Ben and Sam talk to former major leaguer Dirk Hayhurst about the player’s perspective on MLB’s efforts to speed up games.

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I don’t think it’s any secret we’ve been talking up the 2015 Red Sox for a while around here. It’s not so much that any of us are rooting for the Red Sox; it’s more that the numbers kept suggesting the Red Sox were in good shape, and we’re nothing if not loyal to the numbers. Our projected standings, based on the author-maintained depth charts, have long held that the Red Sox are a legitimate World Series contender. Yet for so long, one thing was missing: a projection for Rusney Castillo.

It’s not that he wasn’t on the depth chart. It’s that he was previously projected for something like -0.2 WAR, which is to say, Steamer hadn’t yet bothered to work anything out. So our actual numbers were incomplete. Now, granted, -0.2 WAR might be a fine projection for Rusney Castillo, but that seems unlikely, based on his skills and based on the price he fetched from the Sox on the market. Anyway, I just want to let you know what someone else let me know this morning: Castillo’s got real numbers by his name, now. I don’t know precisely when this happened, but our Red Sox page features an official 2015 Castillo projection, and wouldn’t you know it, but it’s favorable.

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The situation in Philadelphia is bleak. I don’t think that statement is going to cause a stir. The Phillies, right now, are projected by Steamer to be the worst team in baseball in the season ahead, even worse than the rival Braves. Even if you might personally find Steamer to be a waste of everyone’s time, the Phillies still look like they’re going to be bad. To make matters worse, the best pitchers are both in their 30s. The best position players are both in their 30s. The 2015 Phillies are going to have some thousands of season ticket holders, and those same season ticket holders are going to experience their own sort of adversity.

One clue as to how bad things are: the team’s own executives are saying, publicly, that the organization is years away from contention. No attempt is being made to sugarcoat the state of things. Another clue as to how bad things are: that’s what a lot of fans want to hear. They’ve longed for this acknowledgment of the need to rebuild. Fans knew some time ago the Phillies needed to change course. Now the Phillies are doing so, willingly stripping down so as to make for a better future. But, how about that future, anyway? Might we be able to figure out how long it will be until the Phillies are decent again?

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At the end of October, the present author published a not entirely exhaustive study which considered to what degree success in the Arizona Fall League (AFL) either did or did not portend future major-league success. Specifically, I looked at those AFL pitchers who’d finished either among the top or bottom third of that league’s starters by strikeout rate — the justification being that strikeout rate (a) is not only a fairly reliable indicator of success, but also (b) becomes stable in relatively small samples.

Even more specifically, I did this:

To better understand how much pitcher strikeout rate in the AFL rate might inform future major-league success, I looked at AFL pitchers from 2005 to -09 who’d both (a) faced 70 or more batters (that is, the sample threshold at which strikeout rate becomes reliable for major-league pitchers) and also (b) made at least half their appearances as starts. Each year in the DWL there are about 25-30 pitchers who meet both those criteria. For each of the five years in question, I isolated both the top and bottom third by AFL strikeout rate, resulting in 43 “high strikeout” and 43 “low strikeout” pitchers (although it should be noted that Adam Bostick appears twice among the high-strikeout group, thus leaving the former group with just 42 different actual players).

Despite the fact that Arizona Fall League performance is largely ignored — or, when it is cited, couched in a surfeit of qualifiers — the results of the study indicate that those pitchers who perform well in the AFL are more likely to perform well in the majors. By a reasonable margin, it seems. Again, the findings hardly suggest that AFL performance ought to be utilized without any context at all, but merely that — so far as pitchers are concerned, at least — it appears to provide non-negligible information regarding future value.

Of course, the AFL isn’t the only extant fall or winter league. Indeed, a number of other players — prospects as well as veterans and journeymen — all participate in the various Caribbean Leagues, the playoffs for which are currently underway in their respective countries. “What?” I asked myself in the service of ignoring something much darker and foreboding in my life, “what might winter-league performance say or not say about a particular pitcher’s future value?”

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The Boston Red Sox have too many outfielders. This isn’t news; it’s been clear for a while now that their outfield is overcrowded, and while shipping Yoenis Cespedes to Detroit for Rick Porcello alleviated the problem to a degree, they still don’t have enough at-bats to go around for the guys they’re going to bring to spring training. It’s a nice problem to have, of course, but it’s still an issue that the team will have to work towards solving.

The Washington Nationals have too many starting pitchers. Well, kind of; you can never really have too many starting pitchers, since the attrition rate of guys who throw a baseball for a living is so high, but Max Scherzer’s signing does push Tanner Roark out of the initial starting five. Having a solid group of useful starters behind your starting five is important, but having Roark as your sixth starter is something of an embarrassment of riches.

The Red Sox could use a frontline starting pitcher, as Rick Porcello isn’t exactly a classic #1 starter on a team that is hoping to make a deep playoff run. The Nationals could use a long-term solution at second base, and if that guy could also provide outfield depth for 2015, that would be even better. There might not be another situation in baseball where two teams theoretically match up for a deal better than the Red Sox and Nationals. So, Misters Cherington and Rizzo, let’s make the case for a Stephen Strasburg/Mookie Betts trade.

Why Boston Should Do It

The Red Sox currently project as baseball’s fourth best team, according to our calculations, and enter 2015 as the slight favorites to win the AL East. Despite their miserable 2014 performance, this is a good roster, and one that is built to contend this season. Boston didn’t spend $190 million on Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval to move towards the middle of the pack; this team was constructed to get back to the postseason this year.

And yet, this rotation feels incomplete. I like a lot of the pieces they have, and I think both Porcello and Wade Miley were shrewd acquisitions, the kinds of solid rotation pieces that every good team needs. But these are the guys you want starting once in a playoff series, and they’re currently the team’s two best starters, with a couple of lottery tickets and a lower-upside fifth starter behind them. The Red Sox starting five feels like a fantastic middle-to-back-end of the rotation, and if Porcello-Miley-Masterson-Buchholz-Kelly were their #2-#6 starters, we’d be talking about this as a position of strength.

You don’t need an ace to win the World Series, but as Madison Bumgarner just displayed a few months ago, it sure helps. October baseball is different, and the more frequent off days allow teams to allocate a higher proportion of their innings to their best few pitchers. Having a dominant starter make two starts and a relief appearance in a seven game series gives you a distinct advantage, but the Red Sox currently lack the kind of arm that can be deployed in that way.

Stephen Strasburg could be that pitcher. Over the last three years, he’s #3 in baseball in xFIP-, behind only Clayton Kershaw and Felix Hernandez. He’s an ace with upside, and at just 26, he wouldn’t have to be a short-term rental. While he’s only under control for two more seasons, the Red Sox have the financial flexibility to sign him to a long-term deal, and getting him acclimated to Boston ahead of time may give them an advantage in the negotiations. Unlike most pitching acquisitions, Strasburg doesn’t have to be a short-term patch. This is a guy that can provide value both now and in the future.

I know they love Mookie Betts, and so do I, but as much as they value Betts’ overall skillset, the fact remains that he’s a worse fit in Boston than he is on just about any other team in baseball. Betts was considered a plus defensive second baseman in the minors, but the Red Sox have second base blocked off, forcing him to the outfield. But even center field isn’t clearly available, with Rusney Castillo and Jackie Bradley Jr still around, and so if the Red Sox keep Betts for the long-term, he may end up playing primarily right field.

Defense is important everywhere, and as Shane Victorino has shown, this skillset can still result in an impact right fielder, but there are fewer opportunities to utilize a defensive asset in right field than there are at second base or in center field. Betts doesn’t lose all of his value in right field, but he would lose some of it, especially because Victorino is still around for another year.

Right now, we have Betts projected for 385 plate appearances between second base, center field, and right field, and being a legitimate contributor to the roster as a super utility guy: his +2.4 WAR projection for 2015 would make him the game’s best 10th man. But if you reallocate those 385 plate appearances to the rest of the guys on the roster, you don’t actually lose all that much short-term value.

If you split Betts’ 210 center field plate appearances evenly between Castillo and Bradley, their projected total WAR from the position would go from +3.8 to +3.3, a half win drop. They’d lose another quarter of of a win by shifting the non-Pedroia second base at-bats to Brock Holt and a quarter of a win by sliding Daniel Nava and Allen Craig into the right field at-bats that don’t go to Victorino. So, all told, losing Betts costs them roughly one win over his actual internal replacements in 2015.

Meanwhile, Strasburg is probably a three win upgrade over Joe Kelly, especially because Kelly allows the team to use Brandon Workman as a reliever, where he has shown legitimate potential. Because every team needs more than five starters, Kelly doesn’t actually lose that much value, and many of Strasburg’s additional innings would come from guys who should probably spend a good chunk of the year in the minors.

In 2015, swapping Betts for Strasburg is probably something close to a two win upgrade for the Red Sox. It doesn’t sound like a huge difference, but the Red Sox are at the point where wins are highly valuable, and Strasburg is the kind of asset that could be leveraged to an even larger degree in October. While the upgrade is probably smaller in 2016 — with Victorino set to be a free agent, Betts would be able to play most everyday — the Sox still have Allen Craig under contract and Bradley in the organization, so they wouldn’t be dropping down to zero value replacements.

And while they would be surrendering four years of Betts’ prime during years in which Strasburg could theoretically be pitching for someone else, some of that is offset by the ability to exclusively negotiate a long-term extension or get a draft pick as compensation if he leaves. There’s no question that you’d rather have four more years of Betts’ production than either of those options, but the lost value is deferred several years into the future, and the Red Sox should be willing to trade future wins for upgrades in the next two years. Strasburg would represent the kind of upgrade that would make giving up Betts’ future worthwhile.

Why Washington Should Do It

This is maybe the harder sell, because I just argued for the present value of wins taking precedence over longer-term upgrades for contenders. And clearly, the Nationals are also in win-now mode, especially after adding Scherzer to the mix. And with Doug Fister and Jordan Zimmermann set to become free agents at years end, trading Strasburg could mean that the team could enter 2016 with only Scherzer, Gio Gonzalez, and Tanner Roark as stable rotation options. In a year, the Nationals could easily have a significant hole in their rotation if they traded Strasburg away.

But unlike with Boston, Betts fits their organizational weaknesses perfectly, and Strasburg represents more of a luxury than a need. With Jayson Werth likely to begin the season on the disabled list, there’s an everyday job waiting for Betts in Washington, and for the first few months of the season, he’d essentially be replacing some combination of Nate McLouth, Mike Carp and Tyler Moore, both of whom have some value as first baseman but little as outfielders. Even when Werth returns, Betts would have few problems playing everyday for the Nationals, as the Nationals outfield depth was diminished with the Steven Souza trade, and Yunel Escobar is not so valuable that he couldn’t be easily moved to a part-time role to free up time at Betts’ primary position.

In Washington, Betts probably projects as a two or three win upgrade over their internal positional options, especially if Werth’s shoulder proves to be a lingering issue. So while Strasburg is indeed an excellent starter, it’s not completely clear that the Nationals would actually be dramatically worse off in 2015 by making this trade. Strasburg is probably two to three wins better than Roark, and you’d have to also account for some of Roark’s current innings going to lesser options, but even on the high side, you’re looking at a three win drop-off in the rotation, and if you buy into Roark as a guy who can induce weaker-than-average contact, the gap is probably closer to two wins.

The 2015 Nationals wouldn’t be demonstrably worse with Betts than Strasburg, even though Strasburg projects to be the better player. Their high replacement level at starting pitcher and their very low replacement level behind their penciled-in starters in the OF and at 2B mean that the gap between the two players would be reduced in Washington, not emphasized as it would be in Boston. And Scherzer’s acquisition reduces Strasburg’s value in October as well, as there are only so many October innings to be allocated to starting pitchers. Using Scherzer as the Game #1/#5 starter sets him up to pitch in relief in Game 7, but likely excludes Strasburg from that potential third appearance; the first ace provides a lot more marginal value in the postseason than the second one.

So if the Nationals wouldn’t take a significant step back with Betts in lieu of Strasburg in 2015, the rest of the calculation is actually pretty easy. Next year, Betts moves into a full-time second base role, where he projects as roughly a three win everyday player making the league minimum, and the savings in 2016 salary could be applied directly an extension for Jordan Zimmermann. The assumption has been that Zimermann is not going to be re-signed because the team had to keep it’s future salary available to try to re-sign both Strasburg and Bryce Harper, but with Strasburg out of the picture, a long-term deal for Zimmermann becomes more palatable.

And even if Zimmermann isn’t re-signed, the difference in salary alone gives the team roughly $12 million of budget room that Strasburg would have eaten up, giving the Nationals a chance to offset the difference in expected value between the two by upgrading other parts of the roster. Even if you’re low on Betts, and see him as something more like an average big leaguer going forward, an average player plus $12 million in spending money isn’t a huge step back from a $12.5 million Strasburg.

And then there’s the 2017-2020 value, where the Nationals would have four prime years of an athletic second baseman, one at pre-arb and three at arbitration salaries. With ownership already pushing the costs of the present team into the future, stockpiling valuable assets who will make pennies on the dollar is the best way for the Nationals to build a sustained winner, and Betts is exactly the kind of player that the team will need in order to be able to try and keep Bryce Harper in D.C.

And while Betts’ carries the risks of a young player with just 200 big league plate appearances, the risk surrounding Strasburg may be just as high, especially with Tommy John surgery already on his resume. There’s no question that Betts could struggle to adjust to the big leagues, just as there’s no question that Strasburg’s elbow could go out again on any given pitch. The Nationals would be exchanging health risk for performance risk, but it’s not entirely clear that they’d actually be increasing the expected variance of their roster by making the move.

The TL;DR Summary

Swapping Betts for Strasburg would likely make the Red Sox two to three wins better in 2015, and probably a win or two better in 2016. The marginal value of these upgrades, along with the opportunity to try and sign Strasburg long-term before he hits free agency justify giving up the extra four years of control over Betts’ future, especially for a team in their market.

Swapping Strasburg for Betts might not make the Nationals much worse at all in 2015, while freeing up additional payroll space for 2016 to potentially retain Jordan Zimmermann. Strasburg’s postseason value is diminished by Scherzer’s addition, so he’s more of a luxury than a necessity for the team at this point. The Nationals will not be able to retain all of their young talent without supplementing the roster with productive low-cost players, and Betts is exactly the kind of player they should be targeting in a trade.

In talking with people in the game, neither side seems comfortable with the deal, which suggests that perhaps it’s a reasonably fair proposal, or at least in the ballpark of being reasonable on both sides. I know I’m higher on Betts than most, and if you place a very high value on frontline pitching, perhaps you think the Red Sox should add a sweetener to the deal. This isn’t so much about trying to say that Betts are Strasburg are equivalent in value as it is to say that the Red Sox and Nationals are currently setup to help each other about as well as two organizations have been in some time.

It’s almost certainly not going to happen, but as far as speculative trade suggestions go, this one seems to make as much sense on both sides as any I can remember.

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Periodically over the next few weeks, I’m going to take an early look at the six divisions in a slightly unorthodox manner. Utilizing batted ball data, we’ll go back over the 2014 season and attempt to calculate each club’s true talent level. Making adjustments for teams’ offensive and defensive K and BB rates and team defense, we’ll calculate each team’s true talent 2014 won-lost record. Then, we’ll take a look at the current Steamer projections for 2015, evaluate key player comings and goings, and determine whether clubs are constructed to be able to handle the inevitable pitfalls along the way that could render such projections irrelevant. Kicking it off today, the AL West. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s very rare for a Major League club to sign a presumed every-day starter to a contract that will total either 4 years/$17M (a sum that includes a 2019 buy-out plus posting fee) or 5 years/$21.5M (a sum that includes a 2019 team option plus posting fee). But, seeing as Jung-Ho Kang is the first position player to ever enter the MLB directly from Korea’s professional league, this is a rare case in which the most refined of projections are still guesses. Unknowns presently rule the day.

At Just a Bit Outside, during the brief period between when Pittsburgh had acquired negotiation rights but had not yet agreed with Kang himself, Rob Neyer had a bunch of questions about Kang’s fit within the Pirates’ line-up. Before the Pirates had acquired negotiation rights, Jeff also had a grip of questions about Kang’s abilities both offensively and defensively. Jeff wrote the following about Kang’s glovework:

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It’s not that there’s nothing left to be done. Eventually, someone’s going to sign Yoan Moncada. Eventually, someone’s going to sign Hector Olivera. There’s no telling when a team might make a strong enough offer to grab a pitcher like Jordan Zimmermann, Stephen Strasburg, or Cole Hamels. It’s still the offseason — it’s still the middle of January. But for the most part, people are looking ahead, with the start of spring training a month away. With the Max Scherzer contract complete, all the big fish are accounted for. All the big fish, that is, but James Shields, who very much remains a free agent, with a very much unclear future destination.

The free-agent market at this point is terrible. As you’d expect it to be. Just yesterday, I was reading a rumor connecting the Astros to Ryan Vogelsong, even though the two parties involved were the Astros and Ryan Vogelsong, and that tells you a little bit about who remains out there. Shields is the exception, since, no matter how worried you are about the mileage on his arm, he appears a good-enough bet to contribute next year. The guy just needs to find a home. How might we be able to help him find a home?

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The proposed renovation of Wrigley Field continues to keep Chicago-area lawyers busy. A week and a half after the owners of rooftops overlooking the stadium filed their second lawsuit against the city of Chicago – arguing that the city’s approval of the renovation was legally invalid – the owners of two rooftop businesses sued the team itself on Tuesday.   The new lawsuit asserts a variety of claims against the Cubs, including illegal monopolization, deceptive trade practices, defamation, and breach of contract.  A copy of the complaint is available here.

I discussed the history of the dispute between the rooftop owners and Cubs in a post last week.  In short, though, the rooftop owners contend that the team’s renovation plans – including two new scoreboards to be constructed in left and right field – will block their views into Wrigley Field.  Although property owners traditionally do not have any legal right to an unobstructed view – meaning that your neighbor can lawfully build a structure blocking your ocean view, for instance – in this case the Cubs and rooftop owners entered into an agreement back in 2004 giving the rooftops some limited rights to an unobstructed view into the stadium.

Despite this agreement, until yesterday the rooftop owners had focused their legal efforts on challenging the city’s approval of the Wrigley Field renovation.  This was due to contractual language in the rooftop owners’ 2004 agreement with the Cubs stating that “Any expansion of Wrigley Field approved by governmental authorities shall not be a violation of this Agreement.”

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