Falvey and Levine: New Leadership in Minnesota

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December 13, 2016

The Minnesota Twins have a different, and far more analytical, front office than in years past. Following the World Series, the AL Central club formally introduced Derek Falvey as executive vice president, chief baseball officer, and Thad Levine as senior vice president, general manager. Falvey, who has an economics degree from Trinity College, had been an assistant GM with the Cleveland Indians. Levine, who earned an MBA at UCLA, was an assistant GM with the Texas Rangers.

The new leadership team stressed collaboration when I talked to them during the Baseball Winter Meetings.

According to Falvey, he, Levine and (former interim Twins general manager) Rob Antony “shared practices from all three organizations” during November’s GM Meetings. He explained that the newly formed front office “is taking unique things from each place, and trying to blend the best of all operations together.”

Levine concurred, saying, “The combination of those three mindsets can lead us down a path of building a sustainable winner.” The former Rangers assistant GM went on to say that he and Falvey “wouldn’t have engaged in this partnership if we weren’t open-minded to the evolution of what we’ve been exposed to leading to something even greater. It’s not rigid.”

It’s also not without levity. Both are adept at tongue-in-cheek, especially Levine. He piggy-backed his comments with a wry, “We view it as very organic and evolutionary, and we hope that it will continue to grow. For one thing, we brought almonds to this meeting. We did not have almonds. That’s a ‘for instance.’ I’m not saying it’s the extent of what we’re doing here.”

Here are highlights from the Winter Meetings conversations, which took place in a group setting in the Twins suite.

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Impact Players

Falvey: “We factor it all in. Every aspect. We’re not making decisions in a vacuum. We talk about some of the metrics we know and what a player’s value is. We can quantify some of that, but we can’t quantify all of it. It’s our job to be thoughtful about that — the long-term culture that we’re looking to build and how it impacts our team.”

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Justin Turner, Massive Bargain

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December 13, 2016

Given the headline I just wrote, there’s no real beating around the bush in this introduction. The Dodgers are reportedly close to re-signing Justin Turner for $64 million over four years. I think he’s worth way more than that, and that the Dodgers just got a huge steal despite shopping in a market bereft of impact talent. So, let’s try to figure out why 29 other MLB teams just let the Dodgers sign Justin Turner on the cheap?

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Why Does the Home Crowd Boo Intentional Walks?

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December 13, 2016

Over the last 10 seasons, home-team batters were intentionally walked 5,813 times. We saw 478 of those in 2016. If you watch enough baseball, you’ve seen several of these on television or in person. In many cases, these walks are met with enthusiastic booing by the home crowd, which is always something I’ve found particularly curious given that being offered a free base is almost always a good thing.

Of course, intentional walks aren’t as valuable as doubles or home runs — and, on average, they occur at times when they’re significantly less valuable than singles. In most cases, however, an intentional walk is better than the expected value of a normal plate appearance. This is why we’ve seen a movement away from intentional walks over the last several years; it’s rarely advantageous for the pitcher.

intentional-walks-per-game

Given that the evidence seems quite clear that most intentional walks benefit the hitting team, why do fans frequently give the pitcher such a hard time? I see three possible lines of reasoning.

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The Royals Shouldn’t Sell Low on Yordano Ventura

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December 13, 2016

The Houston Astros figure to be one of the better clubs in baseball this next season. They had a strong team last year and have added Carlos Beltran, Brian McCann, and Josh Reddick in the meantime. Presumably, that makes them a stronger team.

As for the pitching side, they don’t appear to be content yet. They have Dallas Keuchel at the front of the rotation. Lance McCullers is good, but had elbow problems last season. Collin McHugh is fine, Mike Fiers a little bit less fine. Charlie Morton and potentially Joe Musgrove also appear in the mix. The team could probably use one more good pitcher.

As such, it should come as no surprise that, according to Brian McTaggart of MLB.com, that the Astros have tried to trade for a starting pitcher. From McTaggart’s piece:

The Astros are trying to land a starting pitcher, but aren’t willing to trade Bregman. That has made things rather difficult. Among some of their targets are Jose Quintana, Jake Odorizzi, Chris Archer, Danny Duffy and Yordano Ventura. The team has the prospects to get a deal done and is likely to make a move at some point.

One of these things is not like the other. Here are those pitchers’ WAR totals from last season.

Houston Astros Trade Targets
2016 WAR 2016 RA/9 WAR AVG
Jose Quintana 4.8 5.8 5.3
Danny Duffy 2.8 4.3 3.6
Jake Odorizzi 2.0 3.6 2.8
Chris Archer 3.1 2.3 2.7
Yordano Ventura 1.5 2.3 1.9

It would certainly appear from the data here as though Yordano Ventura isn’t particularly good. At the very least, you could say he had pretty forgettable season in terms of creating wins. He did incite a benches-clearing brawl earlier in the season — and, after multiple, similar incidents, it’s certainly possible he deserved more than the eight-game suspension he received for throwing at Manny Machado.

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2017 ZiPS Projections – Atlanta Braves

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December 13, 2016

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 Atlanta Braves. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Arizona / Chicago NL / Detroit / Houston / San Diego / Toronto / Washington.

Batters
If one were to calculate the compensation practices of Major League Baseball merely by examining Atlanta’s roster, he or she might arrive at the conclusion that players are rewarded for producing as few wins as possible. Consider: at $21.8 million, Matt Kemp (601 PA, 0.6 zWAR) possesses the club’s highest salary, but is also projected to record the lowest WAR among Atlanta’s starting field players. Ender Inciarte (596, 3.4) and Dansby Swanson (580, 3.3), meanwhile, are likely to receive just over $3.0 million together — and yet Dan Szymborski’s computer suggests that they represent two-thirds of the team’s above-average field players.

With regard to Inciarte and Swanson, one finds that the ZiPS projections for the Arizona Diamondbacks appeared in these pages at the beginning of the month, providing an opportunity to re-visit the trade that sent those two players — plus Aaron Blair (139.1 IP, 0.5 zWAR) — to Atlanta in exchange for Shelby Miller.

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How Could Aroldis Chapman’s Future Look?

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December 12, 2016

So much of what we do is try to tell the future. So much of what we do is get the future wrong! But still we keep on plugging away, with any noteworthy trade, or any noteworthy signing. One noteworthy signing last week reunited the Yankees and Aroldis Chapman, with the closer getting a five-year guarantee. The history of relievers getting long-term deals isn’t great, but one thing we can’t ignore is that Chapman is kind of extraordinary. By some measures he’s even unique. Baseball doesn’t have an extended track record of Aroldis Chapmans (Chapmen?). Projecting his future is tricky, as it always is.

We know that, if Chapman stays the same, he’ll remain nearly unbelievable. That much, he’s proven. We know that he could snap something after any given pitch. That much, countless other pitchers have proven. But what else might we able to say?

One issue that’s come up is imagining Chapman throwing at lower velocities. Every pitcher eventually loses his zip. Some start at 25, and some start at 35, but it’s a guarantee. There’s no getting around it. For Chapman in particular, there’s one positive sign. Last year, his average fastball was 100.4 miles per hour. That’s the highest mark of his career, and he was around 98 in his first full season. So Chapman hasn’t lost anything yet. Maybe he’ll continue to hang around triple digits for a while to come.

Inevitably, though, there will be decline. And what then? To attempt to answer that, I want to try something. How might Chapman perform at lower velocities? Well, we can look at how he’s already performed at lower velocities.

Tables, ahoy! I looked at Chapman’s game log from 2012 to 2016. For every single game, I grabbed Chapman’s average fastball velocity, and then it was a matter of putting numbers together. In this first table, Chapman’s numbers are split into six groups.

Chapman by Fastball Velocity
FA Velocity IP TBF K-BB% H/9 HR/9
101+ 35.7 130 38% 3.5 0.0
100 – 100.9 75.0 305 40% 5.8 0.2
99 – 99.9 73.7 282 36% 3.7 0.4
98 – 98.9 63.0 246 29% 5.0 0.6
97 – 97.9 32.3 128 32% 4.7 0.8
Under 97 34.0 145 23% 6.4 1.3
Draws from 2012 – 2016. Performances split by average fastball velocities in appearances.

That’s fairly informative already, but let’s increase the sample sizes. We’ll do that by condensing from six groups to three.

Chapman by Fastball Velocity
FA Velocity Split IP TBF K-BB% H/9 HR/9
100+ Chapman, High 110.7 435 39% 5.0 0.2
98 – 99.9 Chapman, Med 136.7 528 33% 4.3 0.5
Under 98 Chapman, Low 66.3 273 27% 5.6 1.1
Draws from 2012 – 2016. Performances split by average fastball velocities in appearances.

Surprise! When Chapman has thrown his hardest, he’s been his best. He hasn’t allowed many hits, and he’s allowed only two home runs. The home-run category here might be the most dramatic, but it’s also the noisiest, since Chapman hasn’t allowed many homers overall. Even when Chapman has worked around 96-97, he’s still been a strikeout machine. For reference, he’s a top-10 table since 2012, looking at strikeout rate minus walk rate. Chapman leads all pitchers, overall, but I took him out and replaced him with the three versions of himself.

Top 10 K-BB% Since 2012
Pitcher K-BB%
Aroldis Chapman, High 39.3%
Edwin Diaz 33.6%
Kenley Jansen 33.0%
Aroldis Chapman, Med 32.8%
Andrew Miller 32.1%
Dellin Betances 30.9%
Craig Kimbrel 30.8%
Koji Uehara 29.8%
Aroldis Chapman, Low 27.5%
Seung Hwan Oh 27.2%
Minimum 50 innings pitched.

The hardest-throwing Chapman is in first, easily. The medium-throwing Chapman is in fourth. The slowest-throwing Chapman is in ninth, out of 776 pitchers. Ken Giles just missed this table. So did Sean Doolittle. And maybe that’s older Chapman: some kind of healthier Sean Doolittle equivalent. Doolittle has sometimes given up his home runs, and he hasn’t been considered one of the highest-tier relievers, but he has been excellent when he’s pitched. So Yankees fans can be somewhat encouraged.

Aroldis Chapman, at some point, will lose some velocity. Aroldis Chapman, at some point, will get worse. But, of course, he has a lot of velocity to give. And when he’s worked at lower speeds before, he’s been only somewhat less incredible. Chapman comes with a lot of what you might consider wiggle room.


Kenley Jansen’s Simple Baseball

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December 12, 2016

We all agree that Kenley Jansen was never going to leave the Dodgers, right? Certainly not after Aroldis Chapman agreed to terms with the Yankees. The Nationals might’ve been a player, but they have their limits. It was almost unimaginable that Jansen could choose to join the Marlins on purpose. As long as the Dodgers were in there, they had to be considered the heavy favorites, and now there’s an agreement in place. All three of the big free-agent closers have signed new contracts in the span of a week.

Mark Melancon is really good, but he just doesn’t work as a comp. Chapman works a lot better, and his deal made these negotiations easy. Chapman and Jansen are basically the same age. They’ve been similarly dominant, and Chapman signed for five years and $86 million, with an opt-out. So Jansen is getting five years and $80 million, with an opt-out, taking a small penalty because Jansen had a draft pick attached. Do you value a pick around $5 – 10 million? Voila! We’re all agents.

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Effectively Wild Episode 989: A Reading from the Bill James Bible

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December 12, 2016

Ben and Sam read a passage from The New Bill James New Historical Abstract and discuss whether contemporary observations of baseball players still have something to add to today’s closer-to-comprehensive statistical record.

Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download

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Dodgers Spending Big to Bring Back Core

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December 12, 2016

In a weak free agent class, no team looked as vulnerable to being picked clean in free agency like the Dodgers; by our rankings, they were potentially set to lose the #2, #6, and #8 free agents in this class, in Justin Turner, Kenley Jansen, and Rich Hill. Last week, they made sure they’d bring back at least one of the three by signing Hill to a three year, $48 million contract; today, it sounds like they’re going to get the other two as well.

In prior years, the Dodgers preferred to eschew free agency, making trades to round out their roster instead, often taking on salary in order to build up their base of young talent. This year, the Dodgers are just using their hoards of cash to keep their roster together. The three will cost about $50 million per year for the next three years, then Jansen and Turner will cost about $35 million per year for the final two years of their deals, so clearly, the Dodgers resources are being put to use here.

But it’s also worth noting that, for what they’re getting, these seem mostly like pretty good deals. I had Turner and Hill rated as my top two free agent bargains headed into the winter, and that was at presumed prices of 4/$82M for Turner and 2/$48M for Hill. In the end, they got both for significantly less than what I expected.

You can certainly quibble with giving $80 million to a reliever; the odds of Jansen still being a lights out reliever in a few years are pretty slim. That one is definitely a win-now move with some likely long-term pain associated with the cost of acquiring an elite bullpen arm. But whatever overpay you think Jansen might be getting, Turner is likely to offset that with his expected savings.

At 4/$64M, Turner is getting just a bit more than Josh Reddick, but, uh, Turner is a lot better than Reddick.

Our projections from the Top 50 free agents post.

Contract Estimate
Type Years AAV Total
Dave Cameron 4 $20.5 M $82.0 M
Avg Crowdsource 4 $17.2 M $70.9 M
Median Crowdsource 4 $17.0 M $68.0 M
2017 Steamer Forecast
Age PA BB% K% AVG OBP SLG wOBA wRC+ Off Def WAR
32 560 8.3% 17.5% .284 .353 .466 .352 120 12.5 4.5 3.6
15. Josh Reddick, OF
Contract Estimate
Type Years AAV Total
Dave Cameron 3 $15.0 M $45.0 M
Avg Crowdsource 4 $13.7 M $49.3 M
Median Crowdsource 4 $14.0 M $56.0 M
2017 Steamer Forecast
Age PA BB% K% AVG OBP SLG wOBA wRC+ Off Def WAR
30 525 9.0% 13.9% .271 .337 .451 .337 109 7.3 -3.4 2.2

Turner is not that much worse of a hitter than Edwin Encarnacion, only he can also play the field. The power isn’t the same, and teams continue to pay less for singles and doubles than home runs, but Turner gets to a similar overall value, and when you toss in the ability to play third base, 4/$64M in this market seems like a steal.

We’ll have more on these signings once they become official, but the Dodgers have made it clear that they’re going for it again, and this time, they’re just doing it the old fashioned way.


Another Way to See the Angels’ New Addition

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December 12, 2016

While you were off doing something else over the weekend, the Angels picked up a new second baseman. Granted, their new second baseman was to be someone else’s bench player, so we’re not talking about a blockbuster, and that same would-be bench player had just expressed frustration over losing his starting job. And so Danny Espinosa was sent to California, with the Nationals picking up Austin Adams and Kyle McGowin.

You want to know another way to know this wasn’t big? The Nationals made a trade for Angels prospects. As we all understand, the Angels don’t have prospects, and here Adams might be the one who’s slightly interesting. He’s been a tough-to-hit Double-A reliever with significant control problems. The Nationals didn’t get a lot for Espinosa’s final year of team control. The Angels, though, should probably be pretty happy. They’ve plugged what had been a gaping hole, and Espinosa suffers from a perception problem.

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