This past Friday, players who both (a) are eligible for arbitration and who (b) hadn’t yet signed a contract for the 2016 season exchanged salary numbers with their clubs for a possible arbitration hearing. If you aren’t familiar with the details of Major League Baseball salary arbitration, here it is very briefly: teams and players file salary figures for one-year contracts, then an arbitration panel awards the player either with the contract offered by the team or the contract for which the player filed. More details of the arbitration process can be found here. Most players will sign a contract before numbers are exchanged or before the hearing, so only a handful of players actually go through the entire arbitration process each year.

Last year, Alex Chamberlain and I worked with data from MLB Trade Rumors to create a data visualization for the players who went through some part of the arbitration process. This year, I’ve updated the visualization and added an interactive element to it. It covers every arbitration-eligible player who has either signed a one-year contract this offseason or has filed for arbitration. Players who signed multi-year extensions are omitted.

Three colored dots represent a different type of signing: yellow represents a mutually-agreed contract signed to avoid arbitration, red represents the award of the team’s offer in arbitration, and blue represents the award of the player’s offer. A gray line represents the difference in player and team filings. Only players with whom teams exchanged numbers on January 15, 2016 will have grey lines. These can be filtered by clicking the “Filed” button. The “Signed” button filters out players who have signed a contract for 2016; this will change as arbitration hearings occur. Finally, “All” includes every player represented in the graph.

The chart is sorted by either contract value or by the midpoint of the arbitration filings. The final contract value takes precedent over the midpoint since this represents the resolved value. Most players have a sizable different between their filing and the team’s filing, but a few players like Josh Donaldson, Kevin Jepsen, Didi Gregorius have much smaller discrepancies, so their filing point and midpoints are all close to one another.

I will be updating this graphic as players sign and hearings occur from now through February.
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The Orioles, in conjunction with the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, are hosting a Baseball Analytics Hackathon on Friday, February 5th. It will be an all-day affair, and there will be food provided throughout the day, so that you don’t need to burn precious brain space worrying about where to go eat. Which is nice.

Hackathons are generally an excellent way to expose oneself to people in the industry, and this particular event comes with the added bonus of having data scientists from one of the largest consulting firms in the world on hand as well. Not too shabby. As if that wasn’t enough, there will be prizes awarded for the top projects.

If you’re interested, you need to move quickly, as registration closes this Friday, Jan. 22. One neat item is that you don’t have to register individually, you can also register as a group. This would seem to insure that if you and a group of friends want to attend that you don’t have to worry about being split up on arrival.

Below is the poster for the event, and you can follow this link to register. Happy hacking!

All winter, it’s been pretty clear that the Tigers needed another outfielder, and with an apparently soft market for Yoenis Cespedes and Justin Upton, it seemed perfectly logical for the Tigers to jump in and make a play for one of the better remaining players on the market. After all, this is a win-now team that threw $110 million at a good-not-great starter at the start of the off-season, and has a core of quality players who aren’t getting any younger; leaving a gaping hole in the outfield for the sake of cost effectiveness, at this point, was a strange proposition.

Apparently the Tigers now agree, and look like they’re going to be the landing spot for Justin Upton.

Sources: Upton six-year deal with #Tigers expected to be in $125M range. Agreed upon in principal, per @BNightengale.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) January 19, 2016

The crowd projected Upton for 6/$120M before the off-season, while I came in at 7/$140M, so the price seems right in line with what was presumed to be reasonable before the market looked to have softened. Given that Chris Davis and Ian Kennedy — also presumed to be dealing with little leverage — also landed larger than expected contracts in recent days, it may be time to stop assuming that the remaining free agents are going to have to take big discounts to get a long-term deal at this point. There’s clearly still plenty of money hanging around.

For the Tigers, Upton is a significant upgrade, even though he’s also more of a good player than a great one. If he can retain some of his non-offensive value as he ages, this contract should turn out okay for Detroit. It’s not any kind of steal, but it’s a good player at a reasonable price for a team that needed win-now production and probably shouldn’t be too concerned with their long-term future. The inevitable crash is coming to Detroit in a few years, and at this point, the only question is if they can get a title out of this roster before it happens. Adding Justin Upton to the 2016 roster makes that more likely.

Earlier this afternoon, FanGraphs CEO and founder David Appelman announced that the ballots for the 2016 FAN Projections are now available for the tender ministrations of this site’s readership. With a view to ensuring that all notable players are addressed sufficiently — and also towards producing the number of posts he’s required to publish each week — the present author is highlighting certain players whose ballots are of some particular interest.

Before casting a ballot, don’t forget this note from Appelman’s announcement post:

Please note that everything this year is a rate stat. You’re projecting 2B+3B, HR, SB, and Fielding as a measure of 150 games (basically a full season). The player’s previous stats are shown per 150 games in the projection ballot too. This will make changing playing time projections much easier as you’ll only have to change the games played portion.

Now, here are’s a small collection of players for the reader’s consideration — the five players, among those who’ve received fewer than five FAN Projection ballots, to have recorded the top defensive-run totals over the last three years. Note: listed age is for 2016.

Player: Zack Cozart, 30, SS (Profile)
2015 Line: 214 PA, .258/.310/.459, 6.5% BB, 13.6% K, 104 wRC+ at MLB
Notes: Recorded highest walk rate, lowest strikeout rate, and highest isolated-power figure of career in 2015 before suffering season-ending knee injury in June. Is expected to return to 100% fitness for spring training. Might have some competition in form of Eugenio Suarez, who produced 105 wRC+ over roughly 400 plate appearances in Cozart’s absence.

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Yesterday afternoon, FanGraphs CEO and founder David Appelman announced that the ballots for the 2016 FAN Projections are now available for the tender ministrations of this site’s readership. With a view to ensuring that all notable players are addressed sufficiently — and also towards producing the number of posts he’s required to publish each week — the present author is highlighting certain players whose ballots are of some particular interest.

Before casting a ballot, don’t forget this note from Appelman’s announcement post:

Please note that everything this year is a rate stat. You’re projecting 2B+3B, HR, SB, and Fielding as a measure of 150 games (basically a full season). The player’s previous stats are shown per 150 games in the projection ballot too. This will make changing playing time projections much easier as you’ll only have to change the games played portion.

Now, here are five players for the reader’s consideration — all of whom missed all or part of 2015 due to a Tommy John procedure. Note: listed age is for 2016.

Player: Homer Bailey, 30, RHP (Profile)
2015 Line: 11.1 IP, 2.38 K/9, 3.18 BB/9, 2.38 HR/9, 7.10 FIP at MLB
Notes: After producing eight-plus wins in previous three seasons, began 2015 campaign on disabled list. Proceeded to record two April starts in which fastball measured roughly 3 mph lower than 2013-14 average. Underwent Tommy John procedure in early May. Expected to return in May of 2016.

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Earlier this afternoon, FanGraphs CEO and founder David Appelman announced that the ballots for the 2016 FAN Projections are now available for the tender ministrations of this site’s readership. With a view to ensuring that all notable players are addressed sufficiently — and also towards producing the number of posts he’s required to publish each week — the present author is highlighting certain players whose ballots are of some particular interest.

Before casting a ballot, don’t forget this note from Appelman’s announcement post:

Please note that everything this year is a rate stat. You’re projecting 2B+3B, HR, SB, and Fielding as a measure of 150 games (basically a full season). The player’s previous stats are shown per 150 games in the projection ballot too. This will make changing playing time projections much easier as you’ll only have to change the games played portion.

Now, here are five players for the reader’s consideration — the five, in fact, who produced the top WAR figures in 2015 among rookie-eligible position players. Note: listed age is for 2016.

Player: Kris Bryant, 24, 3B (Profile)
2015 Line: 650 PA, .275/.369/.488, 11.8% BB, 30.6% K, 136 wRC+ at MLB
Notes: Recorded top WAR mark among all 2015 rookies after consecutive seasons of unambiguously strong performances in minor leagues. Compensated for high strikeout rate with above-average walk rate and power on contact. Produced over 14 runs by means of baserunning and defense, according to FanGraphs’ methodology for measuring both.

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The free agent market is still moving pretty slowly for hitters, but another pitcher has gone off the board, as the Marlins have agreed to terms with Wei-Yin Chen, according to Jon Heyman and others.

chen gets 2-year opt out with $80M deal, and 6th yr vesting option that could make it $96M #marlins

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) January 12, 2016

Hey, look, another opt-out, and in this case, a more interesting one than usual, because the Marlins have heavily backloaded the deal, as they always do. Chen will get just $20 million in the first two years of the contract, so his opt-out decision will be 3/$60M in guaranteed money after the 2017 season, which makes this one a a bit less likely to be used than some of the others signed this winter. Chen could certainly pitch well enough to get more than that in two years time, but given the attrition rate of pitchers, the more likely scenario is that he ends up choosing to stick with the full guaranteed years.

By backloading the deal, the Marlins make the opt-out less valuable for Chen, and in the scenarios where he pitches well, this could be a pretty nice deal for Miami; surrender a second round pick to sign a quality pitcher, get two good years for $20 million, then potentially get a draft pick as compensation (if that still exists in a few years) if he opts-out. In this scenario, the opt-out is less bad for the Marlins than it is for most teams who have handed them out this winter.

Chen’s deal fits in with Mike Leake and Jeff Samardzija at the top end of the mid-tier starting pitcher market, but I think I’d prefer Chen to the other two in terms of pitchers. The opt-out and the loss of the pick means that Chen did cost more than Leake — even with the same $80 million over five years in guaranteed money — but I think I’d probably still take this deal over the other two. For the Marlins, this looks like a pretty decent free agent value.

Position: St. Louis Cardinals Baseball Operations Fellowship

Location: Jupiter, Fla.

Description:
The St. Louis Cardinals baseball club is seeking candidates for a new Baseball Operations Fellowship position to be based out of the Jupiter, FL complex. The Fellowship position runs from early 2016 through December 31, 2016. It is a full-time position eligible for insurance consistent with a typical Cardinals full-time employee. Fellows will be compensated based on an hourly rate of pay competitive with similar entry level positions in baseball. This Fellowship position will be a one-year opportunity – Fellows will not return in the same position in 2017. At the end of the Fellowship, the Cardinals and Fellow will jointly determine if there is an appropriate opportunity for full-time employment within the Cardinals.

The Fellowship position is designed to provide entry-level baseball executives with an opportunity to gain experience mainly in the International and Player Development departments at the home of the Cardinals’ Spring Training, Extended Spring Training, Gulf Coast, Florida State, and Fall Instructional Leagues. While working at the direction of the Jupiter-based Directors of the International/Player Development departments, the Fellow will also provide occasional support to the St. Louis front office. This includes projects as called upon by senior leadership of Amateur Scouting, Baseball Development, and the General Manager’s office.

Responsibilities will be driven mostly by baseball activity taking place at the Jupiter complex and will be closely tied to interaction with Minor League players, many of which are international and require assistance in a foreign country. Native-level Spanish fluency is ideal with a high degree of proficiency as the minimum requirement. Duties will include, among others, language translation, assisting on-field personnel with daily planning, supporting recently drafted players upon signing, maintenance of international scouting video, and organization of player immigration documents. Training will be provided for any scouting responsibilities associated with the role.

This is an exciting opportunity for entry-level people passionate about baseball and willing to start in a highly dynamic environment. The ideal candidate will have demonstrated a strong work ethic, deep enthusiasm for international baseball, and high intellect to quickly adapt and implement on the go. The Fellowship will provide such a candidate with a broad range of experiences across Baseball Operations and the possibility of full-time employment.

Responsibilities:

• Support Player Development Director with daily logistical player activity at Jupiter, FL complex.
• Support International Ops department with analysis of foreign markets and scouting system data entry.
• Support International/Player Development Directors in daily operation of departments.
• Assist coaches and players with language translation at various meetings and team events.
• Support St. Louis front office with projects as called upon by Amateur Scouting, Baseball Development, GM Office.
• Communicate effectively with baseball operations staff.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree.
• Strong work ethic and initiative, demonstrated passion for baseball, good communication skills and ability to work effectively within team environment.
• Read, write, and speak Spanish.
• Experience and proficiency in Microsoft Office (Excel, PowerPoint and Word).
• Preferred candidates will have some experience around athletes either as player, coach, manager, SID, etc.

Compensation:
This position is compensated.

To Apply:
Interested applicants should email their resume with a cover letter and references to jupiterfellowship@cardinals.com by Friday, January 15th.

Position: Baseball Info Solutions Research and Development Internships

Location: Coplay, Pa.

Description:
Baseball Info Solutions is looking for candidates to fill a paid internship in our R&D Department in the spring and summer seasons. Ideally, the candidate will be available in early February through the baseball season, but summer-only intern candidates will be considered as well. The intern will work out of our office near Allentown, PA and will assist our R&D team, supporting research for publications and future products. Recent R&D interns have landed internships and full-time jobs with major league teams.

Responsibilities:
The position requires a variety of skills including (but not limited to) an analytical mind, computer expertise, writing ability, and a passion for baseball.

Qualifications:
The ideal candidate will possess:

• Familiarity with contemporary baseball/sports analytics and research.
• Analytical/Mathematical ability.
• Proficiency working in Microsoft Office programs (or equivalents), especially Excel.
• Experience with MySQL, SQL Server, or similar databases.
• An ability to write and communicate effectively with a variety of audiences.
• An ability to work both collaboratively and independently.
• Experience with other statistical packages (e.g. R), programming languages (e.g. Python, .NET), and/or graphical visualizations (e.g. Tableau) would be a plus.

Compensation:
This position is compensated.

To Apply:
For more information or to apply, please submit your resume and cover letter to Carol Olsen at careers@baseballinfosolutions.com.

The free agent outfield logjam may be starting to break. This morning, Alex Gordon agreed to a four year, $72 million deal to return to Kansas City. This is significantly less than both I (4/$92M) and the crowd (5/$90M) estimated at the start of the off-season, and given the prices inferior players have been commanding, this is probably one of the best value signings of the winter. It will be interesting to see if reports come out stating that Gordon turned down higher offers to stay in Kansas City.

Given his health risks and concerns about how much defensive value he’ll retain as he heads into his mid-30s, plus the fact that he was tied to draft pick compensation, there are some potential risks here, but at just $18 million per year, the Royals don’t really need Gordon to perform at previous levels in order to justify the contract. Steamer projects Gordon as a +3.5 WAR player in 2016, and if you start with that assessment and run it through the normal contract assumptions, you get $94 million in estimated value over the next four years. Even setting the aging curve to a more aggressive decline only pushes him down to $80 million if he is as good as Steamer expects.

ZIPS was slightly less aggressive, but even going with that forecast, Gordon’s worth $80 million over four years if he ages normally, and $67 million if he ages poorly. Because of his age and his defense-based value, Gordon may very well end up significantly overpaid by years three and four of this deal, but he’s also dramatically underpaid at the beginning of the deal, especially if he’s the +3.5 WAR guy that Steamer projects for 2016.

With Gordon off the market, the pursuits of Justin Upton and Yoenis Cespedes should become a little more clear. The Royals weren’t likely to be players for either of those two, so Gordon going back to KC is probably good news for both of those players.