Rob Kaminsky got off to a rocky start in 2016. His delivery compromised by a balky back, he put up plenty of clunkers. Over his first 10 outings for Double-A Akron, the Cleveland pitching prospect allowed 30 runs in 45 innings of work. He also spent time on the disabled list. All in all, Kaminsky was a wreck.

Then things turned around. Buoyed by mechanical fine-tuning that accompanied his rehab sessions, the young southpaw was a stud from mid-June onward. In his last 17 starts, Kaminsky allowed two-or-fewer runs 14 times. Over that span, which included the Eastern League playoffs, he hurled 103 frames and saw just 30 runners cross the plate.

Despite his rebound — and having pitched the entire season as a 21-year-old in Double-A — Kaminsky is going in the wrong direction with regard to prospect rankings. He’s plummeted all the way to 26th on Baseball America’s Indians list after coming in at No. 9 a year ago. Our own prospect guru, Eric Longenhagen, has Kaminsky 14th, which is six spots lower than he was 12 months ago.

How did the 5-foot-11 left-hander’s season unfold, and what looms in his future? Here are answers to those questions, courtesy of Kaminsky himself, and Dave Wallace, who was his manager in Akron.

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Wallace: “If I had to pick one story from this year — pick a specific player — [Kaminsky] would be it. He was absolutely our bulldog down the stretch, and in the second half in general. But in the first half, there were some games that weren’t pretty. He had some significant delivery adjustments that needed to be made. And they weren’t easy.”

Kaminsky: “I would have benched myself, with the first half I had. Everything that could have went wrong, went wrong. I was pitching terrible, and I was pitching hurt. But there were some days I actually felt alright and still got hit around, so it’s not something I can completely blame on the injury. I need to take some ownership of my performance.”

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Andy Marte died in a car accident in his native Dominican Republic. He was 33 years old. Yordano Ventura died in a separate car accident in his native Dominican Republic. He was 25 years old. Those are the facts, and those are the ages, but the ages are presented as if they mean anything. Any lost life is a life lost too early, and there exists no formula to calculate a level of sadness. The baseball community is in mourning, as it has been too many times.

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It’s true that, if you look at the free agents who remain unsigned this offseason, you’ll find a lot of power still available. Franklin Gutierrez, Mike Napoli, Mark Trumbo: all three produced an isolated-slugging figure greater than .200 last season. All three are projected by Steamer to produce better than a .195 ISO in 2017. All three have yet to find a team for the 2017 season.

Given the general demand for power, you might wonder why so many of these sluggers don’t have jobs yet. A look both at the supply and the demand in the league reveals a possible cause, however: handedness. There might be an obstacle, in other words, to matching those free agents with the right teams.

To illustrate my point, let me utilize the depth charts at RosterResource. What’s nice about RosterResource, for the purposes of this experiment, is that the site presents both a “go-to” starting lineup and also a projected bench. Here’s a link to the Cubs page to give you a sense of what I mean.

In most cases, a team will roster four non-catcher bench players. Looking over the current depth charts, however, I find 15 teams with only three non-catcher bench players on the depth chart (not to mention five additional bench players who are projected to record less than 0 WAR). For the purpose of this piece, let’s refer to these as “open positions.”

Fifteen! That’s a lot. It means we’re likely to see quite a few signings before the season begins. Of course, not all these openings are appropriate for the power bats remaining on the market. Most of those guys are corner types, if they can play the field at all, while some of those 15 clubs have needs at positions that require greater defensive skill.

For example, Anaheim might need an infielder or a third baseman for their open bench spot. The White Sox need a right-handed center fielder to platoon with lefty Charlie Tilson. Detroit needs a center fielder, maybe a right-handed one — and in the process of writing this piece, they got one in the form of the newly acquired Mike Mahtook maybe. If Mel Rojas Jr. can’t play center in Atlanta, they need a (right-handed?) center fielder, too. The Yankees may need a third baseman — and, if not that, definitely someone with some defensive ability on the infield.

So that reduces the number of open positions to 10. That’s 10 slots that could be filled by an offensive piece with little defensive value. Here are the teams that, by my estimation, have an opening for a slugger: Baltimore, Boston, Chicago (NL), Cleveland, Kansas City, Minnesota, Oakland, Seattle, Tampa, Texas, and Toronto.

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Part of growing up is realizing that some no-hitters aren’t necessarily great pitching performances. Try telling an eight-year-old that the six-walk no-hitter she’s watching is less impressive than a one-hit, no-walk shutout and she’ll look at you like you’re from another planet. If you explain that same thing to an adult, she probably won’t turn off the TV, but will probably concede you have a point. No-hitters have a magic that transcends the actual logic of the achievement. That’s perfectly fine, of course, as one’s enjoyment of an event doesn’t need to correlate precisely with it’s degree of difficulty.

But it’s worth considering why the no-hitter is magical. Most of it is probably the name and the history, but I’ll propose another reason: it’s a razor’s edge accomplishment. In other words, as soon as the pitcher allows a hit, the entire thing is over. When Barry Bonds was chasing Hank Aaron, if he failed to hit a home run, there would always be another chance. If a batter falls below .400, he can always bring his average back up. When you’re dealing with an accomplishment based on a zero, everything is exciting because it could be gone at any moment.

This is why I was so interested in Chase Utley‘s no-double play season. Every single plate appearance mattered. Well, in preparing last week’s post on Derek Dietrich’s elite ability to get hit with the baseball, I noticed another zero-based accomplishment that’s pretty extraordinary: Coco Crisp hasn’t been hit by a pitch in more than five years.

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For much of the postseason – with the exception of Buck Showalter’s decision to strand Zach Britton in the visiting bullpen at Rogers Centre in Toronto – it seemed the game might be on the cusp of a new revolution, a bullpen revolution.

For many, the major takeaway from October was how some managers were employing their top relief arms. Kenley Jansen recorded at least five outs in four of his seven postseason appearances, pitching three innings in Game Six of the NLCS. Aroldis Chapman entered seven playoff games before the ninth inning, and nowhere was the trend more dramatic or effective than in Cleveland.

Trying to piece together a pitching plan with an injury-depleted rotation, injuries in part allowing him to operate unconventionally, Cleveland Indians manager Terry Francona turned Andrew Miller into perhaps the most valuable player of the postseason.

Miller made 10 appearances and each began before the ninth inning. He entered most often in the seventh inning (four occasions), but entered as early as the fifth three times. The lefty also entered in the sixth twice. He appeared as late as the eighth. Miller recorded at least four outs in every appearance and went at least two innings six times.

Everything was going so well for the revolution until Game Seven…

And later, this…

Miller pitched 19.1 postseason innings. He allowed 12 hits, three runs, walked three and struck out 30. But all three of the runs he allowed occurred in the World Series, including two costly ones in Game Seven, when he was pitching for the fourth time in the series.

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Ten plays. Ten plays can change a player’s career.

We talk all the time about how defensive numbers come in small samples. For an outfielder, the sample of plays that actually separate a good from a bad defender is even smaller.

In most cases, a batted ball to the outfield is either a can of corn or a clear hit. In between, there just aren’t many opportunities. For Rajai Davis as a center fielder, there are 19 plays that could have gone either way over the last two years. He missed 10 of them — which is bad — and then many of us stopped considering him as a center fielder. Ten plays!

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On December 8, the Cleveland Indians’ Web site published a brief, 135-word story announcing James Harris as the club’s new farm director.

While filling such vacancies is typically not headline news, it was a modest announcement for one of the more inspired front-office additions of the offseason.

Why is it interesting?

Harris never played baseball professionally, in college, or high school.

In fact, Harris has never coached the sport at any level.

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On Tuesday, we looked at the best pitches in baseball last year when judged by whiffs and grounders. One thing we learned in that exercise: they were all thrown by relievers. Makes sense. They get a lot of advantages when it comes to short stints and leveraged situations. Let’s not hold it against them because the rest of the reliever’s life is very difficult. On the other hand, let’s also celebrate the starting pitchers separately, because many of them have pitches that are excellent despite the fact that they have to throw more often, to batters of both hands.

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Cleveland came so, so, so close to the World Series crown just a couple months ago. It probably doesn’t hurt the way it hurt Red Sox fans in 1986, since they didn’t lose in the worst way imaginable, but it probably stings pretty hard, even now. Cleveland fans have likely buoyed themselves with the thought that with Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar back at full strength, and with a whole season of Andrew Miller, 2017 could bring a return trip. Bring the boys back and win it the second time around, the same way their American League Central brethren, the Kansas City Royals, did before them.
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There were a few rookie hitters who ruined it for everyone. Gary Sanchez was completely absurd for a couple of months. Corey Seager immediately performed as one of the best players in baseball. Because of Seager, Trea Turner got overlooked in the National League — out of all the rookies who batted at least 250 times, Turner finished first in wRC+. He had a comfortable 10-point lead.

A couple players in the American League were even more overlooked. Ryon Healy finished fourth in that same group in wRC+. Hardly anyone noticed. And Tyler Naquin finished third, with a wRC+ of 135. Seager came in at 137. Mookie Betts finished at 135. The other Seager finished at 133. Naquin had a breakthrough season, and he was one of the guys who helped push the Indians into the playoffs.

Yet, eyeball the stat line, and you wonder. Naquin struck out three times out of every 10 opportunities. His BABIP was literally north of .400. And he also slugged .514, as a guy who didn’t establish a power-hitting track record in the minors. At 25, Naquin has plenty of time to improve. But in one way, his 2016 looks a lot like Bryce Harper’s 2015.

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