Ben and Sam preview the Phillies’ season with Holly M. Wendt, and Jeff talks to News Journal Phillies beat writer Meghan Montemurro (at 23:50)
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The news: Yulieski Gurriel, said to be Cuba’s best baseball player, has left Cuba, with every intention of pursuing a career in the majors. The necessary and additional information: Gurriel will turn 32 in June, and he’s mostly a third baseman, though he’s also played second. He’s free of any international spending restrictions, but teams can’t try to spend their money on him yet, and there’s some chance we won’t see Gurriel until 2017. So this is an exciting turn of events that’ll require some patience — Gurriel is virtually certain to become available, but these things have a way of taking their time.
Gurriel has been on the radar for well over a decade. He’s part of what’s been a powerful baseball family in Cuba, and he’s starred on the national team. He also played half a year in Japan, and while he was excellent there, he’s been at his best at home, and in the past Ben Badler compared him offensively to Hanley Ramirez and David Wright. When you talk about performance abroad, I know people don’t always quite trust the statistics, at least in terms of how well they’ll translate, but here’s the latest info I can find: 38 walks and three strikeouts. That’s Gurriel this season. Also, a league-leading .500 batting average, slugging .873. You don’t need to know anything about Cuban baseball to know that Gurriel has been dominant, and the belief is he could help a major-league lineup tomorrow.
There’s not an MLB front office that won’t have some Gurriel conversations. I’m sure hundreds have already taken place. Players like this don’t become available very often, but then it’s not like this is pure upside. Gurriel is probably going to sign after he turns 32, and his best baseball is almost definitely behind him. So he’s more of a short-term player than a long-term player, and then he’s also going to cost a fortune, as a free agent. Hector Olivera signed at a younger age than Gurriel, but he was 30, and Olivera is thought to be worse than Gurriel, and Olivera cleared $60 million. Gurriel might end up getting nine figures, for all I know. That would be steep, but this is a big opportunity.
So let’s try to figure out a market. Yulieski Gurriel isn’t available today. But he should be available before too long, so based on what we know at the moment, what seem like the most likely destinations?
While nothing is officially done yet, it seems reasonable to assume the Orioles are going to sign Yovani Gallardo, with reports that a deal just needs some tweaks before it is finalized. The Orioles are reportedly giving Gallardo a three year deal, but more significantly, they’re sacrificing their first round pick (#14 overall) since he rejected the Rangers qualifying offer at the beginning of the off-season. After losing Wei-Yin Chen, the Orioles certainly had a hole in their rotation, and so after months of talking about replacing him internally, they’ve apparently decided that Gallardo’s price has come down enough to justify surrendering the draft choice in order to sign him.
Given the Orioles position as a bottom-tier AL club, in a league where all 15 teams are trying to win in 2016, giving up the 14th pick to sign an average pitcher in decline is a questionable move. Currently, our forecasts have the Orioles as a 78 win team, and while adding Gallardo will help, he realistically can’t be expected to push them much past 79 or 80 wins. This is still a team with some significant flaws, and while they’re good enough to contend if things break their way, Gallardo isn’t really a put-them-over-the-top kind of acquisition.
But signing Gallardo does present a potential opportunity. By surrendering the 14th pick to upgrade their rotation, they’ve also lowered their acquisition cost of making a second move, and Gallardo isn’t the only free agent on the market still tied to draft pick compensation. In fact, there’s one more free agent out there who makes a ton of sense for the Orioles. Read the rest of this entry »
Ben and Sam preview their fourth annual 30-team season-preview podcast series with preview partners Jeffrey Paternostro and George Bissell, then answer listener emails about prospect lists, talking to scouts, fantasy drafting, Ian Desmond, and Kenta Maeda.
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In yet another sign that baseball season is coming ever closer, the arbitration process this year is coming to a close. Many players signed one-year deals before the teams and players exchanged numbers last month, while others exchanged numbers and struck one-year deals. A few players have actually gone to arbitration. Four players — Lorenzo Cain, Josh Donaldson, J.D. Martinez, and A.J. Pollock — agreed to two-year deals with their teams, buying out no free-agent seasons, but ensuring both parties that arbitration would not be necessary next year. These two-year deals are common and typically come with a discount for the team. For the four players who signed this season, however, there was no discount.
The arbitration process is set up to provide a discount to teams in the years just before free agency. The players get their first taste of actual millions while the team retains control of the player at a price much less than what the market would yield — all without having to mark a multi-year commitment. Some players sign extensions which takie them through free agency while others are non-tendered and set free by clubs who think that even the small, arbitration-produced salaries are too much compared to the expected production.
| 12:00 |
: Alright, it’s Wednesday, and spring training is around the corner. Let’s talk lukewarm stove and the upcoming season.
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| 12:01 |
: Who do you like better for the White Sox: Latos or Gallardo?
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| 12:02 |
: At the price Latos got, he’s a pretty clear pick, but I think it’s worth noting that in a market starved for pitching, no one else wanted the guy. I’m not a big believer in paying for chemistry, but when 29 teams decide they just don’t want this dude on their team, there’s a decent chance he’s a more destructive force than the typical “bad makeup” guy.
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| 12:03 |
: The difference between me playing on opening day and being out until 5-1 is how many wins for the Indians?
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| 12:03 |
: If you only miss a month, less than a win. But I’d bet you’re out longer than that.
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| 12:04 |
: At this point would the Cubs prefer to sign Fowler on a cheap one year deal as a 4th OF or get the compensation pick when another team signs him? How low would Fowler’s asking price have to come down for this to make sense for the Cubs?
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Well, that didn’t take long. Yesterday, I addressed the White Sox desperate need to bolster their rotation to be taken seriously as a contender, and suggested Yovani Gallardo as a sensible addition. The White Sox apparently agreed with me on the first count and rendered the second moot by agreeing to terms with Mat Latos just hours after the post went up.
The deal went down for one year and $3 million, a figure that jumps out as being essentially nothing in today’s free agency landscape. Especially so, when you consider what Latos was expected to receive:
| Player | CS_Yrs | CS_$ | CS_AAV | Tru_Yrs | Tru_$ | Tru_AAV | Yrs_DIF | $_DIF | AAV_DIF |
| Yoenis Cespedes | 6 | 132 | 22 | 3 | 75 | 25 | –3 | -57 | 3 |
| Howie Kendrick | 4 | 52 | 13 | 2 | 20 | 10 | -2 | -32 | -3 |
| Hisashi Iwakuma | 3 | 42 | 14 | 1 | 12 | 12 | -2 | -30 | -2 |
| Mat Latos | 2 | 22 | 11 | 1 | 3 | 3 | -1 | -19 | -8 |
| Alex Gordon | 5 | 90 | 18 | 4 | 72 | 18 | -1 | -18 | 0 |
Looking just at guaranteed dollars, it’s the fourth-cheapest contract of the offseason, relative to the crowd’s guess. The crowd expected Latos would earn $22 million this offseason, and what he actually got was $3 million.
Look beyond that, and Latos’ deal stands out even more. We all know about the funky Cespedes contract, and even though he got $57 million fewer guaranteed than expected, that’s largely offset by him actually getting a higher AAV. Iwakuma’s price tag dropped after failing a physical. Gordon got an equal AAV, just one fewer year. In terms of just AAV, Latos is the bargain of the offseason, so far, according to this one-track methodology. His AAV is $8 million less than the crowd predicted; no other free agent has had a gap larger than $4 million.
How did this gap come to be? Did the crowd wildly overestimate Latos’ value? Did the White Sox get a total steal?
Previous editions: Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland.
Earlier this week, lead prospect analyst Dan Farnsworth published his excellently in-depth prospect list for the Colorado Rockies. In this companion piece, I look at that same Colorado 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. Trevor Story, SS (Profile)
KATOH Projection: 7.2 WAR
Dan’s Grade: 50 FV
Story’s prospect trajectory resembles a bathtub curve — which is to say it’s gone from high to low and back to high again. Drafted 45th overall back in 2011, he got off to a strong start in the low minors, but hit a wall as soon as he reached High-A. Story got back on track in 2015 when he hit .279/.350/.514 between Double-A and Triple-A with 20 homers and 22 steals. Story was one of the top offensive performers in the high minors last year, which is mighty impressive for a shortstop. His 25% strikeout rate is cause for concern, but is largely outweighed by everything else he does well.
| Rank | Name | Proj. WAR | Actual WAR |
| 1 | Ray Durham | 5.4 | 9.4 |
| 2 | Ronnie Belliard | 6.0 | 10.7 |
| 3 | Todd Walker | 6.7 | 4.6 |
| 4 | Brandon Wood | 7.6 | 0.0 |
| 5 | Tim Unroe | 3.3 | 0.5 |
| 6 | Dave Silvestri | 5.2 | 0.8 |
| 7 | Chase Headley | 6.3 | 19.2 |
| 8 | Aubrey Huff | 4.4 | 10.9 |
| 9 | Bobby Crosby | 8.0 | 8.1 |
| 10 | Kevin Nicholson | 2.7 | 0.2 |
After having typically appeared in the very hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past couple years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Tampa Bay Rays. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.
Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Colorado / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles AL / Los Angeles NL / Miami / Milwaukee / Minnesota / New York AL / New York NL / Oakland / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / St. Louis / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Texas / Toronto / Washington.
Batters
Tampa Bay center fielder Kevin Kiermaier hasn’t merely recorded more wins than every other 31st-round selection from the 2010 draft, but he appears also to have recorded more wins than all but six players — including (and, it would seem, limited to) Adam Eaton, Bryce Harper, Matt Harvey, Manny Machado, Chris Sale, and Andrelton Simmons — from that same draft class. What else he’s done is to distinguish himself as the prohibitive star of your 2016 Rays. Taken out of Parkland College in Champaign, Illinois, Kiermaier has now produced a 9.5 WAR in fewer than two full seasons’ worth of plate appearances. His projection for the 2016 campaign (521 PA, 4.2 zWAR) calls for roughly a repeat of the same.
After Kiermaier, the 2016 iteration of the club appears to be an exercise in uninspiring competence. Desmond Jennings is roughly average. Logan Forsythe and Brad Miller are roughly average. Whoever’s platooning in right field is likely to provide a roughly average platoon. The club’s weaknesses are at designated hitter and first base. Neither Logan Morrison (445 PA, 0.0 zWAR) nor James Loney (498 PA, 0.0 zWAR) appear well-equipped to benefit the team at either position.
| 9:01 |
: Hi everybody! I’m here, and Jeff will be along in a minute.
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| 9:01 |
: Who does better in Japan? Jason Pridie or Jonny Gomes?
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| 9:01 |
: Jonny Gomes? He just seems to have a way about him.
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| 9:02 |
: Ghomes
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| 9:02 |
: If you had a 40 man roster of 0.0 WAR players and you played a simulated season, what would their avg record be? this would really help define WAR for us non math dudes.
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| 9:02 |
: I believe it is in the 40s? Jeff? We get this question all the time and I can never remember the exact number because I’m a moron.
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