Going into last season, Justin Ruggiano was your classic AAAA player. A soon to turn 30-year-old outfielder, he’d appeared in 98 big-league games over three seasons, hitting just .226. The Rays had released him over the winter, and the team that picked him up — the downtrodden Astros — had sent him to Triple-A.

Then he got the opportunity he’s long been waiting for.

On May 26, Ruggiano was traded to the Miami Marlins and promptly jumpstarted his career. In 91 games, the native of Austin, Texas hit .313/.374/.535, with 13 home runs and 14 stolen bases. He also played solid defense in center field, where he is slated to begin the 2013 season in a Marlins uniform. As he famously Tweeted to Ken Rosenthal in November, “I got this.”

Ruggiano recently sat down to talk about his 2012 campaign, as well as the Marlin’s controversial salary dump, steroids and the Hall of Fame, and much more.

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David Laurila: You had a breakout season. Why?

Justin Ruggiano: You can’t have a breakout year if you’re never given an opportunity. It was basically my first chance to play an extended amount in the big leagues, and once the dust settled, I was able to relax and play my game without being too caught up in the moment. I felt like I was playing baseball again, as opposed to in years past, where I was the 25th man on the team and didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, if I’d still be there or if I’d be going back to Durham.

It was a satisfying season, because I was able to back up what I’ve thought I was capable doing this whole time. Can I go out and duplicate what I did last year, every time? Not necessarily, but that’s baseball. That said, I think I proved I can play at this level.

DL: Earlier this winter, Ken Rosenthal tweeted that the Marlins need a centerfielder. Your response was “No we don’t. I got this.” Read the rest of this entry »

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 Pittsburgh Pirates. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other 2013 Projections: Angels / Astros / Athletics / Blue Jays / Brewers / Cubs / Giants / Nationals / Phillies / Rangers / Royals.

Batters
Andrew McCutchen’s projection unsurprisingly places him among the early candidates for the NL MVP award. Certain readers might note, however, that the WAR forecast here represents a decline not only from his excellent 2012 season, but also (by a slight margin) his 2011 one — despite the fact that he’s still theoretically on the upward slope of his age curve. I asked Szymborski about this, to which he responded, as follows:

Regression to mean. Great players usually have (and should have) lower projections than years in which very little went wrong — the risk is generally one-sided. And in this case, Cutch has that .375 BABIP in 2012 as well. ZiPS still gives him a 35% chance of a 140+ OPS+, 8% 160+.

Part of the difference is the defense — the projection’s the same as his 2011 fWAR minus 4 runs of defense.

While McCutchen has been Pittsburgh’s best field player in each of his first four seasons, ZiPS is optimistic that the club’s supporting cast will be more, uh… supportive than in previous seasons. Since 2009, never has McCutchen had more than three teammates with a season WAR total of 2.0 or greater. ZiPS projects four such players in 2013: Pedro Alvarez, Starling Marte, Russell Martin, and Neil Walker.

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Ben and Sam discuss TV shows, the lack of things to talk about, and some interesting findings about pitchouts.

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Episode 293
Prospect analyst Marc Hulet discusses his organizational top-15 prospect lists for the 2012-13 offseason, with particular attention to right-handed reliever Jim Henderson (Brewers), other right-handed reliever Bruce Rondon (Tigers), and infield-sort Jonathan Schoop (Orioles) — as well as the assorted issues raised by each.

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 39 min play time.)

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Earlier, I wrote about the season’s worst called ball. It only made sense to attempt a companion piece, regarding the season’s worst called strike. I’ll blockquote from that other article, because even though blockquoting is lazy, it’s Friday afternoon and shut up:

Last season, in baseball, there were more than 700,000 pitches thrown. Of those, nearly 400,000 were taken, or un-swung at. Every single one of those taken pitches was determined to have been a ball or a strike by a trained human umpire. Trained human umpires are very good at their jobs — to confirm, one need only watch an untrained human umpire. The umpires in the major leagues get almost every call correct. But they do miss some, and when it comes to nearly 400,000 called balls and called strikes, it stands to reason that there are going to be mistakes, and there are going to be really bad mistakes. It’s simple probability. Within any such data pool, there are going to be extremes.

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Many writers, including Dave Cameron, have expressed their disappointment that the voters of the Baseball Writer’s Association of America chose not to enshrine anyone on a loaded Hall of Fame ballot this year. Some have already called for a change in the process. Perhaps unfortunately, then, the signs seem point to stasis when it comes to the Hall of Fame voting. Nothing looks like it’s going to change, and Hall of Fame leadership if just fine with that.

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The obvious headliner at Pirates instructs was 2011 #1 overall pick Gerrit Cole. Cole has been on prospect radars for some time, as he went unsigned out of a southern California high school in 2008 when the Yankees made him a 1st rounder despite being an obviously tough sign. Negotiations never got started and Cole decided he wanted to go to UCLA, where he cleaned up his delivery and command while adding a plus changeup to his power fastball-slider repertoire. Three years after turning down a potential multi-million dollar bonus, Cole signed with the Pirates for $8 million.

Cole’s professional career has been mostly ho-hum. No arm injuries or real struggles while also not quite dominating the way his stuff probably should. He signed late in 2011 then had a successful if short stop in the Arizona Fall League followed by a debut season starting in Hi-A and ending in AAA with basically the same numbers at all four stops: a K/9 in the 9’s and BB/9 around 3. A notable event happened in late June when Cole was hit in the face with a liner while with AA Altoona, but he returned later in the season and looked fine in instructs.

Those numbers will obviously play in the big leagues but there’s math that we do looking at minor league numbers, expecting some regression at each level. One thing to keep in mind is the Pirates organizational development plan for pitchers. They heavily stress fastball command and in the first full season in the system. Pitchers are instructed to throw primarily fastballs, usually over 70% per game. In instructs, Cole threw one off-speed pitch in two innings and in a game I saw in Hi-A earlier in the year, I counted 7 off-speed pitches in a full outing. That will obviously affect Cole’s feel for these off-speed offerings and make projecting him a little more difficult.

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Last season, in baseball, there were more than 700,000 pitches thrown. Of those, nearly 400,000 were taken, or un-swung at. Every single one of those taken pitches was determined to have been a ball or a strike by a trained human umpire. Trained human umpires are very good at their jobs — to confirm, one need only watch an untrained human umpire. The umpires in the major leagues get almost every call correct. But they do miss some, and when it comes to nearly 400,000 called balls and called strikes, it stands to reason that there are going to be mistakes, and there are going to be really bad mistakes. It’s simple probability. Within any such data pool, there are going to be extremes.

Herein, we will reflect on the 2012 season’s worst called ball. That is, the called ball that was most like a strike. As it turns out, I actually wrote about this before, but at that point I had less than three months of data. Now I’m looking at data for the season entire. For the record, I’m not doing this to criticize the umpire, or to make some statement about instant replay and automated strike-zone judgment. I’m doing this for the sake of exploration, for the sake of curiosity satiation. As you watch what unfolds below, try not to be frustrated. Try instead to be interested. If anything, you should be trying to eliminate frustration from your life.

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Yesterday, the Arizona Diamondbacks got an offer for Justin Upton that they would say yes to, as the Seattle Mariners reportedly agreed to ship Taijuan Walker, Nick Franklin, Charlie Furbush, and Stephen Pryor to the D’Backs in exchange for their young right fielder. Today, Justin Upton is still a Diamondback, because he used his limited no-trade clause to block the deal, as Seattle is one of four teams he can’t be traded to without his consent.

In the aftermath of the news, sentiment seemed to coalesce around the idea that the Mariners were significantly overpaying for Upton. For instance:

Upton rejected deal, and by doing so, one source said, “saved Jack Z’s job.” Package from #Mariners to #DBacks first reported by @scottmcbs.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) January 11, 2013

One executive says #mariners were “clearly overpaying” for Upton and are “fortunate” trade with #dbacks fell through.

— Jerry Crasnick (@jcrasnick) January 11, 2013

A front office friend of mine shared a similar sentiment, suggesting that giving up Walker and Franklin was too much for Upton. Arizona clearly preferred this deal to the other offers that they have received, going forward with this negotiation even though they knew Upton had the right to veto the deal. If the offers were similar from other clubs, then logic suggests that they would have taken the path of least resistance, and simply picked a deal that Upton couldn’t have scuttled. So, were the Mariners overpaying for Upton, or is Arizona now likely to have to settle for a discounted deal from a team that isn’t on Upton’s no-trade list?

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The Yankees take care of their own. Or something. Former Yankees, Rangers, Yankees (again), and Dodgers outfielder and designated hitter Marcus Thames has apparently retired, as the High-A Tampa Yankees announced that he will be their hitting coach in 2013. Thames was never a superstar. He was not even everyday player over even one full season in the majors, as the most plate appearances he ever received in a single season was 390 in 2006. However, he was surprisingly productive despite his limited playing time. During 2006, he hit 26 home runs for the Tigers on their way to the World Series. Thames was a good example of how hitter with a limited skill set can carve out a surprisingly long career, which included his share of dramatic hits.

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