The Milwaukee Brewers traded a mainstay of their rotation in Yovani Gallardo to the Texas Rangers last week, as you by now are well aware. When a team trades a mainstay of its rotation, it’s natural to look to the rest of the rotation in an attempt to find who will pick up the slack. Literally, that person will be Jimmy Nelson, who is likely to fill the now-open spot in the rotation. But Nelson’s a fifth starter who is 26 has thrown just 79 innings in the MLB, so the expectations of him are somewhat tempered.

You look to the rest of the rotation and you see Kyle Lohse and Matt Garza, two guys whose career trajectories appear to be going down rather than up. Mike Fiers is an interesting case, but believe it or not he’s only a year younger than Garza and since he hasn’t been a big part of the rotation the last two years, the bar isn’t set too high for him, either.

This brings us to Wily Peralta. Peralta is young — he’s just 25. Peralta has been a fixture of the rotation the last two seasons — he’s made 32 starts in each year and racked up 382 innings in the process. Peralta legitimately improved last season — he dropped his ERA-, FIP- and xFIP- while throwing more innings per start. And Peralta is exciting, because he throws really, really hard. But that’s the part I want to talk about.
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The legal controversy surrounding Alex Rodriguez seemingly knows no end. Fresh off a season-long suspension – and a year filled with litigation – Rodriguez is currently preparing to return to the New York Yankees for the 2015 season. In addition to the $61 million the Yankees still owe A-Rod under the 10-year contract he signed back in 2007, Rodriguez can potentially earn another $24 million in bonuses by reaching four different home run milestones in the next three years.

Under the terms of his 2007 contract, the Yankees will pay A-Rod $6 million every time he moves up the all-time home run leaderboard. Rodriguez’s 654 career home runs currently rank fifth all-time, trailing only Willie Mays, Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds. If Rodriguez hits six home runs in 2015, he would earn the first $6 million bonus by tying Mays’ career 660 home runs.

According to a recent report in the New York Daily News, however, the Yankees are preparing to contest the bonus provisions in A-Rod’s contract. When the team agreed to the milestone bonus structure back in 2007, it assumed Rodriguez’s march to the all-time home run crown would prove to be quite lucrative. In light of Rodriguez’s subsequent fall from grace, though, the team now understandably thinks A-Rod’s home run milestones will not be nearly as valuable as it initially hoped. As a result, the team is exploring its legal options.

So do the Yankees have any realistic chance of voiding Rodriguez’s bonuses? As is so often the case with the law, the answer is: It depends.

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The Reds have officially given four years and at least $28 million to Devin Mesoraco. The contract buys out what would’ve been Mesoraco’s first year of free agency, and this is a contract that would’ve looked a little weird to an observer a year ago. Through 2013, in the majors, Mesoraco owned a 70 wRC+, and against same-handed pitchers, it was a lowly 53. Before last season, Mesoraco was pretty much all potential. And then he tapped into that potential.

He wound up with a 147 wRC+. Against righties, 145. It’s not exactly new news that Mesoraco enjoyed a breakout season, and I’ve even written about this before, back in August. Everything from then remains valid, but I wanted to revisit Mesoraco’s season, to show in greater detail where he made adjustments, and where those adjustments paid off. Though Mesoraco’s remains far from a household name, he just completed one of the great breakout seasons of our time.

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You can tell a lot about a hitter by how many fastballs pitchers are willing to throw him. The bigger the bat, the more likely it is to see junk. Turns out, small changes in the number of fastballs a hitter sees can help us project that hitter better.

Sort the leaderboard for lowest fastball percentage, and you’ll see it immediately. It’s full of sluggers at the top. Reverse the filter and it’s mostly slappy speedsters. Rob Arthur took a more scientific approach and showed that isolated slugging and fastball percentage are indeed correlated negatively — sluggers see fewer fastballs.

Rookies see more fastballs when they come into the league. Over the last five years, the league saw 57.5% fastballs, and rookies saw 58% fastballs. That’s not a large difference, but it comes in a large sample. Then again, it’s not a large difference, period. Over the course of a season, a rookie with 600 plate appearances would be expected to see 12 or so extra fastballs.

In any case, even if this effect is small when you zoom out, it seems that individual differences in fastball percentage are predictive of future strong work. As Arthur said when he did the gory math behind this statement, “Fastball frequency normally varies according to the pop of the batter, so that when it changes, it may be indicating a change in the underlying skill level of the same batter.”

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Yesterday was Rob Manfred’s first official day on the job, and he didn’t waste any take making headlines. In addition to penning an open letter to the fans, he also sat down with Karl Ravech for an ESPN Sunday Conversation, offering some thoughts on what he saw as priorities to tackle early in his tenure. Some of the points of emphasis are things people have been talking about for a long time — there can be entirely too much time between pitches, and when certain teams get together, the length of the game is a real problem as well — but it was his comments about potentially restricting defensive shifts that got the most attention.

In the context of the conversation about how the game can be improved, Manfred mentioned that the league was looking at ways to “inject additional offense into the game.” And it’s fairly natural that people would draw a connection between the rise in shifting and the decrease in offense around the game. After all, the trend towards non-traditional defensive alignment has picked up a lot of steam in the last five years, the same time period in which offensive output has returned to levels not seen since the early-1990s. Shifts are also highly visible changes to the game, as we have all seen line drives end up as easy outs when a frustrated slugger shakes his head and walks back to the dugout.

But while I appreciate Manfred’s willingness to think about tweaking the game to improve the overall experience, this probably isn’t the best path to pursue. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not sure that we talk about how great Chris Sale is often enough. That’s relatively easily explained, I suppose; after all, with offense down across baseball, there’s more great-looking starting pitchers than ever, and even just within Sale’s division last year we found Corey Kluber, James Shields, Yordano Ventura, Max Scherzer, David Price, Anibal Sanchez, Justin Verlander, and Phil Hughes. You don’t have to go too far to find an interesting starter to talk about these days.

Sale finished third in the AL Cy Young balloting, but a distant third, not picking up a single first-place vote. That was primarily due to an early-season trip to the disabled list that left him unable to match Kluber and Felix Hernandez in innings pitched; otherwise, on a rate basis, he was every bit the equal of the AL’s two best starters. But we know that Sale is incredible, and we know that in 2014 he began to be a different kind of incredible, as Jeff Sullivan noted in June. Sale began to diminish usage of his fearsome slider, the one that he’d collected more than half of his strikeouts in 2012-13 with, in hopes that fewer sliders would help maintain the health of his arm.

That was in June. Now it’s January. We have a full season of data to look back upon, and three things should be pretty immediately clear. One, Sale really did use the slider less over the course of the year as compared to 2013: Read the rest of this entry »

Per the second edition of The Fielding Bible, “From 2003 through 2007, Everett was the best shortstop in the game. It wasn’t even close.”

Adam Everett, who played from 2001-2011, mostly with the Astros, was awarded no traditional Gold Gloves during his career. Omar Vizquel and Jimmy Rollins were two of the reasons. Everett’s pop-gun bat was another, but that’s a topic for another day.

He’s aware of his analytics-based accolades. In 2012, Everett was a special assistant in Cleveland, and he’s spent the past two seasons as the infield coordinator – and briefly the bench coach – in Houston. His reading and comprehension levels go well beyond “The Error of My Ways: A Dinosaur’s Guide to Defense.”

“The Fielding Bible kind of revolutionized things,” Everett told me earlier this week. “For a lot of teams, it became, ‘How much (measurable) value does this guy bring beyond an offensive standpoint?’ It put defense on the map a little more.”

Quantifying defensive value is one thing. Playing defense is another. Everett credits former Astros coach Doug Mansolino – “He’s the guy who got me over the hump” – for much of his development. He also acknowledged former managers Jimy Williams – “a tremendous infield teacher” – and Phil Garner. Each gave him free rein to position himself on the field. Read the rest of this entry »

From the looks of things, Jonathan Papelbon might well soon be on his way to Milwaukee. As I write this, nothing’s confirmed, and you never know when something might break down, or when some other team might decide to interfere. But the last I saw, the Brewers and Phillies were deep into negotiations, with the final hurdle being the small matter of Philadelphia covering some of Papelbon’s salary. That’s not actually a small matter — that’s kind of half of the entire trade. But, let’s assume.

One’s first thought, probably: Papelbon is nuts! Okay, granted, but maybe not important. One’s second thought, possibly: why not just sign Francisco Rodriguez as a free agent? Rodriguez was a Brewer for a few years. Of Milwaukee, he said this in September:

“I definitely know where I want to be. I want to be here. But it is not my decision. There are a lot of things the front office has to do over the course of the winter. They know how I feel. My heart is going to always be here.”

Some months ago, Rodriguez said he wanted to return. Maybe free agency changed his mind, I don’t know. I do know the Brewers know Rodriguez, and they must have their reasons. It’s not like this idea hasn’t occurred to them. It seems the Brewers are fond of Jonathan Papelbon. We, then, should talk about Jonathan Papelbon, closer for a bad team, who might soon become closer for a decent team.

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The Rockies are always in a weird spot. No matter what they do or don’t do, no one ever really seems to care about them. They’re just kind of there. They maintain a low profile, and even if they never spend big, their payroll is not so low that it sticks out. Most stories that gain traction are “oh, those crazy Rockies” sorts of stories. The Four-man rotation, the GM with an office in the clubhouse, the two-headed GM, the humidor, the Giants whining about the humidor, and altitude, altitude, altitude. Rarely do we just focus on what’s going on in between the lines with the Rockies. But this season, that may change, as there is a legit case to be made for the Rockies as sleeper team.

Based on our projected standings, which are a combination of Steamer’s projections and our playing time manipulations from our depth charts, there are two definitively good National League teams — the Dodgers and Nationals. At 91 wins apiece, they pace not just the NL but all of baseball in our projected standings. But aside from them, the league doesn’t have any real standouts, and the teams sort of congeal around two spots on the win curve:

• 83-86 wins: Cardinals, Cubs, Giants, Pirates
• 81 wins: Marlins
• 76-79 wins: Brewers, Padres, Mets, Reds, Rockies

So, if we accept that two playoff spots are tied up by LA and Washington (a big assumption, obviously, but go with it for now) then these 10 teams are vying for the other three. To be clear, the Rockies are pegged at 77 wins. You might think that sounds about right, or even generous. But, let’s roll through a few reasons why the Rockies could clear that bar and swaddle themselves in the middle of the playoff pack.

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When the Giants signed Nori Aoki to a small contract last week, it looked like a sound investment even without digging too deep. The Giants wanted to add another regular outfielder. They found one for cheap, one who can play adequate defense while getting on base more often than the average hitter. While it’s true that Aoki doesn’t hit for much power, that’s just not his game, and he’s valuable despite that, just as David Ortiz is valuable even though he doesn’t steal bases. All right, so it’s not the exact same thing, but you see where I’m going. Focus on what a player can do, and so on and so forth.

Yet there’s also interest in the details. Aoki makes a lot of contact, which is one of the many ways he’s different from, say, Michael Morse. He puts the ball in play, just like Casey McGehee puts the ball in play, and the Giants have put together a higher-contact offense as opposed to a higher-power offense. But there’s also another thing about Aoki: he might be the least-shiftable hitter in the major leagues. He sprays the ball all over the place, unpredictably, which makes him tricky to defend. Dividing the field into thirds (instead of halves), the average hitter pulls about 54% of his groundballs. Aoki has pulled just 34% of his groundballs, meaning there’s no sense in moving your infielders around. He’ll hit the ball where he hits the ball.

As you certainly know, teams are shifting more and more often. Maybe you’re familiar with the numbers; maybe you’ve just had a sense. Here are some numbers, if you want them. As recently as 2011, there were just shy of 2,500 balls put in play with a shift on. The next year, that number went up 94%. Then that number went up 79%. Then that number went up 63%. There were 564% as many shifts in 2014 as there were in 2011. Shifts are even rising dramatically against right-handed hitters, which is particularly unconventional. There are two points. One, shifts have gone way up. Two, they’re going to continue to do that. Why wouldn’t they? Shifts make sense. Put people where the ball goes and the ball won’t get through as much.

Shifts are on the mind. At this point, they’re everywhere in the game, and one can no longer be surprised when a shift is put on. So there’s been talk about counter-shifts. The obvious maneuver is to put down a bunt, but for whatever reason, hitters have been reluctant to do this very often. And then there’s the simple idea of just using the whole field. The problem being, a hitter can’t just start doing that. A hitter’s swing tends to be a hitter’s swing.

I should work to get closer to the point. To jump ahead: I got curious to know which teams, for 2015, look to be the most- and least-shiftable. Now, I don’t think teams are built specifically to counter the shift, but that doesn’t mean we can’t pay attention. The 2015 offenses have mostly been built. Who looks the most susceptible to the infield shift? Who, on the other hand, looks the least? Where will there and won’t there be extra hits prevented?

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