Archive for Daily Graphings

Every team in the American League East came into the offseason with unsettled situations behind the plate. The Orioles have been trying to figure out whether nor not to deal Matt Wieters. The Yankees made a huge addition by adding Brian McCann. The Blue Jays just made their own improvement by replacing J.P. Arencibia with Dioner Navarro. That left the Red Sox and Rays, each of whom already had a nifty backstop, but a nifty backstop incapable of handling the bulk of the workload. That is, after the Rays re-signed Jose Molina, anyway. Tuesday, the teams have made their additions, with the Sox picking up A.J. Pierzynski and the Rays dealing for Ryan Hanigan. Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s still looking for a home, but he’ll at least be going to a different division.

Initially, this was going to be a straight-up comparison of Pierzynski and Hanigan, since they have few things in common, but one important thing shared. Then reality made things more complicated, with Hanigan being part of a three-team trade, and with Hanigan agreeing to a three-year contract. No longer is this just about 2014. But despite the complicating circumstances, I do still think it’s worth examining why Boston and Tampa Bay did what they did, and how the moves are pretty alike.

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This off-season is nuts. Every day, there are interesting moves, including some pretty fun trades that just go beyond the normal prospects-for-rent-a-veteran template that we’re all accustomed to. Today, there have been a bunch of moves, but perhaps none is more interesting from a pure baseball perspective than a swap of non-household names between the Rangers and A’s.

The move shapes up like this: the A’s trade outfield prospect Michael Choice and infield prospect Chris Bostick to the Rangers for outfielder Craig Gentry and reliever Josh Lindblom. Bostick and Lindblom are secondary pieces of some potential value, but this deal is mostly about Choice and Gentry. And the differing skillsets from those two players makes this a pretty fun challenge trade.

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Most rumors, of course, are nonsense, or at least things that won’t come true. We all know this to be the case, but a lot of the time, it’s difficult to tell from the outside what’s part of the signal and what’s part of the noise. Then there are the rumors that are just immediately, obviously ridiculous. This is the way I choose to feel about the chatter that the A’s have strong interest in Nelson Cruz — Cruz looks like the opposite of a free-agent bargain, he’s going to cost a draft pick, and the A’s have a full outfield. There’s no part of my rational mind that would link Nelson Cruz to Billy Beane’s ballclub. Not one bit of it seems logical, so the rumor’s dismissed.

I had a similar reaction when I first saw word that the A’s were interested in trading for Jim Johnson. Johnson, like Cruz, has his uses, but he’s a Proven Closer due to make eight figures next season. Closers tend to be the most overpaid players on the market, so I didn’t see Beane falling for this, in reality. Then Beane actually traded for Johnson, giving the Orioles Jemile Weeks and a little bit else. The A’s deliberately acquired an eight-figure Proven Closer, and now the more I think about how it happened, the more I see how it makes some sense after all.

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So, I was supposed to run the final trivia contest for The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2014 last Wednesday, but I forgot. So I pledged on Twitter to run it yesterday, but again, I forgot. So, today, I finally present this year’s final trivia contest. Sorry it took me so long!

In case you haven’t heard, The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2014 is now available to purchase on ye ole internets. You can find my post on the book here, Dave Studeman’s post on the book here, and listen to Carson Cistulli’s FanGraphs Audio episode with Studes here.

After you’re done consuming those posts, you can buy it from Createspace (where we get the biggest cut of sales), from Amazon (in both print and for the Kindle) and from Barnes & Noble on the Nook.

Because we’re giving folk, and since it’s the beginning of the holiday season and all, we want to give you a chance to win yourself a free copy of the book. So today, tomorrow and Wednesday, we’ll be running a trivia contest based on one of the articles in the book. The first person to post the correct answer in the comments will win a free physical copy of the book (sorry, no free Kindle or Nook versions). It’s just that simple!

Today’s question comes from the article entitled “Revisiting The Book’s ‘Mano a Mano’ Chapter,” by Steve Staude. In it, Staude explores the batter-pitcher confrontation in great detail. One of the ways he does so is to create “families” of pitchers, based on their velocity and breaking ball percentage. The grid he constructed has 18 “families,” with one pitcher designated as the head of each family. Here is the grid, with 10 names removed from it:

Cutting to the chase, the question before you, dear reader, is this:

Can you accurately name at least five of the 10 remaining “family” heads?

Phrase your answers as such: Low Velocity, Mid Breaking Ball% = Barry Zito

If no one gets five correct, I’ll revisit and determine whose guesses are the best. I’ll consider any answer I get before the FanGraphs After Dark chat tonight.

Good luck!

The Tigers have six good starting pitchers, if you believe that Drew Smyly should be able to transition back to starting after a successful pitstop in the bullpen. Steamer projects all five of their current starters for at least +3 WAR next year, and it’s not at all crazy to think that Smyly will be a +2 to +3 WAR pitcher as a starter, given his track record and stuff. The desire to move Smyly back into the rotation meant that had someone to go. For the last few months, the rumored trade candidates have been Rick Porcello and Max Scherzer.

Those guys can officially unpack their bags, however, as the Nationals have solved the Tigers pitching problem by relieving them of Doug Fister instead. And they did it at a shockingly low price, considering that Fister is one of the game’s most underrated pitchers. But let’s deal with what they gave up first.

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J.P. Arencibia was the kind of bad that finds you. A year ago, the Blue Jays looked like competitor darlings, primarily because of a host of additions. Arencibia was hardly one of the guys to watch, and then before long it became apparent the Blue Jays were hardly one of the teams to watch. It didn’t take long for me to concentrate my viewing elsewhere, but still, I kept hearing about Arencibia’s death spiral. You didn’t have to follow the Blue Jays to be aware of Arencibia’s inability to get on base, and his final line was something borderline legendary. Arencibia hurt me, without my having watched. I weep for those who did.

Now Arencibia’s time in Toronto is just about up. From the free-agent market, the Jays have snagged Dioner Navarro for two years and $8 million. With Josh Thole as the backup, the Jays will now either trade Arencibia or non-tender him, leaving him a free agent. Unsurprisingly, league interest is reportedly limited. Teams won’t fall all over themselves to get a guy whose most recent OBP was lower than Pedro Alvarez’s most recent batting average. From here, it’s unclear where Arencibia’s career is going to go.

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Ted Lilly retired the day before Thanksgiving, ending an abortive attempt to come back from a series of injuries to his neck and shoulder. The pain was mysterious, wrote the Los Angeles Times: “One day his neck is feeling fine, then it stiffens up and he can hardly turn his head, let alone pitch.” In order to try to manage the pain, he underwent a procedure where “doctors used a large needle to burn the nerve endings on Lilly’s neck.” Over the offseason, he went to Venezuela to pitch. But he didn’t feel capable of pitching effectively, and hung up his spikes.

Theodore Roosevelt Lilly III (yes, his son’s name is Theodore Roosevelt Lilly IV) had a better career than you remember.
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This is an overly simplistic generalization, but when signing free agents to contracts smaller than $100 million, you can choose performance or health, but probably not both. Players who play everyday at a high level command massive paychecks, and are pursued by nearly every team with money to spend. When you’re shopping in the lower rent districts, you can sign healthy players with mediocre performances, or broken players with good performances, but there aren’t many good healthy free agents signing short term contracts these days.

The A’s, over the last few years, have very clearly prioritized performance over durability. When they wanted a center fielder back in 2010, they signed Coco Crisp despite the fact that he was coming off shoulder surgery. When they traded away Andrew Bailey in 2011, they targeted Josh Reddick from the Red Sox, who had been an interesting player when he was able to stay on the field. When they needed a shortstop last winter, they turned to the Astros and acquired Jed Lowrie, who had a history of both hitting well and breaking down regularly.

They’ve done it with pitchers too, acquiring guys like Brandon McCarthy, Brett Anderson, and Jarrod Parker at various points over the last few years. Because of their budget constraints, the A’s have to shop from the bargain bin, and they have consistently chosen to buy talented broken players over more reliable mediocrities. When faced with a choice between talent and health, the A’s have chosen talent and hoped that the health would get better.

Today, they’ve done that again, signing Scott Kazmir to a two year contract for a little more than $22 million. And based on both the A’s history and Kazmir’s 2013 season, this looks like a strong bet to be one of the best contracts given to a free agent starter this winter.

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In November of 1941, the British forces in North Africa launched Operation Crusader with the intention of engaging the Axis forces led by Erwin Rommel. The British were hoping for a tank battle in which the superior numbers of British tanks would have the advantage and crush the German armor while also relieving the besieged fortress at Tobruk.

It did not turn out that way. The short version begins with British constantly giving up the initiative, dispersing their tanks and then suffering huge losses as the concentrated German forces smashed through them one by one. Despite numerous initial setbacks, Operation Crusader ended with what is generally considered a victory for the British. Rommel overreached, and during his “dash to the wire” (the border between Libya and Egypt), the British, rather than retreating as Rommel had thought, held fast and Rommel was ultimately forced to withdraw west of Tobruk. It was not an overwhelming victory for the British by any means, and in many ways the fighting highlighted the British Army’s glaring tactical shortcomings. Yet it was a victory, generally considered to be the first by the British against German-led forces during the Second World War.

The Royals might be said to have had their own version of Operation Crusader in 2013. They made some questionable decisions along the way, they did end up winning 86 games, their first winning season since 2003 (with the previous one coming in 1993 — every 10 years!). So on Black Friday, the Royals rather unsurprisingly announced an extension for general manager Dayton Moore, whose contract was scheduled to end after the 2014 season. The new contract extends him through 2016.

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While most teams took the opportunity to enjoy a quiet Thanksgiving holiday, the Minnesota Twins instead figured the time was right to hand out the two biggest free agent contracts in team history. On Wednesday, they signed Ricky Nolasco for four years and $49 million; on Saturday night, it was Phil Hughes for three years and $24 million. In the span of four days, Terry Ryan added two pitchers who lost 25 games last year to his 96-loss team, and guaranteed them $73 million in the process.

If you think that’s crazy, know that you’re far from alone. Between the dual questions of “is either pitcher really worth that money?” and “why is a 96-loss team spending this much to maybe get to only 90 losses next year?” it’s easy to question the Minnesota plan here. That being said: these are moves that are still pretty defensible. Read the rest of this entry »