Commissioner Rob Manfred has clearly made a priority of improving baseball’s “pace of play.” The theory goes that, since today’s youngsters supposedly have shorter attention spans than ever and aren’t all that inclined to watch players stand around between bursts of actions, the game should move at a brisker pace and the bursts of action should feature less time between them. This theory has already led to some practice, including the introduction of a between-innings clock and a rule requiring hitters to keep their feet in the batter’s box. Baseball is an old game with an old audience, and Manfred would like to see a younger audience consuming his product.

ESPN’s Jayson Stark reports that the league has submitted two new proposals to the league: one which would raise the bottom of the strike zone and another that would eliminate the need to throw four lob pitches to intentionally walk a batter. The strike-zone proposal aims to create more balls in play, while the intentional-walk proposal would simply speed up the game. These things make sense in a vacuum. Of course, baseball isn’t played in a vacuum, but in real time and with human beings, and that makes the game a very interesting collection of circumstance, accidents, and general madness.

We won’t touch on the strike-zone proposal now, although it certainly merits discussion. Stark says in his report that it’s less likely to get a green light for the coming season than the intentional-walk proposal. So, about the intentional walk, then.

It’s a trivial part of the game, really. Barry Bonds has come to the plate, and you, in your wisdom, do not wish to pitch to Barry Bonds with a man on and two outs. You present Bonds with first base instead of a potential home-run ball, and then you work to get the next batter out. All you have to do is play catch with your catcher for a few moments. If Baseball with a capital B wants to speed up the game, why not eliminate the game of catch? It’s dead weight.

Because, once again, baseball is played by human beings. The man on the mound isn’t a robot, but a pitcher. Intentional walks almost always go off without a hitch. When they don’t, it’s impactful to the game.

Read the rest of this entry »

Look, over the horizon. You can just barely make it out with the naked eye. Can you see? It’s baseball, just coming ’round the bend. Sunday marks the end of football, and then we’ll have pitchers and catchers reporting to Florida and Arizona. We even get a treat in the form of the World Baseball Classic this year. Real, competitive baseball, and then Opening Day. It’s so close that you can taste the sunflower seeds and Big League Chew.

That doesn’t mean that everyone has a job yet, though. There are still some fairly notable players on the free-agent market. Not all of them are that great, but there are always a few February stragglers. So, like any self-respecting baseball fans, we’re going to arbitrarily put the best of them (based on MLB Trade Rumors’ list of remaining free agents) into a lineup, and then we’re going to see how they stack up against the Padres, using our Depth Chart projections. Why the Padres? Because we’ve currently got them projected for 66 wins, fewest in the league as of today. I’m not going to put together a whole 25-man roster out of these guys, because I value my sanity and, to a slightly lesser degree, yours as well. At least, though, we’re going to find out how a lineup of misfit toys looks against that of the San Diego Dads. Why the hell not? Buckle up.

First, I’ve identified the top free agent at each position. Below that, I’ve included a table featuring a head-to-head comparison between the top free agent and Padres likely starter at each position.

Catcher: Matt Wieters

Wieters is the clear option here, which isn’t saying much. The former future “Mauer with power” has seen his career degrade and his bat erode. Baseball Prospectus’ framing metric wasn’t fond of his work last year, or the year before that either, so his 1.9 WAR projection is probably a bit generous. That being said, it’s him and a bunch of aging career backups, so Matt Wieters it is. He’s projected for an 89 wRC+, though, so let’s not get too excited just yet.

Read the rest of this entry »

First, some data.

This is quite an illustrious list! We have quite a few Hall of Famers, we have a few slam-dunk future members of that group, and we have Jose Canseco. There’s also one Giancarlo Stanton there, and that’s who we’ll be discussing herein.

Stanton is something of a mythic figure in today’s game. Seen only in bursts, and sequestered away with an under-followed franchise at an ill-attended park, Stanton often only reveals himself to the average fan in highlight reels and on magazine covers. Stanton is the strongest man in the league, a demigod among mere mortal dinger-hitters. He makes the cavernous stadium in Miami look tiny. He breaks scoreboards.

Imagine what we’d see from Stanton if he stayed healthy.

Stanton just completed his age-26 season. He’s played in just 827 games so far. As you can see above, that’s the second-lowest figure of the group, 10 games more than Juan Gonzalez. His seasons have a habit of being derailed by injury: only once has he reached the 150-game mark. Even still, he’s never hit fewer than 20 homers — not even when he played just 74 games in 2015. That was the year Stanton hit 27 bombs, played his final game in June, and still finished 10th in the National League in home runs.

That’s the kind of talent and raw power that Stanton possess. It’s the sort of prowess on which you can dream, and has already produced more than 200 home runs and 27 WAR. How many home runs can Stanton tack on? Is he going to reach 500 before his career is over? 600?

Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve been waiting for Jose Quintana to get traded for a while now. Chris Sale’s move to Boston signaled the start of a fire sale for the White Sox, and Adam Eaton soon followed him out the door. There were many rumors about a possible trade with the Astros, or perhaps a move to the Bronx. Yet Quintana still currently projects to be the man taking the ball on Opening Day for Chicago. There’s still a few weeks left before camp starts up, and it’s even possible he could move during spring training, as unlikely as it is.

At this rate, however, it looks more and more like Quintana will be moving sometime around the trade deadline. He’s going to be one of the best (if not the best) pitchers available, and he most certainly won’t come cheap. He’s been the seventh-best pitcher in baseball since the start of the 2013 season, and the White Sox are hungry for even more young talent. Anybody looking to acquire him, especially with a trade-deadline surcharge, should be prepared to pony up. The Astros certainly fit this description, but so does another team — a team that hasn’t been bandied about as a possible destination, but certainly has the need and means to trade for him. I’m talking about the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Cardinals are in great position to make a run this year. While the Cubs likely have the division sewn up, St. Louis subtracted Dexter Fowler from Chicago and added him to their squad. They’ve also added Brett Cecil to beef up their bullpen, and they’ll be rolling out most of that same strong lineup. The one suspect area is their rotation. Adam Wainwright isn’t getting any younger, and Michael Wacha’s streak of bumps and bruises isn’t inspiring. Lance Lynn will be coming back from elbow surgery. They’ve added some depth in John Gant, and still have Luke Weaver waiting in the wings as well, but it’s depth that could be chewed through relatively quickly. The Cards are going to want to do everything they can to secure a Wild Card spot, and beefing up their rotation is one of the best ways to do it. We project them for 84 wins, and a little luck could have them on a better trajectory than that come deadline time.

Read the rest of this entry »

There may be no more confounding player in baseball than Yasiel Puig. His natural talent seems boundless. For bursts of weeks and months, Puig will look for all the world like a demigod in a Dodgers uniform, mashing and running and throwing like he was put on this planet to torture pitchers and baserunners.

Those stretches of time have grown scarcer, however. Every year since his blistering 2013 debut, Puig’s wRC+ has steadily fallen. It wasn’t as apparent in his five-win 2014, and frankly nobody expected him to keep up the 160 wRC+ he’d notched the year before. The last two years, though, have been rough. Puig has been limited to just 183 games since the start of 2015. He’s been sidelined by a variety of injuries, and that’s affected both his playing time and (likely) his production. Puig was even sequestered away in Triple-A for a month this year.

The question of who Puig really is as a player might be an easy one, but it feels complicated. Is he still going to be a star? How many offseasons in a row have we had this conversation now? Why do we care so much about a man who may just be a good-but-not-great cog on a great team? There have been plenty of blue-chip prospects who have developed into merely average players before, and there will be again. Puig may be the latest in that long line. It’s a simple answer, and it’s an acceptable one. What is it about Yasiel Puig that captures your attention and imagination?

It’s this.

Read the rest of this entry »

That’s a heck of a title for a FanGraphs article in 2017, isn’t it? Modern sabermetric discourse doesn’t give much credit to the traditional ninth-inning closer’s role. It focuses, rather, on deploying the right man at the right time, about Andrew Miller parachuting into the game at Terry Francona’s leisure to throw multiple innings of comedy. Closers? Who needs a set closer?

Well, most teams do, if for no other reason than a lot of players and managers aren’t quite ready to do away with the closer’s role just yet. One of those teams would be the Washington Nationals, who don’t need a closer as much as they need at least one more good relief pitcher. Mark Melancon did an admirable job finishing out games for the club following a trade-deadline deal that sent him to Washington, but he’s now employed by the Giants. The Nats haven’t replaced him just yet. In fact, they haven’t added any relievers to the big-league roster. Mike Rizzo has acquired some spare arms in Austin Adams and Jimmy Cordero, but they’ll likely be opening the season in Triple-A. One has to imagine that the current incarnation of the bullpen won’t be the one in place on Opening Day, right?

They’ve certainly made an effort to change the relief corps so far. They were in on Aroldis Chapman and Kenley Jansen before the former returned to New York and the latter went back to Los Angeles. Free agency is a fickle thing. So here we are, at the tail end of January, and the Nats have yet to make a significant upgrade to their bullpen. With a team that’s looking to win a World Series before their last two years of Bryce Harper are up, that’s something that needs to be addressed.

But who? Who’s going to close for the Nationals?

Shawn Kelley

He’s the man who currently has the job. Kelley’s been a fine reliever for years now, and in theory, there’s nothing wrong with him being the guy who closes out games. He’s as good a candidate as anyone left at this stage. However, it also wouldn’t be bad if Kelley and his excellent strikeout tendencies were free to be used in the eighth or earlier. Of course, if Kelley does end up closing, it could behoove Rizzo to sign…

Read the rest of this entry »

A Blue Jays team without Jose Bautista feels a bit dirty. It’s theoretically possible — and, given the fact that the Blue Jays existed before Bautista donned their uniform, it’s verifiably possible, too. Yet fate seems to have conspired to reunite the bearded bringer of dingers with the Jays. Bautista is reportedly going back to Toronto after finding that his age and rejection of the qualifying offer have dampened his market far more than expected.

After at one point reportedly seeking a contract in the neighborhood of five years and $150 million, Bautista is signing for one guaranteed season at an $18 million clip, with two options that could bring the total of the deal to $60 million. Regardless of whether or not those two years get picked up, he’s beaten the initial $17.2 million qualifying offer. Mutual options are almost never exercised, of course, but Jeff Passan did mention yesterday that Bautista is turning down bigger money to come back to the Jays.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the 50-plus years since their inception, the Mets organization has established a tradition of drama. When they win, they seem to win big. When they lose, they self-immolate in spectacular fashion. If I were to tell you a team were Metsing themselves, you’d probably know what I mean. There are likely many reasons for this — the local media, the size of the market, the team itself — but it seems true, nevertheless.

Despite their penchant for theatrics, the Mets have made the playoffs in each of the last two seasons. They’ve done it despite an avalanche of injuries and all sorts of extracurricular nonsense. They went all the way to Game Five of the World Series in 2015, and had the bad luck of running into the buzzsaw of Madison Bumgarner’s left arm in the 2016 Wild Card game.

They’re by no means done, of course. The Mets still have a dynamic young rotation, and they still have Yoenis Cespedes. That’s a great place to start when building a contender. They’ve also got good secondary players in guys like Asdrubal Cabrera, Lucas Duda, and Neil Walker, and a young bat with a bright future in Michael Conforto. Grizzled veteran? Have some Curtis Granderson. Local hero who’s also a capable utility bat, and can crush lefty pitching? Everybody loves Wilmer Flores. If you believe in miracles, they may even have David Wright (remember him?) back for a game or two. The Mets can play ball.

And yet, they still have so much work to do. The Mets are still on track to go into 2017 with real uncertainty behind home plate and a bullpen that leaves much to be desired — especially once you consider that they’ll probably be without Jeurys Familia for a month or so due to a likely domestic-violence suspension. Jay Bruce still doesn’t really fit onto the roster, especially since the re-signing of Cespedes and the need for Conforto to get consistent plate appearances, and the fact that the National League has yet to adopt the designated hitter.

There are still weeks to go before spring training gets into swing, and there are still plenty of free agents out there. A large number of them are relievers, and good ones at that. The Mets have time to make themselves better and ready for a true contention run. We’ll see if they do that.

We’ve not yet been blessed with Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections for the kings of Queens, nor for that matter have we asked Kevin James for his feelings on the subject. In lieu of these, we’ll turn to our Depth Charts assessment of the Mets, and to their official depth chart. Because there are so many balls in the air with their position players (the health of Wright, whether or not Jay Bruce will be on the team, etc.), let’s focus on the bullpen for now. It’s pretty good at the top! Familia, Addison Reed and Hansel Robles can hold their own. It gets fuzzy after that.

The official Mets chart lists Josh Edgin, Josh Smoker, Erik Goeddel, and Sean Gilmartin. The Mets can do better.

Read the rest of this entry »

Because we’ve been here for every moment of his career, we may have somehow lost track of just how good Mike Trout is. Obviously we know he’s the best player in the show right now, but it’s a not as easy to wrap your head around his historic greatness. Trout’s excellence isn’t the kind that lends itself to flashy highlight-reel plays, except for his trademark leaping home-run robberies. He isn’t a high-intensity player. His home runs aren’t moonshots, and he’s not a disciple of the Bryce Harper–Jose Bautista school of flare. He plays for a bad team, so we don’t often get to watch him on national television. Looking at WAR leaderboards and seeing his name at the top of the chart has become a mundane fact of baseball since 2012.

Let’s look at it another way, though. Consider Moises Alou. Had a pretty good career, no? He played his first big-league game in 1990 and his final in 2008. During that time he appeared in 1942 games and accumulated 47.7 WAR. He made the All-Star team six times. A fine career.

Mike Trout has played in 811 games. During that time he has also been worth 47.7 WAR, or roughly the value of Alou’s entire career. Take that with a grain of salt, of course, as the defensive metrics for Alou only go back so far, but yeah. We can somewhat confidently say that Trout has provided a similar amount of value in the span of 811 games that Alou, a pretty darn good player in his own right, provided in nearly 2000.

Trout is the sort of player who generates fun facts like this. You could easily do a recurring series of Mike Trout Fun Facts and not run out of material for a good while. Generational talent leads to statistical madness, and Trout is nothing if not a generational talent, perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime talent. He’s 25, and has already put together almost 50 wins. Only two players in history have compiled greater WAR totals through age 25, and they’re both inner-circle Hall of Famers. One of them is Mickey Mantle, to whom Trout is so often compared. The other is Ty Cobb.

Trout has yet to play his age-25 season.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Giants aren’t a bad team. They just made the playoffs, and they signed a closer in Mark Melancon who (hopefully) won’t make the citizens of San Francisco tear their hair out. Hunter Pence should be healthy! That makes things fun. Fun baseball is good baseball, and the Giants are locked in to a pretty fun team at this point. Every position is accounted for, for the most part. Only left field offers a little room for finding something to write about pondering, so let’s ponder, shall we?

Currently, it looks like the Giants are going to deploy a platoon of Jarrett Parker and Mac Williamson there. Surprisingly enough, no, Parker and Williamson are not tertiary characters from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but actual baseball players. They’ve both seen some playing time since 2015 in fits and starts as depth players.

The Parker/Williamson combo package could, in theory, be fine. The Giants likely aren’t expecting more than league-average production here, after all, and they don’t necessarily need more than that. Parker also has some serious pop in his bat, and frankly, there’s always room for some highlight-reel bombs.

That’ll do! That kind of power works in San Francisco, and if he can meet his ZiPS WAR projection of 1.4 as the big side of the platoon, maybe they don’t need to go get Saunders after all. Parker is also out of options, and may have a hard time making it through waivers to Triple-A.

Read the rest of this entry »