If you go to our leaderboards and click on “career,” you’ll get a sample of 3,879 qualified position players, and 2,988 pitchers. If you lower the playing time threshold down to zero on each, you end up with 16,824 and 9,127. Now, obviously there’s some overlap in those numbers, but the point is that at least 16,000 players have suited up for a major league game. In that context, when I note that only 472 players total (314 position, 158 pitcher) have crossed the 40 WAR threshold, you can see it’s a big deal. It’s more or less the top-500 players in the game’s history (you can fill in the gaps — and probably then some — with Negro League players for whom we don’t have WAR or any advanced metrics).

That’s not to say there’s a lot of fanfare with getting to 40 wins. No one throws you a party, and it doesn’t necessarily mean anything to the person. But since we know that 50 WAR is sort of the dividing line for whether a player can be a Hall of Famer (as I noted recently, there are plenty of players in the Hall of Fame who barely cracked the 50 WAR plateau, and I believe there are even some in who are below it), then 40 WAR is sort of the dividing line for whether we’ll argue about a player being deserving of the Hall of Fame. Well, for everyone except relief pitchers, anyway.

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Ben and Sam banter about a Salvador Perez extension and a strike-zone change, then discuss the rapid reversal of the Athletics’ clubhouse and what it might mean for the Nationals.

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In 2015, there were fewer pitchers (74) qualifying for the AL and NL ERA titles than in any season going back to 1995 (70). In any given season, the number of first-time ERA qualifiers is about a quarter of that population. This last year was no exception, as 18 pitchers qualified for the ERA title for the first time.

What was unique about 2015 was the high quality of those first-time ERA qualifiers. AL first-timers included Carlos Carrasco, Danny Salazar, Taijuan Walker, Collin McHugh, Trevor Bauer and Marco Estrada. Their NL counterparts included Jake Arrieta, Jacob deGrom, Gerrit Cole, Kyle Hendricks, Carlos Martinez and Michael Wacha. There are some heavy hitters on those two lists; you might have to go back to the Class of 1984, which boasted Dwight Gooden, Orel Hershiser, Mark Langston, Mike Moore and Oil Can Boyd among its members, to find a comparable group at the top.

Beginning last week, I have reached reach into the large population of zero-time ERA qualifiers to identify the top breakthrough candidates for 2016 in both leagues. Last week, we took a look at the Orioles’ Kevin Gausman. This time around, we’ll switch over to the senior circuit and hone in on the Reds’ Raisel Iglesias.

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College baseball season begins in roughly a month. For some readers, this is of little consequence. For others — even for those with no particular stake in the competition itself — it’s quite meaningful. In either case, what the college game facilitates is the opportunity to watch actual live baseball over a month before the regular major-league season begins. It also features a number of participants who are likely to appear, one day, in those same major-league games. Because, consider: 19 of the 42 players selected within the first round of the 2015 amateur draft were selected out of a four-year university. The figure is roughly half in most other years, as well.

The present author made a habit last year of publishing periodic statistical reports of dubious import for the top college conferences. I’ll continue that same practice this year when the season commences in late February. For the moment, however, I’d like to publish a different kind of report — still totally dubious — regarding the possible future value of certain college players. Or player, singular, in this case.

When watching a college game, one is naturally led to ask, “Which of these players is most likely to end up as a major leaguer — and not just to appear in the majors, but to thrive there?” There are certain clues, of course: some of them based on observations of a player’s tools, some on the sort of success which one can identify in the numbers.

Last year around this same time, Jeff Sullivan performed a simple, useful experiment with simple, important consequences. His object: to better understand the relationship between young players and their future success as professionals. Instead of examining the major-league production of former top prospects, however, Sullivan inverted the line of inquiry. Instead, he opted to focus on players who have already experienced success in the majors, and then to review how those same players were regarded as minor leaguers.

What if, instead of players, one were to begin with merely one player? One would write a post very much like the current one, is what.

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12:02

the eno, the one, the matrix: eno time –

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We’re born into this world kicking and screaming. Being just seconds old, we’re confused and afraid, and being just seconds old, crying is the only way we know to cope with these anxieties. Even now, we’re all still babies — just really big ones who have better learned how to productively deal with our stressors.

Adult life is a constant stream of setting goals and either reaching them, or not. Throughout the course of a day, we’ll set dozens, if not hundreds, of goals, most of which are instantly resolved. Folks tend to think of “goals” as these overarching narratives — “lose 10 pounds this month” or “read a couple dozen books this year” or “save up enough money to buy a new car” — but even thoughtless, menial tasks like make the bed or pay a bill are really just miniature, easily attainable goals, set throughout the day, that provide us small bursts of satisfaction when they’re achieved.

Things don’t always go our way, though. And when things don’t go our way, it’s human nature to produce a response. Noted psychologist Richard S. Lazarus defined stress as “nothing more (and nothing less) than the experience of encountering or anticipating adversity in one’s goal-related efforts.” While the newborn deals with its stress the only way it knows how — crying — we as adults have developed myriad ways to cope with our adversities.

* * *

To spin this into a baseball metaphor, a batter has a goal when he steps to the plate to begin an at-bat: to reach base safely. Then, even smaller goals are created, as snap decisions are made during the act of each pitch: the moment a batter decides to swing, his newest goal becomes to make solid contact. On the contrary, the moment a batter decides not to swing, his goal becomes to earn a called ball.

For instance, a batter sees a 3-2 pitch, and he has a decision: swing, or take. Either one will produce a different goal, a goal that will be resolved instantaneously. When the batter faces adversity in that goal he’s set — say, he takes the pitch, thinking it’s ball four, but the umpire actually calls strike three — a stress is born, and our ego produces a defense mechanism in an effort to cope with this stress.

This particular scenario is among the most surefire ways for a baseball player to produce a visceral reaction on the field. So, allow me to continue playing armchair psychologist as we (a) observe pleasing .gifs of professional athletes feeling wronged by bad calls and (b) lean on George E. Vaillant’s Ego Mechanisms of Defense: A Guide for Clinicians and Researchers to categorize the observed defense mechanisms in an attempt to better understand human behavior.

The Freeze

We begin with perhaps the most common — and varied — reaction: The Freeze. The Freeze comes in many forms. In the top example, for instance, our subject appears to exhibit patience (enduring difficult circumstances for some time before responding negatively), suppression (the conscious decision to delay paying attention to an emotion or need in order to cope with the present reality), and tolerance (the practice of deliberately allowing or permitting a thing of which one disapproves).

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I don’t know how many of you participate in the Fan projection process. I’m sure it’s only a small minority, because for one thing, it’s extra work, and for another, it’s not like we do a lot to incentivize mass participation. For whatever it’s worth, though, I do think they make for a valuable tool, because when you get enough people chiming in, you get to do things like compare Fan projections to other projections. That doesn’t have to be just for fun — there’s the potential for great insight there. Fans pick up on stuff. Even when they don’t, it’s interesting to see when fans think they’re picking up on stuff. In an ideal world, we’d have hundreds or thousands of people entering projections for all kinds of players, and then we could try to make something of the results.

We don’t live in an ideal world — at least not in that kind of ideal world — but I’m still going to use what we have, for what you find below. Just for the hell of it, I’ve elected to compare Fan projections for position players to Steamer projections for position players. Seems to me, it could be interesting to see where the projections don’t line up. Now, as caution, I want to tell you some of these fan projections are based on pretty small samples, so this is largely just for curiosity’s sake. But, you know, away we go. I’ve chosen to compare by WAR per 600 plate appearances. An awful lot of players aren’t going to get anywhere close to 600 plate appearances, but I’m just shooting for consistency.

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Other clubs: Braves, Cubs, Diamondbacks, Orioles, Red Sox.

The White Sox have seen their lowly regarded farm system weakened by the Todd Frazier deal, but they still have a few guys at the top who could be impact players. This system’s biggest strength is in its depth of depth pieces, including a lot of bullpen arms and bench players that still have some upside if things break right. Perhaps the most interesting quality is how unique some of their prospects are. Many are gifted athletes who seem to have atypical looks on the field, or just unique stories. Watch Tyler Danish on the mound and how his delivery works, with possibly surprising success, depending on who you ask. Or take Eddy Alvarez, who previously won a silver medal in speed skating before coming back to baseball.

Though I don’t think this system will churn out a bunch of surprise superstars, the scouting department has done a good job bringing in gifted yet undeveloped players in at the lower levels. Give their Rookie-level players a year to develop and we may have three or four of them high on this list next year.

I think you’ll find the top three players here to be the same three as most evaluators would say, though my order is a little different. As fun as Carson Fulmer is to watch, his delivery makes it harder to project the necessary improvements to reach his upside, so I actually think Spencer Adams and Tim Anderson have a brighter future. Adams is more potential than reality in some ways, but his athleticism and easy actions are too good not to see him fully progressing. It may be a year early for most to feel comfortable with Adams’ grades, but I’m going to trust the potential.

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Ben and Sam answer listener emails about Yoenis Cespedes’s contract, relievers winning awards, how much it costs to buy a World Series, prospect comparisons, and more.

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Marlins Park opened to much fanfare four years ago, and while the team quickly abandoned what it had taken on as its new operational identity, there’s no abandoning a ballpark that fast. Not that the Marlins want to leave, anyway, but — love it or hate it — Marlins Park will be around for a while yet. One of the funny things about the stadium is that it took exactly one game for people to be left with a certain impression. That impression: it’s enormous. In the opener, Giancarlo Stanton hit into a couple warning-track outs, and Lance Berkman was one of many players to talk about the park to the media. Said Berkman:

“If they don’t move the fences in after this year, I’d be surprised,” Berkman said. “And I’m going two years as the over-under on that.”

He continued:

“It’s the biggest ballpark in the game,” Berkman said. “And people have tried that big-ballpark deal, and it never works. Detroit moved the fences in. New York (i.e., the Mets) moved the fences in. I mean, there’s a reason why it’s 330-375-400 (in most parks). That’s a fair baseball game. You try to get too outrageous, and you end up with something that I think is going to be detrimental to their ballclub. I mean, Stanton hit two balls that probably were two home runs. And they were both outs. And we won the game.”

To further Berkman’s point, Seattle and San Diego also later moved in their fences. In the end, Berkman was wrong about his estimate — the Marlins didn’t move in the fences after a year, or after two years. But they are now making changes after four years. Pretty much all the fences are being lowered, and maybe more importantly, they’re doing something about the vast center field. It’s taken this long, but like so many other newer ballparks, Marlins Park is taking a step toward neutrality.

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