For the Giants, it’s easy to say this has been an offseason of risk. They’ve invested a fortune in Johnny Cueto, suggesting they aren’t too worried about his most recent second half. They’ve invested a slightly smaller fortune in Jeff Samardzija, suggesting they aren’t too worried about his most recent second half. And now, as of Thursday, they’ve invested a smaller fortune still in Denard Span, suggesting they aren’t too worried about his 2015 injury problems. It’s simple to see how this could conceivably blow up in the Giants’ faces. Hundreds of millions of dollars. Deeply flawed most recent seasons.

Of course, there’s upside to the Cueto deal. Of course, there’s upside to the Samardzija deal. And now, take Span. There’s no getting away from the fact that he spent much of last year hurt, eventually undergoing season-ending hip surgery. But Span wasn’t extended a qualifying offer, so the Giants aren’t losing a draft pick. And it’s a three-year commitment with a $31 million guarantee. There are incentives, and if Span hits them — if he hits all of them — then, over the next three years, he’ll earn as much money as J.A. Happ. There’s upside to the pitcher contracts, but the upside with Span seems plenty more reachable.

Leave aside for a moment the Giants didn’t have a real in-house center fielder. Leave aside for a moment the market isn’t flush with alternatives. There are a few places where I think teams are a little too cautious with their money. I think teams are still too cautious with talented Japanese and Korean players, placing the major leagues on too high a pedestal. And I think teams are too cautious with players who have injury questions. We’ve seen, for example, the Dodgers work to accumulate a bunch of affordable arms with injury backgrounds. That’s taking advantage of what they perceive to be a soft part of the market.

Span fits in a similar place, except he’s a position player, and not a pitcher, so he doesn’t have the usual pitcher concerns. Everybody wants talent and health. It’s expensive to get them both. The Giants are placing a bet on Span’s talent, figuring better health is going to follow.

Read the rest on Fox Sports.

During the most recent baseball season, 389 players received at least 150 plate appearances. That’s a low and arbitrary threshold, but it will serve to make an important point: Austin Hedges was a terrible hitter. Among those 389 hitters, Hedges was dead last with a 26 wRC+. Taylor Featherston, Rene Rivera, David Ross, and Christian Bethancourt were the other members of the under-40 wRC+ club last year, if you’re looking for some indication as to its infamy.

To put it mildly, Hedges did not deliver at the plate. He slashed .168/.215/.248. By comparison, National League pitchers hit .132/.159/.169 (-16 wRC+). Hedges didn’t hit like an average pitcher, but he didn’t exactly hit like a position player either. Fortunately for the young catcher, baseball is a robust competition and there are other aspects to the game beyond hitting. While Hedges failed to provide value at the plate, he had occasion to provide value behind it, which he seemed to do. But when digging into some of the particulars on Hedges’ season, an odd fact surfaces: teams tried to steal many, many bases against the Friar backstop.

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It was surprising when Jim Edmonds got knocked off the ballot in his first year of Hall of Fame eligibility when results were announced a couple days ago. It was surprising that Ken Griffey Jr. received he highest percentage of votes in history, or it was surprising that he wasn’t unanimous, depending how you want to look at it. It was a bit surprising, maybe, that Jeff Bagwell and Tim Raines didn’t make it, and it might have been surprising how much ground Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens seemed to make up. There’s always little surprises. That’s life.

To me, though, the biggest surprise of them all was the fact that Trevor Hoffman nearly became a first-ballot Hall of Famer. In his first year of eligibility, the longtime Padres closer received 67.3% of the vote, the fifth-highest total on the ballot, just behind Bagwell and Raines and just ahead of Curt Schilling, Clemens, and Bonds. History has shown us that voters who receive such a high percentage of the vote at any time in their eligibility, let alone the first year, are bound to make it in eventually. Trevor Hoffman is going to be a Hall of Famer. It might even happen next year.

There are dissenting opinions with regards to the place of closers in the Hall of Fame, and it’s probably something worth thinking about and discussing. Hard to come away worse from a thoughtful discussion. For some folks, Hoffman is a clear Hall of Famer, and should have been in on the first ballot. For others, he was nowhere near the 10 most deserving players, and might not even garner a selection with an unlimited number of votes per ballot. In the interest of full disclosure, my position has been closer to the latter than the former, though I’m open to seeing the other side. That’s what this post is for.

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The Dodgers just signed Japanese righty Kenta Maeda to a deal that sounds like it belongs in the early 1990s: eight years, $25 million. Not $25 million a year. $25 million. Total. Greg Maddux signed in 1993 for six years and $28 million. That’s how far you have to go back to get a similar deal.

Of course, this is nothing like that deal, because this is 2016, not 1993. The reason this deal is so low is all the risk — risk upon risk, really. But the years, the low guarantee, and even the incentives combine to shift this deal all the way in the other direction. The Dodgers did really well here.

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Yesterday, lead prospect analyst Dan Farnsworth published his excellently in-depth prospect list for the Chicago Cubs. In this companion piece, I look at that same Chicago farm system through the lens of my 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 age-28 seasons, those who receive a projection of at between 1.0 and 2.0 WAR though their age-28 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. Albert Almora, OF (Profile)

KATOH Projection Through Age 28 (2015 stats): 12.7 WAR
KATOH Projection Through Age 28 (2014 stats): 3.3 WAR
Dan’s Grade: 50 FV

After a down 2014 campaign, Almora re-established his prospect status with a strong showing in Double-A last year. The toolsy outfielder made loads of contact, and paired it with a respectable amount of power and speed. The end result was a .272/.327/.400 triple slash, which was eons better than his .234/.250/.335 showing from his pit-stop at the same level last year. Read the rest of this entry »

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 San Diego Padres. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Kansas City / Minnesota / New York AL / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / Seattle / Texas / Toronto.

Batters
The Padres entered the 2015 season having placed a sizable wager against the importance of outfield defense, choosing to deploy a unit consisting of Matt Kemp, Wil Myers, and Justin Upton. It didn’t pay off particularly well: San Diego outfielders produced a collective -23.6 UZR, third-worst among all major-league clubs, while recording merely the 12th-best offensive line (107 wRC+) — i.e. not enough to compensate for the unit’s defensive shortcomings. Overall, the aforementioned triumvirate posted a combined 4.6 WAR, or 1.8 WAR per 600 plate appearances. Not terrible, that, but also not commensurate with the club’s financial investment in them.

Defense will be less of an issue for the team this year, according to Dan Szymborski’s computer. Jon Jay and Melvin Upton are both projected to provide slightly above-average defense as center fielders — and, owing to how the game is traditionally played, only one of them is likely to occupy center at any given time, meaning the second will probably be playing a very capable left field alongside the first. Travis Jankowski (439 PA, +8 DEF in CF) and the newly acquired Manuel Margot (518 PA, +7 DEF in CF) are also candidates to prevent runs at an above-average rate.

The flaw for the current iteration of the Padres isn’t so much outfield defense as it is almost all the other aspects of the club. This is perhaps best expressed by observing how Derek Norris (468 PA, 2.9 zWAR) receives the top projection among San Diego’s position players. Norris absolutely has his virtues. To say that he’s not an ideal franchise cornerstone, however, is to say a correct thing.

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Earlier today, when I was writing about Tim Raines, I noted that that whole post came out of me actually doing some research on David DeJesus. That wasn’t a lie, and I have two nuggets of proof:

1. who would lie about that
2. the rest of this post

In case you were worried, I didn’t let some Raines facts get in the way of me still writing about a free-agent veteran fourth outfielder. I know you don’t come to FanGraphs to read about David DeJesus, but, take a look at what you’re doing now! I promise there’s good reason, though. See, you might not have expected this, but according to the numbers, DeJesus is the worst active base-stealer in the game.

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Read Part I here.

The last few Hall of Fame elections have seen quite a few pitchers gain induction. In 2014, Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux were elected, and in 2015, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz, and Randy Johnson went in. Prior to 2013, only one full-time starting pitcher had gained election this century: Bert Blyleven in 2011, and he had to wait until his 14th year on the ballot. Roger Clemens, Mike Mussina, and Curt Schilling all have very strong cases for the Hall of Fame, and at least in terms of pitchers, the next few years look pretty clear of even borderline candidates before Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, Andy Pettitte, and Mariano Rivera appear on the ballot in 2019.

Getting elected by the BBWAA has been a tough hill to climb for starting pitchers. Only 33 starting pitchers in the Hall of Fame were elected by the writers. From 1950 to 1979, just 10 starting pitchers were elected. The 1980s saw just four starting pitchers elected while the 90s had eight players inducted before another slowdown last decade. If Clemens, Mussina, and Schilling and get in, this decade will see nine starting pitchers gain election. Despite greats like Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal, and Jim Palmer failing to achieve the 300-win milestone and gaining election, for a time, it seemed only pitchers with 300 wins would gain election. Blyleven, Martinez, and Smoltz appear to have tempered that attitude somewhat, giving more hope to Mussina and Schilling.

Coming up with standards for the Hall of Fame can be a difficult process. I went into detail in my process yesterday when I introduced a Hall of Fame rating system, but included only position players in the results. The basis for the point system is repeated below: Read the rest of this entry »

Ben and Sam review the greatness of Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza and talk about their other takeaways from the Hall of Fame voting results.

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