Recently, Jeff Sullivan wrote a piece here attempting to answer a question notable both for its simplicity and importance. The question: how many good players were good prospects?

As Sullivan notes, one typically finds the question pursued in reverse: of this or that group of prospects (top-10 prospects, top-100 prospects, etc), how did they fare in the major leagues (if they even made it that far)? There’s great utility in this sort of information — in particular where our understanding of prospect valuations is concerned. An appearance by a young player on one of these prospect lists tends to indicate, if not certain future value, at least present trade value. In other words: even those prospects who fail to record even one plate appearance or innings — even they are capable of possessing significant value.

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With Spring Training slowly motoring into life, that means another cash-flush free agency session has come to its conclusion. In truth, though, maybe we should think of this time of year — extension-signing season — as the time and place where all of the true money is spent.

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The New York Yankees’ and Los Angeles Dodgers’ payrolls continue to dominate when it comes to paying players. Not coincidentally, those two teams have the best local television deals in Major League Baseball. On average, the two will receive more than $300 million annually over the course of their deals, per Forbes. As more teams cash in with big local television deals — the Arizona Diamondbacks are the latest — it’s becoming clear no team will receive anywhere near the haul the Dodgers and Yankees have enjoyed. How much those local deals impact payroll is less clear.

The revenue from local television contracts is subject to revenue sharing, with one-third of the annual rights money going into the overall pool. The money produced from an ownership stake in a television network does not go into the revenue sharing pool. Local television deals are not the only source of revenue for teams. Teams are getting more and more money from national television deals. Smaller market teams are getting revenue sharing money from the bigger teams. Attendance at 81 home games brings in a great deal of revenue. Then, for that money to translate to payroll, there needs to be an ownership group willing to spend the money they receive.

Payroll does not directly translate to wins, and there is evidence that overall, the correlation between payroll and wins is decreasing. However, the correlation between wins and Opening Day payroll last season (.28) is in line with the the four year average (.29). Looking at a number of different factors and comparing them to payroll can provide a better idea of the factors affecting spending.

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Matt Harvey hasn’t been featured in these digital pages since the illustrious David Temple pointed out in early August that the Mets right-hander was throwing again after 2013 Tommy John surgery. With his coming start on Friday against the Tigers in the Grapefruit League, Harvey is about to be pitching again to major league hitters; that is not only cause for much celebration, but also cause for his goodly reintroduction into the halls of our analyses and postulations.

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What you probably already know is that next winter’s free agent starting pitching crop has the potential to be historic, not only due to the amount of talent currently unsigned beyond 2015 but for the hundreds of millions of dollars they’ll surely command. With the obvious caveat that extensions for some of these guys are possible before they hit the market, just bask in the names entering the final years of their contracts.

There’s David Price, and Jeff Samardzija, and Johnny Cueto. Over there, you’ve got Rick Porcello and Mark Buehrle and Doug Fister. Next to them, Jordan Zimmermann and Yovani Gallardo and Scott Kazmir. Say hi, Mike Leake and Hisashi Iwakuma and Mat Latos, and also Justin Masterson and Kyle Lohse. There’s Bud Norris and Ian Kennedy and Wei-Yin Chen out there as well, to say nothing of the near-certainty that Zack Greinke exercises that opt-out.

It’s a simply stunning collection of names, and it’s going to make the July trading season fascinating, as well as provide Philadelphia even more incentive to move Cole Hamels while they can. Lefties, righties, young, old, flamethrowers, junkballers, whatever you want in a pitcher, you’ll be able to find it on the menu.

Oh, and there’s also Tim Lincecum. Hi, Tim Lincecum. Read the rest of this entry »

So, as you know, it’s been an exciting week. There is baseball! There is baseball, with major-league teams playing against other major-league teams, and sometimes non-major-league teams. Some players have hit dingers, and some pitchers have struck some guys out. Meanwhile, on this very website, we’ve launched 2015 playoff odds, having uploaded all the 2015 ZiPS projections. Those projections have been blended with Steamer to yield the somewhat familiar 50/50 projections that we ran with all last year.

Upon the addition of ZiPS, I ran a polling project I’d already run once before in the offseason. On Monday, I asked you to vote in polls about the 30 individual team projections. I wanted to see where people stand closer to the season, with fuller projections out there, and with a greater understanding of what the rosters are going to be. A polling project means nothing without analysis, so this is that analysis, with sufficient votes having rolled in. I don’t think waiting another few days would change anything. The post itself will probably go pretty quick, since there’s little that requires explaining.

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As of just a short while ago: 2015 playoff odds! The odds we ran through last season are back, with division chances, wild-card chances, World Series chances, and so on and so forth. With meaningful player movement basically complete, with few important roster competitions, and with both Steamer and ZiPS folded in, these are your preseason odds, missing only injuries that happen over the next four weeks. Granted, an injury to, say, Mike Trout could change things quite a bit, but these odds shouldn’t change very much before the real baseball starts. This is a big day for those of us who are obsessed with checking the page 20 times a week. Even though there won’t be a reason to do that for a while, it’s just nice to see the page populated with numbers.

The same page was populated with numbers last March. Numbers based on Steamer, ZiPS, and author-maintained team-by-team depth charts. Which is to say, numbers calculated by the same processes. It seems those numbers are no longer available on the internet, but I’ve had them saved in a folder, so I thought now would be a fun time to look at how the numbers have changed for each team since just before last season. In a way it’s a snapshot of the last 12 months. In another way it’s not that at all, but let’s not dwell on semantics. Relative to last year, who’s going into this season with bigger expectations? On the flip side, who’s most trying to focus on the bigger picture?

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As pitchers go, Craig Kimbrel’s been doing all right. Over the last three years, he leads baseball in adjusted ERA. “Well,” you say, “ERA can be misleading.” Absolutely so! Conveniently, over the last three years, he also leads baseball in adjusted FIP. “But,” you add, “FIP can be misleading in its own way.” Definitely. Observe, then, that, over the last three years, he also leads baseball in adjusted xFIP. For Craig Kimbrel, it’s been a clean sweep.

And he’s done it with two pitches: a really good fastball, and a really good curveball. Just using our pitch-type run values, the last three years, Kimbrel ranks second in fastball value per 100 pitches. He also ranks second in curveball value per 100 pitches. Usually you don’t want to read into this stat too much, because pitching sure is a complicated activity, but the right idea here is conveyed. Kimbrel has a good fastball, and he has a good breaking ball, and so he hasn’t needed anything else. He’s about as close to unhittable as a pitcher can humanly get.

With that in mind, this is delicious:

Meanwhile, Braves newcomer Jonny Gomes swung at some Kimbrel offerings and missed a few, including one that appeared to be a … changeup?
[…]
“Chris Johnson (another in the group that faced Kimbrel) told me he threw a couple of change-ups,” said Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez, who was watching pitchers on another field when Kimbrel threw.

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Last spring, Mike Trout, Jason Kipnis, Starling Marte, Jedd Gyorko, Matt Carpenter, Yan Gomes, and Andrelton Simmons all received contract extensions buying out free agent years before they had even hit arbitration. The spring before last Anthony Rizzo, Paul Goldschmidt, and Allen Craig signed similar deals. The deals ranged from Gomes’ $23 million guarantee to Mike Trout’s $144.5 million deal. As players file into camp and prove their health, more extensions are likely on the way.

The recent pitcher contract extensions tend to pay more for potential, but on the position player side, present production is more prominent. Of the players signed to extensions in the last two springs, every player had already shown himself to be at least above average, if not an All-Star quality level player. Here are the players who have signed the past two springs as well as statistics for the season prior to signing the extension.

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