Due to an unfortunate data error, the numbers in this story did not include park factors upon publication. We have updated the data to include the park factors, and the data you see below is now correct. We apologize for the mistake.

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What’s all this, then? For an explanation of this series, please read the introductory post. As noted in that introduction, the data 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.

Third base is a little deeper than it used to be, and only a handful of teams have little to no hope of being productive at the position. The devil is in the details at the hot corner, as there has been very little turnover among the top 20 teams here. Teams that have quality reserves or prospects coming up the pipeline see a bump here, as we’re looking holistically at the position and not just at the nominal starter. This is an important consideration across the diamond, but particularly so at third given how physically demanding the position is. Only six third basemen suited up in 150 or more games last year. Compare that to 13 at second base and 11 at first base and shortstop, and it becomes clear that depth is important at third base. Unfortunately, most teams don’t have adequate depth, hence the bump for the teams that do.

Let’s get on to the rankings!

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Part four. Live free or veto hard. You can find parts one, two and three here, here and here.

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Some weeks ago, there was talk that the A’s were interested in trading for Jed Lowrie, while in return, the Astros were interested in getting Chris Carter and a young pitcher. Sometimes rumors reported in such a way are based in fact, and sometimes rumors reported in such a way are based in fantasy. Monday evening, the A’s swung a trade to get themselves Jed Lowrie. As part of the return, the Astros got themselves Chris Carter and a young pitcher.

The actual, complete specifics:

To Oakland: Jed Lowrie, Fernando Rodriguez
To Houston: Chris Carter, Brad Peacock, Max Stassi

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When the Nationals acquired Denard Span, it essentially meant they’d have to choose between Adam LaRoche and Michael Morse. When they re-signed LaRoche to a multi-year contract, it essentially meant Morse would have to be traded. One might have thought this would have reduced the Nationals’ negotiating leverage, but a three-team trade on Wednesday saw the Nationals still manage to turn Morse into legitimate value.

The overall summary, in case you haven’t seen it:

To Seattle, from Washington: Michael Morse
To Oakland, from Seattle: John Jaso
To Washington, from Oakland: A.J. Cole, Blake Treinen, PTBNL

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Only 27 players have hit 100 or more homers and stolen 400 or more bases in their career. Eleven of them are in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and four others can reasonably be expected to reach Cooperstown. But there are some names on the list you wouldn’t pull off the top of your head. Tommy Harper? Yep, he’s one of those names. He is also a possessor of that rare feat: the Random Career Year.

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Stuff tends to fall by the wayside during the holidays, even for baseball blogs. Still, Hideki “Godzilla” Matsui’s retirement deserves a some attention. Even for Christmas Week, it seemed to pass quietly. So, about two weeks after the fact, here are some briefs thoughts on Matsui’s MLB career and some of his biggest moments at the plate.

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Armed with a new measure for offensive volatility (VOL), I wanted to revisit research I conducted  last year about the value of a consistent offense.

In general, the literature has suggested if you’re comparing two similar offenses, the more consistent offense is preferable throughout the season. The reason has to do with the potential advantages a team can gain when they don’t “waste runs” in blow-out victories. The more evenly a team can distribute their runs, the better than chances of winning more games.

I decided to take my new volatility (VOL) metric and apply it to team-level offense to see if it conformed to this general consensus*.

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Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections, which have typically appeared in the pages of Baseball Think Factory, will be released at FanGraphs this year. Below is the second set of 2013’s projections — for the AL West champion Oakland Athletics. Don’t hesitate to leave notes regarding format/presentation in the comments section, as the author frequently has no idea what he’s doing.

Batters
With his offseason acquisition of outfielder Chris Young (for Cliff Pennington and a minor leaguer), GM Billy Beane has created a good kind of the problem for the A’s: four of the team’s five best field players, per ZiPS — and four of the five team’s field players projected to record a WAR above 2.0 — are outfielders. Coco Crisp and Young both have positive career UZRs in center field; Reddick has the same in right. All three have pretty large sample sizes at their respective positions. Yoenis Cespedes has neither decent fielding numbers nor a sample that requires us to weight said numbers heavily. Still, based on the defensive reputations of all four players, it wouldn’t be shocking to see a lineup with Cespedes at DH and the other three playing the outfield.

Outside of that quadrumvirate — and newly signed Japanese shortstop Hiroyuki Nakajima (about whom Jeff Sullivan recently made some shockingly intelligent comments) — ZiPS sees mostly pieces, but little impact.

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Because of what he does, we know a lot more about Hiroyuki Nakajima than we know about the average stranger. We don’t so much know anything about Nakajima’s personality, but we know about his performance at work. Yet because of what he does and what he’s done, we also know a lot less about Hiroyuki Nakajima than we know about the average major-league baseball player. It isn’t necessary to have profiles for every player who plays in Japan, but now that Nakajima has signed with a major-league organization, people want to know more. People want to know what Nakajima’s going to be, before Nakajima makes it evident with his performance what he’s going to be.

We know that Nakajima has signed with the Oakland A’s, for two years and $6.5 million. Nakajima was a free agent, able to sign with anyone. We know that Nakajima is 30, and right-handed, and a shortstop, and projected to be Oakland’s regular shortstop as long as he’s not terrible. We know that Nakajima has a killer bat flip. We know that my Firefox initially identified “Nakajima” as a typo and suggested “Nakedness” as an alternative. And we know Nakajima’s Japanese statistics. When attempting to evaluate a player you’ve never seen, or even a player you have seen a bunch of times, nothing’s more important than the numbers.

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Yesterday, the Chicago White Sox warmed the cockles of the present author’s heart by taking 29-year-old infield-type Angel Sanchez from the Angels in the Rule 5 draft. Because Sanchez can play the infield (including shortstop) and because he has some kind of offensive upside (owing to his excellent contact skills) and because he’s cheap (he still has just two years of service time and will likely make the league minimum), Sanchez will allow the White Sox to spend money elsewhere. Or, otherwise, to not spend money elsewhere and just keep that money and use it for whatever, like for a donation to an important New England boarding school.

Players who are chosen in the major-league phase of the Rule 5 draft (as was Sanchez) must be kept on the selecting team’s 25-man major league roster for the entire season after the draft — which suggests, if he’s retained by the White Sox, that Sanchez will fill some manner of utility role behind Gordon Beckham, Jeff Keppinger, and Alexei Ramirez.

Paying a player like Sanchez at or near the league-minimum salary would seem to give the signing time a competitive advantage. It’s also possible that that’s not the case at all. What the author found himself wondering — and what he attempted to answer by means of this post — is the question: “How much are utility infielders worth these days?”

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