FanGraphs Baseball

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You don’t often see GMs fired two weeks before the trade deadline, as this is a pretty busy time of year to be shaking up a front office. You don’t often see the Twins fire anyone, as organizational continuity has been a hallmark of their club, and why they’ve only had five GMs in their franchise history. But today, the Twins bucked both trends, relieving Terry Ryan of his duties, and replacing him on an interim basis with assistant GM Rob Antony.

Minnesota Twins announce GM Terry Ryan has been relieved of his duties. Assistant GM Rob Antony as Interim GM. pic.twitter.com/LF2iYotKZ9

— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) July 18, 2016

Ryan is well respected within the game, but this shows that even his leash was only so long; a GM with a lesser reputation would have likely been removed from the post a while ago, given the number of missteps the front office has made of late. The team’s investments in Ervin Santana and Ricky Nolasco haven’t paid off, and after finding a breakthrough with Phil Hughes, an early extension has turned him into a liability as well, after he went back to being Phil Hughes. Combine that with the Joe Mauer contract going south — which, to be fair, mostly had to do with Mauer’s concussion issues forcing a move off catcher, which couldn’t have really been predicted — and a team with a mid-level payroll was not getting much of a return on their significant financial investments.

That puts a lot of pressure on the team to develop a host of young stars, but Byron Buxton hasn’t yet lived up to the hype, Miguel Sano is too one dimensional to carry a team by himself, and young arms like Kyle Gibson have failed to turn into high-quality starters. With too many things going wrong, the Twins find themselves with the worst record in the American League, and not enough hope for the current roster that things are going to turn around any time soon. And so they decided to make a change.

That said, this should be a fairly attractive job for a younger candidate looking to make their mark in the game. Buxton isn’t a complete bust just yet, and with Sano around, there are a couple of potential cornerstone pieces in place, if the new regime can figure out how to maximize their abilities. The team also isn’t as bad as their record makes them look — their BaseRuns record is 40-51, still not great, but less disastrous — and could be in line for some improvement even without a lot of tinkering. Toss in a division that doesn’t have a traditional behemoth, and the Twins path back to contention could be shorter than some of the other jobs that have opened up lately.

The first sure-fire sign of any good, impending mid-season selling frenzy is upper-management coming out and insisting to the public, “Who, us? No, no way. We’re definitely not selling. Which, that’s fine. Makes sense. Job of upper-management is to make money, and letting all the fans know a month in advance that the team is throwing in the weol of the now for a towel of the future isn’t a great way to keep fannies in the seats, even while the team’s still intact. Despite those claims, though, word always gets out, and the second sure-fire sign of any good, impending mid-season selling frenzy is the resignation that, “Yeah, OK, you caught us; we’re probably sellers.” The third sign is the sale itself.

The New York Yankees have exhibited the first two symptoms of fire-sale fever. After dropping the first series out of the All-Star break to the Boston Red Sox, the Yankees are now 45-46, fourth place in the American League East, and owners of a 6.1% chance to make the postseason, according to our playoff odds. The last three days have represented the club’s lowest points of the season.

And, given the unique construction of the Yankees’ roster, the club seems poised for a rare sell-off, one that, if executed to the fullest extent, could have the second-half version of the team appearing unrecognizable to the first. It seems likely that very few players of the next good Yankees team currently exist on this one. The Yankees are going to make some moves. The question is: how many? Let’s take the lever and push it all the way up. Just for fun, let’s imagine what a complete Yankees teardown looks like.

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Episode 668
Lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen is the guest on this edition of the pod, during which he discusses his observations — regarding St. Louis prospect Alex Reyes, for example — from the Futures Games; considers the projections versus scouting reports on Andrew Benintendi and Alex Bregman; plus also chronicles his transcontinental scouting trip.

This episode of the program either is or isn’t sponsored by SeatGeek, which site removes both the work and also the hassle from the process of shopping for tickets.

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 1 hr 2 min play time.)

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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
Miami at Philadelphia | 19:05 ET
Fernandez (107.1 IP, 57 xFIP-) vs. Nola (96.0 IP, 72 xFIP-)
If Benjamin Franklin didn’t say it expressly, then he certainly thought it once or twice: the key in this life is to budget one’s resources properly — not just money, but also one’s energy and one’s time. It’s imperative, this practice, to keeping the mind sana and the body sano.

Today, the author utilized almost the entirety of his alloted time for this post to composing the unwieldy description of NERD’s postseason adjustment, which appears below. As a result, there’s no discussion of today’s most highly rated game.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Philadelphia Radio.

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With Tyler Thornburg traded to Boston today, we’re re-featuring this post, since it is now relevant again.

We are now officially two weeks away from MLB’s non-waiver trade deadline, and one thing is clear: over the next 14 days, you’re going to see a lot of relievers on the move. The teams that are definitely selling don’t have many starting pitchers to move, and the crop of walk-year hitters isn’t so great either, but what these non-contenders do have an excess of are relief pitchers.

Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller from the Yankees. Alex Colome and Xavier Cedeno from the Rays. Tyler Clippard and Daniel Hudson from the Diamondbacks. Ryan Madson and John Axford from the A’s. Jeanmar Gomez from the Phillies and Joe Smith from the Angels will probably be on the move, and that isn’t even counting guys like Mark Melancon or Steve Cishek who could get moved if things go south for their teams over the next couple of weeks. With nearly every contender looking at bolstering their bullpen, there’s enough demand to clear the supply of available relievers, but we’re definitely not looking at a shortage at the position like there are at other spots this year.

But yet, if I was hunting for a relief pitcher over the next two weeks, my first call would be to the Milwaukee Brewers. They’ve been baseball’s most aggressive team in remaking their roster since David Stearns took over last year, and you know that front office is looking for any opportunity they can to add long-term value, knowing their chances at contention over the next few years are slim at best.

Jeremy Jeffress, the team’s closer, is already generating plenty of trade chatter, as you’d expect from a closer with 23 saves, a 2.35 ERA, and a 96 mph fastball, but he’s not the guy I’d be after. Will Smith would have been a really interesting name if he hadn’t blown out his knee in Spring Training, and while he’s recovered enough to get back on the mound, he doesn’t really look like his old self right now; missing velocity and strikeout rates lead me to guess that the Brewers hold onto Smith and hope he rebuilds some value as he gets further away from the injury, then look to move him over the winter or next summer.

No, the guy I’d want is Tyler Thornburg.

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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
Baltimore at Tampa Bay | 13:10 ET
Bundy (38.0 IP, 116 xFIP-) vs. Odorizzi (104.2 IP, 101 xFIP-)
A lot hasn’t gone particularly well for Dylan Bundy over the last few years. After having been selected fourth overall in 2011 out of an Oklahoma high school and then promptly dispatching all manner of hitter up to Double-A as just a 19-year-old, Bundy experienced arm trouble which required surgery. Since then, he’s failed to reproduce the ecstatic promise of his first year — failed until this most recent month, that is. One wouldn’t necessarily notice it even by examining Bundy’s full-season numbers, but he’s been excellent recently.

Regard:

That’s Bundy over the most recent month (on bottom) compared to all of Bundy from before that. The difference is stark. More strikeouts, fewer walks, more ground balls — and he’s throwing harder. Which, perhaps that last variable is responsible for the first three: greater arm speed tends to have positive consequences beyond just a better fastball.

Of course, all that’s been in relief because all of Bundy’s career appearances have been in relief. This is his first start as a major leaguer. The point, though: Bundy appears more well prepared to handle a starting role now than the last couple years would lead one to suppose.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Tampa Bay Radio or Baltimore Television.

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Shin-Soo Choo and Jurickson Profar could have been pitchers. Both attracted the attention of scouts as hard-throwing amateurs. Choo starred for South Korea when they won the 2000 World Junior Championships and was named the tournament’s top pitcher. Profar excelled on the mound for Willemstad, Curacao when they won the 2004 Little League World Series and again when they lost in the finals the following year.

Each feels he could have gone on to pitch at the highest level. A big difference is that Profar didn’t want to pitch. Choo thought he was going to.

“I found out when I got to the States (in 2000) that I would be a hitter,” explained Choo, who originally signed with Seattle. “I thought I was coming here to be a pitcher. But I wasn’t the one making the decision. At first I was confused. Now I’m happy, because I get to play every day and not every five days.”

Making it to MLB as a position player was Profar’s goal from the start. Read the rest of this entry »

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(s)
Cleveland (Bauer) at Minnesota (Duffey) | 19:10 ET
Los Angeles NL (McCarthy) at Arizona (Bradley) | 20:10 ET
These two games receive the same precise score — to the 100th of a point — per the author’s haphazardly constructed algorithm. In the case both of Cleveland and Los Angeles, one finds talented clubs which feature greater than a 50% chance of qualifying for the divisional series. In the case of Minnesota and Arizona, one finds… not that. But then does find, on the other hand, at least a small collection of promising youth. Consider: the Diamondbacks feature the lowest average batters age (weighted by plate appearances) in the majors; the Twins, the fourth-lowest. Jake Lamb (3.2 WAR), Jean Segura (2.0 WAR), Robbie Grossman (1.2 WAR), Miguel Sano (1.0 WAR) are all in the midst of their age-26 season or something less than that, and all have recorded at least a win this year. Observing those two clubs, one is observes the future of baseball. But not literally. And maybe not even that figuratively. Not all of these brief entries are literary gold.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cleveland Radio, Los Angeles NL Television.

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