In 2020’s scariest baseball moment so far, on Sunday, Willie Calhoun’s face took a direct hit from a Julio Urías fastball, leaving Calhoun on the ground in a great deal of pain. Any baseball to the head is a scary situation, and Calhoun hopefully is escaping from this incident with “just” a broken jaw. Further tests are scheduled for Monday, which will tell us more about the extent of the damage to Calhoun’s face. While the team’s first concern should be the health of their player, the Rangers still need to make baseball decisions.

The result, in the short-term at least, appears to be using Nick Solak in left field. Both the ZiPS projections and I are big fans of Solak, but this move likely simply shifts where Solak gets his playing time, and doesn’t necessarily represent a significant increase in usage.

Even before the Calhoun injury, the Rangers’ offense looked the worst of the plausible playoff contenders, at least if you buy into projections. As of this morning, assuming that Calhoun comes back and manages 448 plate appearances combined in left field and designated hitter, our Depth Charts rank Texas position players 28th in baseball. That’s ahead of only the Orioles and Tigers; the Rangers’ 11.3 projected wins are barely half that of the worst-projected playoff teams from last season, the Brewers and Cardinals.

I don’t believe the Rangers think of themselves as being among the most serious of Wild Card contenders in 2020. But I also don’t think they would have signed Kyle Gibson, Todd Frazier, and Robinson Chirinos if 2020 was seen as a lost cause, nor would they have been so insistent on getting a good price for Mike Minor at the trade deadline last year in order to make a deal. The most recent ZiPS run has the Rangers at 77 wins, while the Depth Charts forecast 78 wins; that’s a team that could at least make a little noise if things broke the right way.

That’s where Yasiel Puig comes in. The Rangers are light on offense, light on corner outfielders, and light on power from the right side. Puig is a fairly limited player these days, no longer the kind of star he was when he broke into the league. What Puig does remain, however, is a roughly league-average slugger who will give you right-handed power and not embarrass you in the outfield. After two years of lefties throwing fastballs against Puig with impunity, he finally made them pay in 2019. My colleague Jay Jaffe wrote more about this, but Puig slugged just .203 with a single homer against lefty fastballs in 2017-2018 combined. In 2019, Puig flipped the script, slugging .540 against lefty fastballs.

While a lot of teams would be able to find fill-ins for Calhoun from their backups or minor-league depth, outside of the starters and Nick Solak, the Rangers don’t really have any interesting options. If you don’t believe me, here are the ZiPS projections for the at least minimally possible internal options in left, with everyone re-projected as a left fielder:

Not a single one of these options projects as better than replacement-level in left. Suffice it to say, Puig murderizes these projections.

Even Puig’s 10th-percentile projection adds a win over a full season compared to the rest of the team’s options (he forecasts as an average player in 62% of his projections, an All-Star in 12%, and replacement level in just 3%). He’s also good enough that, like Hunter Pence was last year, he can carve out a significant role even as a non-starter, though he likely won’t match Pence’s surprising 2019 production.

Texas would be smart to treat a Puig signing with a bit of urgency rather than taking a wait-and-see approach. Puig was ineligible to receive a qualifying offer from the Indians, so unlike last year’s free agent stragglers, most notably Dallas Keuchel and Craig Kimbrel, there is no particular incentive to force him to spend April in street clothes. Nor are the Rangers the only team with a reason to give Puig a call. The Yankees are now without Aaron Judge and while Giancarlo Stanton ought to return from his calf injury soon, his recent injury record is likely enough to give the Yankees’ front office pause.

The Rangers already had a narrow path to the playoffs, and losing Calhoun and his possible upside makes that path even narrower. Texas is absolutely awash in cash, nowhere near any of the luxury tax thresholds, and Puig can help the team long after a Calhoun recovery. Sign Puig. Do it yesterday.

Time is the ultimate badass. No matter how great you are, no matter how amazing you are at planning, time always wins in the end. And so it is in baseball as in other things. Mike Trout is, in many ways, the reigning king of baseball, that rare player who enters every season as the nearly-undisputed best in the game. Trout is no longer the young phenom and will turn 30 in just under 18 months, the threshold past which your baseball youth is symbolically gone. Young talent debuts every year while Trout inches closer and closer to retirement, and the day will come when he’s no longer baseball’s clear best.

Just being the best player projected coming into the season is practically enough to ensure your baseball immortality. I went back to the start of the modern era (1901) and collected the top WAR projection for every season, instructing ZiPS to calculate a Marcel-like method for the seasons prior to 2003, when the ZiPS projections did not exist. This is a quick way to demonstrate Trout’s dominance compared to other elite players in baseball history:

There are a couple of oddities in there, mostly caused by the difficulty of projecting a player who missed seasons due to war service, but otherwise it’s a Who’s Who of the Hall’s inner circle. I’d wager that in 50 years, all but two of these players will be in the Hall of Fame, with Charlie Keller likely on the outside, and Snuffy Stirnweiss certainly so. (If I’m still around in 50 years to test this prediction, I also wager I’ll be a very shouty, curmudgeonly 91-year-old.)

In terms of the number of years at the top of the heap, Trout’s eight seasons already puts him in third place in modern baseball, behind only Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds. In terms of uninterrupted reigns, Trout’s eight consecutive seasons ties Bonds’ 1992-1999 stretch, meaning that if he has the top projection entering 2021, he’ll have earned his spot as the giocatore di tutti giocatori in baseball.

Read the rest of this entry »

While the Brewers showed a disappointing inclination to cut costs this winter in a division that’s ripe for dominating, they didn’t disappoint when it came to their franchise player, Christian Yelich. Some of the team’s secondary talent, names like Eric Thames, Gio González, and Travis Shaw, were left to find richer pastures, but the Brewers made sure to lock up the services of the player who was truly indispensable. Yelich didn’t get Bryce Harper or Gerrit Cole money, but that was never in the cards with free agency years away, him hitting the market in his 30s, and coming off a significant injury. My colleague Jay Jaffe has smithed up many additional words on Yelich which you should go read now.

When seeing the Brewers close a long-term pact with their superstar, it’s not hard to contrast it with the behavior of the Cleveland Indians. A team with a larger market but worse attendance, the Indians were very close to the Brewers in revenue in the most recent Forbes estimates, with $282 million in revenue compared to $288 million for the Brew Crew. There’s some give and take in these numbers with baseball’s books not being open for all to peruse, but the figures probably aren’t that far off the mark. After all, compared to companies in other industries with similar revenues, baseball teams are relatively simple corporations. The big-ticket revenues and costs are in fact quite well-known, so there’s only so far these numbers can miss.

My fellow FanGraphier Craig Edwards convincingly argued last week that the question of the Indians being able to afford to extend Francisco Lindor a new contract is more a question of willingness than ability. Read the rest of this entry »

Two years ago, the rebuilding San Diego Padres made a big free agent splash, signing first baseman Eric Hosmer, late of the Kansas City Royals, to a five-year, $105 million contract. If Hosmer decided not to exercise his opt-out clause after the fifth year, the contract would become an eight-year, $144 million pact, then the largest deal signed in the history of the San Diego Padres.

The argument against the Hosmer signing was pretty simple: Eric Hosmer wasn’t very good. Among first basemen from 2011-2017, the years since Hosmer’s rookie season, he ranked just 17th in WAR. When a rate stat like wRC+ is used, Hosmer drops to 26th among first basemen with 1000 plate appearances:

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For the Chicago White Sox and their fans, this past winter was a very different experience than other recent offseasons. While the team more than dipped its toes into the waters of the Manny Machado sweepstakes after 2018 — seemingly signing every free agent who was a relatives, friend, or neighbor of the eventual Padres third baseman — that effort was a targeted strike at a free agent of rare quality. Outside of that chase, the Sox, still in their rebuilding phase, were not particularly aggressive when it came to adding talent in free agency. Kelvin Herrera was the only player signed who received a contract guaranteeing $10 million, and the White Sox are probably second-guessing that one.

This winter changed this tale. The 2019 White Sox were surprisingly competitive throughout the first half of the season and were within a game of .500 as late as early July. Any unrealistic playoff hopes were dashed by a 7-17 July, but that was still the only month of the season during which the team lost at least three more games than they won. This was a mediocre team, but a mediocre team that was at least playing watchable baseball for most of the season. In the end, the team added 10 wins to their 2018 total of 62.

Of note is that the White Sox didn’t net these 10 games from having a bunch of top prospects graduate to the majors. Of the team’s top 30 prospects from last year, only Eloy Jiménez made a positive impact on the team’s win total in 2019. And even Jiménez’s impact was relatively small, as on-base and defensive struggles kept his WAR to a merely adequate 1.9. The White Sox could legitimately point to their improvements and claim that the best was very much yet to come. Read the rest of this entry »

Naturally, once the ZiPS elves have finished baking the ZiPS, the first thing I want to do — at least after actually getting some sleep — is to crank out some ZiPS projected standings. So let’s wrap up ZiPS Week (I’m possibly the only person calling it this) by doing the first run of the ZiPS projected standings for the 2020 season.

The methodology I use is not identical to the one we use in our Standings, so there will naturally be some important differences in the results. So how does ZiPS calculate the season?

Stored within ZiPS is the first through 99th percentile projections for each player it projects. I start by making a generalized depth chart, using our depth charts as an initial starting point. Since these are my curated projections, I then make changes based on my personal feelings on who will receive playing time, as filtered by arbitrary whimsy my logic and reasoning. ZiPS then generates a million versions of each team in Monte Carlo fashion. The computational algorithms, that is, not dressing up in a tuxedo and playing baccarat like James Bond.

After this is done, then ZiPS applies another set of algorithms with a generalized distribution of injury risk, which changes the baseline PAs/IPs selected for each player. Of note is that higher-percentile projections already have more playing time than lower-percentile projections before this step. It then automatically “fills in” playing time from the next players on the list (proportionally) to get to 700 plate appearances for each position and 1458 innings. Read the rest of this entry »

Since 2014, I’ve cranked out the career numbers for every significant prospect, regardless of whether they’ve reached the level of the minors that would normally justify an official projection. After a one-year hiatus, those projections, more commonly known as the ZiPS Top 100 Prospects list, return for their FanGraphs debut. If you’re unaware of what ZiPS projections are and the purpose they serve, please consult this article and this article while I reconsider my public relations strategy.

These projections are not a replacement for scouting. Projection systems are very clever, and a smart analyst can figure out a lot of ways to approach some of the thornier data questions that emerge over 15 years of prognostication (as for me, I’ve muddled by). But they can’t capture everything and the farther down the minor league ladder you go, the worse the data gets and the shorter the players’ histories become. That’s why I usually need a compelling reason to create a yearly projection for a hitter with no High-A experience or a pitcher who has yet to make a Double-A appearance. ZiPS can use college data, but I prefer to avoid it. And ZiPS does not use high school data, as that would be preposterous. Without college stats or a major international league, ZiPS literally has nothing to go on for a player without minor league experience. So if you’re wondering why Jasson Dominguez is missing from the list, it’s not that he’s a lousy prospect, it’s just that ZiPS doesn’t have anything useful to say about him yet.

One of the biggest differences between ZiPS and most other prospect lists is that, given the uncertainty surrounding any prospect’s future performance, ZiPS projections tend to give higher career WAR forecasts to lower-risk, lower-ceiling players in the high minors. So ZiPS has historically given higher grades to prospects like Steven Matz, Kolten Wong, and Marcus Semien, though it turned out his ceiling was quite high, than any other prospect lists did. Some of the successes — players who ranked higher on the ZiPS list than any other I found — include Ozzie Albies (No. 49, pre-2015), Mookie Betts (No. 26, pre-2014), Trea Turner (No. 11, pre-2016), and Joc Pederson (No. 2, pre-2015). Naturally, there have been some dismal busts too, just like any prospect list, the worst possibly being the year ZiPS had Arismendy Alcantara ranked 13th. Whoops. Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for eight years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Tampa Bay Rays.

Batters

One of the things that amazes me about the Rays is how easily they seem to be able to find solidly average talent. Give Tampa’s front office a list of minor league free agents and guarantee that those they talk to will sign with them, and I bet they end up with a bushel of 1.5 WAR players. Heck, send them into a dollar store and they’ll probably find a second baseman who can hit .270/.330/.380 and some off-brand Doritos.

Just one player, Austin Meadows, is projected to be worth at least three wins, so the team’s lineup will tend to max out at “good” rather than competing with the Yankees, A’s, or Twins; they just don’t have enough high-upside talent (right now at least, someone is coming). But it also makes them an incredibly safe lineup, one of the few groups that could survive an obscene number of injuries. Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for eight years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Toronto Blue Jays.

Batters

If you planned a Bond villain-esque scheme to abduct the sons of famous baseball players and put them to work in your baseball mines, it would make for a pretty good plot, and a hell of a lineup. Toronto’s storyline is still incomplete, however, as the next phase of the plan involved collecting a bunch of castoffs and tossing them into the batting order.

Perhaps this is a touch on the mean side. Whatever else you can say about the Jays, it’s unlikely they have a floor anywhere near as low as some of the other teams — like the Marlins or Royals — likely to land in the 70s for wins. The outfield has a lot of guys to juggle, as players like Dalton Pompey and Anthony Alford never developed into the types that carve out permanent roles. ZiPS remains skeptical of Lourdes Gurriel Jr.’s offense, and while the computer has him ticking up near an OPS+ of 100, that isn’t all that exciting when you’re talking about a corner outfielder instead of a middle infielder. The Jays don’t really have a center fielder in this group — at least among those likely to start — which raises some concerns about what their defense will look like. Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for eight years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Texas Rangers.

Batters

I should start by making one important note about the Rangers: I’m projecting using current park factors. The club believes that the wind patterns in Globe Life Field will keep it fairly neutral, though they also thought that before their current home opened. Keeping the old park factors until data tells me otherwise keeps the numbers in a similar context as past Rangers teams, making the raw, non-neutralized numbers easiest to read. And remember, that’s why we have park-neutral numbers included as well!

The increase in league offense, combined with Globe Life Park being a hitter-friendly environment, served to camouflage the problems with the Rangers’ lineup in 2019. The team’s wRC+ of 88 was in the pits of the American League, tied with the Orioles, though thankfully lapping the woeful Tigers’ mark of 77. The lineup that will open at Globe Life Field isn’t an identical one, but it features much of the same cast that had issues putting runs on the scoreboard last year. Read the rest of this entry »