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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I want you to know that I don’t have an agenda here. I mean, I know that’s exactly what someone who has an agenda would say, and I know there are people online who push Tim Raines pretty hard every year, but if you can believe it, this actually came out of research focused on David DeJesus. I recognize that Tim Raines was outstanding. When I was younger, I didn’t have much opportunity to watch him, so I don’t have much in the way of loyalty. And based on trends, it looks like Raines will make the Hall of Fame next year, given how close he just came. This post is agenda-less. All I want to do is fill in a gap.
It’s a baserunning gap. When talking about Raines as a deserving Hall-of-Famer, part of the argument is his ability to steal bases. Considered most simply, Raines ranks fifth on the all-time stolen-base list. Considered more nerdily, I examined the last 50 years, and calculated stolen-base value per 600 plate appearances. You can do this using our leaderboards, and Raines came in third, out of more than 1,100 players. Only Vince Coleman and Rickey Henderson are above him. Willie Wilson’s right behind him. Raines’ ability to steal — successfully — was a big part of what made him a star, and this is reflected on his player page, where you see him at 101.5 stolen-base runs above average for his career. If it weren’t for the steals, Raines’ Cooperstown argument would be an awful lot weaker.
Yet, there should be more to this. Just as there’s more to catcher defense than throwing runners out, there’s more to baserunning than just stealing or not stealing. For Raines, however, we don’t have much of a record. There’s value he contributed that isn’t showing up.
Phase II of the 2015-16 free agent and trade markets has begun, with Alex Gordon re-upping with the Royals, and the rumor mill is again beginning to churn after a brief holiday-related respite. The elite and upper-middle-class arms have already secured their positions for 2016 and beyond, but some of the other middle class arms remain on the market.
The three free agent pitchers who are subject to draft pick compensation but are still likely to sign long-term deals are lefty Wei-Yin Chen and righties Yovani Gallardo and Ian Kennedy. At this stage in the game, it is likely that all three will need to settle for terms below consensus projections. Earlier this week, we took a look at Chen’s situation; today, we’ll dig a little bit deeper into Yovani Gallardo’s true value.
Yesterday, Ken Griffey Jr. was elected to the Hall of Fame, receiving the largest proportion of votes of any player in baseball history; 437 of the 440 voters to cast ballots checked the box for Junior’s inclusion. And as I noted yesterday, the overwhelming support for Griffey’s candidacy highlights the fact that we generally value peak performance over longevity; Griffey played for 20 years, but was mostly a shell of himself for the second half of his career, creating the entirety of his Hall of Fame resume during the first dozen years he played. The consensus that Griffey is one of the greatest players of all time is driven by what he did in his 20s, not what he did in his 30s.
So this brings up an interesting question; given that almost everyone agrees that Griffey’s peak was so good that the second half of his career essentially was irrelevant, how much more does Mike Trout need to do before he reaches a similar point in his career? Does Griffey’s overwhelming induction based on a 12 year run of greatness suggest that there’s a 24 year old walking around who may have already done the bulk of the work necessary to ensure enshrinement in Cooperstown?
| 11:04 |
: Why’d I eat that third pork chop?
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| 12:00 |
: IT’S AN ENO DAY YES IT IS.
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: I appreciate your energy as I am coming off a long discussion about headless boob bobbleheads that has exhausted me.
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: Where is upton going to sign?
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: I suppose he’s everyone’s backup plan, which is weird because I’d take him over Cespedes.
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Hall of Fame voting season is over, the results are out, but Hall of Fame discussion season isn’t over quite yet. Maybe that irks you and you just want this all to go away, but if that’s the case, you probably didn’t click on this post to begin with. If you did, just think of this more as the appreciation of a career, tied to some voting results.
It should come as no real surprise that Jim Edmonds fell off the ballot in his first year of eligibility, receiving just 11 votes (2.5%). If you’d been following Ryan Thibodaux’s Hall of Fame tracker, you’d have long seen this coming, and it never seemed realistic that Edmonds would actually make it in in the first place. But it’s kind of sad, because Edmonds had a remarkable career, one that stands head and shoulders above the typical “fall off the ballot in the first year of eligibility” career, yet here we are.
It’s not the first time it’s happened. A couple years back, it was Kenny Lofton who fell off in his first year of eligibility. A couple years before that, and perhaps most egregiously, it was Kevin Brown. Dwight Gooden‘s first-ballot exclusion may have come as a bit of a surprise in 2006, and maybe the most famous example of this phenomena was Lou Whitaker’s first-year showing of 2.9% that dropped him from the ballot in 2001.
Edmonds isn’t the first player with a borderline Hall of Fame-worthy career to receive just one turn on the ride, and he won’t be the last. Some of Edmonds’ detractors will reference his laissez-faire, some might characterize it as careless or lackadaisical, attitude. If that’s the case, maybe we care about this more than Edmonds himself. And in some ways, maybe falling off the ballot on your first year is better than falling off in year two or three. Guys who fall off the first time around were never going to make it anyway, and there’s less recognition for the guy who falls off in year three after clinging onto the 5% threshold in years one and two. You fall off in year one with a legitimate case, and you get used as an example in an article.
Other clubs: Braves, Diamondbacks, Orioles, Red Sox.
Cubs fans had to be thrilled with how the 2015 season played out, as many of the top prospects in their system decided they didn’t need an adjustment period and sprinted out of the gates. Looking at the number of young players contributing to the playoff run, you could assume the minor league pipeline would take a step back after graduating so many high-level players. Fortunately for Cubs fans, there is still a wealth of both high-floor and high-upside talent under team control.
There is a strong mix of pitching and hitting assets. Most of the top offensive reinforcements will be knocking on the big league door within a year or two, while the higher-ceiling pitchers may take another year to show up. The overall quantity of guys who were in the conversation for this list was itself an impressive compliment to the Cubs’ scouting and player development efforts.
For the hitters, I’m a little higher on Billy McKinney and Dan Vogelbach and lower on Willson Contreras and Jeimer Candelario than you might see elsewhere. None of them grade out poorly in my opinion, but it may be a different ranking than even some Cubs officials would prefer. Pitchers Dylan Cease and Jake Stinnett are ranked favorably, especially in comparison to CJ Edwards and Pierce Johnson for reasons that are explained in each respective player’s report.
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 Minnesota Twins. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.
Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Kansas City / New York AL / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / Seattle / Texas / Toronto.
Batters
At some level, the ZiPS projections for Minnesota — and, in particular, for the positional corps of the club — represent a best-case scenario: despite having dealt with injury in recent years, wunderkind prospects Byron Buxton and third baseman/left fielder Miguel Sano already possess two of the top-three WAR forecasts on the team. This is, in a sense, a desirable outcome: the organization’s most promising young players have developed, it would seem, into its most productive contributors.
Unfortunately, Buxton and Sano receive merely three-win projections — as opposed to, like, five-win ones. Which means that, if those two are the club’s “most productive contributors,” then the other contributors profile as roughly average or below that. The Twins actually do seem to possess quite a few players (Brian Dozier, Eduardo Escobar, Joe Mauer, Byung-ho Park, Trevor Plouffe) in the dependably average range — and in the era of two wild cards, average isn’t entirely undesirable. Given the current roster, however, it would appear as though “sneaking” into the postseason represents the team’s upside.
This is a big giant polling post. I’ve run some big giant polling posts before. For example, a few months ago, I asked you all about your 2015 season experiences. Close to a year ago, I asked you about your pitching coaches. In the middle of the summer, I asked you about your front offices. When I asked for your front-office evaluations — or front-office opinions — I requested you try to keep them independent of ownership complications. Of course, in reality, that’s really hard, but we’re not saving the world, here. Nothing important relies on your input. I’ve just been looking to collect information, and now I want to collect more, on ownerships, specifically.
Owners! Everyone has ’em. Some teams have a few of ’em. Some of ’em meddle, and some of ’em don’t. Some of ’em spend, and some of ’em don’t. No matter what, they sign off on all the important stuff, and they’re responsible for setting a lot of the limits within which front offices try to work. My sense is owners are a little like third-base coaches, when it comes to fan opinion. That people either don’t think of them much, or complain about them, with little in the way of consistent appreciation. Owners seldom seem to get a lot of credit. Which is perfectly fine, because it’s not like they’re hitting or pitching. And front offices are more directly responsible for the bulk of the roster management. But that’s why this is a data-collecting opportunity. Tons of fans complain about owners, just as tons of fans complain about managers. That much, we already know. But through an exercise like this, we can see who’s complained about the least, relatively speaking. Owners tend not to be the heroes, but then you can still have those who are the non-villains.
Now, these polls aren’t so easy to deal with, because there’s so much information we just don’t know. We don’t really know how much owners would be able to spend, compared to what they actually spend, and we don’t always know the extent of any meddling. But with everything in baseball you just have to accept the uncertainty and try to find a position anyway. The polls are kind of strangely worded but I did that just for the sake of consistency with previous posts like this. I’m essentially asking your opinion. Do you like the people who own your baseball teams? Do you hate them? Do you trust them? Do they make themselves available? Are they in any way responsive? Do you feel like their interests align with yours? Do they spend what you think is too little? Do they not seem to worry too much about the budget? I know pretty much all of you have ownership opinions. This is a chance to share them, somewhat constructively. This post isn’t going to fix anything, but it will at least lead to another informative post, with tables and charts and stuff based on your responses.
Thank you in advance for your participation. I know it’s not necessarily all that straightforward. And if you don’t feel like you have a strong opinion, that’s no problem — you can go with “average”, or you can go with nothing. I understand this project has nothing to do with the Hall of Fame, which right now is what’s most topical. I’m sorry, or, you’re welcome. Let’s see what happens here.
Location: Jupiter, Fla.
Description:
The St. Louis Cardinals baseball club is seeking candidates for a new Baseball Operations Fellowship position to be based out of the Jupiter, FL complex. The Fellowship position runs from early 2016 through December 31, 2016. It is a full-time position eligible for insurance consistent with a typical Cardinals full-time employee. Fellows will be compensated based on an hourly rate of pay competitive with similar entry level positions in baseball. This Fellowship position will be a one-year opportunity – Fellows will not return in the same position in 2017. At the end of the Fellowship, the Cardinals and Fellow will jointly determine if there is an appropriate opportunity for full-time employment within the Cardinals.
The Fellowship position is designed to provide entry-level baseball executives with an opportunity to gain experience mainly in the International and Player Development departments at the home of the Cardinals’ Spring Training, Extended Spring Training, Gulf Coast, Florida State, and Fall Instructional Leagues. While working at the direction of the Jupiter-based Directors of the International/Player Development departments, the Fellow will also provide occasional support to the St. Louis front office. This includes projects as called upon by senior leadership of Amateur Scouting, Baseball Development, and the General Manager’s office.
Responsibilities will be driven mostly by baseball activity taking place at the Jupiter complex and will be closely tied to interaction with Minor League players, many of which are international and require assistance in a foreign country. Native-level Spanish fluency is ideal with a high degree of proficiency as the minimum requirement. Duties will include, among others, language translation, assisting on-field personnel with daily planning, supporting recently drafted players upon signing, maintenance of international scouting video, and organization of player immigration documents. Training will be provided for any scouting responsibilities associated with the role.
This is an exciting opportunity for entry-level people passionate about baseball and willing to start in a highly dynamic environment. The ideal candidate will have demonstrated a strong work ethic, deep enthusiasm for international baseball, and high intellect to quickly adapt and implement on the go. The Fellowship will provide such a candidate with a broad range of experiences across Baseball Operations and the possibility of full-time employment.
Responsibilities:
Qualifications:
Compensation:
This position is compensated.
To Apply:
Interested applicants should email their resume with a cover letter and references to jupiterfellowship@cardinals.com by Friday, January 15th.
