With pitchers and catchers reporting soon, we just about have all the major free-agent signings wrapped up. It looks like Yovani Gallardo is about to sign with the Orioles, and there are rumors that Dexter Fowler could soon join him now that Baltimore has apparently decided to give up their first-round draft pick. With so many good outfielders available this winter, as the music stops, the available chairs for Fowler seem less desirable than we might have thought at the end of last season. Fowler’s defensive numbers have been pretty bad over the last few seasons, but his UZR figure was close to average in his only year with the Chicago Cubs. Determining change in skill from small sample size can be difficult, but it does not seem likely Fowler greatly improved his defense last season.

Defensive statistics are much-maligned outside of the analytic community, and even among those who use advanced statistics, there’s a degree of doubt regarding their utility. Much of the criticism stems from a misunderstanding about how to use defensive statistics given the larger sample size necessary to draw meaningful conclusions. Looking at three seasons worth of UZR can seem like going too far into the past, leading to rationalizations about short-term spikes in defensive numbers.

Over the last four seasons, Fowler has put up a UZR numbers in center field of -13.6, -1.7, -21.8, and last year’s -1.9 mark. Taken on the whole, it would be reasonable to conclude that Fowler is a below-average center fielder. It might be easy to look at the last three years, point to two that are pretty close to average, and call the -21.8 an outlier. This isn’t advisable, however, as doing so completely ignores a full year of data and merely cherrypicks the good seasons. The graph below shows two lines: yearly UZR for Fowler over the past five seasons, and a three-year average of UZR over the past five seasons, which is more representative of Fowler’s defense.

Using three years of data smooths Fowler’s numbers considerably. The inconsistency of the yearly numbers largely evaporates and places Fowler’s defense somewhere between six and 12 runs below average at center field over the past few years. That inconsistency carried over to his WAR numbers as well, as the graph below shows.

Instead of a 1.4 WAR season followed a 3.2 WAR season, we see a pair of 2.5 WAR seasons the last two years. Not surprising for the soon-to-be 30-year-old, ZiPS sees Fowler as a 2.4 WAR player heading into next season.

But what about the possibility that Fowler’s defensive improvements are real? It does happen. Jhonny Peralta made himself a much better shortstop later into his career — and improved positioning could have helped Fowler last season, as could getting out of the ballparks in Colorado and Houston. That narrative was getting pushed early last season and it does have some validity.

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‘Tis the season for prospect rankings. With little else going on in the baseball world, prospect writers typically spend the month of February releasing and discussing ordered lists of prospects and farm systems. Even within the past hour at this very site, our own Jeff Zimmerman published a farm-system ranking derived from the scouting grades produced by Baseball America.

This year, I showed up to the party a little early by putting out KATOH’s top 100 list last month. I still have more to give, however. And here I present you with KATOH’s organizational rankings.

My methodology for compiling this ranking was pretty straightforward: I simply aggregated all of the KATOH forecasts by team. Still, there a few caveats worth mentioning.

• To be considered in this exercise, a player must have recorded at least 200 plate appearances or batters faced in 2015. KATOH derives its forecasts from minor league stats, so it can’t really formulate an opinion on players who didn’t play much in 2015. As a result, many of the players who were drafted in 2015 are omitted.

• This exercise only considers players projected for at least 1.0 WAR over their first six years in the big leagues. Ideally, I’d consider all prospects, but that would involve verifying the teams for thousands of mostly nondescript minor leaguers. That obviously taken some time. This one-win threshold cuts pretty deep into a team’s farm system. The average team has 18 players above this cutoff, while none have fewer than 10. That feels like more than enough for these purposes.

• KATOH tends to favor hitters over pitchers, especially on the high end. So this analysis likely favors organizations with farm systems that are hitter-heavy over those that rely more on pitchers. This is likely because a pitcher’s stats capture a smaller portion of his future potential relative to hitters. Factors like velocity also very important when it comes to projecting pitchers.

• And as always, stats don’t tell the full story. This is the output from a flawed statistical model that fails to take into account many of the factors that go into evaluating a prospect. If an organization has a lot of raw, toolsy prospects, it’s likely to be underrated here.

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While the offseason isn’t quite over yet, we’ve reached a point at which most of the major transactions have probably already been made. Sure, we might see Jonathan Lucroy moved in a deal over the next few weeks, but outside of some unforeseen blockbuster, it’s mostly going to be minor moves from here on out. So, with the heavy lifting behind us, it’s time to take a look back at the 10 moves that I most liked this winter.

Overall, I’ve tried to balance the value added by acquiring a player — not just his own performance, but his impact on the team’s chances of reaching and advancing in the postseason — with the price paid to make the move. In some cases, teams on this list made themselves worse in the short-term, but the potential long-term benefit suggests that it was a worthwhile sacrifice. Other teams are here for making shrewd additions that improved their chances in 2016, and one of these moves even manages to potentially improve the franchise in both the present and future; you’ll find that rare big win at the very top the list.

Of course, these are all just based on my perceptions at this point in time, and several of these moves won’t look so hot as time goes on. Last year, I really liked the Chase Headley deal for the Yankees and put the Red Sox’ acquisition of Wade Miley one spot ahead of the Blue Jays’ pickup of Josh Donaldson, so, you know, don’t take this as gospel. But based on how I look at these moves right now, without the benefit of hindsight, there are the 10 moves I’ve liked the most this offseason.

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A lot of buzz preceded Francisco Lindor’s mid-June call-up last summer. Much of it revolved around the when, with some suggesting the Indians’ top prospect was being unnecessarily held back. He was certainly ready once he arrived in Cleveland. Lindor hit .313/.353/.482 over 99 games and finished second in American League rookie-of-the-year voting behind Carlos Correa.

The young shortstop’s Super Two status is presumed to have played a role in the timing, but that’s less cut-and-dried than you might imagine. The Super Two cutoff date changes from year to year and is based on percentages that weren’t yet determined when Lindor debuted. In short, the small-market Indians were certainly cognizant of future arbitration hearings, but they didn’t have a date circled on the calendar.

According to Carter Hawkins, the decision was based more on readiness than on economics. Side-stepping specific questions on service time, the Cleveland farm director share the club’s thought-process earlier this week.

“In some ways, the timing of Francisco’s call-up was a little bit easier than other prospect call-ups we’ve experienced over the last few years,” Hawkins told me. “The reason being that, collectively, we felt so strongly about Francisco’s future as a cornerstone of the organization that we were able to eliminate a lot of the other variables and focus purely on what was best for Francisco from a baseball standpoint.

“There wasn’t a specific benchmark we were looking for, but over the course of the first few months in Columbus, Francisco really took his game to the next level — refining his approach, both offensively and defensively. When he really heated up in early June, it was that foundation that gave us the confidence that our team goals in Cleveland, and our development goals for Francisco, were both best served with Frankie in an Indians uniform.”

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In a recent article on 2015 first-round draft pick Christin Stewart, I noted that the Tigers, unlike the vast majority of teams, didn’t hold an instructional league this past fall. The Cardinals did, although with a wrinkle. Unlike in past seasons, they didn’t invite any of the players they drafted in June.

The decision was a curious one. It is common practice for organizations — St. Louis being no exception — to be largely hands-off during a draftee’s initials months of pro ball. If mechanical tweaks are in order, they are typically addressed during instructional league.

There is a grain of logic to what the Cardinals did. First-year players often start their high school and college seasons as early as February, so by the time the minor league schedule is completed, they’re burned out. Rather than extending the longest baseball year of their young lives, the Cardinals gave these players a chance to exhale. Whether this remains the approach going forward, or if it ends up being a one-year experiment, remains to be seen.

———

Japan has been in the baseball pages of late. Jonny Gomes announced that he’ll be playing for the Rakuten Golden Eagles next year. Matt Murton, who spent six seasons with the Hanshin Tigers, inked a contract with the Cubs. Hideki Okajima, who has been pitching for the Yokohama Bay Stars, is returning stateside to compete for a job out of the Orioles bullpen. Off the field, Hideo Nomo was hired to an advisory role within player development for the Padres.

As mentioned in this space last weekend, Anthony Seratelli is retiring after concluding his career with the Seibu Lions. One of Seratelli’s Seibu teammates was a 5-foot-6 dynamo with an intriguing future.

Tomoya Mori, who turned 20 years old in August, hit .287/.357/.468 with 33 doubles and 17 home runs last year. A left-handed-hitting catcher who also plays the outfield, Mori was the youngest position player on the Lions’ roster.

“He’s very good,” assessed Seratelli. “He’s a little guy, but a very powerful little guy. He takes these nasty hacks, and when he connects the ball goes a long way. They play the game differently over there — their swings are a little different — but while he has a Japanese style, he produces an enormous amount of power for someone his size.”

Does Mori have the potential to play MLB some day?

“He’s young, so he has plenty of time to develop to where he could become a big league player,” said Seratelli. “He’d have to come over here to experience how the game is played, though.”

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Jonathan Lucroy is reportedly on the trading block. If Brewers do deal the veteran backstop, they’ll be unloading more than a good pitch-framer with a decent bat. They’ll also be losing a nice guy. At least that’s the opinion of Milwaukee minor leaguer Stephen Peterson.

“He rehabbed in Wisconsin when I was there in 2012, and again this past year in Brevard County,” said Peterson. “He’s one of the nicest guys I’ve been around. And not just him being a catcher and me being a pitcher, and getting to talk about pitching. He was great with everybody. He’s one of the most open, and genuine, guys I’ve met in the game.”

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As crack Cincinnati Enquirer Reds beat writer C. Trent Rosecrans pointed out yesterday, Jay Bruce was Baseball America’s top overall prospect heading into the 2008 season. Bruce has gone on to hit over 200 home runs, but he’s nonetheless fallen short of expectations. His last two seasons have been especially disappointing.

Rumors that the Orioles have interest in trading for Bruce may or may not have legs. If they do, and assuming they have prospects the rebuilding Reds covet — a big if — the upside is certainly there. Bruce won’t turn 30 until April 2017, and a change of scenery might result in a resurgence. If I’m Baltimore, I’m kicking the tires pretty hard.

———

Dave “King Kong” Kingman hit three home runs in a game five times. Two of those contests, each of which came with the Cubs, were especially memorable.

On May 14, 1978, Kingman’s second home run of the game was a two-run shot that evened the score in the top of the ninth inning at Dodger Stadium. His third came with two on and two out in the 15th, giving the Cubs a 10-7 win.

On May 17, 1979, Kingman hit three home runs for the Cubs in a loss to the Phillies. The final score was 23-22, in 10 innings. One of them was among the longest home runs ever hit at Wrigley Field.

———

Regular readers of this column will recall that Rockies pitching prospect Kyle Freeland was profiled here a month ago. Not included in that writeup were the southpaw’s thoughts on feel and focus. The 2014 first-round pick is big on both.

“I’m definitely aware of where my finger pressure is,” said Freeland. “That’s the case with with all of my pitches. It matters to how a pitch will break.”

“Fastball, I’m definitely throwing to where my catcher is set up. With my changeup, we mostly go back corner of the plate and I let the changeup work, instead of trying to hit a perfect location with it. Slider and curveball, it will depend on the count and the hitter as to whether I’m throwing directly to the glove or to a certain spot.

“You make pitching complicated when you start letting the game speed up on you. The simpler you keep it, the easier things are going to be for you. Just focus on putting the ball where it needs to be, and on throwing quality pitches.”

——

Jake Reed was nearly un-hittable in 2014. Drafted by the Twins out of the University of Oregon that summer, the starter-turned-closer put up a 0.29 ERA over 20 appearances at the A-ball level. Featuring a fastball that reportedly touched 97 mph, he had more than twice as many strikeouts as baserunners allowed.

Last year he encountered tougher sledding. In 35 appearances for Double-A Chattanooga, the righty had a 6.32 ERA and a .340 BABiP-against. The latter was partly attributable to jam shots and bloops, but a far bigger problem was the two-strike breaking pitches he left up in the zone. Those were struck with authority.

“I kind of developed a habit of failure,” admitted Reed. “I wasn’t able to put guys away, so when I got ahead in the count, instead of ‘I’m going to finish him off with this pitch,’ I was telling myself, ‘Don’t hang this.’ You need to have conviction with every pitch, and for awhile I didn’t have that.” Read the rest of this entry »

With so much analysis and similar thinking taking over the game, it’s easy to imagine a reality where, down the road, every player in every organization is assigned a number that reflects his total value, and trades are made based on nothing more than balancing value numbers until they match. Even if that’s an exaggeration, you can see how things could come to feel that way, like trades are just the results of equations being run. In this hypothetical future, we’d see trades a lot like the one that’s just gone down between the A’s and the Brewers. Needs have been met on both sides. Everything makes very obvious sense.

I know the A’s and Brewers just finished with the same record, but the A’s don’t do the whole rebuilding thing, while the Brewers are in deep. Oakland wanted to add power from the right side and they were seeking help in the outfield, so that’s where Khris Davis fits. From Milwaukee’s side, if anything they had too many outfielders, and they didn’t have any catching depth behind Jonathan Lucroy, so that’s where Jacob Nottingham fits. Lucroy’s basically a goner anyhow, and Nottingham might not be that far away. And Bowdien Derby, known as Bubba? Live arm. Lottery ticket. More talent for the system. The A’s win the trade for the certainty; the Brewers win the trade for the upside. The A’s wanted certainty. The Brewers wanted upside.

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If you have been exposed to media anytime between January 2015 and today, you’re likely aware there is a presidential race at hand. Those are exciting enough on their own (the whole “future of the country” thing), but this version seems to contain excessive amounts of chaos. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton, who everyone knew would waltz to the nomination with ease, is once again up against a grassroots insurgence from the left. On the Republican side, the clear frontrunner since they started talking about this stuff six years ago, Jeb “!” Bush, just finished fourth in the New Hampshire primary. Like the rest of the GOP field, he’s getting crushed by businessman and former reality TV star Donald Trump. You can’t make this stuff up, though it might be nice if someone had.

All this craziness isn’t unlike the 2016 baseball season. The teams are about to report to spring training and the predictions are all over the place. Coming off a World Series win, forget repeating, the Royals aren’t projected for a winning season by many (including us). The big-money teams are coming off of varying degrees of failure and have conducted themselves this offseason not unlike a fish flopping about in a boat. The National League, despite a clearer caste system in place of haves and have-nots, might be even worse. The Dodgers look like favorites in the West, but the Giants could be fantastic, and if you’re buying what the Diamondbacks are selling then… okay! Then there’s the Nationals and Mets in the East, and the Cubs, Pirates, and Cardinals in the Central. Good luck figuring all that out.

The thing is, we are trying to figure all that out. We’ve got projections and odds for the baseball teams, and there are sites that are doing projections and odds for the presidential candidates. A couple days ago at the Sporting News, Jesse Spector wrote a piece assigning Simpsons pictures to baseball teams. I figured I owe it to the internet, nay the country, to write a piece in assigning baseball teams to their corresponding presidential candidates. So I am writing that piece. And you are reading it. And I’m sorry.

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Bryce Harper won’t be a free agent for three more years, but that hasn’t stopped people from writing about his next contract. Over the last few months, David Schoenfeld and Jeff Passan have discussed his eventual price tag recently, and Harper himself vaguely addressed the topic in a radio interview yesterday:

Harper was asked during an interview with 106.7 The Fan’s Grant Paulsen and Danny Rouhier whether he has thought about the possible magnitude of his next contract.

“I was talking to an executive this offseason,” Paulsen said. “At one point in time they said you could be the first $400 million player. Do you ever think about your future and what’s possible, in terms of you could break records for the money you make at one point in time?”

“Yeah, I mean I don’t really think about that stuff. I just try to play the years out and do everything I can to help my team win,” Harper said. “But don’t sell me short. That’s what you’re doing right now to me, so don’t do that.”

The idea that $400 million is selling Harper might seem ridiculous, but he’s right; as long as he continues to perform near expectations, the winning bid should be substantially higher than that.

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Football is behind us, and large trucks are on their way to Florida and Arizona, bearing loads of baseball-related cargo. To tide us over until spring-training games kick in next month, let’s 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. Today, we’ll take a look at first basemen and designated hitters.

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. Without further ado, let’s kick it off with AL first basemen.

BIP Overview – AL First Basemen

Name	Avg MPH	FB/LD MPH	GB MPH	POP%	FLY%	LD%	GB%	CON	K%	BB%	OPS+	Pull%	Cent%	Opp%
Cabrera	93.8	96.9	91.7	1.1%	31.6%	25.2%	42.1%	163	16.0%	15.1%	170	35.8%	30.7%	33.5%
Davis	92.2	97.1	86.4	1.7%	41.8%	24.7%	31.8%	213	31.0%	12.5%	146	56.0%	26.5%	17.6%
Teixeira	89.9	93.9	86.1	3.8%	38.5%	18.9%	38.8%	134	18.4%	12.8%	146	55.5%	28.9%	15.7%
Colabello	91.1	94.8	88.0	2.5%	24.4%	25.2%	47.9%	193	26.7%	6.1%	142	34.5%	39.1%	26.5%
Abreu	92.0	94.1	90.5	3.4%	28.7%	20.7%	47.3%	146	21.0%	5.8%	135	37.6%	35.9%	26.6%
Hosmer	90.6	94.4	88.6	2.5%	21.9%	23.4%	52.2%	119	16.2%	9.1%	122	36.8%	34.6%	28.7%
Pujols	92.0	93.5	90.8	4.1%	38.1%	15.9%	41.8%	90	10.9%	7.6%	118	45.8%	34.9%	19.3%
Moreland	92.1	96.6	87.9	3.8%	30.8%	19.8%	45.6%	134	21.7%	6.2%	116	44.8%	32.7%	22.5%
Cron	88.8	93.5	84.9	6.7%	30.4%	18.4%	44.5%	110	20.3%	4.2%	106	33.8%	38.8%	27.4%
Gonzalez	89.2	93.7	85.5	4.9%	28.1%	22.7%	44.3%	114	20.0%	4.3%	106	49.1%	34.3%	16.6%
Santana	90.8	93.5	90.1	7.0%	30.1%	18.3%	44.5%	88	18.3%	16.2%	103	53.4%	28.6%	18.0%
Canha	90.4	93.4	88.6	5.7%	34.5%	17.8%	42.0%	104	19.8%	6.8%	102	42.8%	34.5%	22.7%
Carter	92.6	97.3	84.4	4.5%	47.3%	18.4%	29.8%	131	32.8%	12.4%	100	39.6%	36.3%	24.1%
Mauer	89.5	93.8	87.1	0.8%	19.4%	24.1%	55.7%	90	16.8%	10.1%	96	30.5%	37.5%	32.1%
Napoli	89.8	94.6	84.6	4.8%	37.3%	15.5%	42.4%	108	25.2%	12.2%	96	39.3%	35.9%	24.8%
Morrison	91.1	92.6	90.8	4.0%	35.0%	16.3%	44.7%	75	15.9%	9.2%	92	41.7%	34.3%	24.0%
Loney	85.9	87.0	86.2	2.1%	30.9%	24.2%	42.7%	73	8.8%	5.9%	90	38.2%	33.6%	28.2%
AVG	90.7	94.2	87.8	3.7%	32.3%	20.6%	43.4%	123	20.0%	9.2%	117	42.1%	33.9%	24.0%

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 players’ 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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Most of the discussions surrounding the Cincinnati Reds during the past calendar year has centered around what to do with an aging core of players that are careening toward free agency on a club with little chance of competing. That’s the right type of conversation to have in the Reds’ situation – a situation in which Joey Votto had a historically great season on a last place team. We’ve known for a while what the Reds should do, and they’ve already started the rebuild by trading Aroldis Chapman and Todd Frazier. There is unquestionably more to be done, and more that will be done. There’s another interesting angle to their 2015 season, however, and it’s an issue that turned a season that was expected to be not-so-great into the second-worst record in baseball: the issue of clutch hitting.

“Clutch” — as we are discussing it today — is the measure of how well a player or team performs in high leverage situations vs. context-neutral situations. I implore the interested reader to examine the full rundown on our glossary page, but what we’re really talking about is the importance of the situations in which players produce or don’t produce. There has been some evidence that a “clutch skill” might exist – that some players are simply better in certain situations than others – but there is usually a lot of variability for players from year-to-year, and any true skill is likely to have a small impact.

Take, for example, Josh Reddick: he had a Clutch rating of -3.89 in 2012, the worst since Bob Bailor in 1984 (-3.84). That means he was responsible for “losing” his team almost four games due to his performance in high leverage situations. The next year (2013), Reddick had a Clutch rating of just -0.18, or right about average. Poor fortune, bad timing – these things happen, and sometimes they happen an extreme number of times in the same year. Because of this, Clutch isn’t really predictive, and is much better utilized as an indicator of what has already happened.

That brings us to the Reds, and measuring team-wide Clutch statistics. There are two versions of Clutch for teams: pitching Clutch and batting Clutch. The Reds were actually above average when it came to pitching Clutch, sitting just below the middle of the pack with a 1.16 rating. For comparison, the Oakland A’s were the worst Clutch pitching team in 2015 at -6.05; this is one of the reasons why they were so terrible in one-run games, and it’s the main reason why they were the biggest underperformer in recent BaseRuns history.

However, on the other side of the ball, the Reds were historically terrible in Clutch situations. How terrible? Let’s just cut straight to the chase — here are the 15 worst Clutch hitting teams since 1974 (the first year we have Clutch data available):

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It might be the biggest debate in baseball, statistically speaking. We’re well past RBI and pitcher wins, by now. WAR is a big debate, but not so much because of the offensive statistics, or the baserunning figures. WAR is debated largely due to the thing I had in mind when I wrote that first sentence, the one about the biggest debate in baseball, statistically speaking: defense.

There’s still a strong “eye test” contingent. Folks who believe you just can’t put a number on defense. On the other side, there’s a staunch numbers crowd. The crowd that argues, well, you can’t see every play from every defender, and you also can’t ignore or probably even be aware of your own internal biases; I’ll stick with the numbers. Where it gets real tricky is that, even within the numbers-oriented crowd, there’s some skepticism of those very numbers. There’s some concerns with the methodology. Defensive shifts make things extra tough.

So for the most part, we shrug our shoulders and accept that, for as far as these things have come over the years, we’ve still got to do some leg work. If we really want to gain an idea of a player’s defensive ability, we’ve got to just take it all in, and look for clues along the way. What does each defensive metric say? When they agree on one thing or another, we’ve got ourselves a clue. How about errors? They’re not the best, but they’re not worthless. Do they line up with what we saw in the advanced stats? Clue. Check out some spray charts, or Inside Edge. Watch some film, and read some scouting reports. Plenty of clues to be found in there, especially given all you’ve learned along the way. Do all this, and you’ll have a pretty good idea. Even if one number or one play or one quote goes against what you’ve concluded, that’s the point; your body of research holds more weight than that one thing that purports to invalidate your findings.

* * *

Each year, Tom Tango does a fun little project called the Fans Scouting Report. The nature of the project, essentially, is to crowdsource the eye test. There’s plenty of ways to use the data, and I’ve settled on one, for now. I wanted to look for improvement, and I wanted to look for agreement, using both the eye test, and the advanced numbers. I used three sources of defensive metrics (UZR, DRS, FRAA) for fielders with at least 500 innings in 2014, and 2015. I averaged those to get component defensive runs above average figures, and then, I compared against the Fans Scouting Report’s numbers. Using some z-scores, I could come up with an overall ranking of agreed-upon improvement.

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