Archive for Teams

The Seattle Mariners are making a bold move with their run-prevention model. They’re not changing it (at least not very much), but they are making a defensive change that isn’t without risk. A team built around fly-ball pitchers and ball hawks is planning to play an infielder with no professional outfield experience in center field.

Not surprisingly, the decision to do so was built partly on projections that came from Statcast data. The player in question is 29-year-old Dee Gordon, who has performed exclusively at the shortstop and second base positions since being drafted in 2008.

Earlier this spring, I asked Mariners executive vice president and general manager Jerry Dipoto about the move and how it ties in to his club’s overall approach to keeping runs off the board.

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Jerry Dipoto on Dee Gordon and the Mariners’ run-prevention model: “I’d like to tell you that [the disappointing 2017 season] was mostly health. We were down 80% of our starting rotation, and a few of our everyday players, before we got to the first week of May. That was certainly a big factor. But dating back to 2016, when we first started to re-create our club, I feel like we nailed it in terms of the science. We built around fly-ball-oriented pitchers with an outfield that can go catch fly balls. What we weren’t planning on, along with the health issues, was the home-run explosion over the last two years. A lot of those fly balls ended up going over the fence.

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PEORIA, Ariz. — Dee Gordon is in demand.

On a Tuesday morning, the slight 29-year-old enters the Mariners’ spring clubhouse wearing a black T-shirt, sweats, and — after exchanging words with teammates en route to his locker — a grin, as well. Before even having an opportunity to shed his street clothes, though, he’s pulled away by a Mariners public-relations staffer. Given a cell phone, he’s ushered out of the clubhouse. The reason: a radio request he has agreed to fulfill. He returns some 20 minutes later and, almost immediately, another reporter — this very FanGraphs dot com employee — intercepts him.

After spending the last three years in Miami, Gordon is not accustomed to regular media attention. But he’s a man of interest this spring because the Mariners are asking him to change positions. He was not caught off guard by the move: Marlins executive Michael Hill had alerted Gordon to the possibility of the trade and position change several weeks before the deal was finalized. And when he returned from a trip to the Dominican Republic in early December, Gordon was awoken by a call informing him he was traded. Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto then called to talk about the position change.

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To the overwhelming majority of baseball fans, the name Willians Astudillo means nothing. The 26-year-old has never been called up to the majors, and for three years in a row now, he’s elected free agency and signed a minor-league contract. Astudillo is there in spring training right now, but so are countless professional players you’d never recognize at the next table in a restaurant. Most people don’t know Willians Astudillo. Most people will never know Willians Astudillo. But there are those out there who know exactly who he is. Astudillo has a claim to being the single most interesting player in the minors.

Astudillo has yet to strike out this spring. Over the winter he batted 223 times in Venezuela, and he struck out on just four occasions. He struck out less often than a teammate who came to the plate just eight times. This is the Astudillo story. Out of the thousands of players in the minors in 2017, Astudillo had the third-lowest strikeout rate, and the lowest strikeout rate in Triple-A. He had the lowest strikeout rate in the minors in 2016. He had the lowest strikeout rate in the minors in 2015. He had the second-lowest strikeout rate in the minors in 2014. He apparently didn’t play in 2013, but in 2012, and in 2011, and in 2010, he had the lowest strikeout rate in the minors. Astudillo doesn’t strike out. Astudillo also doesn’t walk, and he has a limited track record of hitting for power, but he doesn’t strike out. As a professional, Astudillo has 67 strikeouts in 2,154 plate appearances. Joey Gallo recorded his 67th major-league strikeout in his 140th plate appearance.

For his ability to make contact alone, Astudillo has won himself some fans. But now, he also has another claim to fame. Although Astudillo has moved around, he is still considered a catcher. And, the other day, in a spring game, he picked off Shane Robinson without looking.

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I’ll get to Lucas Giolito in a moment. But first, James Paxton. Paxton has always had pretty good stuff, but for a while, he didn’t know quite where it was going. Here are two screenshots from before Paxton broke out.

Paxton would reach back, and, with his glove arm, he’d reach up. Like, way up. And that sort of set the tone, because Paxton’s throwing arm would then come over the top. There are good over-the-top pitchers — there are great over-the-top pitchers — but Paxton didn’t become one. Not quite. Early in 2016, Paxton changed his angles. Almost instantly, he gained some gas, and he gained some control. Paxton turned into an ace-level starter, when he’s been healthy enough to start, at least. Two more screenshots, now.

Paxton’s glove arm has calmed down. And while he’s still not a side-armer or anything, Paxton has lowered his arm slot. His release point is down several inches, from where it had been. The way Paxton describes it, this is his natural slot, and it certainly looks more comfortable to the eye. Paxton has settled on better mechanics, and it’s among the reasons why he’s gotten so good.

To Giolito, now. There’s something I was just never able to shake.

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On a Bay Area edition of EW’s season-preview series, Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the resolution of their free-agent-contracts draft, the Lance Lynn, Neil Walker, and Jake Arrieta signings, the offseason market in review, and a Stephen Hawking baseball connection, then preview the 2018 Giants (32:07) with SB Nation’s Grant Brisbee, and the 2018 Athletics (1:07:20) with the San Francisco Chronicle’s Susan Slusser.

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For more than a decade — longer than Sandy Alderson has been general manager – the Mets’ handling of injuries has led to raised eyebrows, shaken heads, and an endless series of punchlines. Think back to the handling of Ryan Church‘s 2008 concussion, the battles over Carlos Beltran‘s 2010 knee surgery, the “angry bullpen session” that effectively ended Johan Santana’s career in 2013, and last year’s Noah Syndergaard mess, in which the pitcher suffered a season-wrecking strained latissimus dorsi days after refusing to climb into an MRI tube. Any Mets fan can offer you a multitude of additional instances, including a number of stretches where the team played shorthanded while trying to avoid placing a player on the disabled list.

All of that was supposed to change after last season, when the Mets dismissed trainer Ray Ramirez and set about hiring a high-performance director “to oversee players’ health and institute policies throughout the minor league levels.” On January 23, the team announced the hiring of Jim Cavallini with the title of director of performance and sports science; earlier, they promoted assistant trainer Brian Chicklo to replace Ramirez.

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Jake Arrieta is now officially a member of the Phillies. For a few weeks, this arrangement was feeling increasingly inevitable, as Scott Boras wasn’t finding longer-term offers, and as the Phillies have had tens of millions of dollars of payroll space. The Phillies are getting closer to relevance, and, among the would-be Arrieta suitors, they have to worry about efficient spending the least. So, here we are, with Arrieta having had his formal press-conference introduction. The Phillies still aren’t anyone’s wild-card favorites, but Arrieta unquestionably makes them stronger. The rotation is now deeper than just Aaron Nola.

The player in question is interesting enough on his own. Entire books could be written about Arrieta’s career, and he still has another few chapters to go. Arrieta has experienced dizzying highs and unthinkable lows, which makes him out to be something inspiring. But let me warn you right now, this is not a post about Arrieta’s professional achievements. It’s not a post about whether I think Arrieta is going to age gracefully. This is a post about the contract. The inanimate paper contract. Specifically, this is a post about a clause in the contract. You should leave now if you don’t care about this. But with the Jake Arrieta deal, the Phillies and Scott Boras have agreed to something new.

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By most measures, the 2017 season was a very good one for the Brewers. On the heels of back-to-back sub-.500 seasons, the first of which saw them shift into rebuilding mode, they spent over two months atop the NL Central, from mid-May to late July, and remained in the Wild Card hunt until the season’s final weekend. Their 86 wins and second-place finish in the NL Central represented the franchise’s best showing since 2011. They made a big splash in late January, signing free-agent center fielder Lorenzo Cain and trading for left fielder Christian Yelich. They made some lower-cost moves as well, most notably adding a solid starter, Jhoulys Chacin, to a rotation that finished in the NL’s top five in ERA and WAR.

It’s not unreasonable to think that those improvements would put a team that missed a playoff spot by a single game in the thick of this year’s race. Yet, as of publication, the Brewers are projected to finish just 78-84. What in the name of Bernie Brewer is going on?

It bears repeating that projections are not destiny and that, at the team level, the error bars on a given year of preseason projections tend to average six to eight wins in either direction. The 2017 Brewers were one of those teams that push such averages higher, because as of Opening Day last year, they were forecast to win just 70 games. In terms of overachievement, they matched the Diamondbacks (77 projected wins, 93 actual wins) for the majors’ largest discrepancy; the Giants, projected for 88 wins but finishing with 64, had the largest discrepancy in the other direction.

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At least 236 major-league players will earn more than Neil Walker in 2018.

Among second basemen alone, 18 are expected to receive something better than the $4 million the New York Yankees guaranteed to pay Walker, who remained available into the middle of March.

Walker has produced seven straight seasons of at least two wins. He ranks 61st amongst position players in WAR (11.7) since the start of the 2014 season. He was ranked by former FanGraphs manager editor Dave Cameron as 11th-best free agent available this winter.

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The A’s are signing Jonathan Lucroy for one year and $6.5 million. Why are they doing that? Because Lucroy has been good before, and, other than Lucroy, the A’s catchers are Bruce Maxwell, Josh Phegley, and Dustin Garneau. It’s not so much that Lucroy is sure to be a massive improvement. But, he ought to help, and the A’s had some money to move, and this season, the A’s also happen to look like a half-decent wild-card contender. Everything makes sense. This move was almost painfully obvious.

Of course, in order for this move to go down, Lucroy had to accept. You know how free agency works. And the A’s have had some problems here, in terms of getting players to take their money. Sure, the A’s have run low payrolls in large part because they’ve intended for payroll to be low, but they’ve also often been turned down, even when they’ve had the high offer. This offseason, for example, the A’s offered the biggest contract to Brian Duensing, who re-signed with the Cubs. Maybe Lucroy is fond of the A’s. Maybe he’s excited to go there. But, it’s the middle of spring training. The market decided Lucroy wasn’t worth being enthusiastic about. The A’s came calling with a job.

As I write this, Lucroy is 31 years old. Not even very long ago, he was considered one of baseball’s best catchers. How did his free agency end up in this place? Lucroy, like Carlos Gonzalez, is coming off a bad season. And it’s not at all clear what anyone should make of him at this point. What skills he still has are fair to question.

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