Former front-office analyst and now stats professor at Smith College Ben Baumer has a paper out, with cowriters Michael J. Lopez of Skidmore College and Gregory J. Matthews of Loyola University Chicago, that hopes to answer a question we’ve all thought about when our favorite team loses: how often does the best team win in a given sport? How much of our pain can we explain away with luck? The answers contain multitudes.

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We’ve written a lot about the Rockies in the last week. David Laurila interviewed GM Jeff Bridich about how he sees the organization, we talked about their signing of Greg Holland, Jeff Sullivan covered their pitch-framing possibilities, and Travis Sawchik suggested they try something different with their pitching staff. Finally, this morning, we wrapped up unofficial Rockies week with the team’s ZIPS projections.

That’s a lot of Rockies content, but all have it has been focused on specific parts of the team, while leaving mostly untouched the question that is central to their organization and the moves they made this winter: are the Rockies legitimate contenders this year?

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Burke Badenhop is on to phase two of his baseball career. Twelve years after being drafted out of Bowling Green State University, the 33-year-old right-hander has moved from the playing field to the front office. He was recently hired as a baseball operations analyst by the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The move doesn’t come as a surprise. Badenhop has been featured here at FanGraphs multiple times, and he’s always supplied thoughtful, analytically savvy quotes. His contributions to MLB Trade Rumors have likewise been insightful. It is easy to see why the a forward-thinking organization would want to bring him on board.

It is also not surprising that it’s the Diamondbacks giving him this opportunity. Arizona’s new brain trust is anything but backward, and some of them, including GM Mike Hazen, had become acquainted with Badenhop when he pitched for the Red Sox in 2014. A few short years later, he’ll be using his brain, as opposed to his sinker, to help them win baseball games.

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Badenhop on getting his new job: “The guy whose eye I caught was Jared Porter, who is now an assistant GM with the Diamondbacks. Luckily, I was at the right place at the right time when he was the pro scouting director in Boston. He sat in on a few of our pitchers meetings and the fact that I looked at, and understood, the pitch data stuck in his brain a little bit.

“He moved on to the Cubs, under Theo, and about a month after I got released by the Rangers [in late April, 2016], he reached out to my agent. He asked if I was interested in moving forward in a non-playing role. I went up to Chicago, and we had some conversations, but they were busy being the best team in baseball, so hiring wasn’t at the forefront of their minds.

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After having typically appeared in the very famous pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past few years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Colorado Rockies. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cleveland / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles AL / Los Angeles NL / Miami / Milwaukee / Minnesota / New York AL / Oakland / Pittsburgh / St. Louis / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Tampa Bay / Texas / Toronto / Washington.

Batters
Colorado field players produced slightly fewer wins than the average unit in 2016. The numbers here suggest that, given reasonable health, that same group ought to rate as something slightly better than average in 2017. Unsurprisingly, Nolan Arenado (646 PA, 4.7 zWAR) receives the club’s top wins projection. ZiPS calls for Arenado not only to produce the top batting line on the team (.374 wOBA), but also — after accounting for the third-base positional adjustment — to produce more than a win with his glove.

Of some interest here is the projection for Ian Desmond (639, 1.7). He’s forecast to record +6 runs at first base, a position he’s played zero times as a professional. Of course, one would expect a former shortstop to handle first base with some ease; however, those curious about Szymborski’ methodology should definitely, definitely, definitely contact him definitely at @DSzymborski.

Finally, a brief examination of things reveals that Colorado employs not one, but two, Gerardo Parras: Parra himself and also Raimel Tapia. Tapia’s No. 1 comp is the 23-year-old version of Parra.

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You probably are already aware last season was a good one for shortstops but here are a few refreshers …

Not bad …

That’s a shortstop?

Now you’re just showing off …

It was a good year for shortstops. Actually, it was a great year. In fact, according to FanGraphs WAR leaderboards, it was the best year ever for major-league shortstops. Shortstops combined for 81.7 WAR, the first time the group has crossed the 80-win threshold.

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Edgar Olmos had a tumultuous offseason a year ago. From November 2015 to March 2016, he went from the Mariners to the Cubs to the Orioles to the Cubs to the Orioles. It was waiver claim yo-yo, although the 26-year-old southpaw equates the experience to a table game.

“It was like a ping pong ball,” said Olmos. “It just went back and forth, back and forth. I’m married — I have a beautiful wife and two beautiful daughters — so it was a difference of us renting a spring training place in Arizona or in Florida. It was, ‘We need to look rent there, no, we need to look rent there, no, wait, we need to go back to looking there, no, not again.”

Olmos originally changed organizations in November 2014. Prior to being selected off waivers by Seattle, he spent seven years in the Marlins system. He made his big league debut wth the Fish in 2013, and the outing was especially memorable. The lefty entered a game with two outs and the bases loaded, and Ryan Howard at the plate. Read the rest of this entry »

Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community Research.
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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about baseball’s trampoline problem and the future of Andrelton Simmons, then discuss and critique the crowdsourced organizational rankings produced by FanGraphs readers.

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Episode 712
Dave Cameron is the managing editor of FanGraphs. On this edition of the program, he finds some wisdom in Greg Holland’s decision to sign with Colorado, further examines the Dodgers’ strategy of signing talented but injury-prone starters, and uncovers more evidence to the effect that failure is inevitable.

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 38 min play time.)

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