Luis Valbuena: The Sneaky 3B Solution

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Entering today's game, Luis Valbuena has 375 PAs as a Cub. In those PAs he's accrued 2.1 fWAR, which if you extrapolate over a full season(650 PAs), becomes 3.6 fWAR. That is obviously quite good, so here's some details to fill in around that number:

 

- There are 39 3B with 350+ PA since Opening Day 2012. Valbuena's 3.6 fWAR per 650 PAs ranks T-14th.

 

- Valbuena ranks as the best defensive 3B in MLB in that timeframe, +15 in a bit more than a half season's work. BR has positive things to say about his defense as well, but not nearly that positive, so worth keeping in mind as that's a huge chunk of his overall value. Anecdotally, Valbuena has seemed to be a very good 3B even if he's not transcendentally good as those UZR numbers might indicate.

 

- Valbuena has played a bit of a platoon's workload, taking 18% of his PAs against LHP. Using Castro as a proxy(since he's played in every Cubs game during Valbuena's era), it would be ~24% as an every day player. The good news is that his performance against LHP hasn't been so bad that changing that proportion doesn't actually change his overall production. Using his wOBA splits as a Cub, changing the proportion to 24% lowers his total wOBA by .001.

 

- More generally speaking, Valbuena is 27 years old and not even arbitration eligible until this offseason. Important details when thinking about his role going forward.

 

 

Now I didn't start this thread to say, "no need to add a 3B, we've got our man here". Valbuena's value is very defense dependent, and he's only done it over < 400 PAs that have been hand picked to an extent. That said, he's matched or outproduced names like Zimmerman, Middlebrooks, Lawrie, ARod, Moustakas, and Youkilis since the beginning of last year, so I think it's time we start thinking of him as being closer to Barney in value than a random waiver castoff. In the absence of a higher ceiling, long term solution, I'm more and more comfortable with him playing there every day in the interim.

[Sammy Sofa]

But...he's so easy to HATE.

 

Nah, nice analysis, TT. Anyone stepping up and keeping 3B from being a black hole until a long term solution is found is OK by me. Good stuff.

[OleMissCub]

Great post TT

[Hairyducked Idiot]

*applauds*

[davell]

Yeah, he's been a pleasant surprise. While the success ratio of dumpster diving off the waiver wire is slim, Valbuena has definitely been on the high end of what to possibly expect from that method of acquiring players. Technically, he was arb eligible for the 1st time in 2013(930,000k) but he does have 3 more of arb after this. I'm fine with him as our stopgap. And if he sticks around as a utility guy once we've got a true longterm 3B, we'll have a very solid bench piece.

[treebird]

excellent post.

 

the question that follows, then, is how much do we care about ian stewart at this point? how do we weight the value in seeing if ian can actually get something going vs getting more info on just how good valbuena's defense is (and whether he could maybe hit a bit more and really become something great)? is it wise to just let them split time? if so, how much rope do we give stewart since he's not just stealing time from another worthless non-entity?

[Rob]

Entering today's game, Luis Valbuena has 375 PAs as a Cub. In those PAs he's accrued 2.1 fWAR, which if you extrapolate over a full season(650 PAs), becomes 3.6 fWAR. That is obviously quite good, so here's some details to fill in around that number:

 

- There are 39 3B with 350+ PA since Opening Day 2012. Valbuena's 3.6 fWAR per 650 PAs ranks T-14th.

 

- Valbuena ranks as the best defensive 3B in MLB in that timeframe, +15 in a bit more than a half season's work. BR has positive things to say about his defense as well, but not nearly that positive, so worth keeping in mind as that's a huge chunk of his overall value. Anecdotally, Valbuena has seemed to be a very good 3B even if he's not transcendentally good as those UZR numbers might indicate.

 

- Valbuena has played a bit of a platoon's workload, taking 18% of his PAs against LHP. Using Castro as a proxy(since he's played in every Cubs game during Valbuena's era), it would be ~24% as an every day player. The good news is that his performance against LHP hasn't been so bad that changing that proportion doesn't actually change his overall production. Using his wOBA splits as a Cub, changing the proportion to 24% lowers his total wOBA by .001.

 

- More generally speaking, Valbuena is 27 years old and not even arbitration eligible until this offseason. Important details when thinking about his role going forward.

 

 

Now I didn't start this thread to say, "no need to add a 3B, we've got our man here". Valbuena's value is very defense dependent, and he's only done it over < 400 PAs that have been hand picked to an extent. That said, he's matched or outproduced names like Zimmerman, Middlebrooks, Lawrie, ARod, Moustakas, and Youkilis since the beginning of last year, so I think it's time we start thinking of him as being closer to Barney in value than a random waiver castoff. In the absence of a higher ceiling, long term solution, I'm more and more comfortable with him playing there every day in the interim.

 

One thing I noticed before this season that intrigued me a bit was his BABIP. For his career, it's currently sitting at .268. He leans a bit towards the flyball-heavy side of things so I would probably expect his BABIP to be a bit lower than league average, but I'm not sure it's enough to justify a career .268 figure (and I'm too lazy to run an xBABIP calculation).

 

It's not much, but it's possible that could signal there may be a bit of offensive upside.

[davell]

excellent post.

 

the question that follows, then, is how much do we care about ian stewart at this point? how do we weight the value in seeing if ian can actually get something going vs getting more info on just how good valbuena's defense is (and whether he could maybe hit a bit more and really become something great)? is it wise to just let them split time? if so, how much rope do we give stewart since he's not just stealing time from another worthless non-entity?

I don't even think its a real question. Stewart is 3-32 right now in AAA. I don't think he'll be given a ticket to Chicago unless he earns it. And I'm honestly not sure he will. They may very well just pay him his 2 mill this year to sit in Iowa, stay up all hours of the night talking on Twitter about getting screwed over in Colorado. This is very possibly the last major league contract he signs. The FO may not think much of Vitters, but I bet they know he potentially holds more value than Stewart does. They ARE high, it appears anyway, on Junior Lake, and both these guys will be given chances ahead of Stewart, in my opinion. To me, if Stewart doesn't start hitting in the next week or two, he falls off the radar totally. The FO knows he's not a hard worker and the only reason he's here is because the lack of options they had this offseason. But with Valbuena playing well, he's not needed and they have no reason to reward a guy that doesn't figure into their longterm plans.

[Guest]

excellent post.

 

the question that follows, then, is how much do we care about ian stewart at this point? how do we weight the value in seeing if ian can actually get something going vs getting more info on just how good valbuena's defense is (and whether he could maybe hit a bit more and really become something great)? is it wise to just let them split time? if so, how much rope do we give stewart since he's not just stealing time from another worthless non-entity?

I don't even think its a real question. Stewart is 3-32 right now in AAA. I don't think he'll be given a ticket to Chicago unless he earns it. And I'm honestly not sure he will. They may very well just pay him his 2 mill this year to sit in Iowa, stay up all hours of the night talking on Twitter about getting screwed over in Colorado. This is very possibly the last major league contract he signs. The FO may not think much of Vitters, but I bet they know he potentially holds more value than Stewart does. They ARE high, it appears anyway, on Junior Lake, and both these guys will be given chances ahead of Stewart, in my opinion. To me, if Stewart doesn't start hitting in the next week or two, he falls off the radar totally. The FO knows he's not a hard worker and the only reason he's here is because the lack of options they had this offseason. But with Valbuena playing well, he's not needed and they have no reason to reward a guy that doesn't figure into their longterm plans.

He may only have until Vitters & Lake finish their rehabs.

[Little Slide Rooter]

If only he could look more like Brent Lilibridge, the Bleachers would be full of his jersey tees.

[Guest]

excellent post.

 

the question that follows, then, is how much do we care about ian stewart at this point? how do we weight the value in seeing if ian can actually get something going vs getting more info on just how good valbuena's defense is (and whether he could maybe hit a bit more and really become something great)? is it wise to just let them split time? if so, how much rope do we give stewart since he's not just stealing time from another worthless non-entity?

 

I was under the impression that Stewart was a FA after this year(making that a really easy decision), but BR says that he still has another arbitration year. Even with that though, the best we can hope for Stewart is that he plays really well now that he's healthy and we get 1 year of production from him next year before free agency. Given his struggles last year, his lack of hitting in Iowa, and the outright disdain the organization(especially Sveum) seems to have for him, I don't think Valbuena is at risk for losing much playing time if Stewart takes Ransom's roster spot.

[WrigleyField 22]

excellent post.

 

the question that follows, then, is how much do we care about ian stewart at this point? how do we weight the value in seeing if ian can actually get something going vs getting more info on just how good valbuena's defense is (and whether he could maybe hit a bit more and really become something great)? is it wise to just let them split time? if so, how much rope do we give stewart since he's not just stealing time from another worthless non-entity?

 

I was under the impression that Stewart was a FA after this year(making that a really easy decision), but BR says that he still has another arbitration year. Even with that though, the best we can hope for Stewart is that he plays really well now that he's healthy and we get 1 year of production from him next year before free agency. Given his struggles last year, his lack of hitting in Iowa, and the outright disdain the organization(especially Sveum) seems to have for him, I don't think Valbuena is at risk for losing much playing time if Stewart takes Ransom's roster spot.

Even if hes arb elligible, he'll cost a few million. Even if you can bring him in at a million, thats money better spent elsewhere (unless he dramatically proves otherwise in the remainder of the season).

 

 

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[sneakypower]

One thing I noticed before this season that intrigued me a bit was his BABIP. For his career, it's currently sitting at .268. He leans a bit towards the flyball-heavy side of things so I would probably expect his BABIP to be a bit lower than league average, but I'm not sure it's enough to justify a career .268 figure (and I'm too lazy to run an xBABIP calculation).

 

It's not much, but it's possible that could signal there may be a bit of offensive upside.

2013 xBABIP: .300 (.235 actual)

2012 xBABIP: .303 (.260)

career xBABIP: .301 (.267)

 

league average is roughly .150 for FBs, .240 for GBs, .730 for LDs

he's babip'd for his career .088 for FBs, .228 for GBs, .684 for LDs

 

i think we can reasonably surmise from this he probably hits the ball with less authority (or placement?) than an average player does, so a 30-40 gap in xbabip/babip might be normal for him

 

(if you're wondering what plugging his xbabip into his season line outputs, you get .288/.368/.518; oh, if only...)

[jersey cubs fan]

- Valbuena has played a bit of a platoon's workload, taking 18% of his PAs against LHP. Using Castro as a proxy(since he's played in every Cubs game during Valbuena's era), it would be ~24% as an every day player. The good news is that his performance against LHP hasn't been so bad that changing that proportion doesn't actually change his overall production. Using his wOBA splits as a Cub, changing the proportion to 24% lowers his total wOBA by .001.

 

I can't imagine it would make much of a difference but is there a difference in the quality of LHP he faces? Is he a guy Dale will let face the marginal LHers but absolutely sit against the really good ones?

[MWV]

Given his struggles last year, his lack of hitting in Iowa, and the outright disdain the organization(especially Sveum) seems to have for him, I don't think Valbuena is at risk for losing much playing time if Stewart takes Ransom's roster spot.

 

This is documented? I guess I haven't been paying much attention to the Ian Stewart saga. Can't blame them.

[Hawk4Hall]

Valbuena has been a nice story this season so far. I hope he can keep things up because I have no idea if Vitters will ever be the guy they drafted him to be.

[Guest]

- Valbuena has played a bit of a platoon's workload, taking 18% of his PAs against LHP. Using Castro as a proxy(since he's played in every Cubs game during Valbuena's era), it would be ~24% as an every day player. The good news is that his performance against LHP hasn't been so bad that changing that proportion doesn't actually change his overall production. Using his wOBA splits as a Cub, changing the proportion to 24% lowers his total wOBA by .001.

 

I can't imagine it would make much of a difference but is there a difference in the quality of LHP he faces? Is he a guy Dale will let face the marginal LHers but absolutely sit against the really good ones?

 

Possibly, I didn't really look into it with that level of granularity. It is a scant amount of bats against LHP as a Cub (~75 PA), but combined with his career numbers (184 PA across 6 seasons) that have him with a reverse platoon split, I think we can be reasonably comfortable with the assertion that his offensive numbers aren't propped up by a platoon's playing time.

[neely crenshaw]

Fangraphs itself says you should look at 3 years of stats to be accurate. Also fwar and rwar are not predictive stats they fluctuate pretty much every single year. Posting a 5.0 war last year(or half a year), does not make you any more likely to post it the next year.

Josh Hamilton= 2009 1.2, 2010(#1) 8.4, 2011 3.9, 2012 4.1

Jacob Ellsbury=2012 1.4, 2011(#1)9.1, 2010 -0.2, 2009 2.1

 

from fangraphs- misconceptions about war

2) Measuring the past, not “true talent level”. WAR totals measure past performance, and shouldn’t necessarily be used as predictive tools. If a player was worth +5 wins last year, it’s entirely possible that he’ll be worth +5 wins again next year…but then again, depending on the rest of that player’s history, he could also dramatically under- or over-perform that level. If you want to get an idea about a player’s true talent win level, look at their past three seasons of WAR totals and average them out, weighing the most recent seasons more heavily (5/3/1 weighting is standard).

 

He has provided us with something more than a cardboard cutout so far. As I said after the Marlins game, he also has 4 home runs in 60 at bats this year (on pace for roughly 30) but has only 17 in 1000 other major league at bats. He's also done most of this damage in the last 9 games (raised average from .188 to .258, hit 3 of 4 hrs), so is this the high point or where he will stay the rest of the year

I hope he can keep his average close to .250, and hopefully his ob% close to .325 but I just can't see his slugging staying over .700.

As long as he plays defense, and is not an automatic out, we can live with him this year but we might want a little more data before we end our search.

[Sammy Sofa]

Who exactly are you arguing against or trying to respond to in this thread?

[Tracer Bullet]

Fangraphs itself says you should look at 3 years of stats to be accurate. Also fwar and rwar are not predictive stats they fluctuate pretty much every single year. Posting a 5.0 war last year(or half a year), does not make you any more likely to post it the next year.

Josh Hamilton= 2009 1.2, 2010(#1) 8.4, 2011 3.9, 2012 4.1

Jacob Ellsbury=2012 1.4, 2011(#1)9.1, 2010 -0.2, 2009 2.1

 

from fangraphs- misconceptions about war

2) Measuring the past, not “true talent level”. WAR totals measure past performance, and shouldn’t necessarily be used as predictive tools. If a player was worth +5 wins last year, it’s entirely possible that he’ll be worth +5 wins again next year…but then again, depending on the rest of that player’s history, he could also dramatically under- or over-perform that level. If you want to get an idea about a player’s true talent win level, look at their past three seasons of WAR totals and average them out, weighing the most recent seasons more heavily (5/3/1 weighting is standard).

 

He has provided us with something more than a cardboard cutout so far. As I said after the Marlins game, he also has 4 home runs in 60 at bats this year (on pace for roughly 30) but has only 17 in 1000 other major league at bats. He's also done most of this damage in the last 9 games (raised average from .188 to .258, hit 3 of 4 hrs), so is this the high point or where he will stay the rest of the year

I hope he can keep his average close to .250, and hopefully his ob% close to .325 but I just can't see his slugging staying over .700.

As long as he plays defense, and is not an automatic out, we can live with him this year but we might want a little more data before we end our search.

 

You really seemed to miss the point of TT's post. Did you just see "sneaky solution" and respond without reading the post?

[neely crenshaw]

No I read it. I know what he says about having our guy...I'm just saying that in 2 weeks these stats could completely change.

He throws out a lot of data that "shows" how valuable he has been as a cubs starter. My post basically says fangraphs itself states that there isn't enough data to show what the true value of Valbuena has been. In this case you can't even apply it to what his past performance because of the small amount of data.

It looks good, but could be very flawed. That's all.

[jersey cubs fan]

No I read it. I know what he says about having our guy...I'm just saying that in 2 weeks these stats could completely change.

He throws out a lot of data that "shows" how valuable he has been as a cubs starter. My post basically says fangraphs itself states that there isn't enough data to show what the true value of Valbuena has been. In this case you can't even apply it to what his past performance because of the small amount of data.

It looks good, but could be very flawed. That's all.

 

Actually what your post says is that the data doesn't predict what he will be in the future.

[Sammy Sofa]

No I read it. I know what he says about having our guy...I'm just saying that in 2 weeks these stats could completely change.

He throws out a lot of data that "shows" how valuable he has been as a cubs starter. My post basically says fangraphs itself states that there isn't enough data to show what the true value of Valbuena has been. In this case you can't even apply it to what his past performance because of the small amount of data.

It looks good, but could be very flawed. That's all.

 

Actually, it doesn't seem like you really know what he posted at all.

[Guest]

375 PAs isn't enough to make sweeping predictions about Valbuena's future, but it's enough to know that 2 weeks is not going to drastically change the points made in the original post.

 

The implied point(that I probably should have made more clear), is that Valbuena's Cub tenure has been so good, that even after his probable regression he's a valuable piece and performing like a 2nd division starter. He's a prime aged infielder who does just enough with the bat for his position to let great defense drive his value, and he's under team control through 2016. That statement describes Valbuena as much as it does Barney, with Valbuena trading some defensive consistency/reputation for an ability to actually hit some XBH when he gets hot.

[imb]

How did we end up with Valbuena in the first place?