Archive for Teams

The acquisition of Josh Hamilton gave the Angels what they wanted, but it also left the Angels with a little problem: between Peter Bourjos, Mark Trumbo, and Kendrys Morales, they had too many good players for too few spots. This was, as they say, a nice problem to have, and the Angels also felt they had a need for another innings-eating starting pitcher. So in a move surprising only because it went down between two teams in the same division, the Angels and Mariners have exchanged Morales and Jason Vargas, straight up. With one move, the Angels solved two perceived problems.

The whole trade is simple. It’s easy to understand, like an example transaction in Trading 101. The Angels had too many bats and too few starting pitchers, so they traded a bat for a starting pitcher. The Mariners wanted a bat more than they wanted to keep one of their starting pitchers. Morales didn’t fit in one place and he does fit in the other. Morales has one year left until free agency, and he’s projected to make just under $5 million. Vargas has one year left until free agency, too, and he’s projected to make just over $7 million. There are no prospects, no cash considerations, no players to be named later. Few transactions are this uncomplicated.

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Prior to the 2012 regular season, Mike Trout and Jesus Montero would’ve been considered leading contenders for the American League Rookie of the Year Award. Both Trout and Montero were top prospects, and Trout was staring at some regular outfield playing time while Montero was looking to catch and hit designatedly in Seattle. Trout eventually won the award, turning in an all-time great season. Montero did not win the award, and his season, while not disastrous, was closer to being a disaster than to being magnificent. Trout didn’t beat out Montero because of his baserunning — he beat out Montero because of everything — but, my goodness, the baserunning. The differences in baserunning.

Baserunning is sort of WAR’s forgotten component. For position players, obviously, everybody’s aware of offense, and everybody’s aware of defensive position. The big controversy surrounds the defensive measurement, and UZR is why some people don’t pick up what WAR is putting down. WAR also includes baserunning, and most people don’t talk about it. It’s just there, making a small difference, or no difference. How important could baserunning be?

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Jose Veras spent last season as a reliever for the Milwaukee Brewers, but in retrospect he was also something more: a year-long experiment on the value of those relievers a fan observes day-in and day-out. On the whole, the newest member of the Astros’ bullpen was decent in Milwaukee — he posted a 92 ERA- and a 92 FIP- as well as a sharp 1.39 WPA — but I wager he will not be remembered as such.

Why? Inconsistency.

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After having his 2011 season ruined by injury, Adam LaRoche had a nice comeback in 2012. He hit .271/.343/.510 (127 wRC+), including a career-high 33 home runs on the way to the postseason with Washington. The Nationals and LaRoche had a mutual option for 2013, but LaRoche turned down his side of it and opted for free agency as he entered his age-33 season.

LaRoche is reportedly looking for a three-year contract similar to the one Mike Napoli received from Boston, while the Nationals are said to be willing to offer only two years and $25 million. LaRoche is apparently talking to the Orioles, too. LaRoche had a nice year, but it is worth asking (assuming the Nationals are being serious in their pursuit of LaRoche) why Washington is bidding on LaRoche, given that they already have Michael Morse signed for 2013 at a considerably lower price.

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For the next installment in the instructs series, I’ll run down some thoughts on the two top hitters I saw (and quick notes on one pitcher). Keep in mind as I’ve mentioned before that these are limited looks with no more than a game or two look and no batting practice, so this doesn’t constitute a full standard scouting report from a multi-game look during the minor league season.

While I saw what amounted to basically one game of Wuilmer Becerra, he seems like the most relevant prospect to lead the article off with since he was included in the R.A. Dickey deal just a few days ago. Becerra is a real prospect in his own right, signing for $1.3 million on July 2nd, 2011 and that means youth is still on his side, as he turned 18 during instructs this year. His minor league debut was cut short after 36 plate appearances in the GCL this season after he broke his jaw from an errant in-game fastball.

Becerra has a long frame, listed at 6’4, 190 but he isn’t the typical super-slender projectable tools monsters of July 2, as there’s already some thickness to his frame and I wouldn’t be surprised if he is or will soon be well over 200 pounds. He runs well for his size and I didn’t get a great time but Becerra looked to be a below average runner, a far cry from when he had put up above average times in amateur workouts. His arm wasn’t overly impressive and my read was a left field profile, which is where he played exclusively in instructs.

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Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections, which have typically appeared in the pages of Baseball Think Factory, will be released at FanGraphs this year. Below is the first set of 2013’s projections — for the World Series champion San Francisco Giants. Don’t hesitate to leave notes regarding format/presentation in the comments section, as the author frequently has no idea what he’s doing.

Other thing: Szymborski himself will be chatting at Noon ET today in these very same electronic pages, and will happily answer any questions readers have regarding the projections themselves.

Batters
The Giants’ success is tied pretty strongly to the health and success of Buster Posey — not merely because only one player (i.e. Mike Trout) posted a higher WAR than Posey in 2012, but also because San Francisco’s catching corps lacks anything like impact talent. At 23, Hector Sanchez certainly has some promise, but even approaching Posey’s production would be a considerable challenge.

Of some interest will be how well the club is able to account for the departure of Melky Cabrera. While they were obviously able to win a championship following his suspension, Cabrera was also integral to the Giants’ regular-season performance, posting a 4.6 WAR in just 113 games (501 plate appearances). Manning the corners now will be Hunter Pence in right field and (likely) a platoon of Gregor Blanco and Andres Torres in left. ZiPS is optimistic neither about Blanco’s ability to match his career-high 2.4 wins from 2012, nor Pence’s ability to earn the entirety of the ca. $14 million he’s likely to receive in arbitration.

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Because of what he does, we know a lot more about Hiroyuki Nakajima than we know about the average stranger. We don’t so much know anything about Nakajima’s personality, but we know about his performance at work. Yet because of what he does and what he’s done, we also know a lot less about Hiroyuki Nakajima than we know about the average major-league baseball player. It isn’t necessary to have profiles for every player who plays in Japan, but now that Nakajima has signed with a major-league organization, people want to know more. People want to know what Nakajima’s going to be, before Nakajima makes it evident with his performance what he’s going to be.

We know that Nakajima has signed with the Oakland A’s, for two years and $6.5 million. Nakajima was a free agent, able to sign with anyone. We know that Nakajima is 30, and right-handed, and a shortstop, and projected to be Oakland’s regular shortstop as long as he’s not terrible. We know that Nakajima has a killer bat flip. We know that my Firefox initially identified “Nakajima” as a typo and suggested “Nakedness” as an alternative. And we know Nakajima’s Japanese statistics. When attempting to evaluate a player you’ve never seen, or even a player you have seen a bunch of times, nothing’s more important than the numbers.

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Kyle Kendrick is generally underrated in the realm of back-end starters, but the Phillies still came into the offseason seeking rotation depth behind Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, and Cole Hamels. That need grew even greater two weeks ago when the team used Vance Worley to acquire Ben Revere. With veteran back-end arms aplenty on the free agent market, Philadelphia managed to find a bargain in former National (and rival) John Lannan.

Lannan, as Phillies fans surely remember, started his big league career by breaking Chase Utley’s hand with a pitch back in 2007. The bad blood has lingered for years, and the Fightin’s have done a damn good job of exacting revenge over the years — Lannan has pitched to a 5.53 ERA (~5.80 FIP) against the Philadelphia compared to a 3.80 ERA (~4.30 FIP) against everyone else. The 28-year-old southpaw has responded by hitting more than twice as many Phillies (11) than players on any other team. Think of it as a light version of Pedro Martinez vs. the Yankees.

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It’s not often that a club has the opportunity to acquire the reigning Cy Young award winner but the Toronto Blue Jays did just that when they acquired R.A. Dickey from the New York Mets on Monday. Understandably, the Blue Jays paid a steep price for the veteran knuckleballer. Along with the top prospect in their system — Travis d’Arnaud, whom I wrote about earlier — the Jays also flipped prospects Noah Syndergaard and Wuilmer Becerra to their National League trading partners.

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Episode 289
FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron analyzes all baseball — and, in particular, the part of baseball concerning the trade of R.A. Dickey to the Blue Jays from the Mets for prospects. Also: how the Angels’ signing of Josh Hamilton doesn’t particularly represent a huge payroll spike for them. Also-also: the Phillies spend more on a relief than starting pitcher — why that might be.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 31 min play time.)

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