Well, the final 24-36 hours of the Winter Meetings sure were fun-filled. The Red Sox rebuilt their rotation, importing a slew of ground ball guys to help combat the Fenway effect. Their rotation, however, will not include Jon Lester, who was lured away by the Cubs and a nifty $30M signing bonus, among other amenities. Perhaps most notably, the baseball world got an inkling of what the Dodgers’ new braintrust is all about, as they largely re-made their club, installing a brand new middle infield, adding to their already imposing starting rotation, deploying multiple clubs’ prospects here, there and everywhere, and moving slugger Matt Kemp within the division, to the Padres. It’s all pending physicals, of course. How will moving from Dodger Stadium affect Kemp? Are the Padres getting an impact bat, or something less than that? Read the rest of this entry »

The White Sox won’t stop. I mean, at some point they will, because they’ll have to, and maybe they’ve reached that point now that they’ve signed Melky Cabrera, but Rick Hahn and the rest of his front office have had an incredibly busy month, adding to a roster that featured a handful of big-leaguers and not too much else. I had a thought, in early November, to write about the few teams who I figured wouldn’t be contenders in 2015. The White Sox were among them. I didn’t write the article, because I didn’t like it, and now I’m glad I didn’t because the front office has had maybe the most active few weeks in the league. It’s pretty clear that the team intends to win.

I still don’t think the White Sox are ready to win. This is where there’s a bit of important nuance: I don’t think the White Sox are ready to win, but I don’t have a great disagreement with the direction of all the activity. Generally speaking, I like what Rick Hahn has done, and he’s certainly managed to build fan enthusiasm around a team many were prepared to ignore not even that long ago. Why not spend, if you can spend? Why not improve, if you can improve? The White Sox haven’t lost too much of long-term value in making all these additions. I just think, despite everything, there’s not enough in place. It’s not an easy thing to do, to turn a pretty bad team into a pretty good team in a couple of months.

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The largest signing bonus ever awarded to a Cuban player was just handed to Yasmany Tomas by the Arizona Diamondbacks. There are serious doubts about his game. Is the market for Cuban players out of control?

In what could easily become a yearly tradition, the most recent Cuban signee has a showcase video on youtube — once again complete with jump cuts, slow mo, and a soundtrack (no Michael McDonald this time, though). Even as the video is edited to show Tomas at his best, the laymen’s eye might notice a ‘thick lower half,’ a long swing, and some iffy moves on defense.

While praising Tomas — by pointing out the scarcity of power and lauding Tomas’ raw ability in that department, and calling his swing short for a power hitter — FanGraphs’ Kiley McDaniel admitted that he owned a “riskier bat” than the Cuban immigrants that have been so successful in recent years.

Ben Badler of Baseball America mentioned that Tomas’ weight ballooned in Cuba last season, and then pointed out risk factors beyond the outfielder’s body type in an email. “He’s a high-risk player because of his pitch recognition and swing-and-miss tendencies, both in and out of the strike zone,” wrote Badler of Tomas.

The numbers tell the same story — Tomas is one of the riskiest big-money signings out of Cuba so far.

Read the rest on Just a Bit Outside.

Maybe the most important thing you learn early on in any basic stats class is that you can’t just throw out data. At least, not just because you want to, and not just because the data doesn’t fit. Just about all information is legitimate information, and you simply have to decide how heavily to weight it. Take Chase Headley, for example. No one figures he’s going to hit 31 dingers again, like he did in 2012, but the reality is that Headley did have a seven-win season just a few seasons ago, and we can’t justifiably ignore that. It’s a part of his record, and it hints at his true-talent level, or at least where it was in San Diego that one time. Because of that year, Headley gets a more favorable projection, and I don’t think you can argue that away.

If you’re going to eliminate data from a sample, you need to have a damn good reason. You need to be able to prove that the data is irrelevant. If you’re a research scientist, maybe the data came out of an experiment run you know you messed up. You accidentally buffered a solution to the wrong pH. As baseball fans, we’re not research scientists, but we’re still always looking for reasons to eliminate data. This is basically the same thing as having a disagreement with a given player projection. Overall, the projections do well, because they don’t eliminate data. But we’re always trying to beat them. Last year gave reason to eliminate prior data from J.D. Martinez. The White Sox saw reason to eliminate prior data from Zach Duke. And now the White Sox have also signed Melky Cabrera for three years and something like $42 million. Cabrera’s another interesting case, like Duke — he didn’t just overhaul his mechanics, but there’s something about his record that makes you wonder how much you should care about his 2013.

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Another week, another development on the minor league salary front. Less than six days after a federal antitrust lawsuit was filed challenging the minor league salary structure, Minor League Baseball’s (MiLB) vice president, Stanley Brand, announced at the Winter Meetings on Thursday that his organization would launch a vigorous lobbying campaign in 2015, asking Congress to pass legislation protecting the industry from federal minimum wage and maximum hour laws.

Brand’s announcement comes in response to two other class action lawsuits filed earlier this year alleging that the minor league pay scale violates the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) (Wendy Thurm previously discussed the first of these suits here). These cases – filed on behalf of two groups of former minor league players – contend that once all of the hours minor league players work each year are accounted for (including spring training, the regular season, and fall instructional leagues), most minor leaguers are effectively paid less than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. And despite often working more than 50 hours per week, minor league players do not receive overtime.

Interestingly, like the minor league antitrust lawsuit filed a couple weeks ago – which appears to be covered by baseball’s antitrust exemption – professional baseball is arguably already exempt from the FLSA as well under an exception covering “seasonal amusement and recreational establishments” (29 U.S.C. 213(a)(3)). Under the exception, any amusement-related business (theme parks, carnivals, circuses, and the like) that operates on a seasonal basis – basically seven months or less per year, although the law is a little more nuanced – is not required to pay its workers minimum wage or overtime. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re still looking for offense on the free agent market, you’re basically out of luck, other than the still-available Chase Headley. Looking at our Free Agent Tracker, the only hitter left who projects to reach a realistic 2 WAR — i.e., league average — is Jed Lowrie, who is undeniably talented but rarely healthy and probably not a shortstop. (Ignore the overly optimistic outlook on Daric Barton, since this is using Steamer/600, and he’s had 600 plate appearances total over the last four seasons.)

That means that if you’re still in a situation where you need a bat and you don’t have the finances or the flexibility to add Headley, you’re either totally out of luck or you’re looking to the trade market. That’s where the Padres turned in landing Matt Kemp, for better or worse. It’s where the Cardinals went when they landed Jason Heyward, and how the Tigers picked up Yoenis Cespedes, and how Josh Donaldson landed in Toronto, and how Miguel Montero became a Cub.

While we can’t ever truly know for certain who is “available” on the trade market, we can say with reasonable confidence that Justin Upton is. As the Braves signaled their intention to shift from win-now to something resembling a mild rebuild with the firing of GM Frank Wren and the trade of Heyward, moving Upton — who can be a free agent following 2015 — seems like the logical next step. Unsurprisingly, his player tag at MLBTR has been full of activity over the last few weeks.

Upton, for the moment, is still a Brave, and we don’t know whether that’s because Atlanta wants too much or other teams aren’t stepping up — the answer, almost certainly, is both. But with the added information we have thanks to recent moves, can we get closer to finding his true trade value?

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Anthony Seratelli came into spring training with a chance to make the New York Mets roster in a utility role. Instead, the 31-year-old career minor-league veteran spent the entire season in Triple-A. Now he’s heading to Japan.

Seratelli signed a one-year contract with the Seibu Lions, and the primary reason was money. Nine years after entering pro ball, his big-league hopes slowly fading, it was time to finally earn a meaningful paycheck.

Minor-league salaries are abysmal. The standard salary for first-year players is $1,100 per month. At the Double-A level, players get approximately $1,500 per month. Triple-A players can make markedly more, depending on experience and 40-man-roster status, but some earn as little as $2,150 per month. Major League Baseball’s minimum salary recently increased to $507,500 per year.

Minor-league players only receive paychecks April through August. They aren’t paid during spring training, instructional league, or during the offseason. For seven months out of the year, they’re training on their own dime. According to Garrett Broshuis, the Uniform Player Contract “requires players to perform work throughout the year, but teams aren’t paying them for that.” A prospect-turned-attorney, Broshuis is involved in a class-action suit to improve compensation for minor-leaguers.

Each Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) team has a 70-man roster and the lowest-paid player on any roster reportedly earned the equivalent of $44,000 US dollars last year. Seratelli signed with Seibu for $600,000, plus incentives. Read the rest of this entry »

The 2014 Winter Meetings went on at a fairly furious pace, all things considered. There was of course speculation as to what kind of moves would be done. Jon Lester was expected to sign — he did. There were rumors Matt Kemp could get traded — he was. The Red Sox were thought to be looking to alleviate their crowded outfield — this also happened. But a ton of other things happened. The White Sox tried to get better, the Reds had a mini fire sale, and the Dodgers turned the Winter Meetings into their personal Out of The Park game. I don’t really want to call it a tradeapalooza, but I want to call it a tradepocalypse even less, so I’ll stick with the former. And in the middle of it all was the Twins signing Ervin Santana to a four-year, $55 million contract. If one were skimming the pages of MLB Trade Rumors looking for the fallout of the Winter Meetings, the Santana headline would most likely cause them to shrug unemphatically. Because Ervin Santana, as a player, is an unemphatic shrug. And he’s probably the best that the Minnesota Twins can do. Read the rest of this entry »

In the weeks when between Billy Butler’s contract was bought out and today, with Kendrys Morales brought to Kansas City on a two-year, $17 million deal, the Royals ranked dead-last in FanGraphs’ projected Designated Hitter Depth Charts. Not dead-last amongst American League teams: Dead. Last. Less projected WAR from their DH spot than 15 NL teams, none of which actually employ a designated hitter.

With Morales now in Kansas City, one can see that the Royals have now soared up the depth chart rankings…up to the #24 position, with an estimated 0.6 WAR now due to emit from this spot in the lineup. The Texas Rangers now have the dishonor at being the lowest-ranked AL team, headlined by the light-hitting combination of Mitch Moreland and Rougned Odor. The Royals are now only just ahead of the Miami Marlins (featuring a rotation of Justin Bour/Jeff Baker/Donovan Solano/Derek Dietrich) and the Philadelphia Philles (Darin Ruf/Grady Sizemore/Cesar Hernandez/Cameron Rupp/Maikel Franco).

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By the time the Jeff Samardzija trade became official Tuesday at baseball’s winter meetings in San Diego, Chicago White Sox general manager Rick Hahn was fielding secondary questions about the chances of extending Samardzija’s contract beyond 2015. Most — if not all — of the questions reporters asked Hahn pertained (fairly) in some way to Samardzija, who gives the White Sox a formidable top of the rotation with left-handers Chris Sale and Jose Quintana. It’s possible, however, that another player the White Sox received in the deal with the Oakland Athletics will get a chance to help his new team long after the coming season.

Billed in 2008 as a generational talent who had the signing bonus to prove it, 6-foot-7 right-hander Michael Ynoa is getting a fresh start with the White Sox after struggling with serious injuries, reaching bloated expectations and getting frustrating results since turning pro. In a secondary scrum with reporters that came after the TV cameras shut off, Hahn was excited to talk about Ynoa after trying to explain — for a third or fourth time or 20th time — that the matter of Samardzija’s contract wouldn’t be resolved that day.

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