On Monday, we talked about Daniel Norris, a Blue Jays prospect that is likely to make the jump to the Toronto starting rotation out of camp this year on the back of a great spring and an injury to Marcus Stroman. Today we’re going to highlight another young pitcher who is all but a lock to make a big league rotation out of spring training, only this time it is a former Blue Jay we’re discussing, one that was traded to Oakland as part of the Josh Donaldson deal.

That this pitcher has a name incredibly well set up for puns is not the reason for this article, I assure you, though Kendall Graveman has surely heard them all, and would probably like to put it to rest. Instead, Graveman has made his case for this article, and for inclusion in a crowded rotation, by lighting the Cactus League aflame to the tune of one earned run in 15 innings of work.

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In their most recent round of roster cuts, the Kansas City Royals optioned outfielder Terrance Gore to High-A Wilmington. Gore was one of seven players the Royals cut this week, and one of hundreds who have been cut from their respective teams this spring. However, Gore differs from most of these guys in that he was a player of some significance the last time meaningful baseball was played: In last year’s World Series. Gore became something of a household name last October, when he served as the Royals designated pinch-runner during their in their unlikely run to the World Series. The speedy 23-year-old appeared in six playoff games for the Royals — and stole three bases — without recording a single plate appearance or inning on defense.

Gore’s blazing speed made him an exciting player to watch last October, and as far as pinch-runners go, he’s about as good as they come. But unfortunately for Gore, pinch-runners can only provide so much value, even if they represent a very important run. Back in 2012, Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus reasoned that Billy Hamilton would be worth just one-tenth of a win over one month of games while serving as a pinch-runner.

Of course, Hamilton has since turned into a nice little player, racking up a respectable 3.7 fWAR last season. However, Gore’s nowhere near the hitter that Hamilton is. By no means is Hamilton a good hitter, but he can hit at least a little bit — He put up a 79 wRC+ in 2014. Gore on the other hand, put up a 57 wRC+ … in A-ball.

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Kris Bryant is the story of the spring. The Cubs top prospect — and baseball’s top prospect, by most accounts — won’t stop launching home runs. It’s nearly the end of March, and he still has an OPS that begins with a 2. But that’s only part of the Kris Bryant story, as most of the attention has revolved around the fact that the he’s likely to begin the year in the minor leagues. The Cubs are using necessary defensive improvements as their cover, but it’s an open secret that they’re simply responding to the incentives set for in the Collective Bargaining Agreement; by keeping Bryant in the minors for a couple of weeks, they’ll retain his rights for the 2021 season.

While it won’t be a popular decision, it’s clearly the correct one. They are in essence trading roughly 10 games of 2015 value in exchange for a full season of Bryant in his prime, and while the Cubs clearly want to win this year, no player is so great that missing 10 games would meaningfully alter a team’s expected results. Even Mike Trout, clearly the best player in baseball, is only expected to add about half a win to his team’s ledger every 10 games, and Bryant is no Mike Trout. Even an optimistic projection for Bryant would have him adding maybe a quarter of a win to the Cubs season total if he started in the big leagues versus being held down for a few weeks. Baseball isn’t basketball; one guy only matters so much.

But while the rules clearly incentivize the Cubs to hold Bryant down for a couple of weeks, there is a point at which the present-for-future trade-off would no longer make sense, especially for a contending team. Let’s try to figure out where that point might be.

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A few weeks back, I wrote about Jorge de la Rosa’s remarkable mastery of Coors Field, a fact made all the more interesting by the reality that he’s struggled badly pretty much everywhere else. One of the comments on that piece put forth a pretty fascinating idea:

The Rockies need to break the straitjacket of the five-man rotation on a fixed schedule. Rather, they need to platoon their starters to some degree. Split them into ‘pitch mainly at Coors’ and ‘pitch mainly on the road’.

Could that possibly work? Should it? I’ve been thinking about it ever since then, during which time two things have happened. First, Jeff Sullivan wrote a very similar piece about Jered Weaver and the Angels, causing me to mostly table this. But then second, the Rockies announced that the vastly inferior Kyle Kendrick would start on Opening Day, opening the door to “worst Opening Day starter ever” articles, and that they’d push de la Rosa all the way to the fourth game of the season… which just so happens to be the home opener.

Are they actually trying to put this into motion? It’s true that de la Rosa is battling a groin injury this spring and probably could use as many extra days as the team can give him, but it’s also clear that they want him on the mound at home whenever possible. It might be just as clear that Kendrick, who always seemed an odd fit for the Rockies, would be best served setting foot in the state of Colorado as few times as possible. Maybe this isn’t just about de la Rosa’s odd skill; maybe he’s just the starting point. Let’s put forward a plan to optimize the Rockies’ rotation. Read the rest of this entry »

What do we have here? For an explanation of this series, please read this introductory post. As noted in that introduction, the data below is a hybrid projection of the ZIPS and Steamer systems, with playing time determined through depth charts created by our team of authors. The rankings are based on aggregate projected WAR for each team at a given position.

Yes, we know WAR is imperfect and there is more to player value than is wrapped up in that single projection, but for the purposes of talking about a team’s strengths and weaknesses, it is a useful tool. Also, the author writing this post did not move your team down ten spots in order to make you angry. We don’t hate your team. I promise.

Positional power rankings! Second base! Let’s do this. Here comes a graph of projected team WAR:

Well, would ya look at that. Robinson Cano is still good at baseball. For the third consecutive year, Robinson Cano’s team lands atop the second base rankings of power. There’s a pretty defined top three, a pretty defined top 10, and then the rest. You can see that. Let’s talk about it.

Wait — really quick before we begin, the disclaimer: decimal points of WAR really don’t matter. Team X with 3.0 WAR isn’t demonstrably better than Team Y at 2.7 WAR. It’s less about an exact order and more about visualizing, roughly, where each team falls within the landscape of the league. Okay, now with that in mind, let’s begin.
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What do we have here? For an explanation of this series, please read this introductory post. As noted in that introduction, the data below is a hybrid projection of the ZIPS and Steamer systems, with playing time determined through depth charts created by our team of authors. The rankings are based on aggregate projected WAR for each team at a given position.

Yes, we know WAR is imperfect and there is more to player value than is wrapped up in that single projection, but for the purposes of talking about a team’s strengths and weaknesses, it is a useful tool. Also, the author writing this post did not move your team down ten spots in order to make you angry. We don’t hate your team. I promise.

Time to rate the sluggers! Your first base depth chart in bar form:

Oh Philadelphia. Our heart goes out to your slugging slugger and the slugs he used to slug. Maybe your team actually would be better without Ryan Howard, though. Let’s focus on the positive, at least at first. The two studs at the top have a lot going for them.

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It’s that time of year, when baseball media members offer their respective takes on players who will either break out or break down this season. Most of the time those impressions are based upon a combination of objective and subjective criteria, from the “eye test,” to the numbers, to gut feel — and yes, even to spring training performance. I’m going to go on record stating that I have never, even been so sure about a player’s performance declining from the previous season as I am about Minnesota Twins’ shortstop Danny Santana. Read the rest of this entry »

A point that is often overlooked within any discussion of baseball — whether it’s in print or amongst friends — is how utterly and entirely useless the game is. Yes, it probably has some role in the construction and maintenance of regional identity or as a means by which one can become acquainted with concepts integral to the field of statistics. These are mostly secondary products of the sport, however — and certainly not the reason for its existence.

Its wild lack of utility isn’t a weakness of the pastime, however, but rather an argument decidedly in its favor. Aristotle celebrates in one of his texts what he calls autotelic activities — that is, the sort of endeavors in which one participates as an end in themselves. Aristotle argues that contemplation is such an activity. Except among Catholic people over the age of 65, sex is often discussed in the same terms. Baseball, like most sports, is another example of an autotelic enterprise: one plays or consumes it to no other end than for the purposes of enjoyment*.

*A suggestion which, admittedly, is problematized by the existence of the Phillies and their fans.

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When the White Sox signed Adam Eaton to a five-year, $23.5 extension over the weekend, the move in and of itself, wasn’t huge news. It wasn’t huge money, and Eaton isn’t a huge player, literally or figuratively. But the move wasn’t just about Eaton, necessarily, rather it was part of a bigger plan.

Take it from Eaton himself:

“I think I’m going to play more than that contract is worth, but again, we want to win here and there’s money to go elsewhere,” Eaton said. “The next three, four, five years, if I can be a savings to bring some guys in, that’s key for us.”

This quote pretty much nails it all. Eaton talks about the value of cost certainty, he talks about being part of a bigger plan, and he talks about what extensions for pre-arb players like this allow teams to do. With the Eaton extension, the White Sox have added a fourth member to a pretty clear “core four” who are now locked up through at least 2018, when the oldest of the bunch (Eaton) will be 32 years old. Both Sale and Quintana have club options for ’19 and ’20, and if all options are exercised by the end of the contracts, here’s what the White Sox are on the books for:

• Chris Sale: $53.15M through 2020 (two club options)
• Jose Abreu: $51M through 2019, though he can opt into arbitration when eligible
• Jose Quintana: $40.15M through 2020 (two club options)
• Adam Eaton: $42M through 2021 (two club options)

That’s 24 combined years of control for $186.3M, where one of the players is a top-5 pitcher on the planet and one of those players is a top-5 hitter on the planet, and all four guys are playing through their prime years. That’s a pretty enviable position for the White Sox.
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Every offseason, the somewhat distant future often comes to the forefront of conversations. Time and words are spent wondering what will happen in five, six or seven years. Space in our brains is used to speculate if these long term contracts will work out for their teams, or if Bobby Bonilla’s steady stream of income will outlast Max Scherzer’s (it will). Keeping an eye on the long term future is generally a very good idea, but games that count are less than two weeks away causing years six and seven to fade from consciousness. Before the offseason began, just three free agent pitchers had signed contracts over $100 million with new teams in the last decade. Two more names were added to that list this past winter, and now year one for Max Scherzer and Jon Lester is upon us.

The pitchers join teams at different stages of development. Scherzer comes to the Nationals as a potential piece in an immediate World Series contender. The rotation was strong before Scherzer’s arrival with Jordan Zimmerman, Stephen Strasburg, Gio Gonzalez, and Doug Fister forming one of the league’s best rotations. The Chicago Cubs’ signing of Lester is more of a signal of things to come in Chicago. The Cubs are could-be contenders in 2015, but need a few breaks to jump into the ranks of the elite. Lester heads to Chicago expected to anchor a staff that will need his best to contend.

There are already a few concerns coming out of spring for Lester. He is missing a start due to a dead arm as those around him are ramping up their workloads to prepare for the beginning of the season. Sometimes the dead arm phase is nothing more than a normal phase pitchers go through to get ready for the season. Cole Hamels and Jordan Zimmerman have had dead arms in recent springs and gone on to excellent seasons. In addition to Lester this spring, Joe Saunders, Mike Fiers, Tim Stauffer, and basically the entire Boston Red Sox rotation have reported symptoms of a dead arm.
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