Unless you make it a habit to read FanGraphs only on Fridays (and if you do, what’s up with that?), you’ve likely read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series. So you know the score. We’re taking a look at team financial health as we head into the 2013 season. You also the know which teams are in the top tier, because you’re smart and can figure that out for yourself. But we’ve come this far, so we’re going to complete the exercise. We’re nothing if not true to our word.

The top tier teams, in alphabetical order by team name.

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Is a pop-up the same as a strikeout? No, of course not, by definition they are very different things. A pop-up requires contact, whereas a strikeout requires no contact, or at least very little contact, or a two-strike foul bunt. Pop-ups and strikeouts look nothing alike, to the eye. However, to the numbers, pop-ups and strikeouts look very much alike. On one level they are very different, and on another level they are very similar.

A few weeks ago, Dave asked whether infield flies should be included in FIP. The idea is that IFFBs have little to do with defensive skill, and pop-ups are effectively strikeouts, in terms of plate-appearance result. Pop-ups don’t advance runners, and pop-ups are almost always outs. They’re not literally always outs, but then, a batter can reach on a strikeout if the ball gets away from the catcher. So while pop-ups lead to outs slightly less often, they’re still just about automatic.

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I was just down in Arizona with a lot of the rest of the FanGraphs crew, and as such, I found myself involved in a number of baseball conversations, with people from the crew and with others as well. One of the many conversations turned to Jesus Montero as a defensive catcher. One person who covers baseball on a daily basis for a newspaper couldn’t believe that Montero managed to throw out Mike Trout as a would-be base-stealer. One respected baseball talent evaluator referred to Montero as perhaps the very worst defensive catcher in the majors. Immediately, I knew this would be something worth exploring in greater depth.

The newspaper guy actually made the mistake of saying Montero threw Trout out twice. That didn’t happen, but it did happen once; Miguel Olivo managed to throw Trout out twice. One other time, Trout stole successfully off Montero, meaning for the season Trout was 1-for-2 with Montero behind the plate. He was nabbed on October 3, in the final game of the regular season.

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Due to an unfortunate data error, the numbers in this story did not include park factors upon publication. We have updated the data to include the park factors, and the data you see below is now correct. We apologize for the mistake.

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What’s all this, then? For an explanation of this series, please read the introductory post. As noted in that introduction, the data is a hybrid projection of the ZIPS and Steamer systems with playing time determined through depth charts created by our team of authors. The rankings are based on aggregate projected WAR for each team at a given position.

Third base is a little deeper than it used to be, and only a handful of teams have little to no hope of being productive at the position. The devil is in the details at the hot corner, as there has been very little turnover among the top 20 teams here. Teams that have quality reserves or prospects coming up the pipeline see a bump here, as we’re looking holistically at the position and not just at the nominal starter. This is an important consideration across the diamond, but particularly so at third given how physically demanding the position is. Only six third basemen suited up in 150 or more games last year. Compare that to 13 at second base and 11 at first base and shortstop, and it becomes clear that depth is important at third base. Unfortunately, most teams don’t have adequate depth, hence the bump for the teams that do.

Let’s get on to the rankings!

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Previously, it was Oliver Perez. Earlier in his career, Oliver Perez was a good major-league pitcher. Then he was a worse major-league pitcher, then he was a bad major-league pitcher, then he was nothing, thought to be hopeless. Perez resurfaced in winter ball, allegedly reaching his old velocity levels as a reliever. The Mariners gave him a chance, and he worked his way into a big-league bullpen. Perez will be back in that bullpen in 2013, armed with a rich new contract, and just like that, Oliver Perez has been resurrected.

Now we have the case of Scott Kazmir. Earlier in his career, Kazmir was a good major-league pitcher. Then he was a worse major-league pitcher, then he was a bad major-league pitcher, then he was nothing, thought to be hopeless. Kazmir was awful the last time he pitched in affiliated ball, and he wasn’t particularly good with the independent Sugar Land Skeeters. Kazmir resurfaced in winter ball, allegedly reaching his old velocity levels as a starter. The Indians gave him a contract, and right now Kazmir is on his way to making the starting rotation out of camp.

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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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