FanGraphs Baseball

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The Angels ascended to first place in the AL West in the final game before the All-Star break. A week and a half later, they had a two-game lead, and since that point, they’ve lost the two-game lead, and then several more games beyond that, in a team-wide collapse that’s threatened to leave the Angels on the outside of the playoff picture. They’ve lost 26 of 37, losing 9.5 games in the standings to the Astros, and 12.5 to the Rangers. Over the span, they’re last in the AL in runs scored. Over the span, they’re second-to-last in the AL in runs allowed. The season can still be salvaged — clearly, things can change in a jiffy — but this has been a nightmare stretch, lasting nearly a quarter of the season. It’s hard to survive a lost quarter.

Obviously, in a slump like this, several parties are partly responsible. A team doesn’t sink based on one or two players. But, generally, when a team sinks, people don’t look to blame players like, say, Erick Aybar. They don’t blame players like Hector Santiago. They look to the stars who aren’t pulling their weight, and one can’t help but note that Mike Trout hasn’t quite produced like himself. Like many of his teammates, Trout’s been in a rut, and that’s done more than just open the MVP race to Josh Donaldson. As Trout’s concerned, there are questions, and I feel like it’s my obligation to try to answer them as best I can. I know my role, here.

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Since the New York Yankees’ incredible five-year run at the end of the last century, which saw the club win four titles with a youth-filled core, the Yankees have long been seen as an aging group of veteran free-agent purchases. Jason Giambi, Mike Mussina, and Alex Rodriguez supplemented Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Bernie Williams, Andy Pettitte, and Mariano Rivera as the group entered their 30s. Whether that perception was fair or merely irrelevant, the club remained successful for much of the last decade as players aged slowly and made great contributions into their 30s. As Major League Baseball got younger, though, the Yankees’ core aged without young replacements on the farm. It appeared as though the Yankees might have a rough couple of years when, after the club missed the playoffs in 2013, ownership tried to reduce payroll below $189 million in attempt to save millions in salary cap money and revenue sharing.

As sometimes happens, though, the Yankees’ owners appeared to change their mind and a spending spree in the winter of 2013 brought in free agents Jacoby Ellsbury, Brian McCann, and Carlos Beltran, as well as the acquisition of Masahiro Tanaka in order to compete in 2014. That effort fell short as injuries, age, and the missing production of Alex Rodriguez all took their toll on the franchise and the team fell short of the playoffs. In 2015, the team’s elder batsmen — Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez, and Carlos Beltran — have remained healthy for much of the season and led the way for an offense sporting a 107 wRC+, second only to the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League.

Mark Teixeira had been having a phenomenal year prior to his recent injury, Alex Rodriguez has been strong in his return from suspension, and Carlos Beltran has recovered nicely from a very poor start to the season. All three are among the very best in the league among position players 35 years old and older this season.

Best 2015 Seasons by Players at Least 35 Years of Age

Name	Team	AVG	OBP	SLG	wRC+	WAR	Age
Mark Teixeira	Yankees	.255	.357	.548	145	2.9	35
Adrian Beltre	Rangers	.273	.314	.427	96	2.7	36
Alex Rodriguez	Yankees	.257	.363	.489	133	2.3	39
David Ortiz	Red Sox	.264	.352	.515	128	1.9	39
Albert Pujols	Angels	.247	.305	.493	121	1.8	35
Juan Uribe	Braves	.254	.318	.418	103	1.7	36
A.J. Pierzynski	Braves	.293	.333	.424	107	1.7	38
Carlos Beltran	Yankees	.282	.344	.480	125	1.6	38
Matt Holliday	Cardinals	.290	.409	.420	132	1.2	35

The above list constitutes every player 35 and older with at least one win above replacement on the season. Just a decade ago, there were double that amount, and two previous years had a dozen players each. The Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies are the only teams with more than 1,000 plate appearances from players at least 35 years old, and the Yankees’ 6.8 WAR from those players is more than double the second-place Braves — and actually higher than the rest of MLB combined (6.6 WAR).

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Since players acquired on or after September 1 are not eligible for their new team’s playoff roster, we saw a small flurry of trades come down the pike last night. The Cubs traded for Austin Jackson, the Royals landed Jonny Gomes, the Giants swung a deal for Alejandro De Aza and the Dodgers acquired Justin Ruggiano and Chris Heisey in separate deals. The Jackson, Ruggiano and Heisey deals all involve the infamous player to be named later, meaning we don’t yet know who’s headed in the other direction. However, the Gomes and De Aza deals both included players who will join their new organizations immediately. Here’s a glimpse at what we might expect from these two players down the road. (Note: WAR figures, unless otherwise specified, indicate total WAR through age-28 season.)

Luis Valenzuela, Atlanta Braves, 5.3 WAR

The Royals sent 22-year-old infielder Luis Valenzuela to Atlanta in the Jonny Gomes deal. After hitting a weak .234/.289/.338 in Rookie-level ball from 2012 to 2014, it appears as though something may have clicked for Valenzuela this year. In 56 games, with all but eight of them coming in Low-A, Valenzuela’s hit .358/.380/.495. His lofty .404 BABIP surely explains much of this success, but his combination of contact (14% strikeout rate), power (.137 ISO) and speed (nine steals in 11 attempts) makes him mildly interesting.

KATOH really likes what Valenzuela’s done this year, and as a result, projects him for 5.3 WAR through age 28, which would have put him 54th on KATOH’s list. (At the time, he did not hit my admittedly arbitrary 200-plate-appearance threshold). Despite the optimism, though, my system gives him just a 56% chance of making the majors, suggesting that there’s a very strong chance he flames out completely. In sum, Valenzuela’s done some impressive things this year, but the onus will be on him next year to prove it’s not a fluke. Here are his top Mahalanobis comps, which include notable middle infielders Ronnie Belliard and Scooter Gennett.

*****

Luis Ysla, Boston Red Sox, 0.4 WAR

In exchange for De Aza, the Giants sent hard-throwing lefty Luis Ysla to Boston. Ysla spent all of 2015 pitching at the High-A level, where he’s split time between the rotation and the bullpen. On the surface, Ysla’s 2015 numbers look pretty poor: 6.21 ERA and 4.52 FIP. But it’s worth noting that he’s performed noticeably better out of the bullpen than as a starter (4.50 ERA vs. 8.81 ERA). Furthermore, since a pitcher’s strikeout rate is the most predictive metric for pitchers in the low minors, Ysla’s 25% strikeout rate (27% as a reliever) makes him somewhat intriguing. However, as a 23-year-old who’s yet to master A-ball, Ysla is extremely fringy.

KATOH pegs Ysla for 0.4 WAR through age 28, with just a 19% chance of even making it to the big leagues. His 2014 numbers from Low-A yielded a similar forecast of 0.8 WAR. His Mahalanobis comps also leave a lot to be desired. Basically, its Brandon Medders, a future backup NFL quarterback and very little else.

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
San Francisco at Los Angeles NL | 18:10 ET
Bumgarner (175.2 IP, 75 xFIP-) vs. Greinke (179.1 IP, 82 xFIP-)
This game — or, at least, the result of this game — doesn’t possess the sort of postseason implications that others of today’s do. The Blue Jays and Yankees, for example, remain separated by only 1.5 games in the AL East. The stakes for them, perpetually, are large — either playing in or bypassing the wild-card game. The Giants, meanwhile, currently feature somewhere in the vicinity of an 8% to 17% chance of reaching the divisional series, depending on the methodology one consults. They’re likely not to reach the postseason, it seems. Nor will a victory tonight — even against the division-leading Dodgers — alter that state of affairs greatly. A victory today would, however, create greater implications for tomorrow’s game. It would, in a sense, cultivate the possibility of something marvelous. This sort of possibility holds considerable appeal — if only because the human mind is poorly constructed to understand its improbability.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Basically All of Them.

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Madison Bumgarner has been having quite a month of August. He’s posted a 53:4 strikeout-to-walk ratio while allowing only six earned runs in 37.2 innings, and he’s looked almost as unhittable as he did last October, when he relentlessly took the ball for the Giants in high pressure situations during the playoffs. That’s not a coincidence, it turns out, as Bumgarner is currently exhibiting tendencies that are quite similar to the 2014 postseason version of himself.

Before we go down that particular road, let’s have a brief introduction to Bumgarner, 2015 starting pitcher. On these digital pages, we’ve featured an article on how well he hits — which is quite well indeed — but not much else in the way of analysis this season; I will remedy that fact in a brief, limited manner. We could spend an entire article about the minute changes Bumgarner has made in 2015. Instead, here’s a cliffs notes version:

• He’s throwing more fastballs than at any point since 2011.
• He’s basically ditched his changeup, as he’s relied almost strictly on a three-pitch combination of fastball, slider (referred to at times as a cutter), and curveball in 2015. Here is his pitch usage since 2010, his first semi-full season in the majors (courtesy of Brooks Baseball, which calls his slider a cutter):

• Finally, his command improvements from last season have stuck, as he’s posting a career-low walk rate (4.3%) and career-high strikeout rate (27.4%).

These are all good things. By the numbers, Bumgarner is perhaps the best version of himself that he’s ever been, and it shouldn’t be a surprise that he’s posting the best xFIP of his career while challenging his best in ERA and FIP.

That’s why this month has been extra interesting; because, in the midst of one of his best seasons, Bumgarner seems to be up to something. And that something just happens to be intentionally throwing slower.

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Loudly and quietly, the Blue Jays made a series of improvements around deadline time. Very conspicuously, they added an incredible shortstop. Very conspicuously, they added an incredible starting pitcher. Somewhat conspicuously, they added a decent left fielder. It was the bullpen work that went almost unnoticed. Armed with some new personnel, and with some shifted personnel, the Jays came away from July with a stronger relief unit. Really, they came away with a stronger everything, and the team has taken off, but the bullpen, now, seems like it’s become a strength. It’s just not what drew the headlines.

The Rangers aren’t the Blue Jays, but they are in the race, and there are a few parallels here. Something in the vicinity of a .500 team around deadline time. A huge impact addition, in the form of Cole Hamels. And a very quietly strengthened bullpen, that’s given the Rangers some late-inning reliability for maybe the first time all year. Let’s face it — the second wild card isn’t going to a great team. The Rangers aren’t a great team. They’re becoming a solid team, however. A team that might as well deserve to keep playing. It was an awful big August, and it was a month made possible by improvement in a bullpen no one was paying attention to.

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Justin Bour is a big man who hits bombs. The 27-year-old Miami Marlins rookie is 6-foot-4, 250 pounds — and this season, 10 of his 14 home runs have gone at least 400 feet. On Saturday, he clubbed a 453 foot shot against Jordan Zimmermann at Nationals Park.

The lefty swinger has power to all fields. Seven of his Bour’s blasts have been to the pull side, while six have been from right-center to left-center and one has been to the opposite field.

Bour sees himself as more than a power hitter, although his numbers don’t necessarily reflect it. The slugging first baseman is slashing .257/.325/.449, in 326 plate appearances, and same-sided pitchers have mostly given him fits. He’s 10-for-43 versus southpaws.

As for the opportunity he’s getting in Miami, Bour is fortunate to no longer be buried in a star-studded Chicago Cubs system. The former 25th round pick was selected by the Marlins in the Triple-A portion of the 2013 Rule 5 draft.

Bour talked about his development as a hitter, including his all-fields approach, when Miami visited Boston earlier this summer. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 591
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 discusses the dismissal by the Seattle Mariners of general manager Jack Zduriencik, certain comments by Dodgers general manager Andrew Friedman regarding defensive metrics, and the interaction inside a person between team allegiance and the analytical impulse.

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 43 min play time.)

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