Nick Swisher: Counterpoint

AK's dislike of Nick Swisher is well-known and well-documented. He even admits that its largely baseless. But in this piece, he makes some claims about Nick Swisher that I would like a brief moment to refute.

AK's piece essentially claims the following:

(1) Swisher is a tool
(2) Swisher talks like an idiot
(3) Swisher is bad at baseball (as evidenced by a low batting average and propensity to strike out).

As I've argued before, I think Nick Swisher is a decent ball player. I'll start with some value metrics, courtesy of Fangraphs.

Since his full-season debut in 2005, Swisher has accrued 13.5 Wins Above Replacement, a performance worth approximately $54.4M (using Fangraph's Win-to-Dollar conversion ratios). Here is the year-by-year breakdown, with value in parentheses.

2005 - 2.2 ($7.5M)
2006 - 3.1 ($11.6M)
2007 - 3.6 ($14.7M)
2008 - 1.0 ($4.6M)
2009 - 3.5 ($15.9M)



Swisher is currently signed to a 5 year, $26.75M contract, structured as follows:

2007 - $0.7M
2008 - $3.5M
2009 - $5.3M
2010 - $6.75M
2011 - $9M

As you can see, Swisher has clearly been worth more than the value of his contract so far. From 2007 to 2009, his salary has totaled $9.5M, and Fangraphs estimates that the value of his performance has been worth $35.92M. Not too shabby.

This brings me to my central point, which is that Swisher is a very valuable player despite his low batting average and propensity to strike out.

In 2009, Swisher's tripleslash was .249/.371/.498, an OPS of .869, which is slightly below Andre Ethier and Derek Jeter, and slightly higher than Michael Cuddyer, Victor Martinez and Nelson Cruz. He also hit 29 home runs and knocked in 84 RBI. When you combine this with a UZR that has typically ranged from 3.0 to -2.1, you have yourself a fairly valuable right fielder, and a tremendous #8 hitter on the Yankees.

I'm not saying that Swisher will ever be in the Hall of Fame, or that he should ever be considered as such. But his low batting average masks the fact that he gets on-base at a fantastic clip and hits for power.

Both CHONE and Bill James project that Swisher's 2010 performance will mirror his 2009 performance:

James - 26 HR, 85 RBI, .247/.365/.467 (.832 OPS)
CHONE - 27 HR, 80 RBI, .248/.367/.467 (.834 OPS)

I'll take that all day, thank you. Swisher is an undervalued, and underappreciated player. Williams' failure to comprehend BABIP, and thus failure to understand that Swisher was unlucky and due for a bounceback in 2009, was a boon for the Yankees. I want to thank him one more time for trading him to us. How's Wilson Betemit working out for you?

Oh yeah.

Swisher FTW.

Douchebag of the Day: Nick Swisher

Is there a bigger Tool in Major-League Baseball? Just look at this: here, here, and here. The guy can't seem to decide if he wants to look like the monkey-men from the Geico commercials, A.J. Pierzynski, or a 15-year-old kid.

Oh, and have you ever heard this guy speak? I'll save you the trouble, here's a typical interview with Swisher: "Hey everyone, come see how good I look, come see how awesome I am." To display his brain-power, Swished dropped this gem on an unsuspecting reporter back in his days with Oakland. He said, "Everyone knows an ant, can't, move a rubber tree plant." Don't think about that quote, move on to the next sentence because if you think about it, your brain might literally explode.

Like most of the players I hate, my hatred of Swisher is essentially baseless. A big part of it lies in the fact that he spent a year with the White Sox and I had to listen to his stupid, narcissistic pre-game interviews. Another part of it is that he pretends that he's good at baseball. Look at his career hitting line:

.245 Batting Average
639 Hits
665 Strikeouts (yes, he has struck out more times than he's gotten a hit)
133HRs
437 Rs
406 RBIs
7SBs out of 15 attempts
.818 OPS
Career Postseason Batting Average of .155 in 71 ABs.

**Quick sidenote: Tony Gwynn had 3 times as many plate appearances in his career as Swisher has so far, and he only struck out a total of 439 times.

Basically, Swisher is a mediocre version of Adam Dunn, a guy who has some pop in his bat and that's about it. Swisher is a decent fielder with a career .982 fielding percentage, but seriously, the .245 career average is brutal. How do you stay in the lineup when you get a hit less than 25% of the time and strikeout as much as he has?? I would understand his "look at me" personality if he was a good player, but in reality, he's not. He's had his moments of greatest, most of them coming this past year with the Yankees, but I just don't like the guy.

Stay tuned for more articles in the future. Once (sic) recovers from his championship bender, he's promised a bevy of hard-hitting content.

In Defense of Swish

This past winter, Brian Cashman traded Wilson Betemit and assorted castoffs to the White Sox for Nick Swisher and his 22.5M/3 yr contract. Given the fact that the Yankees had no first baseman to speak of at the time, and that Wilson Betemit was obtained from the Dodgers in exchange for Scott Proctor's worn-out elbow, Yankees fans met this news with much rejoicing. But why? After all, this was Swisher's 2008 offensive line:

.219/.332/.410 (AVG/OBP/SLG, aka Tripleslash)
24 HR, 69 RBI over 496 ABs.

That AVG and OBP aren't anything to get too pumped up about. Once the Yankees signed Mark Teixeira, it became evident that the OF was crowded, and that there would be a position battle in RF between Swish and Xavier Nady. Some thought Nady should have the spot automatically, given his 2008 line:

.305/.357/.510
25 HR, 97 RBI over 555 ABs.

So, which one is better? And is AK47 right when he says "God save the Yankees with Nick Swisher is the starting RF?" I respectfully submit that he is mistaken, and that Nick Swisher is the better player in virtually every respect.

Firstly, I think its easy to dismiss the RBI totals. For one, they are largely a function of lineup placement and OBP skills of other batters. Nick Swisher batted leadoff for the White Sox many times in 08, and Nady hit in the middle of the order for both the Yankees and the Pirates. Switch it up, and give Swisher 50 more ABs like Nady, and I think the RBI totals equalize. Plus, RBI isn't exactly a skill stat, so its really not all that important, truth be told.

Secondly, it is easy to see that Nady had a career year in 2008, out of line with past performance, and Swisher significantly underperformed his past performance.

2007:
Swisher - .262/.381/.485; 22 HR, 78 RBIs over 539 ABs
Nady - .278/.330/.476; 20 HR, 70 RBIs over 431 ABs

2006:
Swisher - .254/.372/.493; 35 HR, 95 RBIs over 556 ABs
Nady - .280/.337/.453; 17 HR, 63 RBIs over 468 ABs

Now for their 162 game average, courtesy of Baseball-Reference:
Swisher - .246/.356/.460; 28 HR, 88 RBI
Nady - .280/.335/.458; 21 HR, 78 RBI

Now for their OPS+, which neutralizes park factor and league strength (defined here at The Hardball Times):
Swisher - 114
Nady - 108

So, what we are seeing is that Nady's 2008 performance is largely out of line with past performance (his OPS+ was 128 in 08, had never topped 107 in any prior year). On the whole, Nick Swisher gets on base a fair bit more than Nady and their SLG is about equal. Of course, Nady has a remarkable platoon split, meaning he hits lefties way better than righties, whereas Swisher is a switch-hitter and hits both righties and lefties fairly equally (this splits are actually bizarre; he slugs better against righties, but gets on base better against lefties).

Now to the defense. According to defensive guru John Dewan, defense is worth approximately half as much as offense. He labelled this the most significant discovery of his career. We will use the Fielding Bible's Plus/Minus system and look at their defensive stats in RF.

Swisher -
2008: +1
2007: +6

Nady -
2008: -4
2007: -2

Not extreme differences, but its pretty clear Swisher is the better defensive player.

The Yankees gave Nady the RF job out of Spring Training, but I think it should have gone to Swisher. He is better offensively and defensively, and is more versatile. He's also due for a bounceback year in a big way, but that's another post.

Nady is better than just a bench player, but on this Yankees team I would like to see Swisher starting every day, with Nady filling in late in games and starting against strong left-handed pitchers. Thanks to Nady's unfortunate injury, the Yankees may have no choice.

X-Man

Reports out of Tampa last night indicated that Xavier Nady experienced a "sharp pain" in his right elbow when throwing in the ball after Carlos Pena's RBI single in the seventh inning. Peter Abraham notes that Nady had Tommy John surgery in 2001.

Not so bold prediction: Nady is out for quite some time. This further cements Nick Swisher as a permanent fixture in the Yankees lineup, as he will no doubt take over RF duties.