Archive for 2017

Wil Myers was always going to be the San Diego Padres’ highest-paid player in 2017, regardless of whether he signed a new contract. In arbitration, Myers had around $4 million coming to him, which is quite a bit more than Yangervis Solarte’s $2.1 million, the Padres’ other highest-paid player. Myers figures to provide a 25% increase on the $12 million already guaranteed to other players on the roster. This, of course, ignores the roughly roughly $35 million to be collected by Jedd Gyorko, Hector Olivera, James Shields, and Melvin Upton Jr. as they play for other teams.

Given the incredible financial flexibility the Padres have, it makes sense for the Padres to lock up their best player for the long term, and it appears they’ve done that, announcing a six-year, $83 million deal with Myers, plus an option. Players just entering arbitration like Wil Myers seldom receive contract extensions that buy out multiple free-agent years, so this one is a bit unusual and costly for San Diego.

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The Indians just signed Brandon Guyer to a very modest contract extension. If you know Guyer, it’s for one of two reasons. A small number of you might know Guyer personally. A greater number of you know Guyer for his skill at being hit by things. Guyer is a specialist when it comes to finding an alternate path to first base. Here he is, doing his thing:

Call it cheap if you want, but what works works. Despite being a part-time player, Guyer just led the league in hit-by-pitches. For his career, he’s been hit by a pitch 66 times, while he’s been walked on four balls 61 times. Just last season, Guyer was hit by a pitch in 9% of his plate appearances, a rate which was 10 times higher than the league average. Ten times higher than the league average! Guyer is a statistical weirdo, but you have to love him for it. Unless, you know, you’re pitching.

Guyer is a bit of a competitive annoyance because of his specialty. And yet, as the freaks go, he’s out-classed. Guyer specializes at one arguably cheap way to reach base. Jacoby Ellsbury specializes at another. We’ve gone over this before, but we’re doing it again. Last year, Guyer’s rate of reaching by HBP was 10 times the league average. Last year, Ellsbury’s rate of reaching on catcher’s interference was 94 times the league average. Ellsbury managed one of the most extraordinary statistical accomplishments in the history of the game.

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The Baseball Hall of Fame will announce the 2017 class of inductees today, and thanks to the work of Ryan Thibodaux, we can be pretty certain that the Hall is going to welcome Jeff Bagwell and Tim Raines to Cooperstown this summer. Ivan Rodriguez might join them, depending on the percentage of votes he gets from people who haven’t revealed their ballots publicly, while Trevor Hoffman and Vladimir Guerrero look like they’re going to get close enough where their election next year is highly likely.

But the story of the year is Raines, who will get elected in his final opportunity. In no small part due to the lobbying efforts of Jonah Keri, Raines will likely clear the 75% threshold after getting 24.3% of the vote on his first time on the ballot, back in 2008, then falling to 22.6% the next year. Raines’ election is another sign that players are being evaluated differently now, with the triple crown stats losing their long-held positions of canon, and instead a player’s total contributions now being considered.

But I know that, for a lot of people — even many inside the game — it’s still tough to think of Raines as a superstar. He was a corner outfielder who didn’t hit home runs. He had the profile of a center fielder, but not the defense to go along with it. He was a square peg in a world of round holes, and because so much of his value came from walks and stolen bases, he wasn’t really seen as a superstar when he played.

These days, though, we have better tools to evaluate players, and things like wRC+ have allowed us to give different types of players their due, even if they don’t fit the traditional mold of production. So, just for fun, let’s take a look at what Raines would be if he were an amalgamation of modern players.

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Tyson Ross was one of the more intriguing names available in this winter’s historically weak crop of free-agent pitching.

At his best, Ross is something of the Rich Hill of sliders. From 2012 to -15, Ross led baseball in slider usage (38.7%) among pitchers tossing at least 300 innings. The pitch was so effective, he was often a two-pitch pitcher.

Among pitchers to throw at least 300 innings, Ross posted the 12th-best swinging-strike percentage in the game (11.2%) during that three-year period, and his 3.34 FIP ranked 34th in the game. Over that same stretch, Ross tallied 9.5 WAR. He was one of the better starting pitchers in the game.

His slider was still effective on the only day he pitched in 2016. Just ask Carl Crawford:

Ross was quietly becoming one of the more valued starting pitchers in the game. Then 2016 happened.

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After having typically appeared in the very famous pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past few years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Philadelphia Phillies. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cleveland / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles AL / Los Angeles NL / Milwaukee / Minnesota / New York AL / Miami / St. Louis / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Tampa Bay / Toronto / Washington.

Batters
The advantage, for a club, of embracing mediocrity is that it permits them to allocate plate appearances and innings to players who possess both clear strengths and obvious weaknesses. Odubel Herrera (609 PA, 3.6 zWAR) is perhaps the purest expression of this strategy and its benefits in all of baseball. Acquired by the Phillies in the Rule 5 draft and promptly handed a starting role at a position he’d basically never played, Herrera has produced roughly four wins each of the last two seasons. Szymborski’s computer suggests something approximating a third consecutive four-win campaign is probable. He’s an unambiguous success story.

Beyond Herrera, there isn’t much in the way of present impact talent. Maikel Franco (581, 2.6) is the only other likely starter to receive a projection better than two wins. Of some interest perhaps is the forecast for Cesar Hernandez (541, 1.7). The author of a four-win season in 2016, he’s forecast for only about half that in 2017. This isn’t surprising, necessarily: a not insignificant portion of Hernandez’s value last season was the product of a .363 BABIP and +13.9 UZR. ZiPS calls for a .340 BABIP and -1 fielding mark, instead.

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Here’s something that isn’t new to you: It’s difficult to hit a home run in San Francisco. It’s difficult to hit a home run in any ballpark, but, in particular, San Francisco makes it tough. This information is well understood.

So why don’t we freshen things up with a twist? Not only is it hard to hit a homer in AT&T Park — AT&T makes homers more hard than Coors Field makes them easy. That’s clunky, so to put it a different way, AT&T has the most extreme home-run park factor in the league. The most extreme of the pitcher-friendly places, and the most extreme of the hitter-friendly places, just speaking in terms of distance from the average. We all know the ballpark holds most fly balls, but while we were paying only indirect attention, AT&T became the toughest dinger ballpark in 25 years.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Lenny Harris and Jerry Dipoto, then celebrate the end of a long baseball news drought by discussing a few recent and imminent transactions, including the Jose Bautista signing and the Danny Duffy and Wil Myers extensions.

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