Archive for Teams

The Dodgers, Royals, and White Sox swung a three-team, six-player trade yesterday involving relievers Scott Alexander, Luis Avilan, and Joakim Soria plus three prospects: Trevor Oaks, Erick Mejia and Jake Peter.

Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel have provided scouting reports for the prospects changing hands. Below are the KATOH projections for those same players. 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.

*****

Trevor Oaks, RHP, Kansas City (Profile)

KATOH: 3.4
KATOH+: 2.6

Oaks caught KATOH’s eye last year when he put up a 2.74 ERA with decent peripherals across 24 starts in the Dodgers system. An oblique injury effectively ended his 2017 season in July, but not before he recorded a 3.49 FIP and 21% strikeout rate in 84 Triple-A innings. Oaks turns 25 in March but has succeeded as a starter at the highest level of the minors.

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The Dodgers, Royals, and White Sox executed a three-team trade on Thursday night. Los Angeles acquired 28-year-old lefty Scott Alexander from Kansas City and INF Jake Peter from Chicago while sending RHP Trevor Oaks and INF Erick Mejia to Kansas City and Luis Avilan to Chicago. In addition to Avilan, the White Sox received reliever Joakim Soria from Kansas City and cash from both other teams.

Travis Sawchik examined the deal last night from the Dodgers’ perspective. Below are scouting reports on Alexander (who exhausted rookie eligibility in 2018 but still has a developing skill set) and the deal’s prospects. Notes and prose are a combination of my own and Kiley McDaniel’s.

Going to Los Angeles

Scott Alexander, LHP (from Royals)
The late-blooming lefty was an effective MLB reliever last year, posting a 2.48 ERA on the back of a 73% ground-ball rate. He relies on a sinker that he throws a whopping 94% of the time, working at 92-94 and touching 96 with plus-plus life. It’s average velocity jumped nearly three ticks last year, while the usage jumped accordingly from 72%. He barely used his slider, but it’s an above-average pitch now — also with three ticks more velo — that scouts think he should throw more often. Alexander’s slider may work against righties effectively, as well, due to its more vertical shape (versus a normal slider). He may not miss many bats but is an effective relief piece who might only just be discovering something unique.

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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 New York Yankees. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Batters
The Yankees’ roster, as presently constructed, is unusual. The prospective starting lineup features, on the one hand, two of this past season’s legitimately best players. It includes at least three others, however, who are projected for one or fewer wins in 2018. It doesn’t seem as though Brian Cashman et al. have specifically set out to assemble a stars-and-scrubs roster. That seems to have been the result so far, though.

The core of the offense, clearly, is formed by Aaron Judge (621 PA, 4.7 zWAR) and Giancarlo Stanton (593, 6.4). Dan Szymborski’s computer calls for that pair to record just over 11 wins together — as in, that’s the mean projected outcome, tempered by regression and aging and whatever. By comparison, consider: less than a third of clubs in 2017 featured teammates who produced observed combined win totals of 11 or greater. Four whole teams, in fact, failed to cross the 11-win threshold this past season. Judge and Stanton, in other words, represent a strong foundation for the offense.

What remains to be seen is how the club builds on that foundation. Greg Bird (372 PA, 1.1 zWAR), Ronald Torreyes (395, 0.1), and Miguel Andujar (576, 1.2) are, for now, the most likely Opening Day starters at first, second, and third base, respectively. They’re forecast for fewer than three wins between them. Bird’s modest wins projection is the result, in part, of a modest playing-time projection — not surprising for a player who’s recorded only 200 or so professional plate appearances over the last two seasons. As for Andujar and Torreyes, it wouldn’t be surprising at all to find them relegated to a bench role before the offseason is complete.

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While everyone waits for the thaw of the free-agent market, the Dodgers, Royals, and White Sox got together on a three-team trade Thursday evening.

The L.A. Times‘ Andy McCullough broke the news on the deal, as part of which the Royals send lefty reliever Scott Alexander to the Dodgers for prospects Erick Mejia and Trevor Oaks. The Dodgers ship lefty reliever Luis Avilan and $3 million to the White Sox. The Royals are also reportedly moving Joakim Soria and $1 million to the White Sox in something of a salary dump.

While there are quite a few moving parts, the focus within this post will be on Alexander, an interesting arm who could fill a need — and fill it cheaply — for one of the top clubs in baseball. Lefty reliever Tony Watson is a free agent, and the Dodgers are attempting to stay under the luxury tax. In giving up prospects and cash, the Dodgers must also feel Alexander is an upgrade over Avilan, who is projected to make $2.3 million in arbitration according to MLB Trade Rumors.

Alexander, a pre-arbitration arm with five years of control remaining, might not only fill a need cheaply for the next couple of seasons but also exceptionally well. While, on the one hand, the Dodgers are trading a lefty who misses bats, they’re also adding a lefty who might have more upside in today’s offensive environment.

In a year marked by fly balls, home runs, launch angles, and juiced balls, Alexander was, by some measures, the top ground-ball arm in the game in 2017. The approach led him to a 2.48 ERA, 3.23 FIP, and 56 ERA- last season over 69 innings. He emerged, quietly, as one of the better relievers in the game.

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Recently, St. Louis general manager John Mozeliak was asked about his starting rotation in 2018. He said he was mostly content to go to battle with the players he had. Consider this, for example, from Ben Frederickson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

It’s unclear if there’s a design behind the order in which Mozeliak names the staff, but he does single out Adam Wainwright as a somewhat unknown variable.

Now there’s a rumor that the Cardinals are in on Jake Arrieta, which, especially when seen next to this discussion of pitcher roles next year, might mean that the 36-year-old Wainwright is losing his grip on his rotation spot.

As bad as last year was for the veteran Cardinal righty — and it was, since he was somewhere between the 18th-worst and 36th-worst starting pitcher who threw at least 120 innings last year — the way the season progressed may have been even more disheartening than even the overall results.

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Eric Hosmer has waited some time for a market to come together for his services. Part of the reason for the delay is that large-market clubs like the Dodgers and Yankees are not in need of a first baseman and are trying to remain below the luxury-tax threshold. Part of it is that teams are learning to better wait out free agents. (By Jan. 3 of last winter, nine of FanGraphs’ top-10 free agents had signed. This year? Three.) Hosmer’s agent Scott Boras famously said that there should be no concern for a free agent if he’s “the steak,” making the analogy to the main course of a fine dinner. There is some debate, however, as to whether Hosmer is a steak or a lesser cut.

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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 Minnesota Twins. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Batters
The Twins’ surprising 2017 campaign, which included a place in the Wild Card game, was a product in no small part of the club’s most promising young players translating their immense talents into on-field success. Byron Buxton (projected for 538 PA and 3.2 zWAR in 2018), Eddie Rosario (578, 1.6), and Miguel Sano (531, 2.7) combined for 8.3 WAR as a group. ZiPS calls for the triumvirate to fall short of that mark in 2018 but to still approach the eight-win threshold — all at basically no cost to the team.

Buxton remains a source of great interest, of course. After a series of fits and starts, he managed to hit well enough this past season to allow his other skills to carry him. In 2017, he recorded the highest WAR (3.5) of any player who also produced a below-average batting line (90 wRC+, in this case). Dan Szymborski’s computer suggests he could once again earn that strange distinction, projecting Buxton for a 90 wRC+ and 3.2 WAR.

Finally, it should be noted that ZiPS projects plate-appearance totals using only the data from a player’s observed track record and is agnostic to news of injury, etc. Accordingly, there has been no attempt here to account for how allegations of sexual assault might affect Miguel Sano’s playing time. Which is good because, whatever the virtues of Szymborski’s model, contending with fraught and difficult and nuanced social conversations isn’t (and needn’t be) among them.

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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 Chicago White Sox. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Batters
To get a sense of where the White Sox currently reside along the win curve, consider this: nine days ago, the ZiPS projections for the Miami Marlins — a team actively attempting to divest itself of talent — appeared at this site. The players most likely to occupy a starting role for that team received a total of roughly 16 projected wins from Dan Szymborski’s computer. Chicago’s starters, meanwhile, earn just 11 WAR or so between them — this even though, because of the DH slot, the White Sox actually feature an additional field player in their hypothetical Opening Day lineup. It’s possible, in other words, that the White Sox’ positional core is only two-thirds as strong as the Marlins’. That isn’t what one would characterize as an “ideal” prognosis.

First baseman Jose Abreu (667 PA, 2.6 zWAR) unsurprisingly receives the club’s top projection. Since his arrival in 2014, he’s been the club’s best player, rivaled only by the departed Adam Eaton during that same interval.

Notably, it wasn’t Abreu, but rather Avisail Garcia (565, 1.4), who led the club in wins this past season. ZiPS forecasts significant regression for Garcia in 2018, however: indeed, even with the benefit of a projected .339 BABIP, his batting average is expected to drop 50 points. Are you familiar with Yolmer Sanchez? A lot of people in the world aren’t. He finished third on the club in WAR this past season, though. ZiPS calls for him to do that again.

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Today, the Rockies agreed to sign Wade Davis to a three year, $52 million contract, capping an off-season of bullpen spending that also saw them give $27 million each to Jake McGee and Bryan Shaw. The Rockies’ plan couldn’t be more obvious, as they are loading up on relievers in the hopes of bullpenning their way through October. With their trio of free agent relievers pushing Adam Ottavino, Chris Rusin, and Mike Dunn to earlier-game situations, the Rockies now have one of the deepest bullpens in baseball. If they were able to roll out that group in the postseason, they could be dangerous.

The problem remains getting to October, however. We projected the Rockies for 79 wins before they signed Davis, so adding him will move the forecast up to 80 wins, most likely. And if you think that’s just Steamer being overly negative, it’s not just us.

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The Colorado Rockies have been rumored for a month-plus to be on the verge of signing a free-agent closer who used to pitch for the Kansas City Royals. Today, they did just that — but it’s not the reliever you might have thought. Instead of re-signing Greg Holland, they opted to add Wade Davis to the fold. Jeff Passan reports:

On its own, there’s a lot to consider here — and that’s without even accounting for the terms of the deal and what those terms mean for the Rockies. Once again, Passan:

This can really only go one of two ways. The first possible outcome — and the one that’s more probable — is that it blows up in Colorado’s face, becoming a cautionary tale like the Mike Hampton–Denny Neagle signing spree of Dec. 2000. The second is that the Rockies are on to something here. Yes, they may have just assembled the most expensive bullpen in history — certainly it will be one of the most expensive — but they have the opportunity to ride with that for this year at least because of all the minimum-contract pitchers they have.

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