When I originally published my findings around CLIFFORD — my metric for predicting players that are at a higher risk of experiencing a collapse in their wOBA (defined as a drop of at least .30 points of wOBA) — I presented a limited number of players for 2013. The list only included six players that qualified under the criteria. As a reminder, players that experienced a significant decline in three out of four metrics (Z-Contact%, FA%, UBR, Spd) were tagged as CLIFFORD candidates. These players had 3.4 times the odds of collapse (53% versus 25% for non-CLIFFORD players).

The single largest driver of collapse was change in Z-Contact% — the percent of pitches in the strike zone that a batter swings and makes contact with. Hitters who saw their Z-Contact% decline by at least 1.4% had 1.68 times the odds of collapsing than those that did not experience such a decline. Since there were far more players that qualified with their Z-Contact% than the full CLIFFORD criteria I thought it would be helpful to share that data with everyone.

Behold!

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When’s the last time you looked up a player’s pre-arbitration salary figures? Is the answer “never”? The answer is probably “never”. Before a player is arbitration-eligible, he makes almost nothing, sticking in the realm of six figures. We think about salaries when salaries get bigger, because that’s when they start to matter for real. We almost never end up talking about a pre-arbitration contract, so it should tell you something that we’re talking about one now.

Presumably, you’ve heard. Over the weekend, it was announced that Mike Trout had his contract renewed for 2013. After making the minimum in 2012, Trout had his salary bumped all the way up to $510,000 for 2013, just $20,000 above the new league minimum. All Trout was a year ago was the best player in the world, and for all we know the universe, and the fact he didn’t get a bigger raise has drawn a statement from his agent:

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Craig Calcaterra made me do something I have not done for a long time yesterday: think about Deion Sanders. Calcaterra’s post is worth reading in itself (at least click the link to see an incredibly time-bound photograph), as it is reflection on Buster Olney’s (annual) reflection (how meta!) on some interaction Olney had with Deion Sanders years ago as a rookie reporter. Okay, that sounds equal parts boring and confusing, but Craig makes it funny, at least to me. Leaving aside the mystery of why Olney makes this his annual Spring Training Kickoff Tradition and what it is supposed to mean (nothing against Olney; like Craig, I am simply baffled by the whole thing): man, it has been a long time since I’ve thought about Deion Sanders, especially Deion Sanders the baseball player.

My memories of that are pretty hazy, so others can recall various cool, fun, or just ridiculous Deion Sanders stories. I do not want to take that approach and end up with a car wreck of a post. Sanders had his moments on the diamond, and the whole part-time football/baseball thing is itself a curious artifact of the past. (The latter is worth a long post in its own right. “Well, sure, I could make millions guaranteed, but I think I’d rather spend part of the year doing something far more dangerous for non-guaranteed money.”) Leaving all of that aside, I was struck by just how unusual, especially these days, Sanders combination of skills was. What players recently have had seasons like Neon Deion at his best?

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The Angels have spent the last few off-seasons pursuing superstars and signin some of them, but even with the wallet open, they cannot fill every position in that manner. Prior to the 2011 season, one of their primary targets was Adrian Beltre, who ended up going to Texas. The Angels got revenge by taking C.J. Wilson and Josh Hamilton away, but I would imagine the Rangers are not regretting the signing of Beltre one bit, as he has spent his post-Seattle years building a potential Hall of Fame resume.

The Angels would love to have Beltre, too, but they have not exactly been hurting at third base. Alberto Callaspo, while not a Beltre-level superstar, has been pretty good for them the last couple of years. Callaspo was going into his last year of arbitration, but the team and player instead agreed on on a two-year deal for just under $9 million. The deal clearly fills a need for the Angels. Of more interest is how Callaspo demonstrates how it can take a little while for a player to get slotted into the right position in the field and can become a usable hitter despite only having one good skill at the plate.

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For at least three franchises, this offseason could have taken a very different path. When Justin Upton vetoed a trade to the Mariners, he altered the direction of Seattle, Arizona and Atlanta, at the very least. Such negated transactions make for fascinating what-if’s, and now that we are edging into the time of year when all we will read is “best shape of my career” posts, I thought we could step back and take a look at some of these.

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Only 27 players have hit 100 or more homers and stolen 400 or more bases in their career. Eleven of them are in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and four others can reasonably be expected to reach Cooperstown. But there are some names on the list you wouldn’t pull off the top of your head. Tommy Harper? Yep, he’s one of those names. He is also a possessor of that rare feat: the Random Career Year.

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Episode 291
FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron continues, in 2013, to analyze as much baseball as he did in 2012 — which is to say, all of it. In what follows, specifically, he analyzes the part of baseball concerning the recent signing by Texas of Lance Berkman. Also: center field in Texas and who’s playing it. Also-also: how Mike Trout is projected to have an eight-win season.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 42 min play time.)

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Stuff tends to fall by the wayside during the holidays, even for baseball blogs. Still, Hideki “Godzilla” Matsui’s retirement deserves a some attention. Even for Christmas Week, it seemed to pass quietly. So, about two weeks after the fact, here are some briefs thoughts on Matsui’s MLB career and some of his biggest moments at the plate.

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Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections, which have typically appeared in the pages of Baseball Think Factory, are being released at FanGraphs this year. Below are the projections for the Los Angeles Angels of You-Know-Where. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other 2013 Projections: Astros / Athletics / Cubs / Giants / Nationals / Phillies / Rangers.

Batters
It’s impossible to ignore the very optimistic projection for 2012’s Champion of WAR, Mike Trout — so, let’s not. While an eight-win season is certainly aggressive so far as a forecast is concerned — if for no other reason than only two or three players surpass the eight-win threshold per year — it’s also the case that ZiPS is being at least somewhat conservative with regard to Trout, forecasting him to hit fewer home runs, steal fewer bases, post a considerably lower BABIP, and save fewer runs afield in 2013 than in 2012.

Otherwise, the Angels are almost uniformly above average: with the exception of Mark Trumbo, every starter is projected to post a (rounded) WAR of 3.0 or greater.

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Armed with a new measure for offensive volatility (VOL), I wanted to revisit research I conducted  last year about the value of a consistent offense.

In general, the literature has suggested if you’re comparing two similar offenses, the more consistent offense is preferable throughout the season. The reason has to do with the potential advantages a team can gain when they don’t “waste runs” in blow-out victories. The more evenly a team can distribute their runs, the better than chances of winning more games.

I decided to take my new volatility (VOL) metric and apply it to team-level offense to see if it conformed to this general consensus*.

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