FanGraphs Baseball

We’re now halfway through this year’s trade value list, and today’s crop is an interesting group, comprised almost entirely of outfielders and pitchers, many of whom have signed long-term deals at bargain prices, relative to the current market rates for players of their abilities. This group skews a little older than the last ten names we discussed, but the oldest player here is still 29; youth is still a near-requirement for making this series.

As a reminder for those who haven’t read the first two parts of the series, we’ve significantly upgraded the way we’re presenting the information this year. On the individual player tables, the Guaranteed Dollars and Team Control WAR — which are provided by Dan Szymborski’s ZIPS projections — rows give you an idea of what kind of production and costs a team could expect going forward, though to be clear, we’re not counting the rest of 2016 in those numbers; they’re just included for reference of what a player’s future status looks like. And as a reminder, we’re not ranking players based on those projections, as teams aren’t going to just make trades based on the ZIPS forecasts.

That said, they’re a useful tool to provide some context about what a player might do for the next few years. And for prospects who haven’t yet been called up, we have to guess when they’ll become arbitration eligible, since we don’t actually know how their organizations will handle the service time issue yet.

With those items covered, let’s get to the middle of the list.

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8:13	Jeff Zimmerman:

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Yesterday, I wrote about the worst called ball of the first half, and that post always makes this post a necessity. Within that post, I noticed something: The worst called ball of the first half was thrown by an Angels pitcher, to a White Sox hitter. Last year, the worst called ball of the season was thrown by a White Sox pitcher, to an Angels hitter. It all balanced out. Tremendous! The universe is good.

Well, the worst called strike of the first half was thrown by Max Scherzer, to an outfielder on a rebuilding team, with Wilson Ramos catching. The worst called strike of the previous first half was thrown by Max Scherzer, to an outfielder on a rebuilding team, with Wilson Ramos catching. It didn’t balance out. It’s not tremendous. The universe is bad.

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You’ve probably heard the expression, “Don’t throw good money after bad.” Simply put, don’t waste more money on what is already a losing proposition. There might be an argument that this wisdom has some relevance to the Detroit Tigers, that the Tigers have reached the moment where it’s time to focus on the future instead of the present.

Consider: the club possesses a near-$200 million payroll but sits just three games over .500. They’re 6.5 games out in the American League Central and four games back of the second wild card. Going all-in for a shot at a one-game playoff seems like poor planning for an organization that has failed to prioritize the long-term for much of the past decade. However, with the way they have positioned themselves, the Tigers don’t have much of a choice.

It might not appear as though the Tigers’ season has gone according to plan given where they are in the standings, but in terms of reaching the playoffs, they sit not too far off from where they started the season. The chart below shows the FanGraphs playoff odds from the beginning of the season to the All-Star break for the eight American League teams with at least a 10% chance (with apologies to fans of the White Sox, Royals, and Yankees, who are not completely out of it).

While the Tigers appear to be the odd team out in the chart above, they would require two teams to falter a bit — while continuing to play to expectations themselves — in order to reach the playoffs. Consider that, prior to the Mets’ loss Matt Harvey for the season — and also the loss of their last three games — the team’s playoff odds were 69%, but now sit 30 points lower. Subtractions and additions to talent level can make a big difference in projections over the course of the rest of the season. If the Tigers were a truly small-market team who’d experienced some success over the years, but might benefit in the near future by reloading at the trade deadline, then a selloff might make sense. The Tigers are not that team.

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Despite Major League Baseball’s attempts to add urgency to the All-Star game, there are factors which ensure that winning isn’t the only objective for its participants. It is, after all, an exhibition game. And yes, while most of the league’s best players will be present, deserving players will be absent. Finally, managers will make an effort to use nearly all players on each roster — both for the players’ benefit and the benefit of those fans who voted on the players’ behalves. There are, in other words, expectations placed both on the players and managers which surpass mere winning or losing.

Even if winning were the only objective of either team — and if the players on each roster were deployed optimally — using the results of tonight’s game as a proxy for determining which league is stronger would be foolish, not unlike using World Series results to do the same. Calculating strength of league requires an evaluation of interleague records and some greater evaluation of entire group of players in each league. That would be the most equitable way of doing things.

However, given that the All-Star game is tonight and given that it includes an equal number of players on both teams, we can compare the respective talents of those squads as a small way of comparing the leagues. That’s the goal of this post.

While both teams have had injury replacements over the past week, the National League has been hit considerably harder, losing Clayton Kershaw, Madison Bumgarner, Noah Syndergaard, Matt Carpenter, and Yoenis Cespedes. Those players have combined for 18.1 WAR so far this season and Kershaw leads the NL and is tied at 5.5 with Mike Trout in MLB. Even with those losses, the NL has put together a talented squad.

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Over the last few days, we’ve started off the Trade Value series with the introduction, the honorable mentions, and the first 10 names of the series. I strongly encourage you to read all of the linked articles for an explanation of the question we’re trying to answer, and some context for who we’ve already discussed.

As we move to the second group, you’ll note that this tier is heavy on prospects and guys without a substantial big-league track record. These guys are always controversial, as some people value history over potential, but there’s no question teams are becoming more and more protective of their top young minor leaguers, especially the ones who can come up and make an impact on the big-league team. That is mostly what sets this group of prospects apart from the ones who didn’t quite make the cut: these guys have present value, and could mostly play in the big leagues today. The ability to impact a team in the second half of the year, as well as turn into a franchise cornerstone with more development, is what makes them so valuable to major-league clubs.

Also, thanks to Sean Dolinar, we’ve significantly upgraded the way we’re presenting the information here. On the individual player tables, the Guaranteed Dollars and Team Control WAR — which are provided by Dan Szymborski’s ZIPS projections — rows give you an idea of what kind of production and costs a team could expect going forward, though to be clear, we’re not counting the rest of 2016 in those numbers; they’re just included for reference of what a player’s future status looks like. And as a reminder, we’re not ranking players based on those projections, as teams aren’t going to just make trades based on the ZIPS forecasts. That said, they’re a useful tool to provide some context about what a player might do for the next few years.

On to the second part of the series.

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It’s still rather difficult to craft an argument against the Chicago Cubs as the best team in baseball, at least in my opinion. I mean, shoot, they’ve outscored their opponents by 139 runs for the season, and that’s 34 more than the next-best team, and 50 more than the next-next best team. They’ve got an MVP candidate (favorite?) in Kris Bryant, and they’ve got perhaps the second-best pitcher in the world in Jake Arrieta. The lineup’s still deep, the rotation’s still deep. They still play defense, and they still run the bases. It’s the same roster that was undoubtedly the best roster just a month ago, and the same roster that the projections, whether it be ZiPS, Steamer, or PECOTA, think is clearly the best in the sport.

But, here’s the thing. The Cubs no longer have the best record — they’ve barely got the second-best record — and that’s kinda crazy, considering it was barely a month ago that they had the best record in the sport by 6.5 games, with an even better BaseRuns record at the time.

Except, lately — and pretty much since that moment — things haven’t been going so hot. I created a little infographic to help put things into perspective. Hope this does the trick:

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Episode 666
Dave Cameron is the managing editor of FanGraphs. During this edition of FanGraphs Audio he examines Boston’s recent trades for Aaron Hill and Brad Ziegler, whether it’s another case of Dave Dombrowski overpaying with prospects for present help; discusses his trade-value series and the challenges of evaluating players (like Jake Lamb) whose current production deviates wildly from previously established levels; and also addresses the omission of Clayton Kershaw from the list entirely.

Also, note: the Practical Analytics portion of the program wanders accidentally into the province of Real Talk. Listeners are encouraged to skip roughly to 16:00 if they have little interest in such matters.

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 51 min play time.)

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Most All-Stars weren’t born into baseball this way. Most of them had to alter their approach, or their mechanics, in order to find that a-ha moment. They threw a pitch differently, or decided to pull the ball more, or changed their swing, and then found a run of sustained success that put them in the All-Star game that’s being played tonight.

So, given fairly fettered access to the All-Stars from both leagues, that was the question I posed: what was the big adjustment, mechanical or approach-wise, that brought you to this podium today?

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