Ben and Sam discuss which teams have seen their chances of making the playoffs change the most since Opening Day.
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SQL Server Database Developer, Baseball Operations – New York Yankees (Bronx, NY)
Description:
The New York Yankees organization is accepting applications for an experienced SQL developer in their Baseball Operations department. This position reports to the senior Baseball Operations staff and will assist in the development of database systems which integrate with existing baseball analytics tools and web-applications as part of our player information and evaluation platform.
From Michael Wacha’s start Wednesday night in New York, there might be something to learn about the notion of a pitcher either having it or not having it on a particular day. Conventional wisdom is that pitchers have good days and bad days, and sometimes a guy just doesn’t feel it from the start. Through three innings against the Mets, Wacha had nine strikeouts out of a possible 12. In the fourth inning, Wacha had one strikeout out of a possible eight. In other words, Wacha went from doing something historically great to struggling to find the zone, in a matter of minutes. Reality is that a pitcher can find or lose his feel between pitches. How a guy looks at one minute might not mean very much with regard to how he’ll look a few minutes later on.
But while I went into this thinking I’d write about Wacha’s strikeouts, what I stumbled upon is something even more remarkable. There are more high-strikeout games now than ever before, and while Wacha’s feat was certainly unusual, it no longer feels so insane. But how Wacha actually pitched against the Mets — he didn’t really pitch like himself. Pitch mixes vary to some degree all the time, yet Wacha all but abandoned his signature.
When the Tigers decided to swap Prince Fielder for Ian Kinsler — side note: Kinsler is already +1 WAR ahead of Fielder on the season, reinforcing just how great a deal that was for Detroit — it was done, in part, to open up a spot on the field for top prospect Nick Castellanos. Fielder’s departure meant that Miguel Cabrera could move back to first base and Castellanos could take over at the hot corner, improving their defense at both positions. And Castellanos’ minor league track record suggested he would bring some offensive upside to the table as well.
So far, he’s basically lived up to expectations. He came in to the day with a 98 wRC+, right in line with what Steamer and ZIPS forecast before the season began, and that was with a .256 BABIP; give him some positive regression on that front, and the overall package looks like a slightly above average offensive player. While Castellanos is more of a good-at-everything-great-at-nothing kind of hitter, his most positive attribute so far has been his below average strikeout rate; at just 15%, he’s striking out about 25% less than a league average hitter this season.
But while we could have expected a better-than-average strikeout rate from Castellanos based on his minor league track record, the fact that he’s striking out so rarely is actually pretty weird. Because Nick Castellanos, for the first few weeks of 2014, has the 9th lowest contact rate in all of baseball. He has about the same contact rate as Curtis Granderson and B.J. Upton. He’s making contact less often than Ryan Howard, Giancarlo Stanton, and Adam Dunn.
On April 2nd, 2014, just one day removed from April Fools’ Day, the Houston Astros turned in the lineup for their game against the New York Yankees. Dexter Fowler would bat leadoff, Matt Dominguez would hit second and Robbie Grossman would bat in the three hole. The cleanup spot would be filled by Jose Altuve. Altuve is listed at five feet, five inches tall. Since that fateful day on April 2ns, he is now tied with Freddie Patek as the shortest player to bat cleanup since 1974.
Here comes the caveat that the Astros are doing their own thing at the moment and what they do should not be seen as some sort of new-age thinking in regards to winning baseball games. Short dudes in the four hole are not the new market inefficiency. Altuve’s odd lineup placement is just a phase. Like that one weird cousin of yours, Houston is taking some time to figure some stuff out right now.
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: Be here soon!
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: enjoy
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Why? |
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: Let’s get existential.
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Eno!!! My fantasy team is getting crushed by Almonte and Miller. Do they turn it around? Should I hold steady or look for replacements? |
(Note: The 2014 numbers below do not include yesterday’s performances.)
It’s still April, and the sample sizes are still small, so it’s important not to overreact to early season performances, both positive and negative. Still, we have passed the eighth pole, and it’s not too early to peel back a layer or two of batted-ball data and identify a few players whose early season slumps may be about to cross the line toward becoming somewhat significant trends possibly indicative of a change in true talent level. Read the rest of this entry »
Each weekday during the minor-league season, FanGraphs is providing a status update on rookie-eligible players. Read previous editions of the Prospect Watch here. Note also: all cited ages are relevant prospect’s baseball age (i.e. as of July 1st of the current year).
J.D. Sussman, the member of FanGraphs’ crack squad of prospect analysts typically responsible for Thursday’s edition of this daily Watch, has suggested that his “real job” will prevent him from fulfilling his obligations to the site today. The present author, who is barely employed by anyone, has volunteered to replace Sussman, provided that he (i.e. that same and present author) might also avoid exerting himself unduly.
To that end, what one finds in this edition of the Watch is a brief survey of the top-10 qualified minor-league hitters by FIB*, or Fielding Independent Batting (Asterisk). What FIB* isn’t is the same metric introduced to readers by Bradley Woodrum about three years ago. That one, called Fielding Independent Batting, but without the very integral asterisk, accounts for xBABIP and is presented as an index stat, like wRC+. What FIB* is is a batting metric with which the author experimented last fall and which is calculated almost precisely like FIP, except then placed on the same scale as wOBA*. Alternately stated: FIB* is a wOBA estimator which accounts only for home runs, walks, and strikeouts.
*The equation, in full: [(HR*12 + BB*3 – K*2) * .141] + .3267.
An important point to remember is that defensive shifting isn’t new. As much attention as the shift gets these days from broadcasts and other media, teams have been moving their defenders around for decades. What’s changed are two things: shifts now are a little more individualized, and shifts now are a hell of a lot more common than ever before, by leaps and bounds. Used to be a few guys would get shifted against. Now it isn’t even unusual to get shifted against, since it’s not like it’s only the elite hitters worth a bit of strategizing. Pull and spray tendencies, after all, are similar across the board.
It isn’t just the greats that get shifted against, which is how you end up with situations like the Pirates shifting against Brayan Pena. It doesn’t matter that Brayan Pena isn’t a good hitter — if there are ways to make him worse, any gain is a gain. It’s strategy, on the Pirates’ part, to shift against Pena. And for every strategy, there is a counter-strategy. What you’re about to observe is Brayan Pena trying to beat the Pirates’ shift, from Tuesday night. Did I already mention that Brayan Pena isn’t a good hitter? Yes, okay, good, that’s going to come up again.
Ben and Sam banter about Josh Johnson, Michael Pineda, and more, then choose between the Ryan Howard, Albert Pujols, and Miguel Cabrera contracts.
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