The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2019 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2013 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research, and was expanded for inclusion in The Cooperstown Casebook, published in 2017 by Thomas Dunne Books. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
A three-time batting champion, five-time All-Star, and seven-time Gold Glove winner — not to mention an excellent base runner — Larry Walker could do it all on the diamond. Had he done it for longer, there’s little question that he’d be en route to a plaque in the Hall of Fame, but his 17 seasons in the majors were marred by numerous injuries as well as the 1994–95 players’ strike, all of which cut into his career totals.
Yet another great outfielder developed by the late, lamented Montreal Expos — Hall of Famers Andre Dawson, Vladimir Guerrero, and Tim Raines being the most notable — Walker was the only one of that group actually born and raised in Canada, though he spent less time playing for the Montreal faithful than any of them. He starred on the Expos’ memorable 1994 team that compiled the best record in baseball before the strike hit, curtailing their championship dreams, then took up residence with the Rockies, putting up eye-popping numbers at high altitude — numbers that, as we’ll see, hold up well even once they’re brought back to earth.
Here are brief notes on the prospects who were traded ahead of the 40-man roster deadline. The Padres had several prospects who needed to be added to the 40-man — including Chris Paddack and Anderson Espinoza — and were the most active team.
Lockett will provide immediate rotation depth for a contending Cleveland team as a 5th/6th starter and will probably be on the 25-man bubble in the spring. His fastball, 91-94, is very average. He can also make it sink in the 87-90 range. Each of his off-speed pitches — a changeup and curveball — will flash above-average. His changeup has a tendency to sail a bit, but it moves.
I think Feliz, who turned 19 in October, was the best prospect traded today. He’s a very athletic conversion arm who can spin a good breaking ball. He was 88-92 with natural cut during the summer and should grow into more velocity. He’ll probably begin 2019 in extended spring training.
Brewer was a minor league free agent signee after the 2017 season. He was up and down between San Diego and El Paso a few times in 2018, and was 92-94 with cut, up to 96. At times he’d take a little off and throw more of a slider around 87-88 mph. Brewer also has plus-plus breaking ball spin rates on an 82-85 mph curveball he doesn’t locate very well. If that improves, Brewer will be a good 40-50 inning relief option.
Quiroz is the most interesting prospect traded today. He was Team Mexico’s leadoff hitter in the 2017 WBC (he hit two homers and a double in 6 at-bats) and spent 2015-2017 crushing the Mexican League. He signed with Boston in November 2017 and had a hot April in 2018 at Double-A, but then missed three and a half months with an abdominal strain. He only played in 24 games at Double-A, then had 62 extra plate appearances in the Arizona Fall League.
Here in Arizona, Quiroz looked pretty good. He’s a stocky and strong 5-foot-6, and he has average, all-fields power. He hit two full-extension, opposite field shots this fall, including one that got out just left of center field at Sloan Park in Mesa. He’s patient and makes good decisions at the plate. He’s also fine at second base (below-average arm, below-average runner, above-average athlete, average hands) and played a lot of other positions while in Mexico. He’ll either need to be viable at other positions or just hit enough to play second base every day. It appears he has a chance to do the latter.
Wick is a capable, generic middle reliever. He works 93-96, has an above-average slider, and a change-of-pace curveball.
Vosler is a an extreme fly ball hitter (over 50%) with huge platoon splits. He might be just a 30 bat, but Vosler can play third and first and he crushes lefties; I think he’s a corner bench bat or platoon player.
Foley was 91-93 this fall; his changeup and slider were average, and he struggled to throw strikes. He’s 25 and coming off a good year at Double-A.
Valdez didn’t sign a pro contract until he was 20, and Colorado didn’t push him to an age-appropriate level despite his success, so he’s a 23-year-old who hasn’t set foot in full-season ball. But he’s a really loose, wiry 6-foot-1 with a good arm action. He has been 92-94 with an above-average curveball in my looks. I like him as a late-blooming relief candidate.
Pending a healthy return, Corey Seager will resume his role at the heart of the Dodgers’ roster.
(Photo: Arturo Pardavila III)
On a recent podcast episode, Eric Longenhangen and I discussed the premise for this article, which is another way of asking which organizations are healthiest in the short-to-medium term. The factor that goes furthest towards answering that question is present on-field talent, although salary, controlled years, the presence of impact minor leaguers on the horizon, and front-office quality are all relevant — as is payroll ceiling, which serves as a proxy for margin for error. With the World Series starting tonight, it seemed like the right time to look ahead at the favorites for the five World Series beyond this one.
I’ve experimented with some objective ways of measuring organizational health. I think it’s ultimately possible to produce an algorithm that would do a solid job, ranking teams objectively in a number of key categories. It would also require considerable time. Eager to arrive at some kind of answer, I’ve settled for subjective assessment for this version of the post, but I intend to work on something more systematic in the winter.
Here are the criteria I’ve considered to produce these rankings: short-term MLB talent, long-term MLB talent/upper-minors prospects, lower-minors prospects/trade capital, payroll ceiling, MLB coaching/front office, and amateur signings (draft and international). You could quibble and combine or separate a few of those groupings, or argue some of these can’t be quantified properly. You may be right, but we’ll keep tweaking things until they are.
I had originally intended to limit this list to five teams for purposes of symmetry, but the top tier looked like seven teams to me, and the sources by whom I ran this list agreed. In the same way that the I approached the Trade Value Rankings from the point of view of a medium-payroll, medium-term-focused team, I’ve undertook this exercise by asking which team would be most attractive to a prospect GM if his or her only interest is to win the most World Series possible (and not have low state income tax, run a childhood team, or live in a cool city) over the next five seasons.
Without further explanation, here are the organizations most likely to win the 2019-23 World Series.
1. Los Angeles Dodgers
The top-three teams on this list all have some reasonable claim to the top spot, but I ultimately went with the Dodgers, as they have a little more certainty in terms of on-field personnel than the Yankees possess, while both clubs feature similar built-in financial advantages. (Houston lags behind on the second count.)
Episode 839
Dan Szymborski is the progenitor of the ZiPS projection system and a senior writer for FanGraphs dot com. He’s also the guest on this edition of the program, during which he examines which managers have produced the best performances of the postseason. Also: Szymborski’s argument for playing Matt Kemp at shortstop. And: a status update on the forthcoming projections for 2019.
Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.
UMP: The Untitled McDongenhagen Project, Episode 4
This is the fourth episode of a weekly program co-hosted by Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel about player evaluation in all its forms. The show, which is available through the normal FanGraphs Audio feed, has a working name but barely. The show is not all prospect stuff, but there is plenty of that, as the hosts are Prospect Men. Below are some timestamps to make listening and navigation easier.
0:25 – What the guys have been up to
1:34 – TOPIC ONE: Playoff Thoughts with Jack Handey
16:43 – Cleveland Indians: solving the big holes in the outfield, building on the rock solid rotation, possibly trading from the strength of elite international program
20:50 – Breaking down how Cleveland fell short in the series vs. Houston, including Kiley’s thoughts about an article from The Athletic
36:48 – Does an international draft solve some of these problems? Will the FBI investigation impact the next CBA? What’s the track record of MLB and the player association fixing these sorts of issues?
43:56 – TOPIC THREE: The Kyler Murray intrigue is increasing!
44:18 – Eric usurps Mel Kiper’s draft coverage hair throne
44:50 – Eric is steamed at the football draft illuminati
50:26 – Cal quarterback/center fielder Brandon McIlwain is back on the radar in both sports
51:20 – Kiley has some beef about Kyler Murray as well
53:22 – The guys audition to be football scouts, finding some similarities with baseball
1:00:45 – Eric has to leave to go have his mind blown by Forrest Whitley
History won’t look back too kindly on the Rockies’ 2018 playoff run. They were outscored 13-2 in a three-game sweep at the hands of the Brewers. They produced one of the most pitiful offensive performances in postseason history. All in all, it wasn’t a great success.
A look at the team’s lineup reveals that the performance wasn’t completely surprising, either. While the club’s .334 wOBA ranked (tied for) fourth in all of baseball, the Rockies’ hitting exploits were much less impressive after accounting for Coors Field. Indeed, their adjusted batting line placed them among the 10 worst teams in all of baseball by that measure. Nolan Arenado, Charlie Blackmon, and Trevor Story were the only qualified Rockies hitters to produce a 100 wRC+ or better. By definition, that left two-thirds of the lineup to below-average hitters. That was never going to be ideal, and it showed in their loss to the Brewers.
Nevertheless, the series was far from a blowout. Rockies pitchers, particularly the starters, fared well — especially considering that Kyle Freeland didn’t get a start in the series and Jon Gray, who faltered at the end of the season, wasn’t even part of the NLDS roster. Tyler Anderson, German Marquez, and Antonio Senzatela gave up just five runs in 16 innings, keeping things close enough for their teammates. Overall, Colorado trailed by more than two runs in just five of the 28 innings during which they batted. A bloop and a blast would have given Colorado the lead half of the time they stepped to the plate — and also would have tied the game on another eight occasions, as the graph below illustrates.
Episode 838
Craig Edwards traveled to Milwaukee for Games One and Two of the NLDS between the Brewers and Rockies. In this edition of the program, he discusses what he saw there. Also: what criteria must a club meet to become a dynasty? And: if teams added no players this offseason, which club would be best in 2019?
Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.
For eight innings, everything went as planned for Craig Counsell and his Brewers in their NLDS Game One matchup against the Colorado Rockies. Their MVP homered. A non-traditional arrangement of pitchers got them to the ninth inning with a 2-0 lead. Their All-Star closer took the mound needing to record only three outs. It was, more or less, the ideal scenario.
Then things fell apart a little. The closer faltered, and the Rockies tied the score. Counsell was forced to adjust. In the end, everything worked out anyway. The Brewers won the game on their home field and took a 1-0 lead in their best-of-five battle against Colorado. The plan, ultimately, worked.
Let’s take a look at the finer points of that plan to get a sense of Counsell’s logic and the Brewers’ strengths.
The Starter
Ever since the Tampa Bay Rays used Sergio Romo in a one-inning start back in May, the idea of the opener has spread across the league. And while Brandon Woodruff’s appearance could easily have been mistaken for another example of that strategy — Woodruff recorded many more relief appearances (15) than starts this year (4) — that’s not how Craig Counsell saw it.
I think from our perspective, Woody is — he’s not a reliever. He has the ability to do more than that, if that’s what the game calls for. So that’s — one, he’s throwing the ball really well and, two, I think he has the potential to do a little more than a reliever maybe.
Whatever the case, the decision paid off: Woodruff pumped upper-90s four-seamers and two-seamers to get batters out. The sinkers were a bit of a surprise — Woodruff had only used the pitch during one appearances all season, his final one against Detroit — but were also effective. Only one batter reached base over Woodruff’s first three innings of work — a first inning walk of DJ LeMahieu — and he was erased on a caught stealing. By the end of three complete, Woodruff had produced three strikeouts against one walk while throwing 71% fastballs. But the velocity appeared to be waning, as the graph below indicates.
After a miserable 2017, Adam Ottavino has been able to rebound, establishing himself as one of the better relievers in either league. That’s why he was the Rockies’ first pitcher out of the bullpen the other day in the wild-card game in Chicago. Granted, Ottavino allowed the tying run. There wasn’t another run until the top of the 13th. The bottom of the 13th was led off by Terrance Gore.
Let’s tie this all together, you and me. Why was Gore ever in the game in the first place? He pinch-ran in the eighth for Anthony Rizzo. Rizzo had hit a two-out single. Gore came in and wasted no time.
When Charlie Blackmon was double-switched out of Tuesday night’s NL Wild Card game in the bottom of the eighth inning, immediately after the Cubs tied the game and the Rockies put in Wade Davis, it wasn’t hard to miss just how limited Colorado’s offense is. With their season on the line, the next nine hitters that manager Bud Black sent to the plate from that point were as follows:
Rockies’ Batting Order in Late Innings of Wild Card Game
Valaika, pinch-hitting for Davis in the 10th, gave way to pitcher Seung Hwan Oh, who departed in the 11th in favor of Chris Rusin via a double-switch that removed Desmond and brought in McMahon. Scott Oberg followed Rusin in the 12th, double-switched out in a move where Wolters replaced Butera. That Wolters ultimately collected the game-winning hit in the 13th owes something to the position that Cubs starter-turned-reliever Kyle Hendricks was forced into under the circumstances, but the fact that he came through, despite the meager prospects for doing so, is both Very Baseball and why the Rockies lived to fight another series. Read the rest of this entry »
