Yesterday, we kicked off our look at each division by going through the NL West. Today, we’ll do the AL version from the land of pitcher’s parks.

The Projected Standings

There are two pretty strong contenders at the top, two somewhat interesting teams hanging around the middle, and a likely also-ran. The top of the AL West is unlikely to be as strong this year as it was a year ago, but the low-end of the division should be somewhat better, and the race is open enough to remain interesting all year long. Let’s take a look at the teams.

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At a lazy spring pre-game meeting with Bob Melvin a few weeks back, he mentioned off-hand that Marcus Semien wasn’t going to play every day. For half a second, it seemed we had a bit of a scoop on our hands, an emerging platoon at shortstop for the Athletics. But then, that was worth a confirmation — “You just mean he’s an Athletic, right?”

Yeah, Melvin said, “We don’t play anyone everyday. But when he’s playing, he’s playing short.” Less of a scoop, but still interesting, was this confirmation of what Billy Beane said during the winter meetings about Semien’s new-ish position.

Here’s a player that had played all over the diamond in Chicago, coming to a new team to take over one position as a starter. That hasn’t happened much before. In fact, only four players since 2002 have left one team as a utility man and arrived on their new team as a shortstop — Adeiny Hechavarria, Craig Counsell, Jed Lowrie, and Julio Lugo.

The manager and the player were upbeat about what the position switch would mean for his defense. As the latter three names show, it isn’t a move that’s usually done with defense standouts, but there might be something about focusing on one position that helps.

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Over the last few years it’s become pretty well accepted that a strikeout isn’t dramatically worse than any other kind of out for hitters. But that being said, making contact is still almost always better than not making contact. There might be a rare instance in which you’d prefer to swing through a pitch because the next one is going to be right in your wheelhouse, but on balance, making contact when you swing is the goal. As such, a high contact percentage is a valuable trait.

Of course, not all contact is created equal and you don’t necessarily want to maximize your contact rate at all costs if it means you won’t be hitting with the same authority. If you can make contact without it turning into weak contact, that’s probably what you want to do.

Every year, I like to look at the biggest gains and losses in particular statistics and contact rate is always one that’s pretty interesting. You can luck into a nice BABIP or wind up with a few extra home runs without changing your game, but a significant change in a plate discipline stat is usually not occurring at random. The change might not always help you predict the future, but it’s unlikely a big spike in contact rate is simply noise.

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Earlier today, Kiley McDaniel published his consummately researched and demonstrably authoritative prospect list for the Oakland Athletics. What follows is a different exercise than that, one much smaller in scope and designed to identify not Oakland’s top overall prospects but rather the rookie-eligible players in the A’s system who are most ready to produce wins at the major-league level in 2015 (regardless of whether they’re likely to receive the opportunity to do so). No attempt has been made, in other words, to account for future value.

Below are the top-five prospects in the Oakland system by projected WAR. To assemble this brief list, what I’ve done is to locate the Steamer 600 projections for all the prospects to whom McDaniel assessed a Future Value grade of 40 or greater. Hitters’ numbers are normalized to 550 plate appearances; starting pitchers’, to 150 innings — i.e. the playing-time thresholds at which a league-average player would produce a 2.0 WAR. Catcher projections are prorated to 415 plate appearances to account for their reduced playing time.

Note that, in many cases, defensive value has been calculated entirely by positional adjustment based on the relevant player’s minor-league defensive starts — which is to say, there has been no attempt to account for the runs a player is likely to save in the field. As a result, players with an impressive offensive profile relative to their position are sometimes perhaps overvalued — that is, in such cases where their actual defensive skills are sub-par.

5. Raul Alcantara, RHP (Profile)

The right-handed Alcantara produced a strikeout- and walk-rate differential just above 15% in 2013, placing him at approximately the 90th percentile among all minor-league pitchers by that measure who recorded at least 100 innings or more. That he did it as just a 20-year-old facing older competition in the Midwest and then California Leagues (between which he split his season almost precisely) is more impressive. Owing to elbow trouble followed by a Tommy John procedure, Alcantara made only three starts in all of 2014 — and the earliest likely return is the middle of 2015. Despite the lack of current data, however, the Steamer forecast still calls for run prevention at something slightly better than replacement level — best among Oakland’s rookie-eligible pitchers.

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If you watch the Athletics, you may have noticed something about their pitching staffs over the last few years. They’re… shorter than average. Sonny Gray, Scott Kazmir, and Jarrod Parker are all six foot one or shorter, and none of the A’s pitchers are taller than six foot six.

Look across the country at the Phillies, and the difference becomes more stark.

@enosarris Phillies have 4 guys 6'6" or taller to the Athletics 0, it would be interesting to see if it is an org philosophy or just random

— Matt Winkelman (@Matt_Winkelman) February 20, 2015

Turns out, these two staffs define the range between the tallest and shortest pitchers in the majors.

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Evaluating the Prospects: Rangers, Rockies, D’Backs, Twins, Astros, Cubs, Reds, Phillies, Rays, Mets, Padres, Marlins, Nationals, Red Sox, White Sox, Orioles, Yankees, Braves, Athletics, Angels, Dodgers, Blue Jays, Tigers, Cardinals, Brewers, Indians, Mariners, Pirates, Royals & Giants

Top 200 Prospects Content Index

Scouting Explained: Introduction, Hitting Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3 Pt 4 Pt 5 Pt 6

Draft Rankings: 2015, 2016 & 2017

International Coverage: 2015 July 2nd Parts One, Two & Three, 2016 July 2nd

The A’s made a ton of moves this off-season, turning over their big league roster and moving a lot of prospect pieces around. This is a function of how Billy Beane sees prospects, which are a means to an end of winning at the big league level. Every player is available for the right price and, if you’re known as a guy willing to make trades, teams are more likely to talk to you and let you know when there’s asymmetry in how teams value various players.  Since Beane is always trying to win now and thinks the future is overrated, the A’s, in general terms, tend to pounce on 25-26 year old players who aren’t on lists anymore but still have tools, while trading the shiny new object that hasn’t failed yet.

The amateur talent acquisition has been solid, but this system is more a function of what trades presented themselves in the last few years and the strength of the big league team, than a commentary on whether the scouting/player development executives are excelling.  Picking low in the draft, not having a ton of extra picks and only spending what they’re given internationally means the A’s aren’t the kind of team that this sort of list-making process is likely to reward, which I’m sure doesn’t trouble them.  I have them in a glut of teams around 25th in the org rankings, but I’ll work out the specific slot in a few more weeks when the lists wrap up.

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Jason Giambi announced his retirement on Monday, after 20 seasons as a major leaguer. For most of those 20 years, Giambi was one of the best hitters in the game. I won’t waste your time putting down the narrative of his career — Jay Jaffe already did that better than I would anyway. But I thought today that we would celebrate his career with a few choice facts and/or moments from a career that at the very least belongs in the Hall of Very Good.
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We’re in that awkward time between the true offseason, when most deals are made, and the spring, when all the Best Shape of His Life news stars flowing in. Let’s call it Projection Season, because we’re all stuck ogling prospect lists while perusing the projected numbers for the major league squads.

One of the most frustrating things about projection season can be the fact that most projection systems remain agnostic about change. Many of the adjustments the players talk about in season don’t take, or take for a while and then require further adjustment to remain relevant. So projections ignore most of it and assume the player will continue to be about the same as he’s always been until certain statistical thresholds are met and the change is believable from a numbers standpoint.

But projections do worse when it comes to projecting pitching than hitting, so there’s something that pitchers do that’s different than the many adjustments a hitter will make to his mechanics or approach over the course of a season. The submission here is that pitchers change their arsenals sometimes, and that a big change in arsenal radically changes who that player is.

Look at Greg Maddux pitching for Peoria in 1985. He’s not the Greg Maddux we know and love. Watch him throw fourseamers and curveballs. It was enough to get through the minor leagues, but, at that point, he’s barely throwing the two pitches that made him a Hall of Famer eventually.

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Yesterday, we gave you a little bit of a tease, giving you a glimpse into the making of FanGraphs Top 200 Prospect List. This morning, however, we present the list in its entirety, including scouting grades and reports for every prospect rated as a 50 Future Value player currently in the minor leagues. As discussed in the linked introduction, some notable international players were not included on the list, but their respective statuses were discussed in yesterday’s post. If you haven’t read any of the prior prospect pieces here on the site, I’d highly encourage you to read the introduction, which explains all of the terms and grades used below.

Additionally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point you towards our YouTube channel, which currently holds over 600 prospect videos, including all of the names near the top of this list. Players’ individual videos are linked in the profiles below as well.

And lastly, before we get to the list, one final reminder that a player’s placement in a specific order is less important than his placement within a Future Value tier. Numerical rankings can give a false impression of separation between players who are actually quite similar, and you shouldn’t get too worked up over the precise placement of players within each tier. The ranking provides some additional information, but players in each grouping should be seen as more or less equivalent prospects.

If you have any questions about the list, I’ll be chatting today at noon here on the site (EDIT: here’s the chat transcript), and you can find me on Twitter at @kileymcd.

Alright, that’s enough stalling. Let’s get to this.

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I’m going to let you in on a little secret that might not actually really be much of a secret. The most difficult part of this job isn’t the writing or the analysis. At least, as far as I’m concerned, the most difficult part of this job is finding ideas, and finding them consistently. Once you have an idea, everything else can follow, but the thing about ideas is you’d like them to be original and, if you’re lucky, good. And interesting! Interesting is a big one. Maybe interesting and good ought to be categorized together.

For a while, I’ve personally been interested in Tyler Clippard. I’ve considered on several occasions writing about him, and about him specifically, but on every one of those occasions, I’ve talked myself out of it, because it just never seemed relevant enough. Generally, people haven’t woken up and thought, today I’d like to read in depth about Tyler Clippard. So I’ve had this idea on the back-burner for ages. But now? Now is the time to strike, since Clippard just got dealt from the Nationals to the A’s for Yunel Escobar. Tyler Clippard, to me, has always been interesting, but now he’s both interesting and topical, so, here goes nothing. Let me try to explain to you why Clippard is such a weird reliever.

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