Archive for Teams

After having typically appeared in the very hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past couple years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Houston Astros. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Kansas City / Minnesota / New York AL / New York NL / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / San Diego / Seattle / Texas / Toronto.

Batters
Whether by accident or design, the current iteration of the Astros does appear nevertheless to reveal a clue as to the method by which the club’s roster has been constructed. Per ZiPS, there are two sorts of player among Houston’s starting nine: those whose projected WAR figures can be rounded comfortably to three wins or higher, and those whose forecasts are rounded merely to a single win. Only two players (Evan Gattis and Jon Singleton) occupy the latter group and — again, whether by coincidence or not — they also happen to occupy those positions which require the least defensive skill (or, in the case of designated hitter, no defensive skill at all). One could reasonably make a case that the club has prioritized acquiring and/or developing players with some manner of defensive value. The case may not be correct, but at least it’s capable of being presented with tolerable credulity.

One player who possesses considerable offensive and defensive talent — and who was also a rookie in 2015 — is shortstop Carlos Correa. On the verge of entering just his age-21 season, Correa is the recipient of the top projection among the club’s entire roster, forecast to produce roughly five wins in 2016 on the strength not merely of average shortstop defense but also the team’s best batting line. Owing to how none of us is immune from the icy grip of the Reaper, Correa won’t be great forever. That said, he appears entirely capable of approximating those early versions of Troy Tulowitzki who avoided injury.

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All along, the thought’s been that the Colorado Rockies were pretty likely to trade one of their three left-handed hitting outfielders before the start of the regular season. So naturally, they kept them all and then went out and signed another.

It won’t stay like this for long. The Rockies agreed to terms with Gerardo Parra on Tuesday afternoon on a three-year deal worth $27.5 million. Chris Cotillo reports a fourth-year option is included for $12 million. The contract looks fine; our crowdsourcing project pegged Parra for a three-year deal between $24-27 million, and that’s essentially what he received. What’s interesting is that Parra joins Carlos Gonzalez, Corey Dickerson, and Charlie Blackmon in a suddenly crowded and similarly-skilled outfield:

At this stage in their respective careers, Gonzalez and Dickerson are near-clones of one another. While Gonzalez has the name recognition, Dickerson is three years younger than Gonzalez and is likely the better hitter. On the other hand, Dickerson is very limited defensively and is coming off an injury-plagued season that featured trips to the disabled list both for plantar fasciitis and a pair of broken ribs. Both struggle mightily against same-handed pitching.

At this stage in their respective careers, Blackmon and Parra are near-clones of one another. Both are roughly league-average hitters who struggle against same-handed pitching. Both can play center field and not be a total disaster, though you’d rather see them in a corner. Parra once graded out as an elite corner outfielder — someone you’d think could transition to center with ease — but there’s more than one reason to believe in the defensive decline portrayed by the metrics over the last couple seasons.

There’s just too much going on here. Something’s got to give. And it might not take long:
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There’s a pretty dramatic difference between the two leagues. Anything, of course, could go on to happen, but the American League and the National League are looking at some wildly different 2016s. In the AL, you’ve got a whole gradient of could-be or would-be playoff squads. No single team appears to be dominant, and no single team appears to be a non-contender. Everyone should have some kind of chance, and there’s currently no obvious favorite. In the NL, meanwhile, there are two tiers. There are the clear contenders, and there are the others, those being the teams either admittedly rebuilding or the teams that should be. People talk about “tanking” as an industry problem. The bad teams are all clustered together.

In between the two NL tiers, there are, I think, two clubs caught in the middle. Two clubs that would fit in the AL picture, two clubs that could end up going either way depending on certain breaks. One of them is the Diamondbacks, who have spent the offseason trying to beef up. And then there are the Marlins, who have too many good players to be bad, but too little depth and reliability to be great. The Marlins want to be a contender, though. Believe it or not, Jeffrey Loria hates to lose. So now the Marlins have addressed a team weakness on the free-agent market, spending pretty big to lure Wei-Yin Chen. Chen is no one’s idea of a major splash, but he is, at least, a healthy starting pitcher, which is something the Marlins have sorely lacked.

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A year ago today, things were looking pretty good in Ian Desmond’s world. He was 29 years old and the starting shortstop for the Washington Nationals, heavy favorites to win the National League East. A few months earlier, Desmonds completed his third straight season of at least 20 home runs and 20 stolen bases. Defensive metrics indicated he was roughly average to above average at shortstop, and in terms of overall value, he was sitting on three straight seasons of more than four wins above replacement. In matters related to his bank account, he was just one season from free agency with no other big-name shortstops and a big payday.

But now, after a disastrous year, Desmond is still unsigned and his market is unclear.

There were some signs heading into last season that Desmond was in decline. His wRC+ went from 128 to 116 to 107 from 2012 to 2014, and his strikeouts moved in the opposite direction: 20% in 2012, 22% in 2013 and way up to 28% in 2014. Noticing a decline and expecting a collapse are two different situations, however. This is the list of players who, along with Ian Desmond, produced at least four WAR in each season from 2012 to 2014: Andrew McCutchen, Buster Posey, Dustin Pedroia, Ben Zobrist, Adam Jones, Alex Gordon, Robinson Cano, Miguel Cabrera, and of course, Mike Trout. A year ago at this time, MLB Trade Rumors rated Desmond as the fourth-best pending free agent and mentioned a potential $200 million contract with another good season.

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The Hall of Fame voting was revealed last week. Maybe you heard the shouting. There’s nothing that brings out some good internet shouting like the Baseball Hall of Fame. Pretty strange when you think about it. People don’t typically freak out over museums or old baseball players, but put them together and things get all crazy like a conversation about sandwiches on the internet up in here. Watch the heck out!

But with regard to the voting. As it turns out, two players were voted in, both deserving, and one other specific player, Nomar Garciaparra, was not elected. Because he was not deserving. But oh, he could have been because, oh, what could have been! Garciaparra — a name I just had to force my computer to learn due to it inexplicably and repeatedly trying to change it into “Garcia parrot” — received just 1.8% of the vote. By rule, players receiving less than 5% of the vote are dropped from the ballot.

So. This is it. Nomar is officially not a Hall of Famer, meaning he’s officially not as good as Derek Jeter. The day much of South Boston literally believed would never come has come. But that doesn’t mean Nomar wasn’t Hall of Fame-good. He was. Just not for long enough.

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Come eat and drink with FanGraphs readers and writers on Friday, January 22nd in Seattle. We’ve invited some of our best friends in the writing and baseball world to join, as well. There will be free food, happy hour pricing, and good conversation, and we hope you’ll join us. The event runs 5-7 pm in the Mezzanine, but I’m sure you’ll find us downstairs for a while afterwards. Details and attendees are below.

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Sometimes, it’s only natural to wonder why it took so long for a trade to come to fruition. In an ideal world, the Nationals would have found a free agent outfielder with whom they could agree upon terms. In an ideal world, the Blue Jays would have found a free agent reliever with whom they could agree upon terms. Our world is less than ideal, though, and neither team found a fit. So a match was made between the two. Drew Storen will pitch high-leverage innings for the Blue Jays, now. As a result, Ben Revere will slap singles, run fast, and play the outfield for the Nationals.

This isn’t a trade that will make a monumental impact, either way. Revere, at his very best, is something like a three-win player who’s actually more like a two-win player, and the Nationals can keep him for another year after this one if they feel he’s deserving of a fourth trip to arbitration. Storen, at his very best, is something a two-win player who’s probably more like a one-win player, and he’s set to be a free agent after this season. Both will earn somewhere between five and ten million dollars this year. Nothing here moves any kind of needle too much. If it did, it wouldn’t make so much sense.

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After having typically appeared in the very hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past couple years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the New York Mets. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Kansas City / Minnesota / New York AL / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / San Diego / Seattle / Texas / Toronto.

Batters
While not particularly relevant to the 2016 edition of the Mets, it’s difficult to examine the ZiPS projections below without also acknowledging the system’s relative optimism concerning free-agent outfielder Yoenis Cespedes (629 PA, 4.4 zWAR). The gap between Cespedes’s forecasted win total and Michael Conforto’s second-best mark is equivalent to the gap between Conforto’s mark and the average of the club’s 11th- and 12th-best hitter projections. In other words: for whatever Cespedes’s flaws, his strengths appear capable of compensating for them at the moment.

Which isn’t to ignore another of the system’s perhaps surprsing outputs — namely, the projection for Conforto himself. Entering just his age-23 season, Conforto began the 2015 campaign as the left fielder for the High-A St. Lucie Mets. He’s expected to play that same position for the actual New York version of the team on opening day this year — and, it would seem, is a candidate to produce wins at a higher rate than any of his teammates.

In general, what the Mets feature is essentially the antithesis of a stars-and-scrubs configuration. The success of the club relies not on elite performances by one or two players, but rather the competence of the entire starting eight.

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When I saw that only two players had been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame earlier this week, my thoughts immediately turned to future years. With only two deserving candidates going in, there was still going to be a log jam. How would that impact the players who are coming onto the ballot next year? There are three who have a real case for being in the Hall of Fame: Vladimir Guerrero, Manny Ramirez and Ivan Rodriguez.

Ramirez and Rodriguez seem pretty easy to peg. Ramirez — one of the great right-handed hitters to ever grace this planet, but also a player with several off-field transgressions, including two failed performance enhancing drug tests — seems likely to get a middling level of support, similar to Mark McGwire. Enough to remain comfortably on the ballot, but not enough to be near induction. Rodriguez will vault firmly into the middle of the pack at the very least, and stands a strong shot at induction on his first go-round. He has 13 Gold Gloves, the most of any catcher, and while he had PED whispers, so did Mike Piazza, and he just got in. The tide seems to be turning on the “Steroids Era.”

Guerrero, however, is a total wild card. At least to me. I could see him vaulting into strong induction contention, or I could see him scraping the bottom of the barrel. It’s hard to get a good read on his candidacy.

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For the next five minutes, convince yourself that Barry Bonds retired following the 1998 season. Perhaps he suffered a bad injury in the offseason prior to spring training in 1999. Maybe he got tired of playing baseball and wanted to become a farmer. Make up whatever fantastic story you want to about his life after 1998 — just don’t have it include playing major league baseball.

We’re focusing on 1998, of course, because that’s the final year Bonds was considered “clean” by most sources. For our purposes, I’m not going to try to pinpoint specific months or dates: 1999 was the first season Bonds had Greg Anderson as a full time personal trainer, the man who supposedly introduced him to certain PEDs, and there are books written about this subject that can inform a reader on specific timing far better than I can here. For today, the offseason after the 1998 is the delineating line.

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It’s the winter of 1998. K-Ci & JoJo are on the top of the charts with “All My Life.” In theaters, You’ve Got Mail reigns supreme. When the news of Barry Bonds’ retirement breaks, newspaper columns talk about how incredible his 13-year career was — often juxtaposed to the outsized personality he showed in the clubhouses of the Pirates and Giants. SportsCenter is particularly watchable, and Stuart Scott and Rich Eisen reflect on what might have been: about how, if only he were able to play for a few more years, Bonds could have been the first player in baseball history to hit 500 home runs and steal 500 bases. What an honor to have been able to watch this guy play, they say to the camera.

Following the sudden shock of his retirement, writers and analysts turn to another subject: Bonds’ Hall of Fame chances. They tally his counting statistics through the 1998 season and compare them against every player since 1871:

Given the exceptional power and speed numbers, as well as his stellar defense, Bonds has the statistics to get into Cooperstown on one of his first few tries. However, there is one issue that raises a flag for voters: his character. Always making the game about himself, Bonds’ history is littered with showing up coaches, arguing about his contracts, and always needing to to be the center of attention. After a couple years of not getting in, comparisons to Dick Allen’s situation starts to surface, but finally — after Bonds has paid his character penance — he’s voted in. A few years later, analysts run the numbers on the best players in history up to their age-34 season with a new metric, Wins Above Replacement. Bonds is the 12th-best player in baseball history up to 1998 by WAR for players aged 34 and under, and he ends up 19th overall with no age cap.

Even though he retired with seemingly so much left to give on the field (he put up 8.5 WAR in his final season, 1998), Bonds is a clear Hall of Famer.

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