Archive for Featured

Over the weekend, the Angels picked up Huston Street from San Diego, and we’ll get to that in a second. This isn’t just about the trade, though. It’s about the relief group that Street is joining. On March 30, the Angels announced their Opening Day roster, with a seven-man bullpen that looked like this:

• R — Ernesto Frieri
• R — Kevin Jepsen
• R — Michael Kohn
• L — Nick Maronde
• R — Fernando Salas
• R — Matt Shoemaker
• R — Joe Smith

Today, at least for the moment, they have an eight-man bullpen, and it looks like this:

• R — Jason Grilli
• R — Kevin Jepsen
• R — Mike Morin
• R — Cory Rasmus
• R — Fernando Salas
• R — Joe Smith
• R — Huston Street
• L — Joe Thatcher

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Welcome to the final section of this year’s Trade Value series, the top 10. If you haven’t already, read the intro and get yourself acquainted with what question this is trying to answer, as well as an incomplete list of guys who missed the cut for one reason or another. You can see all the posts in the series here.

A few quick notes on the columns listed for each player. After the normal biographical information, I’ve listed Projected WAR, which is essentially a combination of ZIPS and Steamer’s current rest-of-season forecasts extrapolated out to a full-season’s worth of playing time. For non-catcher position players, this is 600 plate appearances; catchers are extrapolated to 450 PAs. For pitchers, this is extrapolated to 200 innings. It is not their 2014 WAR, or their last calendar year WAR; it is a rough estimate of what we might expect them to do over a full-season, based on the information we have now.

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Welcome to the fourth part of this year’s Trade Value series. If you haven’t already, read the intro and get yourself acquainted with what question this is trying to answer, as well as an incomplete list of guys who missed the cut for one reason or another. You can see all the posts in the series here.

A few quick notes on the columns listed for each player. After the normal biographical information, I’ve listed Projected WAR, which is essentially a combination of ZIPS and Steamer’s current rest-of-season forecasts extrapolated out to a full-season’s worth of playing time. For non-catcher position players, this is 600 plate appearances; catchers are extrapolated to 450 PAs. For pitchers, this is extrapolated to 200 innings. It is not their 2014 WAR, or their last calendar year WAR; it is a rough estimate of what we might expect them to do over a full-season, based on the information we have now.

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The All Star Game took place on Tuesday, and for the first time since 2008, Justin Verlander was not there for the festivities. Looking at his recent performance, it seems like very, very long ago that Verlander was the consensus pick as the best pitcher in baseball, when in fact, it was 2012. What has happened, and is his descent from the Mount Rushmore of starting pitchers permanent? Great pitchers have had bad years before regaining their groove — Steve Carlton, for one, lost 20 games in 1973 and didn’t come close to resembling the monster who won 27 games for a terrible Philadelphia team the year before. All he did was go on to win three more Cy Young Awards over the next decade, while in the process reclaiming Best Pitcher in Baseball honors. Can Verlander make a similar resurgence? Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the third part of this year’s Trade Value series. If you haven’t already, read the intro and get yourself acquainted with what question this is trying to answer, as well as an incomplete list of guys who missed the cut for one reason or another. You can see all the posts in the series here.

Due to popular demand — or maybe unpopular outrage? — this post and the next two will revert back to the prior year’s format of listing each player individually, with a blurb beneath them, rather than the article format that I experimented with in the first two posts. The mob has spoken.

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Something I assume the Rays understand: From here on out, they project to be perhaps the best team in the American League East. Something else I assume the Rays understand: They’ve dug themselves into too deep a hole, so this year the playoffs presumably aren’t in the cards. And that’s why we’re probably going to see the Rays trade David Price within the next couple weeks. He can help them only so much in 2014, he’ll be difficult for them to afford in 2015 and pieces received in return could replenish what’s become an emptier system than usual. This is how the Rays do the Rays. Price’s status is no kind of secret.

Given how good Price is — and given how many teams consider themselves to be in the playoff hunt — the lefty has a number of potential suitors. Price is the premier impact player available, so no one out there can shift the balance like he can. He might be worth 2 WAR in the final two-and-a-half months; then there’s the playoff bonus, to say nothing of 2015. It’s pretty easy to plug in numbers and see how Price could improve any rotation. But how do those improvements translate to changes in the odds?

Another way of asking the same question: Who might stand to benefit the most — in 2014 — from acquiring a guy like David Price?

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Welcome to the second part of this year’s Trade Value series. If you haven’t already, read the intro and get yourself acquainted with what question this is trying to answer, as well as an incomplete list of guys who missed the cut for one reason or another. And then read the first ten entries on the list from yesterday.

There will be a couple of formatting changes this year. Instead of doing two posts per day, with five players in each post, I’m consolidating those posts into one longer list per day. Additionally, instead of having a player listed and then some paragraphs about his ranking, I’m going to list all ten players in a table at the top of the post, and then write about all ten in more of an article style than a selection of blurbs. Having all of the names available in a single table makes for easier comparison of some relevant facts, and in past years, the player capsules started to feel pretty repetitive by the end. Hopefully, this cuts down on some of the redundant text. We’ll find out, I guess.

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In 2012, the Orioles — fresh off a losing streak dating back to the Cal Ripken / Mike Mussina / Davey Johnson squad of 1997 — shocked all of baseball by winning 93 games and the American League wild card game. Backed by what seemed like completely unsustainable one-run luck and with the knowledge that the rest of the AL East was still dangerous, most analysts said something along the lines of “that was fun, good luck doing it again.” They didn’t quite get back to the playoffs in 2013, but 85 wins was still something to be proud of, thanks mostly to 53 homers from Chris Davis and the smashing defensive debut of Manny Machado.

Once again, no one thought much of them headed into 2014. The Red Sox had just won the World Series; the Yankees had added Masahiro Tanaka, Brian McCann, Jacoby Ellsbury and Carlos Beltran. The Jays couldn’t possibly be as bad as they’d been in 2013, and the Rays might have been the best team of any of them. In our 2014 predictions, only two writers picked the O’s to win the division.

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Welcome to the kick-off of this year’s Trade Value series. If you haven’t already, read the intro and get yourself acquainted with what question this is trying to answer, as well as an incomplete list of guys who missed the cut for one reason or another.

There will be a couple of formatting changes this year. Instead of doing two posts per day, with five players in each post, I’m consolidating those posts into one longer list per day. Additionally, instead of having a player listed and then some paragraphs about his ranking, I’m going to list all ten players in a table at the top of the post, and then write about all ten in more of an article style than a selection of blurbs. Having all of the names available in a single table makes for easier comparison of some relevant facts, and in past years, the player capsules started to feel pretty repetitive by the end. Hopefully, this cuts down on some of the redundant text. We’ll find out, I guess.

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It’s a good time to be a talented (and cost-effective) young professional baseball prospect.

We’ve seen quite a few members of the pre-season Top 100 Prospects list graduate to the Majors. Clubs appear to be accelerating the development of top prospects and leaning heavily on them right out of the chute; freshman and sophomore players can be found playing key roles on the top teams in each division.

Some of the players still eligible for the list will become ineligible for the offseason Top 100 list when, in the second half, the front office comes calling. Prospects that could get the call include: Francisco Lindor (Indians), Taijuan Walker (Mariners), Archie Bradley (Diamondbacks), Aaron Sanchez (Blue Jays), Noah Syndergaard (Mets), Joc Pederson (Dodgers), and even Dylan Bundy (Baltimore).

So who sits atop the heap at the midpoint of the 2014 season? Let’s have a look….

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