Archive for Teams

The Pittsburgh Pirates starting rotation will receive an infusion of talent on Tuesday night.

The Pirates No. 1 prospect, Gerrit Cole, will make his major-league debut when he takes the mound against the defending World Series champion San Francisco Giants and two-time Cy Young award winner Tim Lincecum. Prior to the 2013 season, I ranked the 22-year-old pitcher as the No. 1 prospect in the Pirates’ system and the sixth-best prospect in all of baseball. The California native has been on the prospect landscape a long time. He was selected by the New York Yankees in the first round of the 2008 draft (28th overall) but spurned them for a career at UCLA. After his junior year, in 2011, the prospect’s value was at an all-time high and Cole was taken first overall by the Pirates.

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Ike Davis homered in the season’s second game. He homered twice a couple weeks later, then he homered again a week after that. That makes it sound like Davis hit a flurry of home runs, which he didn’t. He hit four over a handful of weeks. But then, after going deep on April 25, he didn’t go deep again until the beginning of June. On June 2, Davis took Kevin Slowey deep to center in Miami, and Ron Darling chimed in innocently enough:

Well let’s see if that can get Ike going.

Davis singled in his next at-bat. Then he went 1-for-14. Finally, after weeks of speculation and strong denial and halfhearted denial, the Mets gave Davis a demotion to Triple-A, his OPS standing at an even .500. It’s been Davis’ contention that he can’t learn to hit major-league pitchers in the minor leagues. The Mets, though, would like to see him at least hit minor-league pitchers. They’d like to see him at least hit someone.

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It’s hard to find a good, stable middle infield combination, especially offensively, since so many players at those positions are defensive specialists who are happy to see a blooper fall in occasionally. When a team like the Padres puts together a good middle infield combo seemingly overnight, it’s definitely worthy of mention. In shortstop Everth Cabrera and second baseman Jedd Gyorko, San Diego may have one of the game’s most surprisingly effective middle infield duos.

If we were to focus only on 2013 performance as a marker of overall ability, then we’d be forced to note that only 11 teams have qualified players at each position. We don’t want to knock out the other 19 teams for not having qualifiers, but there are some we can eliminate right off the bat. Four teams — the Blue Jays, Dodgers, Mariners and Marlins — don’t have a qualified player at either position. Perhaps — in another year — the combo of Jose Reyes and Maicer Izturis will merit mention, but not now. The same goes for Robinson Cano and Derek Jeter with the Yankees, as they won’t get enough playing time out of Jeter to merit consideration this season.

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Yasiel Puig has been in the Major Leagues for a week. In the seven days since he was called up from Double-A, he’s hit as many home runs as Andre Ethier has all season. He’s already doubled Matt Kemp’s 2013 home run total. He ended his first game in the majors by starting a double play, throwing a laser from right field to nail a runner retreating to first on a long fly ball. Puig-mania is in full effect, and needless to say, he’s not going back to the minor leagues no matter how many Dodgers outfielders eventually return from the DL.

It’s hard not to get caught up in the excitement. If you’ve missed his absurd debut, MLB.com has an embeddable five minute video of his early accomplishments, so you can relive the glory of Yasiel Puig’s incredible first week below. Read the rest of this entry »

We are a little more than two months into the season, and that means it’s time to check on early season velocity trends. As I’ve mentioned before, declines in velocity are a less reliable signal in April and May than in June and July, but nevertheless large declines can still be a solid predictor that a pitcher’s velocity has in fact truly declined and will remain lower at season’s end. Almost 40% of pitchers that experience a decline in April — and almost 50% in May — will finish the season down at least 1 mph. And while the signal gets much stronger in July, 40% is still a pretty sizable number.

So let’s take a quick look at the major decliners from April and May.

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You’ve probably heard the Daniel Nava story before. He went undrafted out of college, was initially cut by the independent Chico Outlaws, and when the Red Sox did sign him, they only paid $1. (Boston would eventually pay $1,499 more). Three years later, Nava broke into the majors — but not for good. Even devout Red Sox fans would be forgiven if they’d forgotten Nava’s name heading into 2012, and he has never been part of Boston’s Plan A. But he’s waited for his turn — and so far this season, he’s been one of baseball’s best hitters.

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Despite being in fourth place at the moment, the Rays are obviously in the playoff mix, only four games back of the AL East leading Red Sox. Indeed, Tampa Bay has been in the mix pretty much every season since 2008. Their ability to prevent runs has been what has received the most attention the last few seasons, as they seemingly add an above-average starter from the minors every year, but their hitting has not been as bad as the perception. True, the only recognizable offensive star since the departure of Carl Crawford has been Evan Longoria, but the Rays have still managed to be in the top half of the American League in wRC+ since then.

This season, the Rays have a collective 107 wRC+, their best since 2009. Having Longoria healthy and hitting has been a big plus, of course, but as in past seasons, it is surprising performances from apparent stopgaps such as the previously-discussed James Loney — who currently leads the team with a 151 wRC+ — which have provided the needed boosts. Loney’s contribution thus far has been probably the most surprising, but almost equally as significant for the 2013 Rays has been the hitting of second-baseman-turned-left-fielder Kelly Johnson, who seems to be regaining the form he displayed in a previous out-of-nowhere career year for Arizona in 2010.

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You’re going to see a lot of college seniors taken in the middle rounds of the draft today, as teams look to save bonus pool money in order to take a shot on an over-slot pick that they either drafted yesterday or might look to take at a certain spot today. College seniors often sign for a relative pittance since they don’t have any real alternatives other than to sign for what they’re offered. While college juniors can always threaten to go back to school, seniors don’t have a stick with which to negotiate, so their price falls accordingly.

That is the kind of leverage — the pressure created by having an alternative option — that most people are familiar with, at least in terms of how things work in MLB. The secondary path forces teams to negotiate a fair price, and players without a valid alternative sign for a deep discount. That theory holds in some cases, but Mark Appel is about to demonstrate that leverage can come in other forms as well.

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You know all about xFIP, because you read FanGraphs, and it’s a distinctly FanGraphs-y statistic. You don’t quite know how you feel about it. Some pitchers demonstrate an ability to suppress runs more than one would expect. Some pitchers appear to be unusually homer-prone. Lots has been written about the handful of apparent exceptions, but xFIP isn’t trash, as some might suggest. Most generally, it does a good job of separating the good pitchers from the bad ones. Good pitchers get strikeouts, limit walks, and don’t allow homers. Most pitchers with weird-looking home-run rates will regress. One wants to argue with xFIP, but it isn’t easy, except on the margins. It contains a lot of truth.

This year, 56 American League starters have thrown at least 50 innings. Felix Hernandez leads with 90.2; we find Felix Doubront at 50, exactly. Here are the top four, by xFIP:

1. Anibal Sanchez
2. Felix Hernandez
3. Yu Darvish
4. Max Scherzer

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At this point, everyone knows the story of the Cardinals stealing Albert Pujols in the 13th round of the 1999 draft. In terms of production for the cost, it’s probably the best draft pick in Major League history. Well, apparently, the Cardinals are good at this whole 13th round draft pick thing, because exactly 10 years after they unearthed Pujols, they struck gold again.

Their 2009 13th round pick? Matt Carpenter. He was a senior sign out of Texas Christian University, a budget pick who only cost them a $1,000 signing bonus. After signing, the Cardinals had him split time between short-season and two A-ball levels. At low-A, he drew some walks but showed no power — in part because he hit flat footed with no weight transfer — and was terrible when he got promoted to high-A, hitting .219/.286/.342 in 128 plate appearances. 23-year-old non-athletes who can’t hit A-ball pitching a few months after signing for $1,000 are the definition of non-prospects.

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