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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[Author’s note added November 17: Jack Moore pointed out today that Broxton seems to have added a cutter late in the season, which may account for his improved performance with the Reds. I wish I had noticed this and taken it into account. It does change things at least a bit in favor of the deal. As Jack notes, still just 82 pitches at the end of the year, so random variation and the element of surprise may have played a part. Thus, I still think the overall thrust of this piece is something I still stand by.]

As Jeff Sullivan discussed on Monday, the Cincinnati Reds’ then-potential contract with Jonathan Broxton had implications for Aroldis Chapman’s possible move to the rotation. Today, that potential was actualized, as the Reds reportedly re-signed Broxton for three years and $21 million dollars.

The contract is also said to include a limited no-trade clause, a $9 club option for 2016, a limited no-trade clause, and another clause that increases the guaranteed portion of the deal to $22 million and makes the option mutual. Whatever implications this might have for Chapman, it is worth considering Broxton’s own merits in relation to his salary and the Reds’ needs.

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Early Sunday morning, Twitter was abuzz with news that the Dodgers and Fox Sports West had agreed to a 25-year broadcast deal valued between $6 billion and $7 billion. By Sunday afternoon, Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times had confirmed the outline of the deal, but cautioned that the Dodgers and Fox were still negotiating, with a November 30 deadline looming.

As I explained last week in this post, the parties’ existing agreement gave Fox an exclusive, 45-day window in which to negotiate a new deal to govern the 2014 season and beyond. Hence, the November 30 deadline. If an agreement isn’t inked by Friday, the Dodgers must submit a final offer to Fox by December 7. Fox then has 30 days to accept or reject the offer. If Fox rejects the offer, the Dodgers are free to negotiate with whomever they want.

However the negotiations play out, it’s clear now that the Dodgers’ local TV revenue is about to enter the stratosphere. A 25-year deal worth between $6 billion and $7 billion would net the Dodgers between $240 million and $280 million per year. Per year. That’s more than any team has ever spent on player salaries in a single season — even the Yankees. And it’s nearly double the amount of local TV revenue pulled in annually by the team with the second-most lucrative deal — the other Los Angeles team (the Angels) — which entered into a 17-year deal with Fox Sports West worth $2.5 billion.

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The general manager of the Cincinnati Reds is Walt Jocketty. Jocketty and the Reds have known there was a decision they’d have to make on Aroldis Chapman. Chapman has proven himself as a closer; Chapman has not yet proven himself as a starter, but it would sure be neat if he could, and if he did. This is what Jocketty had to say on the matter earlier in the offseason:

“We haven’t made a decision on Chapman as a starter or as a reliever,” Reds general manager Walt Jocketty said. “We’re talking about it.”
[…]
“It depends on if we re-sign [Jonathan] Broxton and [Ryan] Madson,” Jocketty said. “Or if we get another closer.”

Today, there’s word that the Reds and Broxton are having serious discussions about a three-year contract. Obviously, no contract has yet been signed. Obviously, the Reds haven’t come out and declared that Chapman is moving to the starting rotation. But what it looks like is that the Reds will re-sign Broxton and try to get Chapman to start. Just because that might not be how it works out doesn’t mean that isn’t how it’s most likely to work out.

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