FanGraphs Baseball

Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric nobleman 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. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Washington at San Francisco | 16:05 ET
Lopez (4.2 IP, 25 xFIP-) vs. Peavy (104.2 IP, 120 xFIP-)
With the exception of all the “runs” he allowed, right-hander Reynaldo Lopez’s major-league debut last week was more or less an exercise in best-case scenarios. Regard: he exhibited elite arm speed while recording an equally elite strikeout- and walk-rate differential. He also neutralized left-handers completely by means of his curveball. Regard, more: of the 20 curves he threw to them, 14 were strikes (70%) and zero were put into play.

Here’s an example of that curveball and those lefties:

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: San Francisco Radio or Television.

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.
Read the rest of this entry »

Ben and Sam answer listener emails about player development what-ifs, Aroldis Chapman and elite relievers, a team that could control the weather, Mike Trout and Barry Bonds, and more.

Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric nobleman 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. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Washington at San Francisco | 22:15 ET
Scherzer (141.2 IP, 78 xFIP-) vs. Samardzija (128.0 IP, 101 xFIP-)
Thought experiment: imagine a universe in which everything is exactly the same except that, during the opening credits of TV’s Laverne & Shirley, the title characters chant “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Scherzer! Samardzija! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!” — instead of Schlemiel and Schlimazel, like in this present universe we all occupy. What are the implications? Support your answer with evidence. Or, alternatively, ignore this paragraph altogether.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: San Francisco Radio or Television.

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a rumor out there that the Nationals would be willing to trade Lucas Giolito for Andrew Miller. That is almost certainly not true. There’s a related rumor out there that the Yankees don’t think Giolito would be enough in exchange for Miller. That is almost certainly not true. Miller is fantastic, no doubt, and the Nationals could use him, but it’s not like Miller is the only good reliever in the game, and Giolito is a wonderful prospect. Baseball America just ranked him fourth. MLB.com has him ranked fourth. Prospect people love Giolito. The Nationals think he’s pretty good, themselves.

This all raises an interesting question, though. How willing should the Nationals be to move Giolito for help? For Miller alone, it wouldn’t make great sense. Yet I do think there’s an argument to be made that Giolito should be more available than his prospect rankings would suggest.

It comes down to the difference between Giolito’s reputation and Giolito’s performance. He was a high draft pick, and he’s a highly-ranked prospect. He’s a highly-ranked prospect because people have seen him throw an outstanding heater, and a wipeout curveball. When scouts see two plus-plus weapons, and an intimidating frame, it doesn’t take much of a leap to envision long-term, big-league success. Giolito is supposed to have the tools. And his numbers have been more than acceptable.

But they haven’t been amazing, certainly not since Giolito graduated from A-ball. Last year, in the Double-A Eastern League, Giolito’s K-BB% ranked as “pretty good.” This year, in the same league, his K-BB% has ranked as “slightly above average.” Strikeouts have been present, but they haven’t come by the bushel, and the walks have been elevated. Walks are nothing new for big giant power pitchers, but command issues are a tremendous obstacle. They can’t be dismissed, and Giolito was anything but impressive in his brief time in the majors.

I wouldn’t read too deeply into those numbers. In the majors, Giolito has nine walks and five strikeouts, but, whatever. That’s nothing. Of greater interest: The stuff wasn’t…quite…there, not as advertised. I’ll pull from Baseball Savant. By average spin rate, Giolito’s four-seam fastball ranked in the ninth percentile. His curveball ranked in the 44th percentile. The drop on the curve is big, and it does look like a weapon, but the fastball result is more curious. Giolito didn’t throw an 80-grade fastball. Not with the Nationals. I don’t yet know what to make of that.

It’s not like I don’t believe the scouts. They’ve seen what they’ve seen. And Giolito does throw hard, which clearly boosts his ceiling. He’s helped by his size, which aids his plane. I’m just not in love with pitching prospects who don’t have outstanding numbers, or who haven’t shown much in the majors. Aaron Sanchez, this year, has proved my skepticism wrong, and sometimes pitchers do achieve that leap. Giolito still has to make that leap, and the majority of prospects don’t.

There’s no question he is a very good prospect. He’s already been a big-leaguer, and it’s always all about probability. Giolito’s probability distribution includes some ace-level outcomes. But for whatever it’s worth, this year, he hasn’t out-pitched co-prospect Reynaldo Lopez. He hasn’t out-pitched, say, Adalberto Mejia, who just earlier fetched Eduardo Nunez. Mejia doesn’t have Giolito’s raw stuff, but he has missed bats and thrown strikes. That has to matter for something. His command doesn’t need to improve so much.

If the Nationals love Giolito, that’s great. If the Nationals think he might be overrated, there could be an opportunity here. Giolito might even conceivably be around peak value, so the Nationals could cash him in, sending him to an organization that remains high on him. He’s definitely not someone to be given away, and for all I know he could be the solution to the Nationals’ current bullpen woes. Giolito is to be highly prized. But there are very legitimate questions. The Nationals, I’m almost sure, wouldn’t trade Giolito for Andrew Miller. But for, say, Dellin Betances? It’s not so far-fetched.

The Mets have been scuffling for quite a while now. After posting an impressive 15-7 record in April, they have gone 38-41 since May 1st and currently sit in third place behind the Nationals and Marlins. They’re still very much alive in the playoff race — our playoff odds give them a 32.8% chance of making it at least as far as the wild-card game — but, to state the obvious, they’re beginning to run out of time to get themselves back into playoff position. Suddenly, every loss is placed under a microscope and, over the past two days, that’s been an unfortunate development for closer Jeurys Familia.

On Wednesday night, Familia blew his first (regular season) save in almost exactly a year and then, roughly 18 hours later, he blew another. The outings themselves aren’t particularly important. There was a mix of command problems, hard-hit balls, and horrendous batted-ball luck over a span of 13 batters faced. What is important, though, is taking stock of Familia’s season as a whole and what has or hasn’t changed for the pitcher who suddenly emerged as an elite back-of-the-bullpen arm during the Mets’ stretch run a year ago.

If you remember one thing about the profile of 2015 Jeurys Familia, it’s probably that he developed and began utilizing a pitch unlike anything anyone else threw in baseball. As outlined by Jeff Sullivan last October, Familia added a splitter averaging 94 mph to his arsenal in mid-August. No one throws a splitter in the mid-90s — that’s not a thing people do. And yet there was Familia suddenly incorporating this devastating pitch just in time for the most significant stretch of Mets baseball in a decade and a half.

What made Familia particularly dominant was that he paired this new absurd splitter with an already unfair sinker. His upper-90s fastball with stellar movement was (and is) a devastating pitch in its own right. In fact, during yesterday afternoon’s rough outing, the pitch was on display in all its glory:

Ninety-eight mph with extreme run? Yeah, that’ll play. He generates 28.7% whiffs per swing on the pitch, which is second only to Zach Britton’s otherworldly 40.8% rate. When batters do make contact on Familia’s sinker, it’s typically in the form of a grounder. In fact, his sinker is generating grounders this season at the highest rate of his career per BrooksBaseball.

Read the rest of this entry »

Josh Reddick is the near-ideal trade candidate. He’ll be a free agent at the end of the season, he’s continued to hit ever since rebounding from a disappointing 2013 campaign, and he’s playing for a team in the Oakland Athletics that’s eight games under .500 and has virtually no chance at the playoffs. Reddick is headed to free agency in market populated by few decent players, suggesting there’s little expectation of a return to the A’s, a small-market club relying on young players to compete. All that said, there’s a case to be made that the A’s need not move Reddick at the deadline if they fail to receive a solid offer.

The market for corner outfielders hasn’t been great for sellers or free agents over the past year. A year ago, minor deals were made for Shane Victorino, David DeJesus, David Murphy, and Gerardo Parra. Yoenis Cespedes netted a good package for the Detroit Tigers headlined by Michael Fulmer, and even Cespedes was brought in to play center field. Jay Bruce, on a selling Reds team, stayed put. Carlos Gonzalez, on the selling Colorado Rockies, stayed put. Justin Upton, despite pending free agency, stayed put with the Padres. The latter three players were all producing offensively, but the Padres opted to take a draft pick for Upton, while the Rockies and Reds decided to hold on to their outfielders to try and get better value later.

Then, last offseason, the Rockies and Reds still couldn’t find any offers to their liking. As a result, the Rockies opted to trade the younger, cheaper Corey Dickerson to the Tampa Bay Rays for reliever Jake McGee. Jason Heyward got paid as did Justin Upton, but Cespedes ended up with an unusual three-year deal despite an MVP-type season. Alex Gordon did fine to get four years and $72 million — and Gerardo Parra was fortunate to get a three-year deal from the Rockies — but Dexter Fowler and Austin Jackson both had to sign one-year deals, while Colby Rasmus avoided the market altogether by accepting the qualifying offer. The FanGraphs crowdsourced guesses overshot it on almost all of the outfielders.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here are the prospects changing hands in today’s deal between Miami and San Diego as evaluated by my newly updated KATOH system. KATOH denotes WAR forecast for first six years of player’s major-league career. KATOH+ uses similar methodology with consideration also for Baseball America’s rankings.

Josh Naylor, 1B, San Diego (Profile)

KATOH: 4.4 WAR (80th overall)
KATOH+: 4.6 WAR (77th overall)

Though he turned 19 just last month, Naylor’s held his own in Low-A this year. Nothing in Naylor’s batting line is particularly great, but he also lacks a major weakness. He makes a decent amount of contact and draws an acceptable number of walks. His home-run total is a bit underwhelming for a first baseman, but’s made up for it by hitting a bunch of doubles this year. He’s also swiped 10 bases and played good defense, so KATOH gives him something of a pass for his underwhelming offensive numbers.

Read the rest of this entry »

This deadline has, thus far, been pretty boring. When Andrew Cashner and Eduardo Nunez are headlining notable trades, you know it’s a slow market. There is one guy who could change all that though, and could have a significant impact on how the postseason shakes out. That guy, of course, is Chris Sale.

The White Sox ace is a legitimate difference maker; even with just a couple months left in the season, he still projects to add another +2 WAR to whatever team he’s on, not counting what he’ll do in the postseason. He’s a high-end player in the prime of his career, and since he’s signed for three more years after this one, he’s also one of the most valuable assets in the sport.

When we did the Trade Value series a few weeks ago, I ranked Sale as the 15th most valuable trade chip in the game. Here is the table that we used to summarize his value.

Read the rest of this entry »

One need only glance at the Marlins’ projected starters over the next few days to determine where the team could use an upgrade. Jose Urena, a hard-throwing right-hander whose stuff hasn’t translated to strikeouts out of the bullpen or in the rotation, will pitch tonight’s game. Tomorrow, Jarred Cosart is scheduled to pitch — and he has a 15% strikeout rate and 11% walk rate over his career. The Marlins apparently didn’t like the look of that situation going forward, especially if Jose Fernandez’s innings need to be managed and/or if Wei-Yin Chen is unable to return from the disabled list soon.

So, they’ve conducted a trade, which reportedly includes the following pieces (arranged in approximate order of name-recognition):

The Marlins get:

• Andrew Cashner
• Colin Rea
• Tayron Guerrero

The Padres get:

• Jarred Cosart
• Carter Capps
• Josh Naylor
• Luis Castillo

As for the Marlins, they receive an immediate boost from adding Cashner to the rotation. While his season numbers (which include a 4.76 ERA and 4.94 FIP) look pretty ugly, Cashner seemed to have boosted his trade value over the last few weeks. As August Fagerstrom noted recently, he’s been much better since coming off the disabled list:

Cashner’s picked up a half-tick on his average fastball. Pre-disabled list, 15% of his fastballs went 96 or harder. These last four starts, he’s reached that upper-tier of velocity on 21% of fastballs. The walks are down from a bit over 9% to a bit under 6%. The strikeouts are way up, from 15% to 28%, because Cashner is missing plenty more bats. He’s missing more bats inside the zone, perhaps due in part to the added life on the heater, and he’s missing more bats outside the zone, and that’s because of the slider. The slider is really what this is all about.

Cashner’s slider has been more effective of late, and if he can maintain his current run, he should be able to hit his roughly league-average projections and represent an improvement over where the team stands right now. If the playoffs started today, the Marlins would be in, playing in a one-game playoff with the Cardinals for the right to play the Dodgers in another one-game playoff to qualify for the divisional series.

However, the projections see the Cardinals as the better team going forward. They actually see the same for the Mets, who are a game and a half behind the Marlins and Cardinals. The chart below shows the playoff odds before the trade for the teams that look to be in the hunt for the second wild card. The Marlins are in orange, essentially in a dead heat with the Mets and behind the Cardinals.

Read the rest of this entry »