One of the great things about FanGraphs is the ever increasing number of stats and features available on the site. One of the downsides of that is that if you miss the initial announcement, things can get awfully confusing awfully quickly. In my efforts to update and expand the FanGraphs Library, I noticed a number of stats that slipped through the cracks and failed to get their own entries after debuting on the site. Today, we are correcting one of those absences.

One of our most prominently displayed statistics is Offense, or Off if you’re checking out the leaderboards or player pages. We rolled Off and Def out about a year ago as simple combinations of stats we already offered on the site, but if you weren’t hanging out on FanGraphs in mid-September 2013, you might not have known what they meant. Off is simply batting and base running runs above average added together and tells you about a player’s total offensive value relative to league average. It is a cumulative stat, so it is based on the quality and quantity of your performance. To learn more, check out the new entry in the Library.

As always, feel free to contact me on Twitter @NeilWeinberg44, in the comments, or during my weekly chat at 3pm eastern on Wednesdays with any and all FanGraphs and stat related questions.

Yesterday, we rolled out a new WAR leaderboard here on FanGraphs, giving you the ability to see position players and pitchers in the same spot. Today, David Appelman has made this tool even better by allowing you to choose between three flavors of pitcher WAR, since not everyone agrees on how pitcher performance should be evaluated.

The default remains our WAR based on a pitcher’s FIP (and infield flies), but now you, can also choose to see the list with a pitcher’s WAR based on runs allowed (RA9) or a 50/50 blend of both. While giving a pitcher credit for half of the difference between his FIP-WAR and his RA9-WAR gets away from the “trying to measure exactly what happened” concept, it probably is a more accurate portrayal of a pitcher’s overall value than either FIP or RA9, which take the most extreme positions possible on the amount of credit or blame a pitcher should get for the results of balls in play.

Blending the two is a very crude and imperfect way to look at things, and also means that you get into double counting defensive performance at the team level — the value of hits being turned into outs is already being credited to position players — but on the individual player level, it probably is closer to the truth of the pitcher’s value in that season than either FIP or RA9.

Empirically, there’s not a lot of evidence that blending the FIP and RA9 evenly is correct, but if you’re just looking for a quick-and-dirty way to give the pitcher some credit/blame for his in-play results and sequencing, this likely gets you in the ballpark. None of the three versions of pitcher WAR are “correct” in every single situation, so we’re giving you the ability to pick your poison based on your own preferences. Enjoy!

If you click on the Leaders tab here on FanGraphs, you’ll be taken to this page, which shows you the performance of position players in 2014. If you wanted to see who the best pitchers of the year have been, you have had to switch over to the pitcher’s tab, and there was no place on the site to see a list with pitchers and hitters in the same place. Until now.

Thanks to David Appelman, we have a new WAR leaderboard that shows the totals for both position players and pitchers in the same spot. Additionally, since WAR is a counting stat, there is no playing time minimum that needs to be met, so you’ll see Troy Tulowitzki still ranks 9th overall in WAR this season, though he won’t appear on the batting leaders page because he has not met the standards of qualification for the batting average title set out by MLB. This list is the best place to look if you want to see how someone stacks up against all players, not just position players or pitchers.

You can access this leaderboard at any time from the dropdown under the leaders tab. It is listed under WAR tools, and is called Combined WAR Leaderboard.

The leaderboard can be sorted by league, or by team, so if you want to see all of your team’s players in one list, you can do that from here. And this tool goes back through 1871, so you can also use this for prior years as well.

You’ll also notice a note in the upper right-hand corner of the page that is worth mentioning here; these listed WAR totals are only for the player’s primary responsibility, so it’s batting WAR for batters or pitching WAR for pitchers.

While some NL pitchers do accumulate real value at the plate, we thought it made more sense to have the numbers be consistent with what we show on the player pages and the leaderboards, rather than having this be the only place on FanGraphs where batting and pitching WAR are added together. And of course, AL pitchers are not given the opportunity to produce value at the plate, so it’s a little bit of apples-to-orange comparison. But we do list batting WAR for pitchers (and pitching WAR for position players) on their player pages and the leaderboards, so if you want to create a leaderboard that accounts for this, you can do that. That’s just not what this tool is for.

We hope you enjoy the new feature.

NC State left-hander Carlos Rodon was selected third overall by the White Sox during the most recent major-league draft on the strength of a fastball/slider combination about which obscene poems have been written — which poems, shortly after having been written, were also then ripped up and thrown into the fire by the confused and perspiring scouts who wrote them.

More quickly than even those totally enamored scouts could have reasonably predicted, Rodon has parlayed his ecstatic repertoire into an excellent, if brief, minor-league career. After striking out 15 of the 42 batters (35.7%) he faced over four appearances with High-A Winston-Salem, Rodon earned rather an aggressive promotion to Triple-A Charlotte. There, he’s produced roughly the same rates, having now recorded 11 strikeouts against just 28 batters (39.3%) over two starts and 7.0 innings — including a four-inning, eight-strikeout performance on Sunday (box).

Command has been an issue: over those same seven innings at Triple-A, Rodon has recorded five walks — that is, against roughly 18% of the batters he’s faced. Even so, his capacity to miss bats in the highest of the minor leagues has created the very real possibility that he might appear in the majors at some point in September.

Regard:

On Carlos Rodon, GM Rick Hahn says no set plan yet whether he will be Sept. call-up. Could be a starter if he does get call.

— Colleen Kane (@ChiTribKane) August 20, 2014

“No set plan” indicates the Sox are willing to entertain the idea of promoting Rodon to the majors — which, that’s a remarkable thing in itself. Consider, for example, this table, which features every player from the past five years to make his major-league debut in the same year he was drafted:

That’s a list of only two players — and, notably, both Rodriguez and Sale were deployed as left-handed relievers on clubs which, if not necessarily in the thick of contention, at least managed second-place finishes in their respective divisions. The present iteration of the White Sox, meanwhile, aren’t even in the thin of contention. And the prospect of Rodon actually starting major-league games months removed from his last college appearance is an unusual, compelling one.

In conclusion — and for no other reason than because it’s beautiful — here’s footage of Rodon’s slider from his most recent start with Charlotte:

And that same pitch in slow motion:

I should be doing many more of these with September call-ups coming soon, but I’ll try to keep from sidetracking myself from org prospect rankings (Rockies list coming this week) by writing about every prospect that comes up.  A 50 Future Value is a good cut-off for who gets a post, but I might do some interesting 45 FV guys as well.  Take a look at the Rangers list to get an idea of what 45 and 50 FV means.  The 50 FV cut-off is generally around the 150th best prospect in the game.

Hit: 50/60, Game Power: 55/65, Raw Power: 65/65, Run: 50/45, Field: 45/45+, Throw: 55/55

Note: From now on, when I list scouting grades for a player in an article, they will appear on his player page in real time, so pop over to Soler’s page and marvel at technology.

Jorge Soler is just a fun player to watch. He’s an explosive quick-twitch power hitter with easy plus bat speed and raw power along with just enough huge cuts and erratic stuff to his game that you never know what you might see.  Some scouts rate the power a 70, but since there were some real concerns about contact/approach and makeup coming into this season, I tried to stay conservative, despite Soler’s big numbers this year.  One scout compared him to Yasiel Puig, calling Soler a better hitter but not as fast as Puig.

When I was doing my top 100 list last year, I had Soler easily in the top 50 even after seeing more erratic stuff than huge performance in the Arizona Fall League. Multiple evaluators told me to move him out of the top 50 — I eventually ranked him 52nd — as they had these concerns for years and it was now seen as starting to impact his ability to hit his substantial upside.  To clarify, these concerns weren’t about his character, but mostly focus and maturity type stuff; something many players grow out of (Soler is still 22) but snowball for others.  Those concerns haven’t evaporated, but it’s amazing what raking can do for one’s reputation.

Soler is a good athlete for a a 6’3/225 power hitter, turning in average run times and sometimes a bit better, but I’d expect him to lose a step by his peak and he’s never been a huge hustle guy on the bases. It’s a right field profile and he should have enough speed/defense to be around average in those areas and not be a value suck on a potential impact bat.

EDIT: Using the process from the org prospect list format, the triple slash line upside for Soler would be .285/.360/.485.  This is taking the projected tools above, converting them into stats (i.e. 60 bat converts to .280s batting average), then rounding up a bit (how much for each tool depends on the player) to account for “upside” rather than “projected output.”

There is a thing in golf called “shooting your age.” Basically, it’s a measure of how sharp a player’s game is even as they get older. The way golf is structured, this doesn’t even come into affect until a player’s 60s or 70s. Tiger Woods has yet to shoot his age, because it’s impossible to shoot a 38 on a par-72 course. But it’s a fun way to talk about older players, and to give golfers hope for their futures.

This whole idea led me to wonder if we could apply it to baseball. Obviously, to truly bat one’s age would be a bad thing. Batting average doesn’t really play well with this idea. Neither does wOBA or ISO, for that matter. So, I took a different route. I decided to use wRC+, and then just knock 100 points off. This, of course, gives us a number based around how much better a player batted than league average. Plus, it gives a much nicer number to compare with an age of a player. Read the rest of this entry »

Major League Baseball Advanced Media CEO Bob Bowman told the Associated Press this week that some baseball fans may be able to stream local broadcasts to their desktops and mobile devices by as early as next season. The changes would apply only to fans who already subscribe to the regional sports network that broadcasts their team’s games. For example, a San Francisco Giants fan who already pays for Comcast SportsNet Bay Area through her cable or satellite company would be able to stream Giants games when she is the CSN Bay Area viewing area, but not at home with access to her TV. Right now, she can only access Giants games on CSN Bay Area through MLB.tv and only when she is not in Northern California.

Whether this local streaming would be available through an RSN-linked app or through MLB.tv is still to be determined, according to Bowman. It’s also possible that MLBAM will work out deals with some RSNs and not others. Bowman told AP that the issues are complicated.

“If they were easy to resolve, then somebody would have done it, and if it didn’t matter, then it would have been resolved,” Bowman said. “In the end, we all want the same thing regardless of which side of the table you’re on. We all want somebody to be able to turn on a laptop or turn on a phone and see a live game in-market.”

Fans will be able to test the streaming option during this year’s postseason games, as those games will be available on mobile devices to fans who subscribe to ESPN, TBS and Fox, the three networks who hold baseball’s postseason broadcast rights.

Making local broadcasts available online and through mobile devices is a good first step in attracting younger fans who have grown up with access to a variety of entertainment options in the palm of their hands. But it is only a first step, as the new streaming plan will be linked to an increasingly expensive cable or satellite bill. Fans who’ve cut the cord — or never subscribed in the first place — will still face blackouts of their local team on their desktops and mobile devices.

Moreover, the exclusive broadcast territories would remain intact. So baseball fans in Iowa, for example — who are within the “exclusive” broadcast territory of the Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, St. Louis Cardinals, Minnesota Twins, Kansas City Royals and Milwaukee Brewers but are not offered any of those team’s RSNs by their cable or satellite operator — wouldn’t see any relief from the changes Bowman hopes to roll out.

MLBAM’s effort to expand streaming options for fans comes as the league and its RSN partners continue to battle against charges that the exclusive broadcast territories violates federal antitrust law. A federal judge in New York recently ruled that MLB and the RSNs must face trial on the antitrust claims.

Last week, Garrett Richards blew out his knee, and will be out for the rest of the season. Richards was probably the Angels best starter, and because of the timing of the injury, they’re running low on quality options to replace him. As Paul Swydan noted on Friday, there’s Bartolo Colon, Scott Feldman, and, well, not a lot of else.

This is the nature of players getting hurt late in the season; once past the July 31st trade deadline, talent is difficult to acquire. I’ve argued for moving the trade deadline back, though that idea does not necessarily have wide appeal. So what about a more minor change that could keep teams from getting sunk due to a late-season injury: a trade exemption for teams that lose a player from their active roster and place him on the 60-day disabled list after August 1st?

We could even limit the exemption to the same position as the player lost, so that a team couldn’t disable a middle reliever in order to acquire an ace. For a team like the Angels, their situation has changed enough since July 31st to alter their calculations. Maybe now, without Richards, they’d make the Phillies a great offer for Cole Hamels, even including taking the remainder of Ryan Howard’s albatross contract? Or maybe they regret not meeting the Padres asking price for Ian Kennedy?

The intent of having a trade deadline is to stop teams from loading up on mercenaries and forcing a team’s postseason roster to somewhat resemble its regular season roster. But should we really be interested in punishing teams for losing players to unpredictable injuries towards the end of the year, simply because they had the poor fortune of losing a key contributor in August instead of July? Shouldn’t we be interested in letting contending teams maximize their chances of winning? And don’t we want rebuilding teams to be able to extract absurdly high prices from desperate buyers, thus shortening their path back to being a winning team?

Giving a team like the Angels a trade exemption to try to get a starting pitcher to replace Garrett Richards would make the AL West even more exciting, and potentially, lead to an even better postseason experience for the viewers. Even if the Angels overcome this injury and make the division series, is anyone really excited to tune in and watch Hector Santiago pitch a playoff game?

The Red Sox continued their recent run of asset collection, signing Cuban OF Rusney Castillo to a 7-year, $72.5 million deal yesterday.  You can Google around the internet and find a reasonably accurate scouting report, or a grainy, old video from his days playing in Cuba and Dave did a good job breaking down what the value/expectations are for what we understand Castillo to be as a player.   I didn’t want to collect all this existing information and give you a long post to skim, so I’ll share scouting grades I got from a number of scouts that have seen him, and some explanation of what that means for Castillo’s projection.

Hit:  40/50, Game Power:  45/50, Raw Power: 55/55, Speed: 70/70, Field: 50/60, Throw: 50/50

(See the primer for the org rankings if you aren’t familiar with the 20-80 scouting scale, though I explain some of it below)

The most important thing for Castillo are the hit and game power grades, but there’s a lot of uncertainty amongst scouts on those grades.  Castillo hasn’t played in an organized game for awhile, can take wild cuts in batting practice to show his raw power and, like some Cuban defectors before him, changed his body composition a good bit with a new training regimen leading up to his big payday.

Traditionally, scouts would be bearish on Cuban prospects like this and some team desperate for good PR or any kind of talent would overpay.  In the last decade or so, Cuban hitters have been on a great run and scouts are adjusting the potential outcomes accordingly.  Most think Castillo has big league ability now, but will need a minor league period to adjust to game speed.  The expectations are something around average hit/power tools (.260 to .270 and 15-20 homers) but this is a volatile enough situation that both tools could be below average or above average in the short term (and the long-term, too).

The surprising thing from Castillo’s recent workouts was that his added muscle didn’t cost him any speed.  He’s not polished in the outfield, but should be able to stick in center with some work.  He’s even rougher in the infield, but some teams were interested in trying him at second base.

For those wondering who the next Cuban bat is to watch, I wrote up outfielder Yasmani Tomas for my old employers two months ago when he defected.  If he has the same positive body change after defecting that we’ve seen from Castillo and Yasiel Puig, he has the ability to draw a big contract, but he’s still months away from getting the necessary paperwork far enough along to hold open workouts.

One way — perhaps the main way — in which a prospect is capable of producing enthusiasm among the People is by exhibiting signs that he’ll be a valuable major leaguer at some point in the near or less-near future. Another way in which he can do that (i.e. produce enthusiasm) is by demonstrating a skill set otherwise non-extant (or nearly non-extant) in the majors.

While the likelihood of Zach Walters parlaying his skills into a major-league career of consequence remains distinctly uncertain, he’s at least indicated that the aforementioned skill set is likely to be a unique one. Just hours after the present author noted here yesterday that the 24-year-old belonged to a select group of hitters this season — hitters, that is, who’re both (a) particularly inclined to striking out and hitting for power while also (b) capable of occupying the more demanding area of the defensive spectrum — Walters proceeded to demonstrate the entirety of skill set (the offensive part, at least) in three plate appearances against Minnesota (box).

Here, by way of illustration, is the conclusion of Walters’ first plate appearances on Thursday:

And then the second:

And, finally, the third:

In the wake of that game against the Twins, Walters now possesses a 37.2% strikeout rate and .306 isolated-power figure. Of the 43 batted balls he’s hit into fair territory, seven of them (16%) have been home runs.

Here are the top-10 players this season by that inconsequential measure who have also recorded 50-plus plate appearances. (Note that HRC% denotes home runs on contact.):