Brett Gardner: 2010′s Nyjer Morgan?
(…or maybe Michael Bourn, but let’s not complicate things.)
I remember the first time I seriously paid attention to Nyjer Morgan. I was doing a batting order post on the Pirates. Given the subject matter, I didn’t really deal with defense, but I did notice his (2009) Oliver projection for .308 wOBA — for a left fielder? Ugh. Morgan was soon traded to the Nationals, installed in center field, and not only continued to be a monster defender, but was above average offensively, as well, at +5.2 batting runs, .340 wOBA (.307/.369/.388). Altogether, he was worth almost five wins above replacement… in only 120 games.
That’s a very impressive season from a guy who looked like another “Juan Pierre.” Of course, back in the day, Pierre was a pretty good player, too. 2009 Nyjer Morgan and 2003-04 Juan Pierre both come from the larger class of players that were undervalued prior to the widespread public availability of fielding metrics like Ultimate Zone Rating. No one would have pegged Morgan for a near-five win season going into 2009. But, without saying it is my prediction or projection, I do think that one player who has it within his (non-totally delusional) grasp to have a Nyjer-esque 2010: Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner.
Gardner is currently slated to play left rather than center due to the presence of Curtis Granderson in New York, but, like Dave, I don’t think it makes that big of a difference. In any case, my crude fielding projections for outfielders are expressed in “position neutral” form — so when I say that a player is a +5 outfielder, we apply the positional adjustments (+2.5 for CF, -7.5 for the corners) so say the player would be about +2 CF, +12 on the corners over a full season.
Prior to 2009, I would have projected Morgan as a +7 outfielder, although that would have had a low reliability score because of his relatively low amount of defensive games pre-2009. Gardner so far has more playing time in the outfield than Morgan did pre-2009, and I have him at about +10. Once we take their relative ages into account, Gardner 2010 has more defensive “upside” than Morgan 2009 (the Fans Scouting Report also currently ranks Gardner higher).
The offensive comparison is more interesting. Despite Morgan’s good 2009, CHONE still sees him as a below average hitter (.321 wOBA). Gardner’s CHONE projection is surprisingly good — .335 wOBA. Part of this is Gardner’s relative youth, of course, but their peripherals reveal generally superior skills on Gardner’s part. For example, Gardner has the higher walk rate. This is likely a reflection of Gardner’s superior plate approach. While Morgan swings at bad pitches slightly more often than average, Gardner has been better than average, while still having a slightly higher overall contact rate than Morgan.
While Morgan’s good 2009 relies, as you’d expect, on a high BABIP (.355), Gardner has never really been a high BABIP guy (only .311 during his .337 wOBA 2009). Looking at their batted ball profiles, Morgan again looks like your typical speed merchant, hitting balls on the ground more than 50% of the time, whereas Gardner hits more flyballs. Although, unlike for pitchers, BABIP does reflect a skill for hitters, it varies quite a bit year-to-year, so is regressed fairly heavily. Having said that, given his speed, it might behoove Gardner to hit more balls on the ground (although he is probably best off ignoring me and doing what works for him). The point is that Gardner hasn’t been getting “lucky” with balls in play.
Originally, I wanted to post on just how badly Gardner need to hit to deserve benching in favor of a Randy Winn/Marcus Thames platoon. Given Winn’s offensive decline, Thames non-awesome bat and terrible fielding, and Gardner’s great defense (not to mention his acceptable bat and, contrary to what some might think, non-horrible platoon splits), that seemed pointless. Assuming average offense from Gardner, over ~150 games, he looks like a 2.5-3.0 WAR player in 2009. You can see why the Yanks felt comfortable not going nuts for Johnny Damon, who probably isn’t any better than that.
But Morgan (whom, incidentally, I also see as about 2.5-3 WAR in 2010) is still the more interesting comparison. I wouldn’t have had him as even a 2.5 WAR player before last season, and I doubt many would have. Yet he put up a 4.9 WAR once he got to show what he could do in the field. Should we expect ~5 WAR from Brett Gardner in 2010? No — that would be insane. But if Nyjer Morgan could do it in 2009, Gardner can in 2010. I suppose the Yankees would even settle for Michael Bourn’s “mere” four win 2009.
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I’ve been talking about this exact comparison for what seems like forever (this offseason) at RiverAveBlues.
I’ve been called pretty much everything negative under the sun for it with pretty much no one backing me up.
But I’m glad I’m not alone in thinking it is possible for Gritner to be the next Nyjer Morgan, who I’d take in a second to roam CF in YSIII.
Why not platoon Gardner with Granderson? Yes, they’re both lefties, but Gardner is a much, much better hitter against lefties than Granderson is.
You could, I suppose, play Granderson and Gardner against RHP, but sit Granderson and play Gardner in CF and Winn/Thames in LF against LHP.
Only, however, if you are convinced Granderson really is THAT BAD against LHP. I’m not convinced yet, and I don’t think the Yankees are either. Winn/Thames kinda suck.
I’m interested to see what Gardner can do over a full season. I love his defense & speed, I like his approach at the plate, but I hate his swing.
Why relegate a projected above-average regular to a platoon spot against southpaw pitchers? Why give more plate appearances to Randy Winn, a lesser player?
Dude, I practically live at RAB. You’re full of it. I’ve never even heard of you.
I’ve been around RAB a lot and I’ve never seen the Morgan comparison made. I’ve seen people argue Gardner is a good player, sure.
I, too, visit RAB quite frequently and a quick search of the website DOES show this discussion, albeit in the comments section, about such a comparison:
http://riveraveblues.com/2009/12/left-field-closing-arguments-reed-johnson-21818/
I was referring more to the “pretty much everything negative under the sun for it with pretty much no one backing me up” bullshit.
ah. then no, that’s not true at all. there’s no negative name calling there at all.
I would love to see the Yankees just play Gardner in CF every day and see what happens. A 3 WAR from Gardner would be great, and I agree that it is somewhat realistic.
Does the 2.5-3-WAR projection for Gardner include his projected baserunning production?
Just the steals. He is very good at adbancing on hits, but the variation between players isn’t that great… You could give him another couple runs for that, I suppose. The Yankees have so many power hitters from first to third on a single isn’t something that’s going to be necessary too often, unless (assuming Gardner’s hitting ninth, where he should) they really hit Jeter and Johnson 1-2 all the time, which they shouldn’t, but that’s another story.
Out of curiosity, why not? Because the Book-optimal lineup has A-Rod hitting second as the Yanks best hitter? While I can appreciate the logic The Book uses (I own it and love it), I think we realistically know that when Girardi fills out the lineup card, Teix/A-Rod are going 3/4, and everything else works around that. Given that condition, there’s nothing wrong with going Jeter/OBP Jesus at the top of the order.
Yeah, basically A-Rod and Teixeira should be hitting 2 and 4 in some combination, with Swisher hittng #3 (good isolated power). Johnson should lead off to avoid DPs (almost as bad as Jeter recently, at least I think so, no time to look). All those guys are better hitters than Jeter, and Jeter’s basestealing ability is wasted in front of A-Rod, Teixeira, and Swisher. Against RHP, at least, hit Granderson fifth – good power. hit Jeter #6, Granderson’s speed comes in handy in front of Jeter’s numous singles and doubles… and so on.
Not that it makes much of a difference, but that’s what I’d do.
He actually doesn’t hit into as many as Jeter does, not this year and certainly not at the height of Cap’n Jetes’ 6-4-3 days. I didn’t control that for PA, but the difference was very significant. In the batted-ball data era, Johnson’s hit a ground ball in a little over 28% of his PA. Jeter ends more than 41% in that fashion. So, while his SB ability isn’t *as* important in front of the modern-day Murderer’s Row, I do think there are reasons to keep him atop the order.
I just looked again — you’re right, Johnson is about 13% per opp rcently, Jeter at about 18% (average is about 115). Still, that’s not huge different in opps over the season. I’d rather give the superior hitter (especially against RHP) more PAs while leveraging Jeter’s speed in front of Cano, et. al. down below… But that’s just a guess, we’d need some sort of good Markov model that included baserunning/GiDPS and stuff to sort it all out.
The point is that Gardner hasn’t been getting “lucky” with balls in play.
If anything, Gardner may have been a bit *unlucky* on BIP. Last year, his xBABIP was .320, and for his career it’s .332 (against an actual .306). Obviously xBABIP is just as subject to SSS fluctuations as anything else, but it’s based on stats that, IIRC, Pizza Cutter said stabilize fairly quickly.
Remember, Morgan’s 2009 batting is ONLY for 120 games, meaning it can be SSS and thus not representative of his true talent.
For 2010, Oliver says Morgan, playing in Nats Park, is expected to see a 292/346/372 line, good for a 320 wOBA, 5.2 runs above replacement for CF. Add in a projected 5.3 SB runs and 12.7 fielding runs, for a +2.8 WAR.
Gardner for the Yankess, 254/340/345, 310 wOBA, 5.7 batting runs, 6.2 SB runs, 3.3 fielding runs (only ‘Gd’ to Morgan’s ‘Vg’ to ‘Ex’) for a total +2.0 WAR.
Not a lot of difference in the batter’s box, Gardner is a run or so better on SB but not as good on defense.
Hey Brian, thanks for the comments. I can’t wait to see the all the Oliver projections.
Just for the record, I wasn’t basing the projections just on 2010 stats, I didn’t really get into a 2010 projection for Morgan. I was using CHONE’s offensive projections, and my own regressed and adjusted defensive projections using UZR. So I wasn’t taking 2009 as true talent for either player. wOBA at FanGraphs includes SB/CS.
CHONE’s own context-neutral linear weights (which doesn’t include SB/CS, I don’t think) has Morgan at -9/150, and Gardner at +1/150. My own positiona-neautral defensive projections for Morgan and Gardner are Morgan +17/162 (so about +13/150 in CF) , Gardner +10/162 (about +6 or +7/150 CF). Per 150 games (without SB/CS), then, that would be about 2.6 WAR for Morgan have Morgan at 2.6 WAR, and Gardner at about 2.9 WAR. I doubt either will play 150 games, though.
Anyway, different projections use different methods, and maybe CHONE is too optimstic, or my defensive projections, or whatever. Just wanted to make sure you knew I was using projections and thus include regression, etc.
Gassko was riding me all winter to get everything done, but there is so much new stuff (pitching, defense, etc). Now it’s in the hands of the web developers at THT, working on the presentation.
I didn’t really think you were using single season, but the way the opening paragraph was phrased
“I did notice his (2009) Oliver projection for .308 wOBA — for a left fielder? [for the Nationals] was above average offensively, .340 wOBA (.307/.369/.388). ”
could lead the reader to believe I had rendered a ‘bad’ projection. He overperformed expectations. It’s about 50/50 that a player keeps his one season gain, opposed to going back to near his previous level.
I like the odds that he breaks 2.8 WAR. I think it will depend more on playing time then anything else. If Girardi leans on too much from winn, then sadly this speedster will spend most of that time suffering. I think winn is being undervalued here though, his last season was almost shwisherean. That move fits into Cashman’s style of picking up that 4th outfielder who’s been bitten by the bad luck bug.
Just a note: RF and LF corner defense is not anywhere near the same these days. Conservatively it’s something like LF -9, CF +3, RF -3, with LF and RF arguably going lower but keeping a 6 R difference.
I’ve said it before, but in 2010, the Yanks LF will (significantly) out-WAR Johnny Damon. I’m going to say 4.5 for Yanks and 2.8 for Damon.
That’s slightly unfair, because Damon’s not going to play every day, meaning that some of the bench-WAR should be added to Damon’s total, too.
I made a Brett Butler lite comparison with gardner last year on minorleagueball. He isn’t near that good a batter as folks pointed out, but Total Zone doesn’t make much of Butler’s fielding. And some scoffed at the idea he might start for the Yankees in 2010. Aside from all that, Butler is a pretty good player to have around and nice to see him recognized.
Hey Matt, good article. I have one nitpick, not relating to the actual argument!
When you say he was worth 5 wins above replacement, that’s only true if he was actually a +27 defender in the outfield last year. Given that A) we know there is going to be a decent amount of measurement error in UZR, B) basically nobody is a +27 defender in the outfield in 120 games, and C) Total Zone has him at +9, I would say it’s highly unlikely he actually played that good last year.
I can’t prove this, but it does seem that UZR tends to overvalue (or systematically churn out higher values for) these toolsy, defense first outfielders.
I’m willing to buy the argument that they have been undervalued in the past, but it seems like Fangraphs WAR (using UZR) has been overvaluing them, at least compared to other defensive metrics.
Perhaps this is a chance to refine the system?
Maybe. Or maybe defense first outfielders are actually really good defensively, lol.
As if we don’t know about his group of ladies on the sly
I think he was involved in a crazy shooting incident
Like we don’t know about his group of ladies on the side
Oh Mr. Butler, what a guy
“Should we expect ~5 WAR from Brett Gardner in 2010? No — that would be insane”
Apparently, it wasn’t as insane as you predicted.
No kidding. I’m giddy… although I missed on enough stuff that I can’t be too self-congratulatory.