If you have been exposed to media anytime between January 2015 and today, you’re likely aware there is a presidential race at hand. Those are exciting enough on their own (the whole “future of the country” thing), but this version seems to contain excessive amounts of chaos. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton, who everyone knew would waltz to the nomination with ease, is once again up against a grassroots insurgence from the left. On the Republican side, the clear frontrunner since they started talking about this stuff six years ago, Jeb “!” Bush, just finished fourth in the New Hampshire primary. Like the rest of the GOP field, he’s getting crushed by businessman and former reality TV star Donald Trump. You can’t make this stuff up, though it might be nice if someone had.

All this craziness isn’t unlike the 2016 baseball season. The teams are about to report to spring training and the predictions are all over the place. Coming off a World Series win, forget repeating, the Royals aren’t projected for a winning season by many (including us). The big-money teams are coming off of varying degrees of failure and have conducted themselves this offseason not unlike a fish flopping about in a boat. The National League, despite a clearer caste system in place of haves and have-nots, might be even worse. The Dodgers look like favorites in the West, but the Giants could be fantastic, and if you’re buying what the Diamondbacks are selling then… okay! Then there’s the Nationals and Mets in the East, and the Cubs, Pirates, and Cardinals in the Central. Good luck figuring all that out.

The thing is, we are trying to figure all that out. We’ve got projections and odds for the baseball teams, and there are sites that are doing projections and odds for the presidential candidates. A couple days ago at the Sporting News, Jesse Spector wrote a piece assigning Simpsons pictures to baseball teams. I figured I owe it to the internet, nay the country, to write a piece in assigning baseball teams to their corresponding presidential candidates. So I am writing that piece. And you are reading it. And I’m sorry.

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Bryce Harper won’t be a free agent for three more years, but that hasn’t stopped people from writing about his next contract. Over the last few months, David Schoenfeld and Jeff Passan have discussed his eventual price tag recently, and Harper himself vaguely addressed the topic in a radio interview yesterday:

Harper was asked during an interview with 106.7 The Fan’s Grant Paulsen and Danny Rouhier whether he has thought about the possible magnitude of his next contract.

“I was talking to an executive this offseason,” Paulsen said. “At one point in time they said you could be the first $400 million player. Do you ever think about your future and what’s possible, in terms of you could break records for the money you make at one point in time?”

“Yeah, I mean I don’t really think about that stuff. I just try to play the years out and do everything I can to help my team win,” Harper said. “But don’t sell me short. That’s what you’re doing right now to me, so don’t do that.”

The idea that $400 million is selling Harper might seem ridiculous, but he’s right; as long as he continues to perform near expectations, the winning bid should be substantially higher than that.

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Football is behind us, and large trucks are on their way to Florida and Arizona, bearing loads of baseball-related cargo. To tide us over until spring-training games kick in next month, let’s take a position-by-position look back at the ball-in-play (BIP) profiles of 2015 semi-regulars and regulars to see if we can find any clues as to their projected performance moving forward. Today, we’ll take a look at first basemen and designated hitters.

First, some ground rules. To come up with an overall player population roughly equal to one player per team per position, the minimum number of batted balls with Statcast readings was set at 164. Players were listed at the position at which they played the most games. There is more than one player per team at some positions and less at others, like catcher and DH. Players are listed in descending OPS+ order. Without further ado, let’s kick it off with AL first basemen.

BIP Overview – AL First Basemen

Name	Avg MPH	FB/LD MPH	GB MPH	POP%	FLY%	LD%	GB%	CON	K%	BB%	OPS+	Pull%	Cent%	Opp%
Cabrera	93.8	96.9	91.7	1.1%	31.6%	25.2%	42.1%	163	16.0%	15.1%	170	35.8%	30.7%	33.5%
Davis	92.2	97.1	86.4	1.7%	41.8%	24.7%	31.8%	213	31.0%	12.5%	146	56.0%	26.5%	17.6%
Teixeira	89.9	93.9	86.1	3.8%	38.5%	18.9%	38.8%	134	18.4%	12.8%	146	55.5%	28.9%	15.7%
Colabello	91.1	94.8	88.0	2.5%	24.4%	25.2%	47.9%	193	26.7%	6.1%	142	34.5%	39.1%	26.5%
Abreu	92.0	94.1	90.5	3.4%	28.7%	20.7%	47.3%	146	21.0%	5.8%	135	37.6%	35.9%	26.6%
Hosmer	90.6	94.4	88.6	2.5%	21.9%	23.4%	52.2%	119	16.2%	9.1%	122	36.8%	34.6%	28.7%
Pujols	92.0	93.5	90.8	4.1%	38.1%	15.9%	41.8%	90	10.9%	7.6%	118	45.8%	34.9%	19.3%
Moreland	92.1	96.6	87.9	3.8%	30.8%	19.8%	45.6%	134	21.7%	6.2%	116	44.8%	32.7%	22.5%
Cron	88.8	93.5	84.9	6.7%	30.4%	18.4%	44.5%	110	20.3%	4.2%	106	33.8%	38.8%	27.4%
Gonzalez	89.2	93.7	85.5	4.9%	28.1%	22.7%	44.3%	114	20.0%	4.3%	106	49.1%	34.3%	16.6%
Santana	90.8	93.5	90.1	7.0%	30.1%	18.3%	44.5%	88	18.3%	16.2%	103	53.4%	28.6%	18.0%
Canha	90.4	93.4	88.6	5.7%	34.5%	17.8%	42.0%	104	19.8%	6.8%	102	42.8%	34.5%	22.7%
Carter	92.6	97.3	84.4	4.5%	47.3%	18.4%	29.8%	131	32.8%	12.4%	100	39.6%	36.3%	24.1%
Mauer	89.5	93.8	87.1	0.8%	19.4%	24.1%	55.7%	90	16.8%	10.1%	96	30.5%	37.5%	32.1%
Napoli	89.8	94.6	84.6	4.8%	37.3%	15.5%	42.4%	108	25.2%	12.2%	96	39.3%	35.9%	24.8%
Morrison	91.1	92.6	90.8	4.0%	35.0%	16.3%	44.7%	75	15.9%	9.2%	92	41.7%	34.3%	24.0%
Loney	85.9	87.0	86.2	2.1%	30.9%	24.2%	42.7%	73	8.8%	5.9%	90	38.2%	33.6%	28.2%
AVG	90.7	94.2	87.8	3.7%	32.3%	20.6%	43.4%	123	20.0%	9.2%	117	42.1%	33.9%	24.0%

Most of the column headers are self explanatory, including average BIP speed (overall and by BIP type), BIP type frequency, K and BB rates, and BIP by field sector (pull, central, opposite). Each players’ OPS and Unadjusted Contact Score (CON) is also listed. For those of you who have not read my articles on the topic, Contact Score is derived by removing Ks and BBs from hitters’ batting lines, assigning run values to all other events, and comparing them to a league average of 100.

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Most of the discussions surrounding the Cincinnati Reds during the past calendar year has centered around what to do with an aging core of players that are careening toward free agency on a club with little chance of competing. That’s the right type of conversation to have in the Reds’ situation – a situation in which Joey Votto had a historically great season on a last place team. We’ve known for a while what the Reds should do, and they’ve already started the rebuild by trading Aroldis Chapman and Todd Frazier. There is unquestionably more to be done, and more that will be done. There’s another interesting angle to their 2015 season, however, and it’s an issue that turned a season that was expected to be not-so-great into the second-worst record in baseball: the issue of clutch hitting.

“Clutch” — as we are discussing it today — is the measure of how well a player or team performs in high leverage situations vs. context-neutral situations. I implore the interested reader to examine the full rundown on our glossary page, but what we’re really talking about is the importance of the situations in which players produce or don’t produce. There has been some evidence that a “clutch skill” might exist – that some players are simply better in certain situations than others – but there is usually a lot of variability for players from year-to-year, and any true skill is likely to have a small impact.

Take, for example, Josh Reddick: he had a Clutch rating of -3.89 in 2012, the worst since Bob Bailor in 1984 (-3.84). That means he was responsible for “losing” his team almost four games due to his performance in high leverage situations. The next year (2013), Reddick had a Clutch rating of just -0.18, or right about average. Poor fortune, bad timing – these things happen, and sometimes they happen an extreme number of times in the same year. Because of this, Clutch isn’t really predictive, and is much better utilized as an indicator of what has already happened.

That brings us to the Reds, and measuring team-wide Clutch statistics. There are two versions of Clutch for teams: pitching Clutch and batting Clutch. The Reds were actually above average when it came to pitching Clutch, sitting just below the middle of the pack with a 1.16 rating. For comparison, the Oakland A’s were the worst Clutch pitching team in 2015 at -6.05; this is one of the reasons why they were so terrible in one-run games, and it’s the main reason why they were the biggest underperformer in recent BaseRuns history.

However, on the other side of the ball, the Reds were historically terrible in Clutch situations. How terrible? Let’s just cut straight to the chase — here are the 15 worst Clutch hitting teams since 1974 (the first year we have Clutch data available):

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It might be the biggest debate in baseball, statistically speaking. We’re well past RBI and pitcher wins, by now. WAR is a big debate, but not so much because of the offensive statistics, or the baserunning figures. WAR is debated largely due to the thing I had in mind when I wrote that first sentence, the one about the biggest debate in baseball, statistically speaking: defense.

There’s still a strong “eye test” contingent. Folks who believe you just can’t put a number on defense. On the other side, there’s a staunch numbers crowd. The crowd that argues, well, you can’t see every play from every defender, and you also can’t ignore or probably even be aware of your own internal biases; I’ll stick with the numbers. Where it gets real tricky is that, even within the numbers-oriented crowd, there’s some skepticism of those very numbers. There’s some concerns with the methodology. Defensive shifts make things extra tough.

So for the most part, we shrug our shoulders and accept that, for as far as these things have come over the years, we’ve still got to do some leg work. If we really want to gain an idea of a player’s defensive ability, we’ve got to just take it all in, and look for clues along the way. What does each defensive metric say? When they agree on one thing or another, we’ve got ourselves a clue. How about errors? They’re not the best, but they’re not worthless. Do they line up with what we saw in the advanced stats? Clue. Check out some spray charts, or Inside Edge. Watch some film, and read some scouting reports. Plenty of clues to be found in there, especially given all you’ve learned along the way. Do all this, and you’ll have a pretty good idea. Even if one number or one play or one quote goes against what you’ve concluded, that’s the point; your body of research holds more weight than that one thing that purports to invalidate your findings.

* * *

Each year, Tom Tango does a fun little project called the Fans Scouting Report. The nature of the project, essentially, is to crowdsource the eye test. There’s plenty of ways to use the data, and I’ve settled on one, for now. I wanted to look for improvement, and I wanted to look for agreement, using both the eye test, and the advanced numbers. I used three sources of defensive metrics (UZR, DRS, FRAA) for fielders with at least 500 innings in 2014, and 2015. I averaged those to get component defensive runs above average figures, and then, I compared against the Fans Scouting Report’s numbers. Using some z-scores, I could come up with an overall ranking of agreed-upon improvement.

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Previous editions: Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cincinnati  / Cleveland / Colorado.

Earlier this week, lead prospect analyst Dan Farnsworth published his excellently in-depth prospect list for the Detroit Tigers. In this companion piece, I look at that same Detroit farm system through the lens of my recently refined KATOH projection system. There’s way more to prospect evaluation than just the stats, so if you haven’t already, I highly recommend you read Dan’s piece in addition to this one. KATOH has no idea how hard a pitcher throws, how good a hitter’s bat speed is, or what a player’s makeup is like. So it’s liable to miss big on players whose tools don’t line up with their performances. However, when paired with more scouting-based analyses, KATOH’s objectivity can be useful in identifying talented players who might be overlooked by the industry consensus or highly-touted prospects who might be over-hyped.

Below, I’ve grouped prospects into three groups: those who are forecast for two or more wins through their first six major-league seasons, those who receive a projection between 1.0 and 2.0 WAR though their first six seasons, and then any residual players who received Future Value (FV) grades of 45 or higher from Dan. Note that I generated forecasts only for players who accrued at least 200 plate appearances or batters faced last season. Also note that the projections for players over a relatively small sample are less reliable, especially when those samples came in the low minors.

1. Michael Fulmer, RHP (Profile)

KATOH Projection: 3.8 WAR
Dan’s Grade: 50 FV

Fulmer enjoyed a breakout season with the Mets last year and kept it going after he came to the Tigers in the Yoenis Cespedes deal. Both his strikeout rate and walk rate improved as he made the jump from High-A to Double-A in 2015, giving him the lowest ERA — and second lowest FIP — in Double-A last year.

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By the time this gets published, Yovani Gallardo might have agreed to a multiyear contract with the Orioles. Maybe that hasn’t happened yet, because I don’t know the future, but this is one of those situations where you think you do know the future, because Gallardo landing with Baltimore feels inevitable. I’m going to guess Gallardo knows it, and I’m going to guess the Orioles know it. It’s like a smaller-scale version of the Chris Davis talks, where both parties are about tired of tugging the rope. If there’s not yet an agreement, it stands to reason there will be soon.

If and when Gallardo signs with the Orioles, it’ll be underwhelming. It’ll feel like an overpay, like a lot of other pitcher contracts, and though that right there is a reason to believe our scale of expectations is just off, Gallardo doesn’t feel like the most excellent bet. Some people will be able to talk themselves into it, pointing to Gallardo’s experience, and saying he’s seen as a bulldog. The deal won’t single-handedly cripple the Orioles, and Gallardo might just prevent enough runs to make it work. There’s just that one trend, though. Gallardo comes off as an insufficient talent for an insufficient roster.

Let’s talk for a few minutes about that trend. You know the one.

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Episode 631
Dave Cameron is both (a) the managing editor of FanGraphs and (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio, during which edition he discusses international free agency, the prospect of an international draft, and a stirring (!) alternative to said draft.

This edition of the program is sponsored by Draft, the first truly mobile fantasy sports app. Compete directly against idiot host Carson Cistulli by clicking here.

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 41 min play time.)

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Ben and Sam preview the Braves’ season with Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Mark Bradley, and Jeff talks to Talking Chop prospect writer Garrett Spain (at 31:23)

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