I decided not to write a post about it, but earlier I went into the spreadsheets to compare some of the fan projections for pitchers to some of the Steamer and ZiPS projections. The idea was basically to see if there are guys the fans are particularly high on or particularly low on, and as the former is concerned, the fans are higher on a bunch of relievers. Let me tell you, there are some real believers here in Mychal Givens. And that’s great! I love Givens, too. He’s really interesting, but he’s also a reliever, and I found myself scanning for starters. A name that quickly turned up is Tyler Duffey. Steamer and ZiPS see him good for a 4.37 ERA. The few fans who participated see him good for a 3.58 ERA. That was enough to grab my attention, and now we have an article.

Duffey, despite a strong 2015 debut, remains pretty anonymous. If it weren’t for the headline, I wonder how many of you would’ve known he pitches for the Twins. We’ve been conditioned to mostly ignore the various Twins starters, and for the most part that’s been a pretty sound policy, but Duffey has some unusual things about him. He was also all but guaranteed a rotation slot the other day by Paul Molitor. Consider this, then, a Tyler Duffey introduction, in case you’ve been in need of one. Twins fans know what’s up, but I’m guessing the others are almost all in the dark.

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Any opportunity to talk about Coors Field is a good opportunity, and, hey, wouldn’t you know it, but the Rockies’ home ballpark is undergoing some alterations that’ll have an effect on the gameplay. I’ve only just heard about them, but they’re relatively uncomplicated, and they should be in place in time for the start of the regular season. Baseball’s best argument against the idea that high-scoring baseball is exciting baseball is about to feature some higher fences.

I’m kind of a dork about park effects, and that’s why I find Coors so fascinating in the first place. They’re always trying to figure out if it’s possible to play some sort of normal baseball at altitude, and now we can get into the latest thought, as provided by Nick Groke. The Rockies are working to reduce the number of cheap dingers. It won’t not work. That much we can already say.

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Andy Green embraces shifts. The first-year San Diego Padres manager showed that last season in Arizona when, as the team’s third-base coach, he was put in charge of defensive positioning. The Diamondbacks employed 587 shifts in 2015, more than twice as many as the year before. It was a contributing factor to the club’s league-best Defensive Runs Saved total. Meanwhile, the Padres were one of the worst defensive teams in either league.

I recently asked Green for his thoughts on shifting in the outfield — should it be done more? — and my question prompted a short discussion on the subject of shifting as a whole.

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Green on extreme shifts: “I think it’s possible (to shift more in the outfield). If you want to throw some crazy things off the wall, you can look at certain guys and wonder if it’s wise to put a fifth infielder on the field. Look at Dee Gordon’s spray chart when you pitch him a certain way. Do you want to do it? I’m probably not the first one who’s going to do it. Maybe we’ll put that ball in Joe Maddon’s court, because he seems to be the guy who likes to do those kinds of things first. But shoot, there is a lot of data that would support moving the outfield aggressively at certain times. I don’t think we’ll be out-of-this-world extraordinary, but we will be progressive.

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As the first wave of spring-training games begin, let’s continue to take a position-by-position look back at the ball-in-play (BIP) profiles of 2015 semi-regulars and regulars to see if we can find any clues as to their projected performance moving forward. We’ve already looked at all the various infield positions — and, just yesterday, left field. Only three more to go; today, it’s the center fielders’ turn.

First, some ground rules. To come up with an overall player population roughly equal to one player per team per position, the minimum number of batted balls with Statcast readings was set at 164. Players were listed at the position at which they played the most games. There is more than one player per team at some positions and less at others, like catcher and DH. Players are listed in descending OPS+ order. Let’s start with the AL center fielders. Hmmm, I wonder who’s at the top of the list?

BIP Overview – AL CF

Name	Avg MPH	FB/LD MPH	GB MPH	POP%	FLY%	LD%	GB%	CON	K%	BB%	OPS+	Pull%	Cent%	Opp%
Trout	93.17	96.67	89.25	1.0%	37.4%	24.4%	37.2%	196	23.2%	13.5%	176	38.2%	33.2%	28.7%
Cain	90.86	92.70	89.12	0.9%	30.4%	23.2%	45.5%	127	16.2%	6.1%	126	33.7%	38.1%	28.2%
Eaton	87.64	89.53	88.72	2.8%	24.5%	22.0%	50.7%	117	19.0%	8.4%	122	29.2%	36.8%	34.0%
Betts	91.16	91.89	91.72	4.5%	37.9%	19.5%	38.2%	108	12.5%	7.0%	118	40.3%	36.5%	23.1%
A.Jones	89.03	93.97	85.92	4.3%	32.0%	17.8%	45.8%	114	17.6%	4.1%	109	44.3%	34.0%	21.7%
R.Davis	87.44	90.83	85.65	6.1%	27.4%	22.4%	44.1%	109	20.5%	5.9%	104	34.9%	34.2%	30.9%
Burns	82.99	85.28	83.06	5.8%	22.3%	21.6%	50.3%	97	14.6%	4.7%	100	29.6%	36.9%	33.5%
Kiermaier	87.65	89.93	88.15	3.9%	25.4%	22.9%	47.8%	98	17.8%	4.5%	98	41.3%	36.0%	22.7%
Pillar	85.35	88.02	86.23	6.5%	30.2%	21.9%	41.4%	88	13.5%	4.5%	96	42.9%	30.2%	26.9%
Hicks	89.32	92.37	86.01	3.6%	31.8%	22.9%	41.8%	91	16.9%	8.7%	95	35.8%	34.4%	29.9%
DeShields	85.81	88.08	84.30	2.0%	31.7%	19.0%	47.4%	94	20.5%	10.8%	95	36.7%	36.7%	26.6%
A.Jackson	89.38	91.33	87.97	0.5%	24.1%	24.3%	51.1%	112	23.9%	5.5%	95	36.0%	37.9%	26.0%
Gose	87.33	89.58	87.93	1.9%	23.3%	20.8%	54.0%	112	27.1%	8.4%	91	31.0%	35.7%	33.3%
Ellsbury	86.86	88.36	87.47	3.2%	27.4%	24.1%	45.3%	80	17.2%	7.0%	84	37.8%	35.1%	27.0%
Marisnick	85.21	90.06	82.11	3.9%	34.5%	19.7%	41.9%	104	28.2%	4.8%	81	42.6%	30.3%	27.1%
Bourn	85.17	87.93	83.85	1.6%	26.4%	24.8%	47.3%	71	22.2%	9.5%	64	33.4%	39.5%	27.1%
AVERAGE	87.77	90.41	86.72	3.3%	29.2%	22.0%	45.6%	107	19.4%	7.1%	103	36.7%	35.3%	27.9%

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 BIP by field sector (pull, central, opposite). Each player’s OPS and Unadjusted Contact Score (CON) is also listed. For those of you who have not read my articles on the topic, Contact Score is derived by removing Ks and BBs from hitters’ batting lines, assigning run values to all other events, and comparing them to a league average of 100.

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When Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association agreed to terms on a new domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse policy last August, it was clear that the first few cases to arise under the new agreement would take on heightened importance. As I noted at the time, under the agreement MLB and the union agreed that any past suspension — or lack thereof — for an act of domestic violence would not serve as a precedent in any future cases arising under the new policy. Instead, the initial suspensions handed out by Commissioner Manfred under the agreement would establish a new baseline against which the fairness of any future punishment would be judged.

As a result, Tuesday’s news that MLB had officially suspended Aroldis Chapman for the first 30 games of the 2016 season established a significant milestone, marking the first case in which a player has been suspended without pay under baseball’s new domestic violence agreement. This is all the more noteworthy considering that Chapman was never actually charged for the incident that led to his suspension. Although baseball’s new policy clearly permits MLB to punish players in cases that do not result in criminal prosecution, it wasn’t clear to what extent the league would be willing to suspend someone for an incident that did not result in the player being charged with a crime.

Further, because Chapman declared shortly after his suspension was announced on Tuesday that he would not be appealing the punishment, MLB has avoided the possibility that the 30-game suspension could be overturned by an arbitrator, creating an immediate precedent for future cases.

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Every player in baseball is having a good year. I mean it! No one’s had time to screw it up yet. Every prospect is going to be a star. The pitchers will all remain healthy. Any veteran whose career took a nosedive last year is on track to regain his old form. All the guys who played over their head have shown no indication they can’t maintain last year’s pace. Spring Training games don’t even count!

And all of the hulking 23-year-olds with tools through the roof and devastating contact problems haven’t swung and missed one time yet! What contact problems?

It’s only natural, as the fake-games begin and the regular season breaches the horizon, that we develop irresponsible fixations upon certain players. The way I see it is this: players have upside, and they have downside. Upside is always present — it’s like this mythological thing that cannot be seen or touched or heard or felt, but we know that it exists. But with the regular season comes meaningful games, and meaningful games present scenarios that remind you of your fixation’s flaws, the very things that will prevent Him from reaching His upside. During the offseason, those flaws cannot be seen; only upside exists, and we dream big.

I’m here to talk about Domingo Santana. But first, I want to talk about George Springer.

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This is going to have a lot of caveats, so I should try to sell you on it first. Team depth — is it important? The correct answer is, “sometimes, yeah, although not all the times.” See, depth is no one’s primary weapon. A team comes first with its stars, with its everyday regulars. But depth is one of those things that commonly becomes important, because bad things happen, and they happen indiscriminately. Depth is basically like health insurance, and while a team can have a successful season without very much of it, the odds are eventually it’s going to come into play. Which is why some teams talk openly about trying to accumulate it.

A few front offices this past winter talked about how the average team needs way more than five starting pitchers. I think by now we all have a good understanding of that. Then sometimes you also get teams like the 2015 Mets, who wound up in need of position-player depth. Ideally a team will begin a season with plenty of in-house support, and below, I’ve made an attempt to quantify what teams currently have. It’s not a perfect, inarguable attempt. It’s just the attempt you’re reading right now.

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The one conversation we continue to have about the Royals to this day is whether there’s just something about them that the numbers aren’t seeing. I think we’ve all agreed the Royals have deserved to be pretty good of late, but to be as good as they’ve been — let’s face it, the pro-Royals side has plenty of ammunition. They’ve played like something greater than the sum of the roster’s parts, and that’s where there could be a disconnect. One idea is that a team is the sum of its parts, plus or minus however much randomness. A counter-idea is we’re missing some kind of human element, in our haste to try to see the future. This would be where the Royals have perfected a magic formula.

If there’s one player who might adequately represent the Royals in a nutshell, it’s Salvador Perez. You could always try to go with Alcides Escobar, on account of #EskyMagic, and that’s fine, but I think Perez is a little more fitting. Perez is still young, and he’s obviously talented. Looking at his numbers, there are things for us to like, and there are things for us to not like. Objectively, Perez appears to be a good but flawed player, yet if you listen to the Royals themselves, they think of him as the heart and soul. They see him as the most important player on the roster, and over the last three years, the Royals have won 57% of the time when Perez has started, and they’ve won 49% of the time when Perez has been on the bench. Just as there might be something about the Royals, there might be something about Salvador Perez. It’s just another conversation for all of us to have.

One conversation we never needed to have: whether Perez’s old multi-year contract was team-friendly. It was stupid team-friendly. More than maybe any other deal, depending on your own Perez evaluation. Teams don’t often willingly amend such lopsided agreements, but the Royals wanted to keep Perez happy. So now that old contract has been torn up, and Perez has been more adequately rewarded for everything that he’s meant.

Call it a smart and atypical move, on the Royals’ part. Call it a necessary move, on the Royals’ part. There are plenty of team-friendly contracts out there, but not many to such an extent, so we don’t have a lot of situational comps. All that’s really important here is that Perez is being treated fairly. Maybe this is something the Rays would’ve been willing to do, and maybe it’s not. Perez just cares that the Royals did it.

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As the calendar mercifully flips to March, it won’t be long until meaningful major league baseball games will be played in a ballpark near you. Meanwhile, let’s continue our series of position-by-position looks at the ball-in-play (BIP) profiles of 2015 regulars and semi-regulars. We’ve already looked at all the various infield positions, so today we’ll begin our outfield review in left field.

First, let’s review some ground rules. To come up with an overall player population roughly equal to one player per team per position, the minimum number of batted balls with Statcast readings was set at 164. Players were listed at the position at which they played the most games. There is more than one player per team at some positions and less at others, like catcher and DH. Players are listed in descending OPS+ order. Let’s begin with the AL left fielders.

BIP Overview – AL LF

Name	Avg MPH	FB/LD MPH	GB MPH	POP%	FLY%	LD%	GB%	CON	K%	BB%	OPS+	Pull%	Cent%	Opp%
Cespedes	93.18	96.53	89.46	3.4%	34.5%	20.4%	41.7%	156	20.9%	4.9%	137	43.7%	34.8%	21.5%
Brantley	89.11	91.93	87.35	1.7%	30.0%	22.5%	45.8%	107	8.6%	10.1%	130	42.7%	32.7%	24.6%
Gordon	89.00	91.50	86.61	3.0%	34.6%	24.8%	37.6%	123	21.8%	11.6%	120	45.7%	36.3%	18.0%
S.Smith	89.41	91.86	88.29	0.7%	37.3%	19.7%	42.3%	112	21.9%	10.4%	117	38.7%	34.8%	26.5%
Guyer	86.72	90.73	84.81	6.0%	28.6%	21.2%	44.2%	95	15.8%	6.5%	115	44.7%	32.7%	22.6%
Rasmus	90.24	93.42	84.02	5.1%	46.5%	20.0%	28.4%	159	31.8%	9.7%	113	52.8%	27.0%	20.2%
Gardner	88.22	91.69	86.48	2.1%	31.8%	20.8%	45.3%	101	20.6%	10.4%	105	34.9%	34.5%	30.7%
De Aza	86.63	89.12	83.31	0.9%	36.8%	23.4%	39.0%	118	23.0%	8.5%	104	37.1%	39.2%	23.7%
Dv.Murphy	88.79	90.24	87.98	4.1%	28.4%	16.7%	50.8%	92	12.5%	5.1%	101	38.7%	39.6%	21.7%
E.Rosario	87.90	91.11	83.52	4.8%	35.8%	20.3%	39.1%	129	24.9%	3.2%	99	39.0%	35.8%	25.2%
Tucker	90.55	91.38	90.90	4.8%	31.0%	17.7%	46.6%	106	21.1%	6.2%	99	43.1%	33.6%	23.3%
Me.Cabrera	90.19	91.11	91.38	2.7%	27.2%	23.9%	46.3%	84	12.9%	5.9%	97	36.9%	35.4%	27.7%
H.Ramirez	91.16	95.39	89.24	3.6%	26.0%	20.4%	50.0%	91	16.5%	4.9%	90	37.1%	39.5%	23.4%
DeJesus	87.87	91.16	85.21	3.0%	29.8%	23.5%	43.7%	68	16.4%	6.6%	76	42.0%	33.2%	24.8%
Aviles	87.10	88.20	87.75	4.3%	30.2%	16.3%	49.2%	56	12.0%	6.3%	61	38.0%	36.8%	25.2%
AVERAGE	89.07	91.69	87.09	3.3%	32.6%	20.8%	43.3%	106	18.7%	7.4%	104	41.0%	35.1%	23.9%

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 BIP by field sector (pull, central, opposite). Each player’s OPS and Unadjusted Contact Score (CON) is also listed. For those of you who have not read my articles on the topic, Contact Score is derived by removing Ks and BBs from hitters’ batting lines, assigning run values to all other events, and comparing them to a league average of 100.

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To be honest, I didn’t want to write about the “tanking” story anymore. After Buster Olney and Jayson Stark both wrote extensively about the issue in December and January, I published something of a rebuttal, and since then, follow-up discussions haven’t proven particularly useful, as both sides seem pretty entrenched in their interpretations. Olney and Stark are firmly in the camp that this is a huge systematic problem for Major League Baseball, and others — such as Joel Sherman — have also published pieces suggesting that MLB needs to intervene, so this issue isn’t going away.

Yesterday, Stark wrote another piece on the issue, soliciting comments from Tony Clark on whether the MLBPA is going to make this an issue in the CBA. Clark was diplomatic, keeping his options open, but didn’t really say anything particularly newsworthy. But there was an interesting comment in Stark’s column, from Stark himself, that I think is worth discussing.

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