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

Batters

If you start by looking at the offensive comps in the chart below, you can see how quickly things go downhill in the batters’ projections. You start with two easy Hall of Famers and then about 40 seconds later, you’re reassembling the late-80s Braves. Now, the late-80s Braves eventually became the 90s Braves, something the Rangers are no doubt striving for, but getting from Point A to Point B isn’t a route you can just put into your car’s navigation system.

Signing Corey Seager and Marcus Semien is a great place to begin, though. Seager’s health record hasn’t been perfect, but it hasn’t been Eric Davis-like, either, and he still has a couple of seasons left of his 20s. Semien is a few years older, but after rightfully being a big part of the American League MVP race in two of the last three seasons, he starts off on a pretty high pedestal. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the second year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the numbered prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2022 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.

Tim Lincecum burned brightly but briefly. In a career that lasted just 10 major league seasons — the minimum to be included on a Hall of Fame ballot — and fewer innings than four of the eight enshrined relievers, Lincecum made four All-Star teams, pitched for three World Series winners, won two Cy Young awards, and threw two no-hitters. With his long hair, 5-foot-11, 170-pound frame, baby face, and unorthodox delivery, “The Freak” became one of the game’s most popular players, a cult hero in San Francisco and elsewhere.

Lincecum did all of this despite not pitching very well for the second half of that decade-long stretch (2007-16), though he certainly had his moments; both no-hitters and two of those World Series wins came when he was on the downslope of his brief career. What felled him wasn’t arm troubles but a degenerative condition in his hips, which compromised his range of motion and ability to generate power. Once his left hip labrum tore, he was too unstable to repeat his delivery, and his command suffered. The surprise wasn’t that his diminutive frame couldn’t withstand the physical toll of so many pitches and innings, but that he had dominated in the first place. Through it all, the Giants — and especially their fans — remained loyal to him, willing to give him a shot at recapturing the magic for just about as long as he was upright. Read the rest of this entry »

The most recent of my “Who Was Better” polls on Twitter featured Dale Murphy and Ken Singleton, and while it drew only a modicum of interest — only 95 people cast votes — the results were nonetheless telling. Murphy won in resounding fashion — 76.8% to Singleton’s 23.2% — and it’s unlikely that the percentages would have been markedly different with a more-robust sample size. Murphy is a two-time MVP who made seven All-Star teams and was once on a Hall of Fame trajectory. Singleton made three All-Star teams and received nary a vote in his one year on the ballot.

But was Murphy actually better than the less-ballyhooed Singleton, who broke into the big leagues with the New York Mets before excelling with the Montreal Expos and the Baltimore Orioles? Let’s look at a few of their numbers, keeping in mind that Murphy played in 2,180 games, Singleton in 2.082 games.

Murphy: .265/.346/.469, 2,111 hits, 398 HR, .357 wOBA, 119 wRC+, 44.3 WAR.
Singleton: .282/.388/.436, 2,029 hits, 246 HR,.371 wOBA, 134 wRC+, 44.4 WAR.

Peaks matter, so here is the best eight-year stretch for both: Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the New York Yankees. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the second year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the numbered prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. 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 a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Washington Nationals.

Batters

You can divide Washington’s offense into two distinct parts. The first part is Juan Soto, who got Ted Williams as his top offensive comp. That’s the straight-up, pure, 100% unadulterated Ted Williams comp, too. There’s no trick here; I’m not going to say, “Ha ha! ZiPS was talking about 1980s minor league outfielder Ted Williams.” Soto’s plate discipline is other-worldly. In his best season, Joey Votto was still nearly a quarter more likely to swing at an out-of-the-zone pitch than Soto was as a 22-year-old in 2021. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Philadelphia Phillies. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the second year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the numbered prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. 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 a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Tampa Bay Rays.

Batters

Which team in baseball has the best middle infield? I imagine most fans would likely say the Rangers (Corey Seager and Marcus Semien) or the Padres (Fernando Tatis Jr. and mostly Jake Cronenworth). The Rays are another possible answer, though. Wander Franco’s very quickly become a star, and Brandon Lowe is my pick for the most underrated second baseman in the game. I talked quite a lot about Franco’s outlook when he he signed his big ol’ contract extension, so I won’t rehash that here. Confusingly, Lowe wasn’t even one of the American League’s four Silver Slugger finalists at second base in 2021, as his .863 OPS apparently wasn’t up to the standards of DJ LeMahieu (.711 OPS, about half his games not at second). I would be surprised if the best middle infield came from a team other than these three. 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 a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the New York Mets.

Batters

It feels a little weird to be optimistic about the Mets after the season they just had (or perhaps because the Mets are one of the world’s most powerful pessimism-inducing entities). But when I look at the offense, there’s just not that much to complain about. None of Starling Marte, Mark Canha, or Eduardo Escobar are superstars — though Marte comes close at times — but signing that trio really improved how the lineup looks going into 2022. The team has a credible backup at most positions and even some upper minors depth (Brett Baty, Mark Vientos and, if you believe Steamer rather than ZiPS, Khalil Lee) they can use if the need arises. Read the rest of this entry »

The week before Christmas, I conducted an investigation into the Giants’ strange sinker-ballers. Logan Webb and Alex Wood enjoyed spectacular years, and they both did it using sinkers they released from a low starting point, which created a unique look for batters.

You probably didn’t read that article, and that’s okay. It was the peak of the holiday season. You were likely out in the world like me – seeing family, drinking eggnog-flavored coffee beverages, and generally making up for last year. My consumption of baseball media went way down, and I do this for a living.

As a self-interested person, I suggest you go back and read that article. I thought it was pretty good! More importantly, though, I’ve been doing more research into what the heck a “flat sinker” even is. The concept just doesn’t fit into my brain, and when that happens, I like to hit myself over the head with data until something clicks. So today, please enjoy some random things I’ve researched while trying to understand why in the world “flat” (approach angle) and “sinker” (pitch type) coexist. Read the rest of this entry »