It technically happened two days ago — but also sort of happened just today for those among us who celebrate the New Year’s holiday (and its Eve) with sufficient piety. It, in this case, represents the official signing by the Dodgers of left-hander Brett Anderson to a one-year, $10 million contract upon which the two parties agreed in principle about two weeks ago (and which could pay even more to Anderson, if he meets certain incentives).

Anderson is intriguing, naturally, for what he’s been able to accomplish on the field. Among the 223 pitchers who’ve thrown 250-plus innings in a starting capacity since 2009, Anderson has recorded the 15th-best park-adjusted xFIP (tied with several others). Very positive, that. One is compelled to note almost immediately, however, that remaining on the field has been difficult. He’s averaged, by way of example, just 40 innings each of the last three seasons. Less positive, that.

New Dodgers GM Farhan Zaidi is less concerned about Anderson’s health than one might suppose given the latter’s history, characterizing Anderson’s injury-plagued seasons as “a run of bad luck.” Zaidi et al, being very smart and having a decidedly vested interest in the matter, are more qualified to speak on the issue than the present author. So I’ll stop doing it immediately.

Another uncertainty regarding Anderson, however — perhaps related to his injuries and perhaps not — concerns his fastball velocity. For, simultaneous to recording the worst park-adjusted xFIP (96 xFIP-) of his career in 2014, Anderson also recorded his lowest ever average fastball velocity (89.8 mph). There’s a distinct relationship between velocity and success, nor does Anderson appear to be immune from it.

Here, for example, is a graph of xFIP- versus average fastball velocity for all of Anderson’s seasons in which he’s faced at least 150 batters:

There’s been a remarkably strong relationship, one finds, between Anderson’s ability to throw the ball hard and to prevent runs (or, at least, do the things that lead to run prevention). Relative to previous years, he didn’t excel at the former in 2014 — and, though he produced an excellent ERA (68 ERA-) in 2014, both the indicators and his track record (which reveals no tendency to outperform his fielding-independent numbers) suggest that ERA was untenably low. As such, it really does appear as though throwing at least, say, 90 mph is of some importance to Anderson — and that dropping below that figure would challenge his ability to prevent runs at a league-average rate. Given the Dodgers’ aspirations at the moment, league-average innings are the sort they’d obviously prefer.

Major league front offices apparently don’t like taking time off, so there were a bunch of transactions today while you were busy not being on the internet.

The Phillies trade outfielder Marlon Byrd and cash to the Reds for pitcher Ben Lively
The Reds continue their quest to be stuck in the middle, and I have to say, it’s going great for them. Byrd will help keep the ship afloat, and he is certainly an upgrade over Ryan Ludwick. Then again, that’s not saying much, as Ludwick was one of the worst players in baseball in his final two years with the Reds. Byrd isn’t going to move the needle for Cincinnati — they would have had do something bold like trade for Justin Upton if they wanted to appreciably improve their chances in 2015 — but he shouldn’t torpedo them the way Ludwick did.

What the move says about Cincy in the bigger picture is that they still think they can put together a competitive team in 2015, but that if they do so it will be largely with players returning to form. Between Joey Votto, Brandon Phillips and Jay Bruce, the team has no shortage of players who could be expected to do just that. Hoping for them all to do it at once and counting on players like Devin Mesoraco and Billy Hamilton to simultaneously worth three WAR or better again…let’s just say it isn’t a plan with very high odds of succeeding. All of which I’m sure is not much of a surprise to Reds fans, who are likely used to the lack of imagination from their front office at this point.

As for the Phillies, they keep on doing what they are supposed to be doing, even if they did get the ball rolling a year or two too late. Lively had a pretty decent season last year, and could be expected to contribute to a big league rotation in the near future. Here is what Kiley McDaniel had to say about him back in November, when he tabbed him as the 13th-best prospect in Cincy’s system:

13. Ben Lively, RHP Video: Lively was a 4th round pick out of UCF in 2013 and has beat expectations so far, with 79 stellar innings in the hitter-friendly Cal League this year before 72 more solid innings in Double-A.  Lively’s performance may overstate his raw ability a bit; he’s a back-end starter that sits 90-93 and hits 95 mph with four average-ish pitches, led by a slider that’s a 55 at times.  There’s deception and about average command; Lively’s delivery isn’t great but he manages to make it work for him and he throws strikes.

Rockies sign catcher Nick Hundley
Looking at our handy Free Agent Tracker, you see that this was about the best the Rockies could do if they wanted to add another catcher. And adding one certainly is a decent idea for Colorado. Now they have some options with respect to Wilin Rosario. Hundley is never going to be much with the lumber — his slugging percentage actually went down when he was traded from Petco Park to Camden Yards last season — but he earns good enough marks with his defense to be worth a roster spot.

That’s where things get a little interesting. The Rockies have to figure out what to do with Rosario. They can either keep Hundley, Rosario and Michael McKenry on the roster — with Rosario filling more of a first base/designated hitter role and catching only occasionally to stay fresh — or they can trade Rosario. Certainly, Rosario is a better hitter tha he showed last year — both Steamer and ZiPS expect a rebound from him offensively in ’15 (with Steamer more bullish than ZiPS). And even last year, he was mashtastic against lefties (156 wRC+ in 107 PA) so there can still be a role for him in Colorado.

No matter what, the Rockies won’t have a true starting catcher next year, but with three decent options, they won’t necessarily be punting the position either.

Cubs sign outfielder Chris Denorfia
In the past, Denorfia has down two things with aplomb — play defense and hit left-handed pitching. He only did one of those things well last season, so the deal is a bit of a risk. But if he does hit like he has in the past, he will make a great platoon partner for Chris Coghlan in left, and serve as a security blanket for Arismendy Alcantara and Jorge Soler in center and right. For $2.5 million, it’s certainly a gamble worth taking, and a nice bit of fine tuning for the Cubs roster.

The Padres didn’t need Seth Smith, and traded him to the Mariners. The Mariners are getting themselves a nice little hitter, especially against right-handed pitching. Jeff will likely have more on Brandon Maurer, who was the Padres’ return for Smith, in the next couple of days, but until then I wanted to type up a little something about Eli Manning’s backup quarterback (it’s true).

Eno reminded us about players with a very defined skill set on Monday, and that is definitely how you would describe Smith. He’s not a very adept defender. He isn’t a complete sieve, but he’s certainly not around for his defense. He’s not the worst baserunner, but he wouldn’t be the first runner you picked to steal a base. Probably not the second either. And he isn’t much against left-handed pitching. Well, he was last year in an incredibly small sample, but given his track record that probably won’t persist.

What Smith does do well is hit right-handed pitching. Since his debut in 2007, there have been 169 batters to compile 2,000 or more plate appearances against right-handed pitchers. Smith is tied for 36th in wRC+. Pretty good, right? Especially for a part-time player. And for a team looking to add a corner bench or platoon bat this offseason, it would have been hard for the Mariners to do better. Let’s look at the players on this list, their current status, and their stats vs. righties since 2007 to drive home the point:

So, there are a few players who are likely available with the same skill set, but most of them — Fielder, Choo, Ethier, Hamilton, Howard, Gonzalez, Beltran, and Teixeira — are either very expensive, come with injury concerns, or both.

There are a couple of standouts here — Morneau and Utley most notably — which is nice company to be in. When you add in positional concerns though, Smith sort of stands alone. Utley could probably play the outfield, but I doubt you’d get him to waive his no-trade clause to do so. Perhaps they could have landed Joyce if they had acted sooner, and Joyce is probably Smith’s best comp. But at this moment, given the objective of trying to find an available player with a great track record of mashing against righties and who doesn’t cost a fortune, it would have been hard for the Mariners to do better than Seth Smith.

The Padres acquired yet another player today, as the new General Manager continues to trade away the prospects the past General Manager acquired for win-now assets. You could call Shawn Kelley just a reliever, but that doesn’t make him sound special. He is a little special, though, and he could absolutely close.

A word from our Prospector General on the guy San Diego gave up first — Johnny Barbato was a sixth-round pick with decent numbers relieving in the minor leagues so far. Kiley McDaniel said that he has a “55 fastball and 60 curve as starter with command issues and doesn’t really throw a changeup, so the relief fit is obvious. Fastball plays up to 60 (92-95, touching 97 mph) in short relief stints, so if he can command those two pitches enough, he could be late relief, but more likely is middle relief fit.”

The Yankees may have been cutting costs — Kelley is in his final year of arbitration, due almost three million dollars, and coming off what looks to be a mediocre year by results.

But dive a little deeper, and Kelley is a top-shelf reliever.

By strikeout rate over the last two seasons combined at least, Kelley is a top-15 reliever. He’s had some issues with the walk, so he’s only top 20 when judged by strikeouts minus walks.

Of course there’s a bigger flaw than his walk rate, or the guy with all the strikeouts might have had more saves by now. Over that same time frame, Kelley’s homer rate was also top 15.

Talk to the pitcher, as I did in mid 2013, and it’s just about execution.

I’ve always given up a few homers here and there, I’m aggressive and I attack the zone. I was making some mistakes early in the season. I had a rough week where I gave up three or four in one week. It was about executing my pitches. Make sure the slider is in the dirt. I was making some mistakes.

For a guy that owns a better-than-average walk rate for his career, it looks like command sometimes leaves him for stretches. Not a big deal, maybe.

Unless it speaks to a platoon issue? Kelley threw his slider more often than his fastball last year (and second-most in baseball). It still had the eighth-best whiff rate on a slider in baseball (minimum 100 thrown), so it’s deadly. But we know sliders can have platoon issues, and so does Kelley, so he has a plan for the pitch:

Use to both sides of the plate — backdoor and back foot — so it kind of makes it two pitches. Being able to throw it harder and also being able to take a little off makes it two sliders. I throw more of a slurve to get more depth and movement. I can throw that slower one around the back corner of the plate to the lefty to get him to take or give up on it. I can command it and do different things with it, so I’m not technically a two-pitch pitcher.

You can see Kelley’s slower, slurvier sliders on the left-hand side of this scatter chart for his 2014 sliders.

It’s been a successful plan when judged by platoon peripherals. For his career, Kelley has a higher strikeout rate against lefties. Yes, his walks go up too, but his homer rate is about a third of his homer rate against righties, and his ground-ball rate against lefties is also higher.

Slightly above average velocity for a reliever, decent control, good command when he’s executing right, a deadly slider he can manipulate to avoid platoon issues, and a shrug for his home runs? Pair that with a top-15 strikeout rate, and it sounds like a late-inning reliever and possible closer. Even for one year of control, that’s worth a future reliever that may require Tommy John surgery soon.

The analytically minded baseball fan knows all about BABIP. BABIP is essentially a sabermetric disclaimer. It’s something we cite every time we observe something new or different in a player’s game. “It seems like Player X is getting better (or worse), but it might just be BABIP noise.” In a way, HR/FB is a lot like that, especially for pitchers.

Pitchers can dramatically improve their run prevention with a little good fortune in the HR/FB department, even if they’re not really doing much differently. To that end, we’ve updated our HR/FB Library entry to help you better understand how to use the statistic to evaluate pitchers and their runs of good and bad performance.

As always, feel free to ask questions in the comments below or to find me on Twitter @NeilWeinberg44 if you have other inquiries.

It’s a fact — confirmed by multiple writers whose nearly sole vocation in this life is to report on such matters — it’s a fact that right-handed reliever Jason Grilli has signed a two-year, $8 million with the Atlanta Braves, with a club option of a third year.

Per the terms of the agreement, one assumes, Grilli will report to the Braves’ facility in central Florida for spring training, where he’ll prepare himself to set up closer Craig Kimbrel. At the beginning of April, he’ll travel with the club to their season opener in Miami against the Marlins, then to Atlanta for a series against the Mets, and continue in this fashion for some time.

“For some time,” I say, but probably a time less than two years — and probably a lot more like three months. For, while any number of outcomes are possible regarding the Braves, the most likely one for 2015 is that they’ll win games at a lower rate than almost every other club in the majors. By way of illustration, consider the table below, which features the bottom-five clubs per this site’s projected 2015 standings.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s the last weekend before Christmas, and everyone is scrambling to finish up their holiday shopping, including Major League teams, apparently. So in between the flurry of the 42 trades made by the Padres this morning, the Yankees and Marlins have also reportedly struck a deal. According to Jack Curry, the Yankees have traded Martin Prado and David Phelps to Miami for Nathan Eovaldi and Garrett Jones, with some minor pieces included as well.

Update: Domingo German is reportedly heading to NY as well. Here’s a write-up on him from September.

This deal seems to be a decent depth-for-needs the Yankees. After the signing of Chase Headley, they had less of a need for Prado, especially given their depth of interesting/maybe decent second base types, including Robert Refsnyder. Their rotation was still pretty thin, however, and Eovaldi should be a pretty solid upgrade over Phelps. As a lefty 1B/DH type, Jones fits as a potential DH partner with Alex Rodriguez and a backup for Mark Teixeira.

On the other side of things, I don’t see this making quite as much sense. The Marlins rotation got pretty crowded after trading for both Mat Latos and Dan Haren, so those moves have essentially squeezed out Eovaldi, but he may be as good or better than both. Still, they have enough depth of arms to be okay without him, and Prado is a useful player, but it’s not entirely clear where he’s going to play. The team seemed somewhat enamored with Casey McGehee’s bounceback, who was a league average third baseman last year, and they just filled second base by trading for Dee Gordon.

Maybe the Marlins realize that either McGehee and Gordon aren’t that good, and Prado will split time between both positions. But then, did they really need to give up an interesting young arm for a part-time infielder on the downside of his career? I like Prado more than most, but and I’d play him over McGehee, but even I don’t see that as a huge upgrade. This looks more like the Marlins moving wins around than getting better, but they definitely got older in the process.

I’m guessing more details will come out that might help explain the trade, such as the Yankees paying nearly the entirety of Prado’s remaining salary or something. Just on talent, though, this seems like a pretty nice move for NYY and a bit of a strange one for a Marlins team that is having a very strange offseason.

The never-ending transaction wheel in San Diego has continued to spin this morning. In the wake of acquiring Matt Kemp, Wil Myers, and Justin Upton, the Padres have now set their sights on remaking their infield. First stop was to find a new third baseman, and the team has shockingly settled on a defensively challenged right-handed slugger with contact issues. Will Middlebrooks played his way out of Boston even before the team signed Pablo Sandoval to replace him, so he was clearly getting traded this winter; the Padres picked him up in exchange for Ryan Hanigan, who came over from the Rays.

Middlebrooks’ value will likely come down to his defense at third base. Steamer projects him as a league average hitter for 2015, a significant step up from what he’s done in Boston. A 97 wRC+ with solid defense at third base is a pretty nice role player, especially for the league minimum and with multiple years of team control.

That said, his defensive value isn’t so cut and dry. In just under 2,000 innings at third base, UZR thinks he’s been okay-ish, rating him at -3 runs per 150 games. However, DRS has him at -16 over the same time period, which would make him among the worst third baseman in baseball. With a sample this small, you certainly want to regress towards the mean, and so Middlebrooks should probably project as something closer to league average with the glove until we have more evidence that he’s not.

If he’s a decent enough defender, he’s a +1 to +2 WAR player with a little bit of upside. If he’s the butcher that DRS thinks, he’s Chris Johnson 2.0.

Still, the price was right to take the gamble, as Hanigan is a good defender who was displaced by last night’s acquisition of Derek Norris, and the team just signed David Ross to take over as the defensive half of the catcher tandem. Hanigan will be a useful player for the Red Sox, but the gap between what he provides and what the Padres will get from Ross isn’t huge, especially in a reserve role.

The Padres still have plenty of work to do to sort out a roster crowded with outfielders and heavy on right-handed hitters, but the Hanigan/Middlebrooks swap gives them a decent third baseman without dramatically downgrading their catching situation. This kind of offense-only-who-cares-about-defense philosophy is never going to win me over, but this part of the plan looks reasonable, at least.

Well, this is fascinating. A day after finalizing the Matt Kemp trade, and on the day the Wil Myers trade is expected to be announced, the Padres have reportedly agreed to acquire Justin Upton as well. I think it’s safe to say that A.J. Preller puts a high value on right-handed power hitting outfielders.

As I see it, there are a few ways this could work.

1. The Padres are going to play either Wil Myers or Matt Kemp in center field. Myers came up as a CF in the minors, while Kemp has played mostly CF in the big leagues. If the Padres just really think defense is completely useless, this gets all three sluggers into the line-up and maximizes the team’s offense.

2. Either Kemp or Myers is going to go to first base, replacing Yonder Alonso, who doesn’t really fit into the mold of what the new Padres seem to value. Kemp would seem to be the better candidate, but Jeff Passan suggests that maybe Myers would be the guy heading to first base instead.

3. Wil Myers is getting traded again. As I speculated a few nights ago, there’s a fit between the Padres and Rangers for a Wil Myers-Jurickson Profar swap, assuming the two sides could agree on the other parts of the deal. The Rangers need a right fielder, the Padres need a shortstop, and both sides clearly have depth to trade from now.

Any of the three options would be kind of interesting, at least. The first option seems the most likely, and probably the worst, as punting outfield defense entirely just isn’t a very good plan. Kemp would be more valuable at first base than in the outfield, but swapping one of the newly acquired OFs for an SS might be the best plan of all. Clearly, the Padres aren’t done dealing just yet.

For this week’s Library update, we’ve rolled out a very long, thorough glossary entry that offers a brief description and links (where applicable) for every single pitching statistic available on our leaderboards. It’s easy to find our glossary entry on FIP, for example, but if you want to know what wFB/C is, it takes a little bit of digging to get to the right place.

Now, we have a permanent pages that lists every statistic we have according to the acronym used on the leaderboard. You can jump over to this page at any time and find the corresponding stat or use “CTRL + F” to make your Internet computers do it for you.

As always, should you have any questions, I encourage you to drop a comment below, find me on Twitter @NeilWeinberg44, or stop by our weekly Q&A chats Wednesdays at 3pm. Enjoy!