Archive for Daily Graphings

You’ve probably heard the expression, “Don’t throw good money after bad.” Simply put, don’t waste more money on what is already a losing proposition. There might be an argument that this wisdom has some relevance to the Detroit Tigers, that the Tigers have reached the moment where it’s time to focus on the future instead of the present.

Consider: the club possesses a near-$200 million payroll but sits just three games over .500. They’re 6.5 games out in the American League Central and four games back of the second wild card. Going all-in for a shot at a one-game playoff seems like poor planning for an organization that has failed to prioritize the long-term for much of the past decade. However, with the way they have positioned themselves, the Tigers don’t have much of a choice.

It might not appear as though the Tigers’ season has gone according to plan given where they are in the standings, but in terms of reaching the playoffs, they sit not too far off from where they started the season. The chart below shows the FanGraphs playoff odds from the beginning of the season to the All-Star break for the eight American League teams with at least a 10% chance (with apologies to fans of the White Sox, Royals, and Yankees, who are not completely out of it).

While the Tigers appear to be the odd team out in the chart above, they would require two teams to falter a bit — while continuing to play to expectations themselves — in order to reach the playoffs. Consider that, prior to the Mets’ loss Matt Harvey for the season — and also the loss of their last three games — the team’s playoff odds were 69%, but now sit 30 points lower. Subtractions and additions to talent level can make a big difference in projections over the course of the rest of the season. If the Tigers were a truly small-market team who’d experienced some success over the years, but might benefit in the near future by reloading at the trade deadline, then a selloff might make sense. The Tigers are not that team.

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Despite Major League Baseball’s attempts to add urgency to the All-Star game, there are factors which ensure that winning isn’t the only objective for its participants. It is, after all, an exhibition game. And yes, while most of the league’s best players will be present, deserving players will be absent. Finally, managers will make an effort to use nearly all players on each roster — both for the players’ benefit and the benefit of those fans who voted on the players’ behalves. There are, in other words, expectations placed both on the players and managers which surpass mere winning or losing.

Even if winning were the only objective of either team — and if the players on each roster were deployed optimally — using the results of tonight’s game as a proxy for determining which league is stronger would be foolish, not unlike using World Series results to do the same. Calculating strength of league requires an evaluation of interleague records and some greater evaluation of entire group of players in each league. That would be the most equitable way of doing things.

However, given that the All-Star game is tonight and given that it includes an equal number of players on both teams, we can compare the respective talents of those squads as a small way of comparing the leagues. That’s the goal of this post.

While both teams have had injury replacements over the past week, the National League has been hit considerably harder, losing Clayton Kershaw, Madison Bumgarner, Noah Syndergaard, Matt Carpenter, and Yoenis Cespedes. Those players have combined for 18.1 WAR so far this season and Kershaw leads the NL and is tied at 5.5 with Mike Trout in MLB. Even with those losses, the NL has put together a talented squad.

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It’s still rather difficult to craft an argument against the Chicago Cubs as the best team in baseball, at least in my opinion. I mean, shoot, they’ve outscored their opponents by 139 runs for the season, and that’s 34 more than the next-best team, and 50 more than the next-next best team. They’ve got an MVP candidate (favorite?) in Kris Bryant, and they’ve got perhaps the second-best pitcher in the world in Jake Arrieta. The lineup’s still deep, the rotation’s still deep. They still play defense, and they still run the bases. It’s the same roster that was undoubtedly the best roster just a month ago, and the same roster that the projections, whether it be ZiPS, Steamer, or PECOTA, think is clearly the best in the sport.

But, here’s the thing. The Cubs no longer have the best record — they’ve barely got the second-best record — and that’s kinda crazy, considering it was barely a month ago that they had the best record in the sport by 6.5 games, with an even better BaseRuns record at the time.

Except, lately — and pretty much since that moment — things haven’t been going so hot. I created a little infographic to help put things into perspective. Hope this does the trick:

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Most All-Stars weren’t born into baseball this way. Most of them had to alter their approach, or their mechanics, in order to find that a-ha moment. They threw a pitch differently, or decided to pull the ball more, or changed their swing, and then found a run of sustained success that put them in the All-Star game that’s being played tonight.

So, given fairly fettered access to the All-Stars from both leagues, that was the question I posed: what was the big adjustment, mechanical or approach-wise, that brought you to this podium today?

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A few months ago, Carson ran his broadcaster crowdsourcing project. When the results rolled in, reviews for the White Sox home TV broadcast were mixed. That being said, people had a lot of good things to say about Jason Benetti, who’s a newer presence to the production. I bring this up because I’m about to quote Benetti, and I’m about to quote Benetti because, well, you’ll understand. What did the worst called ball of the season’s first half look like? We’ll get to that. But here’s the White Sox TV reaction:

Benetti: Oh, that’s ball one. And maybe only because Perez dropped it.

Stone: Right down the middle, belt-high.

Benetti: Some folks on the web like to pick out the worst non-strike call of the season. That gets calculated by some baseball fans who watch the game at length. And we — that is a definite possibility for worst ball of the season.

You’re all right, Jason Benetti. You’re all right. And you nailed that son of a bitch.

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Below are brief writeups on the other relevant prospects from this year’s July 2 class of International Free Agents, many of whom have complete tool grades on the Sortable Board which can be found here. For complete scouting reports on my top 25, bang it here (1-10) and here (11-25). If you’re an obsessive autodidact, I wrote about the implications of the penalties levied upon Boston for their improprieties as well as two of the best young prospects left in Cuba.

Pitchers

Luis Noguera, LHP, Venezuela (Colorado Rockies, $600,000)

Noguera has a projectable body and solid repertoire that projects to average on all fronts. His fastball only sits in the mid-80s and will touch 91 but we’re talking about a well-framed teenager here so it’s likely the velo takes a step forward in the next few years. The changeup, curveball and command should all be of major-league quality but nothing projects to plus, which makes Noguera a likely back-end starter at maturity.

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There aren’t many knuckleball pitchers in baseball, but there are a lot of would-be knuckleball pitchers. Most everyone has tinkered with the butterfly. It’s common for players — particularly position players — to mix in knucklers when playing catch before games. A handful of them can really make it dance.

Who are the best among the wannabe Wakefields and Niekros? To answer the question most accurately that would require extensive polling throughout both leagues. I considered tackling the task, but ultimately decided that such an exercise was a bit too frivolous.

Querying a cross-section of players was far more practical. I talked to a dozen, most of whom have experience either throwing or catching the game’s most enigmatic and entertaining pitch. Along with asking who has the best they’ve seen, I had several of them to assess the quality of their own knuckleball.

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Alex Avila, White Sox catcher: “It would have to be Danny Worth. He’s actually pitched in a game with it. We were with the Tigers, it was a blowout game, and he came in. He’s got a great arm — he’s an infielder — and he’d always throw a knuckleball warming up, just messing around. He threw a bunch of them, and it was dancing pretty good.”

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It’s important to note, considering the title of this post, that Jake Lamb is presently not a member of the National League All-Star team. It’s certainly not for lack of production. Lamb’s played enough to qualify for the batting title, and his 3.5 Wins Above Replacement rank 13th among all position players, right alongside All-Star third basemen Nolan Arenado and Matt Carpenter, the latter of whom recently switched back to second base. Of the 12 players above Lamb on the WAR leaderboard, 11 are All-Stars. (Sorry, Brandon Crawford.) So are the next eight after him. Chalk it up to a deep third-base pool in the National League, and a lack of name recognition for Lamb.

As long as he continues hitting the way he’s been, Lamb’s name will become known. Entering the All-Star break, he’s been one of baseball’s 10 best hitters. With 20 homers, 19 doubles and a league-leading seven triples, he’s been the best power hitter in the National League, and the best non-David Ortiz-division power hitter in all of baseball. Yep — Lamb’s .325 isolated slugging percentage easily topples the first-half marks set by prolific sluggers like Mark Trumbo, Kris Bryant and Josh Donaldson. This coming from a guy who last year was known for his defense.

For Lamb, this was all part of the plan. Of course, “be one of the best players in the sport” would be an ideal plan for anyone, but Lamb specifically entered the season looking to add more power. Inspired by Jose Bautista and teammate A.J. Pollock, Lamb re-tooled his swing in the offseason in an effort to create more authority on contact.

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Playing shortstop is a young man’s game. The list of top-tier shortstops age 25 and under in the game right now is so extensive that it’s impossible to pare down to a quick three- or four-name list without leaving off a potential future MVP. If you’re interested in fawning over those names and debating who among them is the most valuable, I’d recommend keeping an eye on Dave Cameron’s trade-value series this week. But right now, I want to talk about a guy who suddenly looks like a grizzled veteran next to the new wave of shortstop talent: 26-year-old Didi Gregorius.

Over the past month, Gregorius has been the most productive shortstop at the plate. Go back a bit further and you’ll find that, after struggling in the first month of the season, he’s posted an impressive 131 wRC+ since May 8th. On the season as a whole, though, his 109 wRC+ ranks a respectable, if uninspiring, 11th among shortstops behind eight (!) members of that 25-and-under age bracket. There’s no argument to be made that Gregorius is anything like the best shortstop in the game right now, but he is in the midst both of a remarkable stretch and also his finest overall season at the plate. He also has three more years of team control remaining, which makes it worth investigating to what extent this Gregorius breakout is for real.

The most obvious and, perhaps, the most fun part of Gregorius’ breakout has been his power surge. He’s recorded five home runs in his last 11 games, which has helped boost his ISO to a career high .169. He’s hardly the only shortstop to grow into power after a few seasons in the majors: Brandon Crawford and Zack Cozart followed a similar trajectory. Gregorius’ power is aided by the fact that he’s a left-handed hitter who gets to play half his games in Yankee Stadium. Unsurprisingly, his home/road power split is rather stark:.210 ISO at home, .132 on the road. If I were a team interested in acquiring Gregorius, this would be a concern, but unless the Yankees are planning to move anytime soon, they should feel comfortable accepting that Gregorius possesses the ability to make the most of his home ball park.

There is something about Gergorius’ newfound power, however, which necessitates pouring a bit of cold water on the idea that he’s tapped into a new ability which will help elevate him to a new level. Check out his season-by-season ISO:

Yes, Gregorius is hitting for more power and that’s a great thing, but he’s not alone. Power is up across the league and, rather than pulling ahead of the pack, Gregorius is merely keeping pace with league average. (Gregorius recorded only 21 plate appearances in that 2012 season, so the relevant start date for his ISO comparisons begins in 2013.) The power increase among shortstops is even more stark than the league-wide trend. Since 2014, the average ISO for shortstops across the league has risen from .113 to .151 — nearly forty points! So, yes, the new power is fun to watch, but it’s not going to alter substantially Gregorius’ standing in the league.

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