Jordy Mercer is the new starting shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Clint Barmes is now a moving part, an accomplished glove man on call at multiple infield positions. The shift will have an impact on both sides of the ball.

From an offensive standpoint, the changing of the guard makes perfect sense. The 35-year-old Barmes is a .246/.294/.383 hitter in 1,040 big-league games and has been trending in the wrong direction. The 27-year-old Mercer has less of a track record — just 145 games — but has hit a solid .273/.325/.425.

Mercer will supply more bang for the Bucs, but he won’t replicate Barmes in the field. The 6-foot-3 Mercer isn’t a defensive liability, but he came up through the system as an offense-first shortstop who dabbled at second base and at third base. The player he’s replacing is a pitcher’s best friend.

“Clint Barmes is one of the best defensive players in baseball,” Scott Spratt, of Baseball Info Solutions, said. “Since 2010, only Brendan Ryan (73) and Andrelton Simmons (60) have more Defensive Runs Saved at shortstop than Barmes’ 50. He has tremendous range and has been an above-average contributor on balls to his left (+28 plays), straight on (+23 plays) and to his right (+8 plays).

“Jordy Mercer is still a bit of an unknown,” Spratt added. “He falls just short of 700 career MLB innings at shortstop, where we estimate he has cost the Pirates one run with his defense. With the caveat that the small sample could have an impact on this, Mercer’s biggest weakness appears to be his throwing arm. He has made eight bad-throw Defensive Misplays and Errors (DMEs) in his limited innings. That is approximately one bad throw per 87 innings at the position, which is the sixth-worst rate of the 51 shortstops who have 500 or more innings since 2012. Barmes has just 13 bad throw DMEs over that time in nearly 2,000 innings, which is one per 151 innings.”

Mercer merits a chance to show those numbers can be thrown out the window. He knows he’s not Barmes, but he’s not short on confidence. When I caught up to him in spring training, he fielded questions about his defense ability with self-assured honesty.

“I’m happy with my defense,” Mercer told me. “I’ve always considered it one of my strong suits. I’m not worried about that at all. Everybody is going to say, ‘He needs to improve, he needs to improve.’ Well, of course I need to improve. But I’m not going to stress about it. I’m going to do my job and continue to try to get better.”

Mercer has a good mentor. He also has the luxury of playing for a team that will optimize his opportunities to make plays.

“I’ve worked with Clint ever since I’ve been up here,” said Mercer, who debuted with the Pirates in 2012. “He’s taught me about different angles on balls, how to position guys, reads off the bat, pretty much everything. A lot goes into being at the right spot at the right time, and that‘s something he‘s really good at.

“Positioning is huge,” he added. “A batter will hit a ball where it might normally be a base hit, and you‘re right there. Instead of it being something you maybe can’t get to, you moved over a few steps and made the play.”

Mercer’s comment on positioning is especially pertinent. The number of balls he and Barmes get to aren’t solely a product of their individual skills. SABR president Vince Gennaro addressed the subject in a more general sense at last month’s SABR Analytics Conference: Does having better data on positioning reduce the premium we put on a fielder’s range and increase the premium we put on sure-handedness? In the opinion of ESPN’s Jon Sciambi, the answer is probably yes. Sciambi pointed to the Pirates infield as an example, saying last year’s team had three guys with average to below-average range — Barmes being the exception — yet played plus defense.

Barmes is on board with his team‘s probability-driven approach to defense, but cautions that data points only go so far.

“It’s safe to say positioning is what gives you range,” Barmes told me in Bradenton. “Putting yourself within a step or two of where the ball is going to be hit is the goal. It’s the key to making as many plays as possible.

“We have the percentages on each hitter and will position accordingly. But as the game goes on, things can change. Maybe the pitcher doesn’t have his command and is missing his spots. When guys are missing toward the heart of the plate, professional hitters are going to hit holes a lot easier. That makes it more difficult for us, as infielders, to know where to be on certain pitches.”

Jeff Locke knows the value of experience. He also has full confidence in Mercer.

“Barmes is so educated at playing his position,” the Pirates left-hander said. “He’s played a lot of games there, so his anticipation is really good. But Jordy isn’t much different. He’s just a younger version.”

I asked Locke to elaborate on the similarities between Barmes and Mercer.

“I can’t really say how they play individually, but I can collectively,” Locke said. “They’re both going to give us great defense every time out. Last year Jordy spent a lot of time mirroring, and learning from, Barmes.”

After pausing for a moment, the lefty continued.

“One thing I love about Barmes is that he’s not one of those guys where if there’s a slow runner it’s ‘pump, pump, I’ve got time.’ He likes to get the ball and get rid of it. I played with Jordy throughout the minor leagues and he’s not really any different. We don’t have much flash on this team. You’re not going to see glove flips and behind-the-back tosses. Our guys get the ball and make the out.”

I asked the two shortstops how their styles compare.

“There are some similarities, but there are some differences as well,” Mercer said. “The similarities are the way we take angles and how we position ourselves. The difference is — and he’ll tell you this, too — is that he’s an unorthodox fielder. I’m a more-traditional fielder.”

Barmes agreed: “I’ve heard the word ‘unorthodox’ a lot. I could probably sit here all day and come up with things I do a little differently as far as technique goes. Over the years, I’ve become comfortable doing things in a way a lot of guys may not teach.”

I asked Barmes for examples.

“More than anything, it’s probably my footwork and how I set up on a routine ground ball,” he said. “For most guys, the left foot is half a step in front of the right when they go down to field the ball. That ties me up, so I go the opposite. I like my right foot to be maybe half a step in front of my left foot. It frees up everything and I can watch the ball into my glove better. If it takes a hop, I’m able to react a little quicker.

“Another thing that’s helped my career is the backhand. That’s something I’ve worked with Jordy on. Instead of worrying about trying to get around balls — fighting to get myself in that position — when in doubt I’ll go to my backhand, The more I worked on it, the more confident I got. Then it became throwing on the run, putting my body in a good position to make a strong throw on a ball that’s going away from first base. But as for comparing Jordy and me, he has his footwork and way of throwing the ball, and I have mine.”

Clint Hurdle’s assessment of the two?

“They spent the entire season together last year and it’s been a work-in-progress — a learning-in-progress — for Jordy,” Hurdle told me. “Barmes has been there to offer advice, and Jordy has learned a lot by watching Clint play. But the skill sets are similar — the ability to throw on the run, the ability to backhand the ball across the body, the throws. Probably the biggest thing Barmes has helped Jordy with is establishing good angles and routes to ground balls. I’d say Jordy has a similar skill set on the defensive side of the ball than Barmes.”

Would the Pirates manager place Mercer on the same tier of defensive excellence as Barmes?

“No, it’s going to take time,” Hurdle said. “He has to get games under his belt and make plays.”

Barring the unforeseen, Mercer is going to get a lot of games under his belt on a team with World Series aspirations. There’s a high likelihood he’ll out-hit his predecessor — perhaps by a meaningful margin — but Pirates pitchers are used to elite defense in the middle of the diamond. How much Mercer contributes with his glove may go a long way in determining whether Pittsburgh returns to the postseason.

Brandon McCarthy isn’t our boss, nor is he anywhere on the FanGraphs payroll, but similar to how one would act around a boss, we’re willing to do what McCarthy asks us to do. There’s nothing better than being handed an idea, and a year ago, McCarthy handed over an idea that we get to write about on an annual basis! The old tweet in question:

? for my stat enthusiast followers- in last 5 years, has any team’s opening day starter started the season with an off-speed pitch?

— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) March 19, 2013

This was written about on March 20, 2013. Based on the evidence, it was pretty much fastballs all the way down, with one or two potential question marks. But now we can put together an update, because as of the beginning of Tuesday’s game between the Yankees and Astros, everyone’s 2014 opening-day game is complete. So what’d we get in terms of opening-day first pitches? Was it all fastballs, or were there breaking balls and changeups to be found? Please consult the following big giant table.

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In a close game Tuesday night, the Angels faced Robinson Cano with two on, two outs, and a base open. Standing on deck, instead of actual protection, was Justin Smoak, and in the clearest demonstration of protection theory, or lack thereof, the Angels put Cano on to take their chances with the next guy. If all you knew were those sentences, this wouldn’t seem worthy of a blog post. Smoak might one day turn into a good hitter, but so far it’s been all hype and lousy results. Cano is one of the very best players in the world, still hanging out in his prime. Yeah, you’d rather face Smoak than Cano, and while doing so requires you put another runner on base, the intentional walk is a low win-expectancy swing. Nothing seems strange, except for one thing.

Cano wasn’t simply intentionally walked by an Angels pitcher. Cano was intentionally walked by Angels starting pitcher C.J. Wilson. Left-handed Angels starting pitcher C.J. Wilson, who’s always run a big lefty-killing platoon split. Wilson put the lefty on to load the bases to face a switch-hitter, and as such, Mike Scioscia both played the matchups and didn’t play the matchups. It became a story because Smoak cleared the bases with a double, but even had Smoak gotten out, as was the likelihood, this decision would still be of interest. It isn’t often you see strategy that seems to run counter to the ordinary strategy. If there’s one thing a manager usually likes, it’s having his lefty pitcher get to face a lefty hitter.

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This morning, David Appelman rolled out our site’s newest feature: Game Odds. Essentially, this tool takes our Depth Chart forecasts and applies them to every match-up, and then takes it a step further by calculating the odds based on that day’s actual line-up and starting pitcher, once they are known. Using a few mathematical tools, we use these inputs to calculate an expected odds of each team winning that particular game, so we can beyond things like “the Red Sox are better than the Orioles” and see that, when it’s Ubaldo Jimenez versus John Lackey and the game takes place in Baltimore, the Orioles are actually very slight favorites. When the line-ups come out and replace the depth charts — which still give fractional playing time to injured guys like Shane Victorino — the needle will probably move even further towards the Orioles.

This is the kind of result that makes these numbers interesting and useful, because before seeing them, I probably would have assumed that the Red Sox would be favored tonight. After all, our projections have the Red Sox as a schedule-neutral 87 win team, with the Orioles as a schedule-neutral 78 win team. That’s a pretty decent sized gap, and it doesn’t feel like the difference between Jimenez and Lackey should really push the game towards the Orioles all that much. In fact, our depth chart forecasts have Lackey as a slightly better pitcher than Jimenez, so what’s the deal with the Game Odds suggesting that Baltimore is a 50.2% favorite before the line-ups get posted?

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At the start of every season, or perhaps a little before, certain decisions are made in which certain starting pitchers suddenly cease to be starting pitchers. Whether due to age, ineffectiveness, or perhaps both, a handful of starting pitchers are demoted — if you can call it that — to a role in the bullpen. Certainly, this happens during the season, as well. A young pitcher could be knocking a starter out of their rotation spot, but offseason decisions to change a pitcher’s role is a pretty clear sign that the club isn’t terribly impressed with what a guy has been doing in that larger role. That is ostensibly happened to Ross Detwiler this year. It also happened to Paul Maholm, Brad Peacock, Justin Grimm, Chris Capuano, and Samuel Deduno, among others, probably. Contracts or lack of better options keep them on the team, but just not in the role most came into the league filling.

Almost every reliever is a failed starter of some sorts. Whether in college, the minors, or the big leagues, they were told that their services would no longer be needed in the first inning. A handful have been position player reclamations, sure, but you get the idea. And certainly players have flourished when being sent to the pen — Glen Perkins is a somewhat-recent example, but there are plenty to chose from throughout history. Some have fizzled out too, certainly. But as Detwiler et al. look to succeed in their new roles, there is a very recent blueprint for success they can look to — Luke Hochevar. Read the rest of this entry »

Take a look at how the Indians have handled phenom pitcher Danny Salazar the past couple of years and you instantly notice they’re doing things a little differently in Cleveland. From the long recovery time to the big innings jump, Salazar’s comeback from Tommy John surgery has been on a unique timeline. Salazar is happy to get the training wheels off this year, and before opening night, he talked with me about the long road back and some of the peculiarities of his teams’ approach.

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Monday featured, for the first time in 2014, a full slate of meaningful baseball, albeit with a bit of a lull in the late afternoon as the only live game for a stretch had the Rockies and the Marlins. I met a friend at a neighborhood bar a little after 5, and the bar had the game on all of its screens, and after a little conversation I found I was completely hanging on the action. Come August, I probably won’t be watching the Rockies and the Marlins, but this early in the year, everything’s interesting. And while we always know that anything can happen, there’s no cynicism around opening day. By the middle of the year, anything can happen, but we know what’s probably going to happen. In late March and early April, it’s more fun to imagine that baseball’s a big giant toss-up. That Marcell Ozuna looks good. If he hits, and if the Marlins get their pitching…

I don’t remember what most opening days are like, but this one felt like it had an unusual number of anything-can-happens. That is, events that would take one by complete and utter surprise. What are documented below are, I think, the five most outstanding miracles from a long and rejuvenating Monday. From one perspective, this is evidence that the future is a mystery and all a surprise is is a run of good or bad luck. From another, more bummer of a perspective, this is evidence that opening day doesn’t matter at all in the grand scheme of things and come on why are you already projecting Grady Sizemore to be a five-win center fielder? Why are you already freaking out about the 2014 Blue Jays? Be whatever kind of fan you like. Just remember that baseball is a silly game, and you’ll never outsmart it.

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We didn’t learn a lot about Major League Baseball yesterday, because we couldn’t possibly have. Though it’s fun to get some actual data going on the 2014 season, the first “real” inputs we’ve seen in many months, you hardly need me to tell you that one game is nothing near a substantial sample size. Mike Trout crushed a homer, but that doesn’t make him any greater than we already thought he was. Francisco Liriano struck out 10 over six scoreless innings, but that doesn’t mean that all the concerns we had about him being productive for two seasons in a row for once are out the window. Other than the injury issues — Bobby Parnell, Wilson Ramos, Jose Reyes — we aren’t a lot more informed about baseball than we were yesterday.

That’s probably still true about instant replay, because the five calls we saw on Opening Day mean that we still haven’t seen 25 teams use the option, and will represent a very tiny part of the full amount of replays we’ll see this year. Over time, we might be able to learn a bit about which umpires get overturned the most and which managers and teams are the best at knowing when to call for it. On April 1, we don’t know that. But since this is something brand new, and this is the first we’re seeing of it in action, it’s worth exploring — if not to judge the calls, then at least to see how the still-new process worked in its first day. Read the rest of this entry »

With the real Opening Day behind us — sorry Astros and Yankees, you’re just late — we now have real 2014 data from almost every team on the leaderboards. Of course, besides answering trivia questions, we all know that there’s really nothing insightful to be learned from one day’s performance, and we’re not going to find useful information to be analyzed there until the samples get a lot bigger.

But there are some numbers that became useful in very short order. Strikeout rate, for instance, only has to be regressed 50% to the mean at a much lower number of batters faced than most other pitching metrics, and big changes in K% over even a few starts can prove somewhat meaningful. It’s hard to fluke your way into getting a bunch of Major League hitters to swing through your pitches, and if you’re consistently throwing pitches by people, it’s a pretty good sign for the future.

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The week leading up to Opening Day 2014 turned out to be quite historic, with the clear two best players in the game locked into long-term contracts guaranteeing them nearly a cool half-billion. Obviously, the prognosis for the respective long-term efficacy of the two deals varies dramatically, with Cabrera’s extension locking up his age 33-40 seasons, compared to Trout’s doing the same to his age 23-28 campaigns. This week, let’s take a step back and put these two greats into some sort of historical perspective, then use that perspective to research their aging curves in order make some educated judgments regarding the Tigers’ and Angels’ investments. Today, let’s look at Miguel Cabrera. Read the rest of this entry »