The Dodgers are (reportedly) willing to pay half of Andre Ethier’s contract! As Dave Cameron pointed out, he seems a bit superfluous to the current state of the Dodgers. Now that he’s only going to cost a team around $28 million over the next three years, can we find him a home?
Evaluating the Prospects: Rangers, Rockies, D’Backs, Twins, Astros, Cubs, Reds, Phillies, Rays, Mets, Padres, Marlins, Nationals, Red Sox, White Sox, Orioles, Yankees, Braves, Athletics, Angels, Dodgers, Blue Jays, Tigers, Cardinals, Brewers, Indians, Mariners, Pirates, Royals & Giants
Top 200 Prospects Content Index
Scouting Explained: Introduction, Hitting Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3 Pt 4 Pt 5 Pt 6
Draft Rankings: 2015, 2016 & 2017
International Coverage: 2015 July 2nd Parts One, Two & Three, 2016 July 2nd
The Dodgers; system isn’t especially deep, but that should be changing soon. The new regime made a shrewd deal with Miami to add underrated youngsters C Austin Barnes and SS Enrique Hernandez. This illustrates both the focus on value from the top two Dodgers execs’ small market backgrounds (Andrew Friedman in Tampa and Farhan Zaidi in Oakland) but their willingness to leverage the Dodgers’ financial advantage to acquire young players. I wrote two days ago about the latest intel on the Dodgers’ plans to spend big in the international market.
While the depth should be shored up soon, the high level talent is as abundant here as any other system in baseball, with my 4th, 6th and 11th prospects in baseball. This top three offers upside, certainty and a short-term MLB ETA, with Holmes and Verdugo just behind them offering upside in the lower minors from the 2014 draft class. I have the Dodgers’ system as 5th in the game right now, but I’ll give a final answer on that when I finish all 30 lists.
Last week’s report that Josh Hamilton could be facing an imminent suspension from Major League Baseball following an alleged violation of his drug treatment program has brought a renewed focus on MLB’s Joint Drug Agreement (JDA), and in particular its treatment of non-performance enhancing drugs. As I noted last week, in addition to PEDs and stimulants, the JDA also restricts MLB players’ use of various “drugs of abuse,” including: THC, hashish, marijuana, synthetic THC, cocaine, LSD, ecstasy, PCP, GHB (the date rape drug), and various opiates (oxycodone, heroin, morphine, etc.).
Interestingly, not all of these drugs are treated equally under the JDA. In particular, the JDA specifically carves out three – marijuana, hashish and synthetic THC – for special treatment. Although this carve-out wasn’t relevant to my post last week given the nature of the allegations against Hamilton, based on some of the comments it appears that MLB’s marijuana policy is of particular interest to some readers.
Because the JDA provisions governing drugs of abuse rarely come up, though – Jon Morosi reported last week, for instance, that no MLB player has been suspended for using an illegal narcotic since Josh Hamilton was himself suspended back in 2004 – relatively little attention has been paid to the intricacies of MLB’s marijuana policy.
Matt Harvey hasn’t been featured in these digital pages since the illustrious David Temple pointed out in early August that the Mets right-hander was throwing again after 2013 Tommy John surgery. With his coming start on Friday against the Tigers in the Grapefruit League, Harvey is about to be pitching again to major league hitters; that is not only cause for much celebration, but also cause for his goodly reintroduction into the halls of our analyses and postulations.
As of just a short while ago: 2015 playoff odds! The odds we ran through last season are back, with division chances, wild-card chances, World Series chances, and so on and so forth. With meaningful player movement basically complete, with few important roster competitions, and with both Steamer and ZiPS folded in, these are your preseason odds, missing only injuries that happen over the next four weeks. Granted, an injury to, say, Mike Trout could change things quite a bit, but these odds shouldn’t change very much before the real baseball starts. This is a big day for those of us who are obsessed with checking the page 20 times a week. Even though there won’t be a reason to do that for a while, it’s just nice to see the page populated with numbers.
The same page was populated with numbers last March. Numbers based on Steamer, ZiPS, and author-maintained team-by-team depth charts. Which is to say, numbers calculated by the same processes. It seems those numbers are no longer available on the internet, but I’ve had them saved in a folder, so I thought now would be a fun time to look at how the numbers have changed for each team since just before last season. In a way it’s a snapshot of the last 12 months. In another way it’s not that at all, but let’s not dwell on semantics. Relative to last year, who’s going into this season with bigger expectations? On the flip side, who’s most trying to focus on the bigger picture?
The FIP statistic was created because of the inherent shortcomings of ERA; so much that was reflected in the traditional pitchers’ statistic was totally out of their control, and the new metric credited and debited hurlers for that which they did. As it turns out, FIP isn’t perfect either, as not all types of batted-ball contract are created equal. Still, FIP is preferable to ERA in just about every way imaginable, and is a much better anchor upon which to base pitcher evaluations. In any given year, however, there are pitchers who are much better (or worse) than both their ERA and FIP, once you adjust for quality of batted ball contact allowed.
A couple weeks back, we looked at Jake Odorizzi and Drew Hutchison, two pitchers who were much better than both their ERA and FIP in 2014. Today, let’s look at the two ERA-qualifying NL starters who were most significantly worse than both their ERA and FIP in 2014: Cole Hamels and Henderson Alvarez. Read the rest of this entry »
With the Red Sox recently adding Yoan Moncada to the fold last week (details and audio interview), the biggest international domino has fallen and now there’s more certainty for teams and agents going forward about what teams can spend on July 2nd. In an early draft of this article, I was going to point out that MLB still hadn’t told teams what their international bonus pools were, in an effort to discourage teams from agreeing to verbal deals since they wouldn’t know the exact figure of what they could spend. MLB sent out those figures this week, and they fell in line with what teams expected: last year’s slots with a 5-7% bump.
I reported back in December that up to 12 teams were rumored to be considering or had already put enough agreements in place to exceed their bonus pool. I conceded that nowhere near that many would do it and that looks to be true, with closer to five teams looking likely to go over, but many more looking to spend their full pool and maybe trade for a little more, along with rumors of teams considering going over in 2016. Part of the reason for the uncertainty about which teams are going over is the uncertainty surround young Cuban players.
Evaluating the Prospects: Rangers, Rockies, D’Backs, Twins, Astros, Cubs, Reds, Phillies, Rays, Mets, Padres, Marlins, Nationals, Red Sox, White Sox, Orioles, Yankees, Braves, Athletics, Angels, Dodgers, Blue Jays, Tigers, Cardinals, Brewers, Indians, Mariners, Pirates, Royals & Giants
Top 200 Prospects Content Index
Scouting Explained: Introduction, Hitting Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3 Pt 4 Pt 5 Pt 6
Draft Rankings: 2015, 2016 & 2017
International Coverage: 2015 July 2nd Parts One, Two & Three, 2016 July 2nd
The Angels system is on the rebound, adding Andrew Heaney in a trade for Howie Kendrick this offseason and getting arguably the top value in the the 1st round of the 2014 draft with Sean Newcomb (though Royals LHP Brandon Finnegan is another solid option). The previous regime under Tony Reagins was focused on upside at all costs in the draft, which gets you some guys like Mike Trout, but also a boom-or-bust system with lots of holes and minor league free agents added to fill those holes. That starts to show up on the big league team when the inventory starts to get thin, but that necessary depth is now developing via trades and better amateur talent acquisition. The system is still in the bottom third of the league, but they’ve likely pulled out of the bottom five once I rank all 30 systems, with things looking to be trending up.
Don’t screw this up, Marco Estrada. Just don’t.
That’s not how you’d expect an article about a team that’s clearly trying to contend in 2015 would start, and you’ll understand why it does a little later on. There’s only ever been one article focusing on Estrada on the front page of FanGraphs, and that came back in 2012. This isn’t going to be another. I promise. This is maybe going to be about the fun mark the Blue Jays could potentially set if Estrada never makes a start for them this season, and what that might mean for the playoff dreams. Read the rest of this entry »
Wednesday’s news that Josh Hamilton could be facing an imminent suspension from Major League Baseball has set off a wave of speculation regarding not only the possible cause of the suspension, but also its potential length. Given Hamilton’s history, some have assumed he may have had a relapse of his earlier substance-abuse problems, triggering a possible suspension under MLB’s Joint Drug Agreement (JDA).
Although we presently have very little concrete information regarding Hamilton’s situation, here is what we do know: Mike DiGiovanna broke the news on Wednesday afternoon that Hamilton was in New York City meeting with MLB officials regarding a potential suspension. Ken Rosenthal reported later that, according to an unnamed baseball executive, Hamilton’s transgression was “worse” than a performance enhancing drug (PED) violation.
More alleged details emerged Wednesday evening, with Jon Heyman reporting Hamilton had confessed to a drug relapse involving “at least cocaine.” Heyman went on to report that Hamilton would be placed in MLB’s drug-treatment program as a first-time violator.
