The Diamondbacks are one of two potential NL West sleepers. One thing they have going for them is that, this year, they should get something like a full season from A.J. Pollock. But then, beyond him, there’s the potentially electric starting rotation. Although there are more questions every day about the well-being of Zack Greinke, he’s followed by names like Shelby Miller, Taijuan Walker, Patrick Corbin, and Robbie Ray. Inconsistent, the lot of them. But they’ve all been well-regarded before, and you never know when a young pitcher could have everything click.

One mission for the team, then, is to try to squeeze everything it can from the pitchers it has. You can try to get the pitchers in better shape, and you can try to work out kinks in their mechanics. Every pitcher on the planet wants greater release-point consistency. But how about just changing how pitchers pitch? It’s early, but there’s a sign something could be changing down in the desert.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the weekend, Cleveland made a point of locking up another one of their young core players, signing Jose Ramirez to a five-year, $26 million contract that gives him significant guaranteed income in exchange for control over his first three free-agent years. Ramirez joins Corey Kluber, Jason Kipnis, Michael Brantley, Yan Gomes, Carlos Carrasco, and Carlos Santana as members of the team’s core who have signed long-term deals with the club before reaching free agency, and Cleveland’s ability to get these guys signed before they get expensive is one of the reasons they were able to sign Edwin Encarnacion to be a $20 million DH this winter.

Cleveland isn’t a traditional big spender in free agency, but with so many players signed to early-career contracts, they had the flexibility to be a buyer this winter, and they took advantage of it. While they’ve done a lot of things right, this is one of the primary reasons Cleveland has built a contender out of a modest payroll and a farm system that hasn’t generally been ranked among the game’s best. The thing they’ve done very well is develop good players from guys who weren’t considered great prospects, and then get them signed long-term as soon as possible.

Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe not all of us will admit to it, but I think many of us have been curious to watch Tim Tebow’s foray into professional baseball.

When I was in the Pittsburgh clubhouse in Bradenton, Florida, earlier this spring, MLB Network chose to broadcast a Mets’ game in which Tebow was participating. MLB clubhouses have become more and more like your area Buffalo Wild Wings location, with multiple, large flat-screens usually adorning their interior to help pass the significant amount of stagnant time players spend there.

On this day, I entered the clubhouse shortly after the Pirates made a call to the bullpen. (It’s standard practice in spring for a team to permit media following the removal of the starting pitcher.) Several Pirates lingered in the mostly vacant room, including reliever Tony Watson, who turned his attention toward a television.

“Is that Tebow?” Watson asked aloud.

Even major-league players are curious how Tebow performs. A large part of that interest is probably tied to celebrity. Tebow was an ESPN favorite. It was difficult not to be aware of him. And not many Heisman winners quit football to give baseball a shot. If this were Brandon Weeden, or another failed pro quarterback, making an attempt at a baseball career, few would be paying attention. But part of this curiosity, I suspect, is also tied to this question: just how far away is an elite athlete with no professional baseball experience — and far removed from his amateur playing days — from being a passable major-league hitter? Essentially, how does (a very athletic) man off the street perform when thrown into a professional lineup?

I think we can all agree that Tebow isn’t a prospect, that he’s not likely to have a major-league career unless the Mets are desperate for an attendance bump. Eric Longenhagen saw Tebow last fall and quickly dismissed him as a prospect. From Longenhagen:

The crowds he draws, which, aside from the parking conditions they create, have been generally harmless. Last night’s game in Scottsdale was an unusually crowded mid-week affair with most of the fans raucously cheering for Tebow in a setting that is usually quite bookish. It created a unique environment in which to watch baseball, that’s for sure. Tools-wise, Tebow takes big, fun, aggressive hacks and he has some bat speed and power but his hand-eye is lacking and his swing is very long in the back. Several times he swung through hittable 89-91 mph fastballs because he couldn’t get there in time to punish them. His routes in left are raw, he has a 40 arm and is an average runner underway but below average from home to first. He isn’t a prospect, but he’s been gracious with the media and patient with the fans and autograph lines. It was weird watching a baseball game in which fan excitement was most palpable during a semi-routine fly ball to left field and not when a Yankees shortstop prospect hit one 380 feet the opposite way.

But Tebow gives us a different context, a different lens with which to understand how difficult it is to hit at the professional level, let alone advance to the major leagues.

Read the rest of this entry »

Some background: Last May, baseball floated the ideas of eliminating the four-pitch intentional walk, and also raising the strike zone’s lower boundary. This past February, there was a formal proposal. Everything was subject to the union’s agreement, and as you know, the union signed off on the intentional-walk part. But it didn’t agree to other stuff, including the strike-zone change. Although MLB is free to implement changes unilaterally, that can’t happen for a year after initially giving notice.

You’d think, then, that the strike zone is safe, for now. That nothing should look very different in the nearer-term future. After all, that’s how the agreement is supposed to work. But what if that isn’t how the agreement is working? Brace yourself as I make too much of what’s entirely too little data.

Read the rest of this entry »

Previous editions: AL East / AL Central / AL West / NL East / NL Central.

Opening Day is less than a week away, so it’s time that we wrap up our preseason divisional previews, which utilize batted-ball data to hone in on each club’s 2016 true-talent level, and then identify areas of relative strength and vulnerability on each club, as well as key roster turnover. Last up, the National League West.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Rays just traded for Peter Bourjos, a soon-to-be 30-year-old worth zero WAR over the past two seasons. The Rays are giving up basically nothing, because just a couple months ago, Bourjos signed a minor-league contract with a go-nowhere team. You don’t want to read a blog post about Peter Bourjos. I don’t want to write a blog post about Peter Bourjos. But he’s one part of a bigger-picture collection — the Rays are assembling another fantastic outfield.

Another fantastic defensive outfield, I should say. Heaven knows if Bourjos is going to actually hit. As you know, it all begins with Kevin Kiermaier, who might be the best defensive outfielder in the world. And the Rays are no strangers to having good defense out there; they were fifth by both DRS and UZR last season, and they were first by both measures the season before. Kiermaier is good enough to carry a group by himself. This year, though, he won’t have to do that.

Read the rest of this entry »

My most recent Sunday Notes column contained a snippet from Pete Mackanin, those quotes coming from a longer conversation I had with the Philadelphia skipper on Saturday. Much of it is being shared here.

We sat down primarily to talk about this spring’s notable performers. Among them are a pair of veteran non-roster invitees trying to win a roster spot on a youthful club. Offseason signee Daniel Nava is slashing .361/.465/.444, while Brock Stassi, 27 years old and in the system since 2011, is slashing .320/.370/.680 with five home runs.

Outside of asking specifically about Nava and young third baseman Maikel Franco, I mostly let Mackanin lead the conversation. He brought up several of his players, with time constraints limiting his opportunity to cover even more.

———

Mackanin on the pitchers: “Our starters have been pitching well. Jerad Eickhoff is right where he should be. Aaron Nola has increased his velocity, and I’m thrilled about that. He’s touched 93, and even 94 once, which we’d never seen. If he can retain that throughout the season, that’s going to be a plus for him. Plus, he’s learned a changeup and he’s thrown that very effectively, as has Eickhoff. They’ve added that to their repertoire, which can only enhance their performance. We haven’t seen Clay Buchholz enough yet, and I think he’s a little sick again today.

Read the rest of this entry »

And so we come to the end of our team-by-team positional reviews, with a topic near and dear to my heart: bullpens. In this case, specifically the top 15 projected bullpens, after Craig Edwards already examined the bottom 15. You can find his post linked above, if you haven’t seen it. You can find an introduction to this whole series linked above, if you haven’t seen that. I love to write about relievers, because just about every team has an underrated reliever in the upper system somewhere. In here we can think about some underrated relievers, as well as some relievers who are more properly rated. A plot, now, of the projected landscape:

There are some places where it’s clear that one team is the best in baseball at a certain position. Like, it’s obvious, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that no team is as set in center field as the Angels. This is not one of those places. Sure, we have all the bullpens ranked, and you can see those projections above and below, but think about the margins here, and various other factors. There’s a handful of teams out there that might claim to have baseball’s best bullpen. Maybe two handfuls! There are convincing arguments to be made, even beyond general reliever unpredictability. A good and deep bullpen might be more valued now than ever before, and it’s just my luck I get to write about a bunch of good and deep bullpens. Don’t fret too much about certain rankings. Plenty of bullpens here could be great. Let’s begin!

1. Dodgers

Name	IP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	BABIP	LOB%	ERA	FIP	WAR
Kenley Jansen	65.0	13.2	2.1	0.9	.302	80.6 %	2.38	2.22	2.6
Grant Dayton	65.0	11.7	2.7	1.0	.305	78.3 %	2.92	3.02	1.5
Pedro Baez	55.0	9.8	2.7	1.1	.299	74.8 %	3.44	3.49	0.7
Sergio Romo	55.0	9.5	2.1	1.3	.301	76.5 %	3.48	3.61	0.5
Ross Stripling	45.0	7.3	2.7	1.1	.306	70.4 %	4.21	4.11	0.0
Chris Hatcher	40.0	9.6	2.9	1.0	.305	75.4 %	3.49	3.53	0.3
Josh Fields	35.0	10.5	3.0	0.9	.311	73.3 %	3.45	3.21	0.1
Luis Avilan	30.0	8.5	3.4	1.0	.302	74.9 %	3.66	3.98	0.0
Adam Liberatore	25.0	9.8	3.2	0.9	.302	75.2 %	3.44	3.49	0.1
Alex Wood	20.0	8.0	2.7	1.0	.306	73.1 %	3.77	3.82	0.0
Brock Stewart	15.0	8.5	2.5	1.3	.305	72.3 %	4.07	4.06	0.0
Josh Ravin	10.0	10.9	4.0	1.3	.299	75.0 %	3.89	4.02	0.0
Jacob Rhame	10.0	9.8	3.7	1.0	.306	73.3 %	3.86	3.83	0.0
The Others	21.0	8.3	4.2	1.3	.324	69.1 %	5.10	4.74	0.0
Total	491.0	10.0	2.7	1.0	.305	75.0 %	3.45	3.45	5.9

I don’t know how many people would pick the Dodgers as having baseball’s best bullpen. I don’t even know if the Dodgers would pick the Dodgers as having baseball’s best bullpen. As shown here, though, there’s at least a strong argument to be made, and it has to begin with Kenley Jansen, who — do I even need to tell you what he’s about?

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

The American League East is going to be tough this year. The Yankees are projected to win 81 games and yet still finish last, is how tough. That same win total, for example, would place a team in a tie for second in the AL Central’s projected standings.

There are reasons to be more bullish on the Yankees than the projections suggest. Plenty of smart people around the team are. The young core, consisting of Gary Sanchez, Greg Bird, Didi Gregorius, Aaron Judge, and Clint Frazier, provides a fair amount of upside. If the bullpen proves to offer as much depth as it is does excellence at the top, you’d have two-thirds of a really good team.

About the rotation, though. First, there’s the front three. Opening Day starter Masahiro Tanaka has been great since he signed with the team — among the majors’ top-20 starters by most metrics. Michael Pineda remains an enigma, a pitcher with elite strikeout-minus-walk rates paired with bottom-tier ball-in-play results. Even with his contradictions, though, Pineda can still provide value for a team that scores runs. At 36, CC Sabathia isn’t a front-line starter anymore, but a discovery of a cutter last year may have given him a few more years of usefulness on the back end.

And then what? Who will finish out the rotation this year? Who will step forward between Luis Severino, Bryan Mitchell, Chad Green, Luis Cessa, and Jordan Montgomery? If they’re any good, they could help fuel a surprise team in a tough division.

Read the rest of this entry »