Moneyball and the Mets

Earlier this week ESPN’s Adam Rubin wondered, “Where are the Moneyball players with the Mets?” Rubin lists several players signed by the Mets since Sandy Alderson took over as General Manager that did and did not fit the mold of “productive free agents signed to small contracts.” It’s an interesting question, since “Moneyball” isn’t so much about Sabermetrics (as it’s generally made out to be) and more about getting the most bang for your buck. Sabermetrics were a tool used in the original Moneyball iteration because they were underutilized throughout the league, but most teams now use these same tools. The larger demand for high on-base, high slugging, and low strikeout players has risen, thus raising free agent prices (among other factors) and turning the old Moneyball philosophy on its head.

Are free agent signings truly the right aspect of Alderson’s organizational overhaul to focus on, though? Of course he and his front office look to get the most out of their investments in players. That’s an obvious goal for most teams. Sometimes it works out while other times it doesn’t, as Mr. Rubin’s examples make clear. Since any advantages in the free agent market for Moneyball players was negated when most teams bought into the philosophy, the next logical step would be to develop those players yourself. That is, develop an overarching organizational philosophy that constantly churns out these types of players. Talented young players that get on base, hit the ball with authority, and strike out at low rates while making the league minimum? It doesn’t get more Moneyball than that. In fact, Rubin also wonders about low-cost acquisitions via other routes until the team’s prospects are ready. That, of course, assumes that the Mets have been working towards the previously stated goal of developing these types of players themselves.

That being said, shouldn’t the question be: how successful have the Alderson Mets been so far in instilling this new organizational philosophy? It’s definitely a hard question to answer, especially when dealing with such a small time frame in both years Alderson has had influence on the organization and time in which to evaluate the actual results. We can examine the data that we do have, however, to identify any potentially emerging organizational trends.

We’ll examine on-base percentage (OBP), slugging percentage (SLG), and strikeout rate (K%) simply because they’re what’s generally cited as being important to the Moneyball philosophy. In fact, MetsBlog posted a follow-up to Rubin’s article stating that these three statistics have been trending away from the Moneyball philosophy in the last decade. Beyond that, they seem to fall in line with what the organization appears to be pushing as its hitting approach (working counts, taking bad pitches, and clobbering the ones you can while not striking out at an alarming rate*). We’ll look at all of these stats from 2008 to 2012, covering Alderson’s first two years and the three preceding years, for the major league team and all of the Mets full-season minor league teams. Below is a graph charting Mets affiliates’ OBP throughout the selected time period.

It seems as though Low A, High A, and the MLB team improved in OBP in 2011, the first season of the Alderson regime, while AAA and AA actually had a decreased OBP. The mixed results would be expected during the first year, and the fact that the highest levels decreased (except the MLB team) is not really surprising, at least if you consider that the higher levels include older players who may take longer to adopt a new hitting approach. In 2012 all of the minor league affiliates either increased their OBP or stayed steady. The MLB team nosedived, but that’s what not having many good players on a major league team gets you. Next up in the graph below is slugging percentage.

Here we actually see a similar pattern, with the highest levels decreasing in SLG% in 2011 and the lower levels increasing. Only AAA, High A, and Low A increased in 2012, however. What does this tell us? Well, nothing really, except that the upper levels of the Mets system really didn’t have (and still don’t) very many high-slugging prospects. AAA really had no place to go but up, here, after the massive drop off in 2011. Finally, the graph below depicts organizational strikeout percentage.

It’s kind of a mixed bag for 2011 and all but AA increased in K% in 2012. What do these increases mean? It’s been well documented that strikeout rates appear to be going up all over baseball, and it’s possible this has just trickled down onto the farm. It could also point back to the fact that the Mets don’t really have that many highly-talented position prospects at these levels of the system, at least in the years covered.

There are some observations that we could make about this limited data. We might expect to see most of the Alderson’s regime’s  influence at the lowest levels of the system since its first draft wasn’t until June 2011. That means that they were able to draft players that had the potential to fit in with their philosophy. This is kind of observable in the OBP and SLG% charts, where the lowest levels appear to have improved in 2011 and 2012. We also could assume, based on the performance of all of the levels, that the regime is finding it difficult to implement their philosophy at all levels. After all, the overhauling of an entire system is probably a very difficult thing to accomplish.

The most important observation, however, is  how little time Alderson’s regime has had influence on the organization. This data really doesn’t tell the whole story and it will be years before we can make any conclusions on whether or not Alderson was successful in his attempts to reshape the organizational culture. It will be very interesting to keep track of this, though, when some of the players this regime has developed make it to the major leagues while having grown through the system using a organizationally consistent hitting approach. There was clearly a problem with this on major league team last year, as it’s been stated that the team abandoned the approach in the second half, thus causing the swoon. Either that, or the 2012 Mets were at their heart just like the 2013 Mets: not a very good baseball team.

*Pitches-per-at-bat/game, swing percentages, etc. would have been excellent stats to use when looking at the implementation of the organizational approach. Unfortunately that data doesn’t appear to be available for all levels of the system.