Archive for Teams

The Orioles are projected to have the seventh-best offense this season, and they had the seventh-best offense last season. Yet looking at the offenses projected to be better and slightly worse than the Orioles reveals something interesting about Baltimore, and how you can take it one of two ways. We’ll get to that part later.

First, let’s go through and examine just how many players on each team are projected to have a positive and negative batting runs above average.
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Over the last 40 seasons, there have been 752 player seasons where a reliever pitched at least eighty innings out of the bullpen and averaged at least 1 1/3 innings pitched per appearances. Last year was the first and only season of the last 40 where not a single player met that criteria. Increased reliever specialization and larger bullpens have minimized the long reliever, and those who have been given the long reliever role tend to be the low man in the bullpen hierarchy. That was not always the case, and the decreased offensive environment could be a good opportunity to reintroduce the good long reliever to baseball.

In the not too distant past, long relievers were a regular fixture on teams. Relievers making regular appearances longer than two innings has always been a rarity, but some teams had relievers truly earning the the title of long relievers. From 1975-2014, just 110 relievers pitched at least 80 innings and averaged more than two innings per appearance, but those seasons have all but disappeared in the last two decades.

Strike seasons of 1981 and 1994 are omitted
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When we took a look at Jake Arrieta’s multi-faceted slider on Wednesday, the pitcher gave credit to ‘old-timers’ for the idea to use his legs to deaden the pitch. It turns out, there’s more old school in his mechanics than just a dragging back leg on a slow slider.

It’s not like Arrieta opened with a discussion of the way things used to be. When I first asked him about his mechanics, he felt there wasn’t one aha moment that helped him find his command and his best delivery. “I moved away from being concerned with mechanics to being more conscious of the positioning of my body and being able to put it in certain spots more consistently,” he said.

Just a natural growth, time, and a better understanding of his body had led to improvements. “Developing, maturing physically, understanding what you need to be consistent with, in order to have consistent command,” is how he put it.

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Earlier today, Kiley McDaniel published his consummately researched and demonstrably authoritative prospect list for the Milwaukee Brewers. What follows is a different exercise than that, one much smaller in scope and designed to identify not Milwaukee’s top overall prospects but rather the rookie-eligible players in the Brewers system who are most ready to produce wins at the major-league level in 2015 (regardless of whether they’re likely to receive the opportunity to do so). No attempt has been made, in other words, to account for future value.

Below are the top-five prospects in the Milwaukee system by projected WAR. To assemble this brief list, what I’ve done is to locate the Steamer 600 projections for all the prospects to whom McDaniel assessed a Future Value grade of 40 or greater. Hitters’ numbers are normalized to 550 plate appearances; starting pitchers’, to 150 innings — i.e. the playing-time thresholds at which a league-average player would produce a 2.0 WAR. Catcher projections are prorated to 415 plate appearances to account for their reduced playing time.

Note that, in many cases, defensive value has been calculated entirely by positional adjustment based on the relevant player’s minor-league defensive starts — which is to say, there has been no attempt to account for the runs a player is likely to save in the field. As a result, players with an impressive offensive profile relative to their position are sometimes perhaps overvalued — that is, in such cases where their actual defensive skills are sub-par.

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Yesterday, the Marlins agreed to sign outfielder Christian Yelich to a deal that guarantees him at least $51 million over seven years, locking up one of the game’s best young players. This morning, Rob Bradford of WEEI.com reported that the Red Sox are considering approaching Mookie Betts about signing a long-term deal of his own, which might both serve to lock in some future cost savings as well as temper the speculation about if they’ll use Betts as a trade chip to relieve their outfield logjam. The timing of Yelich’s deal and the rumored possible offer for Betts serves as an opportunity to look at them side by side, and note that while they’re physically quite different, they might be pretty similar players going forward.

Certainly, Yelich and Betts don’t look similar. Yelich is six inches taller, standing at 6-foot-3 compared to the 5-foot-9 Betts. Besides just the size difference, Yelich hits from the left side while Betts is a right-handed batter. If you watched them both swing, you wouldn’t necessarily draw a connection between them.

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Evaluating the Prospects: Rangers, Rockies, D’Backs, Twins, Astros, Cubs, Reds, Phillies, Rays, Mets, Padres, Marlins, Nationals, Red Sox, White Sox, Orioles, Yankees, Braves, Athletics, Angels, Dodgers, Blue Jays, Tigers, Cardinals, Brewers, Indians, Mariners, Pirates, Royals & Giants

Top 200 Prospects Content Index

Scouting Explained: Introduction, Hitting Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3 Pt 4 Pt 5 Pt 6

Draft Rankings: 2015, 2016 & 2017

International Coverage: 2015 July 2nd Parts One, Two & Three, 2016 July 2nd

The top of this list is muddled; I could see the top eight guys in almost any order by midseason and I predict I’ll be changing some of these 45 and 50 FV grades in-season. The Brewers haven’t had a great farm system in recent years, but the big league club had a mini-rebuild and the amateur talent acquisition has seem positive early returns from a more aggressive approach. Gilbert Lara is the consensus best player in last summer’s July 2nd crop and he took a notable step forward after signing with an impressive showing at instructs.

From the 2014 draft, I think 3B Jacob Gatewood is a little too risky for $1.83 million, but the early returns on CF Monte Harrison are excellent and there’s plenty to like about LHP Kodi Medeiros, even if he was a bit worn down after signing. All of these three were part of an aggressive approach, so I’d expect one to work out in a big way. The depth is drastically better now than the past few years and the arrow is pointing up in general.  There isn’t a super elite prospect in the system and this is still a system in the bottom third of baseball, but the Brew Crew are deep in that second tier of talent and there’s plenty of depth and upside here to see a higher ranking in next year’s list as a likelihood.

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Not every contract extension is a winner for both sides. Sometimes teams guarantee too much money without getting many prime seasons. Sometimes players give away too many free agent years. In Christian Yelich’s 7-year, $49.6 million contract (corrected from $51 million) — with a team option for an eighth year — the Marlins have secured Yelich’s services through his 20s and bought out three potential free agent seasons, which could bring significant savings down the line. However, $50 million is also a significant guarantee for Yelich, and this deal looks like a winner for both sides.

Signed out of high school five years ago for $1.7 million, Yelich made the minimum for part of a year in 2013 and all of 2014. He would have made the minimum again this season and next, meaning he was faced with earning under $2 million total for his first four seasons, and if he stayed healthy and productive over the next two seasons, his reward would have been an arbitration salary of around $5 million. If he played well and avoided major injury, he could earn $7 million for his first five seasons, with the bulk of that money still three years away. Yelich faced considerable risk with an eight-figure reward not anywhere in his short-term future.
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“Chester wouldn’t play baseball unless Wilson played, and they never swung at the first pitch or slid headfirst.” — Chester’s Way, by Kevin Henkes

Most of us have been taught that running through the bag is unequivocally faster than diving into it. Those who dive into first base are often ridiculed for doing so, risking injury to themselves while simultaneously making themselves less likely to beat the throw. However, a new way of thinking about the physical effects on the runner as he dives through the bag — pioneered by the father/son duo that make up “Baseball con Ciencia” — shows that the diving runner could close the distance to the first base bag at a faster rate. Theoretically.

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Earlier today, Kiley McDaniel published his consummately researched and demonstrably authoritative prospect list for the St. Louis Cardinals. What follows is a different exercise than that, one much smaller in scope and designed to identify not St. Louis’s top overall prospects but rather the rookie-eligible players in the Cardinals’ system who are most ready to produce wins at the major-league level in 2015 (regardless of whether they’re likely to receive the opportunity to do so). No attempt has been made, in other words, to account for future value.

Below are the top-five prospects in the St. Louis system by projected WAR. To assemble this brief list, what I’ve done is to locate the Steamer 600 projections for all the prospects to whom McDaniel assessed a Future Value grade of 40 or greater. Hitters’ numbers are normalized to 550 plate appearances; starting pitchers’, to 150 innings — i.e. the playing-time thresholds at which a league-average player would produce a 2.0 WAR. Catcher projections are prorated to 415 plate appearances to account for their reduced playing time.

Note that, in many cases, defensive value has been calculated entirely by positional adjustment based on the relevant player’s minor-league defensive starts — which is to say, there has been no attempt to account for the runs a player is likely to save in the field. As a result, players with an impressive offensive profile relative to their position are sometimes perhaps overvalued — that is, in such cases where their actual defensive skills are sub-par.

5. Jacob Wilson, 2B (Profile)

The Cardinals’ success in recent years has been defined by a capacity to transform late-round draft picks into capable major leaguers. Matt Adams, Matt Carpenter, and Allen Craig all produced at least 1.5 WAR for the 2013 edition of the club that won the National League pennant — and yet all three were selected in the eighth round or later. Wilson is a candidate to join that peculiar fraternity. Selected in the 10th round following his senior year at Memphis and signed for just $20 thousand, Wilson has exhibited a well-balanced offensive approach while also playing second base — a position at which McDaniel suggests he’s capable of remaining. In the longer term, that’s a promising overall profile. For the moment, it’s a slightly better than replacement-level one.

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It’s gettin’ to that time of year when folks tend to preview stuff ’round baseball. Our annual Positional Power Rankings will be coming to the site over the next couple weeks, you’ll surely see all sorts of divisional preview pieces pop up between now and Opening Day, and this right here is going to be a preview of team defenses.

We saw last year where a good defense can take a team. The Kansas City Royals were more than just a great defense, but it was evident, especially during the playoffs, how much an elite defense can mean to a ballclub. The same was true, but on the other end of the spectrum, for the Cleveland Indians. Our two advanced defensive metrics — Defensive Runs Saved and Ultimate Zone Rating — agreed that the defense in Cleveland was worth around -70 runs last season. In Kansas City, it was something like +50. That’s a 120-run difference! That’s about 12 wins! Those teams play in the same division! Move 12 wins around and the result is an entirely different season! Defense isn’t the biggest thing, but it’s a big thing. Let’s look ahead.

All the numbers used in this piece will come from UZR and DRS. For the team projections, I simply utilized our depth charts and did a little math. We’re going to take a look at the three best, the worst, the teams that got better, the teams that got worse, and then all the rest down at the bottom. For the upgrades/downgrades, I used the difference of standard deviations above or below the mean between last year’s results and this year’s projections.
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