FanGraphs Baseball

Two seasons ago, I ranked the job security of each general manager and listed GM prospects. I think I did a pretty good job with both lists given what we knew at the time, and may do it again as Opening Day 2016 closes in. We’ve had less executive movement in the last few off-seasons than usual and it looks like the regression is happening this year, with four GM jobs currently open and a likely fifth coming soon. This seemed like a good time to cover each of the situations in flux and target some possible changes in the near future, along with some names to keep in mind as candidates to fill these openings.

The Open GM Spots
We have two teams without a top baseball decision-making executive, in Seattle and Milwaukee:

Mariners
The Mariners moved on from (now former) GM Jack Zduriencik recently, a long-rumored move that club president Kevin Mather admitted he waited too long to execute. Mather has said they’re looking for a replacement sooner than later (likely eliminating execs from playoff teams), with GM experience (eliminating most of the GM prospects you’ll see below), and that the team doesn’t require a rebuild (meaning a shorter leash and higher expectations from day one). This should prove to narrow the pool of candidates a good bit, but this is still seen as the best of the currently open jobs.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Texas at Los Angeles AL | 22:05 ET
Perez (43.2 IP, 99 xFIP-) vs. Richards (161.0 IP, 94 xFIP-)
While human efforts to predict baseball have been dismissed by scientists — scientists dressed in real lab coats, surrounded by beakers of roiling and unnamed chemicals — have been dismissed as an exercise in futility, the attempt to project baseball has at least some foundation in actual mathematics. The sort of projections available at FanGraphs suggested in April, May, June, July, and August — suggested in all those months that a future in which the Texas Rangers’ qualified for the 2015 postseason was an improbable one. As of today, however, it’s decidedly less improbable.

Regard, the club’s various odds on the fourth of each month, up to and including the fourth of September:

Rangers’ Postseason Odds on Fourth of Each Month

Date	Division	Wild Card	Playoffs	Div Series
4/4	0.8%	2.3%	3.1%	1.8%
5/4	0.4%	0.5%	0.9%	0.6%
6/4	3.7%	6.1%	9.8%	6.6%
7/4	2.9%	5.8%	8.7%	5.7%
8/4	3.4%	12.5%	15.9%	9.3%
9/4	20.1%	40.9%	60.9%	39.1%

Rocketed northward, is what those postseason odds have done metaphorically. Increased by over 50 percentage points, is what they’ve done literally. One, observing the Rangers, is observing a group of individuals whose actions have become surprisingly relevant — as surprising and relevant as the lyrics of a Jewel song immediately after having been dumped unexpectedly.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Texas Radio.

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Less than two months ago, some of the game’s best players gathered in Cincinnati to participate in the Midsummer Classic. The game featured Mike Trout being Mike Trout and Jacob deGrom looking like he was ready to graduate to a better league. The night before, Major League Baseball rolled out a new Home Run Derby format that was met with near universal approval. It certainly helped that hometown favorite, Todd Frazier, captured the title.

The derby was something of an emergence for Frazier. While he was coming off a 4.7 WAR season in 2014 and accumulated  11.1 WAR in 1,846 plate appearances between 2011 and 2014, the 29-year-old still carried one of those “underrated because he plays in a small market” weights around his neck. Frazier was a very good player before 2015; our ZiPS/Steamer blend gave him a 3 WAR projection based on average defense at third base, and a 112 projected wRC+.

In your head, you’re probably thinking that projection feels light. Frazier was riding in after a season just short of 5 WAR and was still on the right side of 30. But entering the year, Frazier had a 112 career wRC+ and had never topped 121. Essentially, every facet of his game profiled as average — with the exception of his power. His power looked be above average, but short of great. Then the first half of 2015 happened.

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Episode 592
Dayn Perry is a contributor to CBS Sports’ Eye on Baseball and the author of three books — one of them not very miserable. He’s also the 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 1 hr 1 min play time.)

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Talk to any player in baseball and that player will tell you the most important thing is winning. That player will tell you he doesn’t care if he goes 0-for-4 if his team still wins the game. That isn’t always all true, but winning tends to be the priority, and at least in the moment, players don’t care so much about the numbers. It’s one of the many differences between baseball players and baseball fans. Players just want to go to the park and have their team get the job done. Fans want to consume as much baseball as they can, and that’s where the stats come in, to fill the void in between baseball games. Each day, a game entertains for three hours. That means numbers could conceivably entertain for 21 hours, given a particularly unhealthy individual.

Many of the best players in baseball are almost as entertaining on paper as they are on the field. Barry Bonds‘ player pages continue to amaze to this day, even though his career has been over for years. Clayton Kershaw is turning into a sort of pitcher version. Kershaw goes above and beyond what his own team would deem necessary. There’s no need for Kershaw to be this good. The Dodgers would still win if he were a little bit worse, but he’s not a little bit worse, so the numbers are like a toy box. If you want to observe Clayton Kershaw, and he’s not actively pitching, you can get by from looking at his statistics, because they’re like the numerical version of a perfectly-located curveball.

Kershaw pitched on Wednesday. He faced a lineup of players all worse than him, and he was something close to perfect, striking the hitters out 15 times. What that meant, for Kershaw, is that the Dodgers won a game against a division rival. What it means, for us: Kershaw has positioned himself to have a shot at 300 strikeouts.

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Before this season, Manny Machado was a talented young player who’s remained something less than elite due to injuries and a bat that was closer to average than star. He added offense to his game this season and earned his status as a star-level player. Debuting just a month removed from his 20th birthday back in 2012, Machado combined an above-average bat with amazing defense, but a switch flipped this season and Machado joined Mike Trout and Bryce Harper as one of the very best players in the game. Machado is one of the game’s very best third baseman defensively, but a couple times this week, the Orioles have experimented with him at shortstop. While the long-term implications for Machado and the Orioles are unclear, early returns suggest a happy outcome for the club and the 23-year-old, were he to return to his original spot on the diamond.

Drafted out of high school as a shortstop, Machado was projected to remain at shortstop given his solid hands and arm, although there were whispers that somewhere down the line his body might outgrow the position. The Orioles certainly expected his future was as a shortstop, putting him there for all but two of his 208 minor league games. When the Orioles found themselves in a pennant race in 2012, they already had one of the best defensive shortstops in the game with J.J. Hardy so they moved Machado to third base. The move worked, as the Orioles won a wild-card spot and an ensuing wild-card game to make the American League Division Series. With Hardy continuing to provide excellent defense, Machado has remained at third base until now.

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The Rangers sure are exciting these days. They’re only two games behind Houston for the AL West lead and one game up on Minnesota for the last Wild Card while still holding the title of The Best Team With a Negative Run Differential. That is, if nothing else, an unwieldy banner. It’s the banner equivalent of Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s name on a t-shirt in that it would start on one side and end on the other. Negative run differential or not, the Rangers are winning games and doing it in exciting fashion. Tuesday the Rangers beat the Padres while Elvis Andrus stole home. I’m happy that happened because that this is an article about Elvis Andrus stealing home and if he hadn’t stolen home this would be a pretty weird article.

The Rangers have had some good luck in addition to playing well. For example, the San Diego Padres just wanted to play a baseball game Tuesday. I’m not even sure they wanted to win it. I mean, they’d probably have been fine with winning, but they’d have been fine with not winning, too. Let’s just play a game, they probably thought, then get some sleep. Instead they got Tuesday’s game which was much, much worse.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Chicago AL at Minnesota | 13:10 ET
Samardzija (182.0 IP, 104 xFIP-) vs. Gibson (158.0 IP, 101 xFIP-)
Were one committed to consuming at least one Twins game this season — and had also failed to satisfy the terms of that agreement so far this year — then today represents probably the ideal occasion on which to do so. For one, the club continues to maintain a curious proximity to the last wild-card spot. For two, there’s the opportunity to definitely observe Byron Buxton (who’s playing center and batting ninth) and possibly) Miguel Sano (who strangely absent from the lineup despite having declared a terrible war on major-league pitchers). And finally, Target Field features one of the league’s top center-field cameras.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Minnesota Radio.

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Scooter Gennett came into the season with a .300 batting average in 704 big-league plate appearance. The stat obviously has limited value, but it does suggest an ability to put a bat on a baseball. Gennett excels at it, sometimes to his detriment.

The 25-year-old second baseman puts a lot of balls in play. His Z-Contact% as a Milwaukee Brewer is 91.9 and his O-Contact% is 74. Both are higher than average, as are his swing rates on pitches in and out of the strike zone. Those aren’t issues when batted balls are going for base hits. They are when they’re being converted into easy outs.

Gennett was hitting .154 in mid-May and he was still south of the Mendoza line in late June. Quality of contact was the main culprit. The left-handed hitter was topping, and popping up, too many pitcher’s pitches. With his frustration level rising, he also began chasing out of the zone on two-strike counts, causing a slight up-tick in his K-rate.

A change of approach was in order. and so far the results are to his liking. Gennett has hit .317/.338/.444 over the last four weeks, raising his seasonal slash line to a more respectable .266/.300/.402. He still isn’t drawing many walks, but that’s not his goal. What he wants is to attack pitches he can barrel up, and not ones he can simply reach.

Gennett talked about his quest for discipline when the Brewers visited Wrigley Field in mid August. Read the rest of this entry »