Archive for Daily Graphings

Why isn’t there more interest in Michael Bourn? A six-win center fielder is on the market, and our most recent article on the subject is whether or not his agent has waited too long to get him a deal. We don’t know what his asking price is, but the idea that a player coming off a career year and four straight seasons with more than four wins now needs a pillow contract seems to suggest that either there’s a reason to doubt Bourn’s work, or there’s a lack of demand for his services in the market place.

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Kevin Towers is smarter than the so-called experts. That isn’t meant sarcastically. The Arizona Diamondbacks’ GM knows what he’s doing, and has both the background and track record to prove it. Skeptics panning his recent moves don’t have his 16 years of experience as a big-league general manager, nor have they been a minor-league pitching coach or scouting director.

Why did Towers trade highly-regarded pitching prospect Trevor Bauer for a young shortstop many feel has a limited offensive ceiling? He has addressed that question myriad times, but a truer understanding goes beyond the specifics of any individual deal. It lays in his overall philosophy, which he discussed shortly before taking time off for the holidays.

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Nick Swisher is a talented, big-money veteran with an actress wife, and he likes to generate attention and play under the bright lights of a major media market. The Cleveland Indians play in Cleveland, and they just lost 94 games, and last year their Opening Day payroll was under $70 million. On paper, Swisher and the Indians aren’t much of a fit, but that didn’t stop Swisher from signing a four-year contract with the Indians worth $56 million. A fifth-year vesting option would increase the value to $70 million. Few saw Cleveland being Swisher’s eventual destination, but recently the Indians put on the full-court press, and they were able to twist Swisher’s arm.

One thing that’s unclear is the nature of Swisher’s free-agent market. Publicly, there wasn’t much of a sweepstakes, so Swisher might not have had many alternatives. But this can be sold as Swisher opting to go home, since he was born in Columbus, went to high school in West Virginia, and went to college at Ohio State. To the average person, going to Cleveland would hold a certain amount of appeal; to Swisher, going to Cleveland would hold a higher amount of appeal, presumably. So there’s that angle at play.

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Joel Hanrahan is a great closer, no matter what happened in the second half last season. He’ll help the Red Sox, which had some issues in the bullpen last season. But “The Hammer” — who once came to the Pirates at the cost of Sean Burnett and Nyjer Morgan — will also help his former team on his way out.

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The Diamondbacks signed Jason Kubel last offseason and created an outfield logjam with Chris Young, Justin Upton and Gerardo Parra.

While the consensus had the team attempting to trade Parra following Kubel’s signing, the Diamondbacks stood pat and attempted to use everyone effectively. Top prospect Adam Eaton then knocked down the door to the majors at the end of the season, put up solid numbers across 103 major league plate appearances, and appeared to be the odds-on favorite for the starting centerfield gig.

Chris Young was dealt to the Athletics to make room for Eaton but the Diamondbacks were right back at square one. They had four starting outfielders for three spots and clear needs elsewhere that could get fixed through a trade. Regardless, it seemed like they stopped looking at free agent outfielders and were focused on subtracting from the group, whether it was a mega-deal involving Upton or a smaller deal for one of Kubel or Parra.

Kevin Towers and Co., defied these expectations over the weekend by signing Cody Ross to a three-year, $26 million contract. The move instantly put Kubel and Parra back on the trading block as there is simply no way the Diamondbacks enter the season with even more of a starting outfield surplus than last year. However, signing Ross was a questionable decision because he and Kubel have been similarly valuable players over the last couple of seasons. They essentially already had another form of Ross on the roster and it’s unclear if the team will be able to extract full value in a subsequent Kubel trade now that it very clearly has to move one of its outfielders.

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A Golden rule of developing prospects is, “Never move a player off a more valuable defensive position until he proves incapable of playing there at the Major League Level.” This leaves the Texas Rangers in an enviable, but difficult position as they have a 10 win left-side of the infield and both the best third base and shortstop prospects in baseball.

Jurickson Profar is untouchable, but Mike Olt has been discussed in a number of trade rumors. first, he was rumored to the Braves for shortstop Andrelton Simmons. More recently, Olt’s name was thrown as a key piece in a package for Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey. This leaves me questioning if the Rangers are working to sell high on the former UConn Husky. Read the rest of this entry »

A week ago, I wrote up The 2012 Season In Slow Home Runs, which was actually The 2012 Season In The Slowest Pitches Hit For Home Runs. That would’ve been a much more accurate but much worse title. That just begged for a follow-up, and that’s what this is, as we’re now going to examine the fastest pitches hit for home runs during the year. Originally I was going to say the timing feels right since nothing is happening in baseball, but then the Pirates signed Francisco Liriano and the Rangers signed A.J. Pierzynski, so instead I’ll say the timing feels right since nothing you care about is happening in baseball. This is a good time for frivolous reflection.

Once again, what the title suggests is that we’d be looking at the fastest home runs off the bat, and we might do that later. That would be possible on account of the incredible and invaluable ESPN Home Run Tracker. In the event that I write up that list, I don’t know what I’m going to title it since the obvious one’s already kind of taken. Thankfully this stuff is entirely unimportant and it doesn’t even need to be discussed out in the open on the front page of FanGraphs. You know how you can know I don’t have a regular editor? This paragraph is how you can know that.

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To date, it hasn’t been the offseason that the Texas Rangers wanted it to be. There’s still plenty of time, and the team still has plenty of talent, but the Rangers have been looking to make a move of significance. Later Thursday, they were able to make one, locking up free-agent catcher A.J. Pierzynski. And more, while Pierzynski is coming off arguably the best season of his entire big-league career, the Rangers got him for one year and $7.5 million. While Pierzynski doesn’t make the Rangers into something they weren’t by himself, he fills a need with so little risk the Rangers could hardly afford not to sign him.

With Geovany Soto and Eli Whiteside, the Rangers already had catchers, but they didn’t have good catchers, or left-handed-hitting catchers with a fair amount of power. While it’s presently unclear exactly how Pierzynski and Soto will split time, Pierzynski has exceeded 500 plate appearances in every season but one since 2003. In that one, he reached 497. Pierzynski has proven that he can handle an awful lot of work, and Soto just batted .198.

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The Pittsburgh Pirates have reportedly agreed to sign Francisco Liriano to a two year, $14 million contract. It’s an interesting deal, and we’ll talk about the specifics of Liriano and the Pirates in a second, but I first want to look at where this deal fits into an interesting off-season trend.

From a runs allowed perspective, Francisco Liriano was terrible last year. Just like he was the year before, too. By RA9-wins, Liriano has basically been a replacement level pitcher for the last two years, putting up an ERA- of 127 over that span. Of the 109 pitchers who have thrown 250 or more innings since the start of the 2011 season, Liriano’s ERA- ranks 104th. In terms of preventing runs, he’s been better than only Chris Volstad, J.A. Happ, Derek Lowe, Josh Tomlin, and Brian Duensing.

From a FIP perspective, though, Liriano has been a bit better. Not good, but better. We’ve got his WAR (based on walks, strikeouts, and home runs allowed) over the last two years at +2.9, making him a below average — but not abysmal — starter. Liriano’s stuff and peripherals suggest that he should get better results going forward than he’s gotten in the past. And if his stuff and peripherals are right, then 2/14 for Liriano could easily be a bargain for the Pirates.

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Value is an all-encompassing term comprised of performance relative to the position, league and readily available alternatives, as well as the price paid to acquire that production. It’s also fueled by the utility of the player to the team in how he is used. A team can maximize value by using a player according to his strengths while masking his faults. However, if a team perceives a player incorrectly, it runs the risk of minimizing his value.

This idea of maximizing strengths most often surfaces in the form of platoons. A lefty-crusher who struggles against righties won’t face same-handed pitchers much in a straight platoon. The idea of perceiving a player incorrectly and minimizing his value occurs when teams incorrectly view a platoon player as an everyday starter.

Which brings us to the free agent market, which still includes Cody Ross, Scott Hairston and Juan Rivera, three players best utilized as the lefty-crushing component of a platoon sandwich. Only Ross is viewed by many teams as an everyday starter — valid to an extent — and is seeking a contract commensurate with that view.

While he could certainly start for several teams, his value is largely connected to his production against lefties, who only throw about 25% of the innings in a season. He is a better overall player than Hairston and Rivera, averaging ~2 WAR over the last four seasons, yet he is 32 years old and is reportedly seeking a deal in the 3/$24 vicinity.

Given these factors, teams might find it more cost-effective to sign Hairston or Rivera for a strict platoon role. Assuming they are platooned with players that hit righties well, an interested team could eke out even more production.

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