Take the best available player.

That refrain continues to be the draft philosophy espoused by all thirty major league organizations throughout each summer. It does not matter if the player is 18-years-old and in high school or if the player is 21-years-old and in college. Simply evaluate the talent on the field and draft accordingly. As Mariners’ scouting director Tom McNamara stated last June in preparation for the 2011 Draft:

“If we think the high school player is the best player at No. 2, we’ll take the high school guy. If we think it’s a college guy, we’ll take the college guy.” (source)

Seattle eventually selected collegiate left-hander Danny Hultzen with the second pick in the draft. In 2010, Seattle selected prep right-hander Taijuan Walker in the supplemental first round, which happened to be their first and only first-round pick of the draft. The year before, they had three first-round picks and selected one collegiate player and two high school players.

Echoing the best player available approach, the Mariners have not shown preference toward high school or college. In fact, the organization has drafted seven prep players and six collegiate players since the 2000 Draft. Essentially an even split.

All organizations are not like this, though. I gathered all of the first-round draft picks (including the first supplemental round) since the turn of the century, and noticed a few trends that have developed.

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He’s not an outfielder any more. He might not even be a cutoff man any more. He can’t play in the field, in other words. He hasn’t played pro baseball in over 300 days. Even if he makes the team, he’ll have to serve at least a fifty-game suspension before shaking off the game-speed rust. He turns 40 this year. So what is there to like about the Athletics’ signing Manny Ramirez to a Minor League deal?

Something. There is something to like about it.

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Leave it to Fangraphs readers to supply thought-provoking questions worthy of an entire post. After last week’s prospect chat, reader “GrittleTooth” belted a grand slam in the comments area with this gem:

I get that age is very important when evaluating prospects, but isn’t it also true that guys develop at different speeds and some ‘get it’ latter than others? What I’m getting at is that when you compare, for example, Collin Cowgill & Brett Lawrie the numbers they put up in the PCL last year were rather similar (.442 vs .460 wOBA over roughly same # PA’s in same league). Yes, Lawrie is 4 years younger, more highly regarded, and plays a different position. But how can you argue with the lesser prospect’s numbers?

Two-hundred words into a response, I realized this would make for an excellent post topic on age-versus-level and how that effects player projection at the major league level – especially given the statistics for both Brett Lawrie and Collin Cowgill were eerily similar in the same league.

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Spring Training is dangerously close these days, and once it starts, so do the position battles. All around Florida and Arizona you’ll see players fighting to win that last bullpen spot, platoon outfield job, rotation spot, etc. Many players who lose these battles will simply report back to Triple-A and work to get back to the show at some point, but others don’t have that option. They’re quite literally out of options.

To make a long story short, an out of options player is someone who has used up all three of their minor league options, meaning they were sent to the minors for at least 20 days in three different seasons. Once a player is out of options, he can’t be sent to the minors without first clearing waivers. As you probably know, a few of these guys will end up being traded over the next six weeks as their club looks to get some kind of return rather than lose them on the waiver wire for nothing.

MLB Trade Rumors put together a comprehensive list of this year’s out of options players, so let’s sort through the names to find some players that are useful, but just not to their current teams.

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Even before the theatrical release of Moneyball, Billy Beane’s actions as Athletics general manager were beginning to come under the microscope more often. This is just what happens to a general manager when his team doesn’t win, and Beane’s hasn’t reached the playoffs (nor sported a winning record) since the 2006 season. Now, the microscope falls upon his latest move: the signing of Cuban wunderkind Yoenis Cespedes to a four-year, $36 million deal, even with a full outfield of Seth Smith, Coco Crisp, Josh Reddick, Collin Cowgill and Jonny Gomes in tow. Although there are plenty of risks with the signing of a player like Cespedes, marginalizing players like Smith (much less Gomes or Cowgill) is not high on the list. Not when the Athletics so desperately need elite talent.

The post-2006 Athletics have been defined by a severe lack of elite talent, particularly on the position player side. Only nine position players have even reached 4.0 WAR overall since 2007, and only one player has posted a 5 WAR season in that stretch:

We talk a lot about winning on a budget here at FanGraphs — the concept of “$/WAR” is a big one, and especially when we talk about the Oakland Athletics, a team that has a restrictive budget due to a bad stadium and a less-than-ideal revenue stream. The A’s — and the Rays and other small-market teams — need to have a low $/WAR to win, not because $/WAR is the end-all be-all of baseball franchises but because there’s a strict upper limit on the “$” part of the expression.

The “WAR” part — which, ideally, means real wins — has to come from somewhere, and that’s where the need for elite talent comes from. Even in their down years, the Athletics have done a fine job of producing good, affordable pitching — Gio Gonzalez, Dallas Braden, Trevor Cahill, Dan Haren, and Brett Anderson are (or were) all solid pitchers when healthy. They’ve also done an admirable job of getting something out of cheap players like Mark Ellis and Ryan Sweeney and Cliff Pennington. Without the elite talent to buttress the team, though, the A’s have just been adding a bunch of spare parts into 70-win teams.

Seth Smith would be a fine piece on many teams. A team can make the playoffs with him as the seventh or eighth best position player if they have an Albert Pujols, Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, or Matt Kemp type (or two) around as well. He’s a good bargain. The Athletics didn’t have to give up much to get him.

But the Athletics desperately need a star. The easiest way (at least mathematically) to get that $/WAR down is by increasing the “WAR” part, and it takes elite talent to make the kind of dent the A’s need to get back to respectability. Here’s where Yoenis Cespedes comes in. There’s uncertainty, there’s risk, but there’s also extreme potential. Kevin Goldstein called him the 20th-best prospect in the game today, and he has the tools to become an elite outfielder. The A’s had to take a risk on Cespedes — he’s the only free agent talent of his kind they can afford to bring into the organization.

The A’s still need more beyond Cespedes to compete with teams like the Rangers and Angels. He may turn out to bust, or he may turn out to be average. But the Athletics rarely get a chance to infuse their organization with talent unless it’s through the draft or unless they have to give away talent of their own. This time, they jumped, and if that means Seth Smith is relegated to the bench and the outfield is crowded for a few years, so be it.

In a bit of a stunner, the Oakland Athletics have become the latest #MysteryTeam to end up with a top free agent.

Source: Cespedes can be a free agent at end of his four-year, $36 million contract with #Athletics. #MLB

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) February 13, 2012

The Miami Marlins also made a run at Cespedes, but it appears they were only willing to offer him $36 million over the course of 6 seasons. This sort of scenario is obviously preferable for Cespedes; not only will he be paid $9 million per season over the next four years, he will then become a free agent instead of having to go through the standard six years of team control.

Many people assumed that Cespedes would receive more guaranteed money than this — some estimates had him approaching $60 million — so on the face of things, this looks like a good deal for the A’s. It’s obviously a risk, since it’s difficult to tell how Cuban players will translate to the majors, but the A’s only need him to be an average major-league player (2.0 WAR/year) for this to be a market-value deal. And if he doesn’t pan out, the A’s only have him under contract for four seasons and can move on easily enough.

Cespedes will likely be given a chance to contribute to the A’s right away, so what should we expect from him?

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It is a simple question.

What is sabermetrics?

Not the history of it, but what is it, right now? What is, in our nerdiest of lingoes, its derivative? Where is it pointing? What does it do?

Last Tuesday I created no little stir when I listed the 2012 saber teams, delineating them according to their perceived embrace of modern sabermetrics.

Today, I recognize I needed to take a step back and first define sabermetrics, because it became obvious quickly I did not have the same definition at heart as some of the readers and protesters who gathered outside my apartment.

I believe, and this is my belief — as researcher and a linguist — that sabermetrics is not statistics. The term itself has come to — or needs to — describe more than just on-base percentage, weighted runs created plus, fielding independent pitching, and wins above replacement.

Sabermetrics is the advanced study of baseball, not the burying of one’s head in numbers.
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According to CSN’s Ray Ratto, who attributes this piece of news to Peter Gammons, Rich Harden will miss the upcoming season due to a torn capsule in his shoulder.

While a visit to Dr. James Andrews is never a good thing, it almost seemed inevitable for Harden. After a tremendous 2004 season, in which he compiled a 4.5 WAR in 189.2 innings, Harden’s career has been riddled with injuries. Harden has been on the DL at least five times since 2005 — really six if you count his lat injury last season — with arm-related injuries, but he’s also had trouble with his back, hip and obliques over his career. Though his injuries haven’t affected his ability to strike out hitters, Harden’s effectiveness and stamina have suffered.

Though he still missed considerable time this past season, Harden managed to reestablish some of his value with his return to Oakland. He maintained a high strikeout rate and got his walks back to an acceptable level. Harden actually remained healthy enough to be involved in a potential trade to the Boston Red Sox at the deadline. The Red Sox declined after looking at Harden’s medical reports. While his 5.12 ERA was worse than his 4.69 FIP and 3.68 xFIP suggested, the A’s made him a free agent this winter.

Interest in Harden this winter has been mild. While there was some talk that Harden could be used as a reliever, nothing materialized. A move to the bullpen may have allowed Harden to limit his innings, but he’s probably not the type of guy who should be pitching consecutive days. Pitching fewer innings could have maximized Harden’s value, but he would still have to be handled with extreme care. Harden probably would have pitched so infrequently that teams didn’t think it was the worth the trouble to take a chance on him.

Gammons responded to the story this morning, claiming Harden has always been hurt, and will finally come back healthy in 2013. While that might explain Harden’s past arm issues, one has to wonder how the injury went undetected for several seasons as Gammons’ tweet seems to suggest.

Now that he’s expected to miss the 2012 season, Harden’s career could be over. And he’s only 30. After having a major shoulder surgery, teams are going to be concerned with how he’ll hold up next season. Injury prone veterans coming off torn capsule surgery aren’t the most desirable free-agent targets. Unless Harden comes back stronger than ever, this could be the end of the line.

Silly monkey, BRAINS ARE FOR ZOMBIES.

Casey Kotchman is in many ways a man without a home — a player equal parts under-appreciated and over-valued, who irks both old and new schools at the same time. Old school analysts say his defense is amazing, but they cannot quantify it, and in 2011, they claimed his cleared vision meant he finally learned how to aim the ball “where they ain’t,” but he’s still a .268 hitter with little power. The new school says he’s worth about 7.6 runs per season defensively, but worth ~1.1 WAR per 600 PAs — not good — and his BABIP was high 2011, so he should not be able to repeat his success.

Despite his inability to build a consistent following of fans in the baseball outsiders communities, Kotchman seems to have some insider communities very much interested in him, as Tom Tango points out:

Kotchman’s last four teams: Redsox, Mariners, Rays, Indians. Can we say that a team that signs Kotchman is saber-leaning?

Indeed, after spending five and a half seasons on the Angels’ and Braves’ rosters, Kotchman has begun to shuffle around with the Nerdz, most recently signing with the Cleveland Indians. It makes sense too — Kotchman’s lack of power keeps him cheap, and his strong defense keeps him amorphous for the old school teams, while the new schools might have different valuations on Kotchman, they can at least quantify his contributions and better know how he fits.

Then, on Monday, the Houston Astros signed Justin Ruggiano, long-time Tampa Bay Rays outfielder who was never good enough to stick on the Rays’ roster, but who possesses strong defensive chops and above average patience. His lack of power and ~.290 batting average, however, must make him a mystery — or at least an undesirable asset — to the old school teams.

Upon Ruggiano signing with the Astros, a once highly old school team, my reaction was all: “Welp, that’s one more team to compete with” — and then it occurred to me! No only have the Astros entered the realm of, so to speak, saber-minded organizations, but so have the long-backward Chicago Cubs.

Suddenly the league looks very different.

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The Baltimore Orioles have had preliminary talks with Manny Ramirez. While Eric Seidman recently detailed some veterans who may be forced to retire due to lack of interest, Ramirez seems to be an outlier. He’ll be 40 in May — and he still has to serve a 50-game suspension — but teams are still interested.

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