Yesterday, we identified Jeremy Jeffress as a pitcher who benefited greatly from dropping his arm slot, adding more sink and fade to his two-seamer. The idea was that his four-seamer was straight and possessed below-average spin, so moving from that pitch to a sinker, while dropping the slot, gave him a better foundational fastball. There’s a roadmap there. Let’s follow it.

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Last week, Ben Lindbergh authored an excellent piece regarding baseball’s “ever expiring ideas” for The Ringer. FanGraphs editor Dave Cameron described the trend as a “devaluation of new ideas.” But I think many can agree on one area of the game that features considerable room for growth, one many clubs are pursuing: injury prevention.

Even as teams employ modern treatments, the total of days missed due to injury continues to increase. MLB players spent 36,893 days on the disabled list last year, according Jeff Zimmerman’s excellent research, which broke the previous high of the 15-year study by 21%. There are many culprits cited to explain this trend, from the rise from youth sports specialization to the toll of increased velocity on the elbows and shoulders of pitchers. Will Carroll, one of the few who have tried to measure injury loss and cost, estimated the sport spent $1.1 billion alone on disabled pitchers from 2008 to -12. Despite advances in wearable technology, despite more focus on injury prevention and strength and training programs, injuries keep increasing.

To better understand how the industry might improve its ability in keeping players healthy and on the field, I spoke to the athletic trainer who’s had more success than anyone in keeping players off the disabled list in the 21st century.

Last week, I talked with Herm Schneider as he made his way to O’Hare airport in Chicago to catch a flight to Arizona to begin his 38th season as the head athletic trainer of the White Sox. The 64-year-old is the sport’s longest tenured head athletic trainer. And for good reason: according to Zimmerman’s data, he’s been the most effective.

Over the last 15 years, the White Sox have lost the fewest days to the disabled list of any major-league team – and it’s not close. While DL data is hardly a perfect measure of time lost to injuries, as the disabled list is also employed by clubs as a roster-manipulation tool, the White Sox have averaged just over 500 DL days per season since 2001, according to Zimmerman’s research. Only three other teams have averaged fewer than 775 days lost to injury. The White Sox’ domination is illustrated clearly by this chart from Zimmerman’s piece:

The White Sox continue to remain one of the healthier teams in recent years, as well. Over the last five seasons, the White Sox have recorded the second fewest DL days, and fourth fewest over the last three seasons.

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Right-handed reliever David Robertson is earning $12 million per year on a rebuilding Chicago White Sox team that has little need for a high-priced closer. The Washington Nationals, meanwhile, might need a closer if they aren’t comfortable with internal options who, whatever their qualifications, lack proven closer experience. As a result, it isn’t surprising to find that the two teams have been discussing a trade. Robertson is owed $25 million over the next two years, a relatively reasonable fee given the cost of closers on the free-agent market. If the White Sox are looking to dump salary, Robertson might make sense for multiple teams, but if the Sox want prospects back, both Chicago and Robertson’s suitors might be better off waiting until July, even if the price for relievers is higher at that time.

From 2011 to -15, Robertson was one of the very best relievers in baseball. During that time, he averaged nearly two wins above replacement per season. The only relievers with a higher total WAR during that time frame were Aroldis Chapman, Greg Holland, Kenley Jansen, and Craig Kimbrel. That 2015 campaign, Robertson’s first with the White Sox, was also arguably the best of his career. He struck out 34% of batters while walking just 5%. A very low 66% left-on-base percentage gave him just a 3.41 ERA (compared to his 2.52 FIP), but the results were fine nonetheless. Entering the 2016 season, Robertson was again set to be one of the very best relievers in the game, earning a 1.9-WAR projection on our Depth Charts projection. The season didn’t go as well as expected.

Robertson put together a solid season, recording a good 3.58 FIP (82 FIP-) and a similar 3.47 ERA (82 ERA-). The result: a 1.0-WAR season, making him one of just a dozen full-time closers to hit the one-win mark last year. The results were good, but they represented a decline from his elite numbers the five years prior to 2016. His strikeout rate dropped from 34% to 28%; his walk rate more than doubled, up to 12%, after having remained below 9% since the 2011 season. Last season might be an outlier. It’s possible that Robertson return to form this year. It could be a new normal for Robertson going forward, though — or, worse, it could represent a decline that could continue into this season. The problem is that nobody really knows.

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There are different ways to turn a team around. That’s probably an obvious thing to say, but it’s true. Another thing that’s obvious and true: teams are made of humans. Because of that, no turnaround is entirely uniform in nature.

Even so, a team might emphasize certain traits when attempting to rebuild or improve. On-base skills, power, etc. Some of those turnarounds are easy to follow; others, less so.

Given the relatively short history of defensive metrics, the turnaround of team defense hasn’t been thoroughly chronicled, and yet teams have certainly made it a priority. Just last year, the Astros and Indians exhibited improvements in the field in a way rarely matched. Looking further back, it’s possible to find other teams that have accomplished the same feat. The question, though: how did they it? Maybe it’s possible to use past successes as a road map for current teams! So, let’s find the next Indians and Astros.

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Largely overlooked amidst the hoopla surrounding last weekend’s Super Bowl, DeMaurice Smith, the executive director of the National Football League Players Association, weighed in on an obscure bill currently working its way through the Illinois state legislature. If enacted into law, the proposed legislation — presently dubbed Illinois Senate Bill 12 — would amend the state’s workers’ compensation laws to decrease the benefits provided to professional athletes who sustain career-ending injuries on the playing field.

This possibility led Smith to threaten that, if Senate Bill 12 were to be signed into law, the NFLPA would officially encourage players to steer clear of signing with the Chicago Bears. As Smith stated over the weekend, “If you’re a free-agent player and you have an opportunity to go play somewhere else… isn’t a smarter financial decision to go to a team where a bill like this hasn’t passed?”

The fact that the NFLPA would take such a public stance against the proposed Illinois legislation raises the question of what potential impact Senate Bill 12 would have on Major League Baseball players, and, more generally, how workers’ compensation laws affect MLB in the first place.

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We tend to form memories poorly. In middle school, my band teacher was fond of telling us that if you only played two parts of the song correctly, to make it the beginning and the end, because most people wouldn’t remember anything else.

So it may be with Andruw Jones. If you pressed most people on what they remember most about Jones, there’s a decent chance that they’d recall him as the 19-year-old who homered twice in the 1996 World Series and also as a really fat guy who was terrible in his 30s. In between those two endpoints, though, he had a Hall of Fame career.

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After having typically appeared in the very famous pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past few years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Chicago White Sox. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Boston / Chicago NL / Cleveland / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles AL / New York AL / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Tampa Bay / Toronto / Washington.

Batters
The White Sox have dealt two of their best players this offseason, and reports indicate that at least one more trade is likely. As a result, these ZiPS projections serve not only as a preview for the 2017 edition of the club but also as an instrument to better evaluate trade value. Corner infielders Jose Abreu (652 PA, 2.9 zWAR) and Todd Frazier (634 PA, 3.4 zWAR) would appear to be most appealing in this regard. Both receive above-average win projections (the top-two figures among Chicago field players) while also featuring contracts that compensate them at something less than market rate.

Among those members of the team who are almost certain to return in 2017, shortstop Tim Anderson (586, 2.2) earns the top forecast. ZiPS offers little encouragement regarding Anderson’s plate discipline — calling for a walk and strikeout rate of 2.7% and 27.8%, respectively — but projects sufficiently strong batted-ball skill (.348 BABIP) and defense (+4 runs at short) to render Anderson a solidly average player.

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With Chris Sale now employed by the Boston Red Sox and Adam Eaton preparing for a season with front-row tickets to the Presidents Race, there can be no question about the current objectives of the White Sox. The stars-and-scrubs strategy they’ve employed for the past few years can now be viewed as an abject failure as the team revamps and retools by cashing in those aforementioned stars for players like Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, and Yoan Moncada, who figure to be key future contributors.

The term “fire sale” is a bit cliché, but it’s undeniable that there is an “everything must go” sense of urgency to what the White Sox are currently doing. Which means it remains likely that Jose Quintana’s days in the South Side are likely numbered and first baseman Jose Abreu may soon be out there door. If you’re placing odds on White Sox players likely to be traded in the near future, however, none will have higher odds than third baseman Todd Frazier.

The power-hitting Frazier is entering his final year of arbitration and will be 31 years old when Opening Day rolls around. According to the arbitration projections run by Matt Swartz at MLB Trade Rumors, Frazier is likely to command a salary next year in the ballpark of $13.5 million. Over the past three seasons, Frazier has hit 104 homers – a figure that is second only to Josh Donaldson’s 107 among major-league third basemen. His ISO (isolated power) since 2015 is .241, or just a shade above Kris Bryant’s .238 ISO. Securing the services of a player with that kind of pop to man the hot corner on a one-year, $13.5 million contract would be an absolute coup in the free-agent market, but will the White Sox be able to convert that into a decent return in the trade market?

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Just one day after they dealt away Chris Sale for an impressive crop of young talent, the White Sox continued their tear-down yesterday by flipping Adam Eaton for another nice haul. This time, they landed three young pitchers (roughly in order of consensus future value): Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez and Dane Dunning.

Here’s how the minor leaguers headed to Chicago grade out by my KATOH system. KATOH denotes WAR forecast for first six years of player’s major-league career. KATOH+ uses similar a methodology with consideration also for Baseball America’s rankings.

*****

Lucas Giolito, RHP (Profile)

KATOH: 5.8 WAR (47th overall)
KATOH+: 10.8 WAR (9th overall)

Giolito is one of those cases where the scouting reports outstrip the on-field performance. Scouts have long raved about Giolito’s fastball-curveball combination, and he parlayed it into dominance at the lower rungs of the minor leagues in 2014 and 2015. He was a consensus top-five prospect at this time last year, but things got a little rough for him in 2016.

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The White Sox continued adding to their suddenly robust farm system yesterday, acquiring a trio of pitching prospects from Washington in exchange for star outfielder Adam Eaton. Below are my scouting reports on the prospects involved. Lucas Giolito (60 Future Value) will slot in behind Yoan Moncada on the next revision of the White Sox prospect list, the completions of which I might delay until Rick Hahn’s purge of the major-league roster appears complete. Reynaldo Lopez will slot between Michael Kopech and Zack Collins as a 55 FV, while Dane Dunning will be the top 45 FV on the list.

The once Prodigious Lucas Giolito has more recently become the Enigmatic Lucas Giolito. While he remains one of baseball’s best pitching prospects after an inconsistent 2016, Giolito is no longer head-and-shoulders the game’s best. The opinions of scouts who saw Giolito this year make for an interesting collage of hope, fear, tempered expectations and patience, but all agree that front-end starter upside is still extant, if a bit less likely.

That kind of upside has been apparent since Giolito’s days at Harvard-Westlake, where, before suffering a season-ending elbow injury that would later require Tommy John surgery, he was generating potential 1-1 buzz and had a legitimate chance to become the first right-handed high-school pitcher ever taken with the draft’s first pick.

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