Archive for Teams

Last year, Cincinnati’s two middle of the order bats both had back leg injuries that robbed them of much of their power. Because of the complicated nature of swing mechanics, maybe it’s not surprising that both sluggers were affected differently by left leg injuries. But they did suffer.

“I saw a lot of ground balls to the right side of the infield results last year and I had a difficult time hitting within my typical profile — power to left field,” said Joey Votto this week in Arizona. “The pain was a limiting factor.”

When pushed to describe exactly how his left quad strain affected his swing, Votto spoke of a lean in his stance. “Being able to lean heavily on my back leg and be able to rotate the knee through and also lean at an angle” was important to the slugger — “I think that I buy myself a little extra space on the back side of the strike zone by being able to lean.”

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Read an article about Yasmany Tomas from before he signed with the Diamondbacks, and most of them will say something along the same lines about his profile. The power was thought to be real, maybe a 70 on the 20-80 scale; the contact skills might be uncertain; and while the arm could potentially be a plus, it was far from certain where he he’d fit on the defensive map.

That’s evident, really, in just how those reports described his position. In September, Kiley McDaniel listed him as a left fielder. In October, Baseball America’s Ben Badler said that he “had the defensive attributes to fit in either corner spot.” After Tomas signed with Arizona, Keith Law also talked about him as a corner outfielder. Dave Cameron even noted that “some teams felt that he profiled more as a DH.” Other than a few tossed-off occasional mentions that he’d played some small amount of first and third earlier in his youth — 30 games at third in 2008, primarily —  just about no one expected him to be an infielder.

Except for the Diamondbacks, that is. Due in part to their own evaluations of him, in part due to a crowded outfield, and in part due to a third base situation unstable enough that longtime second baseman Aaron Hill played his first games since 2005 at the position last year, Arizona almost immediately announced that they’d like Tomas to play third base.

It’s March 11, so we’re not going to pretend that we’ve seen enough of Tomas to make a determination as to whether he can handle the position or not. But we haven’t seen nothing, either, and considering where he came from, it’s the first time most of us are able to see real actual game video of him. Considering how the Diamondbacks are set up, where he ends up is going to have a ripple effect on the rest of the lineup. Read the rest of this entry »

This time, at least, it’s a little different. Yu Darvish sustained an injury while pitching. Cliff Lee sustained an injury while pitching. Gavin Floyd, Masahiro Tanaka, Jose Fernandez, Matt Harvey, so many of the others — they sustained their injuries while pitching. Marcus Stroman sustained an injury while fielding. His throwing arm is completely fine. His throwing arm, also, is completely useless to him at the moment, because you can’t pitch through a torn ACL. The freak injury will knock Stroman out for the duration of 2015, and though he should be good to go after that, the calendar says “2015” right now, and we’ll be without something we all thought we’d have. Stroman, like the others, has been taken from his team, and he’s been taken from the game.

There’s also that other twist. Darvish is a devastating loss, but then, the Rangers didn’t seem particularly poised to challenge for the playoffs. Lee would be another devastating loss, but even with him healthy, the Phillies looked like a mess. Floyd was just re-injured, and the Indians could win the AL Central, but the Indians also have a ton of pitching depth, and they knew Floyd was a risk. The Blue Jays had dreams of winning the World Series. Stroman figured to be the No. 1, and the team didn’t look deep with him. This is a massive blow, and it’s a massive blow to a team right on that win-curve position where a massive blow can be the most massive. People are mourning this. It’s not that much of an overreaction.

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The Cincinnati Reds face an uphill battle in 2015. The St. Louis Cardinals are heavy favorites. The Pittsburgh Pirates brought back most of its playoff team and could see improvement with a young roster. The Cubs have made improvements, and even the Brewers bring back many players who put them in first place for most of 2014. The odds of the Reds winning the division are not very good. The FanGraphs Playoff Odds are up, and the Reds have just a 3.0% chance of winning the division. That means out of 10,000 simulations, the Reds won the division around 300 times. Focusing in on the 3% chance side, it is possible to create scenarios where the Reds can win the division.

FanGraphs Playoff Odds are based on ZiPS, Steamer, and the Depth Chart Projections. Those projections are not very kind to the Reds. The projections currently have the Reds at 75 wins, last in the National League Central. For a frame of reference, here are the top five teams per WAR according to those projections.

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Yu Darvish is probably going to require Tommy John surgery. As Jeff noted yesterday, this is a blow to the Rangers already slim playoff odds, and now our projections have them as perhaps the worst team in the American League. After last year’s debacle, the team was hoping for a big bounce back, but that seems particularly unlikely now, and it’s a legitimate question whether this move should cause the front office to start really playing for the future.

So, yeah, this is bad news. The 2015 Rangers just became potentially unwatchable, especially if they perform poorly, eventually trading away Yovani Gallardo and maybe even Derek Holland; the remnants of the rotation would be the worst in baseball. But because of a series of triggers in Darvish’s contract, it’s actually possible to see this as not entirely awful news, with even some long-term upside for the Rangers

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Maybe the problem is on our end. Maybe the problem is the increasingly unrealistic expectation of health, establishing a psychological baseline no longer supported by the modern game. In this game, pitchers get hurt, and while pitchers have always gotten hurt, because pitching is a dangerous thing, the sense is things are getting worse, and we have to adjust to what that means. Maybe we just need to mentally brace ourselves for the seemingly inevitable blows. Last season, the elbow robbed us of Matt Harvey and Jose Fernandez, among so many others. Already this season, we came in nervous about Masahiro Tanaka, and now the elbow might have claimed Yu Darvish and Cliff Lee.

The two have different injuries. Darvish has a slight tear of the UCL, and the overwhelming likelihood is Tommy John surgery that’ll knock him out until into next season. Lee doesn’t seem to have a UCL problem, but he still might have a UCL problem, and even if he doesn’t, he’s dealing with the same discomfort that forced him to be shut down last summer, and if Lee requires a surgical fix, the estimate is a recovery of 6-8 months. Darvish might try to pitch through, but we know how that usually goes. Lee might try to pitch through, but in the best-case scenario, that means pitching through pain. We might not see Darvish until the middle of 2016. We might not see Lee ever again on a major-league mound. It’s too early to know anything for sure, except that the news of the last few days has changed the baseball landscape.

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Earlier today, Kiley McDaniel published his consummately researched and demonstrably authoritative prospect list for the Toronto Blue Jays. What follows is a different exercise than that, one much smaller in scope and designed to identify not Toronto’s top overall prospects but rather the rookie-eligible players in the Jays’ 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 theToronto 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. Dalton Pompey, OF (Profile)

A reasonable projection for a player with limited or no major-league experience requires the translation of that same minor leaguer’s stats to their major-league equivalents. There’s essentially a “penalty,” then, for numbers produced at Triple-A relative to the major leagues — and ever greater penalties for Double-A stats, High-A stats, etc. Pompey represents an interesting case insofar as he began the 2014 season at High-A Dunedin — indeed, remained there until the end of June — but ended it with the parent club. So, despite the fact that Pompey produced mostly competent lines in higher levels, a projection system like Steamer won’t ignore those 300-plus plate appearances in the Florida State League during which he produced very good, but also not unprecedented, numbers. If the projection appears muted relative to Pompey’s tools and/or late-season performance, this is the likely explanation.

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“It’s great, I love it,” said a bright-eyed Chase Anderson about the overfull rotation in Arizona this spring. Maybe he can be a little more enthusiastic about it — his arsenal is maybe more complete than the other nine young pitchers he’s competing with in camp. That doesn’t mean that he isn’t working hard to improve, along side other fellow Baby ‘Backs Rubby de la Rosa, Allen Webster, and Archie Bradley.

Anderson has two changeups, a good curve, and already showed the ability to get strikeouts and limit walks at the major league level, so he has to be in the driver’s seat. He said this spring is about work on his two-seamer in particular, as he’d like to get more ground balls.

Teammate Rubby de la Rosa has an electric mid-90’s fastball and a changeup taught to him by a legend. “Pedro Martinez taught me this grip, he told me ‘practice it every day, and if you can have it come out at the right speed, it will be a strikeout pitch for you, I’m 100% sure it’ll be a great pitch for you,'” de la Rosa said after a bullpen in camp last week.

He may not get the same legendary drop that Pedro got from the same grip — de la Rosa laughed when asked about Pedro’s fingers and their flexability, saying he couldn’t do anything like that himself — but the new D-back has a good change. It’s above-average by drop and fade, and got 16% whiffs last year (average was 13%).

It’s the breaking balls that have eluded the 26-year-old righty so far. He hasn’t thrown many curves in games, and the slider hasn’t managed an average whiff rate yet. The pitcher talked before and after a bullpen about the keys for his slider. One key was just keeping his curve and slider from morphing into one slurve by focusing on his release point.

The other key for his slider was more complicated. “I’m trying to get that pitch perfect,” he said. “I almost have it, but my arm speed is a bit fast, maybe. I’m tying to slow motion my feet so that I can catch up to my arm.” During his bullpen, you could see him trying to slow down his body compared to what he’s been in the past. Take a look at the end of his bullpen session in camp last week.

Read the rest on Just a Bit Outside.

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 Jays have had a steady strategy for amateur player acquisition: spend early and often and take risks. That obviously will lead to some busts, but GM Alex Anthopoulos has had a consistent vision in this regard for his six years running the team and the farm is now flush with talent. The Latin program has developed shortstop and power arms and has done a nice job turning low- and mid-level bonuses into real prospects. The gambles in the draft have also paid off with risky bets on Daniel Norris, Anthony Alford and Aaron Sanchez delivering in some form already while top 2014 pick Jeff Hoffman could be better than all of them if his rehab goes well.

It’s also worth noting that the 40 FV group on this list is filled with high upside talent. These prospects are ranked based on trade value, so they’re worth the same as the less exciting, lower upside, higher certainty 40 FV players on other lists, but this means the Jays have a wider range of possibilities in outcomes for their lower level prospects. With a strong development season, a half dozen of these prospects could take a step forward, and, with another strong year of signing amateur talent, could move a top 10-12 system another step forward.

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Last July, Rockies owner Dick Monfort earned some well-deserved ridicule by indicating that his team wouldn’t consider trading 33-year-old free-agent-to-be Jorge De La Rosa, despite the fact that Colorado was well on its way to a 96-loss season and De La Rosa is, all things considered, pretty mediocre and not even that durable. The owner’s money quote: de la Rosa “has won our last three,” without noting that the three wins had required 21 Colorado games to attain. According to a Peter Gammons report, Monfort killed a potential deal that would have sent De La Rosa to Baltimore for Eduardo Rodriguez, who was instead swapped to Boston for Andrew Miller and has impressed so much since that he ranked No. 23 overall on Kiley McDaniel’s recent Top 200 Prospects list.

While Rockies fans cringe at that thought and pray that Gammons’ information was incorrect, the Rockies instead gave De La Rosa two more years and $25 million in September. Considering that the team’s major additions this winter were minor pieces like Daniel Descalso, Kyle Kendrick, John Axford, Nick Hundley, and David Hale, it’s looking like another season of praying that this is the year that Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez stay healthy at the same time, while hoping that young arms Jon Gray and Eddie Butler can contribute.

While it’s difficult to see a scenario where the Rockies break through this year, it’s perhaps even more difficult to see De La Rosa still being around to contribute to the next good Colorado team. But while Monfort’s direction and baseball sense may have been misguided, he’s not wrong about one thing: “he pitches great here,” and in a sport where finding any pitcher who can be anything other than awful in Coors Field has proven terribly difficult, maybe that’s not such a meaningless thing to have.

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