Earlier today, Meg Rowley introduced this year’s positional power rankings. As a quick refresher, all 30 teams are ranked based on the projected WAR from our Depth Charts. Our staff then endeavors to provide you with some illuminating commentary to put those rankings in context. We begin this year’s series with first base.

In last year’s positional rankings, Jay Jaffe wrote that first base just “ain’t what it used to be.” The diminished status of what was once one of baseball’s premier positions went unchanged in 2020. Even worse, one of the few young players near the top of those rankings, Pete Alonso, took a step back. First base has almost become baseball’s oldies station, chock-full of memories of the early hits of Albert Pujols or Joey Votto or Miguel Cabrera, but never airing their newest singles.

So what’s caused the collapse in the Q Score of the game’s first basemen? Offense is still sexy, but the truth of the matter is that home runs are cheap and plentiful. In baseball’s last full season, 135 players qualified for a batting title, and only five of them failed to finish with double-digits home runs. In 2009, there were 31 such players. There were 27 single-digit sluggers in 1999; in 1989, before the early-90s offensive explosion, there were 47. There aren’t just more home runs in baseball, they’re spread more widely among its players. Teams finding more guys who could play shortstop and hit home runs didn’t magically result in the game’s first basemen also thumping more round-trippers.

What’s more, it sometimes seems like there aren’t any actual first base prospects anymore, just prospects at other positions that teams eventually settle for playing first. The Jays haven’t totally given up on Vladimir Guerrero Jr. at the hot corner, and one of the few genuine phenom first basemen to come up in recent years, Cody Bellinger, has turned out to be a dynamite center fielder instead. The Tigers have made no secret of the fact that they would prefer that last year’s number one overall pick, Spencer Torkelson, play at third, a position he didn’t even play in college. It makes one wonder whether Jim Thome and Pujols, both third basemen in the minors, would have been moved to first so quickly if they had been born later.

It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment that baseball fell out of love with the position, but I’d highlight November 28, 2016 as a key date in the story. That was when reports came out that the Milwaukee Brewers weren’t going to tender Chris Carter, the National League’s home run leader, a contract for the 2017 season. And no one seemed especially shocked! The AL’s home run leader, Mark Trumbo, was also a free agent that offseason and neither he nor Carter attracted significant interest in free agency. Trumbo eventually settled for going back to the Orioles in late January; Carter signed a one-year deal with the Yankees and was done as a major leaguer by midseason.

Will first basemen ever return to prominence? Not everything is cyclical after all, and I think you’d need a change in how the numbers work in baseball to make first basemen desirable again. Perhaps a deadened ball will hurt the less-impressive power hitters at some point, resulting in first basemen reemerging as the game’s princes of power. Or maybe ball or rule changes will result in more balls in play for first basemen to field, giving a top player at the position the potential to post truly significant value on defense. But for 2021 at least, look for more of the same, with lots of familiar names and only a few players who excel enough at every aspect of the game, like Freddie Freeman, to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with baseball’s elites. Read the rest of this entry »

How do projected wins translate into salaries in free agency? That’s a fundamental question that front offices have to answer and, in fact, have had to answer ever since free agency opened up baseball’s labor market after the 1976 season. No, no GM back then was using Wins Above Replacement or fancy-pants computers spitting out ZoRPs or Stonker projections. But decisions are always based on some kind of projection, whether that exercise is explicit or not. When Grizzled Greg the GM went after a player for X hundreds of thousands of dollars after the 1976 season, he was still estimating how the player would play in the future and whether that benefit was worth the cost. Heck, I’ve never made a taco-based projection system. Still, when I see a taco, I’m projecting whether or not the DAR (Deliciousness Above Refrigerator) is worth the dollars that will be debited from my bank account.

Naturally, one of the ways we estimate player salaries has been a linear relationship between dollars and wins above replacement. There’s still a debate over whether player salaries should be treated in this way. Many analysts have argued that the price of wins should not be linear because of the efficiency of getting a lot of wins from a single player. After all, there’s a limit on roster size and utilization; you can’t just sign five one-win first basemen and combined them into a horrifying amalgamation whose twisted, fear-inducing form approximates a Freddie Freeman season. And even if you could, I wager that the MLBPA would file some kind of grievance about players being used for twisted medical experimentation. Well, at least players on the 40-man roster.

Matt Swartz is probably the most prominent advocate for the opposite view, that worrying about whether to add a four-win player instead of a pair of two-win players don’t really come up in the real world all that often. I’ve come to side more strongly with the majority in recent years than I used to, simply because I believe — though I can’t prove it conclusively — that good teams are becoming better at not leaving as many obvious holes. For teams like the Rays, Dodgers, and Padres, as well as other teams that prize serious depth, replacement level is probably higher than replacement level. Read the rest of this entry »

There have been a few updates in our ZiPS projections section.

First, we have updated the ZiPS projections for the roughly 300 players in the minor leagues who are in different organizations now than they were when the first run of ZiPS projections went live about six weeks ago. Free agents are still projected as if they were on their most recent team.

Second, the ZiPS three-year projections are now live for everyone in baseball. As usual, these are playing-time agnostic projections; I’m far more interested in a complex set of algorithms estimating a player’s performance than I am in team usage. A projection for a career minor-leaguer of .000/.000/.000 conveys little useful information. I find knowing how a player may perform for a team to have greater utility than a model predicting who front offices and managers will like. ZiPS assumes offensive levels similar to those of the last four years with the most recent years weighted more heavily, and is using the same estimated level of offense for 2022 and 2023 that it does for 2021. It’d be nice to know what effects changes in the ball will have, but as that’s mostly guesswork, ZiPS takes a neutral stance.

The full-season ZiPS comes in two flavors. New this year arethe ZiPS DC projections, which are ZiPS projections already pro-rated for the playing time used in our Depth Charts. Many of you were already manually adjusting ZiPS in this manner, but now it will be done automatically, which should aid in using ZiPS for fantasy purposes.

There are more ZiPS developments in the works. Let us know in the comments what things you’d like to see that I haven’t talked about yet! Our readers frequently have ideas I never thought to do myself and ZiPS has a great deal of flexibility in what it can be manipulated into doing.

If you want power, pull the ball in the air. It’s a truism because it’s true. On pulled air balls (line drives and fly balls), batters hit .558 with a 1.285 slugging percentage in 2020. When they went to the opposite field, they hit .297 with a .522 slugging percentage. It isn’t rocket science; pulling means power, and power means production.

Want another way of putting it? Those opposite-field air balls were hit with an average 86.8 mph exit velocity. Only 26.6% of them were hit at 95 mph or harder. When batters pulled the ball, they did far better — they checked in at 94 mph on average and 54.7% were 95 mph or higher. You don’t need any fancy statistics to tell you how much better that is.

Even if you take for granted that a batter hit the ball hard, it’s still better to pull the ball. When batters barreled up balls to the pull side, they slugged 3.283. A barrel is high-value by nature, but a slugging percentage of 3.283 is still hard to fathom. Those balls were hit a comical 105.6 mph on average, and hitters posted a 1.679 wOBA on them — again, you don’t need me to tell you that’s good. It’s good!

Barrel a ball to the opposite field, and the results aren’t bad, per se — after all, a barrel is a high-value hit by definition. Compared to the gaudy results on pulled barrels, though, it’s a disappointment; a 2.588 slugging percentage on 102.4 mph average exit velocity, good for a 1.347 wOBA. Good, but not as good as it could be; pulling the ball creates more juice.

Got that all straight? It’s harder to barrel the ball up when you hit it to the opposite field. Even when you do, it’s hard to get as much production out of it as you do to the pull side. Great, we have that covered. Now, meet Eloy Jiménez:

That’s an opposite-field barrel, one of 10 such batted balls Jiménez hit last year. That led baseball, and it wasn’t some volume-based fluke; 21.3% of the opposite-field balls that he hit, period, were barreled. That’s almost double his rate on pulled balls (11.9%). Did Eloy figure out how to beat the sheer inevitability of pull production being better? Read the rest of this entry »

Last Wednesday, I looked at some of the hitters who cause me the greatest worry as we approach the start of the 2021 season. Today, this year’s booms-and-busts pieces finish up with the pitchers I’m most grumpy about. Like the hitters, these “busts” represent a combination of players who I think will fall significantly short of their 2020 stats, fail to meet their 2021 projections, or have some troubling flaw that gets me wondering. Only one pitcher is on this list due to injury; given pitcher injury rates, every pitcher has a disturbingly high bust potential stemming from the likelihood that they might make an unfortunate appearance on the 60-day Injured List.

Corey Kluber, New York Yankees

I know, ZiPS isn’t super concernced about Kluber, forecasting a solid 3.87 ERA and 4.12 FIP for the right-hander. But after two years of injuries, I’m far more bearish on him than the projections are. It’s good that the injuries didn’t involve anything elbow-related and that his torn teres major muscle isn’t connected to the rotator cuff. Still, one thing I’ve found in pitcher projections is that the volatility after two consecutive lost seasons is massive. Kluber may be fine, but the downside scenarios are so scary that I’m not sure he’s a good fit for the Yankees, who have a lot of risky pitchers after Gerrit Cole. Given how plentiful the worst-case scenarios are, I sadly have to put Kluber as a serious bust candidate. Read the rest of this entry »

Given their disdain for our society, our laws, and our little entertainments, it makes sense that geese are not as common a visitor to professional ballparks as, say, cats. Geese prefer to create their own domains in areas less enclosed and busied by human activities, like golf courses and public green spaces. References to geese on baseball fields in old newspaper records are hard to find — perhaps because of the perceived non-newsworthiness of such incidents, perhaps because of the number of baseball players and ballparks with “Goose” in their names. But, every so often, a goose does appear on a field where major league baseball is being played. It happened just this week, in fact, at Sunday’s game between the Cubs and the Diamondbacks: a lone Canada goose in the grass at Salt River Fields, emanating hostility. It lurked behind Rafael Ortega, its eerily long neck extended outward, ready to strike anyone who might interfere with its presence there, its ego puffed up by the violence with which it had preserved its claim over the territory. Slo-mo footage showed how this goose had chased off another goose that landed on the field, clamping its screaming beak on the interloping goose’s back, tearing out a painful-looking number of feathers before the other goose was able to make its escape.

Naturally, coverage of the carnage tended toward shock at the goose’s willingness to fight for its claim to a spot in the outfield, and its unwillingness to leave said spot. The video above is titled “Goose invades baseball field!”; other headlines include “A goose took over [the] outfield,” “Angry goose wanders onto field,” and “A**hole Goose Won’t Get Out of Center Field.” While the level of intention ascribed to the goose differs, what can be agreed upon is that center field was not where the goose — and, by extension, any goose — is supposed to be. Read the rest of this entry »

Despite an atypically mediocre performance from their bullpen last year, the Yankees project to have the strongest relief corps in 2021 according to our forecasting systems. However, their chances of fulfilling that expectation have taken a hit with the news that Zack Britton, the team’s top setup man, will undergo arthroscopic surgery to remove a bone chip in his left elbow. The 33-year-old lefty could be out until mid-June or later.

Britton had already been slowed this spring by a bout of COVID-19, which he contracted in January while going to the hospital when his wife was giving birth to the couple’s fourth child. He told reporters that he lost 18 pounds and had been set back in his offseason throwing regimen. After experiencing elbow soreness in the wake of a bullpen session on Sunday, he underwent an MRI on Monday that showed the chip.

The surgery will be performed on March 15 by Dr. Christopher Ahmad, the Yankees’ team physician. As WFAN’s Sweeny Murti pointed out, Dr. Ahmad’s website suggests a timeline of six weeks before a pitcher undergoing such a procedure can be cleared to throw, and that a return to full competition could take 3-4 months:

Britton’s surgery will be performed by Yankees team Dr Chris Ahmad. Here is what his website says about timeline for removing a bone chip. h/t ?@Eric_M888? pic.twitter.com/cCULq0g7Qi

— Sweeny Murti (@SweenyMurti) March 10, 2021

Roughly speaking, three months from now means a mid-June return, and four months a return just after the All-Star break (the All-Star Game is scheduled for July 13 in Atlanta). Even a best-case scenario, involving a minimally invasive operation and a buildup to a reliever’s workload instead of a starter’s, might shave a month off that. In 2019, for example, the Rays’ Blake Snell missed about eight weeks after undergoing surgery to remove loose bodies (bone chips or cartilage fragments). He wasn’t built up to a full workload upon returning to help the Rays secure a Wild Card berth and reach the postseason, totaling just 10.1 innings in six appearances and maxing out at 62 pitches, but he was reasonably effective. Because this is happening out of the gate rather than towards the end of the season, the Yankees and Britton have less incentive to hurry back. Via ESPN’s Marly Rivera, Britton isn’t in a rush, saying, “However long that takes is how long I’m going to be out. I know that I’m going to be back with the team at some point this year and pitch significant innings. So that’s all that matters.” Read the rest of this entry »

Shohei Ohtani has already done it. There’s a video on YouTube you can watch if you want to — hundreds, actually, but I’m thinking of one in particular. Over 22 minutes long, and all of it beyond belief. There is the best pitcher in the league, with the diving splitter, with the fastball no one can catch up with; there is the best hitter, with his OPS over 1.000, launching baseballs with such power that they seem to disappear off the bat, flying over scoreboards, into streets, to the very furthest reaches of where you could imagine a human being could hit a baseball. And it is the same person, just one person, doing both of these things. You wouldn’t believe it unless you saw it. But you can see it, right now. Back then, too, people saw it. Millions of people: watching from their homes, from bars, from the stands, where they held up signs, held their breath, waiting for the next feat to come.

This was in 2016. Ohtani was only 21 years old.

***

It’s hard to believe that the spring of 2018, when Ohtani played his first games with the Angels, was only three years ago. It seems like so much longer. Partially because so much happened so fast. One moment, it was the Ohtani Sweepstakes of 2017-18, with the number of teams being gradually narrowed, the reports trickling in, each fanbase eventually resigning themselves to his absence, except for the one that won out. There was a brief time of dreaming, all smiles and photoshoots, slotting his name into imaginary batting orders alongside Mike Trout — and then it was time for spring, when it didn’t matter and you didn’t have to worry about it, except it did, and you did, too. Those first few outings — the walks from the mound, the strikeouts at the plate — the crowing from fans who would have you believe they never wanted the guy in the first place, the reports from anonymous scouts saying it wouldn’t play, it couldn’t play, not here in the big leagues.

But it played. From the very beginning, it played — like it had been scripted. A solid, winning start — a home run, launched, with the bases nearly full — a high five to an imaginary line of teammates, and then the real celebration. A perfect game taken into the seventh inning. More trips around the bases. He’s already done it. Why not again? Why not now, with even more millions of people watching? Read the rest of this entry »

One of my favorite yearly preseason pieces is also my most dreaded: the breakout list. I’ve been doing this exercise since 2014, and while I’ve had the occasional triumph (hello, Christian Yelich), the low-probability nature of trying to project who will beat expectations means that every time you look smart, you’re also bound to look dumb for some other reason. Looking back at last season’s breakout list, there were a number of selections I was happy with once the season ended — Eloy Jiménez, Dinelson Lamet, Dansby Swanson, Dylan Bundy — but then I remember Mitch Keller’s walkalicious 2020 and Victor Robles dropping 27 points of wRC+ and my cringe-sense starts to tingle. Since I’m doing separate lists of hitters and pitchers this year, let’s waste no more time with the opening spiel. To the hitters!

Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Toronto Blue Jays

Perhaps not the gutsiest call, but it feels to me like people have soured way too much on Vladito. A 112 wRC+ won’t win any Silver Sluggers, but we have to remember he was just 21 last season. Let’s imagine that Guerrero Jr. wasn’t part of the imperial-Vlad bloodline and was just a guy in Triple-A in 2020 (in an alternate universe where the minor league season existed). If we translate Guerrero’s actual major league performance into a Triple-A Buffalo line, ZiPS estimates that he would’ve been hitting .288/.370/.526 as a 21-year-old in the International League. Would anyone be disappointed with this line? There would be cries of Free Vlad! echoing through the streets by June. I think players like Juan Soto and Fernando Tatis Jr. have spoiled us for normal awesome prospects.

While I don’t usually fall for the whole “best shape of his life” stories in spring, I think I’ve fallen for it this time. Guerrero was carrying a lot of weight for a 21-year-old; I weighed less at 21, and my main aerobic exercise was hauling cases of beer into my house. He dropped a lot of weight this winter, so I take this one more seriously than the usual stories, which involve a guy losing 10 pounds or having some secret abs that people gush about.

Read the rest of this entry »

While Jake Odorizzi is clearly the top free-agent pitcher still available as March opens, Jackie Bradley Jr. is the market’s top position player still on the shelves, No. 18 overall on our Top 50 Free Agents list. Beyond the fact that they and their agents may have aimed too high with their contractual desires in an industry still feeling the economic pinch of the COVID-19 pandemic and treating the $210 million Competitive Balance Tax threshold as a salary cap, the pair don’t have a ton of similarities beyond their availability. But like Odorizzi, Bradley could provide a clear boost to a contending team.

Bradley, who turns 31 on April 19, spent the past 10 years in the Red Sox organization after being chosen as a supplemental first-round pick out of the University of South Carolina in 2011. It took him awhile to find his footing in the majors: Since he couldn’t keep his batting average above the Mendoza Line over the course of 530 plate appearances in 2013–14, he bounced up and down between Triple-A Pawtucket and Boston and spent nearly half of 2015 on the farm as well before finally sticking around for good.

Since the start of the 2015 season, Bradley has produced at about a league-average level offensively (.247/.331/.438, 102 wRC+) and provided exceptional and often spectacular defense. His +33 DRS in center field is tied for fifth in the majors in that span, and his 19.9 UZR is sixth, though he’s somewhere around 10th or 11th on a prorated basis, depending upon the innings cutoff one chooses. Likewise, his 42 runs via Statcast’s Runs Prevented metric ranks sixth since the start of 2016. In a league where Kevin Kiermaier has dominated the defensive metrics, Bradley has just one Gold Glove to show for his efforts, but he’s nonetheless put together some enviable highlight reels. Here’s one that covers just the last eight weeks of his work:

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