On December 2, new Diamondbacks general manger Mike Hazen announced the hire of Mike Fitzgerald to lead the Diamondbacks’ analytics department. Perhaps Fitzgerald’s most notable contribution in Pittsburgh, where he was the No. 2-ranking analyst, was pounding the table for then free agent Russell Martin — and, at the same time, the power of pitch-framing — at the close of the 2012 season.

On December 2, the Diamondbacks elected to non-tender incumbent starting catcher Welington Castillo, which surprised some in and around the industry. Castillo led an Arizona catching group that finished 26th in framing runs last season, according to Baseball Prospectus.

On December 2, the Diamondbacks reached an agreement with catcher Jeff Mathis on a two-year deal. On a per-pitch basis, among catchers who received at least 1,000 pitches last season, Mathis was was the ninth-best framer, according to StatCorner, and the best free-agent catcher available by that measure. While in a reserve role last season, Mathis graded out as the 13th-best defensive catcher in baseball, according to Baseball Prospectus. Castillo ranked 95th. New Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said at the winter meetings that there is no clear-cut No. 1 catcher and that Mathis will split the work load with Chris Herrmann.

Said Lovullo to reporters in Washington, D.C, in December:

“We believe in the metrics. We believe in the data. We believe in trying to do as much research as possible. We have a great team of people that are working hard behind the scenes.”

It was on December 2, 2016, that the Diamondbacks joined the 21st century. And no group of players stands to benefit more than the Diamondback starting pitchers. As noted by Mike Petriello on Tuesday in an excellent piece for MLB.com, Zack Greinke is a good bounce-back candidate for 2017 due to the club’s improved framing and defense. Indeed, everyone in the Diamondbacks staff is a good bet to improve.

Greinke will be Exhibit A, though.

As Petriello notes, according to Baseball Prospectus’ values, no pitcher benefited more from framing than Greinke in 2015. It’s part of the reason I led my 2015 NL Cy Young ballot with Jake Arrieta in a tight race, as Greinke benefited from Yasmani Grandal.

Greinke fell from first to 725th last year in framing support, a 15-run drop.

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The Diamondbacks are building a Boston culture in the desert. That’s according to Amiel Sawdaye, who has the title of Senior Vice President, Assistant General Manager. Sawdaye came to Arizona over the offseason along with Mike Hazen, who stepped into the GM role in October. Both had long tenures with the Red Sox, with Sawdaye most recently serving as Vice President of Amateur and International Scouting.

They didn’t travel west alone. Jared Porter was with the Red Sox for over a decade before spending last season as Director of Professional Scouting for the Chicago Cubs. His title with the D-Backs is the same as Sawdaye’s. Meanwhile, Torey Lovullo, Arizona’s new manager, was Boston’s bench coach the past four seasons.

Sawdaye explained what the foursome’s Boston roots mean for the organization, including its use of analytics and the adaptation of a flat hierarchy.

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Sawdaye on coming to Arizona from Boston: “From the standpoint of coming here, we’re in a different league — we have to look at things a little differently — but despite what people might think, a lot of things were being done really well. A lot of good was happening behind the scenes. There are some really good people here. Mike Bell, who oversees the player development department, has done a great job.
 
“There are a lot of really good young people in the front office. Read the rest of this entry »

Usually, these things tend to go in one direction. We talk about a player who seems underrated, and then, in time, that player becomes rated more or less appropriately. We’ve seen this happen with, say, Jose Quintana, who used to be considered a nobody even while he was pitching out of his mind. A lot more people now know how good Kyle Seager is. People know how good Starling Marte is. People have even figured out how good Kevin Kiermaier is, basically. Obligatory Ben Zobrist mention. Great players don’t stay hidden too long. I should note that I’m open to the argument Mike Trout remains underrated, but that’s different, because his ability is impossible for humans to understand.

You don’t see many players go from underrated to understood to underrated again. Such a sequence ordinarily wouldn’t make any sense. Yet, sometimes, there are just atypical circumstances. Of course there’s no infallible metric for underratedness. I know that I can’t prove anything, so we can get that out of the way up front. But I’m just here to remind you about A.J. Pollock. Pollock was once criminally underrated, and then, as time passed, he was recognized as one of the greats. Then he missed almost an entire baseball season. Out of sight, out of mind — that is how we work. So Pollock is back to where he was, preparing for camp as Arizona’s neglected star.

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A classic Super Bowl is behind us, large trucks are headed to Florida and Arizona, and spring is in the air — at least in some places a distance from my Wisconsin residence. We’re entering the home stretch of our position-by-position look at hitter contact quality, utilizing granular exit-speed and launch-angle data. Last time, it was National League right fielders. Now, it’s the catchers’ turn. We begin with a look at the 2016 AL regulars at that position.

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Our extremely early 2017 standings projections have the Diamondbacks located a clear step behind the Giants and a couple of notches behind the Dodgers in the NL West, but with a 77-win projection, they’re firmly planted within striking distance. Even if the projections were on the money regarding the club’s true talent, a few wins of random overperformance and a couple of deadline deals could easily vault them into the Wild Card race. The Diamondbacks’ roster is respectable. No one expects them to produce a 95-win season, but you could imagine exciting games in September.

One thing about the club that’s particularly interesting going into the season is their starting rotation. The projections put them somewhere in the middle of the pack for 2017, and while you can definitely argue about precise rankings, you probably couldn’t find anyone willing to put them higher than eighth or lower than about 20th. Even if you don’t put much stock into the exact calculations, that generally passes the sniff test.

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Burke Badenhop is on to phase two of his baseball career. Twelve years after being drafted out of Bowling Green State University, the 33-year-old right-hander has moved from the playing field to the front office. He was recently hired as a baseball operations analyst by the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The move doesn’t come as a surprise. Badenhop has been featured here at FanGraphs multiple times, and he’s always supplied thoughtful, analytically savvy quotes. His contributions to MLB Trade Rumors have likewise been insightful. It is easy to see why the a forward-thinking organization would want to bring him on board.

It is also not surprising that it’s the Diamondbacks giving him this opportunity. Arizona’s new brain trust is anything but backward, and some of them, including GM Mike Hazen, had become acquainted with Badenhop when he pitched for the Red Sox in 2014. A few short years later, he’ll be using his brain, as opposed to his sinker, to help them win baseball games.

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Badenhop on getting his new job: “The guy whose eye I caught was Jared Porter, who is now an assistant GM with the Diamondbacks. Luckily, I was at the right place at the right time when he was the pro scouting director in Boston. He sat in on a few of our pitchers meetings and the fact that I looked at, and understood, the pitch data stuck in his brain a little bit.

“He moved on to the Cubs, under Theo, and about a month after I got released by the Rangers [in late April, 2016], he reached out to my agent. He asked if I was interested in moving forward in a non-playing role. I went up to Chicago, and we had some conversations, but they were busy being the best team in baseball, so hiring wasn’t at the forefront of their minds.

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Currently, more than 75% of major-league teams — 23 out of 30, to be exact — play their home games in stadiums publicly owned by a local government entity. Each of these relationships between the franchise and its host municipality is, in turn, governed by a contract specifying the terms under which the government has leased its stadium to the MLB team.

As one might expect, disagreements between the franchises and their local communities occasionally arise under these lease agreements. Recently, two such disputes — one involving the Atlanta Braves and the other involving the Arizona Diamondbacks — progressed to the point that the team or local municipality opted to file a lawsuit against the other in state court.

S.M.P. Community Fund v. Atlanta Braves

In late December, the Atlanta Braves were sued in local state court by the S.M.P. Community Fund, an entity formed by the City of Atlanta to distribute funds generated by the Braves’ former stadium — Turner Field — throughout the local community. Under the terms of the Braves’ lease agreement, the team was obligated to contribute 8.25% of the parking revenue it generated at Turner Field, along with 25% of the net revenue generated from any special events held at the stadium, to the Fund. The Fund would then use these proceeds to benefit the neighborhoods immediately surrounding Turner Field.

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Andy Marte died in a car accident in his native Dominican Republic. He was 33 years old. Yordano Ventura died in a separate car accident in his native Dominican Republic. He was 25 years old. Those are the facts, and those are the ages, but the ages are presented as if they mean anything. Any lost life is a life lost too early, and there exists no formula to calculate a level of sadness. The baseball community is in mourning, as it has been too many times.

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Tuffy Gosewisch isn’t known for his stick. The 33-year-old catcher had a .522 OPS in parts of four seasons with the Arizona Diamondbacks. But he does provide value behind the dish. His defensive acumen — including his ability to work with pitchers — is a primary reason the Atlanta Braves claimed him off waivers earlier this winter.

He worked diligently to turn himself into a big-league asset. Selected by the Phillies in the 11th round of the 2005 draft out of Arizona State University, Gosewisch made his MLB debut with the D-backs eight years later. He’s now in Atlanta, where he projects to serve as the Braves’ backup backstop behind Tyler Flowers.

Gosewisch discussed various aspects of his position when Arizona visited Boston last August.

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Gosewisch on learning to call games: “The first time I caught was freshman year of high school. I caught off and on throughout my high-school career — I also played third and pitched — and in college I caught exclusively. I was [at ASU] for four years.

“In high school, they would occasionally let me call games — which is rare — but for the most part, our coach called them. In college, I called all of my games in my junior and senior years. My manager, Pat Murphy, trusted that I could handle the responsibility. That gave me a lot of confidence and, learning-wise, it was huge.

“I don’t think enough guys get to call their own games in college. I think it would be beneficial to the player, for sure. It would help him learn the game a lot better. But I know that the coaches’ jobs rely on winning, and they don’t want to take a chance on losing a game because of pitch-calling.

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On Tuesday, we looked at the best pitches in baseball last year when judged by whiffs and grounders. One thing we learned in that exercise: they were all thrown by relievers. Makes sense. They get a lot of advantages when it comes to short stints and leveraged situations. Let’s not hold it against them because the rest of the reliever’s life is very difficult. On the other hand, let’s also celebrate the starting pitchers separately, because many of them have pitches that are excellent despite the fact that they have to throw more often, to batters of both hands.

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