Archive for Daily Graphings

Cincinnati’s 2018 Minor League Hitter of the Year isn’t a slugger, nor is he among the club’s higher-profile prospects. That’s not to say TJ Friedl won’t be roaming the Reds’ outfield in the not-too-distant future. Blessed with a smooth left-handed stroke and plus-plus wheels, he is — according to our own Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel — “almost a lock to hang around the big leagues for at least a few years in some role.”

His background is unlike that of most players who reach the doorstep, let alone get invited inside. Friedl entered pro ball in 2016 as a non-drafted free agent out of the University of Nevada. More on that in moment.

At 5-foot-10 and 170 pounds, the 23-year-old Friedl looks the part of a table-setter, and the numbers match the image. In a 2018 season split evenly between Hi-A Daytona and Double-A Pensacola, the speedster slashed .284/.381/.384 with five home runs and 30 stolen bases.

His top-of-the-order-friendly OBP was fueled by a change that occurred shortly before his 2017 campaign ended prematurely due to injury. Wanting to recognize pitches earlier, he tweaked his timing mechanism. Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for more than half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Cleveland Indians.

Batters
Mind the gap! One wouldn’t think of the Colorado Rockies and Cleveland Indians as having similar front offices or philosophies, but they ended up in a similar place when it came to their offenses, with each boasting a of couple MVP-types who carried a disproportionately large portion of the load. Now, the Indians don’t have a replacement level Ian Desmond in the lineup, and the lesser lights don’t cost quite as much, but it still leaves Cleveland with a fairly unbalanced offense. The outfield is the biggest problem, with Michael Brantley, who did not receive a qualifying offer, still possessing the third-best batter projection on the team. While Cleveland’s still good enough otherwise that they can win the Central without much of a struggle — even if they trade a starting pitcher and go into the season with their existing outfield — it’s not ideal.

Pitchers
ZiPS really, really likes Shane Bieber. It likes him to such a degree that when I saw the nearly four-WAR projection, I fired up his profile page and checked the Steamer projection to make sure I hadn’t accidentally broken something. Like the time I initially projected Jose Molina to have a 1.200 batting average. I talked more about this in Cleveland’s Elegy for ’18 just a few days ago, but it’s understandable why the Indians are willing to talk pitcher trades. The team is still hopeful about Danny Salazar and while I can’t get in their brains, I suspect they feel the difference between Danny Salazar (or the other fallback options) and Corey Kluber or Trevor Bauer is smaller than the difference between nothing and the prospects they could get in return. While I would’ve preferred the team to at least give Brantley a qualifying offer and pinch pennies a few years down the road, one can at least understand their thinking.
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I’m going to remind you that, last season, the league-average catcher posted an 84 wRC+. The league-average position player posted a 100 wRC+. By definition, it is always 100. Catchers, by and large, cannot hit. Robinson Chirinos hit pretty well as the Rangers’ regular catcher, notching a 103 wRC+ in his age-34 season. It was his fourth straight year of quality hitting, in a career-high amount of playing time. So it was surprising when the Rangers declined to pick up Chirinos’ $4.5-million option for next year. The Rangers aren’t going anywhere, so it hardly matters in the grand scheme of things, but Chirinos was more good than bad, and $4.5 million isn’t much.

Chirinos now has found a new home, and he’s remaining in Texas. The Astros have signed him to a one-year deal, and although I don’t know the terms, let’s assume it’s around $4 – 5 million. The exciting thing for the Astros is that Chirinos makes them better. What’s less exciting is that Chirinos isn’t J.T. Realmuto.

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No offense to Josh Donaldson, Steve Pearce, and Kurt Suzuki, but it appears the first big domino has fallen in this winter’s free agent class. Patrick Corbin is reportedly set to sign a six-year contract with the Nationals, per Chelsea Janes. Jon Heyman has reported the deal is for $140 million and, as most Nationals contracts do, it includes deferrals, per Ken Rosenthal, which lower somewhat the actual value of the contract. The Diamondbacks will get a draft pick after the first round for their troubles.

This might not quite qualify as mystery team material, but the industry consensus seemed to be that Corbin was likely to sign with the Phillies or the Yankees, making the Nationals moving in a bit of a surprise. Now, it would be appropriate to say the Nationals didn’t need pitching given that they already have Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg at the top of the rotation. But it would probably be even more appropriate to say every team needs pitching, and signing a pitcher of Patrick Corbin’s quality does a lot to help the Nationals as they try to recapture the division after a disappointing season and the seemingly likely departure of Bryce Harper.

As for how Corbin will perform, our own Dan Szymborksi was kind enough to pass along the following ZiPS projections: Read the rest of this entry »

The Indians are one of the best teams in baseball. The Indians have also been one of the best teams in baseball. Last year, they won their division. The year before that, they won their division. The year before that, they won their division, and they nearly won the World Series. The Indians possess an incredible core of star-level players, and they don’t really need to do anything in order to look like a title contender in the season ahead. It’s a good time to be a baseball fan in Cleveland.

Yet the Indians recently unloaded Yan Gomes. As a result, they could use another catcher. And far more significantly, for the past month or so, there’s been talk of the Indians trading one of Corey Kluber, Trevor Bauer, and Carlos Carrasco. Nothing has actually happened, of course, but the rumors haven’t gone away, and a trade seems fairly likely. Such a trade would be atypical, to say the least. A first-place team selling would be nearly without precedent. There’s no easy way to look that up, but just about all of the time, good teams buy, and bad teams sell. That is the nature of things.

The Indians being who they are, they’re trying to think about payroll, and they’re trying to think about their window. No one’s ever happy to trade an ace-level starter. At the same time, as much as that kind of trade would suck, the Indians also have a unique opportunity. The Indians are a smaller-budget operation. And they’re the envy of other smaller-budget operations.

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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.

Baseball at high altitude is weird. The air is less dense, so pitched balls break less and batted balls carry farther — conditions that greatly favor the hitters. Meanwhile, reduced oxygen levels make breathing harder, physical exertion more costly, and recovery times longer. Ever since major league baseball arrived in Colorado in 1993, no player put up with more of this, the pros and cons of playing at a mile-high elevation, than Todd Helton.

A Knoxville native whose career path initially led to the gridiron, ahead of Peyton Manning on the University of Tennessee quarterback depth chart, Helton shifted his emphasis back to baseball in college and spent his entire 17-year career (1997-2013) playing for the Rockies. “The Toddfather” was without a doubt the greatest player in franchise history, its leader in every major offensive counting stat category save for triples, stolen bases, caught stealing and sacrifice hits, none of which were major parts of his game. He made five All-Star teams, won three Gold Gloves, a slash line triple crown — leading in batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage in the same season — and served as a starter and a team leader for two playoff teams, including its only pennant winner. He posted batting averages above .300 12 times, on-base percentages above .400 nine times, and slugging percentages above .500 eight times. He mashed 40 doubles or more seven times and 30 homers or more six times; twice, he topped 400 total bases, a feat that only one other player (Sammy Sosa) has repeated in the post-1960 expansion era. He drew at least 100 walks in a season five times, yet only struck out 100 times or more once; nine times, he walked more than he struck out.

Because Helton did all of this while spending half of his time at Coors Field, many dismiss his accomplishments without second thought. That he did so with as little self-promotion as possible — and scarcely more exposure — while toiling for a team that had the majors’ sixth-worst record during his tenure makes it that much easier, and as does the drop-off at the tail end of his career, when injuries, most notably chronic back woes, had sapped his power. He was “The Greatest Player Nobody Knows,” as the New York Times called him in 2000, a year when he flirted with a .400 batting average into September.

Thanks to Helton’s staying power, and to advanced statistics that adjust for the high-offense environment in a particularly high-scoring period in baseball history, we can see more clearly see that he ranked among his era’s best players — and has credentials that wouldn’t be out of place in Cooperstown. But like former teammate Larry Walker, an even more complete player who spent just 59% of his career with the Rockies, Helton will likely struggle to make headway with voters. He deserves better than that.

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Most of the time, we’re just hoping to look one trade into the future. This weekend, we had the rare opportunity to look two trades into the future. We knew that, barring catastrophe, the Mariners were going to finalize a big trade with the Mets. And then word got out that, after that, the Mariners were going to finalize another big trade with the Phillies. That Mets trade is complete, as the Mariners have lost their second baseman and their closer. Now that Phillies trade is also complete, as the Mariners have lost their shortstop.

Phillies get:

• Jean Segura
• James Pazos
• Juan Nicasio

Mariners get:

• J.P. Crawford
• Carlos Santana

On the Mariners’ end, it feels light. It feels like there should be some kind of young third piece. Segura is 28 years old and affordably under contract another four years, and since 2016 he’s had about the same WAR as Carlos Correa. You’d think that, from a value perspective, Segura would be more comfortably in the black, and traded accordingly. But for one thing, Segura is dogged by an unflattering reputation. For another thing, Crawford is an intriguing unknown. And for a third thing, take a look at the shortstop market out there. There wouldn’t have been many buyers.

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You probably don’t need me to remind you of this, but, in the 2018 season, the Mariners won a dozen more games than the Mets. The Mariners, for some time, felt ticketed for the playoffs, and they topped out at 24 games over .500. The Mets were 10 games over .500 in the middle of April, but they were under by the first day of June. By early August they were 46-65. The Mets started strong, and they finished strong, but everything in the middle was a catastrophe, and the overall season was bad. The Mariners won. The Mets didn’t. Those are the facts.

Of course, the Mariners did overachieve. According to BaseRuns, the Mariners were only four games better, by underlying performance. The early offseason projections put both these clubs right around average. And yet, despite that similarity, the organizations are veering away from one another. As of a short while ago, the worst-kept secret in baseball is reportedly official. No more hurdles. The Mariners and Mets have agreed to a blockbuster, with the Mets setting their sights on winning in 2019 while the Mariners continue to tear down.

Mets get:

• Edwin Diaz
• Robinson Cano
• $20 million(ish)

Mariners get:

• Jarred Kelenic
• Justin Dunn
• Gerson Bautista
• Jay Bruce
• Anthony Swarzak

As has been talked about elsewhere, it’s helpful to think of this as two big trades in one. We’ll get to that a little later. What’s immediately clear is that the Mariners are doing more than just “re-imagining” their roster. Moving Diaz puts them in rebuild territory. The Mets, meanwhile, are making a statement acquisition, declaring their intent to win right away under new GM Brodie Van Wagenen. Cano provides short-term help in the infield. Diaz is one of the best closers on the planet. Name value aside, Diaz is the prize in this one, and how he goes will determine how the Mets — and baseball — feel about this decision down the road.

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The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2019 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2018 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. 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.

“A hard-charging third baseman” who “could have played shortstop with more range than Cal Ripken.” “A no-nonsense star.” “The perfect baseball player.” Scott Rolen did not lack for praise, particularly in the pages of Sports Illustrated at the height of his career. A masterful, athletic defender with the physical dimensions of a tight end (listed at 6’4″, 245 pounds), Rolen played with an all-out intensity, sacrificing his body in the name of stopping balls from getting through the left side of the infield. Many viewed him as the position’s best for his time, and he more than held his own with the bat as well, routinely accompanying his 25 to 30 homers a year with strong on-base percentages.

There was much to love about Rolen’s game, but particularly in Philadelphia, the city where he began his major league career and the one with a reputation for fraternal fondness, he found no shortage of critics — even in the Phillies organization. Despite winning 1997 NL Rookie of the Year honors and emerging as a foundation-type player, Rolen was blasted publicly by manager Larry Bowa and special assistant to the general manager Dallas Green. While ownership pinched pennies and waited for a new ballpark, fans booed and vilified him. Eventually, Rolen couldn’t wait to skip town, even when offered a deal that could have been worth as much as $140 million. Traded in mid-2002 to the Cardinals, Rolen referred to St. Louis as “baseball heaven,” which only further enraged the Philly faithful.

In St. Louis, Rolen provided the missing piece of the puzzle, helping a team that hadn’t been to the World Series since 1987 make two trips in three years (2004-06), with a championship in the latter year. A private, introverted person who shunned endorsement deals, he didn’t have to shoulder the burden of being a franchise savior, but as the toll of his max-effort play caught up to him in the form of chronic shoulder and back woes, he clashed with manager Tony La Russa and again found himself looking for the exit. After a brief detour to Toronto, he landed in Cincinnati, where again he provided the missing piece, as the Reds returned to the postseason for the first time in 15 years.

Though he played in the majors for 17 seasons (1996-2012), Rolen retired at 37 and didn’t accumulate the major milestones that would bolster his Hall of Fame case. The combination of his solid offense and his defensive prowess — validated both by the eye test and the metrics — places his overall value among the top 10 third basemen in history, but in his ballot debut last year, voters gave him a paltry 10.2% share, though several conceded that they would have included him if space had permitted. Hopefully, he can build support quickly enough to be taken seriously by a broader swath of the electorate, but right now, his looks to be an uphill battle.

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The Mariners just finished trading Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz to the Mets, but the club doesn’t appear to be done. Jerry Dipoto is never done. Ken Rosenthal has reported that shortstop Jean Segura could be the next Mariner to move, with the Phillies engaged as the trade partner. Former top-10 prospect J.P. Crawford is potentially part of the return. Bob Nightengale reported a deal had been agreed to involving at least those two players, while Jon Morosi indicated the deal was complete pending physicals, with Segura expected to waive his no-trade clause. And Bob Nightengale has further reported that Carlos Santana will join Crawford in Seattle, with other major leaguers and a prospect also involved.

While we don’t yet know all the players involved, the framework for the trade is an interesting one. Jean Segura headlined the Angels half of a trade that sent Zack Greinke from Milwaukee to Los Angeles more than six years ago. By the following All-Star Break, Segura looked like a star, with a 133 wRC+ and four wins in the first half of the season. He spent the next two and a half seasons as a replacement-level player, a period that included the tragic loss of his 9-month-old son in the middle of the 2014 season. Whether Segura just needed a change of scenery or more time to develop as a a player and a person, a trade to Arizona that sent Chase Anderson and Isan Diaz to Milwaukee led to Segura’s breakout 2016 campaign.

The Diamondbacks, in need of pitching, traded Segura and Mitch Haniger to Seattle for Taijuan Walker and Ketel Marte. At the time of the trade, both Dave Cameron and Jeff Sullivan presciently focused on Haniger, but Segura has been a good player in two seasons with the Mariners and earned a five-year, $70 million contract extension in 2017. He has $58 million left on the deal that runs through 2022 and includes a $17 million option for 2023. He’s a roughly average defensive shortstop with an above average hitting line predicated on putting the ball in play. At 29 years old next year, he’d likely be the third-best position player on the market this winter if he hadn’t signed his extension, and would be looking at anywhere from $60 to $90 million in free agent guarantees. His contract is a fair value, but does rebuilding Seattle little good.

Heading into 2017, J.P. Crawford was one of the top 10 prospects in baseball. A disastrous first month of the season was balanced by a very good summer, and he put up a 114 wRC+ over the remainder of the season before receiving a call-up. The uneven season moved Crawford down a little on the prospect ranks, but the Phillies still saw him as the shortstop of the future and traded Freddy Galvis. A strained right forearm and fractured left hand caused two month-long disabled list trips and stunted Crawford’s season. He ended up with just 138 plate appearances and too many strikeouts, though he still showed a little pop and a solid walk rate. The Phillies want to contend now and are opting for proven performance over potential. With Seattle in the exact opposite position, they can take time to see if the soon-to-be 24-year-old can live up to his lofty prospect status. Crawford doesn’t add to the Mariners growing list of solid prospects, but he does add another young player with the potential to help the team contend down the line.

What this does for the Phillies’ potential pursuit of Manny Machado is anyone’s guess, but Bob Nightengale is reporting they aren’t out on anyone yet after this potential move. We’ll have a full post if or when the deal goes final.