Johan Santana will go down as one of the game’s best pitchers. I say ‘go down’ because after the news yesterday that Santana has probably re-torn the anterior capsule in his left, or throwing shoulder. Will Carroll said this was about the worst news that Santana could have received. Given how lengthy Santana’s rehab was the first time, and given the fact that he is set to be a free agent at the end of this season, we may have seen the last of the lefty with one of the deadliest changeups in baseball history.

Read the rest of this entry »

As we explained yesterday in Part 1 of the series, we’re looking at the financial health of all thirty major league teams. The focus is on attendance, local TV contracts, and estimated 2013 payroll. We’re not ranking the teams one to thirty because we lack the kind of detailed information that would make such a ranking meaningful. We do, however, have enough information to paint with broad strokes, so as part of our attempt to give an overview of where each team stands as 2013 begins, we’ll look at their access to monetary resources for the upcoming season.

We’ve grouped the teams in tiers. Today we look at the ten teams in the middle.

In alphabetical order, by team name:

Read the rest of this entry »

Due to an unfortunate data error, the numbers in this story did not include park factors upon publication. We have updated the data to include the park factors, and the data you see below is now correct. We apologize for the mistake.

—

What’s all this, then? For an explanation of this series, please read the introductory post. As noted in that introduction, the data is a hybrid projection of the ZIPS and Steamer systems with playing time determined through depth charts created by our team of authors. The rankings are based on aggregate projected WAR for each team at a given position.

Third base is a little deeper than it used to be, and only a handful of teams have little to no hope of being productive at the position. The devil is in the details at the hot corner, as there has been very little turnover among the top 20 teams here. Teams that have quality reserves or prospects coming up the pipeline see a bump here, as we’re looking holistically at the position and not just at the nominal starter. This is an important consideration across the diamond, but particularly so at third given how physically demanding the position is. Only six third basemen suited up in 150 or more games last year. Compare that to 13 at second base and 11 at first base and shortstop, and it becomes clear that depth is important at third base. Unfortunately, most teams don’t have adequate depth, hence the bump for the teams that do.

Let’s get on to the rankings!

Read the rest of this entry »

Once upon a time, Justin Morneau was a very solid player. He was never the player his most-valuable-player status would have seemed to convey, though he was still solid. But that time was more than two seasons ago, and as he enters a contract year in what will be age-32 season, it’s fair to wonder if this is Morneau’s last stand.

Read the rest of this entry »

As we inch closer to the 2013 season, top-100 lists are being released with Byron Buxton ranked prominently. As the number-two overall pick in 2012, high rankings are expected. A few years ago, organization mate Aaron Hicks was held in equally high regard.

Today, Hicks ranks towards the bottom of top-1oo lists as five professional seasons have yielded mixed results. For those expecting Buxton’s tools to translate into production immediately, Hicks serves as a cautionary tale. But Hicks’ mini-breakout in 2012 and subsequent shot at the center field position in spring training serve as a reminder to bet on tools — Even if they take awhile to develop.

Video after the jump

Read the rest of this entry »

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 Minnesota Twins. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other 2013 Projections: Angels / Astros / Athletics / Blue Jays / Brewers / Cardinals / Cubs / Diamondbacks / Dodgers / Giants / Mariners / Marlins / Mets / Nationals / Padres / Phillies / Pirates / Rangers / Rays / Reds / Rockies / Royals / Tigers / White Sox / Yankees.

Batters
The Twins probably don’t have the least impressive set of offensive projections among the now-26 teams considered so far, but they probably do have the least impressive set of offensive projections for a club that also includes a player as good as Joe Mauer. Ben Revere and Denard Span, now both a part of the NL East, combined for seven-plus wins in 2012, and are projected for ca. five wins this season. Their replacements for the moment, Darin Mastroianni and Chris Parmelee — in center and right field, respectively — are projected to be worth only a fifth of that.

The reader will note that Ron Gardenhire’s actual deployment of Ryan Doumit, Joe Mauer, and Justin Morneau will likely be more nuanced than it’s represented in the depth-chart graphic below. The triumvirate made 48, 42, and 34 starts, respectively, at DH in 2012. Plus, Mauer made 30 starts at first base. Plus, Doumit made 56 at catcher. It’s not unreasonable to assume that they’ll be used similarly in 2013.

Read the rest of this entry »

A league-average hitter swings at about 46% of the pitches he sees. That much hasn’t really changed over at least the last decade. Roughly 5% of the time, a league-average hitter will end up in a 3-and-0 count. Roughly 7% of the time, a league-average hitter will swing at the next pitch. There’s nothing inherently wrong about swinging in a 3-and-0 count — the pitcher, often, will try to throw something straighter and over the plate. Often, then, there’s potential damage to be done. But a good deal might be learned about a hitter by examining his behavior in 3-and-0 counts. You can get a sense of a hitter’s eye, and you can get a sense of a hitter’s passiveness. Or, you might prefer, pickiness.

Joe Mauer is far from a league-average hitter, in both results and approach. For his career, Mauer has swung at about 37% of the pitches he’s seen, and last year he had the lowest swing rate in baseball. He swung at just about 8% of all first pitches, tied for the lowest rate in the league and against an average of 27%. Of all of Mauer’s career plate appearances, 9% have proceeded to a 3-and-0 count. In 3% of those plate appearances did Mauer offer at the next pitch. Joe Mauer has the eye to swing 3-and-0, but Joe Mauer has not often swung 3-and-0.

Read the rest of this entry »

Allow me to try to simplify the sabermetric revolution as much as I can:

Late 20th Century: we are evaluating baseball players
Early 21st Century: we were so wrong about our baseball player evaluation!
Less Early 21st Century: we were so wrong about our baseball player evaluation, again!

First, there were players, then there were numbers. Then there were better numbers, then there were still better numbers. The numbers will only continue to improve with time, and a lot of the things we currently think we know about baseball will probably end up being at least partially untrue. Keep that in mind next time you express a particularly strong opinion. But anyway.

Several years ago, people started to care an awful lot about on-base percentage and offensive productivity. This was warranted, because it is important to get on base and be offensively productive. A little later on, people started to care an awful lot about defense. Turns out some of those OBP-happy sluggers were subtracting runs almost as fast as they were adding them. Whoopsadoodle.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

In a stunning development, the Yankees reportedly have no interest in former Rays, Twins, and Tigers designated hitter and “outfielder” Delmon Young. A glance at a current rumors (as of this posting) about Young’s free agency seems to turn up at least as many reports of teams not being interesting in Delmon Young as teams that might be. Part of that might be that Young is waiting to get serious about shopping his services until he recovers from ankle surgery. Part of it might be Young’s public history of less-than-stellar behavior, both recent and in the past. And part of it might just be that over 880 major league games and 3575 major league plate appearances, Delmon Young has been mostly terrible. But is there still reasonable hope for Young to be a decent everyday player? After all, he just turned 27, was once considered the best prospect in baseball, and he has mashed the ball in recent postseasons. It might just be worth looking a bit more closely at Young alongside a player with a somewhat similar history and skill set to see where that kind of thinking can lead.

Read the rest of this entry »