Over the last few weeks in this space, we took a position-by-position look at the ball-in-play (BIP) profiles of 2015 regulars and semi-regulars to gain some insight into their potential performance moving forward. As I wrote the following, snow fell outside my window in blatant disregard for the dawn of baseball season. Regardless, we continue our similar BIP-centric analysis of qualifying 2015 starting pitchers, division by division. We began with NL East starters. Today’s second installment focuses on the NL Central.

First, some ground rules. To come up with an overall player population roughly equal to one starting rotation per team, the minimum number of batted balls allowed with Statcast readings was set at 243. Pitchers are listed with their 2015 division mates; those who were traded during the season will appear in the division in which they compiled the most innings. Pitchers are listed in “tru” ERA order. For those who have not read my previous articles on the topic, “tru” ERA is the ERA pitchers “should” have compiled based on the actual BIP frequency and authority they allowed relative to the league. Here we go:

Most of the column headers are self-explanatory, including average BIP speed (overall and by BIP type), BIP type frequency, K and BB rates, and traditional ERA-, FIP-, and “tru” ERA-. Each pitchers’ Adjusted Contact Score (ADJ C) is also listed. Again, for those of you who have not read my articles on the topic, Unadjusted Contact Score is derived by removing Ks and BBs from opposing hitters’ batting lines, assigning run values to all other events, and comparing them to a league average of 100. Adjusted Contact Score applies league-average production to each pitchers’ individual actual BIP type and velocity mix, and compares it to league average of 100.

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And now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for, the Positional Power Rankings of starting rotations before they actually get good.

It should be noted that the Diamondbacks’ rotation at 16 really projects no differently than the Rays’ rotation at 15, which Jeff will be writing up in his More Important post on the 15 best starting rotations. Which, in fact, serves as a useful reminder that, when dealing with the 7-10 moving parts of which these rotation depth charts typically consist, the actual ranking of teams matters far less than the grouping of teams. We can be pretty certain that the No. 16-ranked Diamondbacks rotation, projected for about +13 WAR, is better than the No. 30-ranked Braves rotation, projected for just +7 WAR. It gets a little cloudier in the middle, though, and just because the A’s (+11.3 WAR) are three spots ahead of the Tigers (+11.0 WAR), that shouldn’t be taken as any kind of definitive statements of Oakland’s superiority. A guide, is how these rankings should be used.

#16 Diamondbacks

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Name	IP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	BABIP	LOB%	ERA	FIP	WAR
Zack Greinke	212.0	8.3	1.9	0.8	.294	76.8 %	2.91	3.20	4.6
Shelby Miller	183.0	7.5	3.1	1.0	.296	73.7 %	3.84	4.08	1.9
Patrick Corbin	160.0	7.6	2.3	0.9	.303	73.0 %	3.58	3.65	2.5
Rubby de la Rosa	141.0	7.3	3.0	1.1	.302	71.2 %	4.24	4.26	1.2
Robbie Ray	129.0	8.6	3.7	0.9	.306	72.8 %	3.86	3.89	1.7
Archie Bradley	85.0	7.5	4.5	1.0	.303	70.3 %	4.54	4.56	0.4
Zachary Godley	28.0	7.3	3.5	1.0	.301	70.8 %	4.27	4.31	0.2
Tyler Wagner	19.0	6.2	3.4	1.2	.301	70.1 %	4.67	4.75	0.1
Josh Collmenter	9.0	6.0	2.1	1.2	.292	73.3 %	3.94	4.28	0.1
Total	965.0	7.8	2.9	1.0	.300	73.2 %	3.75	3.88	12.7

So, the team that lost Zack Greinke this offseason is tied for first among projected starting rotations. The team that gained Zack Greinke is hanging around the middle of the pack. This tells us a couple useful bits of information, the first being that that Clayton Kershaw fella is quite good. Kershaw alone accounts for the same projected WAR total as Miller, Corbin, de la Rosa, Ray and Bradley combined, and the Dodgers still have other pitchers, too. As for the Diamondbacks‘ position on this power ranking, it gives us an idea as to why, even with Greinke, many are still skeptical of the organization’s position as a legitimate contender in a competitive National League.

One caveat, in the Diamondbacks’ favor: they have one of the largest differences between their projected ERA and FIP. The sixth-largest, in fact. That is to say, if these rankings were sorted in order of RA9-WAR, rather than FIP-WAR, the Diamondbacks would stand to gain more from it than most every other team. Greinke was worth 10 RA9-WAR last year, and would see his projection increase by a full win if we went with the runs-allowed model. Shelby Miller also has the early signs of being a FIP-beater, and his projection would increase by nearly a win with the RA9 model.

So maybe the top half is a bit underrated, but the bigger issue lies within the bottom half. Rubby de la Rosa is now entering year three of “maybe that 95-mph fastball will miss some bats soon!” and this could be his last chance. Nearly all of Archie Bradley’s prospect sheen has worn off, and at this point the Diamondbacks might be happy if he winds up being a serviceable fourth or fifth starter. Zack Godley had a shiny ERA last year, but still has major command issues and was a 25-year-old who started last year in High-A for a reason. The top three can go pitch for pitch with most trios in baseball — Patrick Corbin looked every bit the budding-ace of 2013 after returning from Tommy John — but if any of them suffer prolonged injury, or de la Rosa pitches his way out of the rotation, Arizona could be handing out less-than-ideal starts in the midst of their playoff hunt.

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Taylor Motter isn’t a household name. But he does have a way with words, and there’s a chance he’ll break camp as Tampa Bay’s 25th man. If that happens, the Rays roster will include a jack-of-all-trades dirt-dog whose phrasing is more Yogi Berra than Bull Durham.

Motter has played every position except catcher since being drafted out of Coastal Carolina University in 2011. He’s also swung the bat. Last season, in Triple-A, the former Chanticleer hit .292/.366/.471 with 42 doubles and 14 home runs. His running game was an asset, as he swiped 26 bases.

The self-described “blue collar grinder” will take a walk — he had 57 on the year — but he’s anything but passive.

“If I get something early and hard, I’m going to attack early and hard,” Motter told me. “I don’t like to get to two strikes. If I do, that’s my time to go to battle. It’s time to put on my worker’s cap and go to work. Read the rest of this entry »

The New York Times has completed an investigation into the NFL’s concussion research and thus, by proxy, its public statements about the connection between playing professional football and concussions. They’ve concluded, simply, that the NFL has misled both the public and the players as to the very real negative health implications of playing pro football.

Anyone who has followed the NFL over the past few seasons shouldn’t be surprised by this finding. The NFL has a vested interest in presenting pro football, their product, as safe both for the players and for the fans, a vested interest that they pursue without regard to the health and safety of anyone involved with the sport. The idea the NFL might lie about concussions and brain injuries — or seek to cover up the connection between them and playing football — likely isn’t that surprising.

As baseball fans (though I count myself as a football fan as well) we should consider ourselves lucky. Baseball as a sport does far less chewing up and spitting out of it players relative to football, something that makes watching the sport as much as I (and I suspect you) do easier to handle from a moral standpoint. That’s not to say the sport is free of the nefarious — the treatment of minor leaguers does spring to mind, for example — but rather to acknowledge that baseball is in a better place when it comes to concussions than football.

Of course, that’s like comparing a regular person favorably to an axe murderer, so there’s some room to grow if you want to be a superhero. The point is, though, that baseball is, compared to football, doing alright when it comes to the concussion front. The NY Times isn’t going to break any front-page stories about Bud Selig covering up a concussion report. But that doesn’t mean baseball is in the clear.

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Nathan Karns is currently competing with James Paxton for a spot at the back end of Seattle’s starting rotation. The 28-year-old right-hander has the potential to be more than a No. 5, however. Acquired by the Mariners from Tampa Bay in November, Karns has a big fastball, a power curveball and a much-improved changeup. In 27 games last year, he logged a 3.67 ERA and struck out 145 batters in 147 innings.

Karns has a studious approach to go with his raw stuff. That much was evident when the Texas Tech product broke down his repertoire and his pitching philosophy earlier this week.

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Karns on his approach: “I focus my pitching on the lineup I’m facing. I kind of preplan. I identify weaknesses and strengths, so that I can go in with a plan for each hitter. I’ll get their numbers. First-pitch swinging is one. Do they swing at first-pitch curveballs? I’ll keep little things like that in the back of my mind.

“The count and runners on base come into play. So does what I’m working with on a given day. For instance, if I can’t throw my curveball in the bullpen before a game, I’m not necessarily going to run away from it, but it might not be my No. 2 pitch that day. What I’m executing may cause me to adjust.

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In my Tuesday chat this week, a commenter asked me about the Mariners bullpen, which has already endured some key injuries this spring. I responded as such:

Six of 10 worry points is more than half the worry points. I can’t say for sure even how worrisome that is, because worry points are a thing I made up at 12:27 p.m. EDT on March 22, 2016, but I can say for sure that it’s more worrisome than a team whose bullpen deserves just four out of 10 worry points.

People seemed to like the worry-points concept, and a few commenters expressed a desire for a worry-point article, with a couple even giving me ideas. I didn’t use either of those specific ideas, but the silly worry-point concept did get me thinking about team risk, and how that can influence our perception of different ballclubs before the season begins.

Like, say you’ve got two teams, each projected for 85 wins. But one of those 85-win teams has one super-elite star that comprises a bunch of their value on his own, and therefore that team is just one injury away from losing a big chunk of those projected 85 wins. And not only that, but the supporting cast around that star is littered with players over 30, guys with past injury histories, and a couple guys coming off bad seasons who are being counted on to bounce back. The other projected 85-win team, on the other hand, is pretty clean — lots of guys in their 20s, little injury history, everyone is coming off pretty standard seasons.

On pure talent, both teams are projected to be equal, but that first team has worry points through the roof. It’s easy to see where things could go wrong. The other team feels safe. This could wildly change our (sub?)conscious perceptions of these otherwise equal-looking teams.

I’m kind of thinking about the Dodgers right now, but I’m also kind of not. I’m mostly wondering what the spread is? Every team has areas of concern. Some seemingly more than others, but then at the same time, every team has guys who feel as safe as can be that will inevitably become injured or underperform this year. This game is almost impossible to predict.

This is going to be one of those posts Jeff likes to run with a bunch of polls and then a crowdsourced follow-up, because the opinions of 1,000 of you on something none of us really know about are worth more than the opinions of one of me. Who am I to assign worry points to every team in baseball? The results of this will be interesting now, and they’ll be interesting later. You’ll all put your brains together, and you’ll determine a handful of teams that seem riskier than the rest, and a handful of teams that seem safer than the rest. And at the All-Star break and at the end of the season, it will be interesting to look back and see what happened to those risks. Did the risky teams succumb and/or underperform? Did the safe teams stay clean and/or overperform? Will there even be a noticeable spread in the results of this poll? Is any one team actually riskier than another? These are all questions I can’t answer on my own, but would like to see answered. I’m thankful not only to write for an audience, but a smart and engaging audience.

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When we’ve written about the Diamondbacks this offseason, we’ve highlighted their seeming lack of depth, behind the stars. They appeared to be in position to give too much playing time to potential zeroes, potential zeroes like Yasmany Tomas. Tomas, of course, cost the Diamondbacks a fortune, and he remains plenty young and capable of turning things around, but he’s coming off a terrible season. You don’t want to guarantee anything to that kind of player. Turns out, the Diamondbacks don’t need to.

Some years ago, you easily could’ve argued Paul Goldschmidt was the most underrated player in baseball. Later on, A.J. Pollock became maybe the most underrated player in baseball, and then, David Peralta looked super underrated, and Ender Inciarte looked the same. Maybe there’s enough here to call it a pattern. And, now the team has a new candidate. He hasn’t proven anything yet, so he’s not underrated on the Peralta or Inciarte level, but it’s time to look out for Socrates Brito. All anyone cared about was the name. It’s become time to care about the player.

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Time to turn our attention to center field, the eighth position we’ve tackled since Dave Cameron kicked off the series with an informative introduction.

Used to be, you put a fly catcher in center and didn’t worry too much about offense, even if he batted leadoff because he was fast. Willie McGee and Otis Nixon come to mind, though their on-base percentages were decent enough, maybe. They didn’t have power, though. Those years, the position’s isolated power was around 10% worse than league average.

These days, it seems the position has evolved. There are center fielders now who don’t count fielding as their best strength, and their collective power is now closer to average than it used to be. Even Kevin Kiermaier — in some ways a throwback, defense-first burner — has decent power. Maybe down table, around two thirds down the list, you’ll find some guys that would have fit on any 80s squad in center.

But Leonys Martin, Billy Hamilton, and Odubel Herrera are today’s maybes instead of yesterday’s sure things, it seems. Today we wonder if Odubel’s defense is as good as his tools, or if Martin will ever hit lefties, or if Hamilton will ever hit righties. In any case, they provide diversity where some other positions have lacked it. There’s a long way from Yoenis Cespedes to Billy Hamilton.

Let’s separate the burners from the bombers among today’s center fielders!

Looks like two or three stars, a couple clearly above-average guys after that, and then a big bucket of decent. They won’t all get there the same way, but today’s center fielders can swing the stick a bit.

#1 Angels

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Name	PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	Bat	BsR	Fld	WAR
Mike Trout	658	.300	.405	.580	.414	54.4	3.1	0.6	8.7
Craig Gentry	35	.234	.291	.306	.266	-1.2	0.2	0.5	0.1
Rafael Ortega	7	.237	.299	.318	.275	-0.2	0.0	0.1	0.0
Total	700	.296	.398	.562	.405	53.0	3.3	1.2	8.8

This ranking is not built on depth. Should (perish the thought) Mike Trout go down with a season-ending injury, the Angels’ center-field situation would drop down to the bottom of the heap. That may sound like a knock on Craig Gentry — a decent defense-first center fielder when his legs are right — but more it’s just another way to fawn about Trout.

There are so many ways to fawn, though. As August Fagerstrom pointed out in his player cap, he’s already accrued more wins than any player in the history of baseball through their age-23 season. Only Ted Williams, Joe Jackson, Stan Musial, and Ty Cobb were any better with the bat alone, and Trout adds legs and glove to the package. Or you can go the route of Tony Blengino, who found that Trout was better than Micky Mantle through the same age. Or Jeff Sullivan it up, and chronicle the way that Trout has adjusted to every single wrinkle that the league has thrown at him, like handling the high pitch, and now including now taking inside pitches yard to the opposite field.

Or you can just be succinct, as Fagerstrom was when he summed up his player cap on Trout: the best in the world.

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Early next week, our Positional Power Rankings are going to turn to the pitching staffs. I’m slated to write about the top 15 starting rotations, and if I were to begin writing that piece now, I’d end up discussing how the Dodgers have the best starting rotation in the game. This is a controversial statement, because the Dodgers are built upon fragility, and they’ve already had something like 27 pitchers injured. How could the Dodgers possibly have a better rotation than, say, the Mets? The Mets roll four or five deep. They have three could-be aces. It’s easy to love the Mets; it’s correct to love the Mets. The argument for the Dodgers is that they have plenty of depth, and it’s also — importantly — that they have Clayton Kershaw. Kershaw’s not hurt, and Kershaw is basically two aces in one. No rotation has a better starting point.

I’ll write about that next week. I’ll write about it using many of the same words. When ranking the best groups, I think people have a bias toward even spreads over something more top-heavy. All of this here also functions as a spoiler. The PPR series runs down the rankings at every individual position, but a question a lot of people like to debate is, which team has baseball’s best outfield? We’ve had this conversation before, a year ago or something, when fans would compare and contrast the Marlins and the Pirates. Those remain two very good outfields. Yet based on what we have on FanGraphs, baseball’s best projected outfield for 2016 will play half its games in Anaheim.

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Whatever choices you’ve made in life, they’ve been poor enough to bring you here, a nearly interminable weblog post dedicated to the relative strengths and weaknesses of the league’s assorted right-field units. This, in case you’re unaware, is part of a larger position-by-position investigation being conducted by this site’s authors.

As basically everyone knows, the typical exchange rate between words and pictures is about 1,000 to 1. Due to advanced work being conducted by top scientists, the following image has actually been valued at roughly 6,000 words. Or, at least that’s how many words follow it.

Right fielders: are they more than just left fielders on the opposite side of the diamond? It’s the question of our time. Let us go then, you and I, and consider it at exhaustive length.

#1 Nationals

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Name	PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	Bat	BsR	Fld	WAR
Bryce Harper	651	.306	.421	.577	.420	52.8	0.8	1.9	7.3
Clint Robinson	28	.249	.324	.383	.310	-0.2	0.0	-0.1	0.0
Matt den Dekker	21	.252	.309	.394	.306	-0.2	0.0	-0.1	0.0
Total	700	.301	.414	.562	.413	52.4	0.8	1.7	7.3

Whether it’s true or not in every case, accepted wisdom nevertheless suggests that wildly talented ballplayers rarely possess the appropriate temperament to become, later in their careers, wildly talented coaches. The reasoning goes like this: a player who contends with considerably little failure during his active career is unlikely to understand the trials of those who are forced to contend with failure at a much higher rate. Or something along those lines.

It wouldn’t be surprising to find such a phenomenon applying to Bryce Harper, who’s been (to varying degrees) one of Earth’s best hitters since he was 17 or 18 years old and who — at the age of 22 — just produced the top batting line of this young and frightening century among all players who aren’t Barry Bonds. One can imagine a 55-year-old Harper, taking control of club that’s just finished in last place, and wondering why all his players just don’t decide to be the best in the league at hitting.

Because projections are, at the most basic level, regression machines, Harper isn’t forecast to approach the 10-win threshold in 2016 like he did last season. But given his youth and talent and constantly improving approach, it wouldn’t be a surprise if he did that. And it would certainly be even less of a surprise if he recorded the top season among major-league right fielders.

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