FanGraphs Baseball

Last week, Sam Miller wrote an excellent piece for ESPN on the rise of the height-challenged slugger.

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We never really know what to expect when a player comes to Major League Baseball from a foreign league. The rules of the game are mostly identical over there, of course, but the competition level is different. It’s a completely different set of hitters and pitchers in a completely different set of parks. Even for truly exceptional talents, there’s no real telling how a player’s skills will translate precisely from league to league. The calculus gets even more interesting when it involves a player who started here, faltered, went elsewhere, and thrived.

April is a time of guessing and extrapolating and of the occasional hot take. We like to draw conclusions when we perhaps shouldn’t. That’s half of the fun of April baseball. And Eric Thames is one of the cool new things happening in baseball right now. Because, as we’ve been reminded, this man can hit some dingers. He just finished hitting five in one series against the Reds.

Now, the Reds play in a tiny little stadium, and they don’t have the best pitching in the world. If Ryan Braun had been the one to do this, it would be a cool little footnote, because we expect guys like Braun to stomp on subpar pitching in tiny ballparks. If Jett Bandy had done this, I’d assure you that Jett Bandy is, in fact, a real person, and that this is an aberration.

Thames is a different matter. This is Eric Thames, who left American organized ball and rather quickly became a league-wide sensation in Korea. This is Eric Thames, who got big, grew a mighty beard, donned what looks like cybernetic robot armor on his right arm, and promptly started hitting massive bombs. Thames took on a nearly mythic quality for a few years, watched from afar by those who still remembered his name and who pay attention to foreign leagues. We got our wish, and he’s back. We get to see if a man who couldn’t cut it in his first try can succeed after dominating a foreign circuit. So far, he’s doing quite well.

It’s probably too early to declare the Thames experiment a success. It’s April 17th, after all. The Brewers have played 13 games, and Thames now has just 44 plate appearances under his belt. He’s already created 1 WAR of value, and that translates to about $8 million of value, but he could just as easily create negative value in the coming weeks as a scouting report starts to form. Baseball is, of course, also not played in terms of cost-effectiveness and surplus value. Thames wants to succeed for Thames, not to make David Stearns look smart. He’s still got a long road to go.

In short, we can’t tell anything for certain from this collection of data. There’s simply not enough here. But consider this, because it is the height of April fun: the two highest single-season ISO marks of all time belong, rather predictably, to Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth. Bonds put up a staggering .536 in 2001; Ruth, a much-lower-but-still-quite-impressive .473 in 1920.

Eric Thames currently has a .553 ISO.

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CLEVELAND — The Indians did many things well en route to their division title and pennant in 2016. And one of those was to quiet the bat, in relative terms, of Miguel Cabrera.

Until last year, Cabrera had been Babe Ruth-like against Cleveland pitching. Really. Ruth and Cabrera — who, in 167 career games against the Indians, has hit .352 with 43 home runs — are the only two opponents to have hit .350 or better with 30 or more home runs against Cleveland pitching over the course of their respective careers.

According to Elias, Cabrera ranks fourth all-time in OPS against the Indians (1.040), following only Ruth (1.091), Ted Williams (1.078), and Edgar Martinez (1.050). That’s solid company.

Last season, the Indians “limited” Cabrera to an .879 OPS — which, in context, is a great achievement. Cleveland also won 14 of 18 games against Detroit in the season series. The improvement as a staff against Cabrera didn’t just seem to be the result of variance, of luck. It seemed to be in part due to a change in strategy, improved tactics, when facing Cabrera.

Consider the Indians’ two- and four-seam fastball location versus Cabrera in 2015, via BaseballSavant…

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the Texas Rangers farm system. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from my own observations. The KATOH statistical projections, probable-outcome graphs, and (further down) Mahalanobis comps have been provided by Chris Mitchell. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of my prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this. -Eric Longenhagen

The KATOH projection system uses minor-league data and Baseball America prospect rankings to forecast future performance in the major leagues. For each player, KATOH produces a WAR forecast for his first six years in the major leagues. There are drawbacks to scouting the stat line, so take these projections with a grain of salt. Due to their purely objective nature, the projections here can be useful in identifying prospects who might be overlooked or overrated. Due to sample-size concerns, only players with at least 200 minor-league plate appearances or batters faced last season have received projections. -Chris Mitchell

Other Lists
NL West (ARI, COL, LAD, SD, SF)
AL Central (CHW, CLE, DET, KC, MIN)
NL Central (CHC, CIN, PIT, MIL, StL)
NL East (ATL, MIA, NYM, PHI, WAS)
AL East (BAL, BOS, NYY, TB, TOR)
AL West (HOU, LAA, SEA)

55 FV Prospects

Relevant/Interesting Metrics
Has recorded .275 career average.

Scouting Report
Taveras signed for $2.1 million during the 2015 July 2 period and debuted in the DSL last year but, even in a brief time there, was clearly too advanced for that level. After 11 games in the DSL he came to Arizona for rookie ball. Scouts flocked to Arizona mid-summer to get a look at Taveras ahead of the trade deadline and he was a frequently discussed name in July. He has a very mature feel to hit, especially from the left side of the plate, with low-effort plus bat speed, barrel control, and a willingness to take what pitchers give him if a situation dictates it necessary for him to make contact. He also tracks pitches well, and scouts have a future 60 or better on the bat.

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Raise your hand if you didn’t realize Matt Belisle ranks 12th among active pitchers with 603 career appearances. And don’t feel bad if you’re reading this and asking “Matt who”? That’s especially true if you’re a fan of an American League team. The 36-year-old righty has been a reliable reliever for a long time, but he’s spent the bulk of his career with small-market teams in the NL, and he has just five career saves. He’s anything but a marquee name.

You are familiar with him if you’re a Rockies fan. Belisle was a workhorse in Colorado from 2010-2014, appearing in 73 games annually. Before that he was a Cincinnati Red, and he’s since moved on to the St. Louis Cardinals, Washington Nationals, and now the Minnesota Twins.

When I talked to him late in spring training, Belisle told me he’s grateful for the career he’s had. He also doesn’t take anything for granted.

“What’s behind me is gone,” said Belisle. “I just look at today. I keep everything in front of me and do everything I can to win the way I need to win. I take care of the hours and the days, and let the months and the years take care of themselves.” 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 Mike Trout topping the WAR leaderboard, Stephen Wright’s vulnerability to the elements, and baseball-player social media behavior, then talk about the increase in game times in 2017, the factors slowing pace of play, and the coming of the pitch clock.

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I got asked the question in my chat this week. Dave also got asked it in his. What do you do to solve Byron Buxton’s problems at the plate? This is essentially the question. People want to know. The answer, to me, is you let him play. It seems that we get these questions each April about a phenom struggling in his first taste of a full major league season. So while I’m writing this piece with Buxton in mind and as the lead example, it is also sort of universal.
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Previous: AL Starters’ Changeups.

While 2017 sample sizes build to a credible level, we’ll continue our series on 2016 ERA qualifiers’ pitch-specific quality. We’re giving all of the offerings a letter grade, weighted 50% on bat-missing and 50% on contact management. Last time out, we looked at AL starters’ changeups; today, we’ll switch to the senior circuit.

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