After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for eight years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Kansas City Royals.

Batters

The Kansas City Royals are in the middle of one of the weirdest rebuilds I can remember. Rather than go the full teardown route or spend money aggressively to maintain a competitive team, they found a Third Way. This Third Way, unfortunately, doesn’t consist of either spending money, winning, getting younger, or developing a good farm system. It’s different, I’ll give them that.

The Royals have several players of value in the starting lineup, though it’s mostly of the short-term variety. Whit Merrifield’s as solid a player as there is on the team, but moving him to center field to solve a positional crunch that just doesn’t exist — Nicky Lopez can just as easily play third, and Maikel Franco isn’t particularly interesting at this point — strikes me as too cute by half. The Royals using left field as the Official Alex Gordon Left Field Emeritus Position is less concerning; while it prevents the Royals from getting a full look at Brett Phillips or Bubba Starling, and Gordon is unlikely to be a contributor, I see little reason to hope Phillips or Starling will ever be either. Read the rest of this entry »

At the very start of Curtis Granderson’s career, he was expected to make a plane with fellow Tigers prospects Ryan Raburn and Roberto Novoa. According to the Detroit Free Press, only Raburn made the flight in time; Granderson and Novoa got hosed by security and had to truck it four hours to Detroit all the way from Erie, driving around the big lake they have there, and finally arriving at Comerica Park. Granderson would have driven across Lake Erie if he could have, but as it were, he started his big league career a day late, and yet still found a way to get there in time. The perfect start to a major league run of making adjustments.

Through a 16-year career, which Granderson announced was over last Friday, expectations are going to shift. Granderson was expected to never commit an error, because he didn’t for the first 151 games he played. In the late 2000s, he was expected to be among the league leader in triples. By the mid-2010s, with age chewing up his knees, those expectations faded.

With his uniform, his output, and the sport itself changing over a decade and a half, Granderson always found a way to make an impact, even when he was 33 and in the first year of his four-year deal with the Mets: He was only good for a 98 wRC+ in 245 PA, but did see more pitches per plate appearance than anyone else on the roster. Did it help? Maybe not directly, but he probably tired a pitcher or two out and forced him to make a mistake with the next guy. Why not?

…

Autumn in Milwaukee is a lot like autumn anywhere else in the universe. The leaves change color. The air grows cooler. The sky flashes a rainbow of ripened hues as the sun rises and sets. Occasionally, there is playoff baseball to speak of. And Granderson was able to get there without missing a flight.

By early fall of 2018, Granderson was part of a purge of veteran talent from the Blue Jays locker room as the team exploded its roster in an attempt to bring in new, young talent. He had three All-Star appearances, a couple of MVP nods, a Silver Slugger, and a career of offensive accolades behind him, but he arrived in Milwaukee for the last month of the regular season with a job to do. At this point in his career, that job was to take pitches, be available, and show these other guys how a playoff run is done. He may not have led the league in triples anymore (he hit a combined 36 from 2007-08 and a combined five from 2017-18), and he had committed 31 errors up to this point (though he wouldn’t commit anymore for the rest of his major league career), but Granderson still knew how to take a pitch. Read the rest of this entry »

In the first installment of the eighth annual Effectively Wild season preview series, Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller preview the 2020 Reds with The Athletic’s C. Trent Rosecrans, and the 2020 Brewers (40:26) with The Athletic’s Derek VanRiper.

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Jake Rogers is regarded as a strong defender who has issues with the stick. Ten months ago, Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel wrote that the Detroit Tigers prospect, has “a shot to approach the low offensive bar at the catcher position, [but] his glove alone makes him a high-probability big leaguer.” Not much has changed. Rogers proceeded to log a .779 OPS in Triple-A, then slash .125/.222/.259 after receiving his first-ever call-up in late July. Most alarmingly, he fanned 130 times in 431 plate appearances between three levels.

Rogers’s efforts to improve his offensive game were what I had in mind when I approached him in the Tigers clubhouse last August. And while we did we did address that, a few tangential topics turned out to be more captivating. We’ll get to those after touching on postural adjustments.

“A big thing has been that my hips are a little up, and I want to get them back to level,” Rogers told me. “That way I can get my swing more on plane and cover more pitches. Right now, when I get to toe-touch my head is back, which causes my hips to be at an upward angle. I need to get more balanced, with my hips and shoulders both level.”

The former Tulane Green Wave standout had also lowered his hands a few inches, and worked to keep to his head still. What goes on between the ears is likewise important. With that in mind, I asked the 24-year-old if he ever finds himself thinking like a catcher in the batter’s box. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a relatively quiet winter for Jerry Dipoto and the Mariners. Seemingly content to let their youngsters play (or develop in the minors), the frantic wheeling and dealing that we had become accustomed to in offseasons past has subsided this year. With their eyes set on 2021, there hasn’t been much of a need to add to their roster. But while most of their key positions are manned by players who, in an ideal world, will form the core of the competitive roster next year, the bullpen is filled with a number of question marks. The Mariners addressed that concern by signing Yoshihisa Hirano to a one-year contract yesterday.

The deal guarantees $1.6 million to the pitcher with a number of performance bonuses based on appearances and games finished. The most interesting wrinkle to his contract comes in the form of a $250,000 bonus that kicks in each time he’s traded. This “Jerry Dipoto clause” is a savvy inclusion for the veteran reliever who will likely be shopped around near the trade deadline if he’s any good at all.

After an 11-year career in Japan, Hirano made the jump to the States in 2018. In two seasons with the Diamondbacks, he was a decent option towards the back end of the bullpen. Last year, he improved his strikeout rate by almost four points but saw his FIP jump over four due to an increase in his home run rate. Through August 12, he had actually posted a 3.30 FIP with just three home runs allowed, but a nasty two-game stretch on August 14 and 16 led to a brief stint on the Injured List with elbow inflammation. He returned in mid-September, but continued to struggle, giving up four more home runs in his nine appearances after August 12. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re not scraping the bottom of the free agent barrel quite yet. Yasiel Puig remains available, as do a number of lesser but still valuable big league types, like Collin McHugh, Brian Dozier, and Kevin Pillar. We are at the point in the winter, however, when we can start filing a few of the lesser signings in a joint roundup. The special on this particular menu is middle relievers fleeing the Cubs for big league deals with NL Central rivals — come for the Pedro Strop news, stay for the briefing on David Phelps. Or vice versa; do as you please.

Pedro Strop — Cincinnati, one year, $1.825 million, up to $3.5 million with incentives

Many moons ago, when Strop was toiling away in the Rockies farm system, he led the Northwest League in strikeouts. That’s not normally the kind of achievement that merits acknowledgement all these years later, except for the fact that he did so as a hitter (and to be fair, he was in good company; future All-Star Michael Saunders finished second in that category). Nonetheless, 86 strikeouts in 247 plate appearances marked the end of his time as an infielder. Colorado tried him on the bump the following spring, and after striking out 35 hitters in his first 26 minor league innings, he was on his way to bigger and better things.

Now 34, and with a ring and almost $30 million in the bank, Strop is coming off of his worst season in nearly a decade. Over 50 games and 41 innings, he posted a pedestrian 4.97 ERA with a 4.53 FIP, snapping a string of six consecutive sub-3.00 ERA campaigns. Never a control specialist, his 11.2% walk rate was the highest mark he’d permitted since 2012. The bigger problem, though, was the homers. He surrendered six of them, a career high, and more than double his career HR/9 rate. Alongside, Strop’s average fastball dropped a tick and a half relative to career norms and he enticed fewer whiffs with both his fastball and the slider that he’s long relied on as an out pitch. Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for eight years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Philadelphia Phillies.

Batters

The Phillies struggled at times to score runs in 2019, generally underperforming their preseason expectations. While it’s easy to blame the guy making $300 million, Bryce Harper was far from the only issue and in the big picture, he’s still highly likely to be a run producer for the Phillies. A 125 wRC+ may not be what we expected from Harper back when he was a phenom, but he’s still a star, if not one with the “super” prefix.

There’s little to complain about when it comes to J.T. Realmuto‘s performance. Yes, his offensive production, like Harper’s, was a bit below expectations, but he’s an elite defensive catcher and the Phillies should probably get him signed to an extension sooner rather than later because all bets are off once he hits free agency. I would be shocked if the team signing him next year can secure his services for “just” Yasmani Grandal’s contract. Read the rest of this entry »

Dan Szymborski recently posted the 2020 ZiPS projections for the Seattle Mariners. The system forecasts lefty Marco Gonzales to be the best pitcher on Seattle’s staff. That should come as no surprise considering that Gonzales has been far and away the best arm the Mariners have had to offer lately. According to ZiPS, he’s expected to throw at least 170 innings in 2020 and post a 4.26 ERA (4.12 FIP) with a WAR of 2.6. Despite his strong showings in 2018 and 2019, ZiPS indicates a fair amount of regression for Gonzales this coming season.

After two straight seasons of 3-plus WAR, can we expect a pitcher who throws two fastballs that barely reach 90 mph to maintain that level of performance? Despite his ability to spread his arsenal out, especially when he’s ahead of the hitter, there is a change to Gonzales’ pitch selection that could facilitate another impressive season for the 27-year-old former 19th-overall draft pick.

Gonzales threw five different pitches in 2019: a sinker, cutter, a fading changeup, a sweeping, slurve-ish curveball, and a four-seamer, all with above-average command:

As you can see, Gonzales throws three different fastball variations. His traditional cutter works just fine and by FIP, it was his best pitch in 2019. Its 11:40 spin direction facilitates little sweep but a decent amount of rise. Read the rest of this entry »

Joey Gallo cracked the code in 2019. He recorded his highest major league wRC+ (by far), his highest WAR total (in only half a season!), his highest walk rate, and his highest isolated power. Before fracturing his wrist in July, he looked like a second-tier MVP candidate. It was a clear step forward for a player who was already an above-average major leaguer.

It wasn’t all cotton candy and lollipops. His strikeout rate ticked up, from a yikes-gross-cover-your-eyes 35.9% to a seek-shelter-this-is-not-a-drill 38.4%. Gallo struck out nearly as many times, in under 300 plate appearances, as Michael Brantley has in nearly 1200 PA over the last two years. But despite the eye-popping strikeout rate, the overall package made Gallo one of the most fearsome hitters in baseball.

What did Gallo change to turbo-boost his game? He started swinging less. That’s not all he did, but it’s a lot of it. And for someone like Gallo, that makes a ton of sense. He has what Eric and Kiley call a grooved swing — his swing rides a consistent path, which makes it hard to adjust to pitches away from his preferred target area, and given how much damage he does when he connects, pitchers are doing their utmost to avoid that target area.

To wit: in 2019, 39.9% of the pitches Gallo saw were in the strike zone, a rate that would have been 30th-lowest in baseball if he had enough plate appearances to qualify. In 2018, it was even more severe; his 38.1% zone rate was fifth-lowest in baseball. In 2017, his 36.1% zone rate was the lowest in the majors. Read the rest of this entry »

Matt Tabor is well-regarded primarily because of his fastball and his changeup. The latter, which he throws with a Vulcan-like grip, is his best pitch. The former, which gets solid ride but lacks plus velocity, is delivered with above-average command. Last year, the 21-year-old right-hander walked 16 batters, fanned 101, and logged a 2.93 ERA over 95.1 innings with the low-A Kane County Cougars. Bumped up two slots following Monday’s Starling Marte trade, Tabor currently ranks 11th on our Arizona Diamondbacks Top Prospects List.

His slider, a pitch he didn’t throw in games two summers ago, has become an important weapon for the 2017 third-round pick. Tabor credits Carson Cross with spurring its development. The two were together at PowerHouse Sports New Hampshire shortly before Cross took a job in the Milwaukee Brewers organization last February.

At the time, Tabor was a two-pitch pitcher. A third was needed, and to that purpose he was at wit’s end.

“Mentally, I was just so screwed up,” the Westford, Massachusetts native admitted. “I had pretty much convinced myself that I could never throw a good slider. I’d messed around with a lot of things, but it was still loopy and popped out of my hand. In high school, I could just flip that shit over and it was going to buckle knees, but up here they’ll sit on it and hit it 350 feet. I knew that I needed to make it harder, with more of a cutter-ish shape, so I approached Carson.”

Cross had thrown an effective slider at the University of Connecticut and later at the lower levels of the St. Louis Cardinals system. Moreover, he’d recently developed a strong interest in pitch design. He was just the tutor Tabor needed. Read the rest of this entry »