When we talk about the Philadelphia Phillies around here these days, it’s rarely in a positive light. It’s usually about wondering what they’re doing with Cole Hamels, or how Ryan Howard is completely unmovable, or just generally wondering how many years it might take to return the team to relevance. They’ve brought this on themselves with their direction — or lack of it — over the past few years. When you look at the fact that they have six different positions ranking in the bottom three in our 2015 projections, you really start to understand just how bad this team is going to be.

But it’s not all bad. It can’t be. Even the Phillies are going to have a bright spot. Since I’m in a charitable mood, and since there’s very little happening in baseball right now, and since we haven’t really talked about him yet, let’s focus today on Ken Giles, who very well might be the team’s closer this year should Jonathan Papelbon get moved.

Let’s start with some small sample sizes to output a ranking that is technically accurate, yet obviously flawed: Read the rest of this entry »

From the looks of things, Jonathan Papelbon might well soon be on his way to Milwaukee. As I write this, nothing’s confirmed, and you never know when something might break down, or when some other team might decide to interfere. But the last I saw, the Brewers and Phillies were deep into negotiations, with the final hurdle being the small matter of Philadelphia covering some of Papelbon’s salary. That’s not actually a small matter — that’s kind of half of the entire trade. But, let’s assume.

One’s first thought, probably: Papelbon is nuts! Okay, granted, but maybe not important. One’s second thought, possibly: why not just sign Francisco Rodriguez as a free agent? Rodriguez was a Brewer for a few years. Of Milwaukee, he said this in September:

“I definitely know where I want to be. I want to be here. But it is not my decision. There are a lot of things the front office has to do over the course of the winter. They know how I feel. My heart is going to always be here.”

Some months ago, Rodriguez said he wanted to return. Maybe free agency changed his mind, I don’t know. I do know the Brewers know Rodriguez, and they must have their reasons. It’s not like this idea hasn’t occurred to them. It seems the Brewers are fond of Jonathan Papelbon. We, then, should talk about Jonathan Papelbon, closer for a bad team, who might soon become closer for a decent team.

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The situation in Philadelphia is bleak. I don’t think that statement is going to cause a stir. The Phillies, right now, are projected by Steamer to be the worst team in baseball in the season ahead, even worse than the rival Braves. Even if you might personally find Steamer to be a waste of everyone’s time, the Phillies still look like they’re going to be bad. To make matters worse, the best pitchers are both in their 30s. The best position players are both in their 30s. The 2015 Phillies are going to have some thousands of season ticket holders, and those same season ticket holders are going to experience their own sort of adversity.

One clue as to how bad things are: the team’s own executives are saying, publicly, that the organization is years away from contention. No attempt is being made to sugarcoat the state of things. Another clue as to how bad things are: that’s what a lot of fans want to hear. They’ve longed for this acknowledgment of the need to rebuild. Fans knew some time ago the Phillies needed to change course. Now the Phillies are doing so, willingly stripping down so as to make for a better future. But, how about that future, anyway? Might we be able to figure out how long it will be until the Phillies are decent again?

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The Phillies just traded Marlon Byrd to the Reds for a pitcher that couldn’t crack Cincinnati’s top ten prospect lists. Could the Phillies have done better than Ben Lively for their asset? The answer to that question depends on deception.

Even though Byrd’s old, he’s been an above-average player the last two years, and he’s signed to a nice contract. Ever since he started swinging harder, missing more, and hitting the ball in the air more, he’s showed enough power to make up for declining defense and patience. Given his publicly-admitted adjustments, and the now two-year sample of evidence, maybe the deceptive thing about Byrd is that he’s not the same player that Steamer is projecting for a half win.

If you base Byrd’s trade value on recent outfield signings instead of straight dollars per win, he has more trade value. In terms of on-field production over the last two years, he compares favorably to another older corner outfielder that got two years and $21 million from the Mets at least. He’d even represent some surplus value when compared to Michael Cuddyer, probably.

Source: FanGraphs — Marlon Byrd, Michael Cuddyer

So you can see that there’s probably not a lot of consensus when it comes to Marlon Byrd’s trade value. There’s even less consensus about the value of the prospect going back to the Phillies.

Read the rest on Just A Bit Outside.

Times have changed, finally, in Philadelphia. Approximately two years after most of the rest of us thought it was time to blow things up, and six months after GM Ruben Amaro reportedly told closer Jonathan Papelbon that the team was still attempting to win now, the Philles have eventually seen the light and committed to the future. Jimmy Rollins is gone. Marlon Byrd is gone. Antonio Bastardo is gone. Cole Hamels may yet be gone. Cliff Lee, presuming he can show he’s healthy early in 2015, will almost certainly be gone by July. Papelbon probably follows. It’s possible Chase Utley sticks it out to maintain one last link to the past, but it’s clear the Phillies we knew are gone, and the next year or two (or more) are going to be a difficult transition.

I didn’t mention Ryan Howard because when you read a quote like this, as Amaro told a local radio station just before the holidays…

“We’ve talked to Ryan,” Amaro said in an interview with 97.5 The Fanatic’s Mike Missanelli on Friday afternoon. “And I told him that in our situation it would probably bode better for the organization not with him but without him. With that said if he’s with us, then we’ll work around him. We’ll hope he puts up the kind of numbers that we hope he can and we’ll see where it goes from there.”

…then it deserves its own section.

When your general manager says the team is better off without you and that if you’re still in town, then they will “work around [you],” well, it’s clear you’re definitely gone. Or, at least, will be at some point, since he’s not been moved yet. You can live with an aging Utley, because he’s still a solid player with no obvious successor. You can’t keep Howard around because he’s a negative for a National League club and each plate appearance that goes to him takes one away from Maikel Franco or Cody Asche or Darin Ruf. None are going to be the next great Phillies first baseman, but there’s value in simply removing an aging, ineffective Howard from the equation, if only emotionally.

I hardly need to remind you of how difficult it’s going to be for the Phillies to actually make a Howard move, because you know all the reasons why. Instead, let’s play a game. Let’s find Howard a new home. Would any team bother with the roster spot? Is there actually a place where he could be of value? Maybe this will be fun. Unless you’re a Phillies fan, of course. Then it won’t be much fun at all.

* * * Read the rest of this entry »

There are many different ways to describe the quality of a pitch. We have movement numbers on this site. There are ground-ball rates. There are whiff rates. There are metrics that use a combination of ground-ball and whiff rates. And metrics that use balls in play. There’s a whole spectrum from process to results, and you can focus on any one part of that spectrum if you like.

But there’s something that’s so appealing about the whiff. It’s a result, but it’s an undeniable one. There is no human being trying to decide if the ball went straight or if it went up in the air or if the ball went down. It’s just: did the batter swing and miss? So, as a result, it seems unassailable.

Of course, there are some decisions you still have to make if you want to judge pitches by whiff rates. How many of the pitch does the pitcher have to have thrown to be considered? Gonzalez Germen had a higher whiff rate on his changeup (30.7%) this year than Cole Hamels (23.7%). Cole Hamels threw seven times as many changeups (708 to 101).

So, in judging this year’s best pitches, let’s declare a top pitch among starters and a top pitch among relievers. That’s only fair, considering the difference in number of pitches thrown between the two. It’s way harder to get people to keep missing a pitch they’ve seen seven times as often. And, in order to avoid avoiding R.A. Dickey the R. A. Dickey Knuckler award, we’ll leave knucklers off the list, and include knuckle curves in among the curves.

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International baseball has been in the news often lately with the ongoing saga of Yoan Moncada (he’s in America now), the signing of Yasmany Tomas and yesterday’s news that Cuba-U.S. relations could be getting much better.  In recent news, at the yearly international scouting directors’ meeting at the Winter Meetings last week, sources tell me there was no talk about the recent controversial rule change and no talk about an international draft, as expected.

So much has been happening lately that you may have temporarily forgotten about last summer, when the Yankees obliterated the international amateur spending record (and recently added another prospect). If the early rumors and innuendo are any indication, the rest of baseball isn’t going to let the Yankees have the last word.

I already mentioned the Cubs as one of multiple teams expected to spend well past their bonus pool starting on July 2nd, 2015.  I had heard rumors of other clubs planning to get in the act when I wrote that, but the group keeps growing with each call I make, so I decided to survey the industry and see where we stand.  After surveying about a dozen international sources, here are the dozen clubs that scouts either are sure, pretty sure or at least very suspicious will be spending past their bonus pool, ranked in order of likelihood:

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The Winter Meetings revelry has passed. We’re still waiting on a few big trades to finally ‘consummate,’ but the list of free agents is less attractive by day. Before you turn down a chance at glory with the guys left waiting for a team, it’s probably a good idea to look at how badly you need them. This is not dating advice, but it sort of feels like it.

To that end, I’ve taking our depth charts and calculated a quick stat for ‘neediness.’ By averaging team WAR over 13 roster spots — the portion of the 25-man roster usually used for offense — and then looking at the difference between that average WAR and each position WAR, I’ve found a way to show where the biggest remaining lineup holes are.

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If you’re a baseball fan and you spent any amount of time on Twitter on Wednesday night, then you probably spent as much time hyperventilating as the rest of us. A new Dodger front office that had spent its first few weeks stealthily upgrading around the fringes of the 40-man — guys like Joel Peralta, Chris Heisey and Juan Nicasio — turned the entire sport upside down with trade after trade after trade, followed by more trades.

Three of those moved served to massively shake up the middle infield. Jeff has you covered on the Dee Gordon–Dan Haren–Andrew Heaney deal, which removed a second baseman from Los Angeles. Dave did a quick InstaGraph on the ensuing Howie Kendrick-Heaney trade with the Angels, which brought one right back. Right here, we’ll talk about how after 15 years and 2,090 games in Philadelphia, Jimmy Rollins is reportedly heading west, joining with Kendrick to make for a fascinating new infield duo. A 36-year-old shortstop well past his prime isn’t exactly the type of player you’d expect this front office to go for, but it makes all the sense in the world for both the player and the team.

For the Dodgers, the appeal is clear. To say shortstop was a need is a massive understatement. With Ramirez gone and top prospect Corey Seager probably another year away, the current situation was so dire that it ranked No. 31 — that’s last, because “free agents” count as a team right now — in our depth charts. Gaze upon the horror: Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier today, Kiley McDaniel published his consummately researched and demonstrably authoritative prospect list for the Philadelphia Phillies. What follows is a different exercise than that, one much smaller in scope and designed to identify not Philadelphia’s top overall prospects but rather the rookie-eligible players in the Phillies system who are most ready to produce wins at the major-league level in 2015 (regardless of whether they’re likely to receive the opportunity to do so). No attempt has been made, in other words, to account for future value.

Below are the top-five prospects in the Phillies system by projected WAR. To assemble this brief list, what I’ve done is to locate the Steamer 600 projections for all the prospects to whom McDaniel assessed a Future Value grade of 40 or greater. Hitters’ numbers are normalized to 550 plate appearances; starting pitchers’, to 150 innings — i.e. the playing-time thresholds at which a league-average player would produce a 2.0 WAR. Catcher projections are prorated to 415 plate appearances to account for their reduced playing time.

Note that, in many cases, defensive value has been calculated entirely by positional adjustment based on the relevant player’s minor-league defensive starts — which is to say, there has been no attempt to account for the runs a player is likely to save in the field. As a result, players with an impressive offensive profile relative to their position are sometimes perhaps overvalued — that is, in such cases where their actual defensive skills are sub-par.

5. J.P. Crawford, SS (Profile)

The Phillies’ first pick of the 2013 draft, Crawford is the only player among the five present here who hasn’t made an appearance above High-A. In terms of Steamer’s computer math, that’s significant, as level of competition is a non-negligible variable in the model — and yet, despite that handicap, Crawford’s production in the low minors (along with his place on the age curve) renders him basically a replacement-level player at this point. That makes him more valuable than Ryan Howard, among a small collection of other major-league regulars.

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