After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Kansas City Royals. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Batters
One will notice, upon a cursory examination of the projections below, that five of the Royals’ position players are forecast to produce roughly two or more wins in 2018. A closer inspection of the names attached to those figures, however, reveals that three of them — Lorenzo Cain (579 PA, 3.1 zWAR), Eric Hosmer (654, 1.9), and Mike Moustakas (559, 2.5) — appear here not because they’re currently employed by the Royals, but rather because they were formerly employed by the Royals, have been granted free agency, and simply remain unsigned as of January 8th.

Indeed, of the players currently under contract with the club, only Whit Merrifield (648, 2.5) and Salvador Perez (525, 2.6) are projected to record more than two wins next season. Perhaps more remarkably, ZiPS calls for only a single other hitter, Alex Gordon (498, 1.4), to cross even the one-win threshold. Five of the club’s most likely starting nine, meanwhile, feature WAR projections that round to zero. As presently constructed, this team appears almost to be an experiment designed to test the validity of “replacement level” as a concept.

Of some interest here, in a way that isn’t wholly relevant to the Royals, is ZiPS’ assessment of Eric Hosmer. On Friday, Craig Edwards endeavored to give Scott Boras the benefit of the doubt in the latter’s appraisal of Hosmer’s value. With a number of caveats and conditions, he was nearly able to support Boras’s claims with logic, but even that optimistic calculus was based on the assumption that Hosmer is at least a three-win player right now. Dan Szymborski’s model suggests that isn’t the case.

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Scott Alexander threw his power sinker 91.9% of the time last year — the highest percentage among pitchers to toss at least 40 innings — and for good reason. It was an elite offering. Working out of the Kansas City bullpen, Alexander logged an MLB-best 73.8% ground-ball rate and snazzy 2.48 ERA over 58 appearances covering 69 frames.

His worm-killing weapon will be on display in a new location this coming season. In a deal examined by Travis Sawchik last night, the Los Angeles Dodgers acquired Alexander in a three-team trade that also involved the Chicago White Sox.

The 28-year-old southpaw qualifies as a late-bloomer. A sixth-round pick by the Royals in 2010 out of Sonoma State University (he was originally at Pepperdine), Alexander went into last year with just 25 big-league innings under his belt. Thanks to a velocity jump and increased usage of his sinker, however, he emerged as one of the best under-the-radar relievers in the junior circuit.

Alexander discussed the evolution of his signature pitch when the Royals visited Fenway Park last summer. Also weighing in on the southpaw’s development was Kansas City bullpen coach Doug Henry.

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Alexander on learning his sinker: “I throw a one-seam sinker. The grip was taught to me in college by Scott Erickson. I think he might have been trying to make a comeback at the time, and he’d come over to our field, at Pepperdine, to work out. I was throwing a bullpen and he saw that my ball had natural movement to it, kind of a natural tail. He asked me what I was throwing, and I showed him my grip, which was a four-seam. He showed me his one-seam grip.

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The Dodgers, Royals, and White Sox swung a three-team, six-player trade yesterday involving relievers Scott Alexander, Luis Avilan, and Joakim Soria plus three prospects: Trevor Oaks, Erick Mejia and Jake Peter.

Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel have provided scouting reports for the prospects changing hands. Below are the KATOH projections for those same players. WAR figures account for each player’s first six major-league seasons. KATOH denotes the stats-only version of the projection system, while KATOH+ denotes the methodology that includes a player’s prospect rankings.

*****

Trevor Oaks, RHP, Kansas City (Profile)

KATOH: 3.4
KATOH+: 2.6

Oaks caught KATOH’s eye last year when he put up a 2.74 ERA with decent peripherals across 24 starts in the Dodgers system. An oblique injury effectively ended his 2017 season in July, but not before he recorded a 3.49 FIP and 21% strikeout rate in 84 Triple-A innings. Oaks turns 25 in March but has succeeded as a starter at the highest level of the minors.

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The Dodgers, Royals, and White Sox executed a three-team trade on Thursday night. Los Angeles acquired 28-year-old lefty Scott Alexander from Kansas City and INF Jake Peter from Chicago while sending RHP Trevor Oaks and INF Erick Mejia to Kansas City and Luis Avilan to Chicago. In addition to Avilan, the White Sox received reliever Joakim Soria from Kansas City and cash from both other teams.

Travis Sawchik examined the deal last night from the Dodgers’ perspective. Below are scouting reports on Alexander (who exhausted rookie eligibility in 2018 but still has a developing skill set) and the deal’s prospects. Notes and prose are a combination of my own and Kiley McDaniel’s.

Going to Los Angeles

Scott Alexander, LHP (from Royals)
The late-blooming lefty was an effective MLB reliever last year, posting a 2.48 ERA on the back of a 73% ground-ball rate. He relies on a sinker that he throws a whopping 94% of the time, working at 92-94 and touching 96 with plus-plus life. It’s average velocity jumped nearly three ticks last year, while the usage jumped accordingly from 72%. He barely used his slider, but it’s an above-average pitch now — also with three ticks more velo — that scouts think he should throw more often. Alexander’s slider may work against righties effectively, as well, due to its more vertical shape (versus a normal slider). He may not miss many bats but is an effective relief piece who might only just be discovering something unique.

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While everyone waits for the thaw of the free-agent market, the Dodgers, Royals, and White Sox got together on a three-team trade Thursday evening.

The L.A. Times‘ Andy McCullough broke the news on the deal, as part of which the Royals send lefty reliever Scott Alexander to the Dodgers for prospects Erick Mejia and Trevor Oaks. The Dodgers ship lefty reliever Luis Avilan and $3 million to the White Sox. The Royals are also reportedly moving Joakim Soria and $1 million to the White Sox in something of a salary dump.

While there are quite a few moving parts, the focus within this post will be on Alexander, an interesting arm who could fill a need — and fill it cheaply — for one of the top clubs in baseball. Lefty reliever Tony Watson is a free agent, and the Dodgers are attempting to stay under the luxury tax. In giving up prospects and cash, the Dodgers must also feel Alexander is an upgrade over Avilan, who is projected to make $2.3 million in arbitration according to MLB Trade Rumors.

Alexander, a pre-arbitration arm with five years of control remaining, might not only fill a need cheaply for the next couple of seasons but also exceptionally well. While, on the one hand, the Dodgers are trading a lefty who misses bats, they’re also adding a lefty who might have more upside in today’s offensive environment.

In a year marked by fly balls, home runs, launch angles, and juiced balls, Alexander was, by some measures, the top ground-ball arm in the game in 2017. The approach led him to a 2.48 ERA, 3.23 FIP, and 56 ERA- last season over 69 innings. He emerged, quietly, as one of the better relievers in the game.

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Eric Hosmer has waited some time for a market to come together for his services. Part of the reason for the delay is that large-market clubs like the Dodgers and Yankees are not in need of a first baseman and are trying to remain below the luxury-tax threshold. Part of it is that teams are learning to better wait out free agents. (By Jan. 3 of last winter, nine of FanGraphs’ top-10 free agents had signed. This year? Three.) Hosmer’s agent Scott Boras famously said that there should be no concern for a free agent if he’s “the steak,” making the analogy to the main course of a fine dinner. There is some debate, however, as to whether Hosmer is a steak or a lesser cut.

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Two weeks ago, commissioner Rob Manfred announced the punishment for Atlanta following illicit efforts by former general manager John Coppolella to avoid exceeding bonus-pool limits in international free agency. At the center of that punishment: the dissolution of contracts for 12 players acquired by means that violated league policy.

Today, one of the more promising ex-Braves has signed with the Royals. MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez reports:

The signing by Kansas City of right-hander Yefri Del Rosario is notable for a couple reasons. One, because he represents the first of the former Atlanta prospects to sign with another team. And two, because Del Rosario’s deal might provide clues as to the bonuses likely to be received by the 11 other players in question.

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The Detroit Tigers are shedding veteran contracts and restocking what had become a depleted farm system. That’s good news for the team’s future. It’s bad news for their fans in terms of watching winning baseball. As with any rebuild, near-term pennant contention isn’t part of the plan.

Al Avila is approaching the situation with a stiff upper lip. As unpleasant of a task as it might be — no one likes to lose — Detroit’s GM accepts the fact that in order to get better, his team first has to get worse. That’s why he traded J.D. Martinez, Justin Verlander, Justin Upton, Justin Wilson, and even his own son. And he’s not done dealing.

During the General Managers’ Meetings in Orlando, Avila praised both the prospects he’s been acquiring and the young talent that has already begun contributing at the big league level. He then went on to suggest the latter group might not want to invest too heavily in Detroit-area real estate. Read the rest of this entry »

When Travis Sawchick asked you which question was most important on Shohei Ohtani’s questionnaire, you answered overwhelmingly that the team capable of keeping him healthy — or of convincing Ohtani that they’d keep him healthy — would win out. Travis went on to use a metric, Roster Resource’s “Roster Effect” rating, to get a sense of which team that might be. The Brewers, Cubs, Pirates, and Tigers performed best by that measure.

Of course, that’s just one way of answering the question. Health is a tough thing to nail down. To figure out which team is capable of keeping Ohtani the healthiest, it’s worth considering the possible implications of health in baseball. Roster Effect, for example, considers the quality of the player and seems to be asking: which rosters were affected the most by poor health? That’s one way of approaching it. Let’s try a few others and see who comes out on top.

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The other day, FanGraphs alum and MLB.com stalwart Mike Petriello looked at possible fits for Mike Moustakas. This author agrees with many of the potential landing spots.

Petriello boiled down the list to nine teams that could use Moustakas:

Giants
Pirates
Mets
Cardinals
Angels
Yankees
Royals
Phillies
Braves

Due either to payroll considerations (the Pirates) or their projected finish in 2018 (the Braves, Phillies, and Royals), a number of the clubs here might appear to be unlikely candidates to court Moustakas, although I argued on Monday that at least one of those teams ought to consider signing Moustakas.

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