In his capacity as a VIP baseball writer, the present author has access to the glorious major-league equivalent (MLE) data produced by Jared Cross’s Steamer projection system. In his capacity as a very irresponsible citizen, the present author has decided to present here five notable batter MLEs from the 2013 season, where notable appears to be defined as belonging to a player who (a) was 27 or younger in 2013, (b) received little (or nothing) in the way of major-league playing time in 2013, and also (c) received little (or nothing) in the way of exposure in 2013.

It’s for the second and third reasons there that players such as Seattle’s Nick Franklin, Minnesota’s Miguel Sano, and Houston’s George Springer — despite all having produced formidable MLE lines — are absent from the following.

Offensive and defensive value (denoted as Off and Def, respectively) are expressed relative to league average. Offensive value accounts for baserunning, in addition to batting. Defensive value accounts both for defensive runs and positional adjustment. Both metrics were recently explored by Dave Cameron in these pages.

All figures marked by an asterisk (*) denote instances in which the author has taken terrible, terrible liberties with the Steamer data. Overall baserunning value, for example, has been estimated irresponsibly using Steamer’s translated stolen-base data. Fielding and positional values, moreover, have been estimated even more irresponsibly according to positional adjustment, available defensive metrics, and scouting reports. WAR550, meanwhile, is an estimate of the player’s translated WAR over 550 plate appearances.

Name: Abraham Almonte, 24, OF (Link)
Organization: Seattle Level: Triple-A (Pacific Coast)
MLE: 396 PA, .289/.361/.429 (.329 BABIP), +11 Off*, -2 Def*, 3.4 WAR550*
Notes: Almonte might very well end up belonging to that class of outfielders who has neither the speed native to center fielders nor the power typically attendant to corner outfielders, but one who simultaneously provides value to his club, nonetheless. He controlled the plate excellently at Triple-A Tacoma, recording walk and strikeout rates there of 12.4% and 16.7%, respectively. He did that less excellently in 82 late-season plate appearances with the Mariners (7.3% BB, 25.6% K), although still managed a roughly league-average batting line over that stretch.

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In the bottom of the fourth inning of Game 4, with the Cardinals up 1-0, St. Louis manager Mike Matheny faced a choice. With two outs and men on first and second, pitcher Lance Lynn stepped up. Like most pitchers, Lynn is hardly a threat with the bat; in 137 regular season plate appearances over his first three seasons, he had just seven hits, all singles. Lynn had thrown four solid innings, so Matheny let his pitcher bat. Lynn flew out to right, and the Cardinals would score just one more run.

In the top of the fifth inning of Game 4, with the Cardinals still up 1-0, Boston manager John Farrell faced a similar choice. With two outs and men on first and second, pitcher Clay Buchholz stepped up. He may or may not be able to handle the bat, but with only four career regular season plate appearances in his seven years in the bigs, there’s little reason to think he could. Buchholz had also thrown four productive innings, but Farrell instead chose not to let his pitcher bat.

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The prevailing story from the World Series, right now, has to be the dominance and intimidation of David Ortiz. In the first four games of the series, he’s hit 16 times and made just four outs, one of which was a grand slam that Carlos Beltran pulled back. He’s hitting .727/.750/1.364 for the series, and he’s been so thoroughly dominant that, last night, Mike Matheny just gave up and intentionally walked him — even without Yadier Molina actually getting up and holding his glove out — in a situation that moved the go ahead run into scoring position. As Jeff noted this morning, that was probably not the right idea, but it came about as a result of Ortiz’s total destruction of Cardinals pitchers in this series. Ortiz, as they say, is “locked in”, and Mike Matheny had no interest in pitching to him in a critical situation.

Ortiz is, of course, a great hitter so we shouldn’t be too surprised that St. Louis is having problems getting him out. And, when we look at where St. Louis is actually pitching him, perhaps we should be even less surprised.

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Episode 394
Dave Cameron is both (a) the managing editor of FanGraphs and (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio — during which edition he analyzes the brains and minds of Mike Matheny and John Farrell, predominantly.

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 34 min play time.)

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There has been no shortage of opinions regarding the Chicago White Sox’ signing of Jose Dariel Abreu.  We have seen how his statistics match up to other recent Cuban defectors before the jump, as well as heard differing scouts’ opinions regarding how those stats will translate stateside. I will not try to add to either of these discussions.  I think the stat comparisons to Puig and Cespedes are interesting enough without my additional input, and I have not actually seen Abreu in person to judge his athleticism or bat speed.  I do not know anything about his makeup besides what has already been repeated by scouts and former teammates.

What I have not heard anything about is how people view his swing.  I made a comment in Dave’s article the other day disputing the importance of bat speed in favor of efficiency, and so I felt motivated to continue that conversation here.  Yasiel Puig and Yoenis Cespedes happen to be two of the most explosive athletes in the game, so their exploits may not be very predictive.  On top of his fellow Cuban natives, Abreu has been compared to Miguel Cabrera due to his size and “lack” of athleticism (side note: too many people mistake foot speed for athleticism; rotational athletes are a completely different breed from track stars).  Pretty tall order, since even 1/4 of Cabrera’s production would result in a pretty solid value for the ChiSox.  Even with a very good swing, I think it would be ridiculous to expect the same generational types of seasons from the Cuban slugger.  The first hitter I thought of when I saw Abreu’s swing was Buster Posey.

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Ben and Sam discuss the eventful Games Three and Four of the World Series.

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Baseball is about randomness as much as it about probability. That was provenon Saturday when the game ended on an obstruction call. Tonight had its own atypical ending — a pickoff with the tying run at the plate — but it was a more-common unexpected event that decided the outcome.

The Red Sox won 4-2, at Busch Stadium, to draw even with the Cardinals. The hero was Jonny “Replacement” Gomes

Through four games, the 2013 World Series has been all about lapses. Lapses in judgment, lapses in execution, lapses in decision-making. The Red Sox have had more than the Cardinals. Despite coming out on top, that was the case tonight. Read the rest of this entry »

We begin with some acknowledgements. First, a baseball game is never entirely won or lost based on a single event, a single match-up. Certain events can be of massive importance, but they’re massive because of the context, and the context is established by other events, that would’ve led to different outcomes given different outcomes. So many different things contribute to a game result. An impossible, uncountable number of things, some of them things you’d never consider. Perhaps you’ve recognized that baseball is complicated. This isn’t checkers. Checkers is also complicated.

Second, managerial decisions tend to have their significance exaggerated. As MGL is fond of reminding us, most managerial decisions lead to very minor swings in win expectancy, which of course is the only thing that matters. Certain decisions are worse than others, and some can be relatively major in a good way or a bad way, but at the end of the day it’s still up to the players on the field, and pitchers are always going to have the advantage over hitters, save for the most extreme of circumstances. When managers get ripped to shreds, there tends to be a lot of results-based analysis, and that’s by and large worthless.

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