FanGraphs Baseball

Episode 618
Dave Cameron is both (a) the managing editor of FanGraphs and (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio, during which edition he examines the utility — both for player and club — of the opt-outs appearing in recent free-agent contracts.

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 39 min play time.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Aroldis Chapman throws a changeup, and I’ve written before about how unfair that is. It’s not the best pitch in baseball or anything, but because Chapman’s fastball might be the actual best pitch in baseball, it seems almost impossible to defend against both the heater and the change, not to mention the slider. When you have to prepare for 100, I don’t know how you adjust on the fly for 88, with the same throwing motion. My favorite fun fact from a couple years back is that, of all the swings against Chapman’s changeup, just one made contact.

Chapman isn’t the game’s only elite reliever, and he’s not the only elite reliever with a signature pitch. When you have an elite reliever with a signature pitch, you can imagine it’s difficult to try to hit anything that isn’t the signature pitch. Take Zach Britton, who within a couple months went from potential waiver bait to shutdown closer. This past year, Britton took another step forward, leaning heavily upon his sinker. It’s becoming a famously dominant sinker, which has been a wonderful development for Britton’s non-sinker.

Read the rest of this entry »

This morning, we received a notice from our friends over at TruMedia. If you watch sports on TV, you’re likely aware of TruMedia’s products even if you’re not aware of them as a company — they produce data visualizations for sports broadcasts. They do more than that, of course, including data warehousing. Back to the notice we received — they have organized a MLB Hackathon, and it is happening right now!

You might not be familiar with the term Hackathon. If you’re not, here’s the Wikipedia definition:

A hackathon (also known as a hack day, hackfest or codefest) is an event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development and hardware development, including graphic designers, interface designers and project managers, collaborate intensively on software projects.

The idea is simple enough, and the allure of this particular hackathon is that its judges come entirely from the front offices of Major League Baseball teams — including Cleveland Indians’ general manager Mike Chernoff. Here’s the full list:

• Mike Chernoff, Cleveland Indians (GM)
• Dan Fox, Pittsburgh Pirates (Director of Baseball Informatics)
• TJ Barra, New York Mets (Manager of Baseball Research and Development)
• Sam Menzin, Detroit Tigers (Director Baseball Operations)
• Jack Goin, Minnesota Twins (Manager, Major League Administration and Baseball Research)
• Joe Sheehan, Toronto Blue Jays (Director of Analytics)
• Tod Johnson, Milwaukee Brewers (Asst. Director of Amateur Scouting Baseball Research)
• Trevor Patch, Colorado Rockies (Coordinator, Baseball Analytics)

The Hackathon runs from today through Jan. 3 (spanning two years!) The breakdown of the guidelines and rules is pretty comprehensive, so I won’t break them all down, but it sounds like an exciting event, if you’re into this sort of thing. And certainly, taking part in a project like this over the holidays is a great way to show the assembled front office execs just how committed you are to baseball analytics.

If you’re interested, head over to TruMedia’s website for the full details, which include rules, guidelines and example topics.

With the news that Bartolo Colon signed a one-year, $7.25 million deal with the New York Mets, we once again have a chance to talk about the skill set of one of the most beloved players in baseball. Add onto that the fact that his new contract includes a $50,000 bonus if he wins a Silver Slugger Award, and we’re perfectly set up to talk about the most loved aspect of one of the most loved player’s game: his performance at the plate. Any chance to talk about Colon is a good one. A chance to find a new angle on Colon’s hitting is the El Dorado of baseball writing.

The search for that city of gold could start in any number of places. Especially over the past few years, we’ve seen highlights of Colon’s exploits with the bat, from his helmet doing everything it could to escape the perch atop his head, to him legging out infield singles. He’s a human highlight reel when he gets a piece of maple in his hands, and it would be very easy to simply embed a few videos of his at-bats here and call it a day (I’ve linked to them instead).

Let’s dig a little deeper, however. One question we can answer is where Colon ranks among all pitchers who have accrued (or endured) their fair share of plate appearances. We all know of the jokes about him at the plate, and the at-bats in which he simply seems to have better things to do. But is Bartolo really one of the worst hitting pitchers of all time?

Read the rest on Fox Sports.

Yeah, I’m writing about opt-outs again. I know, I’ve already written about them a couple of times this winter, so I’m running the risk of beating a dead horse even further, but opt-outs continue to be a source of some controversy, especially since they’ve been handed out so commonly this winter. Last week, Rob Manfred weighed in briefly, stating that he didn’t see the value in opt-outs from the team perspective.

“The logic of opt-out clauses for the club escapes me,” Manfred told FOX Sports on Thursday night. “You make an eight-year agreement with a player. He plays well, and he opts out after three. You either pay the player again or you lose him.

“Conversely, if the player performs poorly, he doesn’t opt out and gets the benefit of the eight-year agreement. That doesn’t strike me as a very good deal. Personally, I don’t see the logic of it. But clubs do what they do.”

I didn’t write about Manfred’s comments when they were published because of the fear of the dead-horse phenomenon, and because all I’d have to add to those comments is that the logic teams are seeing is a chance to save money on long-term commitments by including opt-outs in order to reduce the total amount of guaranteed money they’re including in their offers. But Manfred knows that; he just can’t say it publicly. As commissioner, he’s limited in what he can say about player compensation, especially with a CBA negotiation upcoming, and so I figured I’d just let the comment be.

But then today, Rob Neyer wrote about Manfred’s comments, and added a few of his own. And since his point about opt-outs is the one that I most stridently disagree with, I figure it’s worth bringing this issue up one more time. First, though, Rob’s take on opt-outs.

Read the rest of this entry »

Back in November, the Kansas City Royals were crowned champions of the baseball world, and rightfully so; they won all the necessary games! The Royals are the champions, and they’ll continue to be the champions until a new team is crowned champions in the upcoming October. Could be that the new champions are just a different Royals team, but that seems unlikely. Mostly, it seems unlikely because it’s really hard to repeat World Series titles. That hasn’t happened in 15 years. But also, it seems unlikely for another reason.

See, we’ve got player and team projections here on the site, and when looking toward the future, it’s usually better to rely on the projections than to rely on whatever subjective beliefs we can quickly work up in our own heads. The projections, by and large, are pretty darn good, and those pretty darn good projections thinks the Royals roster, as currently constructed, is the opposite of pretty darn good. Right now, at this very second, the Royals, the world champion Royals, are being given MLB’s sixth-worst team projection, a little worse than the Twins and Orioles and a little better than the Padres and the Rockies.

I know, I know. The projections didn’t much like the Royals in 2014, either, and they were one game away from being the champions. The projections didn’t much like the Royals in 2015, either, and now they are the champions. The projections have a two-year history of whiffing on the Royals, and plenty of Kansas City fans have scoffed at the forecasted 2016 numbers listed here on this site.

But this Royals roster, at this very second, is quite a bit different than the roster that won the World Series. The roster that won the World Series had a Johnny Cueto in the rotation, but this one doesn’t. The roster that won the World Series had an Alex Gordon and a Ben Zobrist in the lineup and the field, but this one doesn’t. The roster that won the World Series had a right fielder with more than 86 career games played, but this one doesn’t. The Royals have lost a lot — Cueto, Gordon and Zobrist were worth about nine wins last year (not all to the Royals, of course) — yet they’ve gained very little.

Of course, they’re going to gain some, but they’re not getting Cueto or Zobrist back, and it sure doesn’t look like they’re getting Gordon back. Looks like Omar Infante might again be the Opening Day second baseman, and the best starting pitcher they could hope to land looks like Scott Kazmir right now. Plenty of big-name outfielders are still out there, but the Royals don’t figure to be players for them. More than likely, the Royals pick up a veteran, mid-tier outfielder for one corner, and run a platoon in the other.

While the Royals seem likely to add some projected wins through the end of the offseason, it doesn’t figure to be many. Even if they were to pick up, say, five projected wins through the rest of their offseason moves, a figure that feels high, their team projection would still fall below league average, pitting them between the Rangers and the White Sox.

Point is: no matter what happens, the 2016 Royals aren’t going to project well, by the numbers we currently have, and that’s fascinating. More likely than not, the World Champions will project as something like a .500 team, at best, on Opening Day, and people aren’t sure how to feel about that, especially given the last couple years. Rightfully so. I’m not sure how to feel about it either, which brings us to the second half of this post.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

In a rather surprising move, the Texas Rangers signed 29-year-old relief pitcher Matt Bush to a minor league contract last week. Yes, the same Matt Bush who the Padres took first overall in the 2004 amateur draft. Bush had previously spent 34 months in prison for DUI charges stemming from a hit-and-run incident that took place in March of 2012.

The recent history of first overall picks is largely a history of successes. Justin Upton (2005), David Price (2007), Stephen Strasburg (2009), Bryce Harper (2010) and Gerrit Cole (2011) all blossomed into some of the best players in the game, and Carlos Correa (2012) appears to be on a similar trajectory. Even the busts — like Delmon Young (2003), Luke Hochevar (2006) and Tim Beckham (2008) — often turn into big league players who have their moments in the sun.

Bush, on the other hand, is the exact opposite of a success story. He was originally drafted as a shortstop, but hit a paltry .219/.294/.276 in parts of four seasons in the low minors before the Padres pulled the plug on him. From there, he caught on with the Blue Jays, and then the Rays, who tried him out as a relief pitcher. He pitched pretty well in 65 minor-league innings over two years, but not well enough to get any big league consideration.

Read the rest of this entry »

In light of the tremendous success of last week’s edition of Let’s Find a Home — for which we took about 20 minutes to send Johnny Cueto eagerly off to San Francisco — I thought it would be right neighborly to take on a different, lonely, sad free agent this holiday season. So, people, won’t you help me find a new happy home for Chris Davis? He’s tall, he hits homers, and he is completely potty trained! Adoption fees start at $150 million.

There’s an alternate reality somewhere out beyond our galaxy (yes, I saw Star Wars a few days ago) where Chris Davis is taking one year “rebuild his value” offers from a few teams after another unsuccessful season. In that galaxy, Chris Davis is Mike Napoli, and when he signs, it doesn’t merit a press conference, only a few lines from his new manager amidst discussion of other business. That’s where things were headed for Davis after 2014. He was worth not quite a full win that season, batting below .200, just reaching a .300 on-base percentage, and slugging a hearty (for a middle infielder) .404. This came following a seven win season. Seven! Wins! Chris Davis posted a seven win season then wasn’t worth a single win the next season. Ahhhh baseball!

Then last season, Davis was worth 5.6 wins. Ahhhh baseball reprise! Chris Davis is your friend who insists on driving but doesn’t understand the subtlety required by brake and acceleration pedals. His car lurches forward off the line then, as soon as he sees anyone slowing in front of him, he slams on the breaks. Can you pay that guy like he’s a champion race-car driver?

Read the rest of this entry »

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 Baltimore Orioles. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

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

Batters
If there’s one thing that irks Dan Szymborski, it’s when people cast aspersions against great Polish-American war hero Casimir Pulaski. If there’s a second thing that irks him, however, it’s when people calculate the sum of the WAR figures displayed in the depth charts of these ZiPS posts, add those totals to 47.7 (i.e. the win total of a hypothetical replacement-level club), and then regard the result as Szymborski’s unambigious win projection for the team in question. Bad form, is what Szymborski has to say about that maneuver.

That caveat having been made, what one finds upon revisiting last year’s ZiPS post for Baltimore is that the club’s depth-chart projections accounted for roughly 34 WAR — which figure, added to 47.7, equals 81.7. Meanwhile, here’s the Orioles’ final record from 2015: 81-81. And their BaseRuns record, also: 79-83. What appears to have happened, at the most basic level, is that Szymborski’s computer regarded Baltimore as almost a perfectly average team and then Baltimore performed like almost a perfectly average team.

This is bad news for the current iteration of the club, which accounts for only about 27 WAR (i.e. seven fewer wins than last year) on the depth chart below. Among the position players, there’s a great deal of uncertainty after Adam Jones and Manny Machado. Indeed, right field and designated hitter actually receive negative-win projections. So, not ideal. That said, there’s some positive uncertainty, as well — particularly in left fielder Hyeon-soo Kim, whose combination of contact ability and power invite comparisons to the best version of Nick Markakis.

Read the rest of this entry »