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 Boston Red Sox. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Atlanta / Baltimore / Cincinnati / Kansas City / New York AL / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / Seattle / Texas / Toronto.

Batters
The object of considerable attention among the authors of this site, it’s probably not inaccurate to suggest that infielder/outfielder Mookie Betts is riddled with virtue. Or perhaps, afflicted by virtue. In either case, what he’s done is to parlay wide-ranging competence into a star-level profile. He’s projected to produce nearly a 20-20 season while also recording a strikeout rate of about 12%. He certainly doesn’t possess the skill set typical of a right fielder, but he’s equipped to produce wins anywhere, given an opportunity.

Elsewhere, one finds that (a) the second-best projection among Boston’s field players belongs to another 23-year-old, shortstop Xander Bogaerts, (b) ZiPS forecasts a slightly above-average season for Jackie Bradley Jr., and (c) Hanley Ramirez receives a defensive projection for first base!

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Ben and Sam banter about player privacy concerns, then dig (very) deep into the mailbag for questions that time forgot.

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On Tuesday, 10 MLB managers shared their thoughts on what has become known as the Third Time Through the Order Penalty. The fact that it exists in one thing. What to do about it is another.

One idea is to develop relievers who are able to work multiple innings on a consistent basis. In other words, go back a few decades to where it wasn’t uncommon. Pitchers like Bob Stanley used to do it all the time, and not just in the middle frames. He earned numerous multi-inning saves.

A while back, I asked Stanley if there’s any reason today’s relievers couldn’t do what he, and several of his contemporaries, did.

“You have to remember, back in the day we only had 10 pitchers on the staff,” said Stanley, who coaches in the Blue Jays system. “We had five relievers and they could all go two or three innings. Now we have seven relievers and most of them can only go one inning. Could they go longer? Sure, although some guys aren’t as tough as they used to be. It’s a different game now.”

Orioles pitching coach Dave Wallace — also in an older conversation — told me much the same. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 619
Jeff Sullivan is a senior editor at FanGraphs. He’s also the only guest on this edition of FanGraphs Audio.

This edition of the program is sponsored by Draft, the first truly mobile fantasy sports app. Compete directly against idiot host Carson Cistulli by clicking here.

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 58 min play time.)

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Last week, I wrote a retrospective on Jerry Dipoto’s whirlwind first few months as the Seattle Mariners’ general manager. It’s been a time filled with moves, roster churn and intrigue. Yet the biggest curveball of Dipoto’s tenure has occurred since then, as Hisashi Iwakuma’s deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers broke down due to concerns about his physical, which allowed the Mariners to catch Iwakuma on the rebound.

The M’s major offseason moves had apparently been wrapped up, for better or worse, only for this early Christmas present to fall into the team’s lap. (Ironically, the move was announced at the club’s holiday party.) Many lessons can be learned from this turn of events. One is a better understanding of the roles of the player physical and the management of the team salary budget within the business of player procurement. A more subtle, and enlightening takeaway, is how some simple baseball axioms — having defined principles, knowing and scouting your own players better than anyone else’s and letting the game come to you — enabled the Mariners to make their own good fortune.

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As of this morning, at first base, the Pirates had the right-handed Michael Morse, and the right-handed Jason Rogers. As depth, there’s the right-handed Sean Rodriguez, and though the switch-hitting Josh Bell is on the way, he’s got his own stuff to figure out. So for the Pirates, there was an obvious need. They don’t have a lefty-heavy lineup, and last year they about tied for the highest rate of right-handed pitchers seen. The division projects to be righty-heavy again. The Pirates needed an affordable lefty for first.

Chris Davis is a lefty for first. But then, I said “affordable.” A week and a half ago, when Eno looked at this situation, he settled upon John Jaso. Now the word is out that the Pirates have signed John Jaso. He’s getting two years, and he’s getting $8 million, and if this isn’t the very most Pirates move, it’s at least in the conversation. It doesn’t get much more Pirates than this.

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We spend a lot of time talking about value. Which means we spend a lot of time arguing about value, because value is a difficult thing to nail down, given the ambiguity of the word and issues with some of the statistics. We also spend a lot of time talking about future value, which introduces even greater uncertainty on account of the future hasn’t happened yet. Player value is right at the core of FanGraphs, but a lot of the time it’s incredibly complicated. It’s a refreshing break when you can make it easy.

And I don’t know if it gets easier than evaluating relievers, after the fact. It can still be something of a chore, but relative to other players, it’s a breeze. Relievers get inserted in particular places, and they’re supposed to keep the score where it is. A reliever is supposed to do as much as he can to improve his team’s chances of winning. We can see how the performances went by checking WPA. WPA, of course, includes a leverage component, but then, relievers tend to earn their high-leverage responsibilities. Let’s take a brief look back. Let’s talk about some really valuable relievers.

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Little less than a year ago, I wrote a post here called What Happens When Billy Hamilton is on Third Base? Answer: not much! Slightly more detailed answer: less than I was expecting!

What I’d expected, rather, what I’d hoped for the sake of an interesting post, was that every time the Reds had runners on first and third with Hamilton being the guy on third, that the guy on first would just take off every time. Like, no matter what, no matter who you are or what situation the game’s in, just run. It’s Billy Hamilton on third base for crying out loud. If they throw down to second, we’ve got ourselves a run. If they don’t, hey, free steal!

It happened less often than I wanted it to. Which, I thought was kind of peculiar. Couple other things popped up — teams altered their defensive alignments slightly, it made a rundown between first and second turn into a run and a runner on second — but for the most part I came away empty-handed and sad.

I understand this isn’t relevant to anything that’s going on right now. I also understand that my first two post ideas this morning failed miserably and around noon I started to panic, so I opened up the TextEdit document on my laptop titled “rainy day topics.” It isn’t raining outside, but I do need to get my Christmas shopping done today, so this is what you get. “joey votto stealing with hamilton on third” it says here next to this bullet point. Not sure where this came from. Guessing someone tipped me off on this. Wasn’t totally sure what it meant, but I had a pretty good idea.

The last time Joey Votto played a full, healthy season before this most recent one, he stole six bases. Over his previous three seasons, he’d average six steals a year. In 2015, Joey Votto stole 11 bases. Eleven minus six is five. That’s some math. Hey, what’s up with those extra five steals?

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