The rumors began a week and a half ago, and today they came to fruition. The Cubs have signed closer Carlos Marmol to a three-year extension worth $20 million. An agreement of some sort was expected after the two sides found their arbitration submissions $1.5 million apart. That the deal will last three years, buying out Marmol’s first year of free agency, represents the interesting part.
I’m very pleased to announce that FanGraphs has partnered with ottoneu, Inc. to bring you an auction-based, dynasty league, fantasy game.
Our fantasy game is not your standard customizable commissioner service, but is a very specific game, where you manage a roster of 40 Major and Minor League players with a budget of $400 against 11 other teams. There are currently three different scoring options: 4×4, 5×5, and points-based. You can read more about the specific rules here.
One of the exciting things about bringing a fantasy game to FanGraphs is integration. Have you ever wanted to find free agents in your league using the FanGraphs leaderboards? Now you can.
Information about your fantasy leagues will be available in the FanGraphs player cards and elsewhere on the site, making your fantasy baseball research easier and more in depth than ever.
This season, up until March 1st, each team is discounted to $9.99 from the regular price of $19.99. The first 100 people to sign up will get one free team for the 2011 season, with their money refunded to them in 48 hours.
Signups are available now. Just click here and create/join a league.
We’re very excited about this fantasy game and think that once you start playing, you’ll understand why. Niv Shah, the creator of the game, will be sharing his experiences with the game format later today.
Ben Nicholson-Smith is a staff writer for MLBTradeRumors.com. This piece is a continuing series of guest posts he’s written for the site. You can check out the rest of his work over at MLBTR on a regular basis.
Andrew Friedman knows all about the market for relief pitchers. Rafael Soriano, Grant Balfour, Randy Choate and just about every other one of Tampa’s late-inning options recently left via free agency, so the Rays executive VP of baseball operations spent much of the winter restocking his bullpen. And to hear Friedman tell it, the market for relievers went “out of control” this offseason. The numbers back it up. Eight relievers signed multiyear deals last winter. More than twice as many relievers – 17 – have already signed multiyear deals this winter.
Play the player-profile game every day this week at 11:30am ET. Each day, we’re giving away a free copy of the 2011 Second Opinion to the first reader who guesses correctly the identity of that day’s mystery player. (Limit one copy per customer).
After last year’s success with it, FanGraphs will once again be offering to the public its fantasy companion, The Second Opinion. Thanks to the vision of Marc Hulet, along with the hard work of many of FanGraphs’ own contributors, this year’s edition promises to build upon last season’s rookie effort, while still maintaining the white-hot analysis that is FanGraphs’ trademark.
Man-in-Charge David Appelman will have more details on the guide — set to be released this week — very shortly. In the meantime, however, it makes sense to offer some previews of what readers can expect from this year’s Second Opinion. These peeks promise to be especially sneaky as they’ll come in the form of the player-profile game I intoduced in these pages last offseason.
The game is easy: one person (me, in this case) offers the text of single player profile, being careful to omit any proper names that might reveal the identity of the player in question. The other person (you, the reader) attempts to identify the player using only the details provided in the profile.
For the first reader who guesses correctly (in the comments section below), we offer you — if you can even believe it — a free copy of this year’s Second Opinion. That’s probably, like, a $1000 value!
Today’s entry comes to us courtesy of David Golebiewski. (Note: Dave Cameron says it’s too easy, so just know that it’ll be especially embarrassing if you’re unable to get it.)
Who is it?
As a late-20s player who blasted big-league pitching in 2009 after half a decade of undistinguished Triple-A work, [BLANK’S] 2010 regression was more predictable than the plot of a Two and a Half Men episode. Splitting his season between first base and right field, [BLANK] didn’t really stand out as a power hitter (.167 ISO) and his walk rate fell from 11.2% in 2009 to 8.1%. He was a little unlucky, with a .274 BABIP, so he’s likely to hit closer to .270 than .250 moving forward. But even so, there’s not much reason to recommend him — [BLANK’S] secondary skills aren’t great for a guy playing positions where offensive excellence is expected. Also, [BLANK’S TEAM] might look for a platoon partner for [BLANK] at first base, as the lefty batter has a .210/.249/.381 line versus same-handed pitching in 350 PA and a .282/.359/.495 slash in 746 PA against right-handers. That [BLANK] figures to get most starts at first base again in 2011 says more about [BLANK’S TEAMMATE’S] disastrous season than anything else.
With Spring Training officially open, we can just about close the book on the 2010-2011 off-season. Sure, there are still guys like Kevin Millwood, Nick Johnson, and Jeremy Bonderman on the market, but most free agents have found homes and the trading season has just about passed. So, before we turn our attention forward to the thrill of weigh-ins and stretching, let’s take a look back and hand out some hardware for the best moves of the winter – we’ll deal with the worst deals in a few hours.
In order to evaluate the moves, I’ve attempted to look at the potential impact each transaction could make on their organization. I’m a big fan of the Jeff Francis signing for the Royals, but he’s unlikely to significantly alter the AL Central race this year, and as a guy who signed a one year deal, his impact on future seasons won’t be determined until next off-season. Priority was given to moves that impact a pennant race or a team’s future chances of contending, or at least had a significant impact on the market.
Without further ado, let’s go to the awards.
Last time, we looked at the top projected National League players with zero-to-three years of service time. Today, the American League.
Over the last nine baseball seasons, at least one thing has been constant: the domination of Ron Gardenhire’s Minnesota Twins by the New York Yankees. Between the regular season and the postseason, the Twins have lost a staggering 57 of their last 75 contests against the New York, including a sweep in last season’s ALDS that just seemed all too familiar. These struggles have created a narrative: the little-guy Twins, despite all their regular season success, crumble under the pressure of the big-city Yankees. Is this just the magnification of a small 75-game sample, or is there something substantive in the Twins 18-57 record against the Yankees under Gardenhire?
Unlike last offseason, when they made several high-profiled transactions, the Seattle Mariners have stayed on the sidelines for the most part this winter. The signing of Manny Delcarmen does nothing to change that fact since it reads like a typical non-roster invite. While Delcarmen to the M’s is not a noteworthy move, the reported opportunities he passed to join Seattle are worth mentioning.
The Colorado Rockies acquired Delcarmen from the Boston Red Sox last year, but they did not tender him an offer for arbitration this offseason. As a free agent, several teams displayed varying interest on the right-hander. According to reports, Delcarmen’s final choice came down to the Tampa Bay Rays and the Seattle Mariners. Both teams have slots in the bullpen, but he ultimately chose Seattle.
Perhaps it was just too soon for the Massachusetts native join a rival club or perhaps Delcarmen wisely picked a softer landing in hopes of rebuilding his value. In choosing Seattle, Delcarmen gets the added benefit of pitching in spacious Safeco Field. While Tropicana Field is also pitcher friendly, the lineups in the American League East are not. For a relief pitcher looking to re-establish himself as key bullpen cog the Safeco/AL West option is a decent way to go.
On the other hand, Seattle and Tampa Bay were not Delcarmen’s only options. According to WEEI.com, he left a major league offer from one National League club sitting on the table. In perhaps the most interesting twist Delcarmen also had the opportunity to become a starting pitcher for a “mystery team” in the NL.
Despite all of 298 of his major league appearances coming in relief, the 28-year-old began his professional career as a member of the rotation. He made 53 starts from 2001-2004, spanning his time from rookie ball up to the Advanced-A level. From Double-A and above, he has been exclusively used in relief. Although he hasn’t started a game with merit – started one game in 2010 lasting one inning – in six years, he does have some qualities that are useful as a starter.
While his role as a reliever doesn’t command an expanded repertoire of pitches, he throws three offerings with regularity. In addition to his fastball, he throws a curveball and changeup as secondary offerings. According to pitch values, all three held positive values at one time or another during his career. In terms of swing and miss ability, his curveball and changeup especially have racked up a quite a few whiffs.
In addition to options in pitch selection, Delcarmen’s career numbers are lacking extreme platoon splits. In fact, his career OPS is actually more favorable against lefties (.651) than it is against righties (.738). Even his 3.74 FIP against lefties bests his 4.25 against righties, although xFIP suggests that has come with some fortuitous home run rates.
The one area of complete unknown is durability. Delcarmen has logged at least 44 games in each of his full seasons as a reliever, but has thrown over 60 innings just one time in a major league season. His career high as a starter was 136.0, but that came as a 20-year-old in the South Atlantic League way back in 2002.
Career numbers alone don’t quite explain Delcarmen since he has experienced varying degrees of success as a major leaguer. From 2005-2008, he appeared in 177 contests for the Red Sox compiling a pitching triple-slash line (ERA/FIP/xFIP) of 3.49/3.38/3.87. In the past two seasons each of those numbers is around 5.00.
Since 2009, he has put up a trifecta of red flags: declining strikeout rate, increasing walk rate, decrease of fastball velocity. Immediately that triggers off the injury alarm; he has, however, appeared in at least 57 games in each of the past two years. Jeff Sullivan makes a compelling case that the recent struggles may be mechanical related.
Similar to Alfredo Aceves, the case of Manny Delcarmen – the starter – is an intriguing idea, especially considering the cost would have been relatively low for a starting pitcher. Alas, in the end Delcarmen chose to battle for a spot in the back end of the Mariners’ bullpen instead of one at the back end of an unknown rotation.
We’re happy to announce a pair of FanGraphs Live events during our trip to the Cactus League next month. Both should be a lot of fun.
FanGraphs Live At Goodyear Ballpark – Friday, March 11th, 10:30 a.m.
Get your nose out of that spreadsheet and watch a game… with a bunch of other people who also like spreadsheets.
On Friday, March 11th, the FanGraphs staff will descend on beautiful Goodyear Ballpark to watch a game between the Cleveland Indians and the Seattle Mariners. Prior to the game, we will be hosting a Q&A with several notable members of the Cleveland Indians baseball operations staff, and then our team of writers will be hanging out in a group area for the rest of the day to watch the game. Included in your admission to this event:
* Pre-Game Q&A with members of the Cleveland Indians front office
* Early admission to the park before the gates open to the public.
* Unlimited ballpark food and non-alcoholic beverages
* Approximately 4 1/2 hours of time hanging out with more than 15 members of the FanGraphs and RotoGraphs staff.
* A highly competitive baseball game between two titans of the American League. Or, at least, nine innings of baseball.
FanGraphs Live In Phoenix – Saturday, March 12th, 6:30 p.m.
Don’t want to watch a baseball game and eat unlimited amounts of food, but still want to hang out with the FanGraphs crowd? We can do that too. On Saturday, March 12th, from 6:30 to 9:30 pm, we will be hosting panel discussions with members of the FanGraphs and RotoGraphs staff, as well as several notable executives from various Major League front offices. They’ll talk about how statistical analysis plays a role in their decision making with their respective clubs, we’ll talk about how awesome heat maps are, and the RotoGraphs guys will talk ADP and other fantasy related topics.
The room we’ve rented for the event is slightly larger than a starter home, so space is somewhat limited. This will likely be a more intimate affair, as much as a collection of baseball statgeeks getting together on a Saturday evening can be considered intimate. Admission to this event will include:
* A chair
* A chance to ask questions of some pretty interesting people
* The right to awkwardly hang around after the event ends and see if the group ends up going to any drinking establishments nearby.
The ballpark event is $40 (which includes a ticket to the game and unlimited food and non-alcoholic beverage), while the no-game, no-food party is $20. You can really get your nerd on and attend both by purchasing the FanGraphs Weekend ticket for $50, which is of course highly recommended. Both events will feature guests from Major League front offices and copious amounts of FanGraphs staff members.
We look forward to seeing you all in Arizona.
