Archive for Daily Graphings

Just a couple years ago, it was Jason Heyward and Giancarlo Stanton that were tearing up baseball, looking like an unprecedented pair of rookie talents ready to continue on into the stratosphere together. Now, just two years later, we’ve got Mike Trout and Bryce Harper one-upping them. That’s just how it goes.

With an injury (and a team deflation) taking some of the wind out of Stanton’s sails, and Buster Posey blowing up the National League Most Valuable Player debate, the new toys got a lot more attention than the old new ones. Perhaps rightfully so. But a lot of the value Heyward accumulated last season he did in a fashion that might seem… Troutian.

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Earlier Tuesday, there was a rumor floating around Twitter that B.J. Upton had signed a long-term contract with the Phillies. That turned out to be fake, or alternatively sent to the present from the presently unknowable future. There was also a rumor floating around Twitter that Hiroki Kuroda had signed a short-term contract with the Yankees. That turned out to be real, as Kuroda has re-upped for a year and $15 million, with another near-million in incentives.

Last January, Kuroda signed with the Yankees for a year and $10 million. He pitched well, and after the season the Yankees extended to him one of those qualifying offers worth $13.3 million. Kuroda declined it, but there was some thought that he could accept it, suggesting that the terms weren’t far off from something he’d find agreeable. Indeed, the Yankees have re-signed Kuroda for the qualifying offer, and just a little more. Or a lot more, depending on how you feel about a couple million dollars.

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You’re familiar with the term “contract year” because there exists a belief that some players perform better the season before they hit free agency. Playing for a new contract allegedly serves as a motivator. Obviously, pre-free-agency performance matters, and the most recent performance matters the most. A player should want to go into free agency on a high note. A player should really try to avoid going into free agency on a low note. For like a whole bunch of reasons actually.

One guy who’s going into free agency on a low note is Jose Valverde. Just one year ago — just one year ago! — Valverde converted all 49 of his save opportunities and ran a near-2 ERA. He blew his very first save opportunity of 2012. His 2012 season wasn’t a disaster, but it was in the playoffs, when he allowed nine runs in four games. Teams are now going to be understandably nervous about Jose Valverde’s future prospects. Another guy who’s going into free agency on a low note is Brandon McCarthy. Doctors recently had to cut into his head.

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No.

The Marlins didn’t kill publicly-financed ballparks. Or arenas. Or stadiums. Not in Florida. Not anywhere. Sure, the Marlins’ fire-sale trade with the Blue Jays — which came less than a year after the opening of the publicly-financed Marlins Ballpark — won’t help the cause of those seeking public monies to build new sports facilities. But teams will continue to seek public financing and municipalities will continue to say yes.

Why?

Because the Marlins’ swindling of the Miami-Dade taxpayers is nothing new. It’s simply the latest example of public officials falling prey to threats that a city’s team will leave and fancy reports prepared by team consultants that say a new ballpark will bring jobs, tax revenue and economic development — despite study after study that shows those claims hardly ever are true.

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As many FanGraphs readers know, David Cone is more than a former All-Star pitcher and current color commentator for the New York Yankees. He is also a stat-head. The borderline Hall of Famer — he ranks 50th all-time in pitcher WAR — has shown a willingness to introduce sabermetric concepts to the listening audience. Cone talked about his appreciation for advanced metrics, and his evolution as a pitcher over 17 seasons, during a late-summer visit to Fenway Park.

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David Cone: “I was fairly far along as a pitcher when I started out — that was in 1986, with the Royals — because I had several years in the minor leagues and a couple of years of winter ball. Going to Puerto Rico for two years really helped me as far as my overall command and style. I then evolved more at the big-league level, as far as secondary pitches.

“I really learned how to pitch later in my career, when I lost a little velocity and my skills and my arm speed started to diminish a little bit. I continued to evolve in terms of arm angles and different grips. Early on, I relied more on power. My first few years with the Mets, I was probably more of a thrower than a pitcher. I spent six years with Mets and six with the Yankees, and I’d say that my Yankees years were more my pitching years, and my Mets years were more my strikeout-power years. In between, I had the shorter stints with the Royals — my second time with them — and Blue Jays.

“Early on, I was a fastball-slider guy. I threw a four-seam fastball for the most part. I threw an occasional curve. Later, with the Mets, I developed a splitter. Ron Darling had a good splitter and I watched him. It took me probably three or four years to really develop a good feel for it.

“We didn’t have nearly as much data when I pitched. Read the rest of this entry »

Spend a little while thinking about Tyler Colvin. Since you’re all FanGraphs readers, I’m going to assume that you’re at least somewhat familiar with who he is. That is, if you think about the things you know about Tyler Colvin, number one is that you know he’s a major-league baseball player. You probably have a good idea that he played for the Cubs, and plays for the Rockies. You’ll probably recall that he was nearly killed on a baseball field by a flying and stabby shard of a bat. But whether you know the bare minimum about Tyler Colvin, or whether he’s your favorite player ever, he did something in 2012 you likely didn’t realize. Or at least, things happened in 2012 involving Tyler Colvin you likely didn’t realize.

Colvin, this year, was one of few things about the Rockies that wasn’t a disappointment. He played in a whole lot of games and slugged .531, with a 117 wRC+. Though he didn’t walk and though he did strike out, he still managed to produce, even after you adjust for the ballpark insanity. Officially, he reached base 122 times on hits. Officially, he reached base 21 times on walks, and another two times on hit-by-pitches. Yet these were not the only times that Tyler Colvin reached base, and everyone was safe.

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The Red Sox organization has been known in recent years for having great, homegrown talent, along with a minor league pipeline which flows freely to Boston. When Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz are developed from within, it’s impossible to blame fans for having that perception. However, my reality is the Red Sox prospects scouted in Greenville over the past few years have become less and less exciting to discuss with prospect followers and Red Sox fans alike.

Case-in-point Garin Cecchini, the fifth best prospect in the entire organization per Marc Hulet. In 2009, the young third baseman might have been the fifth best prospect on a Greenville team featuring Casey Kelly, Anthony Rizzo, Will Middlebrooks and Ryan Lavarnway. With the Red Sox reputation for churning out big league talent, Cecchini’s high ranking might have prospect followers expecting him to become an impact talent. Unfortunately, I don’t think he is.

Video after the jump

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In the wake of the Marlins blowing up their roster last week, Eno Sarris took the dispassionate analysis route, noting that the Marlins go-big-or-go-home roster construction strategy has helped them win a couple of World Series titles, and they’ve avoided the trap of perpetual mediocrity that has ensnared other smaller revenue franchises. Putting the Marlins aside, his key paragraph is this one:

One of the main tenets of the statistical approach to baseball is honesty. Numbers can help see past any mystical optimism into the stark reality of a team’s competitiveness. How much the Marlins actually depended on statistical forecasts in their decision-making is debatable, but one thing is clear: they knew when they had a shot at winning, and they knew when they didn’t.

There are plenty of ways to spin their approach more negatively. Pump and dump. Boom and bust. Fun, then fire sale.

But if your team is not going to be competitive, why keep high-priced assets around?

This is a pretty common line of thinking. For many, the idea of winning 80 games and finishing out of the playoffs is no better than winning 65 games and finishing in last place. The value of a win is clearly not linear, and for many, every win before 85 or so is basically irrelevant. Some even view additional wins that still don’t get you into the playoffs as a net negative, as they result in lower draft selections, or they can “trick” an organization into prematurely giving up future assets to make a run with a roster that isn’t quite good enough to stand as a real contender.

Here’s my problem, though. Eno notes that teams should be honest with themselves about their expectations for the following season, but because of the massive amount of uncertainty in forecasting, an honest assessment of nearly every team’s 2013 forecast is that they could be good, bad, or somewhere in between.

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News Corporation is reportedly set to buy a 49 percent stake in the YES Network and it may be a hedge against losing its local TV contract with the Dodgers.

The YES Network broadcasts Yankee games and a full slate of Yankees-related programming. It is also the broadcast home of the Brooklyn Nets of the NBA. YES is considered the most successful and profitable regional sports network in the country.

Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that News Corp. is close to acquiring a 49 percent share of YES, which has been valued for purposes of the transaction at $3 billion. A 49 percent share, then, will cost News Corp. $1.47 billion. Until now, shares in YES were divided among the Yankees (34 percent), investment banks Goldman Sachs and Provident Equity (40 percent) and a group of former Nets owners (26 percent). The deal includes an option for News Corp. to increase its stake to 80 percent within five years.

News Corp. is the parent company of Fox Sports, which owns 19 regional sports networks around the country. One of those regional sports networks is Fox Sports West, the current broadcast partner to both the Angels and the Dodgers. Last December, the Angels hit gold when they signed a new, 17-year contract with Fox Sports West valued at more than $2.5 billion. That deal gave the Angels tremendous financial flexibility when approaching the free-agent market. The result? A  10-year/$240 million contract for Albert Pujols and a 5-year/$77.5 million contract for CJ Wilson.

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During the 2012 regular season, Blue Jays outfielders combined to be worth 4.6 WAR, which was tied for the sixth-lowest total in baseball. Nearly all of that came from Jose Bautista, who was terrific and then injured. The Blue Jays have some young and talented outfielders in-house, and if they were rebuilding, they might guarantee those players some time. But this week’s mega-trade with the Marlins signaled that the Blue Jays would like to win “sooner” instead of “eventually”, so now they’re going to guarantee some time to Melky Cabrera.

On Friday, the Jays signed Cabrera to a two-year contract worth $16 million, according to Enrique Rojas and later confirmed by others. The deal is not yet official — just like Toronto’s other big deal — but there’s little reason to believe it won’t become official after Cabrera’s physical, so now we analyze.

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