Archive for Daily Graphings

The Rays may be in a new position when it comes to this year’s trade deadline. Since their playoff odds have dropped more than any other team’s since the beginning of the season and are now close to 5%, it’s at least hard to see them as buyers. Then again, they haven’t made a ton of in-season acquisitions in their more competitive past, and their team is built for 2015 as much as it was built for this year — it’s likely that their transition from buyers to sellers may come without many big moves.

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Take a quick glance and you might not be particularly encouraged by what Clayton Kershaw has done since returning from the disabled list.

There’s nothing wrong with a 3.32 ERA, but Kershaw hasn’t finished with an ERA that high since he was a rookie. You’d be tempted to think Kershaw’s under-performance is one of the reasons the Dodgers are looking up at the Giants in the standings.

But we can go deeper than this. For one thing, it’s worth acknowledging Kershaw’s one disastrous start against the Diamondbacks. This is bad analysis, but if you forgive Kershaw for a bad day, his ERA drops from 3.32 to 1.94. He’s been outstanding, except for once.

And we don’t even need to mess around with ERA anyway, since we have more meaningful numbers at our disposal. If you believe what the numbers are saying, Clayton Kershaw might’ve somehow improved. It all comes out of the following foundation: the very best pitchers get strikeouts, limit walks, and limit homers. In order to limit homers, it’s preferable to limit fly balls.

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Hey there, everybody. welcome to the second part of the year’s second edition of The Worst Of The Best. Right here is the first part, concentrating on really terrible pitches. And here’s a link to the complete series archive. Now, the big story is Thursday marked the beginning of the 2014 Major League Baseball amateur draft, which is also referred to by other terms.

The draft is one of the most critical events for an organization, and when evaluating drafts, a common measure is whether a given drafted player made it to the major leagues. Keep in mind that all of the players you see below made it to the major leagues — and some of them attempted terrible swings. There are major leaguers and there are successful draft picks, and while there is overlap it’s hardly complete. Drafting is difficult and baseball is difficult.

In this post we entertain ourselves with the wildest swings attempted in May. Featured is going to be a top-five list, and then we’ll also whip through a next-five list just so you know who almost earned several paragraphs of critical commentary. It’s all PITCHf/x and I specifically exclude checked swings and swings on attempted hit-and-runs. This is how it has always been, although in this particular instance there’s something of a gray area. We’ll get to in a while. You’ll look at the swings at the pitches furthest from the center of the strike zone, and that’s the methodology until someone comes up with something better than that. Something that can be researched without watching every swing of every game. I like baseball, but I don’t like that much baseball. I like pepperoni sticks, but I don’t want everything I eat to be a pepperoni stick. I’d die. I’d die in agony. Basically, this is what we’ve got, so let’s just get into this thing.

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The MLB draft kicks off tonight, and for the third year in a row, the Houston Astros will have the top selection. For the third year in a row, no one really knows what they’re going to do. Two years ago, they went for an under-slot high school shortstop, taking Carlos Correa ahead of Byron Buxton and Mark Appel, though Correa certainly looks like a terrific prospect in his own right. Last year, they went with the consensus, taking Appel and paying closer to the slot value of the pick.

This year, however, there’s a wrinkle; the consensus top prospect is high school left-hander Brady Aiken. No high school pitcher has been take with the #1 overall pick since 1991, when the Yankees picked Brien Taylor. He was a bust, as was the only high school arm who had been taken at 1-1 before him; David Clyde in 1973. In 49 years, teams have picked a high school arm just twice, and both of them failed.

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When the Marlins traded the 39th overall pick in Thursday’s amateur draft to the Pittsburgh Pirates for reliever Bryan Morris, the most common reaction was not that the cheapest organization in baseball was pinching pennies again; it was “wait, MLB teams can trade draft picks?” Unlike in the other major professional sports, MLB has historically not allowed teams to swap draft selections, and only a special subset of draft choices — the ones MLB gives out as Competitive Balance selections, between the first and second rounds — are able to be included in deals now. When the draft begins on Thursday, there will be no drama as to which team will be making the first overall pick, as the Astros are required to keep that selection for themselves.

However, because of the way that MLB’s suggested signing bonus system works, there actually is a way for teams at the top of the draft to “trade down.” Here’s how it works.

Each team is assigned a total bonus allocation based on where their selections in the first 10 rounds are placed — teams with higher picks get more money to sign those theoretically better talents — and the total signing bonuses for selections in those first 10 rounds have to be within five percent of that pool allocation if a team wants to avoid some pretty stiff penalties. However, teams are allowed to distribute their pool allocation however they would like, and they can vary a great deal from the recommended bonus for each particular player.

If a team is able to sign a player for significantly less than their slot bonus with a high draft choice, they can then use the money they saved on that pick to take a player who wouldn’t sign for the bonus recommended with a later choice. A team that saves money on its top pick can be aggressive in selecting a player who fell through the cracks in the first round, and potentially land a second or even third top talent with their following picks.

Two years ago, the Astros did exactly that, selecting high school shortstop Carlos Correa with the No. 1 overall pick partly due to the fact that he agreed to sign for $4.8 million; $2.4 million shy of the $7.2 million slot recommendation for that pick.

The Astros then turned around and gave an extra $1.25 million to the 41st overall pick — right-handed pitcher Lance McCullers — and an extra $1.5 million to the player they took with the 129th overall pick, infielder Rio Ruiz. Correa was certainly a quality prospect, but in effect, the Astros traded the No. 1 overall pick for the No. 3 or No. 4 overall pick, with the value of upgrading their second- and fourth-round picks into late first-round talents as the reward.

Is this a good strategy, though? Should a team with the best chance to land a superstar really take a lesser talent in order to bolster their secondary selections?

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Today, one of the key events on the baseball calendar takes place: the annual Rule 4 draft. Yup, that’s what it’s technically called, but it’s better known as the amateur draft, with 1,200 high school, college and junior college players hearing their names called over the three days of proceedings. Unlike the football and basketball drafts, the baseball version takes place a bit under the radar, with all but the most hardcore fans unfamiliar with the vast majority of the draftable players.

This is understandable, as all but the rarest of exceptions among players are not seen at the major league level for a while, unlike the instant gratification of the football and basketball drafts. This isn’t to say that the events of later this week aren’t vital to the short, intermediate and long-term future of all 30 clubs. On the contrary; the draft remains the cheapest way to turn a club around, though it does take time. There is a lot of player-specific draft content around this week, so let’s take a different tack and look at the process, the people involved – the who’s, what’s and where’s surrounding the baseball draft. Last time, we looked at the process from the very beginning through the end of the spring season. This time, we pick it up as the clubs enter their respective draft rooms. Read the rest of this entry »

Each weekday during the minor-league season, FanGraphs is providing a status update on multiple rookie-eligible players. Note that Age denotes the relevant prospect’s baseball age (i.e. as of July 1st of the current year); Top-15, the prospect’s place on Marc Hulet’s preseason organizational list; and Top-100, that same prospect’s rank on Hulet’s overall top-100 list.

Rebuilding organizations frequently shop their short-term assets to support the cause. Major League Baseball’s worst team, the Chicago Cubs, are proud employers of Jeff Samardzija and less than proud owners of a .370 winning average. The Shark’s contract will expire at the conclusion of the 2015 season, which should predate the club’s success. While Chicago has the financial ability to extend him, it’s likely he’s traded at the July deadline.

Based on Marc Hulet’s pre-season Top 100, the Cubs’ farm system is stacked.  Their 7 prospects were the most of any team (tied with Boston) and 5 of their Cubs’ hitters were ranked within the Top 52. Rumors suggest the Cubs would like to add an arm to their cadre of budding stars.

1. The Toronto Blue Jays
Why: The Jays have been linked to Samardzija for weeks and they could use the his help. The Blue Jays rank 19th in RA/G and could use a replacement for J.A. Happ and/or Dustin McGowan. The combination of desperation and a difficult division makes than a likely front-runner.

Aaron Sanchez (Profile)
Level: Double-A   Age: 23   Top-15: 1st   Top-100: 22nd
Line: 54.1 IP, 4.65 FIP, 7.12 K/9, 6.14 BB/9, 0.33 HR/9 (.270 BABIP)

Summary
Untouchable during the R.A. Dickey trade, his 2014 performance no longer justifies that tag. Sanchez’s primary issue has always been his inability to consistently throw strikes. Sanchez suffers from a common ailment; many top starters battle control issues in the minor leagues, but Sanchez has shown little improvement over the years. The competition for Samardzija, who is relatively inexpensive at $5.35M, may be so tough that Sanchez may not satisfy the Cubs as their keystone piece.

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Good morning, friends, and welcome to the first part of the year’s second edition of The Worst Of The Best. This is a series where we watch major league baseball players do things poorly which in one sense is insulting and which in another sense functions as a series of backhand compliments. “We call attention to the mistakes because usually they are very close to perfect!” They’re not, but, they are really good, even the players you hate the very most. I bet you really can’t stand a player on your favorite team’s bench. That player is better at baseball than you are at whatever you’re best at. I mean, probably. Does FanGraphs have that many brilliant, gifted readers? I’ll stop myself. Here’s a link to the complete series archive!

We’re going to look at the wildest pitches thrown in May, and while perhaps this would’ve worked better on the first day of June for reasons of timeliness, it obviously isn’t the first day of June now. Also, included are some pitches from May 5, 9, and 10, so it’s not like timeliness is really a considered factor. The pitches are the pitches located furthest from the center of the PITCHf/x strike zone, which is good enough for me. While I might miss a pitch or two, think about it: do you really want this to be perfect? Then what of everything else? Celebrate imperfections. Below please find a top-five list, along with a next-five list, the latter being free of commentary and the former not being that.

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It’s been about a month since the last time I did this, so it seems like it’s time for an update. Again, eventually, you’ll be able to click on a team on the Playoff Odds page and see what the odds were on any given day. That’s still not a tool we have at our disposal, though, so your continued loss is my continued gain, as in the meantime I still get to author these posts.

The image should be fairly self-explanatory. The odds are based on player projections, schedules, and author-maintained team-by-team depth charts.

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