Archive for Daily Graphings

Prospect lists are one of the best parts of the off-season. Marc Hulet published his top 100 yesterday as the culmination of several months of work, and Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, Keith Law, John Sickels and a plethora of websites have published others. Each group puts myriad hours into analyzing, calling, writing, editing, re-analyzing and finally publishing their work. But even after all that, they usually come to several different conclusions. I decided — instead of focusing on a specific list — to generate a list that combined each of these lists into one.

The idea of community or consensus lists isn’t new. Sites have done it before, but I’ve added some wrinkles:

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Carlos Gomez will be a Brewer for another four years, it looks like.

With 3 year $24 million extension thru 2016 #Brewers have committed 4 years and $28.3 million to Carlos Gomez over next 4 seasons.

— Tom (@Haudricourt) March 13, 2013

There aren’t many players that fit his contract situation perfectly — Gomez is being extended for three years with one year of arbitration left, and not at a superstar rate — but we can talk about him as a player and whether or not the Brewers will remember this deal fondly anyway.

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Due to an unfortunate data error, the numbers in this story did not include park factors upon publication. We have updated the data to include the park factors, and the data you see below is now correct. We apologize for the mistake.

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What’s all this, then? For an explanation of this series, please read the 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.

With the intro out of the way, we have to start this series somewhere, and I can’t think of a compelling reason not to start with the catchers. So, we’re going to start with the catchers, and yes, since the rankings are based on imperfect projections and subjective depth chart determinations, there are quibbles to be had here if you’re the type who enjoys quibbling.

Especially because catchers occupy the position about which we probably know the least. Oh, we know a lot about how catchers run and hit, and we know something about how they throw, but we’re still in the beginning stages of understanding the importance of handling a pitching staff. There’s been some groundbreaking research in the study of pitch-framing, but those numbers aren’t included here. There’s a lot more than pitch-framing, too, which also isn’t included here. So while, below, you’ll find rankings based on what we can measure, I’ll take care to note when I think a ranking might be off for other reasons. With that all expressed, let’s start from the top.

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Last year, we decided to do season previews a little bit differently, and instead of running down each individual team, we previewed the league by position. We liked the format, so we’re doing it again this year. For those who didn’t see the series the first time around, let me borrow from last year’s introduction:

This is only looking at the upcoming season and doesn’t account for potential long term value – we’re just concerned with what each team may get from a given spot on the field this year…

The fun part of comparing teams at a given position is that we’re not limited to just looking at one player, but can compare the expected production of an everyday guy against a left/right platoon, or we can note what a team should expect from giving a stop-gap two months of playing time before they call up their top prospect in the early summer. Few teams get an entire season’s worth of playing time at a position from one guy, so by using depth charts to create an expected playing time matrix, we can give a more thorough evaluation of what kind of strength an organization has at a given spot.

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At the MIT Sloan Analytics Conference, Dan Rosenheck offered a presentation on the effects of infield fly rate and in-zone contact rate on predicting BABIP. He has generously let us republish his talk here. The full text of his presentation is published below. You can find more of Dan’s work at The Economist and The New York Times, or check out his previous project on Wins Above Replacement.

Long before baseball’s statistical revolution entered the mainstream, Hollywood writers showed an impressive grasp of one of the game’s most confounding nuances. In the 1988 movie “Bull Durham,” Kevin Costner plays Crash Davis, a career minor league catcher tasked with tutoring the pitching prospect Nuke LaLoosh. Explaining the cruel randomness that determines the fates of so many aspiring major leaguers, Crash gives Nuke a brief math lesson at a bar.

Crash’s speech actually contradicted much of conventional wisdom about baseball at the time. Ever since the Hall of Famer Wee Willie Keeler explained the secret to his success as “hit ‘em where they ain’t,” fans and sportswriters have generally given hitters credit for expertly placing their seeing-eye grounders and Texas Leaguers into the gaps between opposing fielders. Similarly, they have praised pitchers who seem to induce opposing hitters into serving up a steady stream of routine plays for the defense. At one point, even Crash himself preaches the value of pitching to contact. “Don’t try to strike everybody out,” he advises Nuke. “Strikeouts are boring. Besides that, they’re fascist. Throw some ground balls. It’s more democratic.”

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Bill James headlined the second annual SABR Analytics Conference in Phoenix last weekend. Brian Kenny from MLB Network’s Clubhouse Confidential acted as a roving emcee of sorts.  Joe Posnanski was there. Rob Neyer was there. And our own Dave Cameron and David Appelman were there. The three days of sessions led to lively discussions about WAR and knuckleball academies and the mythical analytics-scouting divide.

But this year’s conference wasn’t limited to questions about how best to measure and project on-the-field performance. Analytics have moved to the business side of the front office. And it’s your off-the-field performance in watching, listening to, and attending ballgames that is now the subject of intense study. Sports marketing isn’t new but the techniques used to measure fans, create new ones, and motivate both groups to purchase tickets and merchandise have become much more sophisiticated.

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Vance Worley will be displaying his uniquely-diverse repertoire in the Twin Cities this summer. Ditto his deception. Acquired by Minnesota from the Phillies in the Ben Revere deal, the 25-year-old right-hander throws six different pitches. They include a four-seam fastball that acts like a cutter and a cutter that acts like a slider. His delivery has produced a k-swing% markedly lower than league average each of the past two seasons.

Worley talked about his repertoire last week in Fort Myers.

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David Laurila: How do you get hitters out?

Vance Worley: For me, it’s about setting pitches up. It’s being able to go inside, back out, up in the zone, bounce a pitch when you need to. Get guys guessing.

DL: Is velocity important to your game?

VW: It can be, but it’s more just flashing it. You don’t have to throw everything 100 percent. Some guys call it a BP fastball. You throw it with command more than velocity. At times you’ll show a hitter something, then come back and throw something harder.

For some reason, on my first pitch of the game, I can never throw anything over 87 mph. It doesn’t matter how hard I try. But I’m usually somewhere between 86 to 93, maybe 94.

DL: Do you throw a two-seamer or four-seamer?

VW: Both, and I have command of both. Whatever is working better is what I’m probably going to throw more. I had a two-seam before I got drafted, but at the lower levels of the minor leagues they wanted me to focus more on four-seamers. I did that until I realized my four-seam was straight. If a ball is straight it’s going to get hit, so I went back to knowing what I knew how to do. That was to throw more sinkers.

DL: You’ve had a low home run rate. Is that mostly a matter of location?

VW: Not necessarily. Read the rest of this entry »

Begin with the principle that spring-training stats are meaningless. Use that as your rule of thumb and far more often than not, you’ll end up in the right. Player X mashes a dozen dingers before the end of camp. It’s probably meaningless. Pitcher Y finishes with an unheard-of strikeout-to-walk ratio. It’s probably meaningless. Team Z ends up with a really good or really bad record. It’s probably meaningless. We know this. If you’re reading FanGraphs, you know this. People try to tease meaning out of spring-training statistics, but the meaning is almost impossible to find.

Still, we talk about spring-training statistics, mostly because they’re our first new statistics after months of desolation. By and large we can’t help ourselves, and we trick ourselves into believing we’re better than we are at separating signal from noise. We look for numbers that seem to be out of character. We consider other factors that might give numbers more substance. I turn your attention now to Rick Porcello.

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Prospect lists are one of the best parts of the off-season. Marc Hulet published his top 100 yesterday as the culmination of several months of work, and Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, Keith Law, John Sickels and a plethora of websites have published others. Each group puts myriad hours into analyzing, calling, writing, editing, re-analyzing and finally publishing their work. But even after all that, they usually come to several different conclusions. I decided — instead of focusing on a specific list — to generate a list that combined each of these lists into one.

The idea of community or consensus lists isn’t new. Sites have done it before, but I’ve added some wrinkles:

Read the rest of this entry »

Previously, it was Oliver Perez. Earlier in his career, Oliver Perez was a good major-league pitcher. Then he was a worse major-league pitcher, then he was a bad major-league pitcher, then he was nothing, thought to be hopeless. Perez resurfaced in winter ball, allegedly reaching his old velocity levels as a reliever. The Mariners gave him a chance, and he worked his way into a big-league bullpen. Perez will be back in that bullpen in 2013, armed with a rich new contract, and just like that, Oliver Perez has been resurrected.

Now we have the case of Scott Kazmir. Earlier in his career, Kazmir was a good major-league pitcher. Then he was a worse major-league pitcher, then he was a bad major-league pitcher, then he was nothing, thought to be hopeless. Kazmir was awful the last time he pitched in affiliated ball, and he wasn’t particularly good with the independent Sugar Land Skeeters. Kazmir resurfaced in winter ball, allegedly reaching his old velocity levels as a starter. The Indians gave him a contract, and right now Kazmir is on his way to making the starting rotation out of camp.

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