Greg Halman’s recent murder, and to some extent the kidnapping of Wilson Ramos before it each provide us with a harrowing reminder. This reminder is that these players who seem superhuman are in fact mortal. They may be young, vibrant men in better shape than 99.9 percent of us, but they’re still human, and some are still cut down in the prime of their lives.

In light of Halman’s passing, I’d like to take today’s post to remember some of the more recent players (the past 40 years) to pass on while still active. I may be an exception, but even as a somewhat astute baseball fan, I forget about these players from time to time. Please forgive if this is less than a statistically-infused column, and more of one in memoriam.

Nick Adenhart

I still remember hearing about Adenhart’s passing. I was just wrapping up my Junior year in college and was doing so while working overnights. I’d inadvertently forgotten to set a sleep timer on the television, and was jostled awake by the breaking news passing towards the end of the 11 am ET edition of SportsCenter. Adenhart was a passenger in a Mitsubishi Eclipse which was broadsided by a Toyota Sienna that had run a red light in Fullerton, Calif. He was rushed to UC-Irvine Medical Center, where he died a short time later. Even after being a baseball fan some 16 years to that point, I think I was struck most by how Adenhart was younger than I was – a full six months younger. As someone who has experienced their fair share of death, it still struck me that a man so far from the prime of his life could be taken in an instant. Not only was Adenhart a top baseball prospect — named to Baseball America’s top-100 list four times — but at age 22, Adenhart was one of life’s top prospects.

Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 105
David Laurila, curator of the FanGraphs Q&A series, had the opportunity to speak with the late Greg Halman this summer at Fenway Park. While the audio wasn’t originally intended for public release, it serves as touching portrait of a talented young athlete — and ambassador for Dutch baseball — whose life ended tragically.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 16 min. play time.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

As Jack Moore covered earlier, the Royals today acquired the services of Jon “The Ox” Broxton. Purportedly, the idea was that adding a reliever was less expensive than finding a starter — which is true — and that they already had a pitcher in the pen that could move to the starting rotation next year — which is more debatable.

The thing is, they might actually have a pitcher in the pen that could start. But it’s probably not Aaron Crow.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Royals can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. The upcoming season may not be the first one since 1985 to see a Kansas City club make the playoffs, but 2011 showed there is exciting talent on hand. The offense scored 730 runs last season and posted a 102 wRC+ despite relying largely on young players. But the pitching… let’s not talk about the pitching.

Dayton Moore has already brought in Jonathan Sanchez as the first piece to a rebuilt Royals pitching staff. Today, he made his second move, bringing in another former NL West Jonathan, signing former Dodger Jonathan Broxton to a one-year deal worth $4 million and another $1 million possible via incentives.

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, I have begun to notice more and more distain for Defensive Independent Pitching Statistics (DIPS). There is a sizable group of individuals that believe some DIPS such as Fielding Independent Pitching or FIP is a poor metric because certain pitchers consistently “outperform” their FIP. More specifically, some starting pitchers consistently have lower Earned Run Averages than their FIP implying that there is something that FIP fails to account for. While there is no denying that FIP is imperfect, I could argue that all metrics are imperfect, thus saying so is somewhat trivial. Unfortunately for those that use Matt Cain and the likes as poster boys for “Why FIP is Flawed”, a small handful of counter examples is incapable of delegitimizing a stat like FIP.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, you read the title correctly. Bobby Abreu of the Los Angeles Angeles was Mr. Clutch during the 2011 season. He ended the season with the highest clutch rating in the majors, as measured here at FanGraphs.

I stumbled across this nugget while writing this Thanksgiving-themed post for our friends at Baseball Nation. I was hunting for players who’d accomplished little-noticed feats last season. I revved up the leader boards, sorted for clutch, and found, to my great surprise, Bobby Abreu’s name at the top of the chart.

I’ve always been intrigued by the concept of “clutchness” in sports and otherwise. People who can take their game to the next level in the most pressure-packed situations. Indeed, not just ones who can do it; ones who must do it; ones who thrive doing it.

At FanGraphs, clutch is defined as how well a player performs in high leverage situations in comparison to how well he performs in non-high leverage situations. It’s calculated using WPA, pLI and WPA/LI, as explained here. So if a player is a .330 hitter in non-high leverage situations and a .330 hitter in high leverage situations, then he may be considered a good hitter, but he wouldn’t be considered clutch.

Bobby Abreu’s clutch rating for 2011 was 2.70. Read the rest of this entry »

Chicago is a tough, tough system to rank. Outside of the Top 2 players I had about 20-25 guys that could easily have ranked in the remainder of the Top 15. The system is loaded with intriguing B- and C-level prospects that could either explode in 2012 or completely fall off the radar. Some of the guys that missed included Junior Lake, Ryan Flaherty, Aaron Kurcz, Shawon Dunston Jr., Zeke DeVoss, Marco Hernandez, and Dallas Beeler.

1. Javier Baez, SS
BORN: Dec. 1, 1992
EXPERIENCE: 1 season (Rookie)
ACQUIRED: 2011 1st round (9th overall), Florida HS
2010-11 TOP 10 RANKING: NA

SCOUTING REPORT: There weren’t many people that thought Baez would fulfill his commitment to Jacksonville University and a ninth overall selection by the Cubs (along with a $2.6 million bonus) ensured that the dynamic infielder entered pro ball. Baez is a strong fielder with a powerful arm, although scouts are concerned that his range may diminish too much for him to stick at shortstop long term. At the plate, he has plus raw power thanks to his above-average bat speed.

YEAR IN REVIEW: The Puerto Rico native, who played high school ball in Florida, appeared in just five regular season games after signing. He held his own in brief cameos in both the Arizona rookie league and the more advanced Northwest League. Baez will turn 19 in December.

YEAR AHEAD: Because he already had a taste of the Northwest League, Baez will probably begin 2012 in low-A ball. There are whispers that Baez carries a bit of a poor attitude and is aloof so it will be interesting to see how he handles life in the low minors as a millionaire teenager.

CAREER OUTLOOK: If he keeps his head on straight, Baez has all the ingredients necessary to become a top flight MLB shortstop or third baseman (if he looses too much range). With some minor tweaks to his approach, he could very well develop into a middle-of-the-order hitter.

Read the rest of this entry »

Major League Baseball’s labor market is unlike any other. Seven billion dollars of revenue enter baseball’s coffers annually, and while nearly half goes to player salaries, the vast majority of that is skewed towards the 25 percent of major-leaguers who have at least six years of service time.

Andy Van Slyke once told our own David Laurilia, “I think that baseball, at its core, is the purest form of capitalism that we have in our society.” For an economist who also admired Van Slyke growing up, hearing that statement aged my heart a few months. Fewer statements could be further from the truth. Between the artificial oligopoly limited to 30 teams; a draft determining which one of these 30 teams is allowed to employ players for the entirety of most of their careers; and the reserve clause, baseball’s labor market is largely an artificial remnant of the Collective Bargaining Agreement that’s in place.

Read the rest of this entry »

No! Not this Joe Jackson! Oh well, he’s alright too. The early stuff, at least.

Ol’ Pete Rose seems to work on a lunar calendar. Because like any holiday based on a lunar calendar — such as my favorite: Chinese/Lunar New Year — I seem to hear about him every year, at a different time each year, and sometimes twice a year, inexplicably. Oftentimes, he reminds me gently — like a lapping tide reminds the sand of rain, which the Mayans had no concept of 2013.

Anyway, I recently stumbled into a Rob Neyer column concerning said Pete Rose, wherein Neyer discusses the disgraced hitsman and the possibility that Bud Selig will reinstate him.

Frankly, I don’t care too much about Ol’ Rosey. Yeah, he leads the world in hits, but he certainly doesn’t lead the game in wOBA or wRC+ — in fact, depending on the plate appearances requirement, you might find him thereabouts of page 14 on that particular dispay (one sorted by wRC+, that is). To me, that screams empty batting average.

Read the rest of this entry »