Unzipping 2015: Comparing Boston and New York - Catchers

Whether you are a hard-core baseball fan or just aware of it during the season, you know that baseball uses analytics to a higher degree than any other sport.

PECOTA. WAR. BABIP. And many more. Some are basic and some are heavy on the math. Some are used just on a player and others can be used to project how a team will perform. But all of them try to take the statistical noise and turn it into something useful.

Today we are going to start looking at Boston and New York, position by position and their likely starters. And we will be using ZiPS to see how they stack up against one another.

ZiPS is used over at fangraphs.com. (Aside: fangraphs.com and baseball-reference.com are two incredible sites for baseball stats). Rather than trying to explain it, I will just use their explanation here:

ZiPS - The work of Dan Szymborski over at Baseball Think Factory, the ZiPS projections uses weighted averages of four years of data (three if a player is very old or very young), regresses pitchers based on DIPS theory and BABIP rates, and adjusts for aging by looking at similar players and their aging trends. It’s an effective projection system, and is displayed at FanGraphs for off-season and in-season projections.

That's pretty straight-forward. DIPS is "defense-independent pitching statistics" which measures the effectiveness of a pitcher only on statistics that don't involve other fielders. In other words, it only cares about what the pitcher has direct influence over. BABIP stands for "Batting Average on Balls In Play".

So what we hope ZiPS will do is give us a relatively accurate look at how a player will perform in the future based on their performance in the past. It's not perfect but ZiPS has been pretty reliable.

So with all that in mind, let's look at the likely starting catchers for the Red Sox and Yankees.

Boston: Christian Vazquez

2015: 115 G | 102 H | 38 RBI | .246 BA | .305 OBP | .328 SLG | .633 OPS | 1.8 WAR | Cost per WAR: $277,777 | Age: 23

New York: Brian McCann

2015: 124 G | 110 H | 74 RBI | .249 BA | .316 OBP | .431 SLG | .746 OPS | 3.1 WAR | Cost per WAR: $5,483,870 | Age: 30

Red Sox = Yankees? Not Exactly.

With the soon-to-be official mega-dollar signing of Cuban phenom Yoan Moncada, by my estimation the Sox have spent upwards of eleventy billion dollars this off-season.

Well, maybe not that much. But in committing over $60M to Moncada, $95M to Pablo Sandoval and $88M to Hanley Ramirez, that over $240M in commitments to just three players in this off-season. Throw in the pitching acquisitions and other players, and Boston has spent over $300M in total player-committed dollars this off-season.

And so yesterday, someone asked Boston CEO Larry "Can we forget about Bobby Valentine" Lucchino an obvious question: Are the Red Sox the same as the New York Yankees?

"It's a question of pattern and consistency over time -- that's one way to distinguish. But we're not going to not avail ourselves of what we think is a very good baseball opportunity because someone is going to compare us to the Yankees," Lucchino said.

The piece quotes Lucchino a few more times but the upshot is basically this: The Red Sox will spend money when they think they need to. And they do in a smarter fashion than the Yankees.

That's an important qualifier. Spending 20 bucks, say, on vegetables and healthy food for your family is smarter spending than buying them 20 bucks of Funyons. Same money, different quality.

Boston spent big money on Sandoval and Ramirez. But those are also manageable contracts. Ramirez is for four years and a possible fifth. Sandoval is for five years and a club option on a sixth.

Compare that to the two free-agent signings the Yankees made before 2014. They spent $85M on a 30-year-old catcher in Brian McCann, who went on to have one of the worst statistical years of his career. And then there was Jacoby Ellsbury. Seven years, $153M, and the reward was a decidedly average 2014 campaign. Fun fact: Brett Gardner, who cost about 1/4 of Ellsbury and was already a Yankee, had a better 2014. Hell, you could argue that Francisco Cervelli wasn't that far off of McCann.

And that is the big difference here. The Yankees brought in two big-dollar free-agent signings for positions where they already had a player either giving them most of what they got (Cervelli and McCann) or possibly more (Gardner and Ellsbury).

And What About Cano?

So let's the this straight.

Brian Cashman and the New York Yankees have no problems giving a soon-to-be 30-year-old, injury-prone catcher whose offensive production has been in decline and has an average WAR of 1.9 over the last three years a five-year, $85 million contract with a vesting option for a sixth year. But it's Brian McCann, so it's OK to give him a bad contract.

Then on Monday the Yankees had no problems giving a 30-year-old, injury-prone outfielder whose game is based on speed and who has failed to play in even 75 games in two of the last four years a seven-year, $153 million contract, surpassing the disastrous seven-year, $142 million deal that the Red Sox gave Carl Crawford. But it's Jacoby Ellsbury, and even though he's had only one season in which he's even cracked double digit homers, it's perfectly fine to give him a contract that has nuclear meltdown written all over it.

But when it comes to Robinson Cano, the Yankees' own player who just happens to be by far the best player on the free agent market, Cashman claims to have found religion, and is holding a firm line at seven year at $25 million per year. Despite the fact that Cano has had no injury issues and has maintained his production at age 31, the Yankees have decided that it's not OK to overspend on arguably the best second baseman of this generation. It's not OK give him a contract that will turn bad in the end.

Seriously? If there is one free agent on the market who is worthy of a mega-deal, it's Cano, but all the Yankees can do is play a dangerous game with him.

McCann deal should remind Sox to keep clear of Kemp

I would have had this up earlier, but I was too busy laughing about the 5-year, $85M deal the Yankees gave Brian McCann. This would be the same Brian McCann who has an average WAR of 1.9 over the last three years. To compare, Saltalamacchia's average WAR over the last three years is 1.8. Would you pay Salty $17M a year? Me neither.

But this deal is instructive for Boston. Because it points out the danger in paying for past performance. From 2006-2010, McCann was one of the better catchers in baseball. Averaged a 3.5 WAR, had an OPS of .856 and was decent on defense.

From 2011-13, McCann has the aforementioned average of 1.9 WAR, an OPS of .770 and is still just decent on defense. The Yankees are paying for 2006-10 McCann, a player that no longer exists.

And that brings us to Boston and the Dodgers' Matt Kemp. With Jacoby Ellsbury still likely to go, the Sox have to fill in a gap in the outfield. I think the best plan is to bring Jackie Bradley, Jr. into center field. He has a better glove than Ellsbury but a weaker bat. Slot him in at the 9-spot in the batting order and see if he can make the position his own.

But Ben Cherington is going to do his due diligence and that means looking at potential people to bring in. And Kemp is one of those guys. He is owed $126M over the next six years. And with a surfeit of outfielders (and a bloated payroll), the Dodgers would likely be willing to move him.

The problem here is two-fold. First is that the Sox would have to likely give up at least one top talent in their farm system. Which would be ridiculous. So let's take that out of the equation and pretend this is a straight free-agent signing with the existing money as the deal. So the second problem is this: Is Matt Kemp really worth six years and $126M at this point in his career?

A Fleecing In The Bronx

P.T. Barnum once said "There's a sucker born every minute."

On Saturday, Brian McCann found his sucker in the Bronx.

The New York Yankees signed McCann, the former Atlanta Braves catcher who will be 30 by Opening Day, to a five-year, $85 million contract with a vesting option that would push the deal to $100 million, a full no-trade clause, and the keys to the corporate jet.

This is a bad contract for the Yankees and during Year 3 of the deal they will come to realize exactly why.

'What The Hell Did You Trade Jay Buhner For?'

After watching the Red Sox capture a well-earned World Series championship, I knew it was going to be long, tough winter. While I congratulate Red Sox Nation on winning their third title in 10 years, there isn't much worse than having to listen to the likes of Dave crow about it.

Seriously, I'd rather shovel out from under another 36-inch snowfall like we had in February. It took a couple of days of shoveling and three more days of heating pads to loosen up my back, but that's still better than listening to Red Sox fans.

Sigh.