Gerrit Cole was reportedly traded to the Astros earlier this week. I wrote about that hypothetical move in greater length here and why Cole might fit well with Houston.
I wrote earlier this offseason that the Pirates ought to trade Cole. The Pirates are re-tooling to some degree, while the Astros are a World Series contender that has been motivated to find a starting pitcher. It makes sense for both parties.
When FanGraphs conducted its annual free-agent crowdsourcing project just after the end of the 2017 season, the results suggested that Addison Reed would receive the third-richest deal among relievers this winter.
| Rank | Player | Med. Years | Med AAV | Med Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | Wade Davis | 4 | $15 | $60 |
| 18 | Greg Holland | 3 | $12 | $36 |
| 20 | Addison Reed | 3 | $9 | $27 |
| 24 | Mike Minor | 3 | $9 | $27 |
| 29 | Jake McGee | 3 | $8 | $24 |
| 32 | Bryan Shaw | 3 | $7 | $21 |
| 37 | Brandon Morrow | 2 | $9 | $18 |
If the crowd were correct, Reed was in line for something remarkably similar to Mike Minor this offseason. So when Minor landed a guaranteed three years and $28 million at the beginning of December — that is, almost precisely the same figure for which he’d been projected by the masses — it seemed that, in theory, the crowd’s estimate represented a reasonable target for Reed.
Most weeks, we pick 15 of the best articles posted to our various blogs in that time frame. But with long-time managing editor Dave Cameron leaving us, we thought we would do something different. To send him off, we selected 15 of the best Dave Cameron posts of all time, dating back to when he joined us in 2008. Here we go.
Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Lindbergh talks to SB Nation’s Grant Brisbee about the Mets’ Jay Bruce signing and finding ways to engage with baseball and keep the content coming during an excruciatingly slow offseason, then brings on Forbes contributor David Seideman to talk about trends in baseball memorabilia collecting, the enduring appeal of historic relics and signatures, and the most unlikely finds and valuable discoveries in recent years.
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There are times when a single statistic grabs your attention. Such a time occurred for this author late last month, courtesy an excellent piece by Sahadev Sharma at The Athletic.
Sharma examined the number of innings recorded for every major-league team by pitchers they’d acquired via the draft since the arrival of the current curse-breaking Cubs regime ahead of the 2012 season.
During that timeframe, which includes six drafts, the Cubs have produced a total of 30 homegrown innings. Thirty! The Blue Jays lead the majors with 1,299 such innings. The Cardinals are second in the majors and lead the NL with 872, according to Sharma’s research.
As of press time, J.D. Martinez, the biggest bat available this offseason, remains unsigned. In any normal offseason, we could chalk this up to Scott Boras slow-playing the market until he gets the deal he wants for his client. Even in this abnormally slow offseason, we probably should still chalk it up to Boras playing his normal games — although holding out until spring training, as has been reported by Jon Heyman, would represent an unusual gambit. Heyman reports that offers are currently in the $120 to $150 million range, with Boras seeking an additional $30 to $60 million on top of that upper figure. As for how much Martinez will be worth over the next five to seven years, there is a wide range of possibilities there, too.
At the beginning of the offseason, when Carson Cistulli crowdsourced deals for the top-50 free agents, respondents were underwhelmed by Martinez, seeing a five-year deal worth $110 million. Looking at projections, that seems reasonable. Generous, even. Steamer projects Martinez for a 130 wRC+ for 2018, right in line with his career average. Take away a few runs from below-average baserunning and a bunch more for subpar defense in a corner-outfield spot, and it turns into a 2.7 WAR at age 30 next season. Now 30, Martinez is more likely than not to be entering the decline phase of his career. Starting with his projected 2.7 WAR for 2018 and adjusting for age-related decline thereafter makes a $100 million contract seem almost outrageous.
Do you know what else seems a bit outrageous, though? Projecting a player with a 148 wRC+ over his last 2,143 plate appearances and a 166 wRC+ at 29 to decline so dramatically at 30 years of age. Dave Cameron believed Martinez would get a contract more representative of his recent performance, predicting six years and $156 million. Martinez is certainly a great hitter now — only Aaron Judge and Mike Trout posted higher wRC+ marks than Martinez last season — but his prospects for future production come with some uncertainty. Martinez hasn’t been a model of health in his career. As he enters his 30s, his risk for injury will only get worse.
After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the San Francisco Giants. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.
Batters
“Baseball’s biggest disappointment,” is how Jeff Sullivan characterized the 2017 Giants back at the end of September. And not without reason: the club produced the league’s worst record relative to the preseason projections, a development expressed in graphic form just below.
On the one hand, that’s bad for the 2017 Giants. On the other, though, it’s probably good for the 2018 version of the club. The Giants are likely due — due perhaps more than any other team — for positive regression. Even if San Francisco were to field precisely the same roster this next season, that same precise roster would almost certainly outperform its disappointing predecessor.
The ZiPS projections appear to support this hypothesis. Here, for example, are the forecasts for San Francisco’s top-four returning hitters:
| Player | 2017 PA | 2017 WAR | 2018 zPA | 2018 zWAR | PA Diff | WAR Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buster Posey | 568 | 4.3 | 534 | 4.9 | -34 | 0.6 |
| Brandon Crawford | 570 | 2.0 | 567 | 3.5 | -3 | 1.5 |
| Brandon Belt | 451 | 2.3 | 503 | 3.3 | 52 | 1.0 |
| Joe Panik | 573 | 2.0 | 571 | 3.0 | -2 | 1.0 |
| Average | 541 | 2.7 | 544 | 3.7 | 3 | 1.0 |
The core returning members of the Giants’ offense — Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford, Joe Panik, and Buster Posey — are projected, on average, to produce an additional win each in 2018. That’s in roughly the same number of plate appearances as 2017, as well, meaning that ZiPS is calling for all four simply to play better this season.
This isn’t to say the club’s field-playing cohort is without flaw. No outfielder, for example, is projected even to produce an average season. Nevertheless, a combination of positive regression and Evan Longoria (645 PA, 3.1 zWAR) ought to facilitate easy improvement over last year’s performance.
Below is an analysis of the prospects in the Cincinnati Reds farm system. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from our own (both Eric Longenhagen’s and Kiley McDaniel’s) observations. The KATOH (stats-only) statistical projections, probable-outcome graphs, and (further down) Mahalanobis comps have been provided by Chris Mitchell. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.
| Rk | Name | Age | Highest Level | Position | ETA | FV |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nick Senzel | 22 | AA | 3B | 2018 | 60 |
| 2 | Hunter Greene | 18 | R | RHP | 2021 | 55 |
| 3 | Taylor Trammell | 20 | A | OF | 2021 | 55 |
| 4 | Tyler Mahle | 23 | MLB | RHP | 2018 | 50 |
| 5 | Jose Siri | 22 | A | CF | 2020 | 50 |
| 6 | Jesse Winker | 24 | MLB | OF | 2018 | 50 |
| 7 | Jose Israel Garcia | 19 | R | SS | 2021 | 50 |
| 8 | Shedric Long | 22 | AA | 2B | 2019 | 50 |
| 9 | Jeter Downs | 19 | R | SS | 2021 | 45 |
| 10 | Tony Santillan | 20 | A | RHP | 2020 | 45 |
| 11 | Tyler Stephenson | 21 | A | C | 2020 | 45 |
| 12 | Vlad Gutierrez | 22 | A+ | RHP | 2019 | 45 |
| 13 | Keury Mella | 24 | MLB | RHP | 2018 | 45 |
| 14 | Alex Blandino | 25 | AAA | 2B | 2018 | 45 |
| 15 | T.J. Friedl | 22 | A+ | CF | 2019 | 45 |
| 16 | Tanner Rainey | 25 | AA | RHP | 2018 | 45 |
| 17 | Stuart Fairchild | 21 | R | OF | 2020 | 40 |
| 18 | Jimmy Herget | 24 | AAA | RHP | 2018 | 40 |
| 19 | Aristides Aquino | 23 | AA | OF | 2019 | 40 |
| 20 | Jose Lopez | 24 | R | RHP | 2018 | 40 |
| 21 | Ariel Hernandez | 25 | MLB | RHP | 2017 | 40 |
| 22 | Alfredo Rodriguez | 23 | R | SS | 2019 | 40 |
| 23 | Jacob Heatherly | 19 | R | LHP | 2021 | 40 |
| 24 | Miguel Hernandez | 18 | R | SS | 2023 | 40 |
| 25 | Phil Ervin | 25 | MLB | OF | 2017 | 40 |
| 26 | Chris Okey | 23 | A+ | C | 2019 | 40 |
60 FV Prospects
| Age | 22 | Height | 6’1 | Weight | 205 | Bat/Throw | R/R |
|---|
| Hit | Raw Power | Game Power | Run | Fielding | Throw |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 55/70 | 55/55 | 40/55 | 55/55 | 45/55 | 55/55 |
Senzel had a spectacular season, slashing .321/.391/.514 between High-A and Double-A in his first full pro season. He’s one of the toughest outs in the minors, combining a patient, discerning, offensive approach with a simple swing, superlative hand-eye coordination, and bat control. Senzel doesn’t have monster raw power, nor does he seek to take max-effort swings by utilizing a big stride or leg kick. Instead, his power comes from precise, high-quality contact. He’s going to be a doubles machine with home runs coming opportunistically rather than as a core aspect of his approach, but he’ll still hit for power.
As you are probably aware, this offseason has delivered an unusually ice-cold start to free agency. The final months of 2017 facilitated little in the way of movement. The new year, meanwhile, has given us Jay Bruce to the Mets.
There are a variety of reasons for this — reasons that have been examined at this site and elsewhere. For starters, more teams are thinking the same way and believe that free agency is often a losing bet for the club. There are undoubtedly some teams waiting and holding cash in reserve until next year’s historic class. There is the new CBA, which has tougher penalties regarding the luxury tax. And Dave Cameron noted on Tuesday — his last real post for the site — how the presence of a few “super teams” might have removed the motivation for clubs to improve and spend.
Peter Gammons briefly outlined the perspective of clubs and agents last week for The Athletic.
Wrote Gammons:
Management has argued that agents have overrated their clients’ markets, with no Max Scherzer or Zack Greinke to establish the market. Agents feel this is an industry-wide attempt to make players wait and come down to a lesser market.
Last week, I cataloged which of Dave’s top free agents had signed thus far. Little has transpired in the meantime. As of today, Carlos Santana is the only player among Cameron’s top five to have found a home this offseason. Of Cameron’s top-10 free agents, only three have signed. Of the top 20, just six have a new contract, with Bruce representing the latest. That’s a unusually low volume of transactions.
| 1:28 |
: god I love the Hammond organ
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| 12:01 |
: The Giants’ outfield woes aren’t exaggerated, are they?
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| 12:01 |
: 1.4 win projection for the whole outfield. Worst in the big leagues. By almost a win behind the Royals. And it’s all in a bounce back from Pence, who looked pretty toasty last year.
|
| 12:02 |
: The Mets need to shake this roster up. Would a Lagares/Wheeler/Nimmo for Herrera and Merrifield be doable? At least start the conversation.
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| 12:03 |
: I’d like them to keep Nimmo, but this would be interesting. They still need an infielder, and I’m not sure how much they have left to spend.
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| 12:03 |
: ENO! It’s still like a month until mock drafting on Yahoo! Where can I get my fix?
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