Within our Leaders menu there sits a Combined WAR Leaderboard under the WAR Tools sub-header. It has pitchers and position players on one leaderboard to compare their WAR. We’ve made an update, so the leaderboard now displays “Total WAR”, and not just WAR from their primary role. This was necessary because a certain two-way player started playing in the league this season.
We retained the old WAR values from the previous version and labeled that “Primary WAR”, so a traditional NL pitcher will only have his pitching WAR in the “Primary WAR” column. The “Total WAR” column will display his batting (position player) WAR + pitching WAR. This is particularly interesting for pitchers like Madison Bumgarner.
The primary role is determined by looking at all the appearance the player has made, it works well with players in the traditional roles. Shohei Ohtani’s primary role is displaying as a position player. The primary role only affects the which WAR is reported to the “Primary WAR”. “Total WAR” is unaffected by roles. (As of 4/21/2018, you’ll find Shohei Ohtani on the second page of the leaderboard.)
This leaderboard is a candidate for additional overhaul and expansion, so let us know if there are additional features that would be useful for a combined WAR leaderboard.
Each week, we publish in the neighborhood of 75 articles across our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community Research.
Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the strange standings, turnover in the Reds’ dugout, the hot starts by the Red Sox and Mookie Betts, the side effects of pitchers’ increasing avoidance of the strike zone, and the struggles of the Mets’ self-described starting pitcher Matt Harvey. Then they talk to former FanGraphs writer Corinne Landrey, now a quantitative analyst for the Philadelphia Phillies, about transitioning from writing to working for a front office, how joining a team affects fandom, how the Phillies’ front office has evolved, the gap between public and private knowledge, working with Gabe Kapler, shifting from rebuilding to contending, and more.
Audio intro: Modest Mouse, "Sunspots in the House of the Late Scapegoat"
Audio interstitial: Metronomy, "Corinne"
Audio outro: Prince, "Sometimes it Snows in April"
Link to Jeff’s article about the Red Sox offense
Link to Jeff’s article about Mookie Betts
Link to Ben’s article about Matt Harvey’s first year
Link to Ben’s article about pitches out of the strike zone
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On Wednesday, I unveiled the 2018 Ken Phelps All-Star team, in what I hope will be the first in an annual series. Now, thanks to the indefatigable Sean Dolinar, we know how this team would fare were it somehow actually assembled.
First, some explanation. Because this is a team of Quad-A players, the middle relievers and backup position players required to fill out an entire roster have just been projected as replacement-level contributors. As a result, this team would be getting, for example, 314 innings of replacement-level pitching by guys I didn’t mention. Secondly, I allocated playing time based loosely on platoons where appropriate and with additional days off for injury-prone guys. (Slade Heathcott, I’m looking at you.) So, with those qualifications in mind, to the numbers.
If the Ken Phelpses, as assembled, were to take the field for the 2018 season, Steamer projects them to produce a 57-105 record. That is, as they say, putrid. But if a replacement-level team – a team of entirely replacement level players – would win between 45 and 48 games, that means this team is comfortably above replacement level even composed of freely available talent. That’s pretty significant, for a couple of reasons.
Bryan Price finally took the fall on Thursday, but as the manager of a team short on major-league talent, with a rebuilding effort that isn’t yet close to paying off, it was only a matter of time. It’s difficult to see why the Reds waited until now instead of dismissing him last October — after four full seasons, another 18 games shouldn’t have changed the thinking of the Reds’ brass — but one thing that didn’t enhance Price’s chances for survival was the early-season struggles of Joey Votto. On the heels of one of the best seasons of his career, the 34-year-old first baseman is off to an uncharacteristically bad start, one that can’t help but stand out even given the small sample sizes.
Votto is currently hitting just .258/.315/.273, with one extra-base hit and five walks — as many as he had in a single game last August 27 — in 73 plate appearances. That’s from a five-time All-Star who hit .320/.454/.578 last year, with the majors’ best on-base percentage and walk total (135) and the NL’s top wRC+ (165). His SLG and .258 ISO were his highest since 2010.
In fact, before we dig into this year’s dismal numbers, it’s worth noting that Votto may have done more to enhance his Hall of Fame case last year than just about any player. With his second seven-win season in three years (according to Baseball-Reference WAR, which I continue to use for my JAWS system), he surpassed the seven-year peak score of the average Hall of Fame first baseman and put himself in range of surpassing the JAWS standard as well.
Fringe Five Scoreboards: 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013.
The Fringe Five is a weekly regular-season exercise, introduced a few years ago by the present author, wherein that same author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own fallible intuition to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.
Central to the exercise, of course, is a definition of the word fringe, a term which possesses different connotations for different sorts of readers. For the purposes of the column this year, a fringe prospect (and therefore one eligible for inclusion among the Five) is any rookie-eligible player at High-A or above who (a) was omitted from the preseason prospect lists produced by Baseball Prospectus, MLB.com, John Sickels, and (most importantly) FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel* and also who (b) is currently absent from a major-league roster. Players appearing on any updated, midseason-type list will also be excluded from eligibility.
*Note: I’ve excluded Baseball America’s list this year not due to any complaints with their coverage, but simply because said list is now behind a paywall.
For those interested in learning how Fringe Five players have fared at the major-league level, this recent post offers that kind of information. The short answer: better than a reasonable person would have have expected. In the final analysis, though, the basic idea here is to recognize those prospects who are perhaps receiving less notoriety than their talents or performance might otherwise warrant.
JT Brubaker, RHP, Pittsburgh (Profile)
After twice appearing among the Next Five portion of this weekly exercise last year, Brubaker returned to that space in last week’s dispatch, as well. That was on the strength of his first two starts, during which he struck out 13 of 45 batters faced (or just under 30%). Brubaker was even better this past Wednesday, recording a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 8:1 against 23 batters while facing Cleveland’s Double-A affiliate (box).
Nor is Brubaker well acquitted merely by the numbers. The 24-year-old right-hander sat at 93-97 mph with his fastball during the Fall League, according to lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen, who also suggests that Brubaker possesses “late-blooming traits.”
Brubaker appeared to throw two different breaking pitches against Akron, first this shorter-breaking (and typically less effective) slider/cutter type pitch…
https://gfycat.com/SameMadDuckling
… and then a more vertically oriented pitch with which he got multiple whiffs below the zone (like the two featured here):
https://gfycat.com/HiddenWelloffGalago
| 9:05 |
: Hello friends |
| 9:05 |
: Welcome to Friday baseball chat |
| 9:05 |
: I was away and off the grid Thursday, and missing one day of baseball always makes me feel like I missed a hundred. Let’s see how this goes! |
| 9:06 |
: So…. About Carson’s Chat. I wish I hadn’t have been there because now I realize how empty and meaningless life will be without the prospect of him doing weekly chats. |
| 9:06 |
: It sounds as if he has been successful |
| 9:06 |
: In that this is one more person who is going to live feeling like life is empty and meaningless |
This author spent a fair amount of his 2017 documenting the Fly-Ball Revolution. Of the 330 posts this author published from January through the end of last season, 49 included the term “launch angle.” I looked it up. Overkill? Perhaps. But as a devout believer and documenter, I thought it would be irresponsible not to follow up early this season.
In a piece for The Hardball Times Annual this winter, I wondered aloud if the fly-ball revolution would follow the trajectory of shifts. Shifts were a relative curiosity in 2011 and then enjoyed growth rates of 94.8%, 50.4%, 92.2%, 34.8%, and 57.8% from 2012 to -17, jumping from 2,350 shifts in 2011 to 28,130 in 2016. Shifts fell in total volume for the first time last year, to 26,705. The idea and practice of shifting spread dramatically and rapidly. Just about everyone bought in.
On Wednesday, Yoan Moncada hit a grand slam and stole a base. Those were the notable accomplishments for the White Sox’ 22-year-old second baseman in Chicago’s game at Oakland. In a less remarkable but still relevant development, Moncada recorded his 300th plate appearances for the White Sox since his debut with the club last June.
Three years ago today, Moncada had yet to play a professional game in the United States, and while he came with considerable hype and pedigree, his play thus far has mostly lived up to the lofty expectations. Here’s his line with the White Sox since his promotion last season.
| Name | PA | HR | BB% | K% | ISO | BABIP | AVG | OBP | SLG | wRC+ | BsR | Off | Def | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yoan Moncada | 305 | 11 | 12.8 % | 33.8 % | .187 | .331 | .229 | .336 | .416 | 106 | 3.7 | 6.1 | 1.5 | 1.8 |
A combination of good patience, decent power, and solid speed have allowed Moncada to mitigate the effects of his one real weakness (swinging and missing) and permitted him to produce solid numbers. And while we can’t simply double the numbers here to arrive at a full-season forecast for Moncada, our Depth Chart projections nevertheless call for an average offensive performance and roughly three-win season in 2018.
If there’s a number that jumps out, however, it’s the one caused by his aforementioned weakness: Moncada has struck out more than a third of the time with the White Sox overall and in just under 40% of his plate appearances this season. That number is scary high. While Moncada has incredible tools, it could be difficult for him to capitalize on his immense talent if he fails to discern strikes from balls.
PITTSBURGH — As defensive shifts — or, at least, infields shifts — have become an everyday part of the game, it takes a lot to get our attention. The Diamondbacks’ shift against Rockies second baseman DJ LeMahieu last season got our attention.
In case you’ve forgotten, borrowing from a post from last season detailing the alignment:
That gets our attention.