Who’s the best all-around center fielder in baseball? Well, that’s easy. It’s Mike Trout. I could give you a bunch of stats to illustrate that, but I won’t. It’s Mike Trout. Discussion over, at least on that point. Second-best? You can make a case for Carlos Gomez. You can also make a case for Andrew McCutchen. There’s not really a wrong answer there between the two. One gives you a bit more defense, one a bit more offense. No matter which one is No. 2 or No. 3, it’s safe to say that they’re the only two names there.

But after that, it gets a little more questionable. If this was two years ago, maybe Austin Jackson is in that conversation, but he’s well into his second consecutive year of decline from a great 2012, to the point that’s he’s playing like a replacement player right now. Colby Rasmus has his supporters, and he’s also got a .266 OBP. Lots of people like Adam Jones, and it’s hard to argue with the 55 homers he hit over 2012-13. He’s also been a below-average hitter in 2014. Jacoby Ellsbury probably belongs in the discussion, but his 98 wRC+ isn’t doing him any favors. Maybe you like Coco Crisp, although his once-stellar defense has collapsed in recent years.

I guess the point here is this: how many total names would you have to go through — Desmond Jennings, Lorenzo Cain, Denard Span, Juan Lagares, etc. — before you got to Arizona’s A.J. Pollock, who broke his hand over the weekend when Johnny Cueto hit him with a pitch? A dozen? More? And yet, Pollock is one of just five true center fielders worth six WAR since the start of 2013. (I’m discounting Shin-Soo Choo here, who isn’t a center fielder now and was merely trying to impersonate one last year.) If you prefer “over the last calendar year,” he’s still No. 5, behind the big three and Ellsbury. With 2.5 WAR through 50 games this year, he was on pace for 6 WAR in 2014 alone, and had been behind only Trout and Gomez before getting hurt. Read the rest of this entry »

When the Diamondbacks won the National League West division in 2011, they looked like they had a pretty decent future. This week, things don’t look quite as rosy. According to our Playoff Odds page, only four teams have less of a shot at reaching the postseason as of this writing — the Astros, Twins, Cubs or Marlins. None of those teams were expected to contend for a playoff berth this season. The Dbacks were. Unless things change fast, they will not actually contend for a playoff spot, and then the question becomes how can the organization right the ship?

Since Jonah Keri had a great look over at Grantland at how we got to this point, and since I try to follow the mantra of Chris Tucker/Smokey and not bring up old ‘ish, I won’t waste your time repeating it. Here though, if you don’t feel like clicking through, is the money quote:
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The Houston Astros added outfielder George Springer to their major league roster on Tuesday night and batted him second in the lineup in their game on Wednesday against the Kansas City Royals. Springer had an infield hit in five at-bats plus a walk in his debut.

Astros fans — indeed, fans of young baseball talent — have been pining for Springer’s call up since last season when he batted .301/.411/.600 in 589 plate appearances with 37 home runs and 45 stolen bases between Triple-A and Double-A. That followed his successful 2012 campaign in Double-A and high Single-A, when he posted a .302/.383/.526 line in 581 plate appearances. In February, Baseball America ranked Springer as the 18th best prospect. My colleague Marc Hulet put Springer at No. 14 on his Top 100 prospect list.

Yet Springer remained in the minors, without even a whiff of the big leagues last September, when the Astros expanded their roster. And he was sent back to Triple-A during spring training, with no place on Houston’s 40-man.

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When we last talked to Brandon McCarthy, he was looking for a change-up. He didn’t find it. But he did find what he hopes will be the key to a successful — and full — season this year: Bulk.

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Circumstances were different when Paul Goldschmidt faced Tim Lincecum the first time. In early August of 2011, Goldschmidt was playing in his second-ever major-league game, a young first baseman who’d never been a Baseball America top-100 prospect, and who’d never been a Baseball America top-10 Diamondbacks prospect. Lincecum was a staff ace having a Cy Young-caliber season, his fourth in a row, and he was one of the major pieces around which the Giants were built. Against Lincecum, Goldschmidt popped out on the seventh pitch of the first plate appearance. On the fourth pitch of the second plate appearance, Goldschmidt went yard.

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There are some teams that wish they had more or better shortstops. With Jose Iglesias now missing an indeterminate amount of time in Detroit, the Tigers may now start Eugenio Suarez. Don’t feel bad if that name is new to you. The Twins and Marlins are poised to start pure fielders Pedro Florimon and Adeiny Hechavarria. The Mets have the never-ending Ruben Tejeda story, and that other New York team will start somebody who used to be Derek Jeter. At least the Yankees have Brendan Ryan in reserve; the rest of these teams lack viable backups beyond their own version of Suarez. On the other end of the spectrum are the Arizona Diamondbacks, which feature three or four viable shortstops.

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Kevin Towers is a confident, talkative man. He’ll tell you what he’s thinking about, and he’ll tell you what he’s doing. There aren’t many anonymous leaks that come out of the Diamondbacks organization because Towers doesn’t exactly keep many secrets — even when he’s actively negotiating. Towers has spent much of this offseason talking about how badly he wanted to acquire a No. 1-type starting pitcher. He was in on Masahiro Tanaka; he’s been in on David Price. He admitted he wanted to make a significant splash. Just the other day Arizona signed Bronson Arroyo for two years and $23.5 million. Or three years and $30 million. The bigger point is that Arizona signed Bronson Arroyo, and now they’re finished.

Arroyo, of course, is no one’s idea of an ace. Most simply, the best pitchers get strikeouts, limit walks and limit dingers. Arroyo does one of those things. He’s 37 in a couple of weeks, meaning he’s basically 37 now. There’s little sexiness with this acquisition, and Towers would tell you he knows he didn’t get a No. 1. Still, Arroyo does have something going in his favor. It’s just a matter of how much you believe in it.

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For five years now, Bronson Arroyo has been better than his peripherals. Since 2009, only three pitchers have a bigger gap between their fielding independent numbers and their ERA, and those three didn’t come close to pitching as many innings. It’s tempting to say the free agent 36-year-old has figured something out… but what has he figured out, exactly? How has he become more than the sum of his parts? It has to be more than a whimsical leg kick.

Let’s use some basic peripherals to find comparable pitchers. His fastball struggles to break 90 mph, he doesn’t strike many out, and he doesn’t have great worm-burning stuff — but the control has been elite. Here are a few other pitchers that fit that sort of mold.
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After having typically appeared in the entirely venerable pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections were released at FanGraphs last year. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Cleveland / Detroit / Los Angeles NL / Miami / Minnesota / New York AL / Philadelphia / San Diego / Seattle / St. Louis.

Batters
In the depth-chart graphic below, the author has assigned the entirety of both Gerardo Parra and A.J. Pollock’s projected WAR to center field. In reality, Parra will likely record starts all over the outfield — an ideal scenario, on account of how Parra is (a) the only one of the the D-backs’ four main outfielders who bats left-handed and also how he’s (b) actually projected to record the highest WAR, both by rate and also in total, of all those same outfielders, including new and powerful acquisition Mark Trumbo.

Generally speaking, there’s not a lot in the way of obvious weakness wherein Arizona’s field players are concerned, just as there’s also not a lot in the way of highest-end talent, either. It’s not surprising to find, following his 2013 season, that Paul Goldschmidt is projected to lead the team offensively. For a number of reasons, probably — including his pretty high BABIP last season and also just how regression works — ZiPS doesn’t foresee the first baseman reaching quite the frenzied heights of his 2013 campaign.

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The easiest part of the three-way Mark Trumbo trade to forget was the White Sox’s part. Given that we all call it the Mark Trumbo trade, of course a lot of interest followed Trumbo to the Diamondbacks. And given that it was the Angels giving Trumbo up, people have wondered about the return. But the White Sox were in there as a necessary component, and they arguably got the best of it, turning Hector Santiago into one-time quality Arizona prospect Adam Eaton. Eaton, now, is considered a potential part of the long-term White Sox core.

Monday, the White Sox and Diamondbacks struck again, and this time there was no third party. Being a team in little present need of a closer, the Sox gave up Addison Reed. Being a team in little present need of an extra third baseman, the DBacks gave up Matt Davidson. The focus for Arizona, again, is getting better right away. And the focus for Chicago, again, is adding another potential part of the long-term White Sox core. While it’s a trade I wouldn’t want to call lopsided, I like it more for Rick Hahn than I do for Kevin Towers.

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