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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 Chicago White Sox. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Atlanta / Colorado / Los Angeles AL / Miami / Milwaukee / Oakland / Tampa Bay.

Batters
On the strength of his five wins, Jose Abreu was worth approximately $30 million in 2014. Should he regress a little but still manage the 3.5 WAR projected here by ZiPS, Abreu will have produced approximately $50 million in value over the first two years of the six-year, $68 million contract he signed in October of last year. Even if he ultimately opts in to arbitration (which he’s permitted to do — and almost certainly will do, at this rate — under the terms of his contract), the probability remains that Abreu will have provided an excellent return on investment.

Elsewhere around the field, it’s more difficult to find such optimism. As noted by Jeff Sullivan on Monday, the White Sox’ rate above average only at first base and DH according to the Steamer projections. Indeed, ZiPS paints a similar portrait — with the exception of center field Adam Eaton, perhaps, for whose 2015 season it’s decidedly more encouraging.

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Earlier today, Kiley McDaniel published his consummately researched and demonstrably authoritative prospect list for the Tampa Bay Rays. What follows is a different exercise than that, one much smaller in scope and designed to identify not Tampa Bay’s top overall prospects but rather the rookie-eligible players in the Rays 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 Rays 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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Everybody remembers the movie Inception, right? Nice visuals, convoluted premise, and that killer score – a more than sufficient popcorn delivery system. Fun fact: the main plot point of inception, that an idea can be planted in someone’s subconscious without them realizing, is real!

At some point this summer, exasperated Texas Rangers writer/blogger/fanalyst Jamey Newberg tweeted something to the effect of “Alex Rios is one of those players whose production will never line up with his numbers.” At first, I was offended. A player produces what he produces, his numbers reflect his….production. But the thought, the idea that a player is less than his final stat line, it stayed with me. I couldn’t shake it.

Then the offseason rolled around. The crop of available outfielders is charitably described as “very much ungood” and then a bunch of guys signed. One of those signees, Nick Markakis got four years and an AAV north of $11 million, to the surprise of many. And then, piling shock on top of shock, Rios himself signed a one-year deal with the Royals for $11 million.

There are plenty of reasons to scoff at the big outfielders contract. Entering his age-34 season, Rios comes off a rough season in Texas. He produced right at replacement level in 2014, displaying a worrisome lack of power (just four home runs and a career-low .118 ISO) and he missed time with injury, as older players are wont to do.

But more than most players, Rios’ problems are matters of perception. There are many reasons to not like Rios as a player or this signing in a vacuum, all factors that I believe contribute to the shrugs and disbelief when news of his Kansas City contract broke.

Most pressing, the concern expressed by the Rangers fan above: does his production lag behind his numbers?

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Evaluating the Prospects: Rangers, Rockies, Diamondbacks, Twins, Astros, Red Sox, Cubs, White Sox, Reds, Phillies & Rays

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

The common narrative about the Rays system is that 1) it’s down from past years and 2) this is because they can’t pick good players unless they pick in the top 10.  Over the 19 years of the franchise, here’s the 7 productive big leaguers over 9 tries they’ve picked from the top 6 overall slots: David Price, Evan Longoria, Josh Hamilton, Rocco Baldelli, B.J. Upton, Jeff Niemann and Delmon Young.

In 21 first round/sandwich picks outside of the top 6 slots, they’ve produced no big leaguers of consequence and the top current prospects of the group are Justin O’Conner (#2) and Blake Snell (#5) on the list below.  There’s obviously something to these critiques, but it’s important to keep in mind that the return from draft picks is exponential: the top few picks are supposed to produce far more value than late first round picks.

Due to all the extra high-round picks and farm-stocking trades, along with an increasingly prominent international program, the Rays system is as deep as almost any other.  Because the high bonus players haven’t worked out for Tampa Bay at even a league average rate, the top of the system is much weaker than others and their #1 prospect was acquired in a recent trade, along with #4 and #8.  There’s enough young, high-upside talent for this high-end shortage to change by this time next year, but it’s impossible to forecast something like that happening.

It’s also worth noting that 8 of the 31 prospects ranked here were acquired via trade; the Rays system has to be deep given the way the organization approaches roster building.  If the system was run like a big market team perennially in the playoffs (think Detroit), where prospects are traded once they have trade value to prop up the big league team, the Rays farm system could pretty easily be the worst in baseball due to their struggles in the draft.

Two things to monitor in the system is the catching depth (which took a hit when Arizona took Oscar Hernandez #1 overall in the Rule 5 Draft last week) and the glut of infielders with prospect value that fit best in Triple-A Durham. Behind Ryan Hanigan and Curt Casali at the big league level, the Rays’ primary catchers starting in Triple-A and moving down the chain should be Luke Maile, Justin O’Conner, Hernandez (who most expect to be returned by Arizona), Nick Ciuffo, David Rodriguez and Rafelin Lorenzo, all of whom are mentioned below as prospects, which is very rare.

In the Durham glut, the Rays have SS, Hak-Ju Lee, SS Jake Hager, SS Tim Beckham, 2B/SS Nick Franklin, 2B Ryan Brett and 3B/1B Richie Shaffer, all with varying levels of prospect value.  There’s hope that one or two of these guys could play their way onto the 25-man MLB roster, but the organization is aware that, barring injuries, some players may have to play out of position or at a lower level than expected to make things work.

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The White Sox won’t stop. I mean, at some point they will, because they’ll have to, and maybe they’ve reached that point now that they’ve signed Melky Cabrera, but Rick Hahn and the rest of his front office have had an incredibly busy month, adding to a roster that featured a handful of big-leaguers and not too much else. I had a thought, in early November, to write about the few teams who I figured wouldn’t be contenders in 2015. The White Sox were among them. I didn’t write the article, because I didn’t like it, and now I’m glad I didn’t because the front office has had maybe the most active few weeks in the league. It’s pretty clear that the team intends to win.

I still don’t think the White Sox are ready to win. This is where there’s a bit of important nuance: I don’t think the White Sox are ready to win, but I don’t have a great disagreement with the direction of all the activity. Generally speaking, I like what Rick Hahn has done, and he’s certainly managed to build fan enthusiasm around a team many were prepared to ignore not even that long ago. Why not spend, if you can spend? Why not improve, if you can improve? The White Sox haven’t lost too much of long-term value in making all these additions. I just think, despite everything, there’s not enough in place. It’s not an easy thing to do, to turn a pretty bad team into a pretty good team in a couple of months.

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Maybe the most important thing you learn early on in any basic stats class is that you can’t just throw out data. At least, not just because you want to, and not just because the data doesn’t fit. Just about all information is legitimate information, and you simply have to decide how heavily to weight it. Take Chase Headley, for example. No one figures he’s going to hit 31 dingers again, like he did in 2012, but the reality is that Headley did have a seven-win season just a few seasons ago, and we can’t justifiably ignore that. It’s a part of his record, and it hints at his true-talent level, or at least where it was in San Diego that one time. Because of that year, Headley gets a more favorable projection, and I don’t think you can argue that away.

If you’re going to eliminate data from a sample, you need to have a damn good reason. You need to be able to prove that the data is irrelevant. If you’re a research scientist, maybe the data came out of an experiment run you know you messed up. You accidentally buffered a solution to the wrong pH. As baseball fans, we’re not research scientists, but we’re still always looking for reasons to eliminate data. This is basically the same thing as having a disagreement with a given player projection. Overall, the projections do well, because they don’t eliminate data. But we’re always trying to beat them. Last year gave reason to eliminate prior data from J.D. Martinez. The White Sox saw reason to eliminate prior data from Zach Duke. And now the White Sox have also signed Melky Cabrera for three years and something like $42 million. Cabrera’s another interesting case, like Duke — he didn’t just overhaul his mechanics, but there’s something about his record that makes you wonder how much you should care about his 2013.

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Chase Headley has agreed to re-sign with the Yankees, reportedly for about $52 million over four years. We’ve written pretty extensively about Headley over the last month or so, so before I continue, I’ll just direct you to a few links for further reading about his abilities.

Comparing Chase Headley to Jacoby Ellsbury
Looking for the Real Chase Headley
The Bargains of the 2015 Free Agent Class
What Happened to Chase Headley?

Headley is a polarizing guy, with those of us who put a decent amount of value on the defensive side of the game seeing him as an above average regular, while many others see him as an underpowered corner guy whose best days are behind him. The Yankees used that diminished perception of Headley’s value to sign him to a deal for slightly less than what our crowdsourcing project suggested, which is pretty rare, given that the crowd is generally low on free agent contracts.

But that shouldn’t be a huge surprise, since people reading FanGraphs and contributing to the crowdsourcing project are more likely to use the metrics found here on the site, which suggest that Headley is still a pretty good player. While the Yankees and a few other teams — there was a reported $65 million offer on the table that he turned down, though we may never know if it was actually made or not — may agree with that assessment, there are enough Major League teams who think there are better ways to spend $10 to $15 million per year on a four year deal. So, as a point of comparison, let’s look at how Headley stacks up with other hitters who have signed similar contracts over the last couple of winters.

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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 Oakland Athletics. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Atlanta / Colorado / Los Angeles AL / Miami / Milwaukee / Tampa Bay.

Batters
Oakland catchers combined for the fourth-highest offensive and absolute lowest defensive run totals in the majors last year. In part, the poor defensive record was a result of both John Jaso and Derek Norris making starts at DH (and thereby receiving the attendant negative positional adjustment). In part, it’s because Jaso and Norris aren’t particularly excellent defensive catchers. For ZiPS, at least, the strengths compensate for the weaknesses sufficiently to make catcher the club’s likely most productive position.

Elsewhere, one finds more optimism regarding Marcus Semien’s 2015 season. Not regarding his shortstop defense, of course. ZiPS projects him to concede seven runs there in roughly a full season (which is almost precisely Steamer’s estimate, as well). However, both systems have Semien producing a roughly league-average batting line with roughly league-average (position agnostic) defense. Those estimates conspire to produce a nearly league-average projected WAR.

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If you’re still looking for offense on the free agent market, you’re basically out of luck, other than the still-available Chase Headley. Looking at our Free Agent Tracker, the only hitter left who projects to reach a realistic 2 WAR — i.e., league average — is Jed Lowrie, who is undeniably talented but rarely healthy and probably not a shortstop. (Ignore the overly optimistic outlook on Daric Barton, since this is using Steamer/600, and he’s had 600 plate appearances total over the last four seasons.)

That means that if you’re still in a situation where you need a bat and you don’t have the finances or the flexibility to add Headley, you’re either totally out of luck or you’re looking to the trade market. That’s where the Padres turned in landing Matt Kemp, for better or worse. It’s where the Cardinals went when they landed Jason Heyward, and how the Tigers picked up Yoenis Cespedes, and how Josh Donaldson landed in Toronto, and how Miguel Montero became a Cub.

While we can’t ever truly know for certain who is “available” on the trade market, we can say with reasonable confidence that Justin Upton is. As the Braves signaled their intention to shift from win-now to something resembling a mild rebuild with the firing of GM Frank Wren and the trade of Heyward, moving Upton — who can be a free agent following 2015 — seems like the logical next step. Unsurprisingly, his player tag at MLBTR has been full of activity over the last few weeks.

Upton, for the moment, is still a Brave, and we don’t know whether that’s because Atlanta wants too much or other teams aren’t stepping up — the answer, almost certainly, is both. But with the added information we have thanks to recent moves, can we get closer to finding his true trade value?

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The 2014 Winter Meetings went on at a fairly furious pace, all things considered. There was of course speculation as to what kind of moves would be done. Jon Lester was expected to sign — he did. There were rumors Matt Kemp could get traded — he was. The Red Sox were thought to be looking to alleviate their crowded outfield — this also happened. But a ton of other things happened. The White Sox tried to get better, the Reds had a mini fire sale, and the Dodgers turned the Winter Meetings into their personal Out of The Park game. I don’t really want to call it a tradeapalooza, but I want to call it a tradepocalypse even less, so I’ll stick with the former. And in the middle of it all was the Twins signing Ervin Santana to a four-year, $55 million contract. If one were skimming the pages of MLB Trade Rumors looking for the fallout of the Winter Meetings, the Santana headline would most likely cause them to shrug unemphatically. Because Ervin Santana, as a player, is an unemphatic shrug. And he’s probably the best that the Minnesota Twins can do. Read the rest of this entry »