Episode 797
The White Sox recently invited media to attend a hitting camp at their complex in Glendale, at which camp lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen — himself a well-regarded member of the media — observed Jake Burger, Yoan Moncada, and (in particular) Luis Robert all exhibiting impressive power on contact. Longenhagen waxes poetic on Robert’s talents in this edition of the program while also addressing the interesting case of Angels catching prospect Taylor Ward and the ascent of new Pirates prospect Colin Moran.
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I noticed an underlying theme in both pieces I’ve written since coming back, along with many others written this offseason at FanGraphs. If you are a fan of a small- or medium-market team that will never spend to the luxury-tax line and thus always be at a disadvantage, do you want your team to try to always be .500 or better, or do you want them push all the chips in the middle for a smaller competitive window? In my stats vs. scouting article I referenced a progressive vs. traditional divide, which was broadly defined by design, but there are often noticeable differences in team-building strategies from the two overarching philosophies, which I will again illustrate broadly to show the two contrasting viewpoints.
The traditional clubs tend favor prospects with pedigree (bonus or draft position, mostly), with big tools/upside and the process of team-building is often to not push the chips into the middle (spending in free agency, trading prospects) until the core talents (best prospects and young MLB assets) have arrived in the big leagues and have established themselves. When that window opens, you do whatever you can afford to do within reason to make those 3-5 years the best you can and, in practice, it’s usually 2-3 years of a peak, often followed directly by a tear-down rebuild. The Royals appear to have just passed the peak stage of this plan, the Braves hope their core is established in 2019 and the Padres may be just behind the Braves (you could also argue the old-school Marlins have done this multiple times and are about to try again now).
On the progressive side, you have a more conservative, corporate approach where the club’s goal is to almost always have a 78-92 win team entering Spring Training, with a chance to make the playoffs every year, never with a bottom-ten ranked farm system, so they are flexible and can go where the breaks lead them. The valuation techniques emphasize the analytic more often, which can sometimes seem superior and sometimes seem foolish, depending on the execution. When a rare group of talent and a potential World Series contender emerges, the progressive team will push some chips in depending on how big the payroll is. The Rays have a bottom-five payroll and can only cash in some chips without mortgaging multiple future years, whereas the Indians and Astros are higher up the food chain and can do a little more when the time comes, and have done just that.
What we just saw in Pittsburgh (and may see soon in Tampa Bay) is what happens when a very low-payroll team sees a dip coming (controllable talent becoming uncontrolled soon) and doesn’t think there’s a World Series contender core, so they slide down toward the bottom end of that win range so that in a couple years they can have a sustainable core with a chance to slide near the top of it, rather than just tread water. Ideally, you can slash payroll in the down years, then reinvest it in the competing years (the Rays has done this in the past) to match the competitive cycle and not waste free-agent money on veterans in years when they are less needed. You could argue many teams are in this bucket, with varying payroll/margin for error: the D’Backs, Brewers, Phillies, A’s and Twins, along with the aforementioned Rays, Pirates, Indians and Astros.
Eleven clubs were over $175 million in payroll for the 2017 season (Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Tigers, Giants, Nationals, Rangers, Orioles, Cubs, Angels), so let’s toss those teams out and ask fans of the other 19 clubs: if forced to pick one or the other, which of these overarching philosophies would you prefer to root for?
Earlier this week, I chatted wth Red Sox manager Alex Cora about the relative value of contact skills versus hunting pitches that you can drive. Not surprisingly, the 2017 American League batting champion’s name came up.
“People might be surprised by this, but Jose Altuve isn’t afraid to make adjustments even when he’s getting his hits,” said Cora, who was Houston’s bench coach last year. “When Jose is really, really, really good — because he’s good, always — his strike zone shrinks. He doesn’t chase his hits. Sometimes he’s getting his hits because he’s unreal with his hand-eye coordination — he gets hits on pitches that others don’t — but when he looks for good pitches he’s even better.”
Cora was a contact hitter during his playing days, and looking back, he wishes he’d have been more selective. Not only that, he wouldn’t have minded swinging and missing more often than he did.
“I had a conversation with Carlos Delgado about that,” Cora told me. “When you commit to swinging the bat — I’m talking about me — it often doesn’t matter where it is, you end up putting the ball in play. It’s better to swing hard and miss than it is to make soft contact for a 4-3.” Read the rest of this entry »
I suppose what I should say is that the Gerrit Cole trade has two perception problems. One, it’s clearly just a bad look for Pittsburgh. It’s generally a bad look when a major-league team has to trade away an established major-league talent, and with Cole and then Andrew McCutchen going out the door, it’s a twin reminder of how the Pirates failed to build on a tremendous run of success. I don’t know how much more the Pirates reasonably could’ve done, but there’s forever that lingering question regarding ownership’s commitment to winning. This is nothing new. It’s a reopening of wounds that never healed.
There’s also, though, another aspect. The Pirates have been heavily criticized for the return package they got for Cole from the Astros. I have no interest in trying to figure out whether the Pirates got the best package possible. I don’t know what else was truly on the table. Maybe more would’ve been available in July; maybe Cole’s stock would’ve dropped. All we know is what the Pirates got. My read of the consensus is that the Pirates didn’t get enough. But my read is also that the Astros have a little something to do with that. Specifically because the Astros are unusually good and deep.
As a small-market club, the Pirates have a limited margin for error to be competitive.
(Photo: Keith Allison)
If you’ve read any of the dozens of articles over the years trying to create a framework for player asset values (putting a dollar amount on a player’s value), you’re aware of the biggest weakness of this genre of article. Take a star player, run him through a marginal-value analysis, and you’ll be disappointed in what it says about his trade value. Before we jump into the Gerrit Cole and Andrew McCutchen trades, follow me down a thought-experiment rabbit hole.
Clayton Kershaw is the best pitcher in baseball and Steamer projects him as a six-win player next year. Using the roughly $9-10 million at which a win is currently valued on the open market, Kershaw is likely to produce something between $50 and $60 million of value next year; let’s call it $55 million. Would multiple teams bid that amount for his services on a one year deal? Probably yes, because there’s some surplus value at that salary for which the formula fails to account. It doesn’t consider, for example, either extreme payrolls (i.e. the Dodgers’ on one hand, the A’s on the other) or more critical spots on the win curve (moving an 87-win team to a 93-win team is worth far more revenue-wise than 65 to 71).
So what would the A’s bid? They had an $86 million payroll last year, and they obviously wouldn’t give nearly two-thirds of it to one player. Oakland’s value for Kershaw would likely be whatever the maximum is that they would pay for any player, but that number is much lower than what the Dodgers would spend, maybe $20 million. Granted, these are extreme cases, but it illustrates the limitations of using a one-size-fits-all dollar-per-win calculator in specific instances, even if it works fine in aggregate.
More Granular Valuation
I point all that out to illustrate the fact that players aren’t worth the same to every team. Kershaw’s value, on which we all basically agree, varies by $30-40 million from the A’s to the Dodgers on just a one-year deal. So wouldn’t it follow that the A’s and Dodgers would value other players differently, too?
Note that 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.
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Colin Moran, 3B (Profile) KATOH: 3.0 WAR KATOH+: 2.8 WAR
The Marlins made Moran the sixth-overall pick back in 2013, but his stock has cratered since. His bat never developed the way scouts thought it would, culminating in a paltry .259/.329/.368 line in 2016. He showed signs of life last year, however, hitting .308/.373/.543 in his second crack at Triple-A. For the first time as a professional, he hit for power — largely by upping his fly-ball rate by 10 percentage points — while simultaneously cutting eight points off of his strikeout rate.
After a couple false starts earlier in the week, the Houston Astros finally acquired right-hander Gerrit Cole from the Pittsburgh Pirates last night. As Travis Sawchik notes, the deal makes sense for both teams: the re-tooling Pirates get a collection of useful players, all within close proximity to the majors; the Astros, meanwhile, receive two years of a pitcher with a great arm and history of success. It’s mutually beneficial.
There’s a third party that might benefit from the deal, however, and that’s Cole himself. He might be worth more in Houston than anywhere else.
As a major leaguer, Cole has been either good or really good in each of his five seasons. There’s always this sense, however, that the former No. 1 pick could be great. Earlier this week, Travis Sawchik proposed one way that Cole could perhaps unlock the remaining upside in his 27-year-old arm –namely, by throwing his fastball less. In this way, his move to the Astros represent an opportunity: not only is Cole’s secondary stuff ready for more action, but his new team is uniquely suited to help this adjustment along.
The Pirates receive some useful assets for their ace, although no top prospect. (Photo: Jon Dawson)
Gerrit Cole was reportedly traded to the Astros earlier this week. I wrote about that hypothetical move in greater length here and why Cole might fit well with Houston.
I wrote earlier this offseason that the Pirates ought to trade Cole. The Pirates are re-tooling to some degree, while the Astros are a World Series contender that has been motivated to find a starting pitcher. It makes sense for both parties.
Just spoke with Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow, who acknowledged he’s “talked to several teams about possible trades” but said “at this point, nothing is imminent."
In any case, it sounds like a deal will get done eventually:
While a number of parties figure the Gerrit Cole-to-Astros deal will get done, multiple sources are cautioning that it's not there yet. Cole has not been informed of a trade to Houston. Generally, this sort of thing winds up with a deal being consummated. Just not at this point.
While something may or may not be imminent, such a trade would not be surprising: the Pirates have decided to retool at some level and Cole’s name has come up all offseason, first connected to the Yankees (though the Yankees were apparently unwilling to part with Gleyber Torres). The Astros are a top AL contender, the sort team looking to consolidate its position.
The possible return is not yet clear, though the Astros possess the sort of high-end prospects which the Pirates currently lack in their system. So, on the surface, this potential trade makes a lot of sense. A club headed for a rebuild sells two years of control of a top-of-the-rotation arm to a contender.
Smith allowed zero walks in 18.1 innings with Cleveland, the lowest number of walks possible.
(Photo: Erik Drost)
When we last saw him, Joe Smith was recording the final out Cleveland would induce in 2017, getting Aaron Judge to ground out. Earlier in the series, he entered Game 3 of the American League Division Series in the eighth inning. He struck out Aaron Judge. Then he struck out Gary Sanchez. He intentionally walked Didi Gregorius — the only batter of eight he allowed to reach base in the postseason — then got Starlin Castro to ground out. It was an excellent end to an excellent season.
Given recent events, it appears likely that Smith will return to the playoffs in 2018: last night, the defending champion Houston Astros officially announced a two-year deal with the right-hander worth $15 million.
