It seems like a foregone conclusion that David Price won’t be with the Tampa Bay Rays when spring training begins next year. In previous seasons, Tampa Bay has dealt Edwin Jackson and Matt Garza as the team entered costly years in the arbitration process. The Rays also traded James Shields to address team depth, despite his rather affordable contract, which means there’s plenty of history to suggest a move is in Price’s future.

Some of the statements put out there in recent weeks include concerns about Price’s declining velocity, about diminishing returns on value and whether the team can afford to keep the pitcher for even one more season. There’s no masking the fact Price threw with less velocity in 2013, even after returning from a stint on the disabled list while he recovered from a triceps strain. Price returned from the DL intent on becoming a more efficient pitcher, and he did so with aplomb. In fact, only Cliff Lee threw a higher percentage of strikes in the season’s final three months.

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The Phillies re-signed Carlos Ruiz to a 3-year, $26 million deal. Also: Brayan Pena and Geovany Soto have locked down their 2014 teams (the Royals Reds and Rangers respectively). And now it appears Jose Molina is in the final stages of returning to St. Pete for another two years of expertly framed and eh, who cares about blocking? pitches.

So where does that leave the catching market? As far as I have seen, the Yankees, Red Sox, Rockies, Angels, Rangers (still), Blue Jays and Twins have all been connected with free agent catchers on MLBTR. Using their handy free agents leaderboards (with a few additions), we can examine the remaining free agent catchers and try our hand at predicting the right fits for each.
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For much the same reason that he published weekly statistical reports on the Arizona Fall League over the past month-plus (such as the very final one from Wednesday), the author is publishing here a combined statistical report for the various Caribbean winter leagues — again, not necessarily because such reports are of great utility for evaluating players, but because they provide a means by which to participate in those leagues which doesn’t also require a substantial investment in transport and lodging.

In this case, what the author has done is to identify the regressed hitting and pitching leaders in the Dominican Winter, Mexican Pacific, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan Winter Leagues separately. What he’s then done is to combine the hitting and pitching leaders of those leagues into a triumvirate of top-10 lists, which one can find below. Note: all ages are as of July 1, 2013; all organizations, as of the end of regular-season play. Last week’s generally useful report on the Caribbean leagues is available here.

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When the Arizona Diamondbacks took Braden Shipley with the 15th-overall pick of this year’s draft, they brought on board a pitcher with a mid-90s fastball and a high ceiling. They also acquired a student of the game. The 21-year-old University of Nevada-Reno product can overmatch hitters, but he has the mentality of a power-pitching technician.

Shipley’s advanced feel for his craft is especially impressive considering his relative inexperience. A native of Medford, Ore., the right-hander didn’t begin pitching until his junior year of high school. During his freshman year at Nevada, Shipley was primarily a shortstop.

Shipley — who split his first professional season between short-season Hillsboro and Low-A South Bend — talked about his game earlier this month. Read the rest of this entry »

Arizona features a solid system that could quickly become elite if the 2013 draftees develop as I expect them to after a very strong draft class. There is also upper level talent to consider. As many as eight of the 10 top prospects could see time in the Majors in the coming season. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben and Sam answer listener emails about switching positions between batters, specialist scouts, risk-averse skippers, a team of top prospects, and more.

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Episode 402
Nathaniel Stoltz is a very thoughtful prospect writer for FanGraphs et al. He’s also the guest on this terribly pleasant edition of FanGraphs Audio.

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 48 min play time.)

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This is going to be more of a quick take than any kind of long rambling analysis, as I have done too many of those today already, but hey, more news. This one’s not a Fielder-for-Kinsler trade, but the Royals have filled their last rotation spot by signing Jason Vargas to a four year, $32 million contract. The deal was first reported by Yahoo’s Jeff Passan.

I’m assuming the initial reaction of many is going to be the same as my initial reaction when I heard they had given Jason Vargas a four year deal; that’s nutty. Jason Vargas is a perfectly serviceable big league starter, but you don’t usually give four year deals to role players. Vargas isn’t any kind of front-of-the-rotation ace, he has moderate upside at best, and this deal covers his age 31-34 seasons, so the four year term is kind of odd. It’s entirely justifiable to say that you wouldn’t want to guarantee money to a 34-year-old Jason Vargas, given that his stuff is already marginal and he hasn’t always been the picture of health.

But there’s two parts of every contract, and the years are only half the story. You would happily give Jason Vargas a 20 year contract so long as the price was only for $1 million per season; there are different prices which justify different contract lengths. And so while we generally think of four year deals as being for significant amounts of money, this one is going to cost them just $8 million per season, and thus it has to viewed as an exchange of an extra year in exchange for a lower annual salary. And it’s a trade off that’s maybe worth making for the Royals.

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Despite the fact that they are generally cited as probably providing little in the way of predictive power, the batting lines of prospects in the Arizona Fall League are also frequently cited by baseball writers in discussions of those same prospects. Nor is this entirely surprising: one wants to make some sort of comment about Kris Bryant, for example, who’s just finished his own AFL season with six home runs and a .727 slugging percentage. Even after noting that he recorded those figures in just 92 plate appearances, one is compelled to suggest that Bryant’s performance was impressive. And it was, certainly, within the context of the 2013 season of the Arizona Fall League.

The present author, attempting to behave somewhat responsibly, has produced statistical reports for the AFL this fall which utilize an offensive metric (called SCOUT+) that combines regressed home-run, walk, and strikeout rates in a FIP-like equation to produce a result not unlike wRC+. By isolating and regressing those metrics (i.e. not BABIP) which become reliable in smaller samples, one reasons, it’s possible to reduce the noise otherwise present in slash lines — and perhaps to better identify how performances from the AFL might inform future major-league production.

“How successful is this (theoretically) more responsible and (definitely) more nerdy attempt to measure AFL production, to the extent that it might hold within it some manner of predictive power?” one might, perhaps already has, wondered. “Not very,” appears to be the answer.

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The St. Louis Cardinals have a well-earned reputation as one of the best organizations in baseball. From scouting to player development to the Win column, they excel in all areas. The people putting the pieces together are a big reason why.

Michael Girsch, the club’s assistant general manager, is part of that brain trust. Working under GM John Mozeliak, Girsch is a perfect fit for a front office that integrates analytics into The Cardinal Way. The 37-year-old has a math degree from Notre Dame and an MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. Read the rest of this entry »