After their roster was ravaged by injuries, the Yankees promoted a trio of promising hitting prospects last week in Tyler Wade, Miguel Andujar and Dustin Fowler. Fowler, the most promising of the three, was supposed play regularly in New York’s outfield. Unfortunately, his big-league career was derailed as soon as it started in horrific fashion.
At a table in the center of the visiting clubhouse last week, in the depths of Cleveland’s Progressive Field, Jonathan Lucroy was seated holding his catcher’s glove in his left hand and a flat-head screwdriver in his right. He used the tool to loosen and tighten different laces in the glove. He spent perhaps 20 minutes on glove maintenance that day — a day on which, incidentally, he wouldn’t appear in the starting lineup.
There’s been some focus on Lucroy’s glove recently. Lucroy’s glove, his receiving skills, were once the game’s best. What’s happened to Lucroy’s framing in recent years, however, is something of a mystery.
There have been some stunning declines in baseball over the last few seasons. There was Andrew McCutchen’s age-29 drop-off, unprecedented in its depth for a star-level player, and his cold start to the current season. There’s Jake Arrieta’s decline from Cy Young winner in 2015 to middling starting pitcher since the second half of last season.
Perhaps less apparent, less publicized as these — but still as significant — is what has happened to Lucroy’s framing numbers.
We are very nearly ready for this season’s All-Star Game. Now that the rosters have been announced, it’s mostly academic. We’ll have the annual injury replacements and then the pitcher replacements and, of course, the Final Vote. By the time they line up along the bases for intros next Tuesday, many of the players who were originally denied a roster spot will have found a place by other means. That’s the nature of this process. Let’s take a look at what this year’s game is likely to offer.
It strikes me this year, as I scroll through the leaderboards, how few deserving players have been omitted from the initial rosters. In the National League, there are a couple of big snubs in Justin Turner, Anthony Rendon and Alex Wood, but Turner and Rendon are candidates for the Final Vote, and Wood is a good bet to make the roster, especially if Clayton Kershaw starts on Sunday and thus becomes ineligible to pitch in the ASG.
| 12:03 |
: Greetings!
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| 12:03 |
: I hope everyone here is enjoying their extended weekend and not shooting off fireworks in their quiet subdivisions ….
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| 12:03 |
: Do you know when Dave’s trade value series is going to come out?
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| 12:04 |
: I believe it is published during the All-Star break. It’s one of my favorite reads of the year
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| 12:04 |
: Now that the website redesign is behind us, what’s the next big thing coming to Fangraphs?
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| 12:05 |
: That’s a good question … And i am not privy to all plans. But with the Effectively Wild podcast added, Ad Free membership created, and the redesign it’s been a pretty eventful 2017 thus far
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Daily notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.
Jorge Mateo, SS/CF, New York AL (Profile)
Level: Double-A Age: 22 Org Rank: 6 Top 100: 91
Line: 4-for-10, 2 3B, HR
Notes
As the dominoes fell following Gleyber Torres‘ injury, Mateo landed in Trenton. He split time between shortstop and center field down at High-A and the Yankees have the option to continue working him at both spots at Double-A with utility prospect Thairo Estrada on the roster. He struggled to do everything on the offensive end but steal bases in Tampa, failing to do damage anywhere but to his pull side. He’s off to a terrific start in Trenton, though, tallying five walks and three triples in just six games.
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
Toronto at New York AL | 19:05 ET
Stroman (100.1 IP, 79 xFIP-) vs. Tanaka (90.2 IP, 88 xFIP-)
The major-league season has just passed its midpoint in terms of total games played, which is significant to the author’s haphazardly constructed algorithm insofar as now team NERD scores are weighted slightly more heavily than pitcher scores in the calculation of the game scores one finds below. This also represents the point in the season at which a club’s postseason odds slightly outweigh other variables in the calculation of the team score. In either case, this Blue Jays-Yankees contest is the most promising of today’s games and everything remains meaningless.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Toronto Radio.
The 2017 All-Star Futures Game will take place on Sunday, July 7th at Marlins Park as part of the All-Star weekend festivities. The rosters for the U.S. and World teams were recently unveiled. Below, one can find up-to-date KATOH and KATOH+ projections for the 50 players who were chosen to participate. WAR figures are projected totals for the relevant player’s first six years in the majors. Read the rest of this entry »
Last season, second basemen produced their best collective season ever in major-league history. There are a few different theories about what might have happened. With the increased use of the shift, it’s possible that teams were willing to deploy worse defenders at second in exchange for more offensive production. It’s also possible it was just a random blip of very good seasons by quite a few second basemen. Those are the most likely explanations, at least.
We’re now roughly halfway through the 2017 campaign, and the production from second basemen so far has been good — one of the better seasons of all time, if things hold up — but it also represents a big step back from what we saw last year.
How big a step back? Well, consider: last year, 11 second basemen recorded four-win seasons.
| Name | Team | AVG | OBP | SLG | wRC+ | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jose Altuve | Astros | .338 | .396 | .531 | 150 | 6.7 |
| Robinson Cano | Mariners | .298 | .350 | .533 | 138 | 6.0 |
| Brian Dozier | Twins | .268 | .340 | .546 | 132 | 5.9 |
| Ian Kinsler | Tigers | .288 | .348 | .484 | 123 | 5.8 |
| Daniel Murphy | Nationals | .347 | .390 | .595 | 156 | 5.5 |
| Dustin Pedroia | Red Sox | .318 | .376 | .449 | 120 | 5.2 |
| Jean Segura | Diamondbacks | .319 | .368 | .499 | 126 | 5.0 |
| Jason Kipnis | Indians | .275 | .343 | .469 | 117 | 4.8 |
| Cesar Hernandez | Phillies | .294 | .371 | .393 | 108 | 4.4 |
| DJ LeMahieu | Rockies | .348 | .416 | .495 | 128 | 4.2 |
| Ben Zobrist | Cubs | .272 | .386 | .446 | 124 | 4.0 |
In contrast, here’s the list of players who are projected to hit 4.0 WAR by the end of the current season.
| Name | AVG | OBP | SLG | wRC+ | WAR | ROS Projection | EOS Projection |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jose Altuve | .328 | .402 | .527 | 150 | 3.5 | 2.3 | 5.8 |
| Daniel Murphy | .339 | .391 | .578 | 146 | 2.4 | 1.6 | 4.0 |
Even if you include the players who are “on pace” to hit four wins — if not forecast by the projections to do so — then the only additions are Josh Harrison (2.3 WAR as of Sunday) and Jed Lowrie (2.1 WAR).
It’s not just overall value that’s taken a step back, either. If you look at the first table from this post, you’ll see that nine second baseman recorded at least a 120 wRC+ last season. Matt Carpenter — who split time evenly between second, third, and first — would make a 10th. Nor does that include the 122 wRC+ or 3.7 WAR produced by Neil Walker, as he fell roughly 50 plate appearances short of qualifying for the batting title.
Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Jeff’s latest hiking expedition, then try to determine which teams had the most and least satisfying first halves. Lastly, they talk to Brian Lacusky, who reminisces about about his role in the construction of Coors Field.
Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download
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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
Washington at St. Louis | 20:05 ET
Scherzer (113.2 IP, 74 xFIP-) vs. Martinez (106.1 IP, 80 xFIP-)
The author’s haphazardly constructed algorithm has once again exhibited its capacity to sniff out the Obvious, identifying today’s Nationals-Cardinals game as most likely to facilitate something wonderful. This is due in large part to the game’s probable starters, Max Scherzer and Carlos Martinez, each of whom rank among the league’s top-10 pitchers by WAR — both by the sort that’s calculated with FIP and also the sort that calculated with runs allowed. This is due, in smaller part, to a number of other reasons too inconsequential to discuss.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: St. Louis Radio.
