From 2012 through 2016, Jonathan Lucroy was one of the best catchers in baseball. His 19 WAR during that time was second only to Buster Posey, and that figure likely underrates Lucroy, as his framing numbers made him even more valuable; Baseball Prospectus’ catcher defensive metrics have him being worth 85.5 framing runs over that span, though his value declined precipitously beginning in 2015. Since leaving the Brewers (and turning 30 years old), Lucroy has not been the same player on offense or defense. In 2017, he put up an 81 wRC+ and had to settle for a one-year, $6.5 million contract with the A’s. Last year, Lucroy got worse at the plate, posting a 70 wRC+, and now he has had to settle for a one-year deal worth $3.35 million with the Angels.
In their deal, the Angels are paying Lucroy like a player who put up 1.1 WAR in 2017 and followed it with 0.6 WAR last season. The projections still hold out a bit more hope that the 4.6 WAR season from 2016, and the very good seasons preceding it, are not a too-distant memory. Below is a the breakdown of Lucroy in his 20s and 30s, and his projection for next season.
The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2019 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.
We continue our quick look at the 14 players on this year’s Hall of Fame ballot who are certain to fall below the 5% threshold — with most of them being shut out entirely — but are worth remembering just the same.
A valuable player who started for five playoff teams, Polanco didn’t pack much punch with his contact-oriented approach at the plate, but he was quite a glove whiz, rangy and sure-handed, at home at both second base and third. In fact, he was just the second player to win Gold Gloves at multiple positions (after Darin Erstad), and his 136 career fielding runs ranks 31st among all infielders.
Born on October 10, 1975 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Polanco came to the U.S. on a student visa, attending Miami Dade Community College. Drafted by the Cardinals in the 19th round in 1994, he began his minor league career as a shortstop, and though he spent all of 1996 and ’97 as a second baseman, played more short than second during his 45-game callup in 1998. He spent most of his five-season tenure in St. Louis as a utilityman, earning an increasing amount of playing time as his offense improved. In 2000, he hit .316/.347/.418 in 350 PA, while in 2001 he upped his playing time to 610 PA while batting .307/.342/.383; he was a combined 23 runs above average at third base (his primary position), second and short, boosting his WAR to 4.5. The Cardinals made the playoffs in both of those seasons.
In 2018, I once again had the pleasure of interviewing hundreds of people within baseball. Many of their words were shared in my Sunday Notes column, while others came courtesy of the FanGraphs Q&A series, the Learning and Developing a Pitch series, the Manager’s Perspective series, and a smattering of feature stories. Here is a selection of the best quotes from this year’s conversations.
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“My slider will come out and it will be spinning, spinning, spinning, and then as soon as it catches, it picks up speed and shoots the other way. Whoosh! It’s like when you bowl. You throw the ball, and then as soon as it catches, it shoots with more speed and power. Right? “ — Sergio Romo, Tampa Bay Rays pitcher, January 2018
“One of the biggest lessons we learn is that iron sharpens iron. That is 100% how we try to do things with the Rockies — hiring people that are smarter than we are, and more skilled, and have different skills that can complement, and train people to be better at their jobs than I am at my job. That’s how you advance an organization.” — Jeff Bridich, Colorado Rockies GM, January 2018
“We could split hairs and say, ‘Hey, you’re playing in front of a thousand drunk Australians instead of 40,000 drunk Bostonians, and you’re living with a host family instead of at a five-star hotel.’ But The Show is The Show, and in Australia the ABL is The Show.” — Lars Anderson, baseball nomad, January 2018
“Baseball is heaven. Until our closer blows the game.” — Michael Hill, Miami Marlins president of baseball operations, January 2018Read the rest of this entry »
A couple days ago, the Angels signed Matt Harvey for a year and $11 million, with a small potential purse of incentives. And now today, the Angels have signed Trevor Cahill for a year and $9 million, with a smaller potential purse of incentives. Cahill is just a year older than Harvey is, and he’s coming off a superior season. But where Harvey threw 155 innings, Cahill threw just 110. And so Harvey’s contract is a little bit better.
As many of you already know, the main issue with Cahill is durability. Over the course of his career, he’s been on the disabled list eight separate times, and he hasn’t thrown 150 major-league innings since 2012. He hasn’t thrown 150 overall innings since 2013. The last two seasons alone, Cahill has dealt with (1) a strained lower back, (2) a strained right shoulder, (3) a right shoulder impingement, (4) a right elbow impingement, (5) a strained right Achilles, and (6) upper back discomfort. Cahill has hardly been the picture of health. It’s why he didn’t receive a multi-year commitment.
And yet, Cahill is only 30. He hasn’t experienced any velocity loss, and he actually throws harder now than he did when he was younger. And it might surprise you to learn that, for all of Cahill’s health issues, he’s never had surgery. Not that I could find a record of, anyway. He’s never had surgery on his shoulder. He’s never had surgery on his elbow. He’s never had surgery on his knee or his hip or his anything else. In this way, Cahill is different from Harvey. And the upside here is easy to spot.
I don’t think I need to tell you what Matt Harvey was. Earlier, in his prime, he was a bona fide celebrity, someone whose presence stretched well beyond just his excellent pitching. And, of course, that pitching was excellent. Harvey blossomed as one of baseball’s best starters, and he did so on New York’s massive stage. Given that Harvey is and has been a Scott Boras client, one could envision an enormous free-agent contract down the line. The target would’ve been this very offseason. Boras would’ve extolled Harvey’s many virtues using language only Boras could design.
At this writing, Harvey is 29 years old. Indeed, he found himself represented by Boras on the free-agent market. And he’s agreed to a one-year contract with the Angels, worth at least $11 million, and at most $14 million. In the same market, Nathan Eovaldi was guaranteed $68 million. J.A. Happ was guaranteed $34 million, and Lance Lynn was guaranteed $30 million. Garrett Richards was guaranteed $15.5 million, and he won’t pitch at all next year. Kurt Suzuki was guaranteed $10 million. Jesse Chavez was guaranteed $8 million.
This wasn’t the free agency Harvey or Boras imagined. There are reasons for that. You can squint and still see a similar pitcher. But the years, I’m afraid, have taken their toll.
The major-league phase of Thursday’s Rule 5 Draft began with its annual roll call of clubs confirming the number of players currently on their 40-man rosters and ended with a total of 14 players being added to new big-league clubs. Dan Szymborski offered ZiPS projections here for the players taken earlier today. Below are brief scouting reports on the players selected, with some notes provided by Kiley McDaniel.
But, first: Our annual refresher on the Rule 5 Draft’s complex rules. Players who signed their first pro contract at age 18 or younger are eligible for selection after five years of minor-league service if their parent club has not yet added them to the team’s 40-man roster. For players who signed at age 19 or older, the timeline is four years. Teams with the worst win/loss record from the previous season pick first, and those that select a player must not only (a) pay said player’s former club $100,000, but also (b) keep the player on their 25-man active roster throughout the entirety of the following season (with a couple of exceptions, mostly involving the disabled list). If a selected player doesn’t make his new team’s active roster, he is offered back to his former team for half of the initial fee. After the player’s first year on the roster, he can be optioned back to the minor leagues.
These rules typically limit the talent pool to middle-relief prospects or position players with one-dimensional skillsets, though sometimes it involves more talented prospects who aren’t remotely ready for the majors. This creates an environment where selections are made based more on fit and team need than just talent, but teams find solid big-league role players in the Rule 5 every year and occasionally scoop up an eventual star. Let’s dive into the scouting reports on this year’s group.
First Round
1. Baltimore Orioles Richie Martin, SS (from A’s) – Martin was a 2015 first rounder out of the University of Florida, drafted as an athletic shortstop with some pop who was still raw as a baseball player. Martin had really struggled to hit in pro ball until 2018, when he repeated Double-A and slashed .300/.368/.439.
He has average raw power but hits the ball on the ground too often to get to any of it in games. Houston has been adept at altering their players’ swings, so perhaps the new Orioles regime can coax more in-game pop from Martin, who is a perfectly fine defensive shortstop. He should compete with incumbent Orioles Breyvic Valera and Jonathan Villar, as well as fellow Rule 5 acquisition Drew Jackson, for middle infield playing time. But unless there’s a significant swing change here, Martin really only projects as a middle infield utility man.
2. Kansas City Royals Sam McWilliams, RHP (from Rays) – McWilliams was an overslot eighth rounder in 2014 and was traded from Philadelphia to Arizona for Jeremy Hellickson in the fall of 2015. He was then sent from Arizona to Tampa Bay as one of the players to be named later in the three-team trade that sent Steven Souza to Arizona. McWilliams is pretty raw for a 23-year-old. He spent two years in the Midwest League and posted a 5.02 ERA at Double-A when the Rays pushed him there after the trade.
He has a big fastball, sitting mostly 93-94 but topping out at 97. He’ll flash an occasional plus slider but it’s a rather inconsistent pitch. The industry thought McWilliams had a chance to grow into a backend rotation arm because his stuff is quite good, but he has a much better chance of sticking as a reliever right now.
3. Chicago White Sox (Traded to Rangers) Jordan Romano, RHP (from Blue Jays) – Romano is a 25-year-old righty who spent 2018 at Double-A. He’s a strike-throwing righty with a fastball in the 91-93 range and he has an average slider and changeup, both of which reside in the 80-84 range. His command is advanced enough that both of his secondaries play up a little bit. He likely profiles as a fifth starter or rotation depth, but the Rangers current pitching situation is quite precarious and Romano may just end up sticking around to eat innings with the hope that he sticks as a backend starter or swingman when they’re competitive once again.
4. Miami Marlins Riley Ferrell, RHP (from Astros)- Ferrell was a dominant college closer at TCU and was consistently 93-97 with a plus slider there. He continued to pitch well in pro ball until a shoulder aneurysm derailed his 2016 season. Ferrell needed surgery that transplanted a vein from his groin into his shoulder in order to repair it, and the industry worried at the time that the injury threatened his career. His stuff is back and Ferrell is at least a big league ready middle reliever with a chance to be a set-up man.
5. Detroit Tigers Reed Garrett, RHP (from Rangers)
Garrett’s velo spiked when he moved to the bullpen in 2017 and he now sits in the mid-90s, touches 99 and has two good breaking balls, including a curveball that has a plus-plus spin rate. He also has an average changeup. He’s a fair bet to carve out a bullpen role on a rebuilding Tigers team.
6. San Diego Padres
No Pick (full 40-man)
7. Cincinnati Reds Connor Joe, 3B (from Dodgers) – The Reds will be Joe’s fourth team in two years as he has been shuttled around from Pittsburgh (which drafted him) to Atlanta (for Sean Rodriguez) to the Dodgers (for cash) during that time. Now 26, Joe spent 2018 split between Double and Triple-A. He’s a swing changer who began lifting the ball more once he joined Los Angeles. Joe is limited on defense to first and third base, and he’s not very good at third. He has seen a little bit of time in the outfield corners and realistically projects as a four-corners bench bat who provides patience and newfound in-game pop.
8. Texas Rangers (Traded to Royals) Chris Ellis, RHP (from Cardinals)- Ellis, 26, spent 2018 split between Double and Triple-A. One could argue he has simply been lost amid St. Louis’ surfeit of upper-level pitching but his stuff — a low-90s sinker up to 94 and an average slider — did not compel us to include him in our Cardinals farm system write up. The Royals took Brad Keller, who has a similar kind of repertoire but better pure stuff, and got more out of him than I anticipated, so perhaps that will happen with Ellis.
9. San Francisco Giants Travis Bergen, LHP (from Blue Jays)- Bergen looked like a lefty specialist in college but the Blue Jays have normalized the way he strides toward home, and his delivery has become more platoon-neutral in pro ball. He has a fringy, low-90s fastball but has two good secondaries in his upper-70s curveball and tumbling mid-80s change. So long as he pitches heavily off of those two offerings, he could lock down a bullpen role.
10. Toronto Blue Jays Elvis Luciano, RHP (from Royals)- Luciano turns 19 in February and was the youngest player selected in the Rule 5 by a pretty wide margin. He was acquired by Kansas City in the trade that sent Jon Jay to Arizona. Though he’ll touch 96, Luciano’s fastball sits in the 90-94 range and he has scattershot command of it, especially late in starts. His frame is less projectable than the typical teenager so there may not be much more velo coming as he ages, but he has arm strength and an above-average breaking ball, so there’s a chance he makes the Jays roster in a relief role. He has no. 4 starter upside if his below-average changeup and command progress. If he makes the opening day roster, he’ll be the first player born in the 2000s to play in the big leagues.
11. New York Mets Kyle Dowdy, RHP (from Indians)
Dowdy’s nomadic college career took him from Hawaii to Orange Coast College and finally to Houston, where he redshirted for a year due to injury. He was drafted by Detroit and then included as a throw-in in the Leonys Martin trade to Cleveland. He’s a reliever with a four-pitch mix headlined by an above-average curveball that pairs pretty well with a fastball that lives in the top part of the strike zone but doesn’t really spin. He also has a mid-80s slider and changeup that are fringy and exist to give hitters a little different look. He could stick in the Mets bullpen.
12. Minnesota Twins
No Pick (full 40-man)
13. Philadelphia Phillies (Traded to Orioles) Drew Jackson, SS (from Dodgers)- Jackson is a plus runner with a plus-plus arm and average defensive hands and actions at shortstop. He’s not a great hitter but the Dodgers were at least able to cleanse Jackson of the Stanford swing and incorporate more lift into his cut. He had a 55% ground ball rate with Seattle in 2016 but that mark was 40% with Los Angeles last year. He also started seeing reps in center field last season. He projects as a multi-positional utility man.
14. Los Angeles Angels
No Pick (team passed)
15. Arizona Diamondbacks Nick Green, RHP (from Yankees)- Green has the highest present ranking on The Board as a 45 FV, and we think he’s a near-ready backend starter. Arizona lacks pitching depth, so Green has a pretty solid chance to make the club out of spring training. He induces a lot of ground balls (65% GB% in 2018) with a low-90s sinker and also has a plus curveball.
16. Washington Nationals
No Pick (team passed)
17. Pittsburgh Pirates
No Pick (team passed)
18. St. Louis Cardinals
No Pick (full 40-man)
19. Seattle Mariners Brandon Brennan, RHP (from Rockies)- Brennan is a 27-year-old reliever with a mid-90s sinker that will touch 97. He has an average slider that relies heavily on it’s velocity more than movement to be effective. The real bat-misser here is the changeup, which has more than 10 mph of separation from Brennan’s fastball and dying fade.
20. Atlanta Braves
No Pick (team passed)
21. Tampa Bay Rays
No Pick (full 40-man)
22. Colorado Rockies
No Pick (team passed)
23. Cleveland Indians
No Pick (team passed)
24. Los Angeles Dodgers
No Pick (full 40-man)
25. Chicago Cubs
No Pick (team passed)
26. Milwaukee Brewers
No Pick (team passed)
27. Oakland Athletics
No Pick (team passed)
28. New York Yankees
No Pick (full 40-man)
29. Houston Astros
No Pick (team passed)
30. Boston Red Sox
No Pick (team passed)
Second Round
San Francisco Giants Drew Ferguson, OF- Ferguson is a hitterish tweener outfielder with a good combination of bat-to-ball skills and plate discipline. He has a very short, compact stroke that enables him to punch lines drives to his pull side and he’s tough to beat with velocity. Ferguson doesn’t really run well enough to play center field and lacks the power for a corner, so his likely ceiling is that of a bench outfielder.
As reported by Yahoo! Sports’ Jeff Passan, the Angels have agreed to a one-year contract with free agent first baseman Justin Bour, pending the usual physical. Financial terms have not yet been disclosed.
The particulars of the deal are likely the least important part of the signing. While certain teams would no doubt accept the dare, it’s very difficult to fumble too badly on any one-year contract that doesn’t have enough absurdity to fill…uh…some kind of scientific vial or flask that can hold abstract ideas? Back to the drawing board with that one. In most situations, the money isn’t enough to matter in the big picture, and if it doesn’t work out, you don’t have to cancel it before next year like it’s some health magazine you subscribed to as part of a New Year’s resolution because you thought you were actually going to go to the gym.
Bour has seen his value plummet at a rate usually associated with a position player nearing 40 or a pitcher who has surgery for a mystery shoulder ailment. A year ago, he was coming off of a .289/.366/.536, 25 home run, 143 OPS+ season. Now that wasn’t over a full season’s play (an oblique injury cost him about a month of the season), but it was still enough for 2.4 WAR over 108 games for the Marlins. An average player has real value and Bour came with the feature most prized by baseball executives: he was cost-controlled.
After receiving $3.4 million (instead of the Marlins’ preferred $3.0 million) in arbitration, Bour looked to have at least some trade value, given that he could not become a free agent until after the 2020 season. First baseman, especially middling ones, are at a historical low point in terms of their value, but the Marlins would have likely received something for Bour had they traded him along with the entire outfield after the 2017 season.
2018 ended up being a more-or-less healthy season for Bour, but also one of many steps backwards. While he was more selective at the plate – swinging at fewer pitches, which resulted in a career-high 73 walks – he saw worse results when actually hitting the ball. Walks are nice and all, but one of the key benefits of plate discipline is to that on average you’re hitting more advantageous balls and, at least theoretically, doing more with those pitches. Bour’s exit velocity was the worst of his career; Statcast’s xSLG measure thought his profile should have only resulted in a .419 SLG, rather than his anemic .404. Nor does ZiPS provide any solace, seeing his hit profile as only deserving of a .281 BABIP versus his .270 actual (down from a .310 zBABIP in 2017 vs. his .322 actual).
Further complicating Bour’s value is the fact he has fairly steep platoon splits and only has a .220/.303/.335 slash in the majors against left-handed pitching. Philosophically, one would prefer an average player to have exploitable platoon splits in this matter, but in practice, it’s generally difficult to pull off a true first baseman platoon in an age of 13-man pitching staffs and in this case, the first baseman not having any positional flexibility otherwise.
But strangely enough, the Angels may be the best fit for Bour, assuming they could not land a better option. Albert Pujols is now a year past 600 homers (and unlikely to reach 700) and collected his 3000th hit. Now, the celebratory reasons for continuing to play him full-time are as weak as the performance-based ones. After number 3000, the Angels showed no real inclination to begin reducing Pujols’ playing time; he played in 117 of the team’s 133 games (all starts) by the time bone spurs ended his season.
With a new manager in Brad Ausmus, this could finally change. Even though I think the team should be at the point of simply releasing the future Hall of Famer, I’m not sure the team is actually there yet, and a time share in which Bour is the primary first baseman and Pujols plays against occasional tough lefties — even with me being far from convinced that this version of Pujols is any more valuable against southpaws — is better than simply letting Pujols have the job for yet another year. There’s a non-zero chance that Bour is just there to be a pinch-hitter for Pujols or Ohtani, but I can’t imagine he would sign this early in the offseason – at a time in his career where he still has a good shot at re-establishing some value – if he believed he would just be used as a pinch-hitter.
This Bouring little move won’t get the Angels to the playoffs, but it can cheaply shore up one of their weak spots in the lineup, and hopefully also demonstrate a real change in an organization that hasn’t always been as merciless at dealing with their weaknesses as they should have been. The Angels still have the cash after this move to get a difference-maker.
Does Shohei Ohtani’s success portend more two-way players in MLB? Opinions vary, albeit with the bears clearly outnumbering the bulls — at least in terms of expected production. While a certain amount of copy-catting seems inevitable, the presumptive American League rookie of the year paired a .925 OPS with a 3.31 ERA and a 10.95 strikeout rate. He was dominant on both sides of the ball in a way that’s unlikely to be replicated by anyone other than himself.
A pair of former two-way players I spoke to this season are among the skeptics. Which isn’t to say they hate the idea. Nor do they feel the Brendan McKays of the world don’t deserve every opportunity to show they can follow in Ohtani’s footsteps (hopefully without elbow surgery being part of the equation).
Steven Brault created a bit of a buzz by going his first 33 big-league plate appearances without striking out. On the heels of that eye-opening accomplishment, I asked the Pittsburgh Pirates left-hander for his opinion on why a player should, and shouldn’t, be able to play both ways at the highest level.
“The reason you should is that you’re good enough,” responded Brault, who’d excelled as a two-way player at Division II Regis University. “If you’re a good enough hitter, and a good enough pitcher, it stands to reason that your team would want you to do both. The reason you shouldn’t is that you can’t play every day. That’s been the case with Ohtani. On the days he pitched he didn’t hit, and on the day before he didn’t hit. Same for the day after. They had to make sure his body was ready to pitch. Read the rest of this entry »
This past Sunday’s notes column led with Scott Radinsky’s evolution as a pitching coach. Admittedly old-school when he first started out, the former big-league left-hander has since incorporated a heavy dose of new-age into his approach. TrackMan and the Angels’ analytics team were his allies as he served as Anaheim’s bullpen coach each of the past three seasons.
Today we’ll hear from Radinsky on several of the team’s relievers going forward. He won’t be with them — along with a few other Angels coaches, he won’t be returning — but he certainly knows each of them well. Having been hands-on with their development — particularly the youngsters of the bunch — he sees plenty of blue skies ahead for the club’s bullpen.
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Radinsky onHansel Robles: “Sometimes it takes awhile for a guy to buy in to what we’re sharing with them, but once he does, he can make real strides. It’s not the Bible, but it is well-thought-out information. This isn’t like back in the day when a pitching coach was on his own island and relying on the naked eye. It’s valuable data that is given to us as coaches, and it’s our job to translate it and pass it along to the players. We can use it to make them better.
“We had guys come [to the Angels] and buy in. They would realize, ‘Damn, man.’ Hansel Robles, from the Mets. This guy was headstrong about using his fastball. His fastball is a great pitch — he can really backspin it at the top of the zone — but our encouragement was, ‘When the catcher puts down slider, you don’t always have to shake. Utilize the thing.’ And do you know what? The more he used it, the better it got. Not only that, the more respect his fastball got. The next thing you know, he became more of a complete pitcher, and we were able to use him in higher-leverage situations.
Scott Radinsky came into coaching with an old-school approach. That was to be expected. His playing career spanned the 1986-2001 seasons, and he honed his craft under the likes of Moe Drabowsky, who came of age in the Eisenhower era. Analytics were in their infancy. Radinsky was hired by the Indians in 2005 — initially to tutor pitchers in the minors — on the strength of his nuts-and-bolts knowledge and his communication skills.
The 50-year-old went on to serve as Cleveland’s bullpen coach in 2010-2011, and then as their pitching coach in 2012. From there he moved on to the Dodgers organization, and he spent the last two years as the bullpen coach in Anaheim. Along the way, he’s learned to embrace analytics.
“The information wasn’t as eye-opening to me when I was first getting exposed to it,” admitted Radinsky, who now monitors TrackMan data throughout the season. “I wasn’t resistant; it just didn’t make complete sense to me. But over the years, because of how much better it’s being explained — and a lot of it seems more quantifiable — it makes perfect sense. I’ve completely bought in, which makes it easier for me to sell something to a player.”
Radinsky gave examples of that salesmanship — we’ll share specifics in the coming week — including convincing Blake Parker to up his breaking ball usage, and getting Justin Anderson to better utilize his fastball. In each case, the data provided by Anaheim’s analytics department was delivered to Radinsky in “an awesome” manner. Just as importantly, it didn’t arrive heavy-handed. Read the rest of this entry »
