The Royals have a solid system with depth and impact talents — both on the mound and in the field. Kansas City is one of few organizations with two potential top-of-the-rotation arms that could be ready to contribute at the big-league level by the end of 2014. Read the rest of this entry »
Back in the old days, like WAY back in the old days, the running game was an integral part to baseball. I mean, look at the stolen base totals from the 19th century. Dudes were running wild. That was how the game was back then. Hitters didn’t (or couldn’t, more likely) rely on power nearly as much, and the pitchers threw a lot softer, making it easier on the potential thieves. Base stealing was incubated by the culture of baseball at the time. The way baseball is played now would seem entirely foreign to fans in the 1890s.
Since those high-flying days of the Grover Cleveland administration, aggression on the base paths died down. It saw its peaks and valleys, certainly, but swiping bags never quite reached that pinnacle of the early days of the game. The most recent influx of base-stealing came in the late 1970s through the 1980s. These were the times of Lou Brock and Vince Coleman and Rickey Henderson. And we applauded these speedsters. Running became a valued part of the game again. Though running saw a decline over the 90s as power came to prominence, it’s still a much speedier game than it was in those slow-poke days of the 60s. Read the rest of this entry »
Like the Atlanta Braves, the St. Louis Cardinals often have good problems. The Cardinals are likely to have a top 10 rotation in 2014, but they still have to figure out who is going to slot into the rotation, and who will be the odd men out. Men is the key word here, because the Cardinals don’t have just six options, or even seven, but rather eight legitimate candidates for the starting rotation. Let’s walk through it, shall we?
So we know, now. It always looked like Masahiro Tanaka would get six or seven years, and an average annual value a little north of $20 million. There was little to guess about, with regard to his contract. The question was which team would end up being able to give it to him, and now we know that team is the Yankees, who seemed like the favorites from the beginning. After all the rumors, after all the drama, after all the dead nothing in between, Tanaka went to the more or less predictable place for the more or less predictable commitment. As soon as the changes to the posting system were put in place, it was obvious that Tanaka would end up getting free-agent money.
Whenever something big goes down, people want to read about it, because they want to know what it means. Was it smart, or was it not smart? What does this mean for the team, now? What does this mean for the team down the road? What does this mean for the rest of the teams? Basically, what are the implications of the news? One here is that we know where Tanaka is going. Another one here is that the rest of the market should spring back to life. But as far as an evaluation of the deal is concerned, unfortunately that’s next to impossible. So an evaluation isn’t what follows.
The annoying thing about Masahiro Tanaka’s signing window was that we knew nothing would happen until the very end of it. The convenient thing about Masahiro Tanaka’s signing window was that we knew there was a designated, set-in-stone end of it, so it’s not like things could drag on forever. This put Tanaka in a unique position, and in the end, he didn’t wait until the very last minute to make a choice — with a few days to spare, Tanaka’s elected to sign with the Yankees, for seven years and $155 million.
Also, there is an opt-out clause after the fourth year. Also, there is the matter of the $20 million posting fee. Put the numbers together and it’s a commitment similar to the one the Tigers made to Justin Verlander and that the Mariners made to Felix Hernandez, and while you can’t just add the posting fee to the salary total like that, and while the opt-out clause has its own value, and while some extra time has passed, and while this is the Yankees, and while those other guys weren’t free agents, it’s clear that Tanaka isn’t expected to contribute a serviceable 33 starts. Regardless of the fact that this is Yankees money, the expectation is that Tanaka will pitch like an ace. At least, like he’ll pitch like a good No. 2.
The PITCHf/x ERA is approaching ten years old, but the research spawned by the free public access to the data is impressive. We’re now seeing teams start to act on those findings as they try to use the data to inform best practices. Could we take the research as far it might stretch? Can we build the perfect pitcher?
For me, one of the most memorable pitches of the past few seasons is the fastball that Sergio Romo threw by Miguel Cabrera to clinch the 2012 World Series. On its own merits, Romo’s fastball isn’t particularly good, and for that reason, everybody watching figured Romo would throw a slider. For that reason, Romo threw an effective fastball, and it was the biggest pitch of his life — and it turns out every pitch is connected and one never has to really stand on its own merits. Romo succeeds with his fastball in the way that Tim Wakefield succeeded with his fastball: He uses the pitch to take batters by surprise, because his primary pitch is way better.
Game theory is a complicated concept, but pitch mixes make it simpler to grasp. Say you have a pitcher with an unbelievable changeup. Even though the changeup is his best pitch, it wouldn’t make sense to throw it 100% of the time, because a key component is surprise. Therefore there exists some optimum frequency with which the pitcher would throw something else, even if “something else” is something a lot worse. Because of the changeup, in theory, it wouldn’t look a lot worse in context. A hitter should never be able to know what’s coming, unless the pitcher is Mariano Rivera, who now is retired.
And this brings us to the current matter of Al Alburquerque, who has a slider. He has a very good slider, and he’s thrown it a whole bunch.
By 5 p.m. Eastern time on Friday, if not sooner, we’ll know where Masahiro Tanaka is going to end up. For fans of the Cubs or Dodgers or Yankees or wherever it is he decides to spend the next five to seven years of his life, the reaction will be elation, wondering just how their shiny new toy will look slotted into their rotation for years to come. They’ll dream of pennants. They’ll marvel at his stat lines. They’ll do their best to ignore the assuredly absurd dollar amount it took to obtain him. (Update: Obviously written before word broke that the Yankees had agreed to terms with him.)
For everyone else, the reaction will simply be: Finally. Let’s get on with things already. Read the rest of this entry »
The lineage of closers can, in part, be traced back to Jerome Holtzman’s creation of the save statistic. Table 2-2.1 in The Book outlined how the use of pitchers in the ninth inning with no outs and none on has quadrupled in the past 30 years and doubled since the late 1980s. The other half of that puzzle is where exactly closers come from. Closers are rarely drafted for the role coming out of the amateur draft, with names such as Chad Cordero, Ryan Wagner, David Aardsma, Josh Fields, Huston Street, Chris Reed and Drew Storen being some recent exceptions.
The closer role is revered by commentators and fans for its importance in how teams win games. But where those closers come from remains mostly a mystery. What pitchers did while in the minor leagues, where they are drafted or where they are drafted from offers little clarity.
Last week in this space, we attempted to quantify the impact of strikeout and walk rates on hitters’ offensive production. This time around, let’s do the same with starting pitcher performance, and then a dig a little deeper into pitchers’ batted-ball profiles in an attempt to assess the true-talent level suggested by the underlying data. Read the rest of this entry »
