FanGraphs Baseball

It’s become a practice of the present author in recent years to begin in February a painstaking search for the new ballcap that will express his entire being. It’s also become a practice in recent years to parlay that search into web content so that the author might “remain” “employed.”

Two years ago, this pursuit yielded a Winston-Salem Spirits cap from 1994 with a weird red sun and melancholy eagle on it. Last year, I had the fortune of procuring a handsome Diablos Rojos cap from the actual team store at Parque Fray Nano in Mexico City. In each case, I have documented the relevant search for the benefit of posterity — even if posterity has failed to show any real interest in my work.

In any case, what follows marks the beginning of this year’s search.

To wit:

Absolut Vintage Strapback Cap (Link)
Style: Strapback
Time Left: 8 days, 2 hours
Cost: US $9.00 (Buy It Now)

Have you ever wanted to give the impression that you were a devotee of 80s sitcom Moonlighting without actually having to watch all 68 episodes of it? Have you ever wondered what a baseball uniform designed by Patrick Nagel might look like? This cap goes some way to addressing both of those concerns.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I ran a post about the teams that we’ve run posts about. Turns out we haven’t written very much about the Twins over the years. We all kind of already knew that. People commented and here is one of them:

Twins fan here. The Twins bring some of it on themselves. For the umpteenth year in a row, they finished dead last in strikeout %. I suppose that in itself is worth thinking about. But now that I actually think about it, who isn’t getting his due? Trevor May? Who, Twins fans, should fangraphs be writing about that they’re not writing about?

I didn’t actually intend for things to work out this way, but let’s talk about the Twins pitchers and strikeouts.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mickey Jannis wasn’t allowed to throw a knuckleball when he was in the Rays system. That was in 2010 and 2011, his first two seasons of professional baseball. He’s a Met now, and the butterfly is out of his back pocket.

The bridge between Tampa Bay and New York was unaffiliated. Jannis pitched in the independent Frontier and Atlantic leagues from 2012 to 2014. Non-baseball options were available — the 28-year-old righty has a degree in business administration from Cal State Bakersfield — but he wasn’t ready to give up his dream. Not when he had a secret weapon to employ.

Flummoxing hitters with his floater, Jannis put up a 1.18 ERA for the Long Island Ducks early last summer. Subsequently inked to a contract by the Mets in July, he proceeded to hold his own in 11 appearances between high-A St. Lucie and Double-A Binghamton.

Jannis discussed his atypical journey, and the evolution of his equally atypical go-to pitch, at the tail end of the Arizona Fall League season.

———

Jannis on knuckleball commitment: “I mentioned it to (the Rays) toward the end of my second season, when I was with Hudson Valley, but I wasn’t able to throw it in a game. My manager, Jared Sandberg, was kind of all for it. He was, ‘Yeah man, that’s good enough to throw,’ but it just didn’t work out to where I could. I only threw it on the side. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben and Sam preview the Athletics’ season with SB Nation’s Claire McNear, and George talks to San Francisco Chronicle A’s beat writer Susan Slusser (at 21:09).

It’s no secret that, over the last several years, we’ve been seeing more and more high velocity in the major leagues. The league-average fastball keeps getting hotter, thanks to different training techniques, and thanks to different young-player development, and thanks to God knows how many other things. It’s not that everyone now can throw 95; it’s that the guys who can throw 95 are no longer thought of as freaks. Every team has at least a few of them stashed away.

The velocity trend has lifted many boats. As you can imagine, with league-wide velocity increasing, the same has been apparent on the team level. The Pirates, just as one example, have pretty clearly targeted hard throwers, and that’s just a part of their complicated plan. Not every team has participated, however. The Angels haven’t featured too many hard throwers, as Jered Weaver has taken it upon himself to counter Garrett Richards. The Diamondbacks were more finesse-y for a stretch, before picking it up last season. And the Giants have been another exception. Probably the greatest exception — no team has averaged a slower fastball over the last four years. Presumably related to that, the Giants have also thrown the lowest rate of fastballs.

Yet now they’re a team in transition. I’m not saying this is intentional, but looking ahead, the Giants are lined up to be a harder-throwing baseball team. After years of sagging velocity, the 2016 Giants could be almost league average.

Read the rest of this entry »

As we count down the days until spring-training games begin, let’s continue to take a position-by-position look back at the ball-in-play (BIP) profiles of 2015 semi-regulars and regulars to see if we can find any clues as to their projected performance moving forward. We’ve already looked at first and second baseman; today, let’s go all the way to the “good” end of the defensive spectrum and examine the shortstops.

First, some ground rules. To come up with an overall player population roughly equal to one player per team per position, the minimum number of batted balls with Statcast readings was set at 164. Players were listed at the position at which they played the most games. There is more than one player per team at some positions and less at others, like catcher and DH. Players are listed in descending OPS+ order. Without further ado, let’s kick it off with AL shortstops.

BIP Overview – AL Shortstops

Name	Avg MPH	FB/LD MPH	GB MPH	POP%	FLY%	LD%	GB%	CON	K%	BB%	OPS+	Pull%	Cent%	Opp%
Correa	90.58	94.66	87.39	2.6%	26.5%	22.4%	48.6%	130	18.1%	9.3%	132	35.5%	34.2%	30.4%
Lindor	89.08	92.05	88.13	3.1%	25.6%	20.6%	50.8%	118	15.8%	6.2%	122	34.6%	36.1%	29.3%
Bogaerts	88.13	90.84	87.53	2.7%	23.1%	21.5%	52.7%	114	15.4%	4.9%	108	33.8%	34.2%	32.1%
Miller	90.71	94.00	89.64	2.6%	28.8%	20.2%	48.4%	99	20.3%	9.5%	106	32.9%	35.5%	31.7%
Cabrera	87.76	91.61	85.25	5.3%	38.3%	20.7%	35.8%	106	19.4%	6.5%	105	47.9%	27.7%	24.4%
E.Escobar	86.06	89.55	82.32	3.1%	35.6%	19.3%	42.0%	107	19.3%	6.3%	102	41.5%	34.2%	24.2%
Iglesias	83.33	87.17	82.95	3.5%	19.7%	21.0%	55.9%	82	9.7%	5.5%	100	34.6%	36.4%	29.0%
Semien	87.56	91.54	82.12	3.3%	35.5%	23.1%	38.1%	106	22.0%	7.0%	95	42.0%	33.3%	24.7%
Gregorius	86.05	88.67	84.75	3.2%	30.9%	21.2%	44.7%	81	14.7%	5.7%	90	38.5%	35.0%	26.5%
Reyes	85.06	85.92	85.83	7.7%	28.2%	20.0%	44.1%	80	11.9%	5.0%	84	42.5%	35.7%	21.8%
Aybar	85.25	87.87	84.72	1.4%	25.0%	21.0%	52.6%	69	11.4%	3.9%	81	40.1%	37.5%	22.4%
Andrus	87.28	89.71	87.36	3.1%	28.7%	21.1%	47.1%	69	11.8%	7.0%	80	43.7%	31.0%	25.2%
A.Ramirez	84.66	87.57	83.34	3.3%	25.8%	21.4%	49.5%	66	10.9%	5.0%	79	38.1%	42.3%	19.5%
J.Ramirez	86.15	87.73	86.63	4.8%	31.4%	16.2%	47.6%	55	11.0%	9.0%	70	44.2%	30.4%	25.4%
A.Escobar	84.11	86.51	83.31	3.0%	26.9%	22.3%	47.8%	61	11.3%	3.9%	68	31.5%	38.3%	30.2%
Hardy	87.94	90.69	86.51	3.4%	29.7%	17.5%	49.4%	64	20.1%	4.6%	53	40.1%	40.4%	19.5%
AVERAGE	86.86	89.76	85.49	3.5%	28.7%	20.6%	47.2%	88	15.2%	6.2%	92	38.8%	35.1%	26.0%

Most of the column headers are self explanatory, including average BIP speed (overall and by BIP type), BIP type frequency, K and BB rates, and BIP by field sector (pull, central, opposite). Each player’s OPS and Unadjusted Contact Score (CON) is also listed. For those of you who have not read my articles on the topic, Contact Score is derived by removing Ks and BBs from hitters’ batting lines, assigning run values to all other events, and comparing them to a league average of 100.

Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s be honest. I’ll start. I’m not a very good baseball player. I used to be much better than I am now, but even back when I was better, I was not good. I fit in with my high school competition and, later, adult league, but in the grander scheme I was, sadly, not good. You are also probably bad at baseball. I know because you are reading this and not playing baseball. That’s okay. It’s what joins us together, you and me.

But what if you had to play? What if you were sitting in the bleachers at Camden Yards and all the Orioles came down with 168-hour food poisoning. What if the team bus blew out a tire between the airport and the ballpark and there were no other buses available because the Pope was in town for a week and he loves buses. So, you need to play!

The team needs you, but it also knows you are terrible. You have to play, but you have to play as little as possible while playing. Where could you play with out hurting the team? Well, nowhere. You’re going to hurt the team. Badly. You’re going to really hurt the team because you are awful. Terrible. The worst. You’re just barely better than me, although that’s like saying rotten food is better than poo. It is, but it’s also what Olympic announcers refer to as a “low bar.”

The worst part is that you have to play for a week’s worth of games. And you’re starting. All six games (there’s an off-day but it’s in Baltimore [sad face emoticon]). That’s one long monster truck rally! You have to hit and play the field. No DH for you. Maybe you’re stuck playing for the Red Sox and David Ortiz is like, “No way, bro. Get out there.” Maybe the other people who are forced into duty are older, fatter, and worse than you. Maybe I have to play DH!

So. Now we have to figure out where to put you. First things first: let’s figure out the batting order. Course, it’s actually not hard to figure out the batting order. You’re batting last. The less you bat the better. Because you’re horrible. Sorry to dwell on the fact; I just don’t want you to forget. It’s sort of the point of this article. But it’s probably for the best, batting ninth. I mean, really, do you want to stand in against 95 mph heat? I sure as hell don’t. I don’t want to tell you what I’d do in my pants in that situation, pun sadly intended. I’d bat 10th if I could. I imagine, whether you admit it or not, you would too. But you can’t. You’re hitting ninth. Congratulations. Hope you can foul one off, maybe. Also try not to mess your pants too noticeably.

Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday, our friends over at NEIFI published a piece about one of the more interesting parts of MLB’s international spending market, building off reports that 16-year-old Lazaro Armenteros — Lazarito, as he is commonly referred to — is looking for a signing bonus in the range of $15-$20 million.

As mentioned, he’s expected to get a bonus in the $15-20 million range. Jim Bowden claims it could reach $25-30m. He’s 16 years old, has no performance record whatsoever. For all practical purposes, he’s in the same boat as any other international free agent his age. The record for largest signing bonus for an international free agent of this age is Nomar Mazara’s $4.95 million.

Sure, perhaps there’s inflation to consider. But are we really supposed to believe that Lazarito’s expected talent is roughly triple, or perhaps as much as six times higher, than the expected value of any other 16-year-old international player? Any 16-year-old international player ever?

That would be really hard to buy under any circumstances. But perhaps especially because no one even actually seems to be making that claim about Lazarito’s talent. People are certainly glowing about Lazarito, saying he has exceptional tools and blue-chip potential. Similar things were said about Miguel Sano, Wily Mo Pena, Michael Ynoa, and others. Similar things are said about one or two amateur free agents each season, or at least every couple of seasons. And yet no player in that age bracket has ever signed for more than $5m.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Previous editions: Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cincinnati  / Cleveland / Colorado / Detroit.

Earlier this week, lead prospect analyst Dan Farnsworth published his excellently in-depth prospect list for the Houston Astros. In this companion piece, I look at that same Houston farm system through the lens of my recently refined KATOH projection system. The Astros have the second-best farm system according to KATOH, trailing only the Brewers. Their system lacks star power, but is easily the deepest. That’s why this post has way more words than you probably care to read.

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 first six major-league seasons, those who receive a projection between 1.0 and 2.0 WAR though their first six 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. AJ Reed, 1B (Profile)

KATOH Projection: 7.1 WAR
Dan’s Grade: 60 FV

Reed might have had the biggest breakout of any minor leaguer in 2015. Minor league pitching was no match for his mammoth power and copious walks, as the 22-year-old hit .340/.432/.612 between High-A and Double-A last year. If you’re looking for something to be concerned about, it’s Reed’s 20% strikeout rate. While that’s not alarmingly high, it’s a tick above average, and hints that he might have a tough time making contact against big league pitching. But otherwise, all systems are a go. It isn’t often that KATOH gets excited about a first base prospect, but it’s all in on Reed and his gaudy power numbers.

Read the rest of this entry »