Archive for Teams

You don’t need me to tell you that the Houston Astros are a terrible baseball team (162-324 over the last three seasons), and you probably already know why. GM Jeff Luhnow and his growing collection of former internet baseball writers have committed to a full-scale, ground-up rebuilding of the talent-sparse organization he found himself with when he was hired in December 2011. That meant trading everything he possibly could for young talent, and it meant going with a young, inexperienced, and inexpensive — down to around $13 million total late in the year — roster as they sacrifice a watchable major league product in service of an increasingly bright future.

That strategy, one that I imagine a majority of FanGraphs readers understand and embrace, has been a source of some controversy in the larger sports world, with semi-regular stories popping up here and there accusing the team of not respecting their fans while they skimp on players and pocket the savings.

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There’s an interesting comparison to be made between Jacoby Ellsbury and Michael Bourn, which is why I’m beginning this post with a couple paragraphs about Bourn before moving on to the meat. Bourn, you’ll remember, was a free agent just last offseason, and while he didn’t bring star power to the table, it would’ve looked like he did just by WAR alone. The big draw was supposed to be Bourn’s legs. Agent Scott Boras called him “by far the best defensive center fielder in the game.” He could run on the grass, he could run on the dirt, and he was a leadoff hitter who hardly embarrassed himself with the stick. Bourn was to be a fine hitter who really excelled in other areas.

There’s one thing, though, that did and still does get me fascinated. Bourn’s a little guy, and he doesn’t hit for pop. His spray charts convey as much, occasional dinger be damned. You don’t sign Michael Bourn in order for him to drive multiple runners to the plate at a time. But I played around on the ESPN Home Run Tracker, and according to the site, in April 2009, Bourn hit a home run 457 feet. Or, 456 feet, under standard conditions. He’s never come close to reaching that distance otherwise, which is a big reason why that discovery came as such a shock, but the way I took it was that that established a ceiling. Somewhere in there is a hitter capable of hitting a baseball 450 feet, because Bourn had done it before in a game, once. Maybe that’s a stretch, but then it’s a tough homer to fake.

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To be presented shortly: some statements, each of them more or less inarguable.

The Tampa Bay Rays are one of the best teams in baseball. This past season, they lost in the ALDS to the Red Sox. They’ve won at least 90 games four years in a row, they’ve won at least 84 games six years in a row, and in 2008 they advanced to the World Series. In terms of sustaining success, the Rays are a model organization.

The Rays are considered likely to part with ace David Price this offseason, not because he’s a free agent, but because he’ll be under expensive team control. In short, Price is going to cost more than the Rays would like to pay any one player, so the probability is that they’ll exchange their ace for youth, as they did with James Shields.

This coming season, the Rays, by choice, will pay several millions of dollars to outfielder David DeJesus. It appears the same could be said for 2015 as well. One of the more financially strapped organizations in the league is opening the wallet for a guy they picked up in exchange for a PTBNL in late August.

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I’ve been working on an interactive tool that allows you to create spray charts using Game Day data from the past two years for a few weeks now. I’ve always loved the Katron Batted Ball tool, and it’s been a great resource of mine for years. However, I wanted to put something together that was a bit more interactive, allowed for more filtering, and made side-by-side comparisons easier.

Our writers here at FanGraphs have been kind enough to play around with it and offer suggestions. After some tweaks I am ready to officially release the tool into the wild so that anyone can use it.

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Award season is upon us. It is a time for arguing about ERA versus FIP, pitching to the score, defensive value, and the meaning of “valuable.” Fun, right? It is also a time for me to whip out fun little toys to recognize different kinds of offensive contributions. One of these is the basis for the Joe Carter–Tony Batista Award, which annually recognizes the hitter whose RBI total most overstates his actual offensive contribution.

Spoiler alert: it was a banner year for the National League Central. Taste the excitement!

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Standing in between Arizona Fall League All-Star teammates Byron Buxton and man-child Jorge Alfaro is Boston’s soon-to-be-star: Mookie Betts. Maybe you didn’t notice the 5’9″ second baseman or his less-than-impressive numbers when you were scanning the AFL leaders, but that would be a mistake. Because the last time he struggled, he made adjustments and went on a tear that will have him zooming up prospect lists this winter.

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The 2013 postseason was a wild ride. We witnessed crazy endings, ill-timed errors, bizarre managerial gaffes, and plenty of the usual heroics. Perhaps you may be interested to learn how certain plays affected a team’s odds of winning the World Series. Luckily, we have a stat for that.

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The Hall of Fame buzz around David Ortiz is understandable given the amazing World Series he just had. With few exceptions, Ortiz has been an outstanding hitter since coming to Boston in 2003, a performance that will certainly make him an intriguing candidate for the Hall of Fame. I do not know whether he will get elected to the Hall, and there are others who are good at such analysis.

But when we as fans argue about the Hall of Fame, we mostly argue about whether a player should go into the Hall of Fame. In this context. Ortiz’s career usually draws comparisons of his career numbers with other players who were primarily DHs like Frank Thomas and (more often) Edgar Martinez. Obviously, this is not an either/or proposition. Just because Thomas and Martinez are (in my mind) clearly worthy of enshrinement does not mean Ortiz cannot be. Thus the “Edgar first” position is not all that interesting to me.

I do happen to believe that Thomas and Martinez are worthy and that Ortiz is not, but rather than getting into that way of looking at the issue , I want to take a different approach. If Ortiz’s career to date makes him worthy of being in the Hall of Fame, what other players might also be worthy based on their numbers? Exactly how large are Ortiz’s advocates willing to make the Hall?

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Worth noting: Joel Sherman of the New York Post suggests that pretty much everything written below is wrong.

It is certainly possible that I’ve interpreted the luxury tax calculations incorrect. The post will be updated once I have clarification.

Derek Jeter is going to stay with the Yankees, surprising absolutely no one. This was never really in doubt, especially because Jeter had the right to ensure he played 2014 in New York, thanks to a player option that was added to the end of his three-year, $51 million option on the deal he signed in 2010. He could have exercised his right to become a free agent, but heading into his age-40 season and coming off the worst year of his career, interest probably wouldn’t have been overwhelming. And it’s unlikely he wanted to end his career in any other uniform, so this was always the expected outcome.

However, the actual announcement sheds some fun light on the details of how the CBA works and how the luxury tax is calculated. The Yankees could have just let Jeter exercise his player option — listed as $8 million, but reported by Jon Heyman to actually be worth $9.5 million — but instead, they signed him to a new contract that will pay him $12 million next year instead. Why the $2.5 million to $4 million raise over what his own player option called for?

Three words: the luxury tax. The Yankees have been desperately trying to get under the $189 million threshold, and by paying Jeter more, their tax calculation is actually going to go down.

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On Oct. 1, 2011, Koji Uehara made his playoff debut and pitched in relief for the Rangers. He faced three batters, retiring none and allowing a dinger. In his next appearance in the playoffs, after ten days, he allowed a dinger. In his next appearance in the playoffs, he allowed a dinger. Uehara wouldn’t pitch again in that postseason, having completely lost Ron Washington’s trust. That is, if he ever had it. It felt like Uehara and the Rangers was never a marriage; rather, they were assigned lab partners, thinking wistfully of other lab partners. They didn’t work well together, and that’s half the reason the Rangers regret giving up Tommy Hunter and Chris Davis.

These days it’s impossible to imagine that version of Uehara ever existed. A vulnerable version, even if the extent of his vulnerability was a wee bit exaggerated. Uehara has always been good, but you might not even realize just how amazing he was with the Red Sox. He allowed a .400 OPS. His OPS allowed was almost half that down the stretch. FOX liked to show a graphic saying that Uehara had walked one batter since the All-Star break. That held true all the way through the playoffs, in which Uehara pitched 13 times, facing 46 batters, walking none, whiffing 16. In the playoffs he allowed a .413 OPS. That’s actually worse than what he allowed in the season.

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