There are many different ways to describe the quality of a pitch. We have movement numbers on this site. There are ground-ball rates. There are whiff rates. There are metrics that use a combination of ground-ball and whiff rates. And metrics that use balls in play. There’s a whole spectrum from process to results, and you can focus on any one part of that spectrum if you like.

But there’s something that’s so appealing about the whiff. It’s a result, but it’s an undeniable one. There is no human being trying to decide if the ball went straight or if it went up in the air or if the ball went down. It’s just: did the batter swing and miss? So, as a result, it seems unassailable.

Of course, there are some decisions you still have to make if you want to judge pitches by whiff rates. How many of the pitch does the pitcher have to have thrown to be considered? Gonzalez Germen had a higher whiff rate on his changeup (30.7%) this year than Cole Hamels (23.7%). Cole Hamels threw seven times as many changeups (708 to 101).

So, in judging this year’s best pitches, let’s declare a top pitch among starters and a top pitch among relievers. That’s only fair, considering the difference in number of pitches thrown between the two. It’s way harder to get people to keep missing a pitch they’ve seen seven times as often. And, in order to avoid avoiding R.A. Dickey the R. A. Dickey Knuckler award, we’ll leave knucklers off the list, and include knuckle curves in among the curves.

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One of the things you’re supposed to learn about in a literature class is subtext. Subtext isn’t exactly a “hidden meaning,” but it’s the unspoken thematic uncurrent of a particular narrative or conversation. While the following will appear to be another post in a long line of posts about Jonathan Lucroy’s pitch framing (It is!), there’s a broader subtext driving the conversation as well that we’ll discuss at the conclusion.

The essence of pitch framing is well-established and relatively simple. Due to the imperfect nature of human eyes and the lack of a uniformly enforced strike zone, the way a catcher receives a pitch can influence whether that pitch is called a strike. Certain catchers have the ability to make balls look like strikes and to make sure that very few strikes look like balls. And certain catchers obviously lack this ability.

The way a catcher receives the ball influences the call, meaning good framers reduce the number of runs scored against their team and make their pitchers look great in the process. Jonathan Lucroy, catcher extraordinaire, is someone who seems to do this very well.

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International baseball has been in the news often lately with the ongoing saga of Yoan Moncada (he’s in America now), the signing of Yasmany Tomas and yesterday’s news that Cuba-U.S. relations could be getting much better.  In recent news, at the yearly international scouting directors’ meeting at the Winter Meetings last week, sources tell me there was no talk about the recent controversial rule change and no talk about an international draft, as expected.

So much has been happening lately that you may have temporarily forgotten about last summer, when the Yankees obliterated the international amateur spending record (and recently added another prospect). If the early rumors and innuendo are any indication, the rest of baseball isn’t going to let the Yankees have the last word.

I already mentioned the Cubs as one of multiple teams expected to spend well past their bonus pool starting on July 2nd, 2015.  I had heard rumors of other clubs planning to get in the act when I wrote that, but the group keeps growing with each call I make, so I decided to survey the industry and see where we stand.  After surveying about a dozen international sources, here are the dozen clubs that scouts either are sure, pretty sure or at least very suspicious will be spending past their bonus pool, ranked in order of likelihood:

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The Winter Meetings revelry has passed. We’re still waiting on a few big trades to finally ‘consummate,’ but the list of free agents is less attractive by day. Before you turn down a chance at glory with the guys left waiting for a team, it’s probably a good idea to look at how badly you need them. This is not dating advice, but it sort of feels like it.

To that end, I’ve taking our depth charts and calculated a quick stat for ‘neediness.’ By averaging team WAR over 13 roster spots — the portion of the 25-man roster usually used for offense — and then looking at the difference between that average WAR and each position WAR, I’ve found a way to show where the biggest remaining lineup holes are.

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In the wake of of the Jon Lester signing, we’ve had a spate of articles suggesting caution about the fortunes of the 2015 Chicago Cubs. After all, while Lester is a nice little pitcher, this is a team that won 73 games a year ago, and had Jeff Samardzija performing at Jon Lester levels for the first half of the year. Or, as our friend Rob Neyer put it over at JABO this morning:

In 2015? The Cubs will need a lotta luck to challenge the Cardinals and the Pirates.

In 2014, the Cubs went 73-89 and were outscored by nearly a hundred runs.

In 2014, Jason Hammel and Jeff Samardzija combined for 216 2/3 innings and a 3.14 FIP with the Cubs. Also in 2014, Jon Lester pitched 220 innings with a 2.46 ERA. Not exactly but essentially, Lester does little but replace what the Cubs lost when Hammel and Samardzija were mailed to Oakland last summer.

In the short term.

The Cubs have also acquired Miguel Montero. Now, Montero’s better than incumbent catcher Wellington Castillo, particularly if you believe in Baseball Prospectus’ pitch-framing metrics. But it’??s not like the Cubs just replaced Drew Butera with Buster Posey or something. Castillo’??s decent, Montero’??s pretty good.

In the short term, adding Lester and Montero makes the Cubs maybe two or three games better than they were last year. Or maybe I’m WAY OFF … and it’??s four or five games. Now tack on another four or five to account for the mystical powers of Joe Maddon. That still leaves them well short of scaring the Cardinals.

While I retain my fondness for Rob as a person and a writer, I think he’s a little bit off here. I think the Cubs really are contenders in 2015 now, and I think I have the data to prove it.

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We all knew that the time was coming. The Cubs themselves talked rather openly about it. Blessed with the best system in baseball, the Cubs were coming up on a period of hopeful contention. The soft target, for many, was 2016. By that point, enough prospects might’ve established themselves, and the Cubs would be able to gun for the playoffs. But it was always reasonable to think the Cubs might try to accelerate things. That they might hit that transition between stockpiling and spending, and spend big to hurry things up. There was a way for the Cubs to become a potential playoff team next season. Whether you think they’re there yet, the Cubs have now checked off a lot of boxes.

In Jason Hammel, the Cubs just locked up a pretty talented starter for the back of the rotation. In Miguel Montero, the Cubs upgraded behind the plate, getting kind of a poor man’s Russell Martin equivalent. And now the Cubs have their big fish, agreeing with Jon Lester for six years and $155 million. For Lester, the Cubs were long considered a favorite, but there’s a difference between something being possible and something getting done. We can now, officially, say this: the Cubs are ready to try to go to the playoffs. There’s no mistaking their intentions, and Lester’s a giant upgrade.

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Clubs rebuild. It’s a part of the process. Just look at what’s happening in Oakland right now. Every year, franchises begin rebuilds, continue rebuilds and occasionally start them all over again when the first one sinks into the swamp.

Rebuilds take patience. They can be exciting, and they can be frustrating. Those feelings are not mutually exclusive, in this case. The start of a rebuild can be exciting, because it ushers what is oftentimes a much-needed change in direction. There are typically big transactions that occur at the start of a rebuild, and big transactions are exciting.

The middle part of the rebuild sucks, and is the frustrating part. For several years, the on-field major league product is bad, and watching bad teams isn’t fun. The hopes of the team lie in minor league prospects, and minor league prospects don’t always pan out. When they don’t pan out is when the rebuild starts all over again, and that’s the worst kind of rebuild.

But as exciting as the beginning of a rebuild can be, nothing tops the realization of a successful rebuild and the expectation of imminent success that looms. Years of patience are awarded by the arrival of top prospects reaching their potential, coupled with a couple of marquee additions to compliment the shiny budding plants that are the homegrown prospects. The successful rebuild culminates with the flip of a switch, seemingly overnight, from “rebuild” mode to “contend.” It’s as liberating a switch as there is to be flipped as a front office executive of a major league franchise, and it’s a switch the Cubs are flipping as we speak.
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The list of non-tenders is out. Time to dream!

It’s actually a very tough place to shop, even if there are a few names that seem attractive this year. Only about one in twelve non-tenders manages to put up a win of value the year after they were let loose. Generally, teams know best which players to keep, and which to jettison.

You’re not going to get 12 non-tenders in your camp in any given year, but there is a way to improve your odds. It’s simple, really: pick up a player that was actually above replacement the year before. If you do that, you double your chance of picking up a productive major leaguer. So let’s look at this year’s market through that lens first.

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The word we’re supposed to use is “introduced”. As in, the Cubs introduced Joe Maddon on Monday as the team’s new manager. Really, Maddon’s a guy who needs no introduction, and in addition to that, Maddon isn’t a guy you bring in, as an organization, unless you feel like you’re on the verge of something. Maddon isn’t a guy you give five years and $25 million, as an organization, unless you feel like you’re entering a new era. The Cubs didn’t want to get rid of Rick Renteria, but at the same time, this wasn’t an opportunity they could let pass by. As was noted in the days prior to Monday’s press conference:

On Friday, Epstein said Maddon “may be as well-suited as anyone in the industry to manage the challenges that lie ahead of us.”

About those challenges — there are always challenges, for everyone, and there are certainly always challenges in Chicago, but the challenges that lie ahead now are quite different from the challenges that were ahead a few years back when the Cubs overhauled the front office. The idea now is that Maddon can help the team transition from loser to winner, and though that’s what all losers want, the Cubs are in a particular position. Maddon spent a chunk of his press conference talking about the 2015 playoffs. Theo Epstein, at the end of the regular season, also talked about the 2015 playoffs. The Cubs see Joe Maddon as the first step in a new level. The Cubs now intend to be serious about the present. So how far away are the Cubs from looking like a competitive team?

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Under pretty much all circumstances, relative to people involved in the game, we the public have a lesser amount of information. Sometimes, it’s close, like when it comes to specific player valuation — we have access to almost as much as the teams and executives do. But sometimes we’re bringing a straw to a knife fight. There’s perhaps nothing we understand less than the value of a manager. Analysts have tried to dig in deep, and within our heads we have ideas of which guys are better than others, but ultimately we’re always guessing on the impact. What are we supposed to do with charisma and leadership? The attempted evaluation of managers causes many people to just throw up their hands. Why even bother?

So, from the outside, we can barely say anything. We simply don’t know. And maybe teams don’t know much, either. Maybe they’re guessing almost as much as we are. But we can at least evaluate market behavior as an indirect reflection of a guy’s perceived value. And the market has responded strongly to Joe Maddon’s sudden and unanticipated free agency. The Cubs are going to hire Maddon, officially, maybe before I’m done writing this post. It’s pretty clear, then, how highly Maddon is thought of.

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