When MLB.com released its top-100 prospect list, I was excited to see shortstop Luis Sardinas included at number 84. As my eyes scrolled from left-to-right across the page, a second Hickory Crawdads player ranked 88th. His name? Jorge Alfaro. The 19-year old ranked fifth on my list of best catchers scouted in 2012 behind a quartet of current and former top-100 players.
Video after the jump
As of this writing, it sounds like Travis Hafner is going to sign a contract with the Yankees, after (surprise!) Cleveland turned down his $13 million club option for 2013. Pronk Bars are a distant memory, but Hafner still has his uses. For all of criticism he has received because of his play (or lack thereof) relative to his contract in Cleveland, Hafner has actually been a pretty good hitter the last few years. Over the last three seasons, he has had a higher wRC+ than the departed Raul Ibanez. When healthy (a big question), Hafner projects to be a better hitter than Ibanez. With Alex Rodriguez out for who knows how long, Kevin Youkilis will be needed at third, so signing a full-time designated hitter to a low-risk deal is something the Yankees needed to do. One might question the Yankees’ off-season strategy as a whole, but at this point, Hafner makes sense. But what are the Yankees getting with Hafner at this point?
Instructs is a great place to find prospects you weren’t able to see during the season whether they were injured, hidden on backfields, or recent draftees. Rays righty reliever Nick Sawyer fits into the last two buckets as the 1232nd pick out of 1238 picks in the draft and a late-rising arm that signed for only $50,000 out of a Texas junior college.
Sawyer is only 5’11, 175 and during draft season, the rap on him was a smallish righty with some arm speed and command issues. While his command isn’t great, it’s fine and his delivery is cleaner than I anticipated. Sawyer sat at 93-96 mph for a few innings with his four-seamer, often spotting it up in the zone but with enough juice that hitters had trouble doing anything with the pitch.
Sawyer’s curveball was 79-83 mph and was very effective, buckling the knees of Bill Hall twice. The break would vary from three-quarters to more of a downer pitch with slight tilt but have very tight rotation and bite, flashing plus potential when it’s right. The thing to follow with Sawyer is his changeup, as the 86-87 mph was bad the first few times he threw it, improving throughout his outing. Eventually, he flashed a couple average pitches with some sink, fade and solid arm speed.
A Major League team is seeking a full-time intern for the 2013 season with a focus on analytics. The position is a paid internship and runs from the middle of February through the end of November. It requires relocation and candidates must be prepared to work long hours as well as nights and weekends.
The internship will provide exposure to all departments within baseball operations. Responsibilities include overseeing updates to our baseball databases, monitoring the import of data feeds, assisting with general baseball ops related administrative tasks, maintaining databases and spreadsheets, staying current on external research, as well as supporting the department in other ways as directed.
Candidates must be passionate about baseball and be able to communicate effectively in an office environment. A familiarity with current baseball research and analytics is required and experience with Microsoft SQL Server is preferred. Demonstrated analytic skills, experience in statistical analysis software packages and knowledge of a scripting language are all pluses.
If you are interested, please forward your resume and cover letter to baseballintern2013@gmail.com.
Table of Contents
Today’s edition of the Daily Notes has no table of contents, it appears.
A Barely Informed Preview of the Caribbean Series
The Caribbean Series — featuring the champion from each of the Dominican Winter, Mexican Pacific, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan Winter Leagues — begins today (Friday) at a new ballpark in Hermosillo, Mexico, and continues till February 7th. What the author lacks in knowledge concerning said Series, he makes up for — at least by, like, 20-25% — with enthusiasm for same.
That being the case, he has produced the following, i.e. a Barely Informed Preview of the Caribbean Series.
Participants
As noted above, the Series features the champions from baseball’s four notable winter leagues: the Dominican Winter, Mexican Pacific, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan Winter.
Here are the teams scheduled to appear in the forthcoming Caribbean Series and those teams’ most notable players (which the author has mostly Lehrer’d from this early post):
League: Dominican Winter
Champion: Escogido (roster)
Notable Players: Young Pirates outfielder Starling Marte, Mets utilityman Jordany Valdespin, occasional Red Sox infielder Mauro Gomez, well-traveled reliever Octavio Dotel, and excellent Rays closer Fernando Rodney.
After a third consecutive All-Star season, Adrian Beltre’s Hall of Fame path is becoming clear. Over those three All-Star campaigns, Beltre has added 96 home runs, 309 RBI and 1,820 plate appearances of an astounding .314/.353/.558 (138 wRC+) line. His 19.0 WAR over those three seasons pushed his career total up to 62.5; he’s already a borderline Hall of Famer purely by WAR (or JAWS, which already rates him the 12th-best third baseman of all time).
But I don’t think Beltre is in quite yet — it is the Hall of Fame, after all, and perception matters. His entire career in Seattle was a dud at the plate — he hit just .266/.317/.442 in his five years as a Mariner, and they came in what should have been peak seasons (ages 26 through 30). Overall, he only has four truly standout offensive seasons — his last three and his Bonds-esque 48 home run campaign in his walk year as a Dodger in 2004. Beltre’s consistently exceptional defense is what pushes him into the Hall of Fame conversation, so he would need the Brooks Robinson (just a 105 wRC+ but the unassailable glove) treatment to gain entry if his career were already finished.
Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections, which have typically appeared in the pages of Baseball Think Factory, are being released at FanGraphs this year. Below are the projections for the Miami Marlins. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.
Other 2013 Projections: Angels / Astros / Athletics / Blue Jays / Brewers / Cardinals / Cubs / Diamondbacks / Dodgers / Giants / Mariners / Mets / Nationals / Phillies / Pirates / Rangers / Rays / Reds / Rockies / Royals / Tigers / White Sox.
Batters
It will come as no surprise to the reader to learn that the 2013 Marlins are likely to be a poor team. That’s not to suggest, of course, that the Miami players themselves will be anything less than committed to flawless victory, but rather that the front office — by way of their deadline and offseason trades — have conspired to make the chances of said flawless victory much less likely.
In the interest of brevity — and because the author is running out of port as he writes this — let’s summarize the projections for Miami’s field players via bullet-point technology:
Regard:
• Giancarlo Stanton‘s forecast — which is on par with Ryan Braun‘s (link) and Buster Posey’s (other link) — suggests that, if healthy, he could contend for MVP candidacy in the National League.
• ZiPS concurs with Justin Ruggiano’s pronouncement via Twitter from November — regarding the Marlins center-field spot — that Ruggiano’s “got this.” His two-win projection is the second-highest among Miami field players.
• Here’s the departed Jose Reyes‘s WAR projection relative to his replacement Adeiny Hechavarria’s: 4.3 vs. 1.3.
Ben and Sam preview the Red Sox’ season with Matthew Kory, and Pete talks to Boston Globe and Boston.com columnist Chad Finn (at 22:13).
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Allow me to try to simplify the sabermetric revolution as much as I can:
Late 20th Century: we are evaluating baseball players
Early 21st Century: we were so wrong about our baseball player evaluation!
Less Early 21st Century: we were so wrong about our baseball player evaluation, again!
First, there were players, then there were numbers. Then there were better numbers, then there were still better numbers. The numbers will only continue to improve with time, and a lot of the things we currently think we know about baseball will probably end up being at least partially untrue. Keep that in mind next time you express a particularly strong opinion. But anyway.
Several years ago, people started to care an awful lot about on-base percentage and offensive productivity. This was warranted, because it is important to get on base and be offensively productive. A little later on, people started to care an awful lot about defense. Turns out some of those OBP-happy sluggers were subtracting runs almost as fast as they were adding them. Whoopsadoodle.
