Have you heard? The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2016 is now available for sale. You can check out the table of contents and read some excerpts from the book. When you finish that you can purchase it from our independent publishing platform, Createspace, in print form, or from Amazon in print form, and also digitally on Amazon for the Kindle.

But wait, there’s more! Because we’re giving folk, and since it’s the beginning of the holiday season and all, we want to give you a chance to win yourself a free copy of the book. So today and tomorrow (and yesterday), we’ll be running a trivia contest based on one of the articles in the book. The first person to post the correct answer in the comments will win a free physical copy of the book (sorry, no free Kindle version). It’s just that simple!
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My role here at FanGraphs is to write about minor league players. Nearly all of my articles focus on the output from my KATOH projection system, which produces long-term forecasts for players who are still in the minor league phase of their careers. Today, I’m unveiling some updates to my model that will be reflected in my analysis from this point forward.

I’ve been meaning to work these updates into KATOH for quite some time now, but haven’t had the chance to finish up until now. Some pieces of this took a bit longer than expected, and day job stuff along with this year’s onslaught of prospect debuts pushed things to the backseat a bit. But I’m all caught up now and ready to unveil my new and improved KATOH. Here we go!

Rather than just putting out a straight leaderboard, I thought I’d use this as an opportunity to explain some of the inner workings of KATOH. I wanted to say something more insightful than “These are the best prospects because math.” That’s why this piece runs 2,000+ words without reference to a single baseball player. If you’re just interested in the output rather than the nitty-gritty, check back after Thanksgiving for KATOH’s top 100 list. I just wanted to get all of this background stuff down in one place, rather than cluttering future pieces with extra information.

*****

Obligatory Technical Details

The general framework of my model is largely the same as it’s always been. As I did in the past, I deployed a series of probit regressions to see what factors are most predictive of major league performance. For each player, I generated probabilities that he would achieve certain benchmarks through his age-28 season: play in the major leagues, earn at least 1 WAR, earn at least 2 WAR, etc. These percentages gave me a probabilistic outlook for each player, and enabled me calculate an “expected value” for his WAR through age 28.

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Theory: the Mariners want to be good soon. I haven’t talked about that with anyone in the industry, so I might be way off, but it’s the assumption I’m going to work with. Another assumption follows: if the Mariners want to be good soon, they probably figure James Paxton could and should be a part of it. The Mariners, probably, want Paxton to become a major contributor as soon as the season ahead. Toward that end, Paxton needs to stay healthy, and the healthy version of Paxton needs to do better.

There’s nothing worth saying about Paxton’s health. Hopefully he doesn’t get hurt. I don’t know why he gets hurt, and I don’t know how he can stop. You cross your fingers. But as far as being better is concerned? Most everything comes down to mechanical repetition. And health, of course, plays some role in that. Out of more consistent mechanics, the Mariners would like Paxton to improve his location. They’d like him to improve his changeup. And there’s another idea, which I already wrote about once some months ago.

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Before every game, we publish estimated game odds. The odds consider the identities of the starting pitchers, and as the first pitch draws closer, the odds update to factor in the actual starting lineups. I’m not saying it’s an infallible system or anything, but it’s a neat little feature we have, even if it doesn’t get all that much use. And though this is by no means a rigorous test, consider the top 100 most seemingly lopsided games from the season past. Based on the calculated odds, the favorites in those games should’ve won 70 times. The favorites actually won 71 times. So things check out.

The favorite won the game with the single most lopsided odds. Max Scherzer and the Nationals were projected to have 78% odds against Sean O’Sullivan and the Phillies. The favorite also won the next-most lopsided game, and the next-most lopsided game, and the next-most lopsided game, and the next-most lopsided game. The five games with the most imbalanced odds all went to the team expected to win. We find our first upset in sixth. Which would then qualify this as the season’s greatest upset, taking into consideration only pre-game odds. It was an upset when the Royals rallied past the Astros in the playoffs, but that wasn’t a lopsided game at the start. It only became that way later. The biggest upset, considering pre-game outlook? We rewind to June 17, and we go to Los Angeles.

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Gerardo Parra’s out there right now as a free agent and soon, a team will sign him to play somewhere in the outfield. Plenty of teams have been linked to Parra, and understandably so. He’s entering just his age-29 season, he’s something like a league average hitter who started to lift the ball to the pull field and hit for some power last year, he’s played all three outfield positions in the past and, at times, he’s played them exceptionally well! He won’t kill you on the bases, and he should come reasonably cheap, especially considering his lack of draft pick compensation. Most everyone can afford Parra, and most everyone would have a spot for him on a roster.

The first team to emerge as a potential landing spot for Parra were the Nationals, who made a push to acquire him at the deadline. Lately the talk has shifted toward the Cubs and Mets being interested in Parra’s services. Between these three teams, a common thread exists in the outfield.

The Nationals’ only outfield opening is in center field. The Cubs’ only outfield opening is in center. The Mets’ only outfield opening is in center. The Cubs have been vocal about prioritizing their outfield defense, and we saw in the World Series that the Mets could benefit from a defensive upgrade at just about any position. So the question becomes: would signing Gerardo Parra to predominately play center field help a defense, or hurt it?

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We are living in a golden age of youthful, historic talent, especially among position players. This was the case even before 2015, when the likes of Kris Bryant, Carlos Correa and Francisco Lindor — all 23 years old or younger — joined the party. Previously, the Cubs had run out a slew of young stud position players on a daily basis, and Manny Machado and Bryce Harper have been around enough to truly be called veterans at this point. All of these greats all reside in the shadow of the best young player of them all, however: some guy named Mike Trout.

With a little luck, or perhaps some better judgment among voters, Trout could very well be celebrating an unprecedented fourth consecutive MVP award right about now. He’s got one of those on the mantle, along with three relatively controversial second place finishes. While I did predict in an ESPN Insider article this past March that Josh Donaldson would win the 2015 AL MVP, there is no doubt that, if I had a ballot, I would have slotted the Blue Jay third sacker on the second line, behind the Angel center fielder.

How great is Trout, and where might all of this be headed? Let’s take a somewhat unorthodox look at his first four seasons relative to some of the game’s all-time inner-circle superstars, and see where he fits in.

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Have you heard? The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2016 is now available for sale. You can check out the table of contents and read some excerpts from the book. When you finish that you can purchase it from our independent publishing platform, Createspace, in print form, or from Amazon in print form (the Kindle version should be available later this week).

But wait, there’s more! Because we’re giving folk, and since it’s the beginning of the holiday season and all, we want to give you a chance to win yourself a free copy of the book. So today and tomorrow (and yesterday), we’ll be running a trivia contest based on one of the articles in the book. The first person to post the correct answer in the comments will win a free physical copy of the book (sorry, no free Kindle version). It’s just that simple!
Read the rest of this entry »

Scan the leaderboard for the best relievers this past season, and sure, there are plenty of homegrown young studs with triple digit fastballs. For clubs in the market for bullpen assistance, however, they’ll take a decent prospect or two to pry loose from their current teams.

But there are also players like Darren O’Day, Hector Rondon, and Luke Gregerson — guys who, in the recent past, have been available at a lesser cost.

One was claimed off of waivers, one was a Rule 5 pickup, and the other took $19 million over three years to snatch up. How can your favorite team find one of those guys?

It’s all a sliding scale, obviously. The signs that point to a good three-year deal have to be stronger than the ones that point to a good camp invite. That said, let’s find the relievers who are most compelling relative to their likely cost.

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Simplicity can be a good goal to have, but often the real world won’t allow it. Life creates uncertainty and complexity and this can be a problem when attempting to determine the proper path to take. For example, should I put down the computer right now and find out what my son is repeatedly slamming into the wall, or should I try to finish this thought? The answer, in this case: probably just finish this thought while simultaneously hoping not to see a hammer on its way through the living room sheetrock. It might not ultimately be the optimal decision, but it’s the best one at which I can arrive given the information at my disposal.

The White Sox are in a similar situation. Fortunately for them, it has nothing to do either with my feral child nor the hammers he’s always carrying, but rather their major league roster — and, specifically, whether to rebuild or restock it (which can, in some ways, be even more daunting). As things currently stand, they don’t know what to do this offseason. Are they rebuilding? Adding on? What does Ken Williams think about the definitive direction of the team?

Are the White Sox rebuilding? Adding on? Ken Williams told reporters last night that definitive direction hasn’t been decided upon yet

— Scott Merkin (@scottmerkin) November 18, 2015

Thanks, Scott Merkin! That sure was timely. I’m not here to argue that the White Sox should blow things up or stand pat. They could go either way, but regardless of whether they take the We-Want-to-Win-Now direction or the We-Want-to-Win-Later direction, they’re going to have to do something about their defense.

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In some seasons, the Most Valuable Player award is a close race between a few worthy position players with a pitcher thrown into the mix if the circumstances align. This year, in the National League, the voting was unanimous for the MVP, and for good reason. In the American League, there were only really two serious candidates for the award, with one fact underlining that point: in MVP voting, each voter ranks players from one to ten, and this year in the AL, every ballot except for one had either Mike Trout or Josh Donaldson in first or second place.

Given that there were only two serious candidates in the AL, there was a fair amount of discussion about who was the worthier of the two players. We could say this was a battle of statistics versus context: a better statistical season (Trout) versus the offensive lifeblood of a playoff-bound Toronto team (Donaldson). Defensively, Donaldson had a better season, but Trout was clearly superior on the offensive side of the ball. Take a look at their full stats side-by-side (wRC+ uses 100 as league average, while UZR is how many runs better the player was than a league average defender):

In the end, the context that is often added to the MVP award won out: Donaldson led his Toronto team to the playoffs after the city had endured a 21-year postseason drought, compiling an incredible offensive and defensive campaign in the process. As is so often the case, there was no true right or wrong answer on who should have won the award; it was close enough to where both players could have deserved it, and it was a matter of opinion that separated them. When all is said and done, baseball is about winning games, however, and Donaldson benefitted from being a key piece of a team that won more games than Trout’s Anaheim Angels.

Discussing the worthiness of each player winning the AL MVP has already been covered at length. If you’ve paid attention to this award season, you probably know the arguments for and against both Trout and Donaldson: we’ve even recapped a few of them here. What is well-known is who Donaldson currently is. What is less-known is who he Donaldson was, and where he now stands among historical MVPs. In context, who he was is a huge part of the story, and we’ll see that it’s pretty rare that he turned into who he is.

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