Boy is it ever easy to trade away other people’s stuff. From a distance, it’s easy to recognize when a guy has to go, as things are uncomplicated by memories and emotions. It sucks the Philadelphia Phillies just about have to trade Cole Hamels. He’s great, and he’s been there forever, through some really good times, and people have developed an attachment to him. Even the Phillies have officially recognized the era is over, but moving Hamels would be a painful kind of closure. The front office doesn’t want to deal Hamels for younger, unfamiliar talent. But it has to happen. As popular as Hamels is, from an objective standpoint, he’s not getting better. And he’d mean a lot more to a team with a prayer of winning something over the next couple years.

So the Phillies ought to be looking to cash in on Hamels. More seriously than they did around the deadline, I mean. The Phillies are poised to gut what there is to gut, and Hamels is a front-line starter who’d hit a market thirsty for front-line starters. Probably the most popular rumor so far: Hamels leaving the Phillies for the Boston Red Sox, in exchange for a package that involved young players. Clearly, nothing has yet been agreed to, but clearly, there will be some more negotiations. So what could we conceivably see as a trade? Let’s design a Red Sox move for Cole Hamels.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pablo Sandoval is perhaps the most interesting free agent of the offseason. He’s both good and fairly young for a free agent these days, so there’s an argument to be made that his contract might not carry him very far into the steepest of the aging curve, which is when teams have often gotten burned with big money deals. Of course, he’s also a big guy, with the body type of the kind of player who often ages poorly, and he’s spent a significant chunk of time on the DL during his tenure with the Giants.

This makes him a bit of a unique free agent, as you can argue that he’s either lower risk (due to age) or higher risk (due to body type), depending on which one you one put more stock in. And both arguments have their merit. Projecting future playing time is difficult enough for a normal player, much less a guy on the extreme ends of two variables that offer different conclusions.

So, it seems inevitable that whatever Sandoval signs for, it’s going to be a polarizing contract. Especially if he lands the six year deal that he’s seeking. From his agent, Gustavo Vazquez, via Henry Schulman:

“Pablo is 28,” Vasquez said. “He is still young. Maybe if he was 30 or 31 we could talk about four or five years. But he’s 28. He deserves more than that.”

The immediate reaction is to imagine what a 34-year-old Sandoval might look like, and shrink back from the idea of guaranteeing real money to, as Grant Brisbee put it, a “less athletic David Wells.” The odds of Sandoval still being a highly productive player in 2020 are pretty slim, and a six year deal would make it very likely that the signing team would have paid a hefty premium for a pinch-hitter or part-time platoon guy by the time the contract ends. However, in and of itself, that doesn’t make a six year contract for Sandoval a bad idea.

Read the rest of this entry »

“Grady did not know that. Grady had ignored Paul’s prodding to scout the players his computer flushed out. Paul had said the scouts ought to go have a look at a college kid named Kevin Youkilis. Youkilis was a fat third baseman who couldn’t run, throw or field. What was the point of going to see that? (Because, Paul would be able to say three months later, Kevin Youkilis has the second highest on-base percentage in all of baseball, after Barry Bonds. To Paul, he’d become Euclis: the Greek god of walks.)

Good nicknames in baseball are somewhat of a rarity these days. One of my favorite sections of The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract is “nicknames.” Nicknames like “Earache,” “Firebrand” and “The Grey Eagle” resonated a lot more than today’s silly trends of shortening people’s names, or adding “Y” or “IE” to the end of them. One notable exception was Kevin Youkilis. Blessed in the above passage in Moneyball as “The Greek God of Walks” nearly a year before his major league debut, the baseball world sat up and took notice of a previously anonymous player before his major league debut. No pressure. While that might not seem like much of an achievement in today’s prospect- and media-saturated world, things were quite a bit different back in 2003. Yesterday, it was reported that the Ohio native had retired. Throughout his career, he served as the perfect example for several well-worn baseball lessons.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, Kiley McDaniel published his consummately researched and demonstrably authoritative prospect list for the Boston Red Sox. What follows is a different exercise than that, one much smaller in scope and designed to identify not Boston’s top overall prospects but rather the rookie-eligible players in the Red Sox’ 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 Sox’ system by projected WAR. To assemble this collection of players, what I’ve done first is to utilize the Steamer 600 projections made available at the site. 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.

Note also that no Steamer projection has been produced for Rusney Castillo, although work both by McDaniel and also Dave Cameron suggests that something in the 2-3 WAR range probably constitutes a reasonable expectation. (Credit to reader Alex for asking.)

5. Henry Owens, LHP (Profile)

Owens and other left-hander Brian Johnson are projected to produce almost precisely the same WAR figures per 150 innings in 2015, the former expected to record more strikeouts; the latter, to better prevent walks. That both pitchers are projected more optimistically than the higher-ranked Eduardo Rodriguez (5.05 FIP, 0.0 WAR per 150 IP) isn’t particularly surprising: as noted by McDaniel, the current optimism regarding Rodriguez is based largely on his body of work after having been acquired by Boston this summer — not a large enough sample, that, to compensate for his more pedestrian numbers from previous years.

Read the rest of this entry »

Evaluating The Prospects: Rangers, Rockies, Diamondbacks, Twins, Astros, Red Sox & Cubs

Scouting Explained: Introduction, Hitting Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3 Pt 4 Pt 5 Pt 6

The Red Sox have the deepest list yet in this series, to go with plenty of top-end talent as well.  Be sure to read the Eduardo Rodriguez report to see more about the decision the Red Sox had to make on the trade deadline, which I and other clubs found pretty interesting.  It’s a testament to amateur scouting and development to have so many top picks (8-14 on the list are all Red Sox 1st rounders) and high international bonuses all show up on the list, without many busts. You can fault Boston for relying too much on young players in 2014, but indications are they are about to spend a bunch of money this offseason and they have among the best groups of young talent in the game.

Read the rest of this entry »

Edwin Escobar, who came from the Giants in the Jake Peavy deal, debuted with the Red Socks on Tuesday. One inning of work is not enough to know much other than perhaps velocity, but that point alone started a discussion. He sat just under 92 mph, and once you correct for his appearance coming out of the bullpen, you might say he had average velocity. I even said this, on twitter. And Mike Newman responded:

@enosarris I had Escobar 91-93… That's plus velo from the left side.

— Mike Newman (@MikeNewmanRS) August 28, 2014

I’ve heard this before. I’ve thought it maybe untrue, for whatever reason. So I decided to check out a few splits among starters this year.

Read the rest of this entry »

After getting outbid for Jose Abreu, the Red Sox apparently weren’t going to let that happen when they had another shot at a young Cuban defector, and today, they’ve agreed to sign outfielder Rusney Castillo for a reported $72 million over six years. This beats Abreu’s total by $4 million, and is almost double the contract that Yasiel Puig got a couple of years ago. There’s little question that the massive success of those two players has forced teams to reevaluate their assessments, and as I pointed out on Wednesday, the international free agent market has been significantly underpriced of late.

Of course, the success of Abreu and Puig doesn’t mean that Castillo’s going to be a monster. Here’s what Ben Badler reports that scouts have told him about Castillo’s potential:

Read the rest of this entry »

Every pitcher in baseball has a primary pitch, and for almost every pitcher in baseball, that’s going to be some variety of a fastball. After the primary pitch, there will be an assortment of secondary pitches, numbering from one to a lot more than one. But not all secondary stuff is created or treated the same; there can be a trusted secondary pitch, or a decent secondary pitch, or a rare occasional secondary pitch. Clayton Kershaw‘s slider is a trusted secondary pitch. Tony Cingrani’s slider is a decent secondary pitch. You have to keep your eyes peeled for the occasionals.

Plenty of guys throw them. Let’s look at some examples! Here’s Danny Salazar throwing a terrible curveball:

Read the rest of this entry »

When the Boston Red Sox cut ties with A.J. Pierzynski, there were two benefits. One was the team no longer had to put up with Pierzynski. The other was that Boston got to take a look at Christian Vazquez. The prospect is 15 games into his major-league career, and while he’s not the only young and talented catcher in the system, for the time being he’s on top of the mountain. Vazquez is getting to show off his skills, and one of them — you already know which one, I bet — has been spectacular.

I know how early it still is. I don’t care. Vazquez has long had the reputation of being an outstanding defensive catcher with a little bit of offensive upside. He’s always been praised for his skills in the field, so that’s our background: We already had reason to believe in Vazquez’s defense. He’s had only a few blocking opportunities. He’s had only a few throwing opportunities. He’s had more than 1,000 framing opportunities. Though it’s been only a few weeks, all the evidence suggests Vazquez is one of the best receivers in baseball.

Read the rest of this entry »

Wondering if the Cardinals felt good about Michael Wacha‘s shoulder or Shelby Miller’s general existence? Wonder no more, because less than 24 hours after picking up Justin Masterson from Cleveland, they’ve now added John Lackey from Boston, for the not-insignificant price of Joe Kelly and Allen Craig.

Yesterday morning, the St. Louis rotation looked something like this:

1. Adam Wainwright
2. Lance Lynn
3. Joe Kelly
4. Shelby Miller
5. Carlos Martinez / Marco Gonzales

Now, it’s potentially a bit more like this:

1. Wainwright
2. Lynn
3. Lackey
4. Masterson
5. Miller / Martinez

Is that better? It’s certainly different. Read the rest of this entry »