Earlier this week, Travis Sawchik addressed some of the confusion surrounding an apparent bidding war for the services of Eric Hosmer, a player who’s limited to first base defensively and has produced a career batting line only about 10% better than league average.

Hosmer has been an inconsistent performer since his debut in 2011, but wildly differing narratives have emerged regarding the the 28-year-old and his virtues. There are those who praise his intangibles, qualities that have made Hosmer a team leader and World Series champion. And while Hosmer’s agent Scott Boras is certainly selling that point of view, it’s also one that’s difficult to quantify. For the purposes of this post, we’ll ignore it.

There’s also the narrative surrounding Hosmer’s ground-ball tendencies. If he could just embrace hitting the ball in the air — maybe in a park that doesn’t suppress fly balls like Kansas City — his offense might take another step forward. Travis discussed that possibility, as well, back in November.

An alternate way of selling Hosmer is to say he just produced a breakout season. That’s one we will explore here.

Perhaps the term breakout isn’t entirely accurate. After all, Hosmer authored a couple good seasons before 2017. It’s also reasonable to say that the most recent campaign constitutes the best of Hosmer’s career, though, his 135 wRC+ and 4.1 WAR both representing career highs. Hosmer also arrived in the majors as a 21-year-old who’d compiled just 329 plate appearances above High-A, so it’s possible that some of the challenges he’s faced at the major-league level are a product of having to learn on the job.

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Scott Alexander threw his power sinker 91.9% of the time last year — the highest percentage among pitchers to toss at least 40 innings — and for good reason. It was an elite offering. Working out of the Kansas City bullpen, Alexander logged an MLB-best 73.8% ground-ball rate and snazzy 2.48 ERA over 58 appearances covering 69 frames.

His worm-killing weapon will be on display in a new location this coming season. In a deal examined by Travis Sawchik last night, the Los Angeles Dodgers acquired Alexander in a three-team trade that also involved the Chicago White Sox.

The 28-year-old southpaw qualifies as a late-bloomer. A sixth-round pick by the Royals in 2010 out of Sonoma State University (he was originally at Pepperdine), Alexander went into last year with just 25 big-league innings under his belt. Thanks to a velocity jump and increased usage of his sinker, however, he emerged as one of the best under-the-radar relievers in the junior circuit.

Alexander discussed the evolution of his signature pitch when the Royals visited Fenway Park last summer. Also weighing in on the southpaw’s development was Kansas City bullpen coach Doug Henry.

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Alexander on learning his sinker: “I throw a one-seam sinker. The grip was taught to me in college by Scott Erickson. I think he might have been trying to make a comeback at the time, and he’d come over to our field, at Pepperdine, to work out. I was throwing a bullpen and he saw that my ball had natural movement to it, kind of a natural tail. He asked me what I was throwing, and I showed him my grip, which was a four-seam. He showed me his one-seam grip.

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The Dodgers, Royals, and White Sox executed a three-team trade on Thursday night. Los Angeles acquired 28-year-old lefty Scott Alexander from Kansas City and INF Jake Peter from Chicago while sending RHP Trevor Oaks and INF Erick Mejia to Kansas City and Luis Avilan to Chicago. In addition to Avilan, the White Sox received reliever Joakim Soria from Kansas City and cash from both other teams.

Travis Sawchik examined the deal last night from the Dodgers’ perspective. Below are scouting reports on Alexander (who exhausted rookie eligibility in 2018 but still has a developing skill set) and the deal’s prospects. Notes and prose are a combination of my own and Kiley McDaniel’s.

Going to Los Angeles

Scott Alexander, LHP (from Royals)
The late-blooming lefty was an effective MLB reliever last year, posting a 2.48 ERA on the back of a 73% ground-ball rate. He relies on a sinker that he throws a whopping 94% of the time, working at 92-94 and touching 96 with plus-plus life. It’s average velocity jumped nearly three ticks last year, while the usage jumped accordingly from 72%. He barely used his slider, but it’s an above-average pitch now — also with three ticks more velo — that scouts think he should throw more often. Alexander’s slider may work against righties effectively, as well, due to its more vertical shape (versus a normal slider). He may not miss many bats but is an effective relief piece who might only just be discovering something unique.

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Meeting new people is always a bit awkward, so it’s best to just jump in. My name is Meg Rowley, and I’m the new managing editor of The Hardball Times and a new writer for FanGraphs. After a stint at Lookout Landing, I’ve spent the last three years as a writer at Baseball Prospectus, where I wrote about topics ranging from diversity in front office hiring, to Adam Lind (maybe) farting, to the problems with replay review, to the faces you see when the Twins cause a long delay at Dodger Stadium.

But before I wrote those pieces, I came to baseball, as so many where I’m from do, through my parents and the late-90s Mariners. That team taught me about joy and winning, but also about thrilling disappointment and the small moments that snuff out a season. Smart, tenacious writers here and elsewhere taught me to look at the game through a sabermetric lens. And now, David Appelman has trusted me to supply and shape some of your baseball words. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity and will strive to prove myself worthy of that trust.

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For the past seven years, I’ve had the honor and privilege of writing for FanGraphs and its associated blogs, RotoGraphs, NotGraphs, and The Hardball Times. For the seven years prior to that, I had the honor and privilege of working for the Colorado Rockies Baseball Club. That’s a pretty neat coincidence. Looking back at the beginning of my adult life, I also spent seven years prior to joining the Rockies either in college or working a series of short-term jobs in order to build up a career. Triple sevens.

So, it seems like every seven years — or, as I’m approaching that seventh year — I look for a new challenge. This time around has been no different. Leaving the best job you’ve ever had is certainly not an easy thing to do, but for the second time, I’m about to do so. I am bidding FanGraphs and THT (mostly) farewell, as I take on what will most assuredly be my greatest challenge to date — opening up an independent bookstore.

Around this time last year, word began to spread that the bookstore in my town, Acton, Mass., was going to be closing. That was hard to fathom, since it had been in business for over 20 years. As I spoke with friends and neighbors around town, the feeling was the same: “Where do we buy books now?” And so my wheels started turning.

The result, barring last-minute hiccups, will be The Silver Unicorn Bookstore, which I hope to open at some point in March.

The store’s website is but a humble splash page at the moment. Once it’s set up, though, you will be able to purchase books from it online.

While I’m excited for my new (ad)venture, leaving FanGraphs and THT is going to be incredibly bittersweet. Looking at the Blog Roll recently, I realized I’ve worked with nearly every person on it. The relationships I’ve formed with my colleagues past and present, and with you, the readers, are something I will cherish for the rest of my life.

First and foremost, I have to thank David Appelman, not only for approving my initial hire as a writer, but then also agreeing to let me typeset The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2013 and, after that, agreeing to let me help lead THT’s transition to its current iteration and take over as managing editor. In between and after, he has trusted me with jobs like planning company trips, designing/ordering t-shirts, and managing interns. These were jobs that I was not always qualified to perform. I will miss working with him very, very much.

I’ll also desperately miss working with the editing team at THT — Joe Distelheim, Jason Linden, Dustin Nosler, and Greg Simons. Each one of them has stood by the site through thick and thin, and each one has bailed me out of plenty of jams.

Though I haven’t worked with her as long, Michelle Jay has become an invaluable person in my work life. Whatever the task at hand, I know that Michelle will get it done quickly, competently, and with a smile.

Of course, there’s all the people who I work with on the FanGraphs side: Carson Cistulli, Sean Dolinar, David Laurila, Eric Longenhagen, Chris Mitchell, Eno Sarris, Travis Sawchick, Jeff Sullivan, and Jeff Zimmerman chief among them. There’s also the people who I work with to produce stuff behind the scenes: Mary Craig, Mina Dunn, Jen Mac Ramos, Sarah Wexler, and intern Bailey Winston. There are countless others who I do and/or have worked with at FanGraphs and THT. I started building a list of a few particular people, but that list started to snowball, so I’ll simply thank Dave Studeman for trusting me to succeed him at THT. I’ve really had the pleasure and privilege of working with a tremendous amount of tremendously talented people.

Finally, there’s Dave Cameron. That Dave hired me in the first place is a bit breathtaking, knowing my credentials at the time and the credentials that would be subsequently required to write for the site. Objectively speaking, Dave never should have hired me. That he didn’t fire me once he did hire me is just as breathtaking. As he has reminded me, when he hired me, I claimed I would write for the site on a daily basis. I never did that. In fact, I think three original pieces per week (not counting chats) was probably my high-water mark, and for most of my tenure it was two or fewer. I owe Dave a great deal for not only hiring me, but for sticking with me as well.

Before this piece gets too sappy, I should note that my successor is a lot better at all this than me, so FanGraphs and THT are definitely not going to feel a pinch from my departure.

I should also note that I’m not leaving completely, hence the “For Now” in the title. I titled it as such because David Appelman has graciously agreed to let me start the FanGraphs Book Club. We won’t begin right away — I need to get the store open first — but hopefully around the start of the regular season, I will be back, with the goal of hosting a chat once every four-to-six weeks, on a particular baseball book that we’ll choose together. The idea is that we’ll pick a new baseball book ahead of time, and that book will be available for purchase through my store — in person and online — at a discounted rate. Hopefully, we can have a lot of fun with it, the same way we always have had in the FanGraphs After Dark chats.

I could keep writing this post forever. FanGraphs will always feel like home to me. But in the interest of (relative) brevity, I’ll stop here. Thanks as always, for reading and interacting with my work — it means everything to me. See you in a few months.

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 New York Yankees. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Batters
The Yankees’ roster, as presently constructed, is unusual. The prospective starting lineup features, on the one hand, two of this past season’s legitimately best players. It includes at least three others, however, who are projected for one or fewer wins in 2018. It doesn’t seem as though Brian Cashman et al. have specifically set out to assemble a stars-and-scrubs roster. That seems to have been the result so far, though.

The core of the offense, clearly, is formed by Aaron Judge (621 PA, 4.7 zWAR) and Giancarlo Stanton (593, 6.4). Dan Szymborski’s computer calls for that pair to record just over 11 wins together — as in, that’s the mean projected outcome, tempered by regression and aging and whatever. By comparison, consider: less than a third of clubs in 2017 featured teammates who produced observed combined win totals of 11 or greater. Four whole teams, in fact, failed to cross the 11-win threshold this past season. Judge and Stanton, in other words, represent a strong foundation for the offense.

What remains to be seen is how the club builds on that foundation. Greg Bird (372 PA, 1.1 zWAR), Ronald Torreyes (395, 0.1), and Miguel Andujar (576, 1.2) are, for now, the most likely Opening Day starters at first, second, and third base, respectively. They’re forecast for fewer than three wins between them. Bird’s modest wins projection is the result, in part, of a modest playing-time projection — not surprising for a player who’s recorded only 200 or so professional plate appearances over the last two seasons. As for Andujar and Torreyes, it wouldn’t be surprising at all to find them relegated to a bench role before the offseason is complete.

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While everyone waits for the thaw of the free-agent market, the Dodgers, Royals, and White Sox got together on a three-team trade Thursday evening.

The L.A. Times‘ Andy McCullough broke the news on the deal, as part of which the Royals send lefty reliever Scott Alexander to the Dodgers for prospects Erick Mejia and Trevor Oaks. The Dodgers ship lefty reliever Luis Avilan and $3 million to the White Sox. The Royals are also reportedly moving Joakim Soria and $1 million to the White Sox in something of a salary dump.

While there are quite a few moving parts, the focus within this post will be on Alexander, an interesting arm who could fill a need — and fill it cheaply — for one of the top clubs in baseball. Lefty reliever Tony Watson is a free agent, and the Dodgers are attempting to stay under the luxury tax. In giving up prospects and cash, the Dodgers must also feel Alexander is an upgrade over Avilan, who is projected to make $2.3 million in arbitration according to MLB Trade Rumors.

Alexander, a pre-arbitration arm with five years of control remaining, might not only fill a need cheaply for the next couple of seasons but also exceptionally well. While, on the one hand, the Dodgers are trading a lefty who misses bats, they’re also adding a lefty who might have more upside in today’s offensive environment.

In a year marked by fly balls, home runs, launch angles, and juiced balls, Alexander was, by some measures, the top ground-ball arm in the game in 2017. The approach led him to a 2.48 ERA, 3.23 FIP, and 56 ERA- last season over 69 innings. He emerged, quietly, as one of the better relievers in the game.

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Update: Please submit your application before Tuesday, January 23rd and 12:00 AM.

FanGraphs has grown tremendously these last few years, and we’re thrilled that you all have helped build this community into one of the best baseball hubs on the internet. And now, we’re growing again, as we’re looking to bring on another full-time writer to join our staff.

We’re looking for someone who is interested in publishing daily, covering the ins and outs of what is happening in Major League Baseball. Familiarity and comfort with the data here on FanGraphs is a requirement, but just as importantly, we’re looking for someone who asks interesting questions and then provides analysis or commentary around those questions.

This is a full-time salaried position with benefits. If you have a passion for writing about baseball and think you’d be a good fit with us, send us an email at wanted@fangraphs.com, and use the subject line “FanGraphs Full-Time Writer Application – 2018”; please ensure that is the subject so that we can keep all of the applications organized, and ensure yours does not slip through the cracks.

In your application, please include samples or links to work you’ve published previously, or some new original content that you feel best emphasizes your writing abilities and interests. You may also include a resume, but it is not required for the initial application.

As FanGraphs is a web-based business, relocation will not be required; this job can be completed from most geographic locations, as long as you have reliable internet access and are willing to work during the hours when people in the United States are awake.

If for some reason your application is unable to go through via the wanted@fangraphs.com e-mail address, please fill out a contact form with the same subject “FanGraphs Full-Time Writer Application – 2018” and you will be provided an alternate e-mail address to submit your application.

Episode 793
Dayn Perry is a contributor to CBS Sports’ Eye on Baseball and the author of three books — one of them not very miserable. He’s also the role-playing guest on this edition of FanGraphs Audio.

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 1 hr 7 min play time.)

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