At some point in your baseball fanhood, you probably start formulating your ideal player. And if you’re here, that formulation includes statistics. Maybe you like the old OPS benchmark of .300/.400/.500 with steals and homers to boot. Or maybe it’s all about weighted runs created above average. In my case, I was fascinated with plate discipline. Give him a walk rate that’s higher than his strikeout rate — first and foremost — and you’re well on your way to building my perfect player.

This sort of thing might happen on an organizational level, too. Dave Hudgens was the minor league hitting coordinator for the Indians, and he helped shepherd an organization-wide rise in walk rate. The Mets’ new GM took a liking to that and installed him with their big league team. And the team has since swung less at pitches outside the zone, so he’s been deemed a success. And, as the team was drawn to a coach that coaxes walks, the organization probably prefer players that do the same. To the point where they might ignore flaws to do so (Lucas Duda?).

The flip side of this process might be that players that don’t fit your profile of an ideal slip through the cracks. Take Brandon Phillips.

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Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections, which have typically appeared in the pages of Baseball Think Factory, are being released at FanGraphs this year. Below are the projections for the Cincinnati Reds. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other 2013 Projections: Angels / Astros / Athletics / Blue Jays / Brewers / Cubs / Giants / Mets / Nationals / Phillies / Pirates / Rangers / Rockies / Royals / White Sox.

Batters
Something of which people never tire is to learn that there is both good news and also that there’s bad news. The bad news, in the case of the Cincinnati Reds, appears to be — at least so far as Dan Szymborski’s finely calibrated ZiPS projection system is concerned — appears to be that newly acquired Shin-Soo Choo is probably a pretty bad defensive center fielder. The good news, though, is that he’s still expected to be worth about three wins in 2013 — i.e. more than he produced in either 2011 or -12.

Otherwise, of some note — beyond the simple fact that the club’s offense is generally talented — is the not particularly optimistic projection for 34-year-old Ryan Ludwick, whom the Reds signed to a two-year, $15 million contract this offseason. In the present market, that’s not a horrible deal for a starting outfielder; however, Cincinnati will be looking to compete for the NL Central title this season, and will want at least average production from the position.

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Only 27 players have hit 100 or more homers and stolen 400 or more bases in their career. Eleven of them are in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and four others can reasonably be expected to reach Cooperstown. But there are some names on the list you wouldn’t pull off the top of your head. Tommy Harper? Yep, he’s one of those names. He is also a possessor of that rare feat: the Random Career Year.

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At the end of last May, Phil Dumatrait announced his retirement from professional baseball. It was an announcement that went largely unnoticed — note the three retweets — and that makes sense, because Dumatrait hadn’t pitched in 2012, and for his career he threw just 151 major-league innings over parts of four seasons. Many of them were not good innings, and while there are the usual qualifiers about how Dumatrait was one of the very best pitchers in the entire world, relative to his big-league peer group, he was lacking a certain something. “Ability to have consistent success,” is what he was lacking.

Dumatrait, like all professional ballplayers, once had a lot of promise. Dumatrait, unlike all professional ballplayers, was selected as early as in the first round in 2000. In fairness, that wasn’t much of a round — the two guys selected before Dumatrait have been worth negative WAR, and the six guys selected after Dumatrait fell short of the bigs — but Dumatrait found his way to prospect lists. According to Baseball America, he was seventh in the Red Sox’s system before 2002. He was fifth in the same system the next year, and the year after that, he was sixth in the Reds’ system, one behind Joey Votto. Phil Dumatrait looked like he could be something, for a while. And, ultimately, he was a big-leaguer, if a relatively unsuccessful one.

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With the move of the Houston Astros to the American League, and the unfortunate fact that both leagues will have an uneven number of teams, interleague play is destined to change this year. As cross-platform play goes from something that happens in the middle of June, once a year, like some sort of strange exhibition mini-season, to something that happens every week, the National League will have to re-evaluate their past strategies for American League parks.

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Armed with a new measure for offensive volatility (VOL), I wanted to revisit research I conducted  last year about the value of a consistent offense.

In general, the literature has suggested if you’re comparing two similar offenses, the more consistent offense is preferable throughout the season. The reason has to do with the potential advantages a team can gain when they don’t “waste runs” in blow-out victories. The more evenly a team can distribute their runs, the better than chances of winning more games.

I decided to take my new volatility (VOL) metric and apply it to team-level offense to see if it conformed to this general consensus*.

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Tuesday evening, several eyebrows were raised when the Indians, Reds, and Diamondbacks pulled off a three-way blockbuster. Some raised their eyebrows because the Diamondbacks dealt a top pitching prospect for a shortstop who might never hit. Some raised their eyebrows because the Indians managed to get that pitching prospect for one year of an outfielder. Some raised their eyebrows because everyone else around them was raising their eyebrows and they didn’t want to feel excluded. And some raised their eyebrows because the Reds landed Shin-Soo Choo with intentions of playing him in center field. Choo, without question, fits the Reds’ need for a leadoff hitter. The other fit is a more curious fit.

Everybody knew the Reds were in the market for a leadoff hitter and a center fielder. They failed to land Ben Revere, and they failed to land guys like Angel Pagan and Shane Victorino. So in finding their leadoff hitter and center fielder, the Reds acquired a leadoff hitter and right fielder who they plan to move over. Obviously, things could change between now and the start of the year, and things could still change after the start of the year, but ask the Reds today and they’d tell you that Choo will play in the middle. Choo is 30 years old, and he’s played in the middle for all of 83 innings. He hasn’t done it once since 2009.

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Somehow, Shin-Soo Choo has yet to make an All-Star Game. The 2009 and 2010 seasons saw him as the fourth-best outfielder in the game by both WAR (11.2, behind Carl Crawford, Ben Zobrist, and Matt Holliday) and wRC+ (139; behind Holliday, Jose Bautista, Ryan Braun).

But an injury-racked and ineffective 2011 — .259/.344/.390 in 85 games — was just part of a disappointing Indians campaign. Choo hit a sharp .283/.373/.441 in a rebound 2012, but at 30 years old, his fielding skills may be declining and he’s projected to earn $7.6 million in his final arbitration season according to Matt Swartz at MLB Trade Rumors. A 68-win season for Cleveland in 2012 has left Choo squarely on the trade block.

It appears the Indians have found a taker in Cincinnati — Danny Knobler of CBSSports.com reported the Indians are in talks to acquire center fielder Drew Stubbs and shortstop prospect Didi Gregorius from the Reds.

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The Reds have been looking for a consistent leadoff hitter since the current iteration of the team began contention in 2010. Drew Stubbs was supposed to fill that role, but his performance has trended the wrong way since 2009 — after a sharp 105 wRC+ in 2010, Stubbs has posted marks of 90 and a brutal 64 in 2011 and 2012 respectively. Between Stubbs and Zack Cozart, Reds leadoff hitters hit an awful .208/.254/.327 last season.

Now, the Reds are looking to fill the two holes Stubbs’s decline has left them with — leadoff hitter and center field. The club was interested in Ben Revere but the Phillies beat them to the punch. CBSSports.com’s Danny Knobler reports the Reds are shifting their sights towards Rockies outfielder Dexter Fowler.

Knobler reports starting pitcher Mike Leake may be the cost for Fowler. Homer Bailey’s name has popped up as well. Is Fowler enough of an upgrade over Stubbs for the Reds to deal away one of their MLB-ready starting pitchers?

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Let’s not forget: Jonathan Broxton was sharp with the Reds this season. The hulking righty recorded a 2.82 ERA and a 2.42 FIP. The strikeouts shot up to 8.0 per nine innings from 6.3, the walks were slashed to 1.2 per nine innings from 3.5.

From September on, we saw shades of the exceptional Jonathan Broxton who dominated hitters in Los Angeles from 2007 through 2009. Broxton pitched 13.1 innings after September 1st, allowing just a .192/.224/.277 line against and a 1.35 ERA, striking out 14 and walking just one. It would just be another on the pile of small reliever sample sizes, except for one detail: he added a cutter in late August.

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