Professional baseball has been a strange road for 27-year-old Mark Hamburger. In 2011, four years after the Minnesota Twins signed him as a non-drafted free agent, Hamburger pitched in five games for the Texas Rangers. Since that time he’s meandered through the minors with multiple organizations and played a season of indie ball with his hometown team – the St. Paul Saints. Twice he’s run afoul of organized baseball’s recreational-drug policy.

Hamburger is older and wiser than he once was, and every bit as unique as he’s always been. Currently in his second stint with his original organization – he went 4-4, 3.79 with Triple-A Rochester last year – the righty is anything but ordinary.

When I talked to him a few days ago, the 6′ 4” Hamburger had just returned home from a yoga class. A former girlfriend introduced him to the ascetic discipline seven years ago, and he’s been stretching his body – and mind – ever since.

“Yoga has made me more flexible, and more enduring to the weird throwing form that is pitching,” Hamburger told me. “It’s also helped me spiritually and mentally. Yoga doesn’t focus on the next move or the previous move, but on that moment. That’s what you have to do in baseball, especially as a pitcher.”

Breath control is an important facet of yoga, and one of Hamburger’s “Three B’s of pitching.” Balance and break point are the others, but breathing is what helps him calm down and stay loose.

“I let out my air before every pitch,” said Hamburger. “That’s because I want to have the exact same delivery every time. When you have a little bit of air in your lungs, or a lot of air in your lungs, it becomes a different pitch. If you have no air in your lungs – you’re going off that last pocket – it’s the same every time.”

As for staying loose, the engaging hurler stresses that it helps a pitcher not get hurt. In his words, “You can’t break Gumby” and “When you’re whippy and snappy there is less tension in your arm.” Read the rest of this entry »

There’s glory, always, in winning the World Series, but it doesn’t take long to start wondering about the season ahead. Pablo Sandoval went away, and many wondered how the Giants might replace his ability and power. Michael Morse also went away, and many wondered how the Giants might replace his ability and power. As far as the former is concerned, Brian Sabean brought in Casey McGehee, who last year hit as many home runs as Madison Bumgarner. And as far as the latter is concerned, Sabean has now brought in Nori Aoki, who last year hit as many home runs as Gio Gonzalez. In case you’re very new to baseball, Bumgarner and Gonzalez are both pitchers, and pitchers don’t bat very often, and they certainly don’t hit many home runs. (Home runs are good.)

Yet there’s so much more to baseball than home runs. Sabean, at least, is betting on that being true. Dave already wrote some time back that Aoki compares very well to Nick Markakis, who signed with the Braves for $44 million. Aoki has signed for a minimum of $4.7 million and one year, and he’s signed for a maximum of $12.5 million and two years. Aoki apparently turned down a bigger offer or three because of San Francisco’s comfort and track record, but I think he’s been pretty clearly undervalued, which makes this a good get for a team whose success somehow always seems sneaky.

Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s begin with what I hope will be uncontroversial statements. The Phillies, at present, are a bad baseball team. Arguably the worst baseball team, as long as we’re only talking about 2015. The farm system’s improving, but the big-league roster’s declining, and while every year there are teams that surprise, I’d be surprised if the Phillies won 75 games. It’s not going to be pretty, and even the most optimistic fans are wondering if contention might be feasible three years from now. Rebuilds suck. Just how they are.

And the Phillies have Cole Hamels, who is good. He’s actually been very good, for a very long time, and he’s not old. His remaining contract terms are reasonable, in that, if Hamels were available for just his contract, every team that could afford him would place a call. A trade market for Cole Hamels does exist. Just because nothing has happened doesn’t mean there aren’t teams who would like for something to happen.

Yet, increasingly, it looks like the Phillies won’t be moving Hamels this winter. One point of evidence: the Phillies haven’t yet moved Hamels this winter. Another point of evidence: the Phillies, reportedly, are sticking to their high demands, leading to this quote in a post by Rob Bradford:

According to a source familiar with the Phillies’ thinking on the matter, Philadelphia GM Ruben Amaro and his club have been “unrealistic in their expectations” in regard to a return on Hamels.

As they say, situations are fluid. Hamels could, in theory, get dealt any minute. Some team might become unusually desperate. Maybe a team that feels like it’s on the outside with Max Scherzer and James Shields. Amaro, certainly, is selling Hamels as a rare ace you could get today. But, there would be a lot of ground to make up if Hamels were to get traded before spring training. Negotiations with different teams have been described as a staredown. It’s becoming increasingly likely that the Phillies will hang on to Hamels, putting him back on the market in July. After all, there’s no deadline by which the Phillies have to bid Hamels farewell. They could even potentially keep him through the end of his career, given his status, talent, and popularity. The Phillies never have to trade Cole Hamels, which is allowing them to be patient.

That patience has upsides and downsides. For the sake of this article, I would like to set aside matters of marketing and fan morale. I simply want to talk about Cole Hamels’ trade value. The Phillies have determined, so far, no one has offered enough for their ace. So they disagree with where Hamels’ trade value has been in the offseason. But what would happen to Hamels’ value if he were to be available in July? Might the Phillies then be better able to recover the haul they’ve been seeking?

Read the rest on Just a Bit Outside.

Earlier, the Cardinals signed Lance Lynn to a three-year contract, buying out his three years of arbitration eligibility. There’s nothing too remarkable about the deal — it’s good for the team and it’s good for the player, and Lynn’s still all lined up for free agency at the same time if that’s what he wants. Over the past three years, Lynn has been about a nine-win pitcher by actual runs allowed, and he’s been about a nine-win pitcher by his peripherals. He’s thrown more than 600 innings if you include his work in the playoffs. He’s been pretty good, basically, so the Cardinals figure he’ll remain pretty good, and that’s as much as there is to say about that.

The interesting thing about Lynn isn’t his newest contract, or any of his previous contracts. Rather, it’s about his pitching style, and, beyond that, how his pitching style lets him fit in his own particular situation. The stars have aligned for Lynn in the recent past, and based on current indications, 2015 is also going to be favorable. There might not be a better place for Lynn to be pitching than St. Louis.

Read the rest of this entry »

The teams who are engaged in the most prolific and dynamic offseasons — namely, the Chicago White Sox, Oakland A’s, San Diego Padres, and Tampa Bay Rays — still remain somewhere in the middle of FanGraphs’ projected 2015 standings. As Dave noted early last month at Just a Bit Outside, it appears that teams’ response to the new second wild-card spot is to push towards the middle and hope to catch lightning in their bottle, a la the 2014 Kansas City Royals.

The entire standings are getting compressed: as Dave notes in his article, there are only a small handful of teams who are going through a rebuilding cycle (whether aimless or not) and thus can be considered out of the running for the 2015 World Series. What I find most interesting about the current state of the league is that the standings are being compressed from the top as well. Or, as Dave wrote:

This is essentially baseball teams adopting the old adage of not putting all their eggs in one basket. And as more teams adopt this strategy, the less it makes sense for any one team to try and pull away from the pack. After all, if you have to beat 10 or 11 other decent teams for a playoff spot, your margin of error is going to be lower than if half the teams in the league are conceding defeat on opening day.

That explanation makes enough sense. But, also, this article was written back when the Padres’ most significant acquisition was Clint Barmes, and I think A.J. Preller’s subsequent transactions have helped define a new standard as to what is and isn’t possible within the span of an offseason.

Maybe you don’t like the Matt Kemp deal. I still don’t totally know what to make of it myself. That’s fine. We’ll leave it aside for now. Let’s look at it this way: Preller acquired Justin Upton, Wil Myers, and Derek Norris in exchange for their starting catcher (Rene Rivera — from whom I have developed a mighty crush), their fourth starter (Jesse Hahn — or fifth starter, depending on your view of Odrisamer Despaigne), and a big bundle of the Padres’ middle class of prospects.

The Padres received value in these three trades by offering sheer quantity as their own value for offer: Preller shipped out 12 players (and two international bonus slots) while receiving 8. (Those numbers jump to 15 players out and 10 players in if you include the Kemp deal.) And, all the while, the Padres’ projected 2015 payroll ($88.9M) is actually a touch under their 2014 Opening Day payroll ($90.6M).

Preller has retained, by Kiley’s rankings, three of the organization’s top four prospects. He traded away the middle class — not the upper class — of his inherited farm system in exchange for significant Major League experience, all the while assuming no financial burdens. Okay, so the Padres don’t look, even now, like a playoff team next year. But it’s hard to find a downside to Preller’s approach — unless the middle class of any team’s farm system at any given time is actually incredibly, incredibly valuable to an organization’s long-term health.

Judging by the behavior of other Major League teams, especially those who are already projected to do well, that middle-class of prospects is just that valuable. Preller is not the only General Manager who was just hired from outside the organization in the last few months. Meaning, he was not the only GM who has just inherited a farm system that was put together by a GM who was ultimately fired. Dave Stewart of the Arizona Diamondbacks has mostly sat on his hands, trade-wise, actually giving up established major league value in Miguel Montero. In Atlanta, John Hart started the offseason from essentially the same position as Preller, but decided to move in the opposite direction, sending away players valuable in the present-tense (Jason Heyward, Upton) for future-tense potential.

Teams with contending-ready cores have also effectively sat on their hands this offseason in the trade market. The Seattle Mariners have only used their organizational depth to acquire Justin Ruggiano (in exchange for Matt Brazis). The Washington Nationals have only received minor leaguers (Joe Ross, presumably Trea Turner) in exchange for their minor leaguers (Steven Souza, Travis Ott). The Pittsburgh Pirates have traded for Antonio Bastardo and Francisco Cervelli.

These right here are the teams that would have taken significant steps closer to the World Series had they engineered the types of trades that Preller made this offseason. But these teams have decided, in effect, that their middle class of minor leaguers is more valuable than the likes of Myers, Norris, Upton.

And, shoot, maybe these already-contending teams are right. The available population of even replacement-level major leaguers is certainly finite, and maybe Preller’s offseason will ultimately make it very difficult for the Padres to fill out their whole roster from 2017-2021.

The thought I keep coming back to, though, is how much prices on the trade market inflate at the Trade Deadline. Any combination of the Mariners, Nationals, and Pirates will be positioned as buyers late next July. If they make a move then, unlike now, they are doing so because they know for sure that they are well-positioned for a postseason run. But if they make a move now, unlike then, the price tag is significantly lower. Like: what if Preller traded for Upton this winter purely in anticipation of flipping him at the Deadline? The package that Preller would receive for a half-season of Upton would no doubt exceed in perceived value the package that he gave up for a full season of Upton. (Not to mention it would be a pretty slick new way to rebuild a team.)

Basically, what I’m saying is: I really like the mindset behind the offseason that Andrew Friedman, Farhan Zaidi, and company have put together for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Currently the Dodgers are projected by FanGraphs as the best team in baseball, a 91-win team over the Mariners’ 89. I very much admire their “double-trade” tactic to separate the wheat from the chaff of their roster. For instance: with Dee Gordon’s trade value no doubt at its highest, the Dodgers trade him, Dan Haren, and Miguel Rojas to the Miami Marlins for a package that includes Andrew Heaney. Heaney is then traded, straight-up, to the Angels for Howie Kendrick. While there are other players moving around in this trade, the effect is that Gordon is swapped for Kendrick at second base, a cunning way of improving major-league talent without significant effects to minor-league depth. The same double-trade maneuver was triggered by the Kemp deal: the Dodgers acquired Zach Eflin for Kemp, and then sent Eflin to Philadelphia (with Thomas Windle) for Jimmy Rollins. The Dodgers turned their outfield logjam into a veteran starting shortstop and netted Yasmani Grandal in the process.

Maybe, across the majors, teams are scared of pushing their chips to the middle because the 2014-15 Oakland A’s loom like a cautionary tale — an organization depleted after they pushed in their own chips. But there’s more than one way to interpret the last 12 months in Oakland, and one interpretation is: their error was not pushing all of their chips in, but rather waiting until July to do so.

Whether or not it earns the Dodgers the World Series, I commend them for proactively attempting to separate their team from the pack.

Earlier this week, we took a look at AL pitcher ball-in-play leaders and laggards. Today it’s time for the AL pitchers as we complete our offseason look at 2014 hitter and pitcher BIP data.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m going to let you in on a little secret that might not actually really be much of a secret. The most difficult part of this job isn’t the writing or the analysis. At least, as far as I’m concerned, the most difficult part of this job is finding ideas, and finding them consistently. Once you have an idea, everything else can follow, but the thing about ideas is you’d like them to be original and, if you’re lucky, good. And interesting! Interesting is a big one. Maybe interesting and good ought to be categorized together.

For a while, I’ve personally been interested in Tyler Clippard. I’ve considered on several occasions writing about him, and about him specifically, but on every one of those occasions, I’ve talked myself out of it, because it just never seemed relevant enough. Generally, people haven’t woken up and thought, today I’d like to read in depth about Tyler Clippard. So I’ve had this idea on the back-burner for ages. But now? Now is the time to strike, since Clippard just got dealt from the Nationals to the A’s for Yunel Escobar. Tyler Clippard, to me, has always been interesting, but now he’s both interesting and topical, so, here goes nothing. Let me try to explain to you why Clippard is such a weird reliever.

Read the rest of this entry »

On the face of it, trading a shortstop for a reliever seems like a bad idea. Especially when the shortstop is under team control for a year longer. But teams aren’t vacuums, and you can’t cram all of your players into one depth chart without scraping some elbows. In other words, Yunel Escobar can’t pitch, and Tyler Clippard can. And so maybe this trade between the Athletics and Nationals works for both teams.

It seems from both projections, as well as general approximations of value, that Yunel Escobar can potentially give more value to a team than Tyler Clippard could. Escobar is projected to be just worse than the average major league baseball player by Steamer (1.8 WAR), while Clippard is more likely to be replacement than average (0.3 WAR). One pitches every other day for an inning, the other plays most innings at a premium defensive position.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s important to note this trade isn’t official yet. So it’s a little uncomfortable writing up an analysis, given that, who knows, something could go wrong in the physical. But, usually, those go fine, and even when they don’t, like in the case of the Matt Kemp deal, the trade might still go through anyway. So here’s what looks to be happening, in a Wednesday exchange between the Astros and the Braves:

Astros get:

• Evan Gattis

Braves get:

• Mike Foltynewicz
• Rio Ruiz
• Andrew Thurman

From the Braves’ side, it’s easy enough to understand. Despite the puzzling Nick Markakis deal, the Braves aren’t thinking about 2015, and they know Gattis doesn’t profile great as a corner outfielder, so they’re giving up a piece of value now for a trio of prospects. One of the prospects is very exciting. Another has people who think very highly of him. Even the third guy might have a future. The haul’s good enough to at least temporarily distract Braves fans from the current makeup of the big-league product.

It’s the other side that’s more interesting. Not that the Braves’ side isn’t interesting, but this is the Houston Astros turning prospects into a shorter-term asset. It’s not the first time they’ve done that; last offseason, they gave up a couple pieces for Dexter Fowler. And the Astros have lately made some shorter-term decisions, so perhaps we’re observing an accelerating shift in front-office mindset. But there are a few different ways this could go. It’s not immediately clear where the Astros think they might be in eight or ten months.

Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve heard it all before. Regress to the mean. Don’t make too much of a small sample. Don’t believe in the predictive power of second-half statistics, if they look particularly different from the first-half statistics. You know all the ways you are and aren’t supposed to interpret a player’s numbers. But you also know the key to exceptions, which many try to exploit: when a player makes a legitimate change, his prior numbers become less useful. A change, I mean, to his approach, or his mechanics. The White Sox don’t care too much about Zach Duke‘s history, because he recently changed his delivery. The Tigers don’t care too much about J.D. Martinez’s history, because he recently changed his swing. Marcus Stroman was never bad, but he, too, made a change. It’s real easy to spot on the following image, from Brooks Baseball:

That’s Stroman’s big-league 2014, broken down by month. There’s no arguing the major trend: over time, Stroman threw more two-seamers, or sinkers, and far fewer four-seamers. It’s a dramatic shift, and it’s a dramatic shift in the middle of a year. Stroman became something he hadn’t been before.

Read the rest of this entry »