A few years ago, Brandon McCarthy threw out a question that baseball Twitter scrambled to research: how often do Opening Day starting pitchers throw a first-pitch non-fastball? Suggested is that first-pitch fastballs, here, are extremely common and extremely predictable, and the results fell in line. It wasn’t clear there had been any first-pitch non-fastballs, and if there had been, there hadn’t been more than one or two, excepting, of course, the occasional knuckler. Baseball season has started. How does baseball season usually start for every team? With a fastball. It’s almost like a ceremonial first pitch, after the ceremonial first pitch, and before the actual baseball stuff.

Monday afternoon, baseball season started for the Yankees and the Blue Jays. In the top of the first, Masahiro Tanaka opened things by pitching to Jose Reyes. That season-opening pitch of 2015: a low slider, for a called strike, at 81 miles per hour. No mystery — it was a certain first-pitch breaking ball. The next pitch was a splitter. The following pitch was also a splitter. Reyes went down on three strikes, and Tanaka was off to the best of all starts.

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Right at the deadline, A.J. Preller managed to squeeze in one more major transaction before the dawn of the regular season. We can say that, now, the Padres’ 2014-2015 offseason is complete; we can say that, now, the Padres’ 2014-2015 offseason also includes Craig Kimbrel. He will, presumably, be available to the team for Opening Day. It’s a little different from the usual roster additions made around this time.

The whole of the deal:

Padres get

• Craig Kimbrel
• Melvin Upton

Braves get

• Carlos Quentin
• Cameron Maybin
• Matt Wisler
• Jordan Paroubeck
• Draft pick No. 41

For the Braves, it’s a totally understandable and justifiable move — not only do they get to shed the rest of the Upton contract, but Kimbrel meant relatively little to them as an elite-level closer on a basement-level team. The cost savings here are significant, and they can shortly be put toward assets that might be of greater help in the window in which the Braves plan to be good again. Also, Wisler! Wisler could be of help in said window.

For the Padres, it fits with a lot of the rest of the offseason. Kimbrel isn’t exactly a one-year player, since he could be under contract through 2018, but the team’s paying a high price again, borrowing from future talent and future flexibility to make the 2015 roster stronger. That goal has been met — without question, the Padres have taken another step forward. Now we all just get to find out whether this collection of talent can come together and push for something beyond a 162nd game.

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The first-level explanation for Billy Burns‘ impressive numbers last month? Spring-training statistics are irrelevant at best, misleading at worst. You know this part. However much there might be a little signal in the stats, it tends to be overwhelmed by noise, so it’s best to just ignore the numbers entirely. But for weeks we’re given numbers, and they’re the only numbers we have. We can’t help but look at them. Which brings us to the second-level explanation: spring-training statistics provide leads. Excuses to talk about certain players, based on something particularly positive or negative. So how about that Billy Burns?

Last I checked, Burns was tied for the big-league lead in spring-training hits. He was seventh in batting average and tenth in OBP, and while some players like Pete Kozma have also hit the ball well, other, actually good players have hit the ball well, too, so there’s that. The point is that Burns has drawn himself attention. He’s already made his big-league debut, he’s not yet old, and now Coco Crisp will be sidelined for some time. For Billy Burns, opportunity knocks. He’s an unusual player, so what can we make of him?

If there’s one thing you know about Burns — and many of you might not know anything — it’s that he’s fast. Remember Terrance Gore? Billy Burns has Terrance Gore footspeed. In scouting-speak, Billy Burns has 80 footspeed, meaning he’s as fast as anyone else. Like Gore, Burns has been used as a pinch-runner. We all got obsessed with the running game in last year’s playoffs, but we usually dismiss it somewhat casually, so, it’s worth wondering whether Burns might become something more than a novelty.

Read the rest on Just A Bit Outside.

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Hello, friends. After what would feel like an eternity of work to an ordinary fruit fly, we’ve arrived at the end of this year’s edition of the FanGraphs Positional Power Rankings. If you’re looking to have access to every post in one convenient place, here you go — that’s a link to the post category page. Browse, if you’ve missed anything. Browse, even if you haven’t missed anything. Maybe there’s a note you forgot about. Maybe you just want to further submit things to memory! The important thing is to click on our pages as many times as possible. Have you tried refreshing this post? I’ll wait.

This post is a simple wrap-up of the other posts. By now, you know what this series is about. You shouldn’t need any explanation. What’s going to follow are all of the numbers, in one convenient if slightly overwhelming sortable table. Note that these numbers might differ slightly from what shows up in earlier PPR posts — baseball is nothing if not a constant stream of transactions and injuries, and shown here is the latest data, as far as updates to the depth charts are concerned. Get ready to click feverishly on column headers!

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What do we have here? For an explanation of this series, please read this introductory post. As noted in that introduction, the data below is a hybrid projection of the ZIPS and Steamer systems, with playing time determined through depth charts created by our team of authors. The rankings are based on aggregate projected WAR for each team at a given position.

Yes, we know WAR is imperfect and there is more to player value than is wrapped up in that single projection, but for the purposes of talking about a team’s strengths and weaknesses, it is a useful tool. Also, the author writing this post did not move your team down ten spots in order to make you angry. We don’t hate your team. I promise.

Look, I understand full well this is probably the least-anticipated part of the series. This is a look at only half of the teams, and it’s looking just at relievers, who pale in perceived importance relative to starters. Also contributing to this is the idea that relievers, and therefore bullpens, are almost hopelessly capricious and unpredictable. I’ll grant you that to a certain extent, but it’s also exaggerated — we have a decent idea of reliever and bullpen talent. Relievers don’t get injured a million times more often than starters. The biggest thing is that, because of the limited single-season reliever sample sizes, there’s just room for more variation around true talent. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have good forecasts. This is a worthwhile endeavor, and sometimes a strong or weak bullpen can make all the difference to a team’s postseason chances. Come with me on a journey! It is a journey with numbers and words, where we discuss the best of the projected bullpens.

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The other day, Lloyd McClendon got himself ejected from a spring-training game when he argued with an umpire. Following some earlier events, Bruce Chen threw consecutive pitches behind Rickie Weeks, and after the second one, the umpire issued warnings to both dugouts. McClendon took exception to this, figuring a warning should’ve come a pitch earlier. So then, after the second pitch, Chen should’ve been thrown out, and McClendon didn’t like that he wasn’t. After voicing his displeasure, McClendon walked 400 feet to leave the field, which might’ve given him enough time to remember that it’s March, and if anything, you might want your team to have more at-bats against Bruce Chen in the Arizona sunshine.

It’s all kind of silly, on account of how the games don’t mean a single thing. It seems ridiculous for a manager to get ejected arguing that an opposing player should’ve been ejected, in March. The stakes just aren’t there to justify the emotional response. But on some level, you can see how perhaps a manager wants to be able to defend his own player. Good for the trust. And to some degree, managers just can’t help being managers, no matter the setting. Being a baseball manager is something you can’t fully turn off, and this all brings me to the point that there are intentional walks in spring-training games.

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It’s obvious, now, that Taijuan Walker is going to enter the season as a member of the Mariners’ rotation. He survived an offseason of trade rumors and beat out the recently-demoted Roenis Elias, and this is the kind of thing that can happen when you’re a pitcher who allows but a single run in 25 spring innings. There was, though, a point at which it looked like Walker and Elias might share an intense competition. So Walker came out guns a’blazing, immediately throwing a fastball at 95 – 96. Some pitchers use spring training to build up arm strength. Walker began it strong.

Which makes him an interesting guy to analyze. And that, in turn, is facilitated by Walker throwing a lot of spring innings before PITCHf/x cameras. Over those innings, Walker’s allowed nine hits and four walks, to go with 24 strikeouts. It seems like it’s been something of an early breakthrough, with Walker refining his mechanics and adding some depth to a slider. It’s been clear from the day he was drafted that Walker would have a big-league-caliber fastball. Of greater importance has been a changeup, an offspeed weapon for Walker to use against lefties. It just so happens Walker has thrown plenty of changeups this month. It’s been a clear priority, for obvious reasons. What, then, is there to be learned from the evidence?

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Carlos Carrasco is probably not the first to pull off the Carlos Carrasco, so perhaps I shouldn’t be terming it as such, but, recency wins over everything. Carrasco, for quite some time, was a frustrating and incomplete potential starting pitcher. Early last year, he worked out of the Indians’ rotation. He was subsequently moved to the bullpen, where his game unsurprisingly picked up. Then he moved back to the rotation, where his game more surprisingly maintained. Early as a starter, Carrasco’s fastball averaged about 93. Out of the bullpen, it averaged almost 96. Back in the rotation, it averaged about 96. Carrasco is now a sleeper who might be way too good to actually qualify as a sleeper.

Topically, Carrasco has this teammate, named Zach McAllister. Like Carrasco, McAllister has worked out of the Indians’ rotation in the past. Like Carrasco, he’s also been bumped to the bullpen. McAllister was just recently named the Indians’ No. 4 starting pitcher for 2015, prevailing over guys like Danny Salazar and the re-injured Gavin Floyd. Salazar’s the one with all the hype, on account of his extraordinarily electric arm. McAllister, though, might be something more than you figured. His assignment might not be only temporary, as there are signs he, too, is pulling off the Carrasco.

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