Archive for Teams

In 2012, 28-year-old Chase Headley put up one of the five best seasons in the history of the Padres franchise, a 7.2 WAR year that made him one of the six most valuable hitters in baseball that year. He had two years of team control remaining, he was on the right side of 30 and he was playing a position that is always difficult to fill ably. His value was through the roof; the Padres could have had almost anything they wanted for him. Preferring to try to win, they made a few extension offers that didn’t pan out, and kept him around to go 119-141 since the end of 2012.

Less than two years later, he’s been traded to the Yankees for a 27-year-old infielder who was a minor league free agent last winter (Yangervis Solarte), an inconsistent (though talented) 23-year-old A-ball pitcher who wasn’t on anyone’s top-100 list (Rafael De Paula), the loss of the option to give Headley a qualifying offer if they wanted, and they even had to kick in a million dollars to the Yankees to make it happen. When you talk about holding on to an asset too long, well, this is the prime example right here. Headley is no longer part of the Padres’ future, and he didn’t turn into anything that is very likely to be a big part of that future.

Read the rest of this entry »

Five years ago, the Cleveland Indians decided that Jhonny Peralta just wasn’t capable of playing shortstop at the Major League level anymore, shifting him to third base to allow Asdrubal Cabrera to move back from second base to shortstop, the position he had primarily played in the minors. Peralta had never put up particularly good defensive numbers at shortstop, and with a thick lower half, he certainly looked more like a third baseman than a middle infielder.

After roughly a year at third base, while still hitting like a shortstop, Peralta was traded to Detroit. The Indians weren’t going to pick up his $7 million option for 2011, and the Tigers were looking for an infielder to give them some depth on the left side of the infield. Peralta played third base for a week with the Tigers, but then incumbent Brandon Inge returned from the disabled list, and the Tigers moved Peralta back to shortstop.

Since that move, Peralta has played the position exclusively, spending four years at shortstop between Detroit and St. Louis. And along the way, a funny thing happened; UZR fell in love with Jhonny Peralta’s defense.

Read the rest of this entry »

Each weekday during the minor-league season, FanGraphs is providing a status update on multiple rookie-eligible players. Note that Age denotes the relevant prospect’s baseball age (i.e. as of July 1st of the current year); Top-15, the prospect’s place on Marc Hulet’s preseason organizational list; and Top-100, that same prospect’s rank on Hulet’s overall top-100 list.

Summary
A strapping outfielder with a full set of tools, Cordell has ripped South Atlantic League pitching apart in his first full season.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Red Sox, like the Rays, aren’t quite sure whether it’s time to sell. Both of them are tied for fourth, or last, in the AL East, at 7.5 games back. But then they’ve won a combined nine games in a row, and our projections have them as the best teams in the division. Still, their playoff odds are low enough that this might be too little, too late. If the Red Sox elect to sell, they have a handful of veteran role players that could find temporary homes with contenders. But no matter what the Sox choose, it appears they’ll be keeping Jon Lester. The free-agent-to-be doesn’t seem to be available on the market.

The idea is that the Sox would like to extend him. Lester has said before that he’d be willing to take something of a hometown discount, even if that urge is diminished with every passing day. Obviously, the two sides have yet to reach an agreement, despite a midseason re-opening of talks, and obviously, the Red Sox’s reported offer around spring training was too low, but there’s still a pretty good chance of a long-term marriage, here. Both Lester and the Sox ultimately want the same thing. They just need to agree on what Jon Lester is.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the weekend, the Angels picked up Huston Street from San Diego, and we’ll get to that in a second. This isn’t just about the trade, though. It’s about the relief group that Street is joining. On March 30, the Angels announced their Opening Day roster, with a seven-man bullpen that looked like this:

• R — Ernesto Frieri
• R — Kevin Jepsen
• R — Michael Kohn
• L — Nick Maronde
• R — Fernando Salas
• R — Matt Shoemaker
• R — Joe Smith

Today, at least for the moment, they have an eight-man bullpen, and it looks like this:

• R — Jason Grilli
• R — Kevin Jepsen
• R — Mike Morin
• R — Cory Rasmus
• R — Fernando Salas
• R — Joe Smith
• R — Huston Street
• L — Joe Thatcher

Read the rest of this entry »

On June 17, the Royals took sole possession of first place in the American League Central, as they stood a half game up on Detroit in the division race. Since that date, the Royals have gone 10-17, while the Tigers have gone 18-10, and Kansas City now finds themselves in third place, seven games behind the Tigers and a game and a half behind the Indians. They’ve even fallen to sixth in the AL Wild Race, which isn’t exactly overflowing with dominant teams at the moment.

As things stand today, our Playoff Odds model gives the Royals a 2.6% chance of winning the division and a 7.9% chance of winning a spot in the Wild Card game. A Wild Card game that would almost certainly be on the road, against either the A’s or the Angels, inarguably the two best teams in baseball to this point of the season.

In other words, even if they manage to sneak past Cleveland, New York, Toronto, and Seattle — and hold off the charging Red Sox and Rays — their reward would be a road game against a significantly better team. Anything can happen in one game, of course, but when deciding whether to buy, sell, or hold at the deadline, the realistic upside has to be evaluated, and the Royals best case case scenario is still a probable loss in Game 163.

Read the rest of this entry »

If the baseball season ended today, an awful lot of people would be awfully confused, and the Seattle Mariners would qualify for the playoffs. There’s no bigger reason for the Mariners’ success than Felix Hernandez, and there’s no bigger reason for Felix Hernandez’s success than his changeup. Felix featured his change as the American League’s starting pitcher in Tuesday’s All-Star Game, and here’s that pitch putting away Yasiel Puig:

Here’s that pitch putting away Troy Tulowitzki:

Good hitters, both of those. Good pitches, both of those. By this point Felix is a household name, and it’s no secret that he offers a dominant changeup, or cambio. He’s been throwing the pitch for years, for almost exactly as long as he’s been a Cy Young contender.

But sometimes it isn’t enough to just know something. With Felix pitching as well as he ever has, it seems like a good time to get more familiar with the best pitch he throws, that’s also one of the best pitches in the league. Let’s review some facts about the Felix Hernandez changeup.

Read the rest at Just A Bit Outside.

Each weekday during the minor-league season, FanGraphs is providing a status update on multiple rookie-eligible players. Note that Age denotes the relevant prospect’s baseball age (i.e. as of July 1st of the current year); Top-15, the prospect’s place on Marc Hulet’s preseason organizational list; and Top-100, that same prospect’s rank on Hulet’s overall top-100 list.

This time around, I bring you tales of three teenagers who really stood out in recent viewings.

***

Brent Honeywell, RHP, Tampa Bay Rays (Profile)
Level: Rookie-Advanced   Age: 19  Top-15: N/A   Top-100: N/A
Line: 8 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 10/1 K/BB, 0.00 ERA, 1.58 FIP

Summary
Honeywell already looks like a steal with the 72nd pick in the draft.

Read the rest of this entry »

On Thursday night, preseason consensus top-50 prospect Aaron Sanchez made his first appearance of the season out of the bullpen for the Buffalo Bisons, the Triple-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays.

Sanchez’s move to the pen is notable for several reasons, even though he already had 14 relief appearances on his minor league resume (though some of those were from a tandem-starter experiment at Single-A in 2012).

But first, a note on how he performed: poorly. One inning is a woefully small sample to be judging anything from, but Sanchez was touched for two runs on three singles, taking the loss after allowing Pawtucket to break a 1-1 tie in the sixth. It wasn’t all that bad – three singles out of four balls in play is a little fluky – and one of those hits was from an MLB veteran in Shane Victorino, though the pitch was a mistake on Sanchez’ part (right over the plate and a shade above the knees). Still, he caught a lot of the plate on one of the other singles, and his final out was a well-hit liner to short.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Dodgers’ outfield situation might be more complicated than ever. Yasiel Puig is one of the league’s better young players, you’re all familiar with the three expensive veterans, Scott Van Slyke is a better player than even the Dodgers might’ve recognized, and Joc Pederson is hanging out in Triple-A with a four-digit OPS. It’s pretty obvious that some bodies are going to have to be moved, and one trade possibility is Matt Kemp. Kemp was the subject of rumors over the offseason, and those rumors haven’t gone away now that Kemp’s on the field and getting kind of squeezed out. The idea is he isn’t yet 30, and he’s an athlete who can be a source of right-handed power. If the Dodgers were to cover some of Kemp’s remaining contract, they would be able to find a destination.

On paper, Kemp is a two-time winner of a Gold Glove. Yet one of the problems here is that Kemp doesn’t appear to be a good defender. He’s been moved away from center field by a team without a true center fielder, and Kemp’s reduced mobility reduces the value he can provide, to the Dodgers or to someone else. Worse, Kemp isn’t accepting the aging process. From a newsy article Wednesday, by Ken Rosenthal:

The outfielder’s agent, former major-league pitcher Dave Stewart, told FOX Sports on Wednesday that Kemp again wants to be an everyday center fielder, something that isn’t in his immediate future with the Dodgers.

“Whatever they want to do we’re favorable to, as long as it gives him an opportunity to play every day,” Stewart said. “He’d like to eventually go back to center field. He’s not opposed to right or left. But his hope at some point is to get back to center.”

Read the rest of this entry »