FanGraphs Baseball

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Yesterday, lead prospect analyst Dan Farnsworth published his excellently in-depth prospect list for the Oakland Athletics. In this companion piece, I look at that same Oakland farm system through the lens of my recently refined KATOH projection system. The A’s have the 19th-best farm system in baseball according to KATOH.

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We’re about two weeks away from Opening Day, and with teams starting to get a sense for what they have — and more importantly, what they don’t have — we’re likely to see some trade talk pick up soon. Mostly, spring trades revolve around out-of-options guys or bench players who played their way out of an organization, but occasionally, teams find common ground on a major trade that reshapes their roster right before the season starts. Last year, the Padres were involved in just such a deal, acquiring Craig Kimbrel and Melvin Upton from the Braves right before the season started. And I think they should make another big trade before the season starts this year.

Over the last few days, talk has picked up that the Rangers have interest in acquiring Derek Norris, the Padres starting catcher. The Rangers don’t really have much catching depth, while the Padres have three catchers after their off-season of Christian Bethancourt, so a deal between the two teams makes a decent amount of sense. But rather than making a small deal in which the Rangers pick up Norris for some mid-level prospect or two, there’s a case to be made that the two sides should expand the talk and make a legitimate blockbuster.

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If you were to examine the spectrum of defensive positions, going from easiest to most difficult, it would probably look something like this: Designated Hitter-First Baseman-Left Field-Right Field-Center Field-Third Base-Second Base-Shortstop-Catcher. Right field and left field are very similar and center field, second base, and third base are also bunched together under the typical spectrum. However, when looking for the positions that pay the most money, the positions that are the easiest to play make the most money. A similar point, in a similar fashion, was made last year at this time, and it remains true. A combination of the free agent system, aging, and the decline that puts the spectrum to use mean first basemen and designated hitters make the most money while shortstops tend to make the least when taking all starters into account.

I took every position player and designated hitter starter from our FanGraphs Depth Charts and put that alongside the salary information from Cot’s Contracts to find an average salary for the 30 starters at every position with the 15 starters at designated hitter. As was the case last year, first base and designated hitter make the most money, although this season, with Albert Pujols moving to designated hitter, first base lost its crown.

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Even Jackie Bradley couldn’t have guessed it. Before the start of the 2014 season, the Red Sox outfielder told the Boston Herald’s Jason Mastrodonato that he wanted to steal more bases. That’s become something of a Spring Training trope over the years, but Bradley did his best to keep good on his word and went 8-for-8 in steals.

Bradley’s a former running back who certainly has the speed to steal bases at the major league level, but lacked the instincts and experience to do it at an efficient clip. He was just 31-for-49 (63%) in the minor leagues, well below the major league average success rate of 73%. He knew he had the explosiveness, likening the necessary jump of a base stealer to that of a running back accelerating to hit a hole. He just needed to get better at identifying the pitcher’s movements and understanding the profitable situations to take off.

Seems he’s done a good job. Jackie Bradley Jr. is 13-for-13 on steal attempts to begin his major league career.

It may not seem like a large number, but since the beginning of the expansion era in 1961, Bradley’s perfect 13 is tied for the 11th-longest streak to begin a career, and is halfway to the record:
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If Xander Bogaerts were a video game character you’d hold down the A button for three seconds and he’d start to glow red. Hitting for power is really easy when you’re glowing red. Bogaerts is a real person, not a video game character though, so hitting for power is considerably more difficult. Last season Bogaerts managed all of seven homers in 654 plate appearances. The fact that I can spell the number of homers means he didn’t hit many. Don’t let me mislead you though. The Xander Bogaerts of 2015 was a very good player. He played good defense, hit for average, and even stole some bases. He just wasn’t a power hitter. And that’s fine. Good, even. The odd part is the Bogaerts we saw last year was almost the opposite of the player we were expecting as he was coming up through the minor leagues.

Bogaerts’ calling card as a prospect wasn’t just his power, but that was an important feature. And yet last season the homers just weren’t there. That’s not how it was supposed to be. And so we’re left to wonder, what happened to the power bat we watched so intently zoom through the minor leagues?

To get a better picture of where Bogaerts will end up, it’s instructive to look at where he’s been. The Red Sox shortstop of the present has been the Red Sox shortstop of the future for going on six years now. In 2011 he hit 16 homers in 72 games in A-ball as an 18 year old. The next year he hit 20 homers combined while splitting time between High-A and Double-A at age 19. None of the teams he played for play in particularly homer-prone ballparks, so the power was legit. After the 2012 season Baseball America ranked Bogaerts as the eighth best prospect in baseball. At the time they gave his bat a 60 on the 20-to-80 scale. They gave his power a 70.

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From last Friday’s chat:

10:30
Denji: I’m expecting the average Orioles game to be a 7-5 loss where they hit 3 solo home runs and strike out 15 times. Could they threaten both HR and K team records?

10:32
Jeff Sullivan: They’re not going to hit 264 home runs.

Twist!

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Torii Hunter is a bit of an enigma when it comes to discussing defense. The now-retired outfielder isn’t a big believer in shifts — or data in general — yet he understands the importance of positioning. A nine-time Gold Glove winner, Hunter had a way of being in the right place at the right time when he patrolled center (and sometimes right) for the Twins, Angels and Tigers.

Hunter was at Twins training camp earlier this spring, working with the club’s young fly-chaser mix. His tutorials were called for. Minnesota’s starting outfield projects to be still-wet-behind-the-ears Byron Buxton, flanked by former infielders Eddie Rosario and Miguel Sano. Compounding the trio’s inexperience are a large Target Field outfield and a pitching staff that induces a lot of balls in play.

Talking to Hunter a few weeks ago, I was struck by his paradoxical approach to positioning. Yes, you need to know where a batter is likely to hit the ball. No, data isn’t particularly helpful. Shifting is overdone, if not unnecessary.

When Hunter and I parted ways — our conversation continued beyond what was captured here — he smiled and said, “That was a good argument.” Regardless of how you define it, our back-and-forth elicited some interesting commentary. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben and Sam preview the Astros’ season with Houston Chronicle Astros beat writer Evan Drellich, and George talks to Evan’s Houston Chronicle colleague, Jesus Ortiz (at 31:38).

Don’t lose sight of the fact that the biggest story in baseball right now could have been the smallest. Adam LaRoche up and retired because the White Sox wanted to cut down on his son’s presence around the clubhouse. I’m sure you’ve already read all about this, but Drake LaRoche has a history of being around all the time, going back to when Adam was with the Nationals. The White Sox requested that Drake not be around so much, and they probably didn’t anticipate that LaRoche would walk away from thirteen million dollars. This could’ve all stayed behind closed doors, and we never would’ve known, but it’s a story because it’s been blown up to the greatest possible magnitude. The regular season is right around the corner, but this is what matters today.

The story presents with two sides, so it’s only natural to want to pick a favorite one. It’s no different from when people want to figure out the winner of any trade. On one side, there’s the organization, that says it wants to do what it can to keep the team focused and disciplined. On the other side, there’s LaRoche, who obviously cares enough about this to willingly forfeit an absurd amount of money, not to mention the rest of his career. Ultimately, this is a clubhouse matter, and barely public, so we’ll never be sufficiently informed. Yet based on what’s knowable, it’s challenging to arrive at any conclusion other than “well I’ll be damned.”

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