Archive for Teams

Earlier this offseason, the Braves and Dodgers conducted a trade that is likely to have little bearing on the 2018 season in terms of on-field results. Los Angeles sent Charlie Culberson, Adrian Gonzalez, Scott Kazmir, and Brandon McCarthy to Atlanta; Atlanta sent Matt Kemp the other way. There was a little money involved, too.

It wasn’t so much the precise identities of the players that were relevant to the deal, however, but rather the manner in which it allowed the clubs to curate their payrolls over the next couple years. The trade permitted the Braves to concentrate more of the salary in just the 2018 season while allowing the Dodgers to spread the money out over the next two years, thus avoiding the luxury tax. For taking on the brunt of the payments now, the Braves received whatever production McCarthy will provide this season and whatever production Culberson will provide over the next few. More importantly, however, they relieved themselves of a large financial obligation in 2019.

It’s hard not to look at that trade and see that the Braves are positioning themselves for a contending run starting in 2019. Perhaps that’s the case. There’s a pretty good argument, however, that they should consider accelerating their timeline. It’s possible, with the right moves, that Atlanta could assemble a winning team a year earlier than expected.

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I suppose what I should say is that the Gerrit Cole trade has two perception problems. One, it’s clearly just a bad look for Pittsburgh. It’s generally a bad look when a major-league team has to trade away an established major-league talent, and with Cole and then Andrew McCutchen going out the door, it’s a twin reminder of how the Pirates failed to build on a tremendous run of success. I don’t know how much more the Pirates reasonably could’ve done, but there’s forever that lingering question regarding ownership’s commitment to winning. This is nothing new. It’s a reopening of wounds that never healed.

There’s also, though, another aspect. The Pirates have been heavily criticized for the return package they got for Cole from the Astros. I have no interest in trying to figure out whether the Pirates got the best package possible. I don’t know what else was truly on the table. Maybe more would’ve been available in July; maybe Cole’s stock would’ve dropped. All we know is what the Pirates got. My read of the consensus is that the Pirates didn’t get enough. But my read is also that the Astros have a little something to do with that. Specifically because the Astros are unusually good and deep.

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A little over a year ago, Brian Duensing signed a one-year contract with the Cubs worth $2 million. That’s hardly the kind of commitment that would break the Cubs’ bank, but it was still somewhat surprising that Duensing got such a guarantee, given that he was aging, and hadn’t been very good. He had thrown just 13.1 big-league innings in 2016, and that season he injured his elbow while moving a chair. It wouldn’t have been hard to see Duensing end up as a spring-training NRI. The Cubs, though, took a chance.

It worked out! Duensing had a good year. Appeared in 68 games. Did well. And now Duensing has re-signed, for two years and…$7 million. Compared to the previous contract, it’s more than double the commitment, I know, but it’s still modest, given what Duensing just did, and given what other free-agent relievers have signed for. This has been a slow-moving market, and there’s a strengthening conversation about how players aren’t getting their collective due. You might be tempted to point to Duensing’s deal as evidence.

Yet it doesn’t quite work. Duensing’s deal, it turns out, is rather evidence of something else.

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After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Boston Red Sox. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Batters
Perhaps more strongly than any club examined to date in this series, the 2018 iteration of the Boston Red Sox resembles its immediate predecessor. For the most part, that’s to the club’s benefit. Last year’s team was projected to receive three or more wins from five different positions, for a total of roughly 19 WAR. This year’s team is also projected to receive three or more wins from five different positions, for a total of roughly 18 WAR. Considering that an average collection of hitters produces 18 wins total in a given season, one is forced to conclude that Boston’s core is strong.

The addition of third baseman Rafael Devers (611 PA, 2.6 zWAR) is quite helpful in this regard. Third base has represented a bit of a black hole in recent years for Boston. Will Middlebrooks (2013-14), Pablo Sandoval (2015, -17), and Travis Shaw (2016) have been the Opening Day starters at third for the Red Sox over that last five years. None have crossed the two-win threshold during that span.

The roster’s weaknesses, meanwhile, remain at the weaker end of the defensive spectrum. Neither first baseman Mitch Moreland (503, 0.9) nor Hanley Ramirez (524, 1.1) profile as anything much better than a platoon type.

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In reality, there is no separating the Pirates from their circumstances. The Pirates are a smaller-market team, and a smaller-budget team, but followers won’t ever let you forget it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way. It’s fair to question ownership’s commitment to winning, as the Pirates never spent big to supplement what became an impressive and successful core. Predictably, the Pirates wound up squeezed, hence the trades of both Gerrit Cole and Andrew McCutchen. They were getting expensive, with decreasing team control. Time to reload. That’s the cycle.

But it’s not like Neal Huntington has a choice. He has to operate within the given constraints, so it started to make sense to deal Cole away. And then it made sense to deal McCutchen away. Ideally, the Pirates wouldn’t be here in the first place, but, well, they’re here, and so trades have been made. And trades have been criticized, the Cole move in particular. There’s the prevailing thought the Pirates didn’t get enough back. Certainly, they didn’t receive the classic headliner. Fans would like to see a better haul for their ace.

Me, I’ve come fully around. I like Joe Musgrove. He’s interesting. I like Michael Feliz. He’s also interesting. Jason Martin is further interesting, as a fourth piece. But I’d like to shed particular light on Colin Moran. Moran has, in the past, been an extremely polarizing prospect, and at this point he might be considered post-hype. Yet Moran made significant changes in 2017, the kinds of changes you’ve heard about elsewhere. Colin Moran is a swing-changer.

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After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Los Angeles Angels. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Batters
During each of the last two offseasons, Jeff Sullivan has written a post about baseball’s best outfield. In each case, said outfield has belonged to the Los Angeles Angels — not, that is, because of a particularly notable breadth of talent, but rather due to the presence of Mike Trout (653 PA, 7.9 zWAR) on the roster. The 12-win mark typically represents the threshold those Angel outfields have transcended. The combination of Trout, Kole Calhoun (629, 2.4), and Justin Upton (607, 2.6) is forecast for 12.9 wins.

Trout’s excellence isn’t much of a surprise, of course. Much more mysterious is the near future of Shohei Ohtani (355, 0.9). ZiPS calls for the Japanese wunderkind to record a league-average batting line in his first year stateside. Combined with standard corner-outfield defense (Szymborski projects Ohtani in right field), the result is just less than a win in just more than a half-season’s worth of plate appearances. The strength of Ohtani’s forecast is his .333 BABIP, the highest mark assessed to anyone on the club. The weakness? His 31.0% strikeout rate, itself nearly the highest. Ohtani, meanwhile, is projected for a relatively modest .186 isolated-power figure. Overall, it’s less promising than his pitching forecast.

None of this, of course, addresses offseason acquisition Zack Cozart (467, 2.7) or other offseason acquisition Ian Kinsler (584, 3.0). Nor will it. Address them, that is.

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If you’ve read any of the dozens of articles over the years trying to create a framework for player asset values (putting a dollar amount on a player’s value), you’re aware of the biggest weakness of this genre of article. Take a star player, run him through a marginal-value analysis, and you’ll be disappointed in what it says about his trade value. Before we jump into the Gerrit Cole and Andrew McCutchen trades, follow me down a thought-experiment rabbit hole.

Clayton Kershaw is the best pitcher in baseball and Steamer projects him as a six-win player next year. Using the roughly $9-10 million at which a win is currently valued on the open market, Kershaw is likely to produce something between $50 and $60 million of value next year; let’s call it $55 million. Would multiple teams bid that amount for his services on a one year deal? Probably yes, because there’s some surplus value at that salary for which the formula fails to account. It doesn’t consider, for example, either extreme payrolls (i.e. the Dodgers’ on one hand, the A’s on the other) or more critical spots on the win curve (moving an 87-win team to a 93-win team is worth far more revenue-wise than 65 to 71).

So what would the A’s bid? They had an $86 million payroll last year, and they obviously wouldn’t give nearly two-thirds of it to one player. Oakland’s value for Kershaw would likely be whatever the maximum is that they would pay for any player, but that number is much lower than what the Dodgers would spend, maybe $20 million. Granted, these are extreme cases, but it illustrates the limitations of using a one-size-fits-all dollar-per-win calculator in specific instances, even if it works fine in aggregate.

More Granular Valuation

I point all that out to illustrate the fact that players aren’t worth the same to every team. Kershaw’s value, on which we all basically agree, varies by $30-40 million from the A’s to the Dodgers on just a one-year deal. So wouldn’t it follow that the A’s and Dodgers would value other players differently, too?

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The Giants have acquired outfielder Andrew McCutchen in exchange for Kyle Crick and Bryan Reynolds. Below are the KATOH projections for Pittsburgh’s newest prospects.

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Earlier in the offseason, the Giants came ever so close to trading for Giancarlo Stanton. Stanton has been one of the most important players in the Marlins’ admittedly limited history, but all that got in the way was a well-earned no-trade clause. Which is what ultimately took Stanton to the Yankees, instead of the Giants or the Cardinals.

Shortly after that all went down, the Giants traded for Evan Longoria. Longoria has been the most important player in the Rays’ admittedly limited history, but, well, the Rays are the Rays, and Longoria is both increasingly old and increasingly expensive. The commitment meant that Longoria had to go, and the Giants were there to welcome him with open arms.

And now the Giants have traded for Andrew McCutchen. McCutchen has been one of the most important players in the Pirates’ far less limited history, one of the keys to the franchise’s recent return to relevance, but where Longoria’s deal was too big for a smaller-market operation, McCutchen’s was too small. With just one year left, McCutchen all but forced the Pirates’ hand, and the Giants, again, were there. The agreement, as it is:

Giants get

• Andrew McCutchen
• $2.5 million

Pirates get

• Kyle Crick
• Bryan Reynolds
• $0.5 million in international-pool money

For the third time, the Giants targeted the face of another ballclub. For the third time, they reached an agreement. For the second time, a move has been actually made. Because of who McCutchen is and has been, this is an impact transaction, one that’s sure to have widespread consequences. The reality of trading or trading for McCutchen is complex. It’s also quite simple. The Pirates aren’t good enough to keep a 31-year-old staring ahead to free agency. And the Giants are trying to return to the playoffs before the inevitable reckoning. McCutchen gives them something they just didn’t have.

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The Astros have acquired right-hander Gerrit Cole (for real this time) from the Pirates in exchange for Michael Feliz, Joe Musgrove, and prospects Jason Martin and Colin Moran. Below are the KATOH projections for the latter two of those players.

Note that WAR figures account for each player’s first six major-league seasons. KATOH denotes the stats-only version of the projection system, while KATOH+ denotes the methodology that includes a player’s prospect rankings.

*****

Colin Moran, 3B (Profile)
KATOH: 3.0 WAR
KATOH+: 2.8 WAR

The Marlins made Moran the sixth-overall pick back in 2013, but his stock has cratered since. His bat never developed the way scouts thought it would, culminating in a paltry .259/.329/.368 line in 2016. He showed signs of life last year, however, hitting .308/.373/.543 in his second crack at Triple-A. For the first time as a professional, he hit for power — largely by upping his fly-ball rate by 10 percentage points — while simultaneously cutting eight points off of his strikeout rate.

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