There are a lot of people out there wary of giving any reliever a four-year contract. That much is understandable; relievers are capricious. Just yesterday, I tried to make the case that Andrew Miller would be worth Nick Markakis money. And now, Miller has been given Nick Markakis money, almost. He gets the same four years, but Miller’s getting $36 million, not $44 million. This kind of contract was inevitable, and it appears justifiable. At the same time, it’s not a surprise the contract was drawn up by the Yankees.

Let’s say there are teams who believe that Miller will be worth the money. Yet, it’s a clear risk, so, who could most afford the potential downside? The answer in this case, and in all cases: New York. From Kiley McDaniel not too long ago:

A Yankees source told me they could break even financially with a $500 million payroll expenditure[…]

When you put it that way, it’s like, why even bother with analysis? The Yankees don’t have the same worries other teams do. The Yankees do have their limits, but to some extent those limits are artificial, so if you’re in a bidding war for a player the Yankees both like and need, you have to be prepared to lose. It’s the winner’s-curse argument, with a twist where the cursed team is also uniquely blessed.

For the Yankees, it hasn’t been a case of Andrew Miller or David Robertson, necessarily, because they could still conceivably bring their own guy back, but at least, the Yankees have gone with Miller first. He was a little better than Robertson last year. He’s been very similar over the last three years. They’re the same age, and while Robertson’s good against lefties, Miller’s just plain left-handed, which could make him less vulnerable to the peculiarities of Yankee Stadium. And then there’s this: Miller was traded last summer. Robertson turned down a qualifying offer. So if the Yankees were to sign Robertson, they’d be forfeiting a potential compensation pick. There’s value in that, whereas with Miller, all the Yankees are surrendering is money.

And Miller’s great. Obscenely great. Now he gets to be paired with Dellin Betances, and, here’s where those two pitchers ranked last year among all relievers with 40+ innings:

Miller has one career save to his name. Betances, as well. Yet, statistically, last year these two were no worse than Wade Davis and Greg Holland, so if they’re great again in 2015, the Yankees could approach the late innings by deploying their best relievers based on the matchups. You could see both end up with 20+ saves; alternatively, one could emerge, or neither could get the role, if Robertson comes back or someone else does something. Even as a non-closer last season, Miller was worth a ton, so he doesn’t need to close to justify this deal. It’s just something he could end up doing, because he’s more than good enough.

On Friday, the Yankees opened up a hole in their starting rotation by dealing Shane Greene. Yet, they also plugged a hole in their pitching staff by adding Andrew Miller, and Miller should be no less valuable than some No. 4 or 5 starter the Yankees find as a replacement. There’s no such thing as a bargain reliever contract that costs thirty-six million dollars. But the Yankees have to worry about that less than anyone, and Miller is almost as good as it gets. He told Ken Rosenthal he likes to pitch in the AL East. The AL East hitters are probably getting sick of him.

We’re coming off a season in which the American League Cy Young winner had a meh fastball. It’s true. Corey Kluber‘s sinker didn’t meet the above-average benchmark for swinging strikes (5.6%, his was 5.3%) or grounders (50.5%, his was 48.6%). Look at National League breakout Tanner Roark’s two-seamer, and you’ll see the same thing. Is it possible that we’ve overrated the importance of the fastball with respect to overall outcomes?

Fastball velocity is usually the first thing on the scouting report, and with good reason. We know that every mile per hour is worth a fraction of a run allowed per nine innings. So it seems important.

I asked Steven Staudemeyer to run a correlation between the swinging strike rates on the four major pitch types and a pitcher’s overall swinging strike rate. Here is that table (all p values are less than .0001).

Obviously the fastball is important. It’s thrown nearly three-fifths of the time! The fastball’s swinging strike rate explains almost half the variance in the pitcher’s overall swinging strike rate.

But look at the slider and the change. They each explain nearly double the variance in swinging strike rate than you’d expect if you just went by volume alone. It makes intuitive sense — you use the fastball to get ahead, and you use the other pitches to finish them off — but it has all sorts of practical applications.

Take, for example, a pitcher like Dan Straily. His fastball was down below 90 mph before he was traded to the Cubs, so he had below-average velocity for a right-hander. He still managed above-average whiffs (7%), but few would say that his best asset is his four-seamer. But if you look at his change (18% whiffs) and slider (21.7% whiffs), you see that he has two pitches that break in different directions and get good results. You might take a chance on him if you thought that he could use the fastball mostly to get ahead, and if you thought the fastball was a little bit less important than it seemed by volume.

There are other names on this list, too. Ivan Nova has a nice curve (13%) and slider (23%) and an iffy four-seamer. He could switch to the sinker and have more success, even if it’s mediocre. Teammate Wade Miley doesn’t get 50% grounders with his sinker or 6% whiffs with his four-seam, but he does have a nice change (14.4%), slider (18.4%), and curve (10.5%) combo. Jerome Williams keeps getting shots despite his fastball because his change (16.5%), slider (16.7%), and cutter (10.8%) all rate as above-average by whiffs.

On the other hand, this is clearly just the first step. Each pitch is interrelated, and so there are issues with comparing these correlations. And there are probably diminishing returns on throwing off-speed pitches more, so volume is still really important. But there has to be a way to study this further. Ideas are welcome.

With Derek Jeter riding off into the sunset, the Yankees needed a shortstop. The Diamondbacks were always somewhat natural trade partners, given the presence of both Didi Gregorius and Chris Owings. With a little assistance from the Detroit Tigers, it sounds like the teams have finally struck a deal.

The reported trade looks something like this:

Yankees trade RHP Shane Greene to Detroit
Tigers trade LHP Robbie Ray and an infielder to Arizona
Diamondbacks trade SS Didi Gregorius to New York

We don’t know the identify of the infielder that the Tigers are sending along, but it appears that the principles are Greene, Ray, and Gregorius. A quick look at those three.

Gregorius is 24 and has racked up +1.7 WAR in 724 career plate appearances, thanks to an 84 wRC+ and roughly average defense at shortstop per UZR. However, his defensive reputation is significantly better than that, as he was considered a plus defender as a minor leaguer, and could very well turn out to be a real asset in the field. Steamer sees him posting an 86 wRC+ in 2015, so he’s roughly an average hitter for the position, and if he fields up to his reputation, it’s not too hard to see him as a +2 to +3 WAR shortstop going forward.

As a player, he looks a lot like Elvis Andrus, though with a bit less speed and probably a little less glove. Still, nothing wrong with having Andrus Light as your shortstop, especially at the league minimum and with five years of team control. It is worth noting that Gregorius has enough service time that he’ll qualify as a Super Two player next winter, so he’ll get a little more expensive than a traditional 1+ service time player.

With Chris Owings around, the D’Backs judged Gregorius to be superfluous, and will acquire the player who fronted the Doug Fister package last winter. Ray was a bit of a flop in Detroit, pitching poorly both in the big leagues and in Triple-A, and the projections aren’t a big fan; he’s forecast to be a below replacement level arm in 2015. Maybe there’s something there that the numbers don’t see, but that’s what we said last year when Ray was traded for real value, and it hasn’t shown up yet.

For the Tigers, this seems like a pretty clear move towards the future. Greene has never been a sexy prospect, but he pitched well in the big leagues last year, and he projects to be a perfectly reasonable #5 starter in 2015. As a fastball/slider guy, he’s probably always going to have problems with lefties, but his performance against righties should be strong enough to let him soak up innings at a reasonable level.

The Yankees get a solid young starting shortstop who can probably project around league average and has some upside beyond that. The Tigers add a perfectly acceptable back-end starter to fill out their rotation and improve their club for 2015. And the D’Backs trade from a surplus, though unless the second player is something of real value, I’m not sure they come out ahead here.

We’ll do a full write-up once all the parts are known, but this looks like a fine little deal for New York and a smart enough upgrade for Detroit.

It’s not uncommon to hear the word “leverage” in a baseball conversation these days. While it used to be reserved for the analytical corners of the community, the term has gained mainstream popularity as a representation of how important a particular situation is during a game. We debate the use of relievers in high leverage situations and talk about how certain hitters have performed well in certain contexts. Leverage is all the rage.

At FanGraphs, we host a metric that quantifies the concept of leverage, called Leverage Index (LI). Simply put, it measures the possible change in win expectancy for that plate appearance relative to the average change in win expectancy for all plate appearances. When the bases are loaded in a 2-1 game in the 9th inning, the LI is very high. If they’re loaded in a 14-2 game in the 6th inning, the LI is very low. You can read a more technical breakdown of the metric and its uses at the newly updated Library page concerning Leverage Index.

As always, feel free to inquire about the metric in the comments section, to find me on Twitter @NeilWeinberg44, or to stop by our weekly FanGraphs Q&A, Wednesdays at 3pm, if you want to learn more.

For much the same reason that he recently published a final statistical report for the Arizona Fall League, the author is publishing here a combined statistical report for the various Caribbean winter leagues — again, not necessarily because such reports are of great utility for evaluating players, but because they provide a means by which to participate in those leagues which doesn’t also require a substantial investment in transportation and lodging.

In this case, what the author has done is to identify the regressed hitting and pitching leaders in the Dominican Winter, Mexican Pacific, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan Leagues separately. What he’s then done is to combine the hitting and pitching leaders of those leagues into a pair of top-10 lists, which one can find below. Note: all ages are as of July 1, 2014.

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Over the last few days, rumors circulated that the Braves were pushing hard to sign Nick Markakis, so this morning, Mike Petriello wrote up a piece on Markakis’ value, questioning just MLB teams see in him that we don’t see. He didn’t find an answer, and besides durability, I don’t really have one either, but clearly the Atlanta Braves see something in Nick Markakis that they really value, as Jeff Passan reports they’ve signed him to a four year, ~$44 million contract.

Source: OF Nick Markakis agrees to four-year deal with Atlanta Braves. Dollars unclear, but sides discussed a deal in neighborhood of $44M.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 3, 2014

Rather than just re-hash what Mike wrote this morning, I’ll just quote his conclusion.

Let’s say you disagree with Markakis’ defensive ratings, that you prefer to think of him as a 2 WAR player, which isn’t unfair. That’s a league-average player. Markakis seems like a league-average player. If wins are somewhere around $7 million this winter, you can make the argument that he’s worth $14 million next year. Let’s even call it $15 million, if you really like not striking out. But even if we go with that, he’s already shown that the last two years are the start of his decline. A four-year deal easily takes you to below-average or replacement or worse. It’s hard to see a team coming out ahead on that.

When I started this, I really wanted to see what I’d been missing. I wanted to know why the public perception and the advanced metrics seem so far apart. I’m not really sure I accomplished that. Markakis is a steady player, nothing more, with little upside remaining and age squarely against him, one who could look worse outside of Camden depending on where he winds up. Some team is going to pay heavily for that. Some team is going to regret doing so.

Maybe the Braves believe they can get him to rediscover his power. Maybe they think he’s really an above average defender, not a below average one. You can stretch and see how this could kinda work, if you didn’t also see Nori Aoki — they are the same player, basically — sitting around looking to sign for half this price, most likely. But more likely, Markakis is what he is, and the Braves will end up wondering why they spent $44 million on an underpowered corner outfielder entering his decline years.

Tuesday night represented the deadline for clubs to tender contracts to arbitration-eligible players. MLB Trade Rumors has rendered a service to the public by publishing a list of those players who were not tendered contracts by their respective clubs and who have, as a result, become free agents.

What follows is suspiciously like the aforementioned MLB Trade Rumors’ post, except for that the author — who remains employed by the present site for uncertain reasons — has also included the Steamer projections for all the non-tendered players prorated to 600 plate appearances for hitters (450 PA for catchers) and 200 innings for pitchers (65 IP for relievers).

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This morning, Jon Morosi wrote that the Mariners and Rockies are “a trade match waiting to happen”, noting that the Mariners are still looking for another outfielder, while the Rockies are looking for pitching. The piece notes that the Mariners had previously expressed interest in Carlos Gonzalez, Charlie Blackmon, and Drew Stubbs, though Blackmon is mentioned most prominently in the piece.

Blackmon is appealing to the Mariners because of his ability to play center field, in addition to the corner spots. Blackmon could be Seattle’s primary left fielder but start in center if manager Lloyd McClendon wants to give Austin Jackson the day off against a tough right-handed starter. Blackmon also had 28 stolen bases this year in 38 tries.

Except, well, the Mariners already have Charlie Blackmon in left field. A quick comparison of 2014 performances:

And what that translated into.

Both hitters make contact on about 85% of their swings and produce roughly average power when they make contact, though Ackley’s ISO is actually more impressive than Blackmon’s when you adjust for their home ballparks. Both strikeout a little less than average, and neither draws a ton of walks, though Ackley’s swing profile and previous history suggests that he’s got room to grow there. In 2014, they were almost identical hitters. Their career numbers are similar as well.

Ackley’s 27. Blackmon’s 28. Steamer prefers Ackley by a decent-sized margin — +1.8 WAR to +0.8 WAR — seeing a bit more upside in his skill-set while expecting some regression from Blackmon. Both hit left-handed. Both look like above average defenders in left and probably are not quite good enough for center, though both have some time in center. Blackmon does have one fewer year of service, so he’s not yet arbitration eligible, but even Matt Swartz’s arbitration estimate only places Ackley’s 2015 salary at $2.8 million, a fairly trivial difference.

Perhaps the Mariners and Rockies will make a trade next week, or at some point this offseason. It’d be a little odd if they traded for Charlie Blackmon to replace Dustin Ackley, however, considering that Ackley is a better version of the same kind of player.

2015 is likely going to be the final year of Torii Hunter’s Major League career, and as a free agent, he had a choice to make; he could join a contender to try and make one final run at a World Series title, or he could go back to Minnesota and finish his career where it started. According to Ken Rosenthal, he chose the latter.

Source: Torii Hunter signing with #Twins.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 3, 2014

Source: Hunter deal with #Twins is one year, $10.5M.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 3, 2014

Hunter’s deal is basically an exact match for the crowdsourced expectation, so kudos to you guys for nailing this one on the nose. As something like a +1 WAR outfielder, Hunter isn’t exactly a great use of funds for a Twins team that won’t be contending, but this is the kind of deal where measuring payroll efficiency misses the point the most.

The Twins very likely know that signing Hunter isn’t going to push the team into the postseason, and they probably know that there are better ways to spend $10 million this winter too. But Hunter is probably still a $7 or $8 million player, and so they’re paying a slight premium for the chance to let him have a victory lap in the town where he turned into a big leaguer. It’s a gesture of good will, and the kind of attraction that can add some enjoyment for the fans in a season that will probably be another stinker.

Hunter has had a very nice career, and now should get a chance to retire in the uniform he wore when he broke into the big leagues. He clearly placed a very high value on that opportunity, and while this move probably doesn’t push the Twins rebuild forward, it’s the kind of move that can create goodwill between the organization and their players and fans. And measuring that is probably out of our reach.

Hunter wanted to retire a Twin and the Twins gave him the chance to do so. It’s the part of baseball that we don’t specialize in, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value. Good for the Twins and good for Torii Hunter.

Intrepid newspaperman Ken Rosenthal reported over the weekend that the Toronto Blue Jays have considered signing Alberto Callaspo to play second base for them in 2015 and maybe beyond 2015. A “potential buy-low, bounce-back candidate,” is how the Blue Jays conceive of Callaspo, according to Rosenthal. Indeed, having recorded a -1.1 WAR in 2014, Callaspo has done himself the favor of setting a low enough bar of performance such that he can improve upon it merely by not even playing. A well conceived plan, that.

A cursory inspection of Callaspo’s player page reveals his clear strength: the ability to make contact. Or the capacity to avoid the strikeout, one could say. Either version is fine: swinging-strike rate and strikeout rate are so tightly correlated, there’s little practical difference between the two. In either case, the point is the same: Callaspo has excelled at putting the ball into play.

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