Archive for Teams

Previous editions: Arizona / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cincinnati  / Cleveland / Colorado / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles (AL) / Los Angeles (NL) / Miami / Minnesota / Milwaukee / New York (NL).

This afternoon, lead prospect analyst Dan Farnsworth published his excellently in-depth prospect list for the New York Yankees. In this companion piece, I look at that same New York farm system through the lens of my recently refined KATOH projection system. The Yankees have the 5th-best farm system in baseball according to KATOH, due in no small part to the system’s depth. As you can see below, the Yankees have a lot of prospects projected for one or two WAR.

There’s way more to prospect evaluation than just the stats, so if you haven’t already, I highly recommend you read Dan’s piece in addition to this one. KATOH has no idea how hard a pitcher throws, how good a hitter’s bat speed is, or what a player’s makeup is like. So it’s liable to miss big on players whose tools don’t line up with their performances. However, when paired with more scouting-based analyses, KATOH’s objectivity can be useful in identifying talented players who might be overlooked by the industry consensus or highly-touted prospects who might be over-hyped.

Below, I’ve grouped prospects into three groups: those who are forecast for two or more wins through their first six major-league seasons, those who receive a projection between 1.0 and 2.0 WAR though their first six seasons, and then any residual players who received Future Value (FV) grades of 45 or higher from Dan. Note that I generated forecasts only for players who accrued at least 200 plate appearances or batters faced last season. Also note that the projections for players over a relatively small sample are less reliable, especially when those samples came in the low minors.

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Previous editions: Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cincinnati  / Cleveland / Colorado / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles (AL) / Miami / Minnesota / Milwaukee / New York (NL)

Way back in November, before I had finished tweaking my KATOH model, lead prospect analyst Dan Farnsworth published his excellently in-depth prospect list for the Arizona Diamondbacks. In this companion piece, I finally get around to looking at that same Arizona farm system through the lens of my recently refined KATOH projection system. The Diamondbacks have the 21st best farm system according to KATOH.

There’s way more to prospect evaluation than just the stats, so if you haven’t already, I highly recommend you read Dan’s piece in addition to this one. KATOH has no idea how hard a pitcher throws, how good a hitter’s bat speed is, or what a player’s makeup is like. So it’s liable to miss big on players whose tools don’t line up with their performances. However, when paired with more scouting-based analyses, KATOH’s objectivity can be useful in identifying talented players who might be overlooked by the industry consensus or highly-touted prospects who might be over-hyped.

Below, I’ve grouped prospects into three groups: those who are forecast for two or more wins through their first six major-league seasons, those who receive a projection between 1.0 and 2.0 WAR though their first six seasons, and then any residual players who received Future Value (FV) grades of 45 or higher from Dan. Note that I generated forecasts only for players who accrued at least 200 plate appearances or batters faced last season. Also note that the projections for players over a relatively small sample are less reliable, especially when those samples came in the low minors. Read the rest of this entry »

The Yankees have enviable depth at multiple positions, though it’s their bullpen options that seem to continually be a strength for them each year. This particular group is full of many of them, to the point where it seems the Yankees have an affinity for pitchers with unique deliveries and arm actions. Besides Jorge Mateo being the consensus top prospect, there is a bit more risk in their collection of 50+ FV players than most organizations have, but they make up for any uncertainty with quantity of upside prospects from the next tiers. Perhaps the only real surprise ranking here is Domingo Acevedo taking the number two spot, though he seems to sit comfortably in the top 10 by most people’s standards. His combination of velocity, athleticism and control at a young age was too interesting to rank further down the list.

You’ll notice that many of the Yankees’ recent international signings are found in the Quick Hits section, with the exception of Wilkerman Garcia, Leonardo Molina and Hyo Jun Park. These three represent the prospects I feel have the best chance out of the gate to reach the major leagues, though that doesn’t mean they necessarily have the highest ceilings. Others like Dermis Garcia, Miguel Flames, Juan De Leon and Nelson Gomez all have sizable raw potential, but in terms of 50th percentile outcomes, they are a little too far away to count on just yet. Another year of professional competition will give us the information we need about their physical development and translation to skills.

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It’s hard to find a flaw within Francisco Lindor’s 2015 rookie season. The numbers say he was a top-five defensive shortstop in baseball; the eye test agrees. He had one of the best offensive debuts by a shortstop on record, combining plus on-base skills with surprising power. He even patched up his weak link from the minor leagues — baserunning efficiency — by stealing 12 bases in 14 attempts at the major league level. Adjusting for playing time, Lindor was one of the 10 most valuable players in baseball last season, using our WAR figure here on the site.

Lindor was excellent across the board, but he wasn’t the best at anything. He wasn’t the very best defender, but he was close. He wasn’t the very best hitting rookie shortstop of all time, but he was close. He wasn’t the very best baserunner, or the number one most valuable player on a per-plate appearance basis, but he was close. There was one leaderboard though, where you can find Lindor at the top, and, coincidentally, it’s also where you can find Lindor’s only real blemish.

Francisco Lindor, in the midst of one of the greatest offensive seasons by a rookie shortstop in history, led all of baseball in sacrifice bunts, with 13, despite playing in fewer than 100 games.

By this point, I don’t think anyone needs too big a primer on sacrifice bunting. It’s certainly got its place as a valuable tool — late-inning, need one run, man on first, no outs, weak and/or slow hitter at the plate, move him over. But there’s a reason sacrifice bunts are on a 90-year decline — because they’re very rarely a wise play, and the more information teams have gained over time, the more that’s become obvious.

Let Indians manager Terry Francona explain:

Outs are valuable, they’re finite, and sacrifice bunts give them away with limited reward. Got it. Everyone understands this. Lindor’s manager understands this. So then, what was going on?

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We were talking about something unrelated, so when Joey Votto slipped this quote in, I laughed out loud. You?! Joey Votto? You did what? Listening back to it even made me giggle again.

“I tried to do a lot of pull hitting early in the season and it was an error,” he said, but my mind could barely comprehend in real time. “It was a mistake,” he admitted before I could point out that it was completely out of character.

So why did he try it? “It was me trying to hit more homers. I thought I’d get easy homers.” After the laughter came a sort of stunned silence. The idea that Votto, who has preached going up the middle to himself and the games’ biggest stars for as long as he’s been great, tried to pull a few cheapies into the seats last year was a bit stunning.

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I can’t tell you whether Trevor Story is going to be a good major-league ballplayer. I can tell you with a high degree of certainty he’s going to be some kind of major-league ballplayer, but as for how he fares, well, that’s more unknown. He has the skills to make All-Star Games, but the same could be said of plenty of non-All-Stars, and this’ll be a big year for Story’s career. He might build upon last year’s gains, and become a part of a core. Alternatively, he wouldn’t be the first young player to stagnate or regress.

Story has become a something on account of his spring, and on account of what’s going on with Jose Reyes. Reyes might never play for the Rockies again, so there’s a vacancy at short, and Story might seize it. Some want for Story to be named the opening-day starter, and there are the usual arguments in favor of waiting at least a couple weeks. No matter — by May or June, it seems like Story is going to be the guy. I can’t tell you if he’s going to be productive. I can tell you only how he’s interesting.

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There were 13 pitchers who appeared in a Monday afternoon spring-training contest between the White Sox and the Royals. The game took place in one of the few ST venues equipped with PITCHf/x, and to no one’s surprise, the fastest average fastball on the day was thrown by Yordano Ventura. Showing up in second place was one Brandon Brennan, and then in third place, you find Chien-Ming Wang. Just in case you’re wondering, no, there is not a second Chien-Ming Wang. This is not, like, the son of the original Chien-Ming Wang. This is the original Chien-Ming Wang, throwing harder than Daniel Webb. He threw harder than Joakim Soria. He threw harder than Carson Fulmer.

It’s one appearance, and it’s March. Wang worked out of the bullpen, as opposed to being a starter. It’s not like we get to just turn the clock back 10 years, but here’s something Wang said after the game:

Chien-Ming Wang said his velo was 88-89 last year. Now 94-95 thanks to pitching guru Ron Wolforth. #Royals

— Jeffrey Flanagan (@FlannyMLB) March 15, 2016

If we wanted to turn the clock back 10 years, we’d insist on Wang re-discovering old velocity levels. Now he has. Now we have proof. Chien-Ming Wang was once a hell of a Yankee, and though you might’ve forgotten about him, he never forgot about his success.

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A week ago, the St. Louis Cardinals learned they were going to be without Jhonny Peralta for the first couple of months of the season, after he required surgery to repair a torn ligament in his thumb. Because the Cardinals have been participating in a multi-year experiment to see if you can win games without a viable backup shortstop on the roster, speculation immediately turned to outside acquisitions, since no one thinks running Jedd Gyorko out there on an everyday basis is a good idea. While Erick Aybar was floated as a natural fit, given that he’s in a walk year on a rebuilding team, the Braves quickly hung a high price tag on him, making a deal between the teams unlikely.

Instead, the Cardinals seem likely to make a more minor move, not wanting to create a mid-season playing time problem when Peralta does return. And on the minor acquisition spectrum, there was always one name who made a decent amount of sense: Ruben Tejada.

The signing of Asdrubal Cabrera made Tejada superfluous for the Mets, pushing him into a third-string shortstop role that probably wouldn’t have resulted in a lot of playing time. Even with Cabrera having his own health problems, the Mets still seemed perfectly content to let someone else have Tejada if they wanted him, and his availability was no secret around the league. And then today, the Mets made the speculation official, putting Tejada on waivers, and giving any team the chance to take him if they so desire. While Tejada doesn’t yet have a new uniform, his days as a Met are over, and now we simply wait for the seemingly inevitable announcement that he’ll be signing with the Cardinals.

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There is an inherent optimism when contracts are signed. The Cleveland Indians believed they were putting themselves over the top three years ago when they signed Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn to four-year deals. The team did not get the production they were hoping for, and after making the Wild Card their first year with the team in 2013, the team has won fewer games the last two seasons, and the Indians agreed to pay money to the Atlanta Braves to get rid of Bourn and Swisher while taking on the contract of Chris Johnson, who they have also jettisoned. As a result, the Indians have a larger percentage of their payroll going to players not playing for them in 2016 than any other Major League Baseball team.

The Indians might have the largest percentage of their payroll devoted to dead money, but they do not have the largest amount in total. The two franchises from Los Angeles both best the Indians. Thirteen of the 30 MLB teams have money going to players not currently on their 40-man roster. The graph below shows those 13 teams, with data collected from Cot’s Contracts.

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Overreaction season is underway. Each year, it starts sometime around mid-March, and lasts until… anyone have the date? Last Monday of May? No, that’s Memorial Day. This is embarrassing; I’m drawing a blank here. If anyone has this year’s date for the end of Overreaction Season, let me know. It lasts well into the regular season — I know that much — and I know that it’s already begun.

As you may have heard, Maikel Franco has played in 11 Spring Training games, and Maikel Franco has hit six home runs. During last year’s Spring Training, Franco hit zero home runs, and then he went on to have an excellent rookie season, so we understand how little these things matter, but it’s hard to ignore Maikel Franco right now. If, say, Darin Ruf were the one doing this, it might be easier to cast aside as one of those weird Spring Training things, but it’s not Darin Ruf; rather, it’s a top prospect, one who either met or exceeded all expectations in his rookie year and is being looked to as one of very few bright spots on the 2016 Phillies, and he’s doing in the games that don’t matter exactly what everyone hopes he’ll do in the games that do. Don’t get me wrong — it’s definitely still just a weird Spring Training thing. But it’s the kind of weird Spring Training thing that feels worth looking into a bit.

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