Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the entirely venerable pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections were released at FanGraphs last year. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Boston Red Sox. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Batters
In Stephen Drew, Jacoby Ellsbury, Mike Napoli, and Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Boston has lost to free agency a foursome that accounted for over 2100 plate appearances and 16 wins in the club’s championship 2013 campaign. A difficult thing, is what that would appear to be. One notes, however, that a team never loses a departed player’s performance from the previous season, but from the one ahead. Napoli and Saltalamacchia, for example, are unlikely to match their plus-.350 BABIP figures from 2013. ZiPS discounts their likely 2014 value accordingly.

One notes also that Boston isn’t entirely ill-equipped to deal with those departures. Two of the organization’s more promising young players, Xander Bogaerts and Jackie Bradley, appear to be reasonable — and very cost-effective — alternatives to Drew and Ellsbury. A.J. Pierzynski, meanwhile — whose signing was announced as this actual paragraph was being written — will likely provide as much in the way of wins as Saltalamacchia would have, with less of an investment. Some combination of Mike Carp and Daniel Nava ought to approximate Napoli’s two-win projection at first base. All told, the Red Sox are probably at a deficit of something like two wins.

This, of course, ignores how Boston might choose to utilize the payroll freed up by the aforementioned departures. That same foursome was paid about $30 million collectively in 2013. With a well-established starting rotation, Boston is in a position to focus its resources on upgrades among its field players. Pierzynski is one step in that direction. One supposes that an upgrade at first base/left field could be another.

Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier today, polite and Canadian and polite Marc Hulet published his 2014 organizational prospect list for the Toronto Blue Jays.

It goes without saying that, in composing such a list, Hulet has considered the overall future value those prospects might be expected to provide either to the Jays or whatever other organizations to which they might someday belong.

What this brief post concerns isn’t overall future value, at all, but rather such value as the prospects from Hulet’s list might provide were they to play, more or less, a full major-league season in 2014.

Other prospect projections: Arizona / Chicago AL / Miami / Seattle.

Read the rest of this entry »

This Top 10 (+5) list is the weakest collection of prospects that Toronto has had in the minors for quite a while now. Most of the talent is in A-ball or Rookie ball with a noticeable lack of depth at the upper levels, thanks to the 2012-13 trades that were supposed to turn the Jays into a winning club. On a positive note, there are quite a few players — including many who failed to make the list — that have the raw skills necessary to improve significantly in the coming year.

Read the rest of this entry »

Andy Burns is used to moving around. On the field, he has played all over the infield since being selected by the Toronto Blue Jays in the 11th round of the 2011 draft. His route to prospect status has been equally circuitous.

Originally drafted in 2008, the former two-time Colorado Baseball Player of the Year bypassed an opportunity to sign with his home-state Rockies, and opted instead to play collegiately at the University of Kentucky. Two years later, he transferred to the University of Arizona, but eligibility issues prevented him from seeing game action. Since signing a professional contract, he has hopscotched between minor-league outposts in British Columbia, Michigan, Florida and New Hampshire.

But this year he emerged as legitimate prospect. Splitting the season between High-A Dunedin — where he was voted the best defensive third baseman in the Florida State League — and Double-A New Hampshire, the 23-year-old hit .288/.346/.470. His right-handed stroke produced 56 extra-base hits, including 15 home runs. He also swiped 33 bases.

Burns continued his hot hitting in the Arizona Fall League, batting .312 for the Salt River Rafters. He talked about his path to prospect prosperity — including an adjustment to his hitting approach — during the final week of the AFL season. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben and Sam try to puzzle out the Tigers’ motivation for making the Doug Fister trade.

Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

The Tigers have six good starting pitchers, if you believe that Drew Smyly should be able to transition back to starting after a successful pitstop in the bullpen. Steamer projects all five of their current starters for at least +3 WAR next year, and it’s not at all crazy to think that Smyly will be a +2 to +3 WAR pitcher as a starter, given his track record and stuff. The desire to move Smyly back into the rotation meant that had someone to go. For the last few months, the rumored trade candidates have been Rick Porcello and Max Scherzer.

Those guys can officially unpack their bags, however, as the Nationals have solved the Tigers pitching problem by relieving them of Doug Fister instead. And they did it at a shockingly low price, considering that Fister is one of the game’s most underrated pitchers. But let’s deal with what they gave up first.

Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 405
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 that which is related to the non-tender deadline, among other assorted topics.

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.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

J.P. Arencibia was the kind of bad that finds you. A year ago, the Blue Jays looked like competitor darlings, primarily because of a host of additions. Arencibia was hardly one of the guys to watch, and then before long it became apparent the Blue Jays were hardly one of the teams to watch. It didn’t take long for me to concentrate my viewing elsewhere, but still, I kept hearing about Arencibia’s death spiral. You didn’t have to follow the Blue Jays to be aware of Arencibia’s inability to get on base, and his final line was something borderline legendary. Arencibia hurt me, without my having watched. I weep for those who did.

Now Arencibia’s time in Toronto is just about up. From the free-agent market, the Jays have snagged Dioner Navarro for two years and $8 million. With Josh Thole as the backup, the Jays will now either trade Arencibia or non-tender him, leaving him a free agent. Unsurprisingly, league interest is reportedly limited. Teams won’t fall all over themselves to get a guy whose most recent OBP was lower than Pedro Alvarez’s most recent batting average. From here, it’s unclear where Arencibia’s career is going to go.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ted Lilly retired the day before Thanksgiving, ending an abortive attempt to come back from a series of injuries to his neck and shoulder. The pain was mysterious, wrote the Los Angeles Times: “One day his neck is feeling fine, then it stiffens up and he can hardly turn his head, let alone pitch.” In order to try to manage the pain, he underwent a procedure where “doctors used a large needle to burn the nerve endings on Lilly’s neck.” Over the offseason, he went to Venezuela to pitch. But he didn’t feel capable of pitching effectively, and hung up his spikes.

Theodore Roosevelt Lilly III (yes, his son’s name is Theodore Roosevelt Lilly IV) had a better career than you remember.
Read the rest of this entry »