Starlin Castro was one of four players to play in all 162 games in 2012. Adam Jones doing it is not all that surprising. He's relatively young. Ichiroi is a bit surprising considering his age and poor performance while in Seattle. Even more surprising is Prince Fielder. Despite playing in 4 more games this season, Castro had 24 fewer plate appearances than last year.
By the end of April Castro was hitting .333/.351/.433. We're used to seeing Castro bat over .300 and while his ISO was only .100, he was off to a fantastic start. Like Alfonso Soriano, Castro also didn't hit any home runs in April. Below are Castro's 2012 projections.
| Projection | PA | H | HR | BB | SO | avg | obp | slg | wOBA |
| CAIRO | 631 | 168 | 9 | 42 | 87 | .287 | .340 | .412 | .332 |
| Guru | 628 | 166 | 6 | 39 | 83 | .287 | .333 | .409 | .326 |
| ZiPS | 673 | 191 | 9 | 39 | 85 | .301 | .343 | .432 | .339 |
| PECOTA | 695 | 197 | 8 | 33 | 95 | .298 | .332 | .410 | .325 |
| Oliver | 658 | 185 | 6 | 33 | 79 | .304 | .340 | .420 | .333 |
| Bill James | 669 | 197 | 8 | 38 | 82 | .312 | .354 | .441 | .347 |
| RotoChamp | 665 | 191 | 9 | 37 | 86 | .304 | .346 | .430 | .339 |
| Dav-Marcel | 684 | 184 | 7 | 37 | 87 | .284 | .327 | .396 | .316 |
| Steamer | 677 | 187 | 9 | 40 | 83 | .299 | .342 | .433 | .350 |
| Average | 664 | 185 | 8 | 38 | 85 | .297 | .340 | .420 | .334 |
Castro finished the season batting .283/.323/.430. His wOBA was a career low .323, but his wRC+ of 99 matched his rookie season. He's shown some signs of growth at the plate. His ISO has gone from .108 to .125 up to .147 in 2012. He had the same number of extra base hits (55) as he did in 2011, but he hit more home runs and triples than he ever had.
On the other hand, his walk rate was only 5.2%, which I guess is a slight improvement over the 4.9% in 2011, but below the 5.7% in his rookie season. His career average is only 5.2%. Despite hitting for more power, Castro didn't take any additional walks. He struckout in 14.5% of his plate appearances and reached the magical 100 strikeouts for the first time in his career.
His defensive ratings were improved, but one season doesn't tell us whether or not he's actually improved defensively. Those metrics ranged from -2 (Total Zone) to 3 (DRS). UZR had him at -1 and FRAA at -0.5.
Castro has multiple areas he should be working on, but one easy way to improve is to just stop trying to steal bases. He's terrible at it. He was caught stealing a league leading 13 times and successfully stole just 25 bases. In his young career Castro has 57 stolen bases against 30 times caught stealing. 4 of those times were when he was picked off and was classified as a picked off caught stealing. Only B.J. Upton and Ryan Roberts had more (5). An additional 3 times he was just flat picked off. If you're going to make that many outs on the bases, you better be stealing a lot more bases than Castro does. He just doesn't read the pitcher very well when he's on base and should consider limiting his stolen base attempts. When you add in his SB/CS to his UBR, he's been -2.3 in his career. It doesn't sound like much, and it isn't, but you've got fo fight for every run and this would be a relatively easy way to add it. Easier than trying to steal bases when you aren't any good at it.
It wasn't too surprising to see Castro's BABIP drop from about .345 the first two seasons to .315 this past year. What was nice about it is that Castro still produced at a respectable level at the plate and an above average level considering the position he plays.
Castro was projected to be a 3.1 WAR player this year. His fWAR was 3.3, rWAR 3.5 and WARP 3.0.
http://www.burningriverbaseball.com/articles/analysis/alfonso-soriano-creating-a-trade-rumor.html
I had checked that earlier and was surprised because I figured even with the improved defense that the bat would reduce his accumulated value a bit. Guess either WAR is broken or I’m just not thinking about this stuff right.
Also, do you give a lot of thought to how Castro might have improved his plate discipline in the second half of the season (as suggested by others in the blogosphere) or is it just too small of a sample to care?
@ Rice Cube:
For the first part: Much of Castro’s WAR value comes from his positional and replacement level adjustments.
You can start making some predictions about walk rate with 200 PAs as a basis, but you shouldn’t ignore his overall body of work, either.
@ Rice Cube:
The league was worse at the plate than last year and he was about 10 runs better on defense (thereabouts).
Maybe he improved. Maybe he didn’t. I don’t know, but I trust the 5.2% as more representative of his ability than whatever it was over the course of 50 or 60 games. Castro’s walk rate has kind of been up and down by month if I recall so it’s not surprising he put together a few decent months. Like I said, maybe he did improve, but a few games isn’t going to prove it.
Mish wrote:
His NIBB% the last 3 months was 6.2%. Not that good, but better than it was in the first half of course. It was 6.7% over his last 200 PA. Take that and regress it at least halfway to the 5%ish that he had before. You end up with a little better than his career average, but still not very good.
mb21 wrote:
Okay, so the baseline for replacement level changed but he made up for it with defense. I dig.
I still can’t believe he wasn’t seriously hurt. If it only grazed off a tougher part of his skull almost tangentially then I can accept that, but that ball ricocheted almost straight up. The lack of articles about him getting X-rays or swelling in his face or brain or whatever is encouraging.
I think Doug Fister is my new hero.
@ Rice Cube:
It looks straight up b/c of the angle of the shot, but it had quite a bit of backward’s movement, so it was more of a glancing blow.
I would say the area behind and above your ear is one of the tougher parts of your skull, but I’m not really an expert. The hat band may have also absorbed some of the impact.
@ Rice Cube:
I mean, he didn’t really do anything or display toughness, I think he just got really lucky.
“Ichiroi” is Ichiro’s cousin. Not as well known but just as durable..
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=25451941&topic_id=11493214
Looked like a hell of a lot more than a glancing blow
I like that he was looking for where the ball went instead of thinking “hey, I almost got my head taken off”. It was like when Z got hit in the face by a liner in Venezuela and still got the out and wanted to stay in.
josh wrote:
Ichiroid is Ichiro’s power hitting third cousin.
@ Berselius:
I thought that was the anti-robot they built to try to take over Japanese baseball.
@ Rice Cube:
it’s still mostly luck though. It’s not like he didn’t get a concussion by act of will.
@ josh:
Don’t you like anything?
@ Rice Cube:
Beer. Good coffee. Cigarettes. Godamn I miss smoking.
@ mb21:
I’d welcome this, even though I like Soriano and dislike the tone of the first paragraph of the article out of Cleveland.
mb21 wrote:
Jaramillo was fired on 6/12. What are the numbers you guys are looking for the improved walk rate? Because it could be the difference in philosophies of the hitting coaches.
Although no one would really know what Rudy was telling Castro. All we know is his walk rate improved after Rudy was fired and the reason why he was let go was for his hitting philosophy. Theo has spoken openly about the inability of this organization to take walks.
@ jtsunami:
It’s weird, b/c when you hear ballplayers talk about it, there’s this sort of machismo, like “I don’t apologize for being aggressive!” Really? Do you apologize for swinging at pitcher’s pitches in the dirt? Because you looked pretty ridiculous when you did that.
@ jtsunami:
His walk rate in June and July was pretty bad. Not good in September either. His walk rate really only improved because he walked in 9% of his PA in August. He was walking less in April and May than previously. May was about 4% lower than his career rate and August was about 4% higher.
I don’t see anything in these numbers to suggest he’s improved by much. Considering the monthly sample sizes, we’d expect that kind of variation.
However, even if we do believe he improved because he had a new hitting coach, it’s still not exactly a good walk rate. It’s basically equal to Soriano’s career walk rate and nobody would ever say he’s anything other than a free swinger who takes few walks. Rizzo’s walk rate was nearly half of what it was in his rookie season. I doubt overall we’d see much of an improvement from the Cubs after they fired the hitting coach.
We knew when Castro came up that he’d hit for a decent average, not take many walks and not hit for a ton of power. That’s Starlin Castro. That has value and he’s a good ballplayer.
In September 2011 Castro walked in 8.5% of his PA (9% in August this year). In June 2010 he walked in over 10% of his PA.
He’s had months in which walk rate has been decent. The problem is that overall it’s just not.
@ mb21:
I wonder if there’s any correlation to his batting order. Probably not. It’s probably just one of those things.
I like how the Cubs still haven’t lost 100 games in the Race to the Top. Based on AGP, they lost 101, but based on RttT only 99. I’ll take the RttT projection!
(dying laughing)
(AGP, Actual Game Performance)
@ josh:
Methunk the general rule of thumb among the smart folk was that the player’s performance will pretty much stay the same no matter where he is in the lineup, with protection being a myth and all that.
Wonders if Josh will be impressed by this more so than Doug Fister:
@ SVB:
I was going to point this out but I’m not an ass.
WaLi wrote:
False.
Per Gordo, it looks like Karros is the front-runner to replace Brenly. Julie must be pleased.
@ WaLi:
(dying laughing)
Thought it better for discreditation to come more or less from within, than from some lurker.
@ Berselius:
I was hoping for Sergio Romo or Charles Barkley.
@ Mish:
How about Sergio Barkley, large former Baseketball player with an amusing sense of humor, killer beard, and trouble forming even a basic complete sentence?
@ Mish:
@ Mish:
I’m in favor of Barkley despite the fact that he is probably not an expert in baseball.
lulz
@ Rice Cube:
Or speaking in complete sentences.
“I Hope The Guy Who Got Knocked Out By The American Thighs In That Song Is Okay”
http://www.theonion.com/articles/i-hope-the-guy-who-got-knocked-out-by-the-american,30107/
(dying laughing)
@ WenningtonsGorillaCock:
I think I have found the future ex Mrs frysredjacket.
More for her sense of humor than her looks. Not that she’s that ugly… oh nevermind.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/tim-tebow-beginning-to-realize-nfl-potential,30103/
mb21 wrote:
Nope. Offense in the NL was up in 2012. http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NL/bat.shtml
According to Fangraphs, Starlin was about 7-8 runs improved on defense and around 7-8 runs worse on offense. Ba-Pro is a bit higher on Starlin’s offense this year (park adjustments?), but his defensive rating actually went down (it’s still OK, though).
@ Rizzo the Rat:
Why was I thinking offense was down? Because the Cubs could only score 3 runs per week?
@ mb21:
That’s gotta be it. Because the universe revolves around the Cubs’ suckitude.
@ mb21:
From watching the Cubs this year, my eyes tell me that not only was offense down, but defense, pitching, and baserunning, too.
@ mb21:
It might have been up compared to last year, but that’s an incredibly low bar to clear.
mikeakaleroy wrote:
Double lulz for it actually being a net loss for the Cubs rotation (dying laughing)
@ mikeakaleroy:
Damnit. Now we have to sign Zambrano.
I’ve tried drawing a new comic, but I don’t have much to say at the moment, I guess, re: the Cubs. And this World Series is of passing interest. I could do a comic about razor and seasoning cast iron and pizza hut milf anal.
I don’t know if this has been posted or not: http://heisenbergschemistry.com/
New shit
http://www.obstructedview.net/commentary-and-analysis/roster-reshuffling-update.html