What Even Is Jonathan Lucroy These Days?

The A’s are signing Jonathan Lucroy for one year and $6.5 million. Why are they doing that? Because Lucroy has been good before, and, other than Lucroy, the A’s catchers are Bruce Maxwell, Josh Phegley, and Dustin Garneau. It’s not so much that Lucroy is sure to be a massive improvement. But, he ought to help, and the A’s had some money to move, and this season, the A’s also happen to look like a half-decent wild-card contender. Everything makes sense. This move was almost painfully obvious.

Of course, in order for this move to go down, Lucroy had to accept. You know how free agency works. And the A’s have had some problems here, in terms of getting players to take their money. Sure, the A’s have run low payrolls in large part because they’ve intended for payroll to be low, but they’ve also often been turned down, even when they’ve had the high offer. This offseason, for example, the A’s offered the biggest contract to Brian Duensing, who re-signed with the Cubs. Maybe Lucroy is fond of the A’s. Maybe he’s excited to go there. But, it’s the middle of spring training. The market decided Lucroy wasn’t worth being enthusiastic about. The A’s came calling with a job.

As I write this, Lucroy is 31 years old. Not even very long ago, he was considered one of baseball’s best catchers. How did his free agency end up in this place? Lucroy, like Carlos Gonzalez, is coming off a bad season. And it’s not at all clear what anyone should make of him at this point. What skills he still has are fair to question.

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Carlos Gonzalez and the Value of Options

Back on the other side of the weekend, word got out the Rockies were re-signing Carlos Gonzalez for a year and $8 million. In one way, it’s great news, because now Gonzalez has a job. Furthermore, Nolan Arenado said bringing Gonzalez back “would be the greatest thing ever.” So, from the Rockies’ standpoint, and also from Gonzalez’s standpoint, it’s terrific to preserve some familiarity. In another way, this is disappointing news. It’s disappointing to Gonzalez, because a year ago, he turned down what would’ve been a lucrative three-year extension. And it’s disappointing to some fans, who now wonder what to make of the Rockies’ outfield picture. There are some younger players who are knocking on the door.

When I chatted last Friday, I received several inquiries related to Raimel Tapia, David Dahl, and Mike Tauchman. There’s an argument to be made that all of them are major-league ready. Gonzalez now gets in the way, because he’s not re-signing to platoon, or to sit on the bench. Gonzalez is going to play, and that playing time comes at the expense of other Rockies. What I would say is not to worry too much. Gonzalez now occupies a spot in a nine-man lineup, but I see this more as helping the depth. There’s value in having moving pieces.

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A Glance at Matthew Liberatore’s Draft Stock

Because his high school is only about 40 minutes away via the 101 Loop in Arizona, I am going to see an awful lot of LHP Matthew Liberatore this spring. At the second of two fairly disparate starts from the senior, several teams picking in the top ten had a little extra heat in attendance to observe him. Indeed, after Liberatore sat 93-97 in his first start, there’s been some admittedly premature discussion about how high he might go in the draft. But now that we have a few appearances worth of information this spring, it’s reasonable to begin considering where he might go in June. We can do that by ignoring the other prospects in this year’s draft class and instead comparing Libby to other recent prep lefties.

This style of temperature check is useful for a few reasons. At some point, we have to line up every prospect in this year’s draft class, but it’s hard to do that with precision right now because evaluations are constantly shifting and we don’t know everything about things like signability or injuries. By comparing a current prospect — in this case, Liberatore — to his peers in previous draft classes, we’re now only dealing with one moving target and can more easily get an idea of where he’s likely to be selected.

There are several factors besides mere talent that influence where a player is selected in the draft — especially early in a draft — and, of course, the quality of talent in a given class is also relevant. We can’t control for that stuff and probably don’t need to because, again, we’re just trying to get a feel for a realistic range of potential outcomes.

With that in mind, here are the draft-day evaluations of the high-school lefties who have been taken in the first round since 2014. I have them listed in order of preference based on talent at the time they were drafted, with other factors (size, makeup, delivery) noted. The “x” indicates that attribute was essentially value neutral, or at least not so impactful that it affected the player’s stock. These were all future, not current, pitch projections, and if a kid had two breaking balls I just picked the better of the two.

First-Round High-School Lefties
Player Fastball Breaking Change Cmd Size Delivery Makeup Pick Bonus
Brady Aiken 60 70 55 55 x x x 1 $6.5*
MacKenzie Gore 55 60 60 60 x + 3 $6.7
Jason Groome 60 70 50 50 + x 12 $3.6
Kolby Allard 55 60 55 55 x x 14 $3.0
Braxton Garrett 50 60 55 60 x x x 7 $4.1
D.L. Hall 60 60 50 50 x x 21 $3.0
Cole Ragans 50 50 60 60 x + + 30 $2.0
Justus Sheffield 55 55 50 50 x x 31 $1.6
Trevor Rogers 60 50 45 50 + x x 13 $3.4
Kodi Medeiros 60 60 45 40 x 12 $2.5
*Reported agreed upon bonus with Houston before UCL issue was discovered during physical

So where does Matthew Liberatore stack among this group? Last week, he was up to 94, sitting mostly 91-92 for most of his start, with a fairly upright delivery that I think negatively impacts extension. His slowest fastball was at 88; it came from the stretch late in his start. Liberatore’s curveball flashed plus several times. It’s fair to question if a 70-72 mph curveball will be effective in the big leagues, but there’s remarkable feel for spin here and it’s likely Liberatore’s breaking ball will have more power to it at maturity. He flashed an above-average changeup, which projects to plus at peak as he utilizes it more in pro ball.

From a strike-throwing and consistency perspective, Liberatore was disappointing. He failed to get on top of many fastballs and breaking balls, forcing a number of pitches to sail up and to his arm side. The quality of his stuff was also inconsistent throughout much of his outing. He’s a good athlete for his size and has some room on his frame for more mass, so it’s possible more velocity is coming. As the spring rolls on, this evaluation is likely to change a little but, but right now here’s where we think Liberatore is at.

First-Round High-School Lefties
Player Fastball Breaking Change Cmd Size Delivery Makeup Pick Bonus
Brady Aiken 60 70 55 55 x x x 1 $6.5*
MacKenzie Gore 55 60 60 60 x + 3 6.7
Jason Groome 60 70 50 50 + x 12 $3.6
Matt Liberatore 55 60 60 50 + x x ? ?
Kolby Allard 55 60 50 50 x x 14^ $3.0
Braxton Garrett 50 60 55 60 x x x 7 $4.1
D.L. Hall 60 60 50 50 x x 21 $3.0
Cole Ragans 50 50 60 60 x + + 30 $2.0
Justus Sheffield 55 55 50 50 x x 31 $1.6
Trevor Rogers 60 50 45 50 + x x 13 $3.4
Kodi Medeiros 60 60 45 40 x 12 $2.5
*Reported agreed upon bonus with Houston before UCL issue was discovered during physical.
^Allard missed time with a stress reaction in his back as a senior

Groome and Allard probably go higher in their respective drafts if not for off-field and injury issues, respectively. I think it’s fair to place Liberatore in the picks No. 3 to 7 range right now, just based on how his talent stacks up with recent precedent. A lot can still happen between now and the draft to change this. If his velocity ticks comfortably into the mid-90s as the draft approaches, we’re talking about something closer to Gore than to Garrett. We can use similar methodology (especially during the summer prior to a draft) across a draft class to loosely tier players, while being mindful of changing industry norms. As the draft approaches, though, it’s necessary to polish up the order within a given tier or move players around because of makeup, medicals, and other considerations.


Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 3/12/18

2:01
Dan Szymborski: He passes to the man, shoots it, and boom goes the dynamite!

2:02
Gub Gub: Did you hear how the guy who invented Super Mario contacted the GoldenEye people, and said the violence was appalling, and that they should add a scene at the end with the characters shaking hands in the hospital?

2:02
Dan Szymborski: I did not.  That is amazing, if true.

2:02
Soda Popinski: Rangers fans are grousing about the team’s failure to move on Lance Lynn or Alex Cobb on one year deals, which would allow the team to move Doug Fister or Mike Minor to the pen.  Are the Rangers close enough, and is the upgrade enough, that Lynn or Cobb at 1 year, $12-14M would be worth it?

2:03
Dan Szymborski: At this point, not really.  The window for the Rangers is getting really small and I don’t think they’re close enough that Lynn would matter.  Cobb maybe if you can get an option.

2:03
Slapshot: Buster Olney retweeted something yesterday about how Zack Greinke’s fastball is only sitting at 84-87 MPH right now.  Is this something the D’Backs or fantasy players should be worried about?

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Will More Players Move Up the Defensive Spectrum?

GOODYEAR, Ariz. — Right before the start of spring training, Cincinnati prospect Nick Senzel received a phone call at his home in Knoxville, Tenn. It was from Reds headquarters. The club had a question for its top rookie-eligible player: could he handle shortstop?

“I said, ‘Yeah,’” Senzel told FanGraphs recently in Arizona. “And they got me there now.”

Even before taking the call, the No. 2 pick of the 2016 June draft was taking ground balls at third, second, and shortstop — and even fly balls in the outfield — on the playing surface of Lindsey Nelson Stadium, the baseball home of his alma mater, the University of Tennessee. A third baseman in college, Senzel wanted to make himself as versatile as possible entering this season.

It was prescient planning, as the Reds have since begun one of the great experiments of the spring.

As players advance through professional baseball, as they age at the major-league level, they typically move down the defensive spectrum. What is so interesting about Senzel playing shortstop, even if it’s short-lived, is that it represntns a case of a player moving up the spectrum.

There is an argument to be made that more teams should be identifying players who can move to more challenging positions. Why? Because over the last decade, about 20% of defensive opportunities — as in batted balls in play — have evaporated. In this three-true-outcomes environment, it’s easier to hide a bat, to trade some glove for bat, when the ball is less of a threat to reach the field of play.

There were 60,249 “plays” by defenders in 2007, according to FanGraphs data. Last season, there were just 49,809 — or roughly 10,000 fewer.

Consider opportunity trends by position:

It’s not just Senzel. Paul DeJong, who appeared at a variety of positions during his junior campaign at Illinois State, received over half the Cardinals’ starts at shortstop last season. Lonnie Chisenhall and Jason Kipnis were deployed in center at times in 2017, aided by a staff that recorded the highest strikeout rate of all time. Dee Gordon is transitioning to center field in Seattle.

Could it work? Could teams benefit from more aggressive defensive assignments? Could it be the next big thing? Or at least a little thing at no cost to clubs ever in search of efficiency and hidden value?

***

Senzel believes he can stick at short and has ambitions to make the team as the club’s starter out of spring training, although the realities of how clubs manipulate service time make that all but impossible. Still, Senzel reported early to camp. He’s worked with Barry Larkin. He’s participated every day in a particular drill where rubber balls are thrown off a wall, forcing Senzel to quickly reset his feet and transfer the ball into throwing positions.

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Travis Sawchik FanGraphs Chat

12:03
Travis Sawchik: Greetings!

12:03
Travis Sawchik: This chat is going to have a delayed start as I’m in the Dodgers clubhouse until 12:30 pm est …

12:04
Travis Sawchik: So if you have a question you’d like to ask a Dodger, throw it in the queue!

12:04
Travis Sawchik: New estimated start time: 12:35 pm est

12:30
Travis Sawchik: Hey, I’m back

12:31
Travis Sawchik: Matt Kemp kicked us media hacks out

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Twins Add Lance Lynn to Island of Misfit Free Agents

Even the 2017 version of Lance Lynn would be of some benefit to the 2018 Twins.
(Photo: Keith Allison)

The Minnesota Twins continued a productive offseason over the weekend, signing Lance Lynn to a bargain-rate one-year, $12 million deal. Lynn turned down a $17.4 million qualifying offer from the Cardinals in November. He also reportedly turned down higher guarantees from other teams, per Jon Morosi. 

Not clear regarding those other offers is whether the average annual values of the contracts would have been equivalent or if Lynn would have had to forfeit the opportunity to explore free agency next offseason in exchange for a few extra million dollars. Whatever the case, it appears as though Lance Lynn will have to try his hand at free agency next winter if his ambition is to find a long-term home.

As for the Twins, they get great value on a player seemingly overlooked by the market. Indeed, the club seems to have specialized in this sort of deal over the winter. Heading into the offseason, for example, the crowd believed Addison Reed was in line for $27 million, the third-highest guarantee among relievers behind only the figures estimated for Wade Davis and Greg Holland. Reed ultimately agreed to join the Twins for just $16.75 million in mid-January — or less than the overall deals received by seven other relievers who’d signed at that point in the offseason.

The addition of Logan Morrison represents another instance in which the Twins have taken advantage of a slow market. The crowd expected Morrison to sign for $20 million. At the end of February, however, Derek Falvey et al. signed him for just one-third that amount.

Finally, there’s Lynn. Projected by the crowd to receive $60 million over four seasons, the right-hander settled for 20% of that figure. When the offseason began, it was reasonable to think that the Twins would need to guarantee $107 million to acquire all three players mentioned here. With just $35.25 million, though, the club signed the trio at a rate discounted by 67% from initial estimates.

The Twins’ bargain-shopping was not limited to free agency: the team also took on Jake Odorizzi and his $6.3 million salary in exchange for a prospect of little significance. Odorizzi went to the Twins not because of their willingness to provide Tampa Bay with considerable talent but because they were willing to pay his salary.

There are some logical explanations for the Twins’ apparent good fortune. For example, all the players acquired by the club come with significant question marks, and none are currently projected to provide more than two wins this season. That said, each possesses some kind of upside and a relatively recent track record of success. The combined five wins the club is projected to receive will cost just $33 million in 2018 salaries. Given the recent cost of wins on the free-agent market, the Twins’ efficiency should be lauded. More important than getting a good deal, though, they have also obtained solid major leaguers at areas of need.

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No $200 Million Deal for Jake Arrieta

Jake Arrieta received the highest AAV of the winter, but only the fifth-largest deal overall.
(Photo: Arturo Pardavila III)

The combination of a Cy Young award, a strong postseason track record, a relatively low total of innings thrown, and a history free of major arm injuries was supposed to carry Jake Arrieta to a nine-figure free-agent deal this winter. Agent Scott Boras was said to eye Justin Verlander‘s $180 million extension and Max Scherzer’s $210 million free-agent contract as ballpark figures for and templates for Arrieta. But in a winter during which the hot stove’s pilot light went out, the 32-year-old righty didn’t come anywhere close to landing such a megadeal. Instead, he settled for a three-year, $75 million contract with the Phillies, albeit one with some bells and whistles that could make it considerably more lucrative.

Via FanRag Sports’ Jon Heyman, Arrieta will make $30 million in 2018 and $25 million in 2019, before having a chance to opt out. If he doesn’t opt out, he’ll make $20 million in 2020. If he does opt out, the team has the option to override that by triggering a two-year extension at a minimum of $20 million per year, with incentives (whose exact parameters are unknown at this writing) based on 2018-19 games started that could take those years to $25 million, and further incentives based on Cy Young finishes that could take them to $30 million. The maximum deal becomes five years and $135 million.

Nobody is going to weep for Arrieta, but based upon the guaranteed money, it does appear that Boras overplayed his hand. In early January, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reported that the Cubs, for whom Arrieta pitched from mid-2013 through 2017, were willing to bring Arrieta back via a four-year deal “for about $110 million,” which represents a higher average annual value ($27.5 million) than he ultimately got, unless one simply assumes he’ll opt out without the Phillies overriding. A month ago, just before they closed a six-year, $126 million deal with Yu Darvish, the Cubs reportedly circled back to Arrieta with a similar offer. As he had done when the team tried to secure him via long-term extensions in 2016 and 2017, Arrieta declined.

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Jake Arrieta Joins Phillies Club Marching Towards Relevance

In a maneuver already utilized too often by clubs this offseason, the Phillies have selected a weekend night — a time when right-thinking people everywhere have already filled their glasses with some of the unmixed Falernian — to announce a deal of some note. In this particular case, what Philadelphia has done is to sign free-agent right-hander Jake Arrieta.

Bob Nightengale was among the first with the terms of the deal:

Jay Jaffe will address the agreement in greater detail soon. For the moment, however, it makes sense to consider the implications of this transaction on two fronts — in the context both of (a) the Phillies’ rotation and (b) this winter’s very strange free-agent market.

First, the Phillies. Here, we recognize one of the great benefits of acquiring a frontline starter — namely, that he replaces not another frontline starter, but whichever pitcher has been designated to occupy the very last spot in the rotation. Our depth-chart projections call for Arrieta to produce something just shy of three wins in 2018. How does that compare to whomever he’s displacing?

By way of reference, here were our projections for the Philadelphia rotation before the addition of Arrieta:

Phillies Rotation, Pre-Arrieta
Name IP ERA FIP WAR
Aaron Nola 177 3.58 3.46 4.3
Nick Pivetta 157 4.54 4.45 2.1
Vince Velasquez 122 4.50 4.41 1.7
Jerad Eickhoff 157 4.74 4.74 1.6
Mark Leiter 93 4.83 4.83 0.8
Ben Lively 110 5.15 5.17 0.6
Adam Morgan 28 4.53 4.59 0.3
Zach Eflin 46 5.01 4.98 0.3
Ricardo Pinto 9 5.44 5.46 0.0
Drew Anderson 9 5.33 5.31 0.0
Jose Taveras 9 5.54 5.62 0.0
Enyel De Los Santos 9 5.18 5.23 0.0
Jake Thompson 9 5.05 5.17 0.0
Total 936 4.55 4.50 11.9

The rotation spots of Eickhoff, Nola, Pivetta, and Velasquez are all probably safe. In this case, Arrieta is probably replacing some combination of Leiter and Lively. The immediate benefit to the Phils, in that context, appears to be about two wins for 2018. The secondary benefit is that, if and when a Phillies starter is unable to make an appearance, his spot will be assigned to Mark Leiter and not someone residing even closer to replacement level.

So that’s the signing from Philadelphia’s side. What about Arrieta’s?

At the end of February, Craig Edwards made a noteworthy observation — namely, that free agents who receive the largest projected contracts in our annual crowdsourcing exercise are actually the most likely to exceed their crowdsourced estimates.

Consider this table from Edwards’ piece:

Crowdsourcing Projection Accuracy: 2014-2017
Crowd ($/M) Actual ($/M) Difference %
Above $80 M 2408.5 2595.3 7.8%
Between $40 M and $80 M 1770.0 1675.0 -5.3%
Between $10 M and $40 M 2137.5 1723.6 -19.3%
Up to $10 M 182.0 232.5 27.7%

Players who have been projected to receive $80 million or more have actually signed worth about 8% more than the crowd anticipated. Players forecast for lower amounts have actually received less. Edwards points out that, despite this strange offseason, the top free agents were still doing quite well.

Consider the free-agent signings of $80 million or more at the time of his piece:

Crowdsource Projection Accuracy: 2018
Name Date Signed Crowd Actual Difference
Eric Hosmer 2/19/2018 $95 $144 51.6%
Yu Darvish 2/13/2018 $125 $126 0.8%
J.D. Martinez 2/19/2018 $110 $110 0.0%
Total $330 $380 15.2%

While neither Darvish nor Martinez hit quite the 8% mark, both basically nailed their crowdsourced projections. And overall, including the Hosmer deal, the top free agents were actually outperforming previous seasons.

Since Edwards’ post, however, both Mike Moustakas and (now) Jake Arrieta have signed. The results for the $80-plus million demographic are a bit less impressive:

Crowdsource Projection Accuracy: 2018 (Updated)
Name Date Signed Crowd Actual Difference
Eric Hosmer 2/19/2018 $95 $144 51.6%
Yu Darvish 2/13/2018 $125 $126 0.8%
J.D. Martinez 2/19/2018 $110 $110 0.0%
Jake Arrieta 3/11/2018 $110 $75 -31.8%
Mike Moustakas 3/8/2018 $85 $7 -91.8%
Total $525 $462 -12.0%

Arrieta was forecast for $110 million but came up $35 million short of that. As Jon Heyman notes, there’s actually a strange clause in the deal that could allow the Phillies to extend the deal to five years and $135 million, but it’s based on a couple unlikely contingencies. So, for the moment, we’ll treat it as $75 million. Unlike top free agents in years past, Arrieta has signed for considerably less than the crowd anticipated. It seems possible, as a result, that even more than baseball’s middle class is embattled.


FanGraphs Audio: Meg Rowley on the Performance of Anger in Baseball

Episode 805
Meg Rowley recently published a twopart taxonomy of baseball ejections, each post populated largely by video of adult men wildly flailing their arms and other appendages. “Is this real anger?” the host asks. Patiently, is how Rowley responds.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 58 min play time.)

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