Unless you’ve stumbled upon this post by accident or have a particular passion for bullpens — particularly for teams with not particularly great bullpens — you are familiar with the positional power rankings here at FanGraphs. The position players were all covered last week, so don’t forget to read up on any you might have missed. Jeff Sullivan wrote a useful introduction that is also available among the links above.

I haven’t actually looked into this, but I would have to guess that these relief rankings are subject to the most volatility when it comes to how relievers actually play out by the end of the season. Jeff Sullivan recently noted the lack of consistency of bullpens from one year to the next. One could also look to last year’s rankings to make that point. The Arizona Diamondbacks were projected to finish last in these rankings a year ago, however, they finished 11th in 2017 reliever WAR. In addition to the Diamondbacks, the Angels, Blue Jays, Brewers, Phillies, Rays, and Royals were all featured in the bottom half of last year’s rankings and ended the season in the top half by WAR.

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In their final team-preview podcast of 2018, Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about a new podcast-inspired song, the Scott Kingery, Ketel Marte, and Christian Vazquez extensions, Ben’s partially listener-inspired research about catcher offense, a Devil Rays close call, and whether the ball is juiced in MLB The Show, then preview the 2018 Mets (28:47) with MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo, and the 2018 Rays (1:08:35) with CBS Sports’ R.J. Anderson.

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I think I say the same thing every year, but, I suppose, tradition is tradition. I run a lot of polling projects, crowdsourcing the FanGraphs audience, but out of all the polling projects, I enjoy this one the most. I don’t enjoy the first post; I enjoy analyzing the results. This is the results-analysis post. So often, our site supplies projections, and that’s that. If you see a projection you don’t like, you might say something in the comments or post something on Twitter, but that’s the end of it. Here, you get to have a collective voice. Not that we’re going to adjust our team projections based on this, mind you, but this is a chance to see community feedback.

Here is where you can see our best projected standings, taking schedule into account. As always, those are based on ZiPS projections, Steamer projections, and manually-maintained team depth charts. Those standings have been available now for a little while, but that doesn’t mean you have to think they’re correct. So last week, I ran a post with 30 polls, asking for your input. Is a given projection too optimistic? Is a given projection too pessimistic? I’ve got everything you said in a spreadsheet. This community is more fond of the Brewers, and it’s not so fond of the Blue Jays. That probably doesn’t surprise you. After all, you, the reader, are a part of the voting community.

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A quick glance at the contract situation for the best players on the San Francisco Giants might make it appear as though the club is set up for the long haul. Of the Giants’ eight best players by projection this season, seven are locked up through at least 2020, with the eighth signed for two more seasons. Every single player expected to make a significant contribution is signed or under team control for at least two seasons, with Andrew McCutchen representing the only notable exception.

What that quick glance at the Giants’ contract situations might miss, however, is the ages of all of those contributors. With a veteran core, the Giants are very much in win-now mode and losing Madison Bumgarner — who likely won’t return until June after breaking his pinky finger — deals the team a big blow in what might be the team’s last best chance at another playoff run.

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Starting pitching might be the most interesting aspect of this positional power rankings series, given how much impact it has on a team’s season. Jay got you warmed up with 16th- through 30th-ranked rotations this morning. Now here is a graphical look at the top 15:

The mainstays atop the list aren’t going to shock you. It’s the cream of the crop, including both of last season’s World Series entrants, within the top three. Two American League teams open up the list then the National League has four of the top six; of the American League’s top five, three come from the East division. Perhaps most shocking of all is the Rockies landing in the top 15, as they’ve developed a nice group of arms. The two Pennsylvania-based teams could have enough pitching to make some noise this year, and a fourth AL East team sneaks in right near the end.

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Scott Kingery just signed a long-term deal with the Phillies for life-changing money. Congratulations, Scott! Of course, Kingery has yet to play in the big leagues, and that makes this deal unusual. The previous largest extension ever for a player who hadn’t yet debuted in the big leagues was Jon Singleton’s deal. That didn’t work out too well for the Astros, but Kingery is a great prospect. Odds are, Kingery will be fine, and this deal will be fine. That’s hard-hitting analysis for you.

There are two things in baseball that really pique my interest: rules and things that have never happened before. The Kingery extension is an example of the latter. This is something new, and that makes it interesting. What makes it doubly interesting is how my Twitter feed populated immediately after news of this deal had percolated through the interwebs for a time. People seemed to have one of two reactions:

1. Kingery signed a below-market deal just to avoid starting in the minors and having his service time manipulated, and therefore this contract is a joke.
2. The Phillies paid too much money to a guy who hasn’t shown anything (literally) at the big-league level yet, and therefore this contract is a joke.

The People seem to agree that the contract is a joke, but can’t quite agree on why. And both points can’t be true: if the contract is a joke because it’s a gross overpay, then it can’t also be a joke because it pays too little. And this got me thinking about the prisoner’s dilemma.

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the New York Yankees. 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. 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.

60 FV Prospects

Torres was seen as one of the top two players in his July 2nd class (along with fellow top-100 prospect, White Sox RF Eloy Jimenez), profiling as the prototypical Venezuelan shortstop, featuring advanced feel for all aspects but no flashy plus tool. He’s developed largely as expected, no small feat for a celebrated 15-year-old, with his physicality and game power the biggest change in the last few years. Some scouts have wondered if he fits better at second or third base long-term, but Torres’s bat will profile anywhere in the dirt, and he’s big-league ready once he’s fully recovered from last June’s Tommy John surgery.

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Thanks to the magic of Statcast and PITCHf/x before it, the means by which to evaluate pitchers have grown exponentially. Beyond ERAs and per-nine rate stats — and beyond DIPS, FIP, and BABIP, too — we now quantify pitch usage, velocity, spin rate, movement, whiff rates, pitch tunnels, quality of contact and more. It can get dizzying, and you can find some way in which just about every pitcher this side of Clayton Kershaw is below average. Last year, 68 pitchers threw at least 120 innings and finished with an ERA- below 100. Only 54 finished with a FIP- below 100, as well. Raise the bar to 162 innings and the count falls to 32 pitchers, occupying 21% of the majors’ 150 rotation jobs. As balls fly out of the park at record paces, relatively few starters have enough stuff to dominate. The vast majority are just trying to command a fastball well enough to get a shot at fooling hitters with their offspeed stuff.

Given 30 major-league rotations, 15 have to be below average, and among them are all too many pitchers easy to ding for their middling velocity, lack of command, failure to get hitters to chase their breaking stuff, or inability to stay healthy. Their projections inevitably look dire or at least uninspiring, and writing about them can feel like shooting fish in a barrel. Yet even among these lesser rotations, tiny miracles that defy our projections occur all the time. A pitcher learns a new grip, or irons out his mechanics, or gets a competent defense behind him. Suddenly, he’s living up to the visions of the men who scouted him, or at least outpitching the numbers that tell us all of the ways in which he is lacking.

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Manny Margot upped his launch angle more than any other player in the second half of the 2017 season. Eno Sarris wrote about that fact in January, and as he did so with data alone, a not-insignificant piece of information remained unaddressed: How purposeful was the change, and what (or who) prompted it?

The answer to the latter question is Johnny Washington. San Diego’s assistant hitting coach made the suggestion, and knowing that “hitting the ball in the air gives you more chances in the gaps,” Margot took it to heart.

The 23-year-old outfielder confirmed that “right around the halfway point” is when he began trying to hit more balls in the air. The ways in which he accomplished that goal were twofold. Read the rest of this entry »