Archive for Daily Graphings

Toronto has made the first move toward retooling its starting rotation, reportedly resigning Marco Estrada to a two-year deal worth $26 million.

Estrada is 32 years old and coming off a career-best season, but also had just ~$10 million in combined career earnings before this offseason, and would have entered the market with draft pick compensation tied to him in a rich free agent class for starting pitching.

The move feels like a win for both sides. Estrada takes something of a middle ground between the risk of accepting the qualifying offer in lieu of guaranteed years and testing the market in hopes of cashing in on his 2015 with a long-term deal. In making the decision, Estrada likely considered the recent situations of similar pitchers like Kyle Lohse and Ervin Santana who went unsigned until March after being extended a qualifying offer and ultimately chose to avoid that possibility by staying with a team that should contend for both years of his contract, while getting to throw to Russell Martin, one of the game’s best catchers and one with whom he’s already familiar.

From the Blue Jays’ perspective, they return their most consistent pitcher from 2015 to a mostly depleted rotation, and fill one of potentially three open spots with a short-term deal at a completely reasonable price, leaving room for a higher-profile pitcher to slot above Estrada.

Zooming in just on Estrada, there seems to be a perception among some that, had any team signed him to a multi-year deal, they’d be taking a risk. After all, he’s still just one year removed from a replacement-level season in Milwaukee, and for a 32-year-old, he doesn’t have much of a track record to stand on. To the Estrada naysayers, his 2015 season was a fluke, propped up by a historically low BABIP and a career-low HR/FB% that helped hide his ever-declining strikeout rate.

However, I’m not so sure that’s the case.

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By most accounts, Justin Upton has delivered on his promise as a former number-one draft pick and top prospect, hitting 190 home runs and averaging roughly four wins per season since turning 21 years ago. Upton has a rare power-speed combination, he was called up at an early age, he hits for consistent power, and he is still just 28 years old. Yet, not unlike another former first-round pick also hitting free agency, Jason Heyward, Upton is regarded by some as a slight disappointment, if unreasonably so. It is Jason Heyward, with even more youth than Upton to go along with great defense, who is seen as the best position player on the market despite hitting just 13 home runs this past year. Upton’s age, however, should not be dismissed, as he is still younger than most free agents on the market and combines that youth with the promise of considerable power.

Justin Upton will still get paid. Jon Heyman hit a high mark publicly, predicting seven years and $161 million, but FanGraphs crowdsourcing came up with six years, $120 million with Dave Cameron adding an extra year at $20 million to sign with the Yankees. That Upton’s contract is likely to be only the fourth, fifth or perhaps even sixth biggest contract of the offseason speaks to the quality of this free agent class as well as the amount of money that has been added to baseball’s revenues over the past few years.

Six years ago, Matt Holliday signed a seven year, $120 million contract with the St. Louis Cardinals. Since then, nine position players have signed $100 million contracts in free agency and player salaries have increased by 50%. Upton’s six year, $51 million contract served to delay his free agency by two years, but because he debuted at just 19 years old, he is still in position to sign a big long-term contract before the aging process begins his decline.

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Editor’s note: Jeff wrote this as an InstaGraphs post when the trade was announced, but when I got around to looking at it, I noticed he wrote almost 900 words. That’s a normal-length FanGraphs post, so I’m moving it to the front page. I’m leaving the IG post up in its original place so that your comments will be retained, however.

UPDATE: Angels also getting catcher Jose Briceno. Briceno is 23, and he spent last year in high-A, but he also posted an OPS of .482, and, yes, that’s a 4, and no, that’s not a mistake. Of course, he’s hit better in the past. He’s been a decent prospect in the past. Right now, his career needs to be rescued.

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The day began with thoughts on a potential Andrelton Simmons blockbuster. As the day ends, half of what was discussed has come true — Simmons has been traded, and even to the general Los Angeles area. He just hasn’t been traded to the Dodgers, or for Yasiel Puig.

Rather, Simmons’ new teammates will be the rest of the Angels. And, headed to the Braves in exchange: Erick Aybar, Sean Newcomb, Chris Ellis, and a bit of money.

#Braves trade Simmons to #Angels for Newcomb, Ellis, Aybar and about $3M

— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) November 12, 2015

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Earlier in the week, I asked you some questions. It was all very easy — one poll for each of the 30 teams, this being a sample:

It was part of an attempted project, and a project is no good if you don’t at some point advance to the results. So now we get to discuss some of the findings, with thousands of votes having rolled in. For all I know, there’ll be more posts later on that are based on this data set. That’s the neat thing about having data — once you have it, it’s good forever. But we can address the major stuff. What happens later happens later.

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Here’s the difference between now and the trade deadline. At the trade deadline, when the Twins went out and picked up Kevin Jepsen, I shrugged and kept thinking about other, potentially bigger things. I forgot about the move five minutes after I learned about it. Now, this is a whole post about the Mariners going out and picking up Joaquin Benoit from the Padres. Not that Benoit and Jepsen are identical, but they belong in the tier of second- or third-class moves. As such, I’m sure many of you couldn’t care less about this, but before you go away, let me tell you — Benoit remains one interesting reliever. Good relief pitching is en vogue at the moment, and while Benoit will be 39 next July, he doesn’t seem to be on the verge of anything but another strong 65 innings.

Benoit is going to cost $7.5 million. The Mariners got him from San Diego for Enyel De Los Santos and Nelson Ward, and while De Los Santos is a young one with a big arm, there’s a reason those are two unfamiliar names. Neither is likely to do anything at the highest level; Benoit is likely to go another season or three. For the Padres, there’s nothing wrong with shedding salary and adding a live-armed project. But, necessarily, this is more interesting from the Mariners’ side. As long as Benoit has pitched, he still seems capable of keeping opponents off base.

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The free agent signing season should kick into gear soon, shortly after the results of Friday’s qualifying-offer acceptance deadline determine which free agents require draft pick compensation. The starting pitcher market will be particularly intriguing to monitor, with a healthy supply/demand situation from the players’ perspective further enhanced by the Cards’ loss of Lance Lynn for the entire season due to Tommy John surgery.

David Price, who does not require draft pick compensation, and Zack Greinke, who does, stand alone at the top of the market. Beneath them, among others, stands Jeff Samardzija, who is statistically coming off of the worst season of his career. What is his true talent level, and how he might he fare in this offseason’s market?

Samardzija’s backstory, obviously, is quite unique. Baseball was essentially his second sport early in his college career at Notre Dame; he was a highly renowned wide receiver, thought to be a likely future high round NFL draftee. As his two-sport career progressed, however, his fastball ramped up into the mid-to-upper 90s, while his football production plateaued.

I was a scout for the Milwaukee Brewers throughout Samardzija’s baseball career, and had the opportunity to see him pitch many times, particularly during his junior season. The raw arm strength was always there, and by the Big East tournament of his draft season, he was pumping it up there at 98-99 mph. His slider flashed plus, but it was quite inconsistent.

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The Red Sox are primed to make some moves this off-season, but not much is known about what those moves will be. They might sign a big money pitcher, they might not. They might trade a bunch of prospects, but they might not. They’re very likely to do something, probably, but what that something is, nobody has any idea. That’s all true, with one exception, an exception you’re likely aware of if you read the title of this post. Hanley Ramirez, lost puppy, needs a new home, and the Red Sox would very much likely to give him one.

It was only last season that Hanley showed up in Boston, skinny, hungry, wet from constant proverbial rain. The Red Sox took him in, scratched him behind the ears, and gave him shelter, food, and $88 million on a four-year deal with a $22 million vesting option. Then he spent the better part of the season pooping on the carpet.

Ramirez’s 2015 season was so bad he cost the Red Sox two wins. For $22 million and the promise of $66 million more, Boston got -1.8 WAR. The Red Sox would literally have been better off had Ben Cherington given one of those “we just signed a new player” press conferences and then, like Clint Eastwood, spent the time talking to an empty chair. Or maybe he could have talked about the team’s prospects for the coming season while casually lighting 20s on fire and tossing them over his shoulder while subordinates ran around frantically with fire extinguishers. Had he done that, it might have been the end of Cherington’s job, but if so it only would have sped up the process by about six months.

Now Boston is run by Dave Dombrowski and Dombrowski has moved Hanley from left field, which he can’t play, to first base, which he probably can’t play but we can’t be sure yet. Instead of putting him there for the final month of the season to see if he could, you know, do it, Boston sent him home. This is known as the writing being on the wall. Instead of getting ready for next season when getting ready for next season was all that was left, Boston said, “Nah, you know what, Hanley? Just get out of here. No, no, it’s fine, we’re good. Sure, sure we are. Have a great holiday!” So Hanley needs a new place to play. The Red Sox don’t want to go into next season with a total unknown at an important defensive position, let alone one they perceive to be a player who wasn’t interested in putting out maximum effort to learn a new position. No, they’re going to try to dump him on someone else.

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The American League edition of this post was published yesterday and can be found right here.

The goal here is to find the positions, before free agency really kicks off, that most need an improvement. I fear that I wasn’t quite clear enough in yesterday’s post — these are based on the 2016 Steamer projections and our in-house depth charts. They’re ranked by standard deviations above or below the mean for WAR, specific to each position. That’s why the order isn’t simply total WAR in descending order, because the average is different for each position.

It’s possible this one might be a bit of a letdown. See, the goal was to attempt to find areas that need addressed through free agency or perhaps a big offseason trade. In the American League, it worked, because basically every team in the AL is a contender, or a move or two away from being a contender, so things like the Angels’ left field spot, the Royals second baseman and the Tigers’ bullpen fit the bill of what we were looking for.

In the National League, though, there are just some bad teams. Bad teams that were bad last year, are going to be bad this year, and are bad enough all-around to where it just doesn’t make sense, yet, to fill their holes with big moves. A lot of this list ended up being bad positions on bad teams that may or may not be addressed, but I did the post yesterday so I’ve kinda gotta do the follow-up today.

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(Dis)honorable mentions: Padres third base, Braves third base, Reds left field, Phillies right field, Brewers second base, Rockies second base, Brewers shortstop, Diamondbacks bullpen, Braves second base, Braves rotation.

#10 Rockies – 1B

After declining a $9 million club option on Justin Morneau, who appeared in just 49 games last year due to recurring concussion issues, the Rockies are left with essentially the same collection of players that produced the second-lowest wRC+ of any team’s first basemen in the league last year. Outside of catcher, the rest of Colorado’s lineup is pretty well-set, so it’s potential this need is addressed, but pitching is clearly the team’s top priority, and so an Opening Day Paulsen-Rosario platoon isn’t out of the question.

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Jerry Dipoto has a plan. Importantly, he also has the autonomy to implement it. Free from the shackles of Anaheim, he’s now able to do his own thing, with his own people, in Seattle. That’s good news for Mariners’ fans.

Dipoto is doing more than simply replacing Jack Zduriencik as Seattle’s general manager. He’s enacting philosophical change. The erstwhile Angels GM is a former player with a scouting background, but he’s also one of the most analytically inclined front office executives in the game. The Mariners will be many things under Dipoto’s leadership; backwards isn’t one of them.

Dipoto shared his vision for the team during this week’s GM meetings in Boca Raton.

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DiPoto on the organization’s change of philosophy: “The philosophy I’m bringing over here is pretty different. I respect Jack Zduriencik – he’s had a wonderful baseball career and I’m sure he’ll continue to have one – but we’ll do things differently than he did. We see things through a different lens. I’m not going to tell you exactly how, because then it’s no longer an advantage, but it is significantly different. Regarding [the Angels], it would be fair to say that this is a different environment for me.”

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You’re forgiven if you don’t much care about Wednesday’s swap of Aaron Hicks for JR Murphy. Maybe you’re not a fan of the Twins or the Yankees. Maybe you’re not a fan of baseball at all, and you somehow wound up here by accident. Or maybe you are a fan of the Twins or the Yankees, but you recognize this as a trade featuring two players with less than 2 combined WAR over more than 1,200 plate appearances. Hicks has been probably the more hyped of the two, but Murphy is the younger of the two, and he seems like a backup. This isn’t on the level of Brad Miller and Nate Karns, and even that wasn’t on the level of something truly big.

These are the moves we have available to discuss, though, and if you want to speak generally, every professional baseball player has a compelling story. They’re all tremendously talented, and they’ve all dreamed of big-league success. If you want to speak specifically, Hicks is interesting, and I’d rate his level of interest above-average. He’s a former top prospect who’s trying to recover from initial struggles, and the most recent year saw him take a step forward. As far as this trade is concerned, it’s important to understand 2015 Aaron Hicks, and what follows are three keys to fully grasping the Hicks campaign. What he was in 2014, he wasn’t this summer.

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