Five Things I Believe About the 2015 Season
While I ran through my thoughts on all 30 teams in the division previews, I had a few stray things that didn’t fit into the capsule format, so I’m tackling them here. A year ago, I wrote this same post, including gems like this one:
2. I believe the Royals are being overrated.
Let’s see if I can do better this year. On to the five things I believe about the 2015 season.
1. The game will be quicker and the strike zone smaller.
Perhaps one of the most encouraging things about Rob Manfred’s first few months as commissioner has been how data-driven some of his statements have appeared. In his comments about both pace of play and the rising trend of strikeouts within the game, he’s continually made statements that are supported by — and likely the result of — evidence that supports his conclusions. He’s already taken some steps to remove some of the down time between pitches, which I expect will mostly work and he’s noted that the commissioner’s office has been gathering information to make sure that they’re ready to intervene if the strike zone continues to grow at the pace it has grown of late.
In fact, there’s some information to suggest that the league might have already acted. As Rob Arthur noted in his season preview at 538, the strike zone appeared to start going back up towards the end of last year.
While MLB will admit that they give detailed feedback to umpire’s based on the data about what they’re calling and not calling, they’re not going to tell us what kind of feedback they’re giving the umpires, so we’re going to have to infer it from how the strike zone changes. I expect that we’re going to see the bottom of the zone continue to climb, as the league looks for ways to get some offense back into the sport without making dramatic on-the-field changes. Like with pace of play, I expect the changes to be more tweaks than overhauls, but I’d expect that we’ll see fewer of those two-seamers below the knees getting called for strikes this year.
2. The Brewers have a real chance to be terrible.
I promise I believed this before they got destroyed by Colorado on Opening Day, and this isn’t a reaction to the beating they took yesterday. But among the 25 or so teams who are projected to at least be respectable in 2015, Milwaukee is the one that I think could just completely fall apart. As I mentioned in the division preview, this is a team with zero depth, so their 77 win projection is based on full seasons of their frontline players; that’s not a reasonable expectation, and the second-line players are almost uniformly awful.
The Brewers have no margin for error, especially in the rotation, where their options to replace a struggling or injured starter are all replacement level scrubs. With Kyle Lohse and Matt Garza on the wrong side of 30, and Mike Fiers and Jimmy Nelson on the wrong side of reliable, this is a rotation that seems likely to need multiple fill-ins throughout the year. But there just aren’t any real options, and if Lohse hits a wall — he’s 36 and playing the weak-contact game, which is a dangerous way to live — at the same time that Fiers’ arm starts barking again, they’re going to be in serious trouble.
The NL Central is not going to be an easy division this year, and unless their offense leads the league in runs scored, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Brewers won 67 games instead of 77.
3. This Masahiro Tanaka experiment isn’t going to work.
Jeff did a nice job breaking down his first start of the year yesterday, and there are some important reminders in there about this being just four innings against a good offense. Tanaka’s splitter was still a weapon, and you don’t absolutely have to throw a bunch of fastballs in order to be a good big league pitcher.
But I’m just not sure what the point is, really. The Yankees project as roughly a .500 team with Tanaka pitching at nearly full strength, and it seems unlikely that he’ll be as good as the projections are expecting. If he’s more of an okay pitcher than a good one, the Yankees are a pretty weak threat in the AL East, and while they might be able to get enough things to go right to hang around in the Wild Card race, they don’t really have the look of a team that is going to make a deep run in October.
I know the Yankees don’t rebuild, and it’s not in their best interests to lose on purpose, but with Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia, and Carlos Beltran coming off the books after the 2016 season, 2017 feels like the next year the Yankees will have a real shot at being a top-tier team again. If you let him get too far into this season and then he breaks down and needs Tommy John surgery during the summer, he’d likely miss all of the 2016 season while rehabbing, and the team would go into that year not really knowing what they have. If he gets the surgery earlier, and gets back on a mound in the second half of next year, they’ll at least get a good look at Tanaka and how well he was able to come back from the procedure.
If the Yankees were strong contenders this season, okay, maybe you have him try to pitch through it and see if it pays off. But if they’re just going to limp to a .500 record anyway, I don’t see a lot of upside in having him pitch at 80% effectiveness just because he can.
4. Jorge Soler is going to steal Kris Bryant’s limelight.
Kris Bryant is going to be up in a week or so, and I think he’s going to be quite good this year; one of the main reasons I expect the Cubs to contend all season, in fact. But I don’t think he’s going to be the Cubs best young player this year. I think that’s going to be Jorge Soler.
Our projections have him as roughly a league average player this year, but I’ll be honest, I don’t entirely understand why. His minor league track record is remarkably strong, and he destroyed Major League pitching in a 100 at-bat trial last year. At 23, he’s still plenty young enough to improve on his contact rate, and the power looks quite legitimate. He probably won’t walk nearly as often as he did in the minors, but he’s not Javier Baez at the plate, and looks like he does know how to take a pitch out of the zone.
So I’m taking the over on the 114 wRC+ projection from our depth charts, and wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up in the 130 range. I’ve heard more than one Matt Kemp comparison, though Soler’s power has probably developed even earlier than Kemp’s did. If Soler stays healthy, I won’t be at all surprised if Bryant is the second best young slugger on the Cubs this year. And between the two of them, the middle of the Cubs order should be just fine.
5. The Padres are going to make a dozen more trades.
The Padres are a fascinating team. They’ve collected enough pieces to be interesting and maybe even good, but the pieces don’t really fit together that well. The line-up is almost entirely right-handed. The left side of the infield is awful, and the right side tops out at mediocre, but they have 10 good relievers, including a couple of guys just optioned to Triple-A who could probably close for a bunch of Major League teams right now.
I’m a bit skeptical that, as constructed, this roster is going to work out for San Diego, but if there’s one thing A.J. Preller has taught us, it’s that we shouldn’t assume that he’s ever done. And I’m pretty sure they know that their infield is bad. When relievers start dropping like flies and teams are scrambling for bullpen help, San Diego is the most natural first phone call, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Padres were already planning on ways to turn a pitcher or two into a shortstop or third base upgrade. That’s not the easiest task in the world, but the price of pitching goes up dramatically in-season, and the Padres do have pitching to spare.
But beyond continuing to tweak the roster, the Padres have also set themselves up to pivot aggressively in July if this grand roster experiment hasn’t worked out. The surprising thing about the Craig Kimbrel trade wasn’t that the Braves moved him, but that they didn’t wait until July to do so, when the game’s best closer might have been in extremely high demand. While I think the Padres paid a pretty steep price to get Kimbrel, they could flip him for more talent than they gave up to get him, and effectively use the cost difference to buy some better future talent.
Add in Justin Upton and a bunch of pitchers headed towards free agency, and the Padres could be extremely active sellers in July if the first half doesn’t go well. The nice thing about the risks the Padres have taken is that they aren’t tied to most of them, and if they have to trade Upton and four or five pitchers this summer, they’re in a position to potentially get a lot back, maybe even more than they gave up in some cases.
So while I don’t love this Padres team, and I think some of the individual moves have been questionable, I do like the Padres flexibility. If they win, well, great, then it worked and they reap the benefits. If they don’t win, there are a lot worse positions to be in than to have a bunch of right-handed power hitters, a couple of good starters on short-term contracts, and the best closer in baseball available to sell in July. Either way, I expect the A.J. Preller Trade Frenzy to continue all year long.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Is there not going to be a chat transcript for the opening day live blogging extravaganza? I was really looking forward to reading it!
Yea, this. Even though this has nothing to do with Dave’s article maybe he’ll see the comments, I was hoping to read the transcript since I cant participate in the chats at work.
Can you not get cover it live at work? All the stuff seems to be within that window. Raw XMLHere.
Cover it live sucks
Rizzo is only 25, so Bryant would be the third best young power slugger on the Cubs.
That’s assuming you believe Rizzo will be better than Bryant – most don’t (at least as far as I can tell).
Which is absurd. Rizzo has already proven to be an elite hitter in the Show.
He has shown to be very good I don’t see where he has shown to be elite.
Where were you last year?
Not sure what you standard for “elite” is, but Rizzo posted a 153 wRC+ as a 24 year old last season, which ranked 8th among qualifiers.
His 5.6 WAR was good for 12th in baseball, and was first among 1st Basemen
(To be fair, Goldschmidt did get hurt towards the end of the year, but even that is kind of offset by the fact that Rizzo got hurt at the end of the year as well. If you take Goldys 4.4 WAR divided by his 109 games played, and multiply by 140 (the amount of games Rizzo played, he ends up at 5.65 WAR….so it woulda been close either way. I think its safe to say that Rizzo was legitimately the best 1st Baseman in baseball last season).
Regardless, Goldschmidt is a consensus superstar and there would be no shame in being ranked behind him among 1B.
Staying healthy is valuable too.
My problem with the Tanaka comment is that literally every doctor that he has seen has discouraged the surgery. Sure, he might need it eventually, but right now they are saying that it would be better for him to continue pitching. This isn’t a case of the team rushing a player back: this is the Yankees doing exactly what is recommended by medical professionals. The bottomline is this: TJ is risky and, in Tanaka’s case, unnecessary.
The “Tanaka should get surgery” thing is really out of control. When you have a consensual opinion among the top orthopedists in the country that surgery is not needed, why would you do it? Who in their right mind would go against consensual medical advice, for any thing? Might as well give him acupuncture sessions and homeopathy.
Yeah was as surprised by the Tanaka point as you were.
Also very surprised by the Brewers point.
Also, the Yankees are not going to admit after one game that they are limping towards .500. If Tanaka gets knocked around again in his next start, then maybe there is some substance to declaring this experiment will not work. However, if he goes and throws 7 scoreless, the jury will still be out.
I so agree with this. What if his ligament really is healed? His velocity was actually fine yesterday by pitch fx…maybe *gulp* he had a bad day. Her threw one bad pitch to an elite power hitter and had Headley make an error behind him.
Why the reduced velo then?
Look at the Brooks Baseball pitch fx chart. He lost barely any velocity from last year:
http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/pfx.php?s_type=3&sp_type=1&batterX=0&year=2015&month=4&day=06&pitchSel=547888.xml&game=gid_2015_04_06_tormlb_nyamlb_1/&prevGame=gid_2015_04_06_tormlb_nyamlb_1/
It’s not as dramatic as the announcers on the game yesterday had me believe, but there has definitely been a drop over time, check out these charts:
http://www.brooksbaseball.net/velo.php?player=547888&time=&startDate=03/30/2007&endDate=04/07/2015&s_type=2
and it’s more pronounced if you look at the max velocities. Maybe he can’t hump it up anymore for tough situations?
Even the max velo, he threw harder yesterday than at the end of last year. If anything, that means he is feeling better. He may have gone away from the FB for the just the reason he said – he wasn’t getting anyone out with it. He’s always had a straight FB, even last year (that’s why he is so dinger-prone, even at his best). He may have just had a bad day against a very good hitting team.
There isn’t really a steady decline, though. Tanaka’s velo is actually *higher* than it was at the end of last year, and he topped at 94.5 yesterday – plenty good enough. In fact, his average velo yesterday was higher than every month last year but April.
We can all come back from the cliffs.
Well, the idea isn’t that something happened over the winter. It’s that there has been a steady decline perhaps due to a deteriorating elbow. You would expect a small bounceback after the rest, regardless. Compare to may/june and he has lost 2-3mph max velo on each pitch.
But the bounceback from the rest suggests he is feeling better, not worse. If he came out averaging 88, I could see the problem. But even then – look at Hisashi Iwakuma. He can succeed as a lower-velocity Iwakuma clone if he gets his command right (Tanaka’s splitter is better), which may well have nothing to do with the elbow, and a lot to do with his low ST innings count. I don’t think the Yankees would care if he’s Iwakuma instead of ’14 Tanaka; that’s still an elite starter. And if he’s Iwakuma with 2-3 extra mph? He’s pretty close to last year’s Tanaka again.
Let’s see how his command develops over the next few starts before we declare him done and needing TJ surgery for the good of the franchise.
There isn’t really a steady decline, though. Tanaka’s velo is actually *higher* than it was at the end of last year, and he topped at 94.5 yesterday – plenty good enough. In fact, his average velo yesterday was higher than every month last year but April.
We can all come back from the cliffs.
He threw all of five fourseam fastballs. Basically he’s gone from a 4 pitch pitcher to a 3 pitch pitcher. That doesn’t bode well, either.
It was one game.
But he didn’t use his 4 seamer much last year either. Yes, it was less (a lot less) yesterday, but one start against perhaps the best fastball hitting team in MLB not named the Red Sox isn’t exactly enough of a sample size. Like Jeff Sullivan wrote yesterday, up until that EE homer, his pitch mix was fairly normal.
This may all be mental.
eh, he used it about 20% of the time, it wasn’t his primary pitch but it was certainly used a lot more.
But he was also facing a very good fastball hitting team. We don’t know what his game plan was, and it may not be a coincidence he stopped throwing his fastball after the Jays started hammering his fastball.
His fastball velo wasn’t the problem, his command was. That is just as likely to be a result of too few innings in ST as a barking elbow. May 1, if he has pitched four or five starts, all like this? Maybe then we can say there is a problem. But this sample size is simply way too small to draw conclusions.
Remember Corey Kluber’s first start last year?
I’m not saying anything more than it’s a cause for concern. But really it’s been 3 starts if you include his 2 in sept that exhibited similar concerns.
But remember his second-to last start last year: pretty damn good, against a good-hitting team, with much lower velo than yesterday. It’s his last two starts which have been troublesome, one his last start of the year and one his first start of the year. There is simply too much time between them to draw any sort of correlation, particularly when his velocity is better than it was. His location was just worse.
I think the concern is (should be) about his UCL being a ticking time bomb, but so is any pitcher’s. Clayton Kershaw’s UCL could blow before Tanaka’s. Just saying.
Did you actually look at the jays lineup he faced? 5 or 6 of them were replacement level or worse. The top 3 (Reyes, Jbau, EE) hit .500 against him.
Its difficult to be more wrong than this. The Jays lineup has an unproven bottom 3 (although I doubt any are sub replacement level myself) but the top 6 was Reyes, Martin, Bautista, EE, Donaldson and Navarro.
Also, the three you mention had one hit and one walk between them, albeit the hit was a 2 run homer, whilst the bottom 3 were 3 for 9 with 3 walks, a homer and 2 stolen bases.
Other than that, nice post
As far as I’ve read, the doctor’s have not been telling Tanaka ‘don’t have the surgery’, they’ve been telling him he may not need it. It’s not as clear cut as you’re making it out to be. Tanaka and the Yankees have weighed the cost/benefit of just getting the surgery vs. trying to pitch through it and opted for the latter, and the author here is arguing that in doing so they are risking trading a relevant 2017 performance for a likely irrelevant 2015. It’s a perfectly valid point, and in no way an endorsement of ignoring doctors’ advice.
Look at this:
https://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/tommy-john-surgery-still-is-a-risky-procedure-with-no-guarantees-1.10184854
“For such an example, look no further than Yankees Opening Day starter Masahiro Tanaka, who was diagnosed with a very small UCL tear last July. At that point, it was assumed that Tanaka would need Tommy John surgery. The Yankees sought numerous opinions, and every doctor recommended trying a more conservative approach — eight weeks off and a regimen of platelet-rich plasma injections to promote healing in the elbow.”
The doctors are recommending he not have surgery. Obviously, he can do it anyway, it’s his body. But when four doctors say “we recommend against this” and you do this anyway, you’re going against medical advice. Plain and simple.
This is consistent with Chris Ahmad, yankee doctor and one of 4 doctors who recommended not having the surgery. He has published a paper that shows people underestimate the risk of TJS:
https://physsportsmed.org/doi/10.3810/psm.2012.05.1966
Additionally, people may be overreacting to a small sample size here. CC Sabathia started 2008 giving up 27 earned runs and 5 homers in his first 4 starts, 18 innings. He wasn’t hurt and in most games his velocity was fine. But he wasn’t getting swings and misses, and he K’d 14 but also walked 14. There was a thought he may have an injury because he wasn’t throwing his slider much.
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2008/4/18/415229/what-s-wrong-with-cc-sabat
He was getting shellacked, and it wasn’t just bad luck. He ended the year with an era under 3.00.
Wainwright’s velocity was down below 90 his first start and people thought he may be a risk with his K rate lower last year. Instead, he pitches shutout ball and the worriers are mollified.
Right now it’s been one game. He had a bad inning. he nibbled. he gave up a homer, but he gave them up last year. He was 6th highest in hr/fb % last year. A one game sample is a tiny sample on which to make to make sweeping judgments, as this site amply documents.
From what I understand Tanaka got multiple opinions on getting TJ or not, and they all agreed that rest and rehab should work. Given what we know about pitchers and elbows I don’t know if he is all that more likely to blow out than any other pitcher.
I guess I don’t really like that Dave seems to be advocating someone to get a pretty major surgery done when multiple doctors have agreed that it may not be needed.
Agreed. Even if he is at 80% (which we don’t really know from one start), maybe he never comes back from the TJ and this is better than what he would be. There is so much risk associated with TJ and it would be, at least right now, entirely against medical advice.
I don’t think they said it should work. Probably the advice was something more along the lines of it is not worth the risk of having major surgery.
Here’s the thing about the doctor’s advice: they are recommend rest and platlets before surgery because if that works, yay! no surgery. If not, you still just have the surgery.
In other words, they’re saying there’s a chance he might not need surgery, and the risks are such that he should try to avoid surgery FIRST until it’s clear he absolutely needs it.
All this does is add a little more time to evaluate his elbow, it does not mean anything else.
The Mets’ orthopedists said the same thing about Zack Wheeler’s ulnar nerve this off-season. Pitching with a slight tear in your UN typically exacerbates the condition. Very few pitchers have rehabbed successfully. Even Adam Wainwright was able to rehab a slightly torn UN. However, he still eventually needed surgery. Mr. Cameron’s point is well taken. Tanaka may require surgery just when the Yankees are starting to retool. Wouldn’t that be a shame?
A shame, yes. But you don’t get major surgery when 4 doctors, the best in their field, say you don’t need it yet. Getting TJ now – that *would* be the experiment, not following medical advice.
True. My point being is that the inevitable is most likely to happen. It is almost getting to that point where top young pitching studs might be required to get the procedure prior to entering MLB. What are the stats? I imagine that at least 40% of pitchers who throw splitters, sliders and fastballs over 90 mph need the procedure these days (especially given some of their stressful pitching deliveries).
Accordingly, young hurlers either need preventative surgery, or they need to learn preventative kinesthesiological exercises (e.g., attending Mike Marshall’s pitching academy).
Preventative surgery is (a) incredible risky and dangerous, and (b) no guarantee either (Johnny Venters, Ryan Madson, Brandon Beachy, Kris Medlen, etc, etc). Having one TJ won’t prevent having a second, or third.
Yes, there is a TJ epidemic. But sometimes the body really does heal. Ervin Santana, for one. Wainwright pitched two years (two very, very good ones). This can be done, and it does happen.
What are you talking about? Preventive surgery is best advice I could give anyone.
Wheeler’s MRIs showed no partial tear until this spring. He had pain symptoms but they didn’t see a tear.
Wainwright pitched for like 4.5 seasons before needing the TJ though thats a terrible example
Ulner nerve
sic.: Ulner collateral ligament or UCL. Sorry for the confusion.
Mid-season sellers in 2014 were very few. Mid-season sellers in 2015 will probably be even fewer as GM’s look at the performance of the Giants and Royals of last season as reasons not to sell. I just can’t imagine the Padres disassembling this team in July after all of the effort they’ve put forth, to date. I put the odds at less than 5%. And if they’re within 5 games of the wildcard, I put the odds at less than 1%.
Yeah I didn’t quite follow that reasoning either. By that account, just about any team in baseball has “flexibility” going into the trade deadline. But most of them will be too close to competing to sell off. In fact, the Padres are least likely to do so because they literally JUST made all their acquisitions and how disheartening would be be to just dump it all three months in. Besides, all those SP’s heading to FA amount to Ian Kennedy, who is decidedly mediocre, and the two rehab cases (Morrow and Johnson) they took on. There’s no “haul” there. Upton though … he could interest someone.
Ulnar nerve – UN
sic.: ulnar collateral ligament – UCL
Sorry for the confusion.
One thing I believe, Dave Cameron has a giant man-sized crush on the Chicago Cubs.
According to fangraphs readership, he is biased toward about 3/4 of the league depending on whether or not what he wrote that day compliments or insults your favorite and least favorite teams, respectively.
Except he’s probably right (and I’m not a Cubs fan). They actually do look very solid. Not 95 win solid, but wildcard contention until late September solid. Easily.
“wildcard contention until late September solid”
Agreed, although that universe encompasses about 75% of teams, give or take.
Just not usually the Cubs.
Don’t you think the Padres would have to be really out of it to fold? Remember, in the past couple years, the majority of teams have been buyers. The Padres are projected for 84 wins and it is entirely possible that itself could be enough to snag the second WC spot. How far off would they have to be to give up in late July. 10 games under .500? Is that all that likely?
No way 84 wins gets a wildcard. Too many bad teams in the NL. Just playing in the NL East gets you 36 games against the Phils and Braves. And I’m not sure how good the Marlins will be, either.
The problem is other than the Nationals (who are amazing, you have to factor that in), the other two teams aren’t that great either. Are you saying the Amazin’s are going to win 85 games?
But you’re probably right that 84 wins doesn’t get the WC, but something like 87 definitely could.
6. MLB analysts (old former players and newspaper beat writers) will discuss shifts destroying baseball all season.
Does this actually happen? There were shifts a thousand years ago, right? I don’t remember hearing the Braves’ announcers ever denounce the shift, and they’re as old school as they come.
I watched a little of every game yesterday and umps were consistently calling low strikes (knees and below) the whole day.
I don’t know where they are with their payroll flexibility, but it might make sense for the Padres to make a trade based around a reliever and Daniel Murphy, since he came up as a 3B and that’s his best position. He’s a better bat than what they have, he’s done well in pitchers parks, and he’s a left handed hitter.
From the Mets’ perspective, they have a couple guys who can fill in at 2B without much of a drop-off, and if Mejia is out for a while then they can use another reliever.
Mets fans keep trying to trade Murphy … nobody wants him … it’s cute and sad at the same time.
He’s been about a 2 1/2 to 3 win player for the last few years, and Middlebrooks has been pretty much replacement level since the hot start to his career. Where the Padres are on the win curve, and considering how talented and deep their bullpen is, I think it would benefit them to trade a reliever for the upgrade at 3rd.
It’s possible that the Mets are looking at Murphy as an All-Star, and looking for a package in line with that. If that’s the case, no dice. But for a reliever, it seems like a no brainer to San Diego.
the Mets FO has shown persistent disdain for RPs however, so I wouldn’t expect they’ll deal a position player for one.
The Mets just traded a position player who put up .9 WAR in 174 PA last year in Matt Den Dekker for Jerry Blevins and a pitching prospect with a .7 WAR ZIPS projections in Cory Mazzonifor Alex Torres. They may not want to deal someone decent for total dregs, but they don’t disdain RPs.
Also, isn’t it possible that the front office was honest with themselves over the last few years, so they realized that they weren’t likely to contend so it’s not worthwhile to pay for RPs? Now that they have a shot at 85 or so wins, having another strong late-inning reliever might make a meaningful difference?
It looks like Mejia won’t be out long term so it’s a moot point anyway.
While I also figured that the Braves would wait until midseason to trade Kimbrel in order to extract maximum value, making the trade before Opening Day *does* allow the Braves to build up Jason Grilli’s trade value more effectively, because now he can be marketed as a rehabbed Proven Closer instead of just a live arm with prior closing success.
But are there still any GMs who care if you close?
Ned Coletti was the ultimate collector and he got fired.
Amaro is not a buyer.
There are not a whole lot of traditionalist GMs running winners for obvious reasons.
Unrelated to this, how does Jim Johnson have more WAR in 1.1 innings than Sonny Gray after 8 innings of no run 1 hit ball.
Because I did a poor job of saying this in the post, let me try to clarify: I’m not suggesting Tanaka should have TJ surgery right now. These are predictions about the season, and I’m expressing skepticism that he’s going to pitch well enough to where surgery doesn’t become the better option. I understand why he’s pitching through it now, and am not advocating he go against medical advice. I’m predicting that the advice will change in the next few months.
That’s interesting, because it suggests the advice would change based on results. Can the docs say go back to your 4 seamer some, max out, really break off some sliders, it’s all in your head? I thought about this too. Will he decide, after some bad games, this isn’t working, I’m gonna just throw harder until my elbow snaps? The question is can he and he’s just holding back.
I think he can succeed at these velocities, not at the same level but good enough. It’s a question of learning to trust his stuff. He got swings and misses, strikeouts and grounders. The homers he gives. It’s the walks that caused problems.
Prediction: Makes it through the year, 180 innings, 3.40ish era/fip/xfip, getting better as season progresses. Basically Hiroki Kuroda as far as production with a few more strikeouts. 3.5 wins or so, basically earning his salary.
This may not be optimum for where the Yankees are on the win curve, but I think he’ll still be good if not great.
But the velocity is the same. It isn’t like he is in the high 80’s.
I suspect that a note to the doctor from Cashman that says “We suck now.” won’t change very much. They tend not to look at playoff odds in their diagnosis.
#2! Preach on. Brewers have been teetering on the edge of terrible since ’11 NLCS and yet continue to stand pat each season selling a “competitive” team to the fans instead of a “championship” team… but, can’t blame Attanassio/Melvin because the fans still come out in droves to support mediocrity and buy $8 beers.
They were tied for first at the end of August so no reason fans should stop going to games. They had 2 of the top 10 position players in baseball in Lucroy and Gomez last year, and a healthy Braun is pretty good too. Dave is right about the depth and pitching issue, but there were plenty of reasons to watch them last year. They led their division for the entire first five months of the year.
Looks like you’re buying it. April was great last year, and that hot month held strong throughout most of the summer in large part due to unexpected slow starts from good Pittsburgh/St Louis teams. In the end, everything balanced out, as is usually the case in baseball. Lucroy/Gomez are excellent – No doubt. The rest of the team is littered w/ question marks, as DC points out. “A healthy Braun” is a thing of the past. Some fans are fine with a “competitive” team, I’m hungry for a championship, even if there are some very lean years between now and that day… that’s what MLB.tv is for.
For a small market team like the Brewers, you’re going to have many years when you can’t realistically compete. That’s just the way of the baseball world.
Ha, not buying it, just understanding why people may have been enjoying it and going to games. They were 18-10 in June, too.
The last month of the season the pitching was pretty good actually. And Gomez, Lucroy and even Weeks and Segura played well that month. Everyone else was awful, Braun, Ramirez, Davis, Gennett. The hitting was bad and the Pirates pitchers got red hot, the Cards were the Cards, etc.
Now it looks like Braun has what, an oblique, but the thumb seems better. I dunno, they were pretty good in 2011, 2012 ok, 2013 meh and last year they gave it a shot. I suspect if you just blow it up they may be lucky just to get back where they were. I actually said somewhere on here going into last year they had a better shot than people gave them credit for. I guess that was just a month of lights out reliever luck, but they ran out of gas.
Is that you backtocali?
Lol. Maybe you should grind your axe somewhere else.
Just stating my observations. Some teams/fanbases seem to focus on championships, others don’t. There’s no doubt that due to market size the Brewers are at a disadvantage in terms of competing for championships, but I’m not sure that excuses them from trying.
If you’re not losing on purpose…you’re not trying!
After 81 games last year the Brewers had been 94-68 over their last 162 games. And after 84 games last year they’d gone 82-48 over their last 130. A .630 winning percentage. I know they weren’t that good by base runs, 2nd or 3rd order pythag, or whatever, but they at least were giving it a shot.
How much do you think that failed Royals prediction last year was influenced by your extremely strong opinion about the awfulness of the Shields trade?
and has that failed prediction altered your philosophy at all as to the best way to build a roster and distribute talent/payroll on it in general?
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/where-i-was-wrong-about-the-royals/
Success =/= having a good plan.
I could win the lottery and retire rich and happy. That doesn’t mean buying powerball tickets is a good retirement plan.
So how would you know you had a good plan?
FanGraphs has the Yankees projected second in the East at 82-80, and that’s with Tanaka only projected for 158 innings. Pineda and Eovaldi are interesting, while Sabathia should experience a modest rebound and Warren is a decent fifth starter, so it’s not as if New York needs Tanaka to carry them. The Yankees are old and certainly could fall apart, but throwing in the towel based on Tanaka alone is pretty ludicrous.
I suspect a lot of the people excited to see Eovaldi pitch have never actually seen him pitch. Being a top prospect in a high-profile organization (in his case, Dodgers) goes a long way it seems. He’s a two pitch pitcher with a long-ball issue. I wish him well, but I don’t see this as a good place for him.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-current-key-for-nathan-eovaldi/
Your last sentence could be said of Pineda as well. Second time through the lineup is going to be killer in that bandbox stadium for these guys.
They don’t need to “throw in the towel based on Tanaka alone” or any other single player, but thinking this team will sniff the playoffs without their expected best starter is quite a stretch. It would probably be a sub-Red Sox pitching staff at that point with definitely a sub-Red Sox offense. Or roughly a Toronto-equivalent staff (maybe a tad worse) minus a Toronto-equivalent offense. Definitely an uphill climb.
Mr. Cameron’s argument was that the Yankees aren’t a playoff contender with a diminished Tanaka, yet the projections I cited were already with a diminished Tanaka.
I’m not sure why you’d say Tanaka is “only” projected for 158 innings (or call it a “diminished Tanaka” projection in your other comment). He’s projected for 0.2 WAR less than he produced last year, almost exactly the same.
They’re basically projecting him for more innings and less performance per inning, which is a reasonable projection to me. I don’t think you can reasonably project a similar performance to last year and greater durability, given what we know (which, given track record and injury uncertainty, is, I’ll grant you, fairly little).
Given he only has 130 major league innings, and is a serious health risk with diminished performance after he returned from injury last year, I think 3 WAR is a pretty good baseline.
If he’s instead toast, then yeah, that makes it that much harder for the Yankees to get up to the 88-win area.
One thing I was very surprised to read was that Manfred at least considered banning shifts. That seems silly.
Do you think he really did?
I kinda felt it was more of a PR situation. “I’m the new guy. I’m willing to be innovative. I will be responsive to ideas. I won’t shy away from big issues. I won’t lag behind on issues, either. But after seriously considering the options I don’t think banning the shifts is worth it at this time.”
Just because something is being considered doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to happen. Those comments were taken out of context.
I didn’t follow the issue much. fair enough. I just thought it sounded funny.
The Mariners have a real chance to be terrible.
As usual.
Buck Showalter > All the WAR in baseball.
While it is quite possibly due to the smaller size of the population, I actually don’t see many homer Brewer fans here.
Dave,
The strike zone will be smaller? But wait, while watching the Orioles/Pirates game on MLB Network last week (or was it the week before) the announcers said, and I quote, ‘We know that all of the Sabermetricians have put out numbers over the last few years showing how strike zones have continued to decrease in size’.
Then they said that maybe the umpires and league have read that info and decided to increase the zone. The announcers also said they have talked about this all ST on their broadcasts.
Sorry, when I heard them say that it cracked me up. 🙂
I don’t think he reads the comments.
I’m very confused as to why you “don’t see the point” of the Yankees trying to compete. Should Tanaka sit around until the Yankees project to be less mediocre? Save his bullets for when money comes off the book? I doubt you are suggesting they go against medical opinion, which other commenters covered well. So I’m genuinely curious why, in this day and age of multiple wild cards, you don’t see the point of pitching him.
How about the Padres will be wheeling and dealing from now on? Benoit would be an obvious trade candidate regardless, as $8 mil is a lot to pay a set up man, and he can close. Curious that Black didn’t go to him in the 8th yesterday.
One Thing I Believe About the 2015 Season
1. I can fly.
A dozen trades? That’s gonna be extremely tough even for AJ Preller. What Is the record for most trades by a single team in season?
The strike zone might be going up. but I noticed in a couple of games it seemed awfully wide. That opening day game on Sunday was ludicrous.
“While watching the St. Louis Cardinals’ 3-0 win at the Chicago Cubs in Sunday night’s opener on television, a game that included, 23 strikeouts, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Brandon McCarthy humorously tweeted “if this is the new strike zone I think you could convince pitchers to use a 10-second pitch clock.””
I just really really really, really like fudge.
I finally clicked on the link for pictures of Taylor Swift before she became famous.
And was immediately disappointed. Thanks FanGraphs.
Reading that the Yankees projected performance should be used as some sort of justification for suggesting they handle Tanaka differently is…disappointing.
They listened to the doctors, they followed their lead. I don’t care if the Yankees are 42-60, they should heed the advice. Should they shut down Pineda after 80 innings if they have a losing record just because he’s been fragile? I get that there are advantages to “abandoning ship” with teams floating towards mediocrity, but it doesn’t supersede medical advice. Particularly since, in spite of its recent successes, TJS is still the nuclear option.
When you throw in Upton’s salary, which I do, the Kimbrel trade assigns a high value, close to, maybe beyond $100mil just for Kimbrel.
It might not work out for San Diego, but it shows what at least one team is willing to ‘pay for saves.’
I could see the Nats trading 2 mediocre prospects for one of the potential closers once it becomes clear that Storen isn’t up to the closer job and they have no other option. I only say so little in return because the Nats always appear to be able to trade bubble gum and extra bats for real players.
99% of the time, trading for a “proven closer” is a terrible idea, so the Nats fan in me actually thinks they would get soaked for once.