Archive for Teams

The easiest part of the three-way Mark Trumbo trade to forget was the White Sox’s part. Given that we all call it the Mark Trumbo trade, of course a lot of interest followed Trumbo to the Diamondbacks. And given that it was the Angels giving Trumbo up, people have wondered about the return. But the White Sox were in there as a necessary component, and they arguably got the best of it, turning Hector Santiago into one-time quality Arizona prospect Adam Eaton. Eaton, now, is considered a potential part of the long-term White Sox core.

Monday, the White Sox and Diamondbacks struck again, and this time there was no third party. Being a team in little present need of a closer, the Sox gave up Addison Reed. Being a team in little present need of an extra third baseman, the DBacks gave up Matt Davidson. The focus for Arizona, again, is getting better right away. And the focus for Chicago, again, is adding another potential part of the long-term White Sox core. While it’s a trade I wouldn’t want to call lopsided, I like it more for Rick Hahn than I do for Kevin Towers.

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The Cardinals have reportedly signed Mark Ellis to a one-year deal. Ellis will turn 37 next season, but played well enough the last couple of years with the Dodgers that he was sure to find a job. The question is whether the Cardinals really needed him given the presence of Kolten Wong. The answer has to do with the Cardinals’ position as a contender and their concern with depth.

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Last year, in the electronic pages of FanGraphs+, I wrote this about Juan Uribe: “There’s your run-of-the-mill ‘being terrible at baseball,’ and then there’s the performance art piece put on by Juan Uribe in 2012.” I talked about how the only two players who had a worse wOBA (with at least 450 PA) over 2011-12 were Chone Figgins and Jeff Mathis. I laughed at how Dodgers manager Don Mattingly had buried him down the stretch in 2012, refusing to start him after August 14, though he remained active; I ended, snarkily, by saying “What can be said about Juan Uribe at this point that hasn’t been already been said about other great disasters in world history? At least the Titanic had a band providing entertainment until the very end.” 

Mean, perhaps, but then again, it’s difficult to express just how phenomenally atrocious Uribe had been in the first two years of his contract. When the 2013 season began, it seemed something of a minor miracle that Uribe had even survived the winter, a fact seemingly more due to the team’s inability to find an insurance policy for Luis Cruz or a suitable first base backup for Adrian Gonzalez than anything. If Scott Rolen had accepted the team’s offer to come play third base, Uribe maybe doesn’t make the roster. If Cruz hadn’t imploded so spectacularly, Uribe maybe doesn’t see July. Either way, if his career somehow even extended past 2013, it felt all but certain it would be on non-roster invites for the rest of his days.

Over the weekend, the Dodgers reached an agreement with Uribe to come back for two more seasons. They guaranteed him a reported $15 million, and they reportedly had to beat out at least the Marlins and Rays to do so. The world’s a twisted place.  Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the entirely venerable pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections were released at FanGraphs last year. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the San Diego Padres. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Cleveland / Minnesota / Philadelphia / St. Louis.

Batters
San Diego’s leader by WAR in 2013 was Chris Denorfia, with a 3.9 mark — for which reason it feels odd to view him as part-time/platoon-type player entering 2014. Yet, that’s how the author has classified him in the depth-chart graphic below and how ZiPS seemingly regards him, as well — insofar, that is, as it doesn’t foresee the outfielder duplicating his career-best season, at all.

Of some difficulty with regard to understanding the 2014 iteration of the Padres is estimating precisely how playing time will work out between the team’s two catchers. ZiPS’ computer math suggests that Yasmani Grandal is probably the second- or third-best player on the whole club. That said, he underwent surgery on his ACL in August that could require up to a year of recovery. Fortunately for San Diego, Nick Hundley himself isn’t a particularly significant downgrade. Still, that’s a lot of talent to possess at one position while others could certainly afford to be upgraded.

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Over the past three seasons, the modus operandi for the Tampa Bay Rays has been to find a one-year solution at first base in the clearance bin of the offseason market. In 2011, that came in the form of adding Casey Kotchman on a minor league deal and watching him produce a 2.4 win season. In 2012, the team upped the budget and spent $7.25M to bring back Carlos Pena a year after he left via free agency, but Pena struggled through a 0.7 win season. Last season, James Loney was brought in on a $2M deal, and turned a profit with a career-best 2.7 win season.

The first base situation has been as much as a revolving door as the closer role has been with the club. Until Fernando Rodney repeated as the team saves leader last season, the team had had a different pitcher leads the team in saves each year under Maddon. While they have had repeated success with the closer role, the situation at first base has been a bit different.  As Joe Maddon often says about these types of situations, the Rays meatloafed the first base situation.

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In a sense, the Yankees are back to being the Yankees. They offered a ton of money to sign Brian McCann. They offered a ton of money to sign Jacoby Ellsbury. There’s still talk they might offer a ton of money to try to sign Masahiro Tanaka. Yet the Yankees are still a team in need of an actual regular second baseman. They’ve reached this point because they were outbid on their own Robinson Cano by the Mariners, and now they’ve been outbid on Omar Infante by the Royals, who have a shiny new second baseman at a four-year commitment worth a little over $30 million.

You could say that there’s a revenge angle, since earlier in the offseason the Yankees signed Carlos Beltran with the Royals hot in pursuit. But this is less about vengeance and more about plugging an immediate hole, with a perfectly adequate player. Used to be I thought it was all but a given that the Royals would trade Billy Butler for Nick Franklin. Now they need their own DH, and they have their own second baseman. It’s a step forward for a team that would really really like to experience this year’s playoffs.

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The thing we know is that David Price is going to be traded. That much is a virtual certainty, for all of the reasons you already understand. The things we don’t know are all of the details. We don’t know where he’s going to be traded to, and we don’t know what he’s going to bring back. We don’t know when the trade is going to happen, and we don’t know if there’ll even be a trade this offseason. Would the Rays be daring enough to move Price during a competitive regular season? Would they be daring enough to wait to move Price until the next winter? Who feels a greater sense of urgency — the team with Price, or the teams that would like to have him? Behind the scenes, there’s probably a lot of activity, but from the outside it feels like nothing has budged for a matter of weeks.

Oh, and there’s another thing we know. David Price has been outstanding. Truly outstanding, since he graduated into the majors. He’s posted four consecutive seasons of at least 180 innings and at least an average ERA, and the reality is that he’s mostly exceeded those marks with relative ease. Over the four seasons, he’s averaged 208 innings and a 78 ERA-. Price has been one of the game’s great workhorses, and that’s a big part of how the Rays are selling him. You get Price, and you can write his next season’s numbers in ink.

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After having typically appeared in the entirely venerable pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections were released at FanGraphs last year. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Minnesota Twins. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Cleveland / Philadelphia / St. Louis.

Batters
“How will Joe Mauer’s move from catcher to first base affect the Twins?” is likely a question that a number of people have asked this offseason, either aloud or just to themselves. The answer, at least so far as ZiPS is concerned, is probably “Not much.” In either case, that is, Minnesota doesn’t resemble anything much like a club that’ll find itself in playoff contention during the waning months of baseball’s regular season. That’s not to say it won’t affect Mauer’s production, personally. After receiving a projection of four-plus wins from ZiPS last winter and then actually outproducing that figure during 2013, the erstwhile backstop receives here a projection of fewer than three wins as a first baseman.

Part of that appears to be adjustment for BABIP: no player is reasonably forecast to record one above .350, even though Mauer has exceeded that figure each of the last two seasons. Part of that is likely a product of whatever aging curve Dan Szymborski’s math computer utilizes. But a third part of it is due, also, to the positional adjustment for a first basemen relative to a catcher. Whether projected to record a 125 OPS+ (as he was last year) or 121 OPS+ (as with this one), that’s a less formidable number when it’s being produced by a first baseman.

An encouraging development, on the other hand, is the projection for Mauer’s replacement at catcher, Josmil Pinto, about whom Steamer is also rather optimistic.

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Sometimes the easiest posts to write turn out to be the most challenging. Earlier Thursday, the Giants signed Michael Morse for a year and a base salary around $6 million, and the plan is for Morse to be the team’s regular left fielder. This is the kind of post I could write in three or four sentences if I wanted to, a classic bloggy kind of post where I imply that the Giants are stupid. We know the Giants aren’t stupid, though, and this is a move that should be explored, not unlike any other move. The challenge here is to talk about the transaction without being insulting and dismissive.

Here’s one place we can start. The other day, there was talk that the Astros were interested in Morse, and apparently Bo Porter was pushing pretty hard. I don’t know the extent to which that’s all truthful, but the Astros are supposed to be a brilliant organization now, and they were said to be interested in the same player the Giants just picked up. If we figure the Astros have a clue, and if the Astros had interest in Morse, it follows that there’s reason for some optimism.

But there is one important difference. And it’s not that the Giants paid enough to bring Morse in.

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I remember the way things used to be. Used to be, writing about baseball analysis was pretty easy. Inflated or deflated BABIP over here. High groundball rate over there. This guy has a big difference between his ERA and his xFIP. That guy is miscast as a role player. That’s not the way things are anymore. Many of the principles were fine, and you still see a lot of the same ideas, but over time things have grown more complex, more nuanced. We’re moving beyond pointing out weird things, and we’re moving toward trying to explain weird things. It’s all in the name of identifying what is and isn’t sustainable. All of us want to be fortune tellers.

The Phillies signed Roberto Hernandez today, as a starting pitcher. He’s going to get a base salary around $4.5 million, and with incentives he can top out around $6 million. If writing were the same as it was a few years ago, I could just write a few paragraphs about how Hernandez put up a 4.89 ERA and a 3.60 xFIP. On that basis alone, hey, look, bargain! But because of what writing and research have become, now you also get that intro paragraph.

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