Since this decade began, the home-run leaders among players who’ve recorded at least two-thirds of their games in center field are (in order) Adam Jones, Mike Trout, and Andrew McCutchen. Coming not too far after those three is Colby Rasmus, who’s authored 140 homers over the past seven seasons. Rasmus is coming off a pretty miserable 2016 season, during which he hit well below average while playing mostly in a left-field platoon before ending the season with a groin/hip injury that required surgery. As a result, the Houston Astros declined to make a qualifying offer to Rasmus like they did after his 25-homer, 117 wRC+ 2015 campaign, and the winter action on Rasmus seemed to match his own health: poor. The Tampa Bay Rays appear to have signed Rasmus for a very reasonable $5 million, with $2 million in incentives.

Coming up through the minors, Rasmus was at least a four-tool player, with maybe a knock on his ability to hit for average. While ranking him the third-best prospect in baseball ahead of the 2009 season, Baseball America had this to say about Rasmus’ tools and his future:

Rasmus oozes big league talent and exhibits fluid athleticism at the plate and in the field. He has a balanced, potent swing from the left side and his young frame has filled out with strength, which has begun to turn some of his ropes into the gaps into shots launched over the wall. As he showed in big league camp, Rasmus has the plate discipline to be a leadoff man when he arrives in the majors and the extra-base thump to mature into a middle-of-the-order hitter. The same plus speed and instincts he shows on the bases are even more apparent in center field, where he’s a defensive standout. His glove is good enough to keep him in the lineup even when he’s scuffling at the plate.

Eight seasons and four MLB teams later, Rasmus hasn’t lived up to his promise, but he has been a mostly productive player, putting up league-average hitting numbers to go along with solid baserunning and decent defense. His 18.5 career WAR isn’t a terrible outcome before age 30 for just about any prospect. Per 600 plate appearances, Rasmus has been worth 2.8 WAR during his career. Even with his disastrous 2016 season, he was a 2.9 WAR/600 player in his two years with Astros.

After a contact-heavy, low-power rookie season, Rasmus quickly morphed into the three-true-outcome player we see today. More than 40% of his plate appearances over the last seven years have ended as walks, strikeouts, or home runs. The strikeouts have especially been high the past few seasons. Since 2013, the only players to record as many plate appearances and a higher strikeout rate than Rasmus’ 30.8% mark are sluggers Chris Davis and Chris Carter. Those guys have hit for quite a bit more power than Rasmus, although Rasmus can still make himself valuable running the bases and on defense.

Read the rest of this entry »

When the Rays acquired Nate Karns from the Nationals back in 2014, the story was that he had fastball velocity and a power curve, and we’ll see about the changeup. We saw the changeup, and it was good enough, and the curve was as advertised. Unfortunately, something happened to the fastball along the way.

The Rays sent Jose Lobaton and Felipe Rivero to the Nationals for that curveball and hoped on the change. The change looked good in 147 innings for the Rays in 2015, so the Mariners took a leap that offseason, sending Brad Miller, Logan Morrison and Danny Farquhar to the Rays for Karns, right-hander C.J. Riefenhauser, and center fielder Boog Powell. Now, after a poor year, Karns has been traded again — to the Royals, this time — for outfielder Jarrod Dyson.

What happened last year, when Karns had an ERA over five? The curve and the change were fine in Seattle! But in the meantime, something may have happened to Karns’ fastball. And it could have to do with useful spin. Kansas City has to hope that what broke is fixable.

Read the rest of this entry »

While the 2016 campaign is over and the flurry of moves after the season has come to a halt for the moment, a whole year’s worth of data remains to be examined. Today’s post is an easy one and a fun one. Let’s find the best pitches that were thrown regularly last year.

Before we begin: the word “results” appears in the headline, but I’m not going to use results judged by things like singles and doubles and the like. The samples gets pretty small if you chop up the ball-in-play numbers on a single pitch, and defense exerts too much of an influence on those numbers. So “results” here denotes not hit types, but rather whiffs and grounders.

I’ve grouped all the pitches thrown last year, minimum 75 for non-fastballs, 100 for fastballs. I combined knuckle and regular curves, and put split-fingers in with the changeups. So the sample per pitch type is generally around 300 — a lot less for cutters (89) and a bunch more for four seamers (500) — but generally around 300 pitches qualified in each category. Then I found the z-scores for the whiff and ground-ball rates on those pitches. I multiplied the whiff rate z-score by two before adding it to the ground-ball rate because I generally found correlations that were twice as strong between whiff rates and overall numbers like ERA and SIERA than they were for ground-ball rates.

The caveats are obvious. Pitches work in tandem, so you may get a whiff on your changeup because your fastball is so devastating. This doesn’t reward called strikes as much as swinging strikes, so it’s not a great measure for command. On the other hand, there isn’t a great measure for command. By using ground-ball rate instead of launch-angle allowed, we’re using some ball-in-play data and maybe not the best ball-in-play data.

But average-launch-angle allowed is problematic in its own way, and ground-ball rate is actually one of the best ball-in-play stats we have — it’s very sticky year to year and becomes meaningful very quickly. Whiff rates are super sexy, since a swing and a miss represents a clear victory for the pitchers over the batter — and also because there’s no room for scorer error or bias in the numbers. And while the precise way in which pitches work in tandem remains obscure in pitching analysis, we can still learn something from splitting the pitches up into their own buckets.

Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the very famous pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past few years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Tampa Bay Rays. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Chicago NL / Cleveland / Detroit / Houston / San Diego / Toronto / Washington.

Batters
Due to their limited resources, the Rays have been compelled to search for value in places where it isn’t readily apparent. These financial constraints, for example, led pretty directly to the phenomenon known as Ben Zobrist, Improbable Superstar. The ascent of Kevin Kiermaier (502 PA, 4.2 zWAR) is almost equally improbable as Zobrist’s, though. Selected in the 31st round of the 2010 draft out of Parkland College, Kiermaier has now averaged more than four wins per season over his first three major-league campaigns. Much of that value, of course, is a product of Kiermaier’s defensive acumen. ZiPS calls for more of the same in that regard, projecting Kiermaier to save 17 more runs than the average center fielder.

With the exception of Evan Longoria (658, 3.9), unfortunately, the club doesn’t currently employ any field players who profile as anything much better than average — and the short-term prognosis for newly acquired Wilson Ramos (465, 2.5), one of only four batters who receives a forecast for more than two wins, is uncertain in light of the season-ending injury he suffered at the end of 2016.

Read the rest of this entry »

The 2016 season featured the second-most home runs in baseball’s history. Though a few people around baseball want to attribute it to the placement of power hitters higher in the lineup or better coaching based on better data, the evidence that both exit velocity and home runs per contact are up across the league refutes the first, and the evidence of the latter is minor. It’s a bit of an open mystery, but it’s certainly possible that the ball is different now.

In any case, the fact that homers are up is irrefutable. And it’s on the game to adjust. So I asked many of baseball’s best managers a simple question: with home runs up, how have you adjusted how you approach the game? Lineups, rotations, bullpens, hooks: is anything different for them today than it was two years ago?

*****

Terry Collins, New York Mets: No, really doesn’t. The game has changed, that’s the game now: home runs. And we’re lucky we got a few guys who can hit ’em. That’s where it’s at. As I said all last year, our team was built around power, so you sit back and make sure they have enough batting practice and be ready to start the game. We’ve got a good offensive team. Neil. Getting Neil Walker back, that’s big. David back and Ces and Jay and Granderson. We got a bench full of guys that could be everyday players. We’re pretty lucky.

I watched the playoffs, too, and I know what you’re talking about. I talked to Joe Maddon a couple days ago about how the playoffs may change and he said, ‘We didn’t have your pitching. I’ll leave ’em in.’

Read the rest of this entry »

Last night, the Tampa Bay Rays signed Wilson Ramos for two years and $12 million, with nearly $18.25 million available in all if he meets certain incentives. Ramos represented an interesting case for potential suitors. At 29, he’d just produced the best season of his career. He’d also sustained, and is currently rehabbing, the worst injury of his career — one that will prevent him from returning until midseason at best. From the Rays’ perspective, the move is unusual in at least one way, too: they just signed a catcher who can hit.

Were Ramos to repeat his 2016 campaign, he’d immediately become the best catcher the Rays have ever had. Were he to repeat his second-best season, he’d become the best catcher the Rays ever had. Were he to repeat his third-best season, Ramos would be the third-best catcher the Rays have ever had. By wins above replacement, Ramos — once he’s healthy in 2018 — is very likely to become the best Rays catcher ever. Even if he just hits to his career level (exactly league average), once he sees 100 plate appearances, he’ll be the best hitting catcher the Rays have ever had.

Of course, there’s a lot more going on than offense and positional value in this deal, which slots in nicely with the two-year, $10-ish million contracts that have been handed out to volatile veterans like Matt Joyce, Steve Pearce, and Sean Rodriguez. There’s plenty to worry about, just like in those deals.

Read the rest of this entry »

Around this time of year, the free-agent and trade markets begin to feel like stacked dominoes – one domino falling sets many more in motion. The big domino to fall yesterday was, of course, Chris Sale’s trade to Boston. It’s only natural to wonder what the fallout from that trade will be. The Nationals were reportedly very interested in Sale: Will they look elsewhere for elite rotation help now that he’s no longer available? Other teams still said to be interested in top-of-the-rotation arms include the Braves, the Astros and even the World Champion Cubs. (I’m still practicing adding that “World Champion” qualifier on the Cubs. It hasn’t stopped looking weird, has it?) As long as teams continue to look for elite starting pitching, one name will continue to be thrown around: Chris Archer. Now that the Red Sox have added Sale and are clearly attempting to build the American League’s “team to beat,” is the time right for the Rays to finally pull the trigger and deal Archer?

A few weeks ago, Jeff Sullivan compared the potential trade value of both Archer and Sale. The first conclusion he reached – that Sale has been better than Archer – quickly passed the sniff test. The second conclusion is significantly more intriguing. Here’s what he had to say:

“Chris Archer might be a worse pitcher than Sale is, but his contract is more team-friendly still. And one should expect that to make a difference, these all being negotiations taking place in the 2016 industry landscape. If you want to trade for one of these starters, Chris Sale could be the more affordable of the two.”

Archer and Sale are six months apart in age and both under contract for just under $40 million, but Archer’s contract includes team options for the 2020 and 2021 seasons. Sale’s contract, meanwhile, expires after the 2019 season. So, for essentially the same amount of money a club can acquire either three years of Sale or five years of a pitcher who has been nearly as good. Consequently, Archer’s contract provides — to use the hip lingo — more surplus value. In fact, due to those extra two seasons Jeff found that “Chris Archer’s surplus value is 152% of Chris Sale’s surplus value.” The White Sox just pulled in a player who has previously been listed by some publications as the No. 1 prospect in the sport. If the Rays can reasonably command an even higher asking price for Archer, then, at the very least, they have to be listening to offers.

Read the rest of this entry »

The people who say that history repeats itself usually aren’t referring to baseball trade rumors, but here we are, with an offseason that’s already feeling a lot like last July. Around the most recent trade deadline, teams were in the hunt for starting pitching, and at the top of the market were some potentially available, cost-controlled aces. Now teams have resumed the same hunt, with rumors around many of the same targets, and maybe foremost among them are Chris Sale and Chris Archer. Sale’s an ace on a team that might elect to rebuild. Archer’s an ace on a team that can’t afford loyalty.

Just so we’re all on the same page, odds are Sale and Archer don’t both get traded. For all I know, could be that odds are neither gets traded. But let’s explore the situation anyway. Sale’s been a great starter since 2012. He’ll turn 28 in March. Archer became a quality starter in 2013, and he turned 28 in September. Sale’s long been considered perhaps the best starting pitcher in the American League. Archer this season very narrowly avoided 20 losses. If I polled you, almost all of you would rather have Sale than Archer for a must-win game tomorrow. Yet as trade negotiations go, I bet Archer has the higher price tag.

Read the rest of this entry »

Neil Allen will return as Minnesota Twins pitching coach in 2017. Expect to see more Tampa Bay Rays influence as a result.

Allen spent eight years coaching in the Rays system before coming to the Twin Cities prior to the 2015 season. He’s already incorporated a changeup philosophy since his arrival. The next steps — based on a conversation I had with him this summer — will likely include an increased emphasis on fastball command at the minor-league level.

Allen shared with me his thoughts on pitcher development, including how certain philosophies were implemented in his old organization. Given the success the Rays have had bringing quality arms to the big leagues, it should come as no surprise that he’d like to see many of them embraced within the Twins system.

———

Allen on process and reports in Tampa Bay: “The philosophies come from the higher-ups. The general manager, the manager, and the pitching coordinator would get together and start the program. It would be explained to the coaches and we’d take it to the field. It was up to us — it became our responsibility — and if we didn’t see improvement in individuals, well, we had to answer to that. Why isn’t this guy getting better?

“After every game, there would be reports to fill out. We would report on consistency, on strikes, on location, on arm action. They would get those reports in Tampa Bay every night. They could see the amounts and percentages, as well as our comments on things like the depth of the breaking balls, the movement and arm speed on the changeups, the location of the fastballs. I don’t know exactly what they would do with the data, but every pitch that was thrown in the minor-league system that night was recorded.”

Read the rest of this entry »

“What was working for you today?” someone asked Rays starter Brent Honeywell after his appearance in the Arizona Fall League’s Fall Stars Game. “Everything,” he said matter-of-factly, and it’s hard to argue. He struck out five in two scoreless frames and showcased his entire arsenal of impressive pitches. A few minutes later, he took me through those pitches, and discussed what’s working and what requires more attention in order for him to contribute in Tampa next season.

Let’s start with the least sexy pitch in his arsenal, the curve. It’s the newest piece, and it’s the one with which the righty has been tinkering this fall. He threw one on strike one to Anthony Alford to demonstrate what the pitch can mean to him — called strikes. “Nobody’s going to swing at a first-pitch breaking ball,” he said. “But I’m not going to throw it a whole bunch.”

Read the rest of this entry »