Archive for November, 2010

Is Victor Martinez a Fit in Detroit?

Last week, on Boston radio station WEEI, Peter Gammons stopped by and made quite the bold statement:

I don’t expect Victor Martinez to come back, I think Detroit is going to give him four or five years. And I don’t think anybody else is going to give him four or five years to be a catcher.

Bringing in Martinez would certainly help the Tigers at catcher in 2011. In 2010 their catchers, Gerald Laird and Alex Avila, combined to produce a .277 wOBA, which ranked 25th in the majors. Martinez, despite a slow start and a mid-season thumb injury, produced a .364 wOBA, which ranked fourth among MLB catchers with at least 400 PA.

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Top 10 Prospects: The Chicago White Sox

The Chicago White Sox
2010 MLB Record: 88-74 (2nd in the AL Central)
Minor League Power Ranking: 30th (out of 30)
Click for: Last Year’s Top 10 Prospect List

The Prospects

1. Chris Sale, LHP
Acquired: 2010 1st round (Florida Gulf Coast U)
Pro Experience: 1 season
2010 MiLB Level: A+/AAA/MLB
Opening Day Age: 22

Estimated Peak WAR: 4.5
Likelihood to Reach Peak: 50%

Notes: Sale not only reached the Majors in his draft year – he dominated. The lefty pitched just 10.1 innings in the minors before posting a 2.74 FIP in 23.1 innings. He missed a lot of bats (12.34 K/9) while showing respectable control (3.86 BB/9). A starter in college, Sale pitched out of the bullpen in pro ball and saw his fastball velocity climb from the low 90’s and sit around 96 mph. He also displayed a sharp slider, at times, and a promising changeup (which he’ll need to combat right-handed batters). He’s expected to spend some time in the upper minors in 2011 while transitioning back to the starting rotation. If he can maintain the velocity bump as a starter (while also showing the +50% ground-ball rate), he could be a real steal as the 13th overall pick of the draft. With that said, he doesn’t have the smoothest throwing motion and there is a little bit of effort that could be placing added stress on his elbow. At times, Sale also drops his arm a bit more on the changeup.

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Olivo Acquisition Just Part of Jays’ Plan

Within the span of two hours on Thursday night, the Toronto Blue Jays acquired catcher Miguel Olivo from the Colorado Rockies for either cash or a PTBNL and then declined his $2.5 million option for 2011. That move cost the Jays $500,000, but it also allows them to offer arbitration to Olivo, who becomes a type B agent with his option declined. The Jays now have five different players who could bring back draft pick compensation, with Olivo joining Jason Frasor, Scott Downs (both Type A), Kevin Gregg, and John Buck.

If the Jays offer arbitration and everybody declines – obviously the best case scenario – the Jays will come out of this with at least 5 supplemental draft pick and two second round picks. If Frasor and Downs were to go to a team with an unprotected pick – this year, the 19th pick, held by the Detroit Tigers, is the first unprotected pick – the Jays could pick up two more first rounders. In this ideal situation, the Jays could pick up an utterly massive haul, with eight picks in the top 50 of the draft. Said haul becomes even more impressive when we consider that the upcoming draft in 2011 is considered to be one of the deeper drafts of recent times, and far deeper than the 2010 draft.

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Chicago White Sox Must-Watch Prospects

Today begins the offseason prospect coverage at FanGraphs. This winter, we decided to take a two-pronged approach to the coverage, since we have two writers covering this stuff. You’ll be happy to know we will again have Marc Hulet rank the top 10 prospects for all 30 organizations (this time presenting them in power ranking format). The rankings are Marc’s own, because he’s the only one of the two brave enough to tackle them. Bryan Smith will flank the rankings with a pair of articles on each team: one a micro view at the top prospects (for the fan whose minor league interest is only centered on the top couple players) and a macro view on the system (for the farm-obsessives). Marc or Bryan will sporadically have chats to discuss recently written-about organizations. The order will not be revealed in advance.

Chicago White Sox
Affiliates
: Charlotte (Triple-A), Birmingham (Double-A), Winston-Salem (High-A), Kannapolis (Low-A), Bristol (Appy) and Great Falls (Pioneer).

The White Sox have a hole at third base, and a prospect is likely to fill the position. If Paul Konerko or A.J. Pierzynski were to bolt the South Side, the team hase enough youth to compete for the jobs. And when Bobby Jenks and Matt Thornton were hurt in September, a guy that still qualifies for prospect status dominated and racked up four saves. For the casual follower of the White Sox farm system, things are looking pretty healthy in the player development department.

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When The 40-Man Roster Is Short

After a flurry of roster moves, the Mariners are playing the role of a clearinghouse. Larry Stone noted that the Mariners now only have 29 players on their 40-man roster. Not all teams carry a full 40-man roster, but having nearly a dozen open spots is certainly a rarity and an extreme. The Mariners are going to fill up their roster before springtime, but if they did not, could they benefit from leaving a few slots open throughout the season?

There are various reasons why a team places a player on their 40-man roster. The most obvious (and common) case is major league contributors. At least 25 men on the roster figure to play with the club daily and that number becomes ambiguous on a team-by-team basis depending on health, contracts, and talent. Not every player on the 40-man roster, of course, is classified as a major league ready contributor. Some are prospects who the team wants to protect from Rule 5 eligibility or view as near-ready contributors and the rest are usually organizational soldiers rewarded with a raise in pay and prestige.

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Leaderboard Upgrades!

The leaderboards and team pages now have a bunch of new features!

– There’s a new Dashboard tab which mimics the stats shown the player dashboard area.

– wRC+, tERA, FSR, and TZL (Total Zone w/ Location Data) have been added.

– The Fans Scouting Report has been given its own section.

– WAR data for both batters and pitchers can now be filtered on a monthly basis. This is done by pro-rating UZR and Positional adjustments based on playing time.

– You can now go back as far as 1871 in both the leaderboards and team sections.

Here are some additional notes:

– All positional filtering is done on a qualified player basis. If a player played in 25% or more of his games at a particular position than he’s qualified.

– Reliever/Starter filtering pre-1974 right now will filter only on pure starters/relievers and any dual-role pitchers will be left out. This will be fixed in a future update.

If you notice any problems or spot any bugs, please let us know!


Padres Decline Chris Young’s Option

Jim Jones released an album in 2006 named Product of My Environment. The most popular song off POME goes by the name “We Fly High”. The album and song name fit Chris Young’s career well. The Princeton attendee always stuck out in the Padres’ rotation – not because his ears sit just below the heavens either – but because he is the archetypal PETCO-made man; with most of his batted balls taking flight, he takes advantage of physics and the spacious yard preventing home runs.

If Young is truly a PETCO production then the Padres declining his 2011 option is going to become the first paragraph in his career’s final chapter. That is if injuries don’t take him out of the league first. Injuries did a great job taking Young out of the 2008-2010 seasons. Assuming Young does stay moderately healthy, what does he offer to a team?

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A Tale of Two Sluggers

Over the last two days, two American League teams have had to make decisions about their aging yet productive designated hitters. The Rangers held a $9 million option on Vladimir Guerrero, while the Red Sox had a $12.5 million option on David Ortiz. Boston decided to pay Ortiz, while the Rangers chose to let Guerrero become a free agent. Why the different decisions?

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Two More Wild Card Teams? Nip That Idea in the Bud.

The baseball season is too long. Emotionally, I wish the season were year-round, but intellectually, I have a real problem with major leaguers continuing to play in November. (That’s partly because I’m a purist, and partly because, as I wrote on my old blog, I’d rather that November be reserved for the occasional World Baseball Classic.) So I’m completely unsympathetic to Bud Selig’s suggestion that baseball add two additional wild card teams in 2012.

Under this proposal, each league would have three divisional champs and two wild cards; the two wild card teams would play each other in a one-game playoff or best-of-three series, for the right to advance further in the postseason. The other six playoff teams would presumably simply take that half-week off, making the playoffs even longer, and reversing baseball’s previous efforts to ensure that the 2011 playoffs would not spill over into November.

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Red Sox Exercise David Ortiz’s 2011 Option

In April it seemed like a long shot — perhaps an impossibility. A month later it was a near certainty. For nearly the entire season we’ve known that the Red Sox would exercise David Ortiz’s $12.5 million option for 2011. Today they did. Ortiz might not be happy about it, since he expressed his discontent with the option on multiple occasions. But for the Red Sox it was clearly the smart move.

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