Archive for Daily Graphings

Kevin Kiermaier is not going to be voted American League Most Valuable Player. I personally would not vote for Kevin Kiermaier as American League Most Valuable Player. He’ll be on zero radars, and that’s perfectly fine. Other players will be more deserving — I just want to quickly expand on something that came up during my chat last Friday.

Let’s say you really really really wanted to make the Kiermaier MVP case. I don’t know why. Maybe you’re a family member. Maybe you have money on the line. Maybe you just enjoy getting into statistical arguments. Where could you start? I’d recommend starting on May 21. That’s when Kiermaier sustained an injury that knocked him out of action for almost two months. After the Rays game on May 21, they stood at 20-20. They had a strongly positive run differential. Since then, the Rays have posted the worst record in the majors. The run differential has sucked. Kiermaier just returned Friday.

Kiermaier is a decent hitter, all things considered, but you’re a FanGraphs reader and you know him for his defense. So let’s focus on that defense for a second. To what extent could we consider Kiermaier a difference-maker in the outfield? This year, when Kiermaier has started, the Rays have allowed a team BABIP of .260. Meanwhile, when Kiermaier hasn’t started, the Rays have allowed a team BABIP of .341. That’s not all Kiermaier, of course, because not all balls in play are directed toward center field, but that’s an absolutely enormous difference. When Kiermaier went down, the Rays’ run prevention cratered, and that probably isn’t all on the pitchers.

That would have to be around the core of the Kiermaier argument. That, when Kiermaier has been unavailable, the Rays defense hasn’t been able to make up for it. It’s not just center field — Kiermaier’s presence allows the other outfielders to position themselves differently, too. Kiermaier would be thus presented as the keystone. You don’t have to buy it. Obviously, Kiermaier alone isn’t responsible for that whole difference. But there are still so many people who downplay the importance of an elite-level defender. The Rays would argue the opposite.

As long as I’m here, what if we were to expand beyond just 2016? Kiermaier has been a regular or semi-regular going on three years, now. How valuable has his outfield defense been to the Rays? This is one way you could choose to look at it. It would suggest that he’s been extremely valuable.

I know there are a lot of variables folded in here. I know this captures more than just Kiermaier by himself. But we already have numbers that try to capture individual defenders by themselves. This looks from the team perspective, and when Kiermaier has started in the outfield, Rays pitchers have allowed fewer runs per nine, by 70 points. There’s a 38-point gap in BABIP, which works out to nearly a hit a game. Kiermaier has a career DRS of +63 runs. He has a career UZR of +50 runs. The team-level numbers do nothing to make those look silly. If anything, they make them look like under-estimates. Which sounds crazy, but here we are.

The Rays know that Kevin Kiermaier is valuable. You presumably already knew that Kevin Kiermaier is valuable. Could be he’s even more valuable than we thought. And he could be a crucial reason why the Rays are seemingly about to start selling. In a way, when Kiermaier got injured, they just didn’t have a chance.

Carson Fulmer was perhaps the 2015 draft’s most polarizing prospect. He was, on one hand, a college prospect with a career-long track record of success (sub-2 ERAs as a sophomore and junior, 167 Ks in 127.2 IP in ’15) and objectively hellacious stuff, while, on the other hand, both inefficient and the owner of an ugly-duckling delivery that scared off many more scouts than just the usual cross section of xenophobes. Mostly, three camps formed: the group that thought Fulmer could start, the group who thought he’d end up in relief and was bothered enough by that to move him down their board, and the group that thought he’d end up in relief but didn’t care.

In an ironic twist best suited for baseball, Fulmer has essentially proven each camp right while simultaneously remaining difficult to project, even as he’s ascended to the majors. His stuff remains incredible, each offering in the four-pitch repertoire ready to miss major-league bats, but he’s walked 51 hitters in 87 innings this season.

I like, in these call-up pieces, to talk about things like pitch sequencing and pitch utility so we can have a deeper and more intricate understanding of how these guys are getting outs. With Fulmer, that’s not possible. Because Fulmer is just as likely to throw a strike with his fastball as he is with any other pitch, he’ll throw any of his four pitches in any count to both left- and right-handed hitters. This is strangely liberating. Fulmer’s fastball was 93-94 mph at the Futures Game and in his debut on Sunday. All the secondaries (cutter 89-91, curveball 77-81 with 11-5 movement, changeup 85-89 with arm-side run) are above-average to plus and could be coming at any time.

Fulmer’s delivery is paced like a hummingbird’s heart beat and lots of scouts think it’s the primary cause of his wildness. It’s also part of what makes him so unique and difficult to hit. It appears as though the White Sox plan on using Fulmer in an upscaled relief role, which is probably going to be good for (a) maximizing his impact on the club this year by frequently deploying him for more than three outs at a time and (b) giving him more opportunities to hone his command than he’d be getting as a standard, one-inning reliever. It’s hard to project better than 40 future control for Fulmer, but there is a chance he figures out how to throw an acceptable amount of strikes sometime during his mid-20s — the way it looks like Trevor Bauer has, for example — and makes it work as a starter. If he does his stuff is good enough to carry him to a #3 starter’s value despite his likely inefficiency.

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Let’s be clear about the reality of baseball trades. Despite all of the rumors and all of the posturing, every team has the same stance on just about every player: The player is available for trade, given a good-enough offer. That second part is where it gets complicated, because “good enough” can mean very different things. Not all teams value all players in the same way, so when you’re trading, you’re looking for guys who might be undervalued, or you’re looking to move guys who might be overvalued. Ultimately, though, all you need is a match. When you have a match, you have a trade, no matter what’s been said to the public.

What the Braves have said to the public is that they’re not real interested in trading Julio Teheran. They’ve said this on multiple occasions, in response to rumors that would have Teheran joining any number of current contenders. The point the Braves are effectively getting across is that they’re not motivated to move Teheran. They want other teams to know they value him highly. And, you know, they should! Good pitcher. Good contract. He shouldn’t be cheap to acquire, but at the same time, I don’t think the Braves should be that interested in holding steady. The present market circumstances might never repeat.

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The first sure-fire sign of any good, impending mid-season selling frenzy is upper-management coming out and insisting to the public, “Who, us? No, no way. We’re definitely not selling. Which, that’s fine. Makes sense. Job of upper-management is to make money, and letting all the fans know a month in advance that the team is throwing in the weol of the now for a towel of the future isn’t a great way to keep fannies in the seats, even while the team’s still intact. Despite those claims, though, word always gets out, and the second sure-fire sign of any good, impending mid-season selling frenzy is the resignation that, “Yeah, OK, you caught us; we’re probably sellers.” The third sign is the sale itself.

The New York Yankees have exhibited the first two symptoms of fire-sale fever. After dropping the first series out of the All-Star break to the Boston Red Sox, the Yankees are now 45-46, fourth place in the American League East, and owners of a 6.1% chance to make the postseason, according to our playoff odds. The last three days have represented the club’s lowest points of the season.

And, given the unique construction of the Yankees’ roster, the club seems poised for a rare sell-off, one that, if executed to the fullest extent, could have the second-half version of the team appearing unrecognizable to the first. It seems likely that very few players of the next good Yankees team currently exist on this one. The Yankees are going to make some moves. The question is: how many? Let’s take the lever and push it all the way up. Just for fun, let’s imagine what a complete Yankees teardown looks like.

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With Tyler Thornburg traded to Boston today, we’re re-featuring this post, since it is now relevant again.

We are now officially two weeks away from MLB’s non-waiver trade deadline, and one thing is clear: over the next 14 days, you’re going to see a lot of relievers on the move. The teams that are definitely selling don’t have many starting pitchers to move, and the crop of walk-year hitters isn’t so great either, but what these non-contenders do have an excess of are relief pitchers.

Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller from the Yankees. Alex Colome and Xavier Cedeno from the Rays. Tyler Clippard and Daniel Hudson from the Diamondbacks. Ryan Madson and John Axford from the A’s. Jeanmar Gomez from the Phillies and Joe Smith from the Angels will probably be on the move, and that isn’t even counting guys like Mark Melancon or Steve Cishek who could get moved if things go south for their teams over the next couple of weeks. With nearly every contender looking at bolstering their bullpen, there’s enough demand to clear the supply of available relievers, but we’re definitely not looking at a shortage at the position like there are at other spots this year.

But yet, if I was hunting for a relief pitcher over the next two weeks, my first call would be to the Milwaukee Brewers. They’ve been baseball’s most aggressive team in remaking their roster since David Stearns took over last year, and you know that front office is looking for any opportunity they can to add long-term value, knowing their chances at contention over the next few years are slim at best.

Jeremy Jeffress, the team’s closer, is already generating plenty of trade chatter, as you’d expect from a closer with 23 saves, a 2.35 ERA, and a 96 mph fastball, but he’s not the guy I’d be after. Will Smith would have been a really interesting name if he hadn’t blown out his knee in Spring Training, and while he’s recovered enough to get back on the mound, he doesn’t really look like his old self right now; missing velocity and strikeout rates lead me to guess that the Brewers hold onto Smith and hope he rebuilds some value as he gets further away from the injury, then look to move him over the winter or next summer.

No, the guy I’d want is Tyler Thornburg.

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Shin-Soo Choo and Jurickson Profar could have been pitchers. Both attracted the attention of scouts as hard-throwing amateurs. Choo starred for South Korea when they won the 2000 World Junior Championships and was named the tournament’s top pitcher. Profar excelled on the mound for Willemstad, Curacao when they won the 2004 Little League World Series and again when they lost in the finals the following year.

Each feels he could have gone on to pitch at the highest level. A big difference is that Profar didn’t want to pitch. Choo thought he was going to.

“I found out when I got to the States (in 2000) that I would be a hitter,” explained Choo, who originally signed with Seattle. “I thought I was coming here to be a pitcher. But I wasn’t the one making the decision. At first I was confused. Now I’m happy, because I get to play every day and not every five days.”

Making it to MLB as a position player was Profar’s goal from the start. Read the rest of this entry »

Luis Valbuena has a 157 wRC+ since the beginning of June playing third base for the Houston Astros. Super-prospect Alex Bregman is beating down the door with his performance at Triple-A. Perfect fits be damned. Try and tell a contending club it’s got too many good players. They’ll find some room.

MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez just broke some news:

Source: INF Yulieski Gurriel agrees to 5-year, $47.5 million deal with #Astros #Cuba More on https://t.co/mkcBseoZWQ pic.twitter.com/6uj12AgGGL

— Jesse Sanchez (@JesseSanchezMLB) July 15, 2016

Let’s get brought up to speed. Gurriel (previously spelled Gourriel) is 32, and he’s been considered Cuba’s best baseball player for about a decade. He’s primarily played third base, and also kicked around at shortstop and, more recently, second base. In 15 years between Cuba and Japan, Gurriel hit .335/.417/.580 with 250 homers and 121 steals. In early February, Yulieski and his younger brother Lourdes Jr., 22, defected from the island. In June, Yulieski was declared a free agent, able to sign with any club free of international spending limits. He’d been linked to the Dodgers, of course. The Mets had shown some interest. The Angels seemed to make some sense. Now, he’s an Astro.

BaseballAmerica’s Ben Badler worked up a scouting report on Gurriel last April in which he called him a plus defender at third with quick reactions, athleticism, a 70-grade arm, and the occasional mental lapse. He’s a complete hitter who bats from the right side, able to hit for average and draw a walk, and scouts see good bat speed that should translate to plus power in the majors. At the time, Badler drew comps to Hanley Ramirez and David Wright, which don’t sound so great anymore, but remember this was before the beginning of the 2015 season; Ramirez was coming off a 135 wRC+ at third base with the Dodgers, Wright was still Wright. Brian Cartwright does good work translating international player’s stat lines to MLB equivalents, and he projected Gurriel for a .283/.330/.458 line back in February, good for a .340 wOBA. There’s no expectation that Gurriel won’t hit.

Five years for a 32-year-old is perhaps a bit scary, and it’s a little more than what Dave Cameron estimated he might get last month, but Gurriel makes the Astros better now. Or, more accurately, in three weeks or so, which is when FOXSports’ Ken Rosenthal reports he’ll be ready to join the club. The Astros plan to keep Gurriel at third base, which creates an interesting positional logjam in Houston.

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Of all the statistical advances made in the recent past, exit velocity seems to get the most attention. Broadcasts that still shy away from discussions of WAR or wRC+ or UZR are readily using exit velocity on batted balls. Part of that could be the novelty of it, and part of it is just a fascination with how hard and how far a ball is capable of being hit. Part of it could also be a sort of familiarity. Home-run distance has long been included in broadcasts, as has been a pitcher’s velocity. Exit velocity is an easy expansion of those numbers.

That said, exit velocity isn’t just a novelty. Despite issues with the data and the importance of launch angle and batted-ball data as a means to providing context, a player’s average exit velocity can tell us a decent bit of information about a player. With another half of data available (thanks to our own Jeff Zimmerman for his assistance gathering data), we can attempt to determine whether exit velocity from last season carried over to this season.

When I looked over the winter, the correlation on an individual player level between wOBA and exit velocity was relatively strong (r=.61) over the course of 2015 for players who had played a majority of that year. That number is not as strong so far this year (r=.50), but we are also dealing with a larger (237) universe of players with a lower level (200) of plate appearances over the first half of this season. It will be interesting to see if the correlation climbs a little higher as the season continues.

Last year, there was a solid relationship between first-half and second-half exit velocity. To determine how much of last year’s numbers carried over to this season, I compared the 116 players who recorded at least 200 plate appearances in each of the last three half-seasons. First-half exit velocity from 2015 correlated well with first-half exit velocity for 2016 (r^2=.52), but not as well as second half of 2015 with first half of 2016 (r^2=.57). The strongest relationship between the periods was between the entire 2015 season and the first half of 2016 (r^2=.62).

If you want the best bet for what a player will do this year, looking at a full year of data is the way to go based on the information we have, but we don’t know if that is uniform for all players. What about the players who experienced changes from the first half of 2015 to the second half of 2015? Did those changes carry over? Yes and no.

• For the 33 players who had large increases in the second half last year (at least 1.5 mph increase), the second-half exit velocity had a slightly higher correlation than 2015 total (r^2=.51 compared to .47). A good second half of exit velocity might be a harbinger of continued higher numbers.
• For the 23 players who produced a decrease of at least 0.5 mph, the decrease seemed to have less bearing, as there was a smaller correlation (r^2=.38) for the second half of 2015 to the first half of 2016 compared to 2015 as a whole to the first half of 2016 (r^2=.44). A dropoff in the second half in terms of exit velocity is less important than the full year of numbers, it would seem.
• For the players who had relatively consistent halves in 2015, those numbers have carried forward to 2016 (r^2=.74).

When I looked at the numbers over the winter, I was hoping to find some sort of application for the data I found. Everything else is fun to figure out (depending on your definition of fun), but to find something with utility would be most interesting. I looked at the population of players last season whose wOBA seemed to underperform or overperform their exit velocity — i.e., players who’d recorded above-average exit velocity but below-average numbers, and vice versa. I found that those players who underperformed their exit velocity in the first half saw their offensive numbers rise in the second half. Similarly, players whose offensive numbers seemed to overperform their exit velocity tended to have weaker number in the second half. Taking a look at those players for the first half of the season is probably worth a post on its own, so we’ll hold off on that for now.

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Know this — Dave Dombrowski likes to make trades. He was first named a general manager back on July 5, 1988, assuming the title of “youngest GM in the game” back before it was cool with the Montreal Expos. He made his first trade on July 13. His aggressive nature was sometimes just off center stage, as the teams he had previously helmed — the Expos, Marlins and Tigers — have rarely been media darlings. But now he is running the Red Sox, and they get plenty of coverage. While that level of coverage might not be fair or warranted, his deals are being scrutinized hard these days. Is he gutting the farm system? Or does Dombrowski know how to pick ’em? I thought I’d take an objective stab at his trade record.
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It’s no secret that, over the last few years, the number of Tommy John surgeries has increased across all levels of baseball. As we emerge from the All-Star break, let’s take a snapshot of the current state of Tommy John surgeries at the professional ranks.

New Tommy John Surgeries
Let’s start with some good news. The number of Tommy John surgeries at the major-league level is down in 2016 compared with the last couple of seasons. Comparing totals at this point in the season over recent years, there have been fewer Tommy John surgeries to date this year than any since 2011.

In the past five seasons, I’ve attempted to track Tommy John surgeries at the minor-league level more closely than in prior years. This information is much more difficult to collect, and certainly there will be many surgeries missing from the list every season. Looking only at surgeries known to have been performed by this time in the year, however, the 2016 campaign looks more like 2012-2013 than the last two years where surgery counts had spiked.

So the most interesting question here is: has something actually changed to cause the number of Tommy John surgeries to drop this year compared with the last two seasons?

I can’t say that I know the answer, but I suspect it’s due to a number of factors.

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