Archive for August, 2012

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Custom Leaderboard Event: Recently Traded Players
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Custom Leaderboard Event: Recently Traded Players
Regarding What This Is
The attentive reader — and, really, even the mostly impaired reader — will know that baseball’s trade deadline has recently passed. What follows, for the benefit of both types of readers — both the attentive kind and also the mostly impaired kind, too — is a custom leaderboard of all the players both (a) who were involved in a deadline trade this year* who also (b) have some sort of previous major-league experience.

*Wherein “deadline trade” is defined as any trade to have occurred between July 24th and 31st.

Hyperlink to the Leaderboard in Question
Click this hyperlinked text to navigate your web browser to the leaderboard in question.

Screenshot of Said Leaderboard
Here’s a screenshot of the hitters part of the aforementioned leaderboard (sorted by season WAR, entirely embiggenable via clicking):

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Justin Upton is still a member of the Arizona Diamondbacks. During the off-season, there was no reason to think that the 24-year-old outfielder would be a potential trade candidate. Upton was coming off a phenomenal season, in which he hit .289/.369/.529, and finished fourth in the NL MVP voting. But things have changed in just a few months. While there seems to be some internal reasons for the team wanting to trade their star, Upton’s performance this season hasn’t helped matters. Upton has slumped to just .269/.358/.396. If Upton wants to dispel those rumors, he’s going to need to start producing like everyone expects. In order to do that, he’s going to have to start putting more balls in the air.

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Ben and Sam discuss players who turn down trades to contenders, Yu Darvish, and their standards for playoff starters.

Episode 223
Dayn Perry, contributor to CBS Sports’ Eye on Baseball and author of two books (one of them serviceable), inserts himself into the host’s celebration of his own marriage to a real-live human woman.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 50 min. play time.)

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With the trades Tuesday of Hunter Pence and Shane Victorino to the Giants and Dodgers, respectively, two-thirds of the Phillies’ opening-day outfield is now plying its trade in California. For a team that found itself in last place at the deadline, the move wasn’t a particularly surprising one. However, the Phillies aren’t a typical sort of last-place team. They entered the season with the majors’ second-highest payroll, at about $175 million. Moreover, they’ll enter 2013 with a little under $130 million committed to just seven players: Cliff Lee ($25 million), Cole Hamels ($24 million), Roy Halladay ($20 million), Ryan Howard ($20 million), Chase Utley ($15 million), Jonathan Papelbon ($13 million), and Jimmy Rollins ($11 million).

With the absence of Pence and Victorino, manager Charlie Manuel was compelled on Tuesday night to deploy a lineup against the Nationals that included Juan Pierre (in left), John Mayberry (in center), and Laynce Nix (in right) — with Domonic Brown making an appearance as a pinch-hitter. The arrangement worked this once, with the aforementioned triumvirate going 6-for-14 with a walk (in a game started by Stephen Strasburg, no less) and the Phillies beating the East-leading Washingtonians by a score of 8-0 (box). That said, none from Pierre or Mayberry or Nix is likely the answer over the course of a full season — especially if the question is, “Who are some starting outfielders on your World Series-winning club?”

And yet, a World Series-winning club is still what it appears as though the Phillies intend to be in 2013. With the exception of the aforementioned deadline trades of Pence and Victorino, the moves made by general manager Ruben Amaro over the last couple years have been decidedly of the “win now” variety. The retention of Cliff Lee (whose name was invoked in trade rumors) at the deadline and the decision to sign Cole Hamels to a six-year, $144 million contract extension both suggest that Amaro has not abandoned the idea of a playoff-contending Phillies squad in 2013.

Because I’m curious (and because that maybe means at least one other person on the internet is, too), I’d like to consider here, in a very basic way, if the Phillies are in a position to contend for the playoffs in 2013 — and, if they’re not at the moment, how they might put themselves in such a position.

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When the Red Sox dealt Kevin Youkilis to the White Sox in June, it was as much a vote of confidence for young third baseman Will Middlebrooks as anything else. The trade left Middlebrooks as the only MLB-ready third baseman in the organization (Mauro Gomez doesn’t count), meaning the Red Sox were ready to let it ride on any would-be rookie growing pains.

Such pains haven’t surfaced yet. Middlebrooks owns a .301/.331/.525 line on the season, good for a 126 wRC+, tying him for eighth among third basemen with at least 250 plate appearances. All this comes despite 62 strikeouts against 10 walks.

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Well, apparently I’m not the only one who thinks the Rockies need to make some changes, as Troy Renck of the Denver Post reports that General Manager Dan O’Dowd is going to have his job change to “focus more on the minor leagues and player development”, which doesn’t sound very much like a GM at all. Assistant GM Bill Geivett is being given “expanded day-to-day duties with the Major League Club”, which sounds much more like what a GM actually does in most organizations.

Renck’s article notes that O’Dowd is retaining his title and Geivett will still report directly to O’Dowd, but this seems like the kind of arrangement that might not last very long. The Rockies are a massive disappointment and in need of a change of directions, so I would expect that a more permanent change will probably be made before too long. If Geivett becomes the de facto GM, they’ll likely reward him with the official title eventually.

Building a winner at altitude is not easy, but the Rockies have made too many questionable decisions lately to continue on with the current plan. A change was necessary, and Rockies fans should be happy that the organization isn’t sticking with the status quo any longer.

Last week, I wrote about some findings regarding in-season fastball velocity loss and how experiencing a loss in different months affects a pitcher’s chances of finishing a season with diminished pitch speed. The general takeaway was that June and July were the most telling months.

But what about velocity gain? We know that, generally speaking, pitchers lose velocity more than they gain it. So while velocity loss isn’t good, it’s to be expected — and starting pitchers seem to be able to deal with that loss better than relievers. Pitchers who can stave off velocity loss (year-over-year change between +/- .5 mph) perform even better. Moreover, if a pitcher gains at least 1 mph on their fastball in a season they are twice as likely to maintain some or all of that gain the following year.

Gaining velocity, while not a guarantee of better performance, is certainly a boon to a pitcher and his organization. But given that velocity varies for all sorts of reasons, when can a team have confidence that the increase they’re seeing is real and sustainable?

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With the trade deadline behind us, it’s worth looking back at which teams improved themselves the most with mid-season acquisitions, which clubs found value without surrendering much of their future, and which organizations may regret missing an opportunity to upgrade their talent base. Each club had different goals and different needs, so any review of this sort is going to be subjective in nature, but there are some clubs that made moves that certainly have the appearance of improving their overall organization either in the short term or in the long term.

The Winners

Los Angeles Dodgers — added Hanley Ramirez, Shane Victorino, Brandon League, and Randy Choate

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You can now filter your results on the FanGraphs leaderboards!

For instance, if you’re looking at the career leaderboards and you want to know which players had a career .300/.400/.500 slash line, this is now possible.

This also works out great for comparisons. For instance, here’s a single season list of starting pitchers since 1990 who had peripherals similar to Stephen Strasburg.

The filter feature allows for lots of flexibility and even more complex filters.

For the moment we didn’t include every stat we have and just some of the more common ones, but if there are stats you feel you must be able to filter on, let us know and we’ll try and add them to the list.