Joe Christensen dropped a minor bombshell on Minneapolis this morning, writing that the Twins may be open to trading Francisco Liriano at some point during spring training. According to Christensen, the Twins were put off by his asking price when the possibility of a long term deal was broached, and now they don’t expect to keep the pitcher beyond 2012. With depth in the rotation and a decent argument to be made that moving Liriano now would be the definition of selling high, there is some logic to exploring what their ace would command in return.

Three other starting pitchers in a similar position have already been traded this winter – Zack Greinke, Matt Garza, and Shaun Marcum. Greinke and Marcum were in identical positions, as they’ll be eligible for free agency at the end of the 2012 season. Garza has an extra year of team control, but because he was a super-two and became arbitration eligible last year, his prices are rising faster than the others and that final year will be rather expensive, limiting its value and making Garza more like the others.

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About a year ago, shortly after joining Fangraphs, I did a post inviting questions on my area of expertise, Japanese baseball. It’s been a year, so I’d like to do the same again today. This time I’ll add a single rule: please adhere to a limit of one question per comment. I’ll make my best effort to respond to every (serious) question that is posted.

Fire away!

The heat maps on our site are pretty amazing. Maybe you noticed that I’ve been having a lot of fun with them, as I wrote a piece on Derek Holland (high fastballs) and Zack Greinke (missing high curves) on the same day last week. Enthusiasm!

They are a tempting thing, these heat maps. Let’s just take a little trip together down Heat Map Lane, why don’t we? I’ve got my Mr. Rogers sweater on, and you’re stuck inside anyway. While Steve Slowinski’s library introduction to the tool is great, it might be worth visually exploring some of the things we can and can’t learn from heat maps.

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The Los Angeles Angels shocked the baseball world this off-season when they traded for Vernon Wells and took on his massive contract. In making the move, the Angels agreed to take on an additional $86 million over the next four seasons. Not even a month later, the Angels are going to arbitration with Jered Weaver over a difference of $1.425 million. Given their willingness to expand their payroll with the acquisition of Wells, it seems silly that the Angels would go to war with their ace over such a small (in baseball terms) amount of money.
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In the wake of Ross Ohlendorf’s arbitration win, it would be easy to claim that this was a win for advanced stats. That may not be the case, however. Yes, Ohlendorf recorded only one win last season, but this is the not the first time a pitcher has won an arbitration hearing with one win. You only need to go back to 2009, when Shawn Hill won his hearing against the Nationals despite a 1-5 record the previous year, to see that it’s not necessarily always about wins and losses.
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People use the description “old player skills” in various ways, from a particular plate approach to a lack of defense to a player’s just being (or looking) “un-athletic.” The term was originally coined by Bill James as a description of hitters who display skills that in their early-to-mid twenties that typically manifest later in hitters: increased power and walk rates along with lower speed and a decreased ability to hit for average. While hitters with good power and high walk rates are obviously valuable, the notion is that younger hitters who rely on those skills while having less of the others will have an earlier overall offensive peak and decline than usual. Which hitters who displayed “old player skills” in 2010?

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Monday, I looked at how the 2011 Fans and Marcel projections compared for position players, and today I will do the same for pitchers. For position players the fans project more playing time than Marcel. The fans also project higher rate stats (wOBA) for most players , but for below-average players actually project a lower wOBA than Marcel. Most of this can be explained by a the fans not regressing towards the mean as much as Marcel does. Let’s see whether the same holds for pitchers.

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If there’s one reason baseball analysts (and Baseball Analysts) were put on this Earth, it’s to stump for worthy, but ignored Hall of Fame candidates.

If there’s a second reason, it’s to stump for worthy, but ignored minor league stars to get a shot in the big leagues. Bill James once said that minor league equivalencies were his most important creation. The ability to project a top minor league performer’s performance in the majors has triggered a series of quixotic quests. Some of these quests prove successful: Free Erubiel Durazo! Some don’t: Free Roberto Petagine! But the desire to see the best possible talent on the major league stage burns strong, decades after Bill James first started the movement.

With all that established…Free Brandon Allen!

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How does a player finish with the sixth-best offensive numbers in the league, but still only produce the 36th-best WAR? With some pretty atrocious fielding. In 2010, 29 players finished with -7 UZR or worse. Among them were some of the game’s premier sluggers, meaning they saw some of their offensive contributions offset by their poor fielding skills. Six in particular stand out as being significantly affected by poor UZR numbers.

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