Steve Stone knows a lot about pitching. A savvy right-hander for four teams from 1971-1981, he hurled 43 complete games, and augmented a 101-93 record with a rock solid 3.97 ERA. Stone was especially stellar in the 1980 season, garnering 25 wins for the Baltimore Orioles and taking home the American League Cy Young Award.

He doesn’t lack for opinions. Given his current job, he’s not supposed to. The 71-year-old has been in the broadcast booth for 30-plus years, the last 10 of them with the White Sox. As fans of Chicago’s South Side team can attest, Stone knows his stuff, and he’s not shy about sharing it. Agree with him or not, he’s rarely boring.

Stone sat down for a wide-ranging interview — one that offered some blunt commentary on players and trends alike — during a visit to Fenway Park midway through the 2018 season.

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Steve Stone on learning as a young pitcher: “I pitched with Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry. I pitched with Jim Palmer and Mike Flanagan. I pitched with Wilbur Wood. One thing I learned … I was very young when I was with Marichal and Perry. I didn’t have Hall of Fame talent, so it was hard to assimilate what they had to show me. Plus, Gaylord wasn’t forthcoming about anything that made him the pitcher he was. Marichal probably would have been, had I been able to understand how he did certain things.

“Perry threw a spitter. He wasn’t going to share that. Not unless I brought $3,000 to the park. That’s how much he said he’d charge to teach me the spitter. I was taking home $8,500. I didn’t want to give him 40% of my yearly take-home pay to try to learn a pitch that very few people can master. Read the rest of this entry »

The 2019 FAN Projection ballots are now open!

Before you can project any players, you’ll have to select the team you follow most closely towards the top of the screen. If you don’t really follow a team, just pick one. You’ll only have to do this once.

After you’ve selected a team, you can begin projecting players. There are nine categories of interest for pitchers and 10 categories for position players. Pick the values in the drop-down boxes closest to what you think the player will do in 2018. Hit the submit button and you’re done! If you made a mistake, you can always go back and change your selection at any time.

Please note that everything 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.

That’s really all there is to it. You can filter players by team or, if you go to the player pages, you can project players individually. If you want to see all the players you’ve projected, you can click on the “My Rankings” button, which will show you only what you specifically projected a player to do.

FAN Projections will appear on a player’s page after five ballots have been submitted for him.

If you do notice any issues, please let us know.

Three winters ago, Jason Heyward was a young free agent, a relative rarity as most players make their debuts at 23 years old or older, while many other young stars sign contract extensions prolonging the wait to hit the open market. Heyward debuted at just 20 years old on Opening Day back in 2010 and moved through the arbitration process to become a free agent heading into his age-26 season. There hadn’t been a free agent like Heyward — that young and that accomplished — in more than a decade. Three seasons later, Heyward has put up just four wins rather than the four wins per year that was expected. And now a very similar player in Manny Machado is hitting free agency, and might not be receiving the offers he expected.

While Manny Machado isn’t Jason Heyward, he’s not Bryce Harper either. Machado just put up his best offensive season with a 141 wRC+, while Harper’s season was almost viewed as a disappointment despite him hitting a very similar 135 wRC+. Harper derives nearly all of his value from his bat, while Machado is a more balanced player, getting value from his bat and his glove. In that way, he’s a remarkably similar player to Jason Heyward when the latter hit free agency.

Machado got a one-third season jump on Heyward to begin his career and has almost never been hurt, leading to roughly an extra season’s worth of playing time and a five-WAR lead. Heyward walked more, while Machado hit for more power. Heyward’s baserunning exceeded Machado’s, but his good defense at a more difficult position evened out that baserunning deficiency. When Heyward hit free agency, there were some (including me) who argued that Heyward’s contract floor in free agency should have been something like $160 million, with a reasonable value potentially above $300 million based on his comps at the time. Heyward is the most recent player to point to when it comes to long-term deals not working out, even when signed at a young age. Setting aside that Heyward was hurt almost immediately, that the Cubs changed a swing that worked in 2015, and that Heyward will now be on his third hitting coach in four years, what Heyward really should be is another data point among potential Manny Machado comps.

Earlier this month, I took a look at some comps for Bryce Harper mostly ignoring his MVP season. Near the end of the piece, I noted just how great Harper’s overall comps were.

There are so few players like Bryce Harper in baseball history that it is tough to find a lot of good comparisons. In the past 100 years, there have only been 16 players within five WAR of Harper and also within 20% of his plate appearances. Of those 15 other players, 11 are in the Hall of Fame. Manny Machado is another player on that list, with the others being Jim Fregosi, Cesar Cedeno, and Vada Pinson. The 14 players averaged 37 WAR from age-26 through age-35, with eight of the 11 players who played since 1947 hitting that average.

The same exercise with Machado yields slightly different results due to a difference in plate appearance and Harper’s half a win higher WAR total. We end up with 16 total players, including Machado and Harper. We lose Johnny Bench and Tim Raines, but gain Adrian Beltre, so the number of Hall of Famers is pretty close. Also added to the list is Jason Heyward, but even if we include Heyward’s 4.1 WAR and assume he will not generate any wins over the next seven seasons, the average WAR produced from 26 years old through age 35 is 34.8 WAR. That’s easily $300 million contract territory, and with seven of the 11 players since integration going above that mark, there’s a reasonable chance of hitting that mark with Machado.

On the other hand, if we were to admit that the valuations on Heyward missed the mark from some reason or another — like too much of his value being tied into defense or perhaps that debuting young isn’t as important as we thought — we can take a different angle to get a better perspective on Machado. The last set of comps look at only total value, go very far back in history, and take into account up to seven nearly full seasons for some players. Let’s start by narrowing things down a bit. We’ll look at Machado’s last four years, when he put up a 128 wRC+ and 21.7 WAR from age 22 through his age-25 season. To find good comparable players, we’ll look at non-catching position players from 1973-2008 with at least two wins at 25 years old, a WAR between 18 and 26, a wRC+ between 118 and 138, a positive defensive value, and enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title. Here are Machado’s comps.

Through 2008, six players have taken Manny Machado’s path at the same age. Two are Hall of Famers, and Scott Rolen should be a third. Even if we include more recent players who have yet to play through age-35, only Jose Ramirez and Ryan Zimmerman qualify and the latter drops the average by just a couple of wins. Machado is still pretty easily a $300 million value by this analysis assuming we start with a $9M/WAR evaluation. Now, let’s only use the last three seasons, where Machado put up 15.1 WAR and a 125 wRC+. Using similar PA, defense, and age-25 restrictions, with WAR between 12 and 18, and a wRC+ between 115 and 135 yields the following comps at age 26 through 35 years old.

Another very good group here, but it’s worth noting that Glaus, Chavez, and Moseby all posted WAR totals at age-25 at least two wins lower than Machado last year, so restricting this group further would yield a number even higher than the previous group. It is also worth noting that Jason Heyward, Dustin Pedroia, Nolan Arenado, and Ryan Zimmerman are all recent comps. Pedroia has been worth 33 wins over the past 9 years with Zimmerman worth around 14 over the past eight seasons, and including those two players only drops the average WAR by about one win. Arenado has already put up 11 wins in two seasons, we’ve discussed Heyward, and in the unlikely event that none of the four active players produce anything else, the group average still sits at around 28 wins. We are dealing with a very accomplished group whose average production would be worth well over $300 million over the next 10 years.

When we drop down to just the last two years of Machado, we should see the most pedestrian group given Machado’s lackluster 2017 season. Over the last two seasons, Machado has a 122 wRC+ with 8.8 WAR, so we’ll look at players between 112 and 132 wRC+ with between 7 and 11 wins, leaving the other parameters the same.

As we might expect given Machado’s 2017, this is the most disappointing group we’ve seen. It’s also still a group that might produce an average outcome in the $275 million range. There are three Hall of Famers up there with Beltran having a chance at four. The same caveats as above regarding Moseby and Chavez apply here, as well. Among active players, we still have Pedroia, Heyward, and Arenado, though we add Kyle Seager, who has averaged around four wins per season over the last five years despite a disappointing 2018 campaign. We also add Christian Yelich, who has just one season beyond 25 years old, but won the NL MVP with a 7.6 WAR year. Javier Baez and Xander Bogaerts also qualify, but are the same age as Machado.

If we only had Machado’s 2018 season as a comparison, this is what that group looks like:

These are the wildest results we’ve seen with a bad Marcus Giles, a good but injury shortened run from David Wright, a decent run from Jesse Barfield, and then near-Hall of Fame or better runs from the seven remaining players. Of the more recent players, Evan Longoria, Ryan Zimmerman, Hanley Ramirez, Kris Bryant and Matt Chapman also fit the bill. Even including the first three more recent players doesn’t drop the average below 30. Of note, Jason Heyward is not a comp in the last group, as Machado’s 141 wRC+ was significantly higher than Heyward’s age-25 season and at least 20 points higher than every season Heyward has put up since the right fielder’s 134 wRC+ in his 2010 rookie campaign.

Jason Heyward might show some similarities to Manny Machado, but that contract and the results the last three seasons shouldn’t scare people away from Manny Machado. Heyward is still young enough that he could turn his contract around, but that also shouldn’t matter for Machado. The current free agent has better comps than Heyward and is coming off a much better season. Even with similar comps, Heyward is still just one data point among multiple Hall of Famers. Players who hit like Machado, play solid defense, and perform well in their early to mid-20s tend to keep doing so. The same should be expected of Machado, as well.

Late last week, free-agent infielder DJ LeMahieu signed for two years and $24 million. LeMahieu is going into his age-30 season, and not that long ago, I wrote about his offensive upside. Given where we are in the information era — and the player-development era — I find LeMahieu intriguing, and so I’m a fan of the terms. I think he can be a lot more valuable than this, although to his agent’s credit, he’s also a member of baseball’s veteran middle class, so it’s good to lock down a multi-year contract at all.

The one thing that’s somewhat surprising is that LeMahieu didn’t sign with, say, the Brewers. He signed with the Yankees. The Yankees already had a player at LeMahieu’s primary position, just as the Mets already had a player (two of them, in fact) at Jed Lowrie‘s primary position. So, just like with Lowrie, LeMahieu is expected to move around the diamond. It makes it all the more difficult to fit Manny Machado with the Yankees. It also makes you wonder at least a little bit about Miguel Andujar’s future as the Yankees’ third baseman. In LeMahieu, the Yankees signed a talented player, but it raises new questions. It also re-raises old ones.

For the next few minutes, though, let’s forget all of that. Let’s forget about how the Yankees’ infield all works together. Let’s forget about Machado, and Andujar, and Troy Tulowitzki. Let’s just talk about DJ LeMahieu’s hitting. Does he remind you of anyone?

Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: As we approach the January 22 Hall of Fame announcement, we’ll be featuring a few pieces from Anthony Calamis and Adam Dore, members of Ryan Thibodaux’s excellent team that tracks public Hall of Fame ballot. This is the first such piece. Be sure to check out the ballot tracker, which is an indispensable tool for any Hall of Fame enthusiast.

In case you have somehow missed any of Jay Jaffe’s excellent coverage over the last month, December is the time of the year when Hall of Fame ballots get mailed out. More than 400 BBWAA members comprise the voting body tasked with electing players to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York.

I’m part of a four-person ballot-tracking team led by Ryan Thibodaux (@NotMrTibbs) that finds every public ballot, records the percentage of votes for each candidate, and tracks which players have been added to or dropped from a voter’s ballot from one year to the next, assuming they were public in both years. Right now, there are 172 ballots in the Tracker.

This year in particular, a few intriguing trends have emerged as ballots have been made public. I chose to explore Mike Mussina’s candidacy and what needs to happen over the next nine days for him to share the stage next July with likely inductees such as Mariano Rivera.

Before diving into the particulars, here is a table showing the current results in the Tracker:

Three of the candidates have had their boxes checked on over 90% of known ballots. All the others are below the required 75% for election, leaving Mussina as the most interesting bubble candidate this year. In the 2018 voting, Mussina received votes on 268 of the possible 422 ballots cast, good for 63.5%, 11.5% (or 49 votes) shy of election; Chipper Jones, Vladimir Guerrero, Jim Thome and Trevor Hoffman all surpassed 75%.

Read the rest of this entry »

In October, we talked about the Angels opting out of their stadium lease with the city of Anaheim. At the time, the move required that the team vacate the venue at the close of the 2019 season. Given the rapidly approaching deadline and acrimony between the parties, I speculated then that the most likely outcome would be a short-term deal.

So where does that leave the Angels and Anaheim? Most observers think these two parties need each other, and I tend to agree. . . . The Angels need a baseball stadium, and Anaheim doesn’t want to lose its tenant, even if the team has been a pain in its butt. At the same time, however, we’re already seeing trial balloons floated about moves to Portland or Las Vegas, and neither side is moving with any urgency at this point (though that could and probably will change down the road). I think the safe bet is a short-term, five- or ten-year lease with another opt-out, enough for the two sides to have a brief cooling-off period.

As it turns out, the two sides did end up reaching a short-term agreement, but it was for a far shorter length of time than most observers, including myself, anticipated.

Such a deal would be an elegant solution to the current impasse, changing what the Angels consider to be a “toxic” atmosphere for local businesses into a private-public partnership. At the same time, it’s far from a sure bet; for one thing, a deal like this, while addressing the team’s location concerns, wouldn’t provide the upgraded facility the team desires. And worse, the Ducks’ deal did cut into what the Angels wanted as part of their own mixed-use complex.

[Anaheim] Councilman Stephen Faessel, who otherwise called the proposal a “great deal,” questioned why the deal includes the sale of a parking lot across from the Honda Center by ARTIC without a formal bidding process where other developers could also bid for the property.

“ARTIC is not that far from Angel Stadium, and now we’re likely going to have to negotiate a deal with the Angels, how do we know the Angels won’t give us a better deal?” Faessel said.

City spokesman Mike Lyster later clarified the city is not considering selling the ARTIC lot, but may lease it to the Honda Center.

So despite how the deal has been framed – as a way for the two sides to buy time to reach a more long-lasting arrangement – this extension is no guarantee that an agreement will, in fact, be reached. And most interestingly, the one-year extension keeps open the possibility that the team could consider a jump outside of California – particularly given the recent development that Portland may be ready for a major league team as soon as 2022.

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for more than half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Texas Rangers.

Batters

Perhaps the biggest disappointment in last year’s projections (and in 2018, really) was the several steps taken backward by Willie Calhoun. Originally, it was believed he would only be in the minors temporarily to beat up minor league pitchers while some service time shenanigans resolved themselves. Problem was, Calhoun never really earned a callup, struggling to hit Triple-A pitchers and only besting an .800 OPS in a single month of the season, a July that was driven by a .364 batting average. The Rangers brought him up when there was obvious playing time for him, but hitting .222/.269/.333 in 108 plate appearances was hardly a strong push for a full-time job. Even ignoring the cameo role in the majors, Calhoun’s power was mostly gone in the minors, which is not good. To be a decent starting left fielder in the majors, you have to be a batting average/on-base percentage deity or be a legitimate all-world talent on defense. Calhoun is neither. I wouldn’t write him off yet, but I’m very worried.

I’m a little surprised that Texas either couldn’t or wouldn’t close a deal with another team for Shin-Soo Choo, a player whose presence required a losing Rangers team to carry a significant salary after Choo turned in a solid little year and had some trade value. Choo is quickly approaching age 40, and until Nomar Mazara actually turns his impressive raw power into actual counting numbers, Joey Gallo is the only really dependable Rangers hitter. Gallo is what he is, and will likely always have an abysmal batting average. He’s fortunate to not have been born 30 years earlier.

One projection that intrigues me is Christian Lopes’, who was a third-tier prospect for the Blue Jays a very long time ago with a fairly mature approach at the plate coming out of high school. It never really manifested itself in the stats, however, and the knock was that he didn’t have a standout tool otherwise. But he’s made great strides the last couple years and has gotten to the point where he may be a pretty interesting role player, with Texas using him at a lot of positions in the minors.

Pitchers

You can see the skinny rebuild in progress in the Rangers’ rotation. You have a number of OK-ish starters (excluding Yohander Mendez, who ZiPS hates with the fire of a thousand suns), probably none of whom will be part of the next good Rangers team. Drew Smyly, Edinson Volquez, and Shelby Miller are essentially reclamation projects, and at three years and $30 million, Lance Lynn may be the last of the quintet “out” of Texas (Mike Minor is there, too), but if the recovery in his peripherals in 2018 isn’t a fluke, Texas may get a real prospect for him.

ZiPS is a believer in Jose Leclerc at the front of the bullpen, and sees the rest of the group as a fairly boring but quite adequate relief corps, which is fine with the Rangers not seriously contending yet.

Bench and Prospects

One of the most interesting Rangers projections is that of Brock Burke, a former Rays third-rounder who the Rays brought around very slowly out of high school. 2018 was the year in which everything clicked, with Burke seeing a 30% bump in his strikeout rate while also being promoted, striking out almost 12 batters a game for Montgomery. ZiPS doesn’t give him a huge ceiling, but is surprisingly confident in Burke being a mid-rotation starter despite only him only having limited playing time in Double-A.

One pedantic note for 2019: for the WAR graphic, I’m using FanGraphs’ depth chart playing time, not the playing time ZiPS spits out, so there will be occasional differences in WAR totals.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here at site.

Disclaimer: ZiPS projections are computer-based projections of performance. Performances have not been allocated to predicted playing time in the majors — many of the players listed above are unlikely to play in the majors at all in 2019. ZiPS is projecting equivalent production — a .240 ZiPS projection may end up being .280 in AAA or .300 in AA, for example. Whether or not a player will play is one of many non-statistical factors one has to take into account when predicting the future.

Players are listed with their most recent teams, unless I have made a mistake. This is very possible, as a lot of minor-league signings go generally unreported in the offseason.

ZiPS’ projections are based on the American League having a 4.29 ERA and the National League having a 4.15 ERA.

Players who are expected to be out due to injury are still projected. More information is always better than less information, and a computer isn’t the tool that should project the injury status of, for example, a pitcher who has had Tommy John surgery.

Both hitters and pitchers are ranked by projected zWAR — which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those which appear in full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR.