When we took a look at Jake Arrieta’s multi-faceted slider on Wednesday, the pitcher gave credit to ‘old-timers’ for the idea to use his legs to deaden the pitch. It turns out, there’s more old school in his mechanics than just a dragging back leg on a slow slider.

It’s not like Arrieta opened with a discussion of the way things used to be. When I first asked him about his mechanics, he felt there wasn’t one aha moment that helped him find his command and his best delivery. “I moved away from being concerned with mechanics to being more conscious of the positioning of my body and being able to put it in certain spots more consistently,” he said.

Just a natural growth, time, and a better understanding of his body had led to improvements. “Developing, maturing physically, understanding what you need to be consistent with, in order to have consistent command,” is how he put it.

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Yesterday, the Marlins agreed to sign outfielder Christian Yelich to a deal that guarantees him at least $51 million over seven years, locking up one of the game’s best young players. This morning, Rob Bradford of WEEI.com reported that the Red Sox are considering approaching Mookie Betts about signing a long-term deal of his own, which might both serve to lock in some future cost savings as well as temper the speculation about if they’ll use Betts as a trade chip to relieve their outfield logjam. The timing of Yelich’s deal and the rumored possible offer for Betts serves as an opportunity to look at them side by side, and note that while they’re physically quite different, they might be pretty similar players going forward.

Certainly, Yelich and Betts don’t look similar. Yelich is six inches taller, standing at 6-foot-3 compared to the 5-foot-9 Betts. Besides just the size difference, Yelich hits from the left side while Betts is a right-handed batter. If you watched them both swing, you wouldn’t necessarily draw a connection between them.

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This past offseason was one of the most tumultuous in recent memory in terms of player movement. A wave of GM turnover triggered roster implosions from Atlanta to Los Angeles, and particularly to San Diego. Domino effects roiled almost all 30 franchises, with only the Indians, Twins, Mets, Phillies and Giants not undergoing at least somewhat significant change. Many teams fancied themselves clear contenders, others, clear rebuilders. Then there were the Oakland Athletics.

At first, it appeared they going the rebuilding route, as evidenced by the megadeal with Toronto involving Josh Donaldson. In the ensuing days and weeks, onlookers were left scratching their heads, wondering what Billy Beane was up to this time, as Billy Butler and Ben Zobrist, two players not exactly made of rebuilding cloth, were brought to town to complement the A’s newly more youthful nucleus. The Butler transaction was particularly curious; why would the A’s spend $30 million over three years on a pure DH coming off of a poor season? Was there, as there usually is, a method to Beane’s madness? Read the rest of this entry »

The Yankees have a few question marks going into the 2015 season, the biggest of which is what to do with a certain third baseman/DH/elephant in the room. After that, it’s the structural integrity of Masahiro Tanaka’s elbow, and then a distant third is probably Mark Teixeira’s new gluten-free home run diet. However (or whoever) you think the Yankees will be on the field this year, there’s one fact that can’t be denied about this iteration of the team: the bullpen is going to throw really hard, and the odds are it will be very good if everyone stays healthy.

With all of the press the Royals received in 2014 for their cadre of power arms from the 7th to 9th inning in the form of Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland, the Yankees built a bullpen almost on their level this past offseason. The breakout of Dellin Betances in 2014, along with the acquisitions of Andrew Miller and David Carpenter, has created a back end with great strikeout ability and excellent peripherals. Add the improved Adam Warren (who may possibly start) to the mix, and you have the security blanket for a rotation with a lot of health concerns.

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With opening day just a few weeks away, fantasy baseball season is officially upon us. And while some fantasy participants play solely for the love of the game, many others enjoy wagering some money on their team(s) as well. However, because gambling is prohibited in a number of states, this raises the question: is your fantasy baseball league legal?

This is a tougher question to answer than one might initially assume. Not only are there a host of different federal and state gambling laws potentially applying to fantasy baseball, but differences in the type of league one participates in (season-long vs. partial-season competition, live vs. automated draft) may also result in varying legal treatment.

To begin, the primary federal gambling laws do not appear to apply to most fantasy baseball leagues. The Uniform Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), for instance, contains a specific carve-out for fantasy sports games in which the outcome is “determined predominantly by accumulated statistical results of the performance of individuals … in multiple real-world sporting events.”

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“Chester wouldn’t play baseball unless Wilson played, and they never swung at the first pitch or slid headfirst.” — Chester’s Way, by Kevin Henkes

Most of us have been taught that running through the bag is unequivocally faster than diving into it. Those who dive into first base are often ridiculed for doing so, risking injury to themselves while simultaneously making themselves less likely to beat the throw. However, a new way of thinking about the physical effects on the runner as he dives through the bag — pioneered by the father/son duo that make up “Baseball con Ciencia” — shows that the diving runner could close the distance to the first base bag at a faster rate. Theoretically.

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It’s gettin’ to that time of year when folks tend to preview stuff ’round baseball. Our annual Positional Power Rankings will be coming to the site over the next couple weeks, you’ll surely see all sorts of divisional preview pieces pop up between now and Opening Day, and this right here is going to be a preview of team defenses.

We saw last year where a good defense can take a team. The Kansas City Royals were more than just a great defense, but it was evident, especially during the playoffs, how much an elite defense can mean to a ballclub. The same was true, but on the other end of the spectrum, for the Cleveland Indians. Our two advanced defensive metrics — Defensive Runs Saved and Ultimate Zone Rating — agreed that the defense in Cleveland was worth around -70 runs last season. In Kansas City, it was something like +50. That’s a 120-run difference! That’s about 12 wins! Those teams play in the same division! Move 12 wins around and the result is an entirely different season! Defense isn’t the biggest thing, but it’s a big thing. Let’s look ahead.

All the numbers used in this piece will come from UZR and DRS. For the team projections, I simply utilized our depth charts and did a little math. We’re going to take a look at the three best, the worst, the teams that got better, the teams that got worse, and then all the rest down at the bottom. For the upgrades/downgrades, I used the difference of standard deviations above or below the mean between last year’s results and this year’s projections.
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Yesterday, I went through team rotations to analyze the most cost-effective pitching staffs in Major League Baseball. Today’s post looks at the hitter side. In a rotation with just five members, one superb pitcher can help create value for the entire staff. On the other hand, one bulging salary without production can drag down the entire rotation. On the hitter side, one player has less of an impact. A 220-inning pitcher counts for around 15% of a team’s innings, while a hitter with 700 plate appearances accounts for around 11% of a team’s plate appearances. The burden to score runs is spread among the entire lineup and bench players.

Like with the pitchers, we begin with the projected WAR generated by the hitting side of each team. Taken from the FanGraphs Depth charts, here are the team totals for projected WAR in 2015. The numbers include both starters as well as bench players.

Bringing in Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval looks to have a positive effect in 2015 for the Boston Red Sox as they beat out the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays for the top projected position player WAR. On the other end of the chart, moving Jason Heyward and Justin Upton without finding quality replacements is a 6-7 win downgrade for the 2015 projections. Half of the teams are bunched together with around 20-25 WAR. The payroll is more spread out.
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News broke on Monday that Zack Wheeler had a tear in his UCL, and would need to undergo Tommy John Surgery. This sucks. It sucks every time we lose an exciting, young arm to injury, and this case is no different. But one man’s misfortune is another man’s opportunity. While unfortunate for both Wheeler and the Mets, Wheeler’s injury helps clear up the log jam in the Mets rotation. It opens the door for a slew of youngsters, who may have otherwise spent a good chunk of the year in Triple-A or the bullpen.

Even after losing Wheeler, the Mets are still able to field a full rotation without turning to any unproven rookies. Dillon Gee will presumably join Matt Harvey, Bartolo Colon, Jon Niese and Jacob deGrom in New York’s rotation. Still, even if the Mets rotation is set for now, we all know that teams almost always need more than five starting pitchers to get through a season. Furthermore, the Mets number one and number two starters are coming off of Tommy John Surgery and old as dirt, respectively. It’s only a matter of time before they will need to dip into their farm system, and luckily for them, they have no shortage of replacements to choose from.

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Yesterday, Lyle Spencer of MLB.com published some fascinating results to a question he posed to “18 Major League executives and managers from 12 clubs in Arizona.” That question: “You are starting a franchise with a focus on the future, not one season. Which three players, excluding those on your own team, would be your top choices?”

Unsurprisingly, the top two vote getters in Spencer’s poll were the reigning MVPs of each league, Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw. Trout’s the best player in baseball. Kershaw’s the best pitcher in baseball. In both cases, there isn’t really an argument about those designations. These guys are the cream of their crop, and both are still young enough to be considered at the beginning of their careers.

After those two, though, opinions started to diverge, with no player being mentioned by more than four of the sources polled; including Trout and Kershaw, 15 different players were named as a guy these front office members said they would want to build their team around. While I will admit that a few of the names on the list caused me to scratch my head, I figured that rather than criticizing other’s selections, I’d take a stab at this myself. So let’s try and answer this question from a data-driven perspective.

Read the rest at Just a Bit Outside.