they figure out the total amount of money being paid to MLB players and assess how much the average team is paying per win.  Then by figuring how many wins an individual player is worth (WARP is wins above replacement player), they can assess a players “value.”

A further explanation can be read here and here.

According to Fangraphs’ assessment of the Mets hitters and pitchers, through 125 games, the Mets roster has been “worth” $68.8 million.  Prorated over a 162 game season, this extrapolates to $89.2 million worth of production.  Problem is, the Mets payroll in 2009 is around $145 million.

I hope Omar has 56 million dollars lying around somewhere, just in case the Wilpons ask for their money back.

But anyway, just to rub salt in my own wounds, I looked up the same numbers for the Yankees and Phillies. 

The Yankees are on pace for $246 million in production from a $208 million payroll.  The Phillies are on pace for $183 million in production from $111 million payroll. 

Best of all may be the Marlins: on pace for $145 in production from the second lowest payroll in baseball ($36 million).

The lesson of the day for me is that the more I look, I keep finding more and more ways to describe how embarrassing the Mets are.

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Different Levels of Atrocious-ness

The ongoing misery that is defining this season of Mets baseball is personified better by Oliver Perez than anyone else.

-3 years

-36 million dollars

-3 wins

-6.82 ERA

-1.92 WHIP

-Not pretty.

Today’s performance definitely marks a new low.  8 (and a half) batters faced: 2 outs, 4 walks, one single, one double, 2 three-run homers allowed.

Remarkably, Perez’ Game Score comes in at 18 – which isn’t even his worst of the season – that came on April 26th against Washington – when his 9 hits, 3 walks, and 7 runs in 4 1/3 innings was good for a Game Score of 17.  Either way, I would like to label today’s effort by Perez, and all starts with a Game Score <=20, to be “Atrocious Starts.” 

Ultimately, Perez’ game score was saved from reaching rock bottom by Jerry Manuel, who lifted him with a 3-0 count on Pedro Martinez and saved him from further damage.  To really drive your game score down (and it can go below zero), you need to give up double digits in runs and hits. Perez avoided that by being lifted when he was.

But this got me thinking about the worst a pitcher can do – and specifically, the worst pitching performances by a Met – both in 2009 and throughout their history.

Using Baseball-Reference.com’s Play Index, I found the six lowest game scores by a Met this season, all with game scores <=10:

• Bobby Parnell 8/18/09 vs. ATL -- 4
• Livan Hernandez 7/9/09 vs. LAD -– 6
• Johan Santana 7/14/09 @ NYY –- 6
• Mike Pelfrey 6/4/09 @ PIT –- 8
• Livan Hernandez 7/3/09 @ PHI -– 9
• Nelson Figueroa 8/3/2009 vs. ARI -- 10

I would label a start where the pitcher’s game score is <=10 to be “Truly Atrocious.” While the Mets have registered 6 Truly Atrocious starts this year, its only happened 65 times overall in Major League Baseball in 2009.  The Mets, therefore account for 1/11 of all of the Truly Atrocious starts in 2009 – which is a lot considering that there are 30 MLB teams.

Also interestingly, the Mets registered only 23 Truly Atrocious starts from their inception in 1962 through 2000.  Since 2001, they’ve registered 22 such starts.

Now, here are the four worst starts in Mets history, all with a Game Score actually less than or equal to 0 (which I would term a “Really, Really Atrocious” start):

• Orlando Hernandez 8/15/06 @ PHI -- -1
• Dave Williams 9/11/06 @ FLA -– 0
• Al Leiter 5/15/03 @ SF –- 0
• Jack Fisher 6/3/67 @ SF -– 0

And finally, the one Atrocious postseason start in Mets’ History:

• Steve Trachsel 10/14/06 @ STL -- 19

To summarize, I would like to coin the following terms:

• Atrocious Start: Game Score <=20, but >10
• Truly Atrocious Start: Game Score <=10, but >0
• Really, Really Atrocious Start: Game Score <=0

Shockingly, Oliver Perez is yet to descend to the levels of Truly Atrocious or Really, Really Atrocious this season. Thankfully, he has more than two years left on his contract to make it there. 

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