Dan Otero has quietly had a successful big-league career. In 333 relief appearances covering 374 innings, the 33-year-old right-hander has a 3.27 ERA and a 3.39 FIP pitching for three teams over seven seasons. On the off chance that win-lost records are your cup of tea, Otero is 10-2 (with a 3.09 ERA) since joining the Cleveland Indians in 2016. He’s 22-8 overall.

Otero knows every one those numbers, but not for narcissistic reasons. An avowed stat geek, the Duke University graduate knows a plethora of numbers. He’s been perusing box scores and leader boards ever since he was knee high to a grasshopper. And he knows the stories behind them, as well. Thanks in large part to his father and grandfather, he’s well-versed in the exploits of bygone legends like Babe Ruth, Sandy Koufax, and Minnie Minoso. Moreover, he has a deep appreciation for both those who came before him, and his contemporaries. Otero isn’t just a big-league pitcher. He’s a devoted fan of the game of baseball.

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Dan Otero: “Growing up, I watched baseball all the time. My dad is a huge fan, so it was always on at the house. I remember waking up in the morning before school and opening the newspaper, which is where all the box scores and stats were back then. I would memorize the standings and the stats every day. I collected cards, organizing them alphabetically in binders. Even my sister got into it. It was kind a family affair. We loved sports, and we loved following baseball.

“I grew up in Miami. My dad came over from Cuba in 1960, when he was 10 years old. He followed my grandfather’s lead in following the Yankees. His older brother was a rebel; he was a Dodgers fan. I wasn’t a rebel. I followed my dad, who even though he kept up with the Yankees was a hometown guy. Being in Miami, he was a Dolphins fan, a Heat fan, a Marlins fan, a Hurricanes football fan. We were embedded in the Miami sports fanbase. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll grant that trying to answer this is unavoidably subjective. The Nationals just signed Brian Dozier, and a bone bruise might’ve clipped four wins from his WAR. The Braves are crossing their fingers for a healthy season from Josh Donaldson. Corey Seager is returning to the Dodgers after missing almost the whole year. The Cubs are looking for Yu Darvish to rebound. The Angels are looking for Zack Cozart to rebound. Dustin Pedroia should be coming back. Michael Pineda should be coming back. Buster Posey should be coming back. And so on and so forth. Baseball players get hurt. They try to put those injuries behind them. They try to get back to being what they were.

But as I think about this — certain recoveries are more predictable than others. Certain recovering players have bigger error bars than others. In a sense, the purpose behind this post is simply to remind you of the existence of Jimmy Nelson. But I think he really is the biggest injury wild card for the season ahead. The Brewers will play in a division with at least three and possibly five competitive teams. As of this moment, the Brewers are projected to have a below-average starting rotation. Jimmy Nelson might be a zero, as he was in 2018. Or he might be an ace, as he was in 2017. I don’t know which it’s going to be. The Brewers don’t, either.

Read the rest of this entry »

While much of the focus of the Nationals’ offseason has been the potential loss of Bryce Harper, the club has been one of the more active teams this winter. Their big move brought in Patrick Corbin. They also signed Anibal Sanchez and traded Tanner Roark. They fixed their biggest hole last season by trading for Yan Gomes and signing Kurt Suzuki to play catcher. They also added Kyle Barraclough and Trevor Rosenthal to improve their bullpen depth. With all of those moves, the Nationals were already going to have the best team in the division on paper, no matter who the Phillies signed. Despite that apparent lead, having missed the playoffs a year ago, the club filled it’s last obvious weakness by signing Brian Dozier to a one-year deal worth $9 million, per Jeff Passan.

While there are obvious concerns over the slow offseason and declining salaries, Dozier’s seemingly low contract is more a victim of circumstance than a league-wide issue. There have been a lot of second basemen available this winter, and not as many contending teams with holes. Add in Dozier’s disastrous 2018 season, particularly toward the end, and his market was going to be limited. The Rockies signed Daniel Murphy, and even if he plays first base, that seemingly puts Ryan McMahon at second. The Padres added Ian Kinsler as a stopgap. The Twins signed Jonathan Schoop. The A’s traded for Jurickson Profar. The Mets didn’t even really need a second baseman and they traded for Robinson Cano.

That just leaves a smattering of contending teams in the bottom half of our second base depth charts. The Angels don’t need to work too hard to justify giving David Fletcher a shot. Cleveland’s going to go with Jason Kipnis in the last year of his deal. That really just leaves the Rockies, who could go with McMahon, the Nationals, and the Brewers. The list of available second baseman along with Dozier includes DJ LeMahieu and Jed Lowrie, as well as Asdrubal Cabrera, and Josh Harrison. Utilityman Marwin Gonzalez can play some second base as well. That’s before we get to a trade market that might include Joe Panik, Whit Merrifield, and Jedd Gyorko. In our Top 50 Free Agent list, Kiley McDaniel correctly pegged Dozier for the one-year, $9 million deal he is receiving, though the crowd was a bit more optimistic, believing a multi-year deal worth more than $30 million would be possible. This is what Eric Longenhagen had to say about Dozier in that piece.

He didn’t miss any time due to the injury (and has still never been on the DL), but Dozier has acknowledged to the media that a right knee bone bruise — and the manner in which he compensated for it, mechanically — impacted his 2018 production. Dozier had the worst full big-league season of his career, slashing .215/.305/.391 and playing sluggish defense. The league-average line at second base in 2018 was just .254/.317/.395, so if there’s any dead-cat bounce in Dozier at all, he’s probably still an average regular going forward. Obviously, though, a return close to what he has shown for the last four years means he has a chance to be an All Star.

Dozier has also had minor back issues over the years, which has been known to sap some strength. Dozier’s reliance on homers means any decrease in power is going to stunt his overall production. As for what went wrong last year, Paul Sporer noted that Dozier’s plate discipline numbers were mostly unchanged, but Dozier’s home run to fly ball rate went way down. One thing slightly unusual about Dozier’s plate discipline numbers is that Dozier swung at fewer pitches out of the zone, yet his walk rate didn’t go up. He did make more contact on pitches out of the zone, and those pitches tend to elicit weaker contact, so it is possible his numbers were hurt a little by a small adjustment to not swing for the fences as much. His expected BABIP based on launch angle and exit velocity was about 20 points higher, but any contact on pitches out of the strike zone or batted-ball luck were relatively small issues compared to his lack of thump.

A quick look at his Statcast numbers on fly balls over the past two seasons shows the following:

There’s not some big secret to explore here. Dozier just didn’t hit the ball as hard last season, so his fly balls didn’t go as far, and therefore Dozier’s home runs and ISO came down significantly. If we can chalk Dozier’s issues up to injuries that might resolve with an offseason of care and training, then Dozier is going to be a huge bargain for the Nationals. If any lingering issues follow him into next season, it’s possible we are just looking at the decline of a player in his 30s who has been selling out for pull power, which isn’t working as well anymore. Jeff Sullivan noted towards the end of 2017 that Dozier was going to the opposite field more often, and he made the natural assumption that this was an approach-based change to get better. However, Sullivan wasn’t quite sure the change was necessary. With another year in the books and similar spray charts in 2017 and 2018, it’s possible we are seeing a hitter who isn’t capable of pulling the ball as much rather than one choosing to be successful going the other way.

We don’t know which version of Dozier is going to show up next season. If he repeats his 2018, the Nationals should still have enough firepower to win the division. If he recovers some of his old form, he could help Washington be the best team in baseball. The Nationals won’t have to pay much for the opportunity to find out. The floor for players like LeMahieu and Lowrie is considerably higher than Dozier, but the former Twin is just one season removed a five-win campaign. He’ll get the opportunity to put last year behind him in a lineup that shouldn’t need his production. If he plays well, he could be in line for a much bigger contract a year from now.

Free agent Yasmani Grandal reached a one-year agreement with the Brewers, worth $18.25 million. Grandal’s contract — while surprising — is not proof that baseball is broken. Not in an offseason where Lance Lynn got $30 million. Not in an offseason where Zach Britton got $39 million. Not in an offseason where Andrew McCutchen got $50 million. Nathan Eovaldi got $68 million. Patrick Corbin got $140 million. And even in Grandal’s specific case, it’s been reported he turned down an offer of $60 million or so from the Mets. Now, there’s reason to believe that didn’t happen exactly as so. It feels more than a little far-fetched. But the conversations, at least, were productive, before the Mets opted for Wilson Ramos instead. Grandal had a chance to do better than this.

But still, Yasmani Grandal signed a one-year contract barely worth more than the qualifying offer he declined. He signed a one-year contract with a competitive team, but a competitive team that happens to play in baseball’s smallest market. This could ultimately work out just fine — with a big season ahead, Grandal would re-enter free agency, and maybe next winter he’d find a larger guarantee. There’s nothing wrong with bringing home $18.25 million in the meantime. It’s just surprising there wasn’t greater demand. The Brewers lucked out; a good player just fell into their lap. It probably shouldn’t have happened.

Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2019 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

It would be inaccurate to say that in the months from November through January, I spend hours a day simply refreshing and reloading the Hall of Fame Ballot Tracker. On the advice of my doctor, I’ve cut down to an hour a day, tops, and besides, I’ve got spreadsheets of my own that get jealous of how I spend my time. My voting results sheet, which has every candidate’s year-by-year progress since 1966, is a particular favorite. With my profiles of all 35 candidates on this year’s ballot complete, it’s time to think about what these two particular spreadsheets are telling us right now, particularly with regards to two candidates: Larry Walker and Mike Mussina. Read the rest of this entry »

Josh Ockimey has developed into one of the more promising hitting prospects in the Red Sox organization, and he’s done so by shunning comparisons. The 23-year-old first baseman resembles a slugger from his home town, but doesn’t emulate him.

“Being from Philadelphia, I always got the Ryan Howard comparison,” Ockimey told me early in 2018. “But I really just try to be Josh Ockimey. I’ve learned that when you try to be somebody else, you’ll never be as good as they are. They’re them and you have to do what makes you you. I focus on that and try to be the best that I can be.”

What makes Ockimey Ockimey is a discerning eye paired with plus power from the left side. A sturdy 235 pounds — “that’s the weight I play best at” — he finished this season with an .811 OPS and 20 home runs in 481 plate appearances between Double-A Portland and Triple-A Pawtucket. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the World Series Champion Boston Red Sox. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from our own (both Eric Longenhagen’s and Kiley McDaniel’s) observations. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a new feature at the site that offers sortable scouting information for every organization. That can be found here.

Other Prospects of Note

Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.

Upper-level Hitters
Brett Netzer, 2B
Josh Ockimey, 1B
Roldani Baldwin, C

Netzer is a Tommy LaStella type: fine at second base, an advanced hit tool with a little bit of power, and probably just a good bench bat. Ockimey shows plus power and patience at the plate, but the average will be low and he’s a 30 athlete who some scouts think is a DH-only, so it’s going to be tough to profile. Baldwin has some pop, but isn’t a lock to catch and he’s had injury issues, including a concussion.

Lower-level Hitters
Kole Cottam, C
Cedanne Rafeala, OF
Tyler Dearden, OF
Bryan Gonzalez, RF
Albert Feliz, OF
Eduardo Vaughan, CF

Cottam, 21, is either short on arm strength or defensive ability behind the plate (maybe both) depending on who you ask, but he has plus power and hit 19 homers for Kentucky last year, so there’s some Mike Napoli type upside if it all works out. Rafaela, 18, is a Curacao-born Ronald Torreyes-type, about 5-foot-8 and a multi-positional plus runner with bat control and sneaky tools. If we’re talking upside, one scout said Dearden, 20, could be Cody Bellinger if it all goes perfectly, with a similar frame and swing, but he’s a raw cold-weather player who hasn’t reached Low-A yet, so he’s a wait-and-see case. Gonzalez and Feliz are 2018 July 2 signees. Both have plus raw power and strong frames now, but Gonzalez has the arm for right and a little better feel to hit at the moment. Vaughan is a very raw projection type with some average current tools, but he’s the sort who could take a big step forward.

Relevant Pitching Depth
Chandler Shepherd, RHP
Josh Taylor, LHP
Colten Brewer, RHP

Brewer was acquired for Esteban Quiroz this winter and relies heavily on a 92-94 mph plus cutter, mixing in a solid curveball. He put up great numbers in Triple-A and might be a middle relief piece. Shepherd is an inventory arm with a standout curveball who’s likely a long reliever in the big leagues. Taylor was acquired from Arizona for Deven Marrero and has a big arm that’s been into the upper-90’s, but the rest comes and goes. He was added to the 40-man this offseason.

Lower-level arms
Alexander Montero, RHP
Thad Ward, RHP
Also Ramirez, RHP
Jake Thompson, RHP

Thompson looked like a real prospect after going in the fourth round in 2017 from Oregon State, hitting 98 mph with a starter look in his pro debut, but everything backed up this year. He’s still throwing pretty hard but hasn’t performed. Ramirez is a 17-year-old Mexican pitcher who would’ve gone to the GCL last summer if not for fatigue; he has advanced feel of a four pitch mix and looks like a potential starter. Ward had a velo jump at UCF this spring, going from 88-91 to 91-95, touching 96 mph, but was used heavily and regressed in his pro debut. There’s a slider that is a consistent 55 and flashes 60, and solid command that should allow him to start for a bit in pro ball, but his skinny frame will likely limit him to relief.

System Overview

This system is bad, though it got that way in part because talent from it was used to build a championship team, which is the very best of reasons to have a bad farm system. Still, this group is more compelling than the one we wrote up last year now that the 2017 IFA group has already had several members who have asserted themselves as the system’s most interesting players to follow. The Red Sox have a strong recent track record in Latin America. Former International Director Eddie Romero was promoted to Assistant GM while former Mets International Director Chris Becerra, who signed several of the Mets’ prospects near the top of our recent audit of that org, was brought in to replace him. The Red Sox domestic talent acquisition is going to be limited as long as they’re fielding a good big league team, but we expect the international talent to keep flowing.

Some of you might not realize that, if you hover over the search bar up there, you’ll see which player pages have recently been the most popular. Let’s give it a spin, shall we?

Willians Astudillo. Between Astudillo and Vlad, I don’t know which has been more popular, but I strongly suspect it’s the former, and it’s definitely the former among major-league players. People have been losing their minds over Astudillo of late. Now, I did write about him last week. Playing winter ball down in Venezuela, Astudillo has performed like a deserving MVP candidate. But also, there’s a clip that’s been making the rounds. Willians Astudillo hit a home run.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Giants don’t project to be a good baseball team in 2019. That doesn’t mean they won’t be a good baseball team in 2019, but the odds are against them. They’re unlikely to be as good as the Dodgers. They’re unlikely to be as good as the Rockies. They might’ve been passed by the Padres, and they might still be worse than the Diamondbacks. With a farm system that’s in similarly mediocre shape, something had to change, and indeed, the Giants are now under new management. Farhan Zaidi and the rest of his front office are in the process of figuring out their next steps.

Some form of rebuild or step back seems inevitable. And the player who’s drawn the most public attention is Madison Bumgarner, on account of his having become a household name. Bumgarner could be traded, but then again, there are certain incentives pushing the Giants to giving him a few months to build up his value. It would also be difficult for Zaidi to make dealing Bumgarner one of his first major decisions. Something that could and should happen sooner is a trade of Tony Watson, and/or a trade of Will Smith. Both of them are veteran lefty relievers. I’m here to advocate for Smith. He’s the one any contender should want to get.

Read the rest of this entry »

A lot of time and words are spent here and elsewhere on the split of baseball revenue between players and owners; we spend less time comparing revenue between franchises. Sure, we make distinctions between small-market teams and large-market teams, putting the Yankees and Red Sox in one corner and Cleveland, Kansas City, and Pittsburgh in another. But we don’t spend a lot of time talking about what that actually means. There are a few good reasons for that. One is that we don’t have access to much of the data that would make meaningful analysis possible. But I suspect the main reason is probably that fights between billionaires who don’t take the field aren’t that interesting to a lot of fans. Add in rising revenues and $50 million windfalls from MLBAM, and for some, exactly how much money owners have isn’t all that important when we just know that they have a lot.

Many fans don’t even care about the fight between millionaires and billionaires. That’s their prerogative, but it’s important to consider these things carefully. The latest CBA wasn’t just a loser for the players for the obvious reasons, those were multiple: a competitive balance tax that barely increased, tax penalties that get progressively worse, small minimum salary increases, no universal designated hitter, only minor changes to free agent compensation, no concessions when it comes arbitration, no additional roster spots, hard international spending limits, and no help at all for the minor leaguers. The CBA also hurt the players when it comes to revenue sharing.

Wendy Thurm’s post from 2012 does a good job explaining the system under the old CBA and it is worth revisiting, but in sum: Teams took 34% of their net local revenue (local revenue minus stadium expenses), pooled it together, and divvied it up equally among all the teams. This was the base plan, and as is probably obvious, teams like the Yankees paid more into the pool than they received as part of it. There was also a supplemental plan. A pool of 14% of total net local revenue is created, with revenue taken from big-market teams like the Yankees and Red Sox and given to small-market teams like Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay. The supplemental plan worked to take a greater percentage away from high-revenue teams like the Yankees, and give it in higher percentages to the small-market teams.

Here’a a hypothetical under the old system.

• Total Local Net Revenue is $3 billion, averaging $100 million per team.
• Yankees Local Net Revenue is $400 million
• A’s Local Net Revenue is $50 million

Under the old system, 34% of the *total* local net revenue is $34 million per team. For the Yankees, 34% of their local net revenue is $136 million; they end up making a net payment to the pool of $102 million once their distribution is taken into account, bringing other clubs up to $34 million. For the A’s, 34% of local net revenue is around $17 million; they end up receiving around $17 million in revenue sharing from the pool. Under the supplemental plan, 14% of $3 billion is $420 million. The Yankees pay about a quarter of that total with the Red Sox, Dodgers, Cubs, and Mets paying another 50%, so the Yankees put another $105 million in the pool. The A’s receive around 8% of the supplemental pool, so they get another $34 million to up their total to around $51 million. The Yankees end up with $193 million in net local revenue minus revenue sharing and the A’s end up with $101 million in net local revenue plus revenue sharing. These numbers are meant to be illustrative and provide a rough example of how revenue sharing worked.

The current CBA is much simpler, with a single 48% pool divided equally so that the same percentage of revenue is shared, but it is distributed differently. It takes less money away from the richest teams by eliminating the supplemental pool. In the example above, every team gets $48 million from the pool. The Yankees 48% figure comes to $192 million, so that they pay in $144 million. The A’s 48% figure is $24 million, so they receive $24 million. In this scenario, the Yankees get to keep a lot more of their money and the A’s get less. While we don’t know what the actual numbers are, the A’s did receive more than $30 million in 2015 and 2016, and at one time expected their 2019 payment to be greater than $40 million. The A’s won’t be getting that $40 million, however, as they will receive just a fraction of that amount. Most of that $40 million will stay with the Yankees, Cubs, Red Sox, and Dodgers.

In the last CBA, which went from 2012-2016, MLB phased in restrictions on teams receiving revenue sharing payments. All teams started on equal footing, able to receive revenue sharing based solely on their local net revenue numbers. (The Marlins were treated slightly differently, essentially unable to collect in 2012 after refusing to spend any money prior to 2012, resulting in a threatened grievance by the players.) The CBA phased in restrictions so that larger-market teams could only collect a portion of the revenue sharing owed to them, and by the time the new CBA rolled around, none of the large-market teams were allowed to collect revenue sharing money if their revenue was low except for the A’s, who despite their famously spendthrift ways and decaying ballpark, signed a billion dollar local TV deal in 2009. They’re low-revenue due to their stadium issues, but not quite small-market. The A’s were given an exception under the previous CBA, so that the restrictions didn’t apply until the team got a new ballpark. The new CBA removed those restrictions and began phasing in reduced revenue sharing payments for the A’s. Per the CBA:

Notwithstanding the foregoing, the revenue sharing disqualification of the Oakland Athletics shall be phased in as follows: 25% disqualified in the 2017 Revenue Sharing Year; 50% disqualified in the 2018 Revenue Sharing Year; 75% disqualified in the 2019 Revenue Sharing Year; and fully disqualified in the 2020 and 2021 Revenue Sharing Years.

This means that if, for example, the A’s had received $40 million in revenue sharing in 2016, they would only have received $30 million in 2017, then $20 million last year, $10 million this year, and then would get nothing in 2020 and 2021. So who gets the A’s money? The teams paying into revenue sharing receive it, but there’s a catch: teams get more money if they don’t go over the competitive balance tax.

Let’s say the Yankees pay about 20% of the money in revenue sharing that goes to other teams. That means that for next season, they will receive $6 million more dollars than they would have because the A’s can’t receive revenue sharing. The Dodgers will get something less than that. The Cubs, too. The Red Sox will receive 75% of their potential share because they will have gone over the tax threshold two years in a row next season. In 2020 and 2021, the clubs stand to gain even more money. Even If the Yankees go above the tax threshold the next two seasons, they might end up holding on to around $15 million that would have gone to the A’s in the previous CBA. That money might make its way to players, but given the incentives here and the teams publicly stated desires to stay under the threshold, there’s cause to be skeptical.

The amounts we are dealing with aren’t huge sums, but they are an added benefit to keeping spending low despite having to pay significantly less in revenue sharing. These aren’t speculative amounts if some big market team have lower revenues. We know where Oakland will be the next few years. And it isn’t just Oakland that ends up with less money, though they certainly bear the brunt of the losses. All of the lowest-revenue, smaller-market teams are likely receiving less money from revenue sharing than they used to under prior CBAs. It’s not an excuse for Cleveland to cut payroll given the increases in national television money, but it is likely that the have-mores are taking a bigger piece of the revenue pie than the have-a-decent-amounts.

Ahead of the last round of CBA negotiations, I thought there would be a fight among the owners over revenue sharing. Likely because the players didn’t demand enough concessions, that fight never took place. Small-market teams were willing to take less revenue sharing because negotiations with the players were too easy, and national revenues from television deals and money from MLBAM were good enough at the time. It’s not a big part of the player loss in the last CBA, but it doesn’t help when the teams with more money refuse to spend it. Revenue sharing might not seem like an important issue for the players, but spreading money around might have yielded a bit more spending at the bottom of the league.