Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.
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The Braves kept working the trade machine on Thursday, as they continue to tear down their team in hopes of building it back up. The club once again directed its attention to the National League West, this time getting the now-limbered-up Padres into the mix. And in doing so, they managed to get a couple of players in Casey Kelly and Ricardo Rodriguez who may have interest in the future for a player — Christian Bethancourt — whose interest probably has died out.
Once upon a time, Casey Kelly was going to be a star. If you’re looking for a player to whom you might point when attempting to characterize the risk inherent in prospects, Kelly would be a great example. As one of the prizes of the Adrian Gonzalez trade, Kelly was thought to be within striking distance of the majors heading into the 2011 season. After all, when the Red Sox had traded him to the Padres, Kelly had 21 starts at Double-A under his belt. That’s plenty these days. Jose Fernandez didn’t make any before he graduated. Neither did Carlos Rodon. Lance McCullers made five, and then graduated. Anthony DeSclafani made 21 in Double-A before graduating to Triple-A, and hit the majors after 13 starts there. I’m cherry picking, but you get the point: at the time of the trade, Kelly was (understandably) thought to be on the cusp.
He wasn’t. He made 27 starts in Double-A in 2011, and didn’t graduate to Triple-A or the majors. At 21, his 3.98 ERA wasn’t exactly blowing people away, nor was his 3.77 FIP or 17.1% strikeout rate. So he opened 2012 in the minors. He started at Triple-A, but he missed most of the season after straining his elbow during his second start of the season. That was probably the red flag for his career. Had he shut it down and had Tommy John surgery right then, he might be working on his second major league season already. But he didn’t. After sitting out from mid-April to late July, he came back and made six starts in the minors — striking out 14 against two walks in the last two, both at Double-A — before making his major league debut.
Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.
Read the rest of this entry »
If you are a frequent user of this website, you likely know that on our player pages, you can find the five most-recently cited articles about a player — a mix of FanGraphs and RotoGraphs articles. Generally, a regular player will be written about at least five times a year. But when I sat down to write this piece, when I went to Peter Bourjos‘ page, the fifth article was Dave Cameron’s piece from Nov. 22, 2013, reacting to the news that Bourjos had been traded from Anaheim to St. Louis along with Randal Grichuk, for David Freese. That in and of itself is a bad sign. While we once thought of Bourjos as one of the game’s premier defenders, Bourjos — who was claimed this week via waivers by the Phillies — is an after-thought.
In that 2013 piece, Dave noted how Bourjos had basically become the best defensive center fielder in the game:
Since 2010, here are the top 5 center fielders in UZR/150 among players who have spent at least 2,000 innings in center field.
Peter Bourjos, +20.2
Carlos Gomez, +18.2
Jacoby Ellsbury, +13.7
Michael Bourn, +9.9
Denard Span, +9.5
The deal seemed like a great one for the Cardinals — and thanks to Grichuk, it may still be — but Bourjos never really held up his end of the bargain. In his four seasons with the Angels, he played 405 games — effectively two and a half seasons — and piled up 9.2 WAR. Not bad, right? That’s something between three and four WAR over a full season. Full seasons were hard to come by for Bourjos, though, which is why the playing time was spread out over four seasons. Still, hope sprung eternal when he landed in St. Louis.
Of note, Bourjos set a goal of stealing 40 bases in his first season in St. Louis. (Hat tip to Scott Perdue for the reminder) This was always going to be a bit of a stretch, as Bourjos, to that point, had just 41 stolen bases over his four-year career, against 13 times caught stealing. Clearly he had the speed, and a knack for stealing bases, but when your career high is 22 steals, shooting for 40 is a lofty goal.
That’s not really the point. The point is that he was excited. And the Cardinals appeared excited, as well. Bourjos started on Opening Day, and eight of the first 10 games in center. And then… he stopped playing. After those 10 games, Bourjos was hitting just .207/.258/.310, and while it was just 31 plate appearances, manager Mike Matheny had seen enough to know that he didn’t want Bourjos to be his everyday center fielder. Bourjos would start just six of the next 17 games in center, with Jon Jay logging the other 11 starts. And then Grichuk was called up. He and Jay would start the next five games, and then Bourjos reclaimed the job, as the Cards optioned Grichuk back to Triple-A. If this seems like an odd playing time pattern, well, let’s just say it wasn’t an isolated incident for Matheny.
| 9:02 |
: Hi everybody! Let’s get this. Before we get going in earnest, can I just recommend this Biggie x Star Wars mashup album? I’m like a kid in a candy store over here. http://lifeafterdeathstar.net/
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| 9:03 |
: Also note that this is our first time with JotCast, so bear with us if we’re a little slow tonight.
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| 9:03 |
: so David Price… what say you?
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| 9:05 |
: I say that you all are right – I think this is a win-win. Price doesn’t have to leave the AL East, and he gets paid like he should. The Red Sox get the ace they need. And a lefty to boot. I’m a big fan of this deal. I’m not concerned with the dollars.
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| 9:05 |
: Hold on, just trying to get Jeff logged in here.
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| 9:06 |
: The Red Sox were going to get some starting pitching somehow. I think this move should be look at in 3 months and then fulled evaluated
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Have you heard? The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2016 is now available for sale. You can check out the table of contents and read some excerpts from the book. When you finish that you can purchase it from our independent publishing platform, Createspace, in print form, or from Amazon in print form, and also digitally on Amazon for the Kindle.
But wait, there’s more! Because we’re giving folk, and since it’s the beginning of the holiday season and all, we want to give you a chance to win yourself a free copy of the book. So today and tomorrow (and yesterday), we’ll be running a trivia contest based on one of the articles in the book. The first person to post the correct answer in the comments will win a free physical copy of the book (sorry, no free Kindle version). It’s just that simple!
Read the rest of this entry »
| 5:47 |
: Hi everybody! We’re baaaaaack. Join Jeff and myself tonight at 9 pm ET and we can talk some baseball. Or we can talk about The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2016, on sale now! Or whatever else you want to talk about.
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| 9:00 |
: Hi everyone, let’s get started. It’s good to be back.
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| 9:01 |
: Good evening everyone.
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| 9:01 |
Does Neil Walker get traded? |
| 9:02 |
: Maybe, I don’t see the rush
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| 9:03 |
: I think they’re in a tough spot with Walker. They can’t afford to trade him for prospects. If they deal him, they’ll have to get a major league ready piece back. And that may be tough to procure.
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Have you heard? The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2016 is now available for sale. You can check out the table of contents and read some excerpts from the book. When you finish that you can purchase it from our independent publishing platform, Createspace, in print form, or from Amazon in print form (the Kindle version should be available later this week).
But wait, there’s more! Because we’re giving folk, and since it’s the beginning of the holiday season and all, we want to give you a chance to win yourself a free copy of the book. So today and tomorrow (and yesterday), we’ll be running a trivia contest based on one of the articles in the book. The first person to post the correct answer in the comments will win a free physical copy of the book (sorry, no free Kindle version). It’s just that simple!
Read the rest of this entry »
Have you heard? The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2016 is now available for sale. You can check out the table of contents and read some excerpts from the book. When you finish that you can purchase it from our independent publishing platform, Createspace, in print form, or from Amazon in print form (the Kindle version should be available later this week).
But wait, there’s more! Because we’re giving folk, and since it’s the beginning of the holiday season and all, we want to give you a chance to win yourself a free copy of the book. So today, tomorrow and Wednesday, we’ll be running a trivia contest based on one of the articles in the book. The first person to post the correct answer in the comments will win a free physical copy of the book (sorry, no free Kindle version). It’s just that simple!
Read the rest of this entry »
Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.
Read the rest of this entry »