| 1:58 |
: MAIN SCREEN TURN ON
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| 1:58 |
: Do you think David Wright ever gets another MLB AB?
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| 1:59 |
: I think he’ll make an appearance, but not many of ’em.
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| 1:59 |
: If you’re a White Sox fan, who would you rather not see blow games as their closer… Swarzak or Clippard?
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| 2:00 |
: Clippard because you’ll directly remember Robertson
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| 2:01 |
: Outlook for Mags Sierra? Can he be an above average hitter?
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PITTSBURGH — The Brewers are probably the greatest surprise among the league’s 30 teams this season. The club remains atop the NL Central for a number of reasons — the triumphant return of Eric Thames to the States, a breakout year from Travis Shaw. Among Milwaukee’s 25-man roster, however, the player most directly responsible for the team’s success is probably Jimmy Nelson, who ranks 10th among all pitchers with 3.1 WAR. Nelson entered the season with four career wins above replacement covering 440 innings.
Earlier this year FanGraphs’ Jeff Sullivan said the Brewers might have serendipitously found an ace in Nelson. Sullivan noted Nelson was among the game’s biggest improvers by strikeout- and walk-rate differential (K-BB%), particularly against left-handed hitters.
I’m not a particularly fast person. I was born in Jamaica, though, and Usain Bolt has practically been the country’s patron saint for the last decade, so particularly fast people amaze me. And what’s most amazing about Bolt isn’t even his raw foot speed, but rather that foot speed relative to his height. At 6-foot-5, he stands out among the crowd, from the blocks to the finish line, taking up to 15% fewer strides while breaking records.
We sort of have our own Usain Bolt in the major leagues. His name is Brad Zimmer and he patrols center field for the Cleveland Indians.
| 9:05 |
: Hello friends
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| 9:05 |
: Welcome to a weird one-off Wednesday baseball chat
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| 9:06 |
: Back to normal scheduling next week. I’ve just wound up with two straight Fridays out of the house and off the grid
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| 9:06 |
: Jeff Sullivan, making his weekly Friday appearance, On a Wednesday….? This commenter is intimidated – Dare I say – Threatened, yes threatened by change!
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| 9:06 |
: I should also note that Dave will be taking the Friday chat again. Next week, he’s back to Wednesday, and I’m back to Friday
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| 9:06 |
: Normalcy resumes, to whatever extent it ever can
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The Yankees plugged holes at first base and in the bullpen last night when they traded for Todd Frazier, David Robertson, and Tommy Kahnle. In exchange, they sent Tyler Clippard to the White Sox, along with prospects Blake Rutherford, Ian Clarkin, and Tito Polo.
Below are the projections for the three players whom the White Sox receive. WAR figures account for the player’s first six major-league seasons. KATOH denotes the stats-only version of the projection system, while KATOH+ denotes the methodology that includes a player’s prospect rankings.
Blake Rutherford, OF (Profile)
KATOH: 1.0 WAR
KATOH+: 2.7 WAR
The Yankees took Rutherford 18th overall in last year’s draft out of high school. He’s spent his first professional season at the Low-A level, hitting .281/.342/.391. Altogether, he’s been a bit underwhelming, especially since his performance has been helped by a .341 BABIP. His 18% strikeout rate isn’t bad, per se, but it’s a little high considering the low level of competition he’s faced, especially given his lack of power. Defensively, Clay Davenport has him as a -7 defender in just 36 games in center this year, although that sample is obviously tiny. Additionally, Rutherford is already 20 years old, making him a year older than most 2016 high-school draftees.
Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric forefather Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game.
How are they calculated? Haphazardly, is how. An explanation of the components and formulae which produce these NERD scores is available here. All objections to the numbers here are probably justified, on account of how this entire endeavor is absurd.
Most Highly Rated Game
Seattle at Houston | 14:10 ET
Paxton (87.1 IP, 79 xFIP-) vs. Morton (68.2 IP, 86 xFIP-)
Three games are separated by mere hundredths of a point for the distinction of today’s most appealing, per the author’s haphazardly constructed algorithm. The Yankees-Twins contest features two clubs in close proximity to the top of their respective divisions. The Tampa Bay-Oakland game features, in the Rays, one of the league’s top power-hitting and running clubs despite a prohibitive budget. Finally, this Mariners-Astros affair offers a pair of pitchers who’ve recorded an average fastball velocity of 96 mph. Were free will to exist, the reader would be invited to exercise his or her while deciding which of today’s games to consume. Because it doesn’t however, no such invitation has been been extended.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Seattle or Houston Radio.
Last night, the Diamondbacks acquired J.D. Martinez, one of the very best hitters in baseball. In order to land the best power hitter available, they surrendered… well, three people who play baseball for a living. As Carson likes to remind me regularly, everyone we talk about here is an elite baseball player, relative to the human population. Compared to you and me, these guys are awesome. The Tigers have two more world-class baseball players today than they did yesterday.
But, relative to other professional baseball players, well, these guys aren’t exactly the ’27 Yankees. Dawel Lugo, the main piece in the deal by the Tigers’ own admission, was graded as a 40 Future Value guy and ranked as the Diamondbacks’ 10th-best prospect over the winter. Sergio Alcantara is a glove-first shortstop whose upside is probably Nick Ahmed, or something along those lines. Jose King is an 18-year-old in Rookie ball and signed for $75,000 not that long ago.
Based on what other players have gotten traded for, this return feels very light. And that’s not exactly a controversial opinion.
Initial reaction is I love this trade for the Diamondbacks.
— JJ Cooper (@jjcoop36) July 18, 2017
That's…that's a fleecing. https://t.co/R8hL3cbnH5
— Christopher Crawford (@Crawford_MILB) July 18, 2017
There are always going to be disagreements in the valuation of players, and projecting young players is really hard. The last time the Tigers got universally crushed for trading a good big leaguer for some questionably valuable prospects, they received Robbie Ray in return. And then they gave him away a year later. But maybe Lugo turns out to be the hitting version of Ray, developing into a far better big leaguer than expected as a minor leaguer. It happens. It happened to the very guy these guys all got traded for!
But when we see trades like this, where pretty much everyone in the public sphere agrees that one team got the better end of the deal, we can either choose to believe that a major-league organization made a very public mistake in valuing the players involved in the deal, or we can try to figure out why an apparently lopsided deal happened in the first place.
Episode 756
Last week, managing editor Dave Cameron discussed the first couple installments of his annual Trade Value series. Now he discusses the last few installments.
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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 42 min play time.)
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Yankees general manager Brian Cashman needed time and salesmanship to sell ownership on a dismantling at last year’s deadline, as he explained to FanGraphs earlier this spring.
It perhaps took less time to convince ownership to return to status as buyers, to build a potentially dominant bullpen, and to prevent — if only momentarily — the division-rival Red Sox from addressing one of their most glaring weaknesses.
The Red Sox need a third baseman — at least, if they’re not going to give Rafael Devers a shot, like I think they should — and maybe some more relief help. This isn’t any kind of secret. Dave Dombrowski is even openly talking about it. And Todd Frazier, a walk-year player on a team trading everything that isn’t nailed down, was an obvious fit. He’d have been a fit if they wanted to keep the spot open for Devers, since he could have played some first base too, potentially giving them an upgrade over Mitch Moreland if Devers came up and mashed.
Like every other contender, they could also use another reliever or two. Their bullpen has been good so far, but also heavily worked, and no one every really has enough good bullpen arms. The White Sox were also selling good relievers, including a young controllable arm that Jeff just wrote up today. A deal between the two Sox franchises seemed like an obvious fit.
So, of course, the Yankees are apparently getting in the way, and according to reports, are closing on a deal for Frazier, David Robertson, and Tommy Kahnle.
Source confirms reports by @JonHeyman and @Joelsherman1: #Yankees gaining momentum toward trade for Robertson, Frazier and Kahnle. @MLB
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) July 19, 2017
Chase Headley has been decent enough at third base that Frazier would probably play first base in New York, or at least give them options to run some platoons at the corner infield spots with Frazier bouncing between the two spots. But for New York, this is probably more about getting two more good arms for a bullpen that has been pretty lousy so far, and then keeping Frazier away from their division rival because why not?
Given what Ryan Madson and Sean Doolittle cost, I’d imagine this trio is going to fetch a decent return, depending on how much of Robertson’s salary the Yankees are picking up. If they’re absorbing all of the ~$18 million he’s owed through next season, that might lighten the package a bit, but Kahnle was likely going to cost a lot, given his dominance this season and remaining years of control. Odds are the Yankees simply outbid the Red Sox, and I wouldn’t be surprised if making sure the Red Sox didn’t get better easily was at least partly about the reason the Yankees got involved here.
Since the deal isn’t yet done, we don’t know what price New York is paying, but I certainly wouldn’t want to try and come back against this potential bullpen in October. Kahnle, Robertson, Dellin Betances, and Aroldis Chapman would be a pretty rough group to try and score off of.