Earlier, I asked you to participate in an exercise projecting both next year’s Mookie Betts and next year’s Javier Baez. The idea is that Betts seems representative of a particularly safe prospect, while Baez represents something of a more volatile asset. I promised that I would analyze the results given a sufficient sample size of votes, and, such a sample size has already been achieved. Interestingly, as of right now, there have been three more votes in the Baez poll than in the identical Betts poll. The best possible conclusion is that three FanGraphs readers had their browsers lock up at a most unfortunate time. The worst possible conclusion is chilling indeed.

So I think it’s safe to move forward with a little analysis. Before getting there, I hope you understand that *I* understand that I didn’t conduct this exercise perfectly. Nevermind the wisdom of the exercise in the first place; all my words might’ve biased the voters to some degree. I could’ve written nothing, or I could’ve at least put the polls before the words. But, what’s done is done. Also understand that, while you’re going to see a measure of uncertainty, this is perceived uncertainty, and not actual uncertainty. We can’t know actual uncertainty. We’re just going to go ahead and pretend like what we think is a decent proxy for what actually is. Let’s see how the community feels about Mookie Betts and Javier Baez, for 2015.

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There is one pitcher out there that throws his changeup over 30% of the time and calls it a ‘heavy sinker.’ Alex Cobb aside, though, we traditionally lump the changeup in with the slider, the curve, the splitter — it’s not a fastball.

And yet, in some really important ways that go beyond movement and leak into usage, the change works like a sinker. In a league where strikeouts rule, the change actually has a strikeout problem.

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A number of people who are actually good at math have asked before why we don’t present measures of uncertainty, like error bars, when talking about WAR or projections. I’m not in charge of those things, myself, so I can’t give you the official answer, but, they’re difficult numbers to calculate, if they’re possible at all, and many people wouldn’t know how to understand them, and it’s unclear how much those measures would add to the picture anyway. Sometimes you’ll see projections presented in percentiles, like PECOTA, but generally speaking the percentiles can include almost any and all outcomes, so that doesn’t help much. There’s interest in seeing uncertainty, quantitated. It’s challenging, to do it in a meaningful way.

But I want to try something, again with your help. Last week, I ran a bunch of polls, and a few days ago I analyzed the information generated. Here I’d like to take a similar approach. Now, the post was inspired by the transcript of Dave’s Wednesday chat:

12:40
Comment From Curtis
Of all the prospects yet to debut in MLB, who has the highest bust probability in your eyes? Best chance to succeed?
12:41
Dave Cameron: Baez seems to have a very high chance of being nothing. Mookie Betts will be a solid player unless he dies.

Let’s think about Javier Baez and Mookie Betts. Let’s see what we can do to effectively crowdsource their uncertainties.

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Well, the 2015 Hall of Fame voting results rolled in Tuesday, and just about every member of the baseball media has already checked in with his or her opinion. With any luck, I’ll have the last word — at least chronologically. What are we to make of the election of Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz and Craig Biggio, and its resulting future impact upon the holdovers? Let’s take a look at some trends, and hone in on a couple of players most significantly impacted by this week’s proceedings. Read the rest of this entry »

In an appearance on FanGraphs Audio in early 2012, shortly after the latter had been traded to the Yankees in a deal that sent Jesus Montero to Seattle, managing editor Dave Cameron spoke to the possible reasons for then-rookie Michael Pineda’s success in 2011 despite the almost total absence of a changeup. The changeup, or at least some manner of pitch defined more by its vertical than its horizontal movement, is regarded generally as a prerequisite for success as a starting pitcher. By way of example, consider: of 2011’s 94 qualified pitchers, only seven (or, 7.4%) threw their curveball, changeup, and/or splitter a combined 10% or less. One of those seven was R.A. Dickey, a knuckleballer. Another was Alexi Ogando, a reliever throwing in a starter’s role. Other pitchers with other unique circumstances occupied the remainder of the list.

Michael Pineda was a member of that group, as well. Despite throwing either a fastball or slider about 94% of the time in 2011, Pineda produced an excellent rookie season, recording the 11th-best strikeout- and walk-rate differential among that same group of qualifiers, a park-adjusted xFIP 13% better than league average, and the second-best WAR figure among all rookies (including hitters).

Other pitchers had exhibited the ability to survive without some manner of downward-moving pitch, but all of them were attended by an explanation. What, I asked, was Pineda’s? Cameron’s answer: If you throw 95 mph and also feature better-than-average control, you have a larger margin for error than pitchers who don’t have or do those things.

Indeed, Pineda’s combination of velocity and control wasn’t common. In 2011, the league-average walk rate was 8.1%. Only five starting pitchers posted a walk rate lower than that league-average mark while also recording an average fastball velocity of 94.5 mph or better.

Read the rest on Just A Bit Outside.

The Yankees re-signed Stephen Drew, for one year and a few million dollars. It’s a questionable deal — nothing was available much beyond what Drew signed for, for a reason — but it at least seems like a better deal than the Royals giving Kendrys Morales two years. And the idea is simple: Drew’s a known capable defender, and he’s hit before, and if he totally busts, he can be dumped with little problem. The Yankees paid for a little insurance, and as recently as 2013 Drew was an above-average player.

But, there was the matter of 2014. The most recent year is the most significant year, and for Stephen Drew, the most recent year was an absolute nightmare. Drew was described in last year’s FanGraphs player profile as a “line-drive hitter”, so this is appropriately discouraging:

Everything cratered. In his most recent season, Stephen Drew sucked, and thanks to Joel Sherman, we were provided the following quote from some anonymous baseball executive:

There was never a time in which he looked like a major league hitter.

Pretty harsh, pretty bleak. Pretty true, or pretty hyperbolic? That much, we can try to investigate. Did 2014 Stephen Drew ever actually look like a major-league hitter?

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By the admission of the player himself, John Smoltz had a unique career that doesn’t quite stack up against the traditional standards set by past Hall of Fame inductees. He had two careers, and “each doesn’t qualify a hall of fame type career,” as the pitcher said on a conference call after he was inducted on Tuesday.

By definition, his career is now a Hall of Fame career, but is it possible that he stacks up better against his new colleagues if you consider his career as two halves of two separate induction-worthy careers?

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Sometimes, you read something or find a stat that changes your perception of a player. It probably shouldn’t be just one stat that changes your entire perception, but seeing that one stat may cause you to dig a little deeper into who that player is and what they’ve been doing, and your collective research could lead to a shift in perception.

Hey, Todd Frazier.

I spend enough time on FanGraphs that sometimes I forget about the little, exclusive stats offered by other websites. It’s fun to go dig around in the lesser-known parts of a site like BaseballReference, because it can make you think about things you might not have thought about while digging around on FanGraphs. Some deep BR digging led to a post I wrote a couple months back about David Price and the art of the three-pitch strikeout, and now it’s going to lead to a post about Todd Frazier.

The metric that caught my eye is called PwrSpd. It was developed by Bill James, and it’s a very basic metric. The leaderboard that caught my eye was topped by Carlos Gomez in 2014, who’s probably one of the first few people to come to mind when you think of elite combinations of power and speed. Ian Desmond was second and Jacoby Ellsbury was fourth. Mike Trout is in the top 10, and so is Andrew McCutchen. These names all make sense.

But sitting up there at No. 3, right above Ellsbury, is Todd Frazier. It sticks out like a sore thumb when you look at it. Really, it’s just a fancy way of saying Frazier was one five players who had 20+ homers and 20+ steals last year, alongside Gomez, Desmond, Michael Brantley and Brian Dozier. But either way you put it, that’s surprising. In the top 10, you’ve got five center fielders, two shortstops, a second basemen, a left fielder, and Todd Frazier. It’s not a top 10 meant to be inhabited by third baseman, yet there he is.
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Among others, baseball’s Hall of Fame will prepare to welcome Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson. For them, there was zero suspense: Hall of Famers don’t get more automatic, and as easy as it is to focus on the fact that neither player was unanimous, the percentage matters less than the ultimate outcome. The voting process is a little bit broken, but it would have to be in complete and utter shambles to deny Martinez or Johnson entry — and they’ll no longer have to appear on any ballot. Two of the very greatest ever have been successfully and swiftly voted into the place intended to recognize the very greatest ever.

Of course, neither pitcher was a borderline candidate. Every so often the game has players who are just exceptional, and when you go into the data, you stumble upon fun facts proving said exceptional-ness. For example, let’s consider starting pitcher strikeout rates from 1999. The top of the list, with a 100-inning minimum:

1. Pedro Martinez, 37.5% strikeouts
2. Randy Johnson, 33.7%
3. Tim Hudson, 22.8%

That’s stupid. That leaderboard is stupid. It doesn’t make sense that pitchers could be so good. Not as starters, and not for as long as they were.

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A lot of professional baseball players – especially pitchers – play the guitar. Evan Meek is among the best of them. The 31-year-old right-handed reliever takes music nearly as seriously as he does pitching. He’s been playing for two decades and composes his own songs.

Meek, who has a 3.63 ERA over 179 career outings, broke into the big leagues with the Pirates in 2008 and spent this past season with the Orioles. He will always be known for giving up Derek Jeter’s storybook final hit at Yankee Stadium, and he just might write some guitar hits if he chooses to pursue a second career.

——

Meek on his pitch repertoire: “I throw a four-seam fastball, but most all of my fastballs cut, so it’s really a cutter. I also throw a slider and a split change-up.

“My usage kind of varies over the course of a year. It’s pretty rare you have success with all three pitches when you’re relieving in short outings. One day the slider shows up and the split doesn’t, or maybe the split shows up and the slider or fastball doesn’t. Not all days are the same.”

On his guitar repertoire: “A lot of what I play depends on my mood. What’s my vibe that day? I use the word ‘vibe’ a lot because it kind of translates to the music I like to play. If I got a lot of sleep and am energetic, I might play something more upbeat. If I’m tired, I might play something slower.

“I’ve played in bands, mostly rock. There have been acoustic sets, basically getting a group of guys together to play. The stuff I do now is mostly with a travel guitar. I do a lot of hotel-room playing. Sometimes I’ll go down to a lobby, or somewhere quiet, to play.”

On pitching and playing: “There are definitely similarities between the two. When you play in a band, there’s a plan – there’s a set – and a way you go about doing things. On the mound it’s the same thing. Read the rest of this entry »