Over the next couple of weeks, we’re taking a look at some of the most interesting teams in baseball – one contender and one rebuilder from each league. What makes a team “interesting”? Taking advantage of the extreme nature of its ballpark, for a couple of clubs. Bucking some of the game’s most prevalent current trends and having success, for another. Or almost completely breaking from every pattern displayed in a club’s fairly successful recent past. Today, it’s the Chicago White Sox, the most interesting rebuilding team in the American League. It’s interesting in part because it’s been quite awhile since the term “rebuilding” could truly be applied to the inhabitants of US Cellular Field. Read the rest of this entry »

Something you’ll notice in the positional power rankings is that the Marlins project to be terrible. That’s bad, because they’re supposed to be worthwhile fun, but it’s also okay, because no one’s entertaining playoff hopes in Miami. Things only really matter when you’re playing for something. The situation is a little more worrisome elsewhere. The Blue Jays still don’t have a real second baseman, and they’d sure like to play in October. (This October!) Meanwhile, the Tigers had a shortstop they liked, but then he fractured both his legs, and they’ll have to resume liking him in 2015. For the time being, the Tigers don’t have a real shortstop, and they’d sure like to play in October. They’re also a lot more likely to get there than Toronto is, but, anyway.

My expectation remains that the Jays will go and get themselves some help, instead of sticking with Ryan Goins. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the Tigers made at least a minor move, to improve on whatever they think they’re going to do right now. Thinking about Toronto and Detroit, though, got me thinking about successful teams who’ve played a lot of particularly bad position players. Now, Goins projects to be replacement-level, and the same could be said of the Tigers’ shortstop stopgaps, so this isn’t directly pertinent, but then, the worst regulars are the most likely to be the terrible regulars. Have past teams succeeded with terrible regulars?

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Bill Geivett says Brett Anderson will be successful pitching at Coors Field. The Colorado Rockies acquired the 26-year-old left-hander from the Oakland A’s this past December as part of a three-player deal. Hampered by injuries, Anderson appeared in just 16 games last season, and in 35 games during the past three years. When he’s healthy, he’s been effective. The former second-round pick has a 3.81 ERA and a 7.1 K-rate in 450 big-league innings.

Geivett knows those numbers, and more. His title in Colorado is senior vice president of major league operations. According to the Rockies media guide, he provides “direction and input with the roster.” Formerly the head of scouting and player development, he is entering his 14th season with the Rockies.

Geivett appeared on a panel at last weekend’s SABR Analytics Conference, in Phoenix. Afterwards, I had an opportunity to ask him about the acquisition of Anderson, and the impact of Coors Field on the organization’s decision-making process. Here is Geivett’s breakdown: Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball has dived headfirst into its own information era, and one of the consequences of all the information is the rise of defensive infield shifts. Certain batters have demonstrated certain tendencies, so certain teams have started combating this by moving infielders around to areas most likely to get balls in play. The most familiar version of the shift is against a left-handed hitter, and it involves three infielders around first and second and one infielder basically playing shortstop. That alignment allows for screenshots like this one:

The end result of that at-bat was a double. More specifically: the end result of that at-bat was a bunt double, down the third-base line, against the shift. The Red Sox handed Robinson Cano a free base. He took two of them. So the question everyone arrives at: why doesn’t this happen more? Why don’t people bunt against the shift all the damned time?

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We know that Spring Training stats are mostly useless. We know that it’s only about 50 plate appearances at best so far, and that’s just too small a sample to say much, particularly when it comes to power and patience. But! We do also know that strikeouts are the quickest thing to stabilize. Right around two months into the season, we can say that a batter’s current strikeout rate is more meaningful to his future strikeout rate than the league average.

We’re not really a month into Spring Training, barely 50 plate appearances in for the most active of players. Why not look at the players that have made the most improvement over last year’s strikeout rate anyway? It *might* give us a month-long head start on finding players that are ready to improve this year.

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Last weekend, I had the pleasure of hanging out with most of the rest of the FanGraphs crew in Arizona. As part of our annual festivities, we make sure to check out a couple spring training games, in part for fun and in part out of sensed obligation. This year we hauled ourselves to the new Cubs Park and also to Salt River Fields. During an inning break at the former, the scoreboard showed a video segment with Len Kasper who explained the concept of replacement level. But I want to talk a bit about the latter: At Salt River Fields, on Saturday, we watched some of the Angels take on some of the Rockies.

Mike Trout hit a super-long home run to dead-center. That’s the thing that stood out the most. The thing that stood out the second-most, though, was an at bat that featured Matt Long. I’d never heard of Matt Long before, and at the time of the at bat, I didn’t know his first name. He wasn’t even supposed to be playing — he was inserted in place of Brennan Boesch, who had earlier been ejected for what looked like nothing. Long would hit three times, but it was his first plate appearance that was by far the most intriguing. And not simply because it wasn’t supposed to happen.

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“Don’t judge a book by its cover” is the old adage — things that appear one way may, in fact, be another way. We are taught this as children in an effort to curb prejudice and stereotypes. We should get to know people before creating an opinion of them. But, in reality, we pre-judge all the time. We make hasty decisions using a less-than-optimal set of data dozens of times a day. If we didn’t nothing would get done.

I hate grocery shopping. This strikes me as odd since I love food so much, but buying it is something I loathe. The crowds, the lists, the doubling back to grab something you passed — it’s all terrible. So when I’m done shopping, I want to get out of there as soon as I can. And when I make my way to the checkout, I’m scanning to find the line that will get me out of the store the fastest. The length of the line has something to do with it, but there are other factors I’ve come to discover. If I line has an elderly woman in it, I try to avoid it since they are most likely to search for coupons and write a check. Solo parents attempting to herd multiple children while checking out tend to take some time. I look at the baggers — do they seem to be working at a normal pace, or are they lagging? Would it be quicker to do self-checkout and bag everything myself? All these thoughts and more flood my brain when I make it to the front of the store.

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Recently, our good friend Rob Neyer joined Fox Sports, and today, we’re going to join him, Jon Paul Morosi, and Ben Lindbergh for a Google Hangout discussion of sabermetrics and the role of statistical analysis. To watch live (or to view the archive when the hangout is over), you can simply click the embedded video below.

Dylan Bundy is on his way back to being Dylan Bundy. That’s great news for the Orioles, as the 21-year-old right-hander was the game’s top pitching prospect heading into last season. He underwent Tommy John surgery in June.

Bundy’s story is well-known. Drafted fourth overall in 2011, out of an Oklahoma high school, his work ethic and training regimen were front-page news. So was his mid-to-high-90s fastball. He made just 23 professional appearances before reaching Baltimore late in the 2012 season. One year ago this month, his elbow began to ache.

Bundy continues to progress. Exactly when he’ll be game-ready is unknown, but a mid-summer return seems likely. Bundy talked about his injury status, and how he approaches the game, just over one week ago. Read the rest of this entry »

What do we have here? For an explanation of this series, please read this introductory post. As noted in that introduction, the data is a hybrid projection of the ZIPS and Steamer systems with playing time determined through depth charts created by our team of authors. The rankings are based on aggregate projected WAR for each team at a given position. The author writing this post did not move your team down ten spots in order to make you angry. We don’t hate your team. I promise.

Dave’s hit you with the introduction, so it’s time to begin this series in earnest. And we’ll begin, as we always do, with the catchers, even though catching might be baseball’s most mysterious position. For an idea of the spread of what you’re going to see — which is more important than the rankings themselves — here’s a graph with green in it:

You’ll notice there’s a big gap between first and second. It’s a gap of 1.2 WAR. That’s as big as the gap between fifth and 24th. Let there be no question: by our system, there’s a clear first place, looking down upon the rest of the landscape.

But of course, our system isn’t all-encompassing or perfect, and not just because the projections are arguable and the playing time is arguable too. There are just things about catching that aren’t included, one invisible one being game-calling, and one visible one being pitch-receiving or pitch-framing. You’ve seen the pitch-framing research, and you’ve seen some of the numbers it suggests. Including those numbers would shake up these rankings. The market doesn’t seem to believe too heavily in the numbers, and conversations I’ve had suggest people in the game think the numbers are too extreme, but there’s little question there’s some kind of skill there, and so catchers should receive at least partial credit. I’ll take care to talk about pitch-framing below, for catchers where it makes sense. You can mentally shuffle that information into the rankings. Now it’s probably beyond time to proceed, from the top.

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