FanGraphs Baseball

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The Boston Red Sox 2015 season is starting to look like an abject failure. A week ago, they were not too far from pulling back up to .500 and were only five and a half games back of first place in a weak division, and they had an upcoming six game stretch against the Orioles and Blue Jays that presented a real opportunity to gain some ground on two of their competitors. Instead, the Red Sox lost all six games, are now 10 games under .500, and are eight games behind both the Yankees and Rays, and seven games behind the Blue Jays. In one week’s time, they’ve moved from being within spitting distance of first place to being equally far back of fourth place.

Nearly every move the organization made last winter is currently looking like a disaster. The big acquisitions of Hanley Ramirez (-0.4 WAR), Pablo Sandoval (+0.1 WAR), and Rick Porcello (+0.5 WAR) have resulted in a trio of highly paid replacement level performers, and the more minor acquisitions like Wade Miley (+0.5 WAR) and Justin Masterson (-0.2 WAR) have been just as ineffective. While the history of these deals won’t be written based on their first few months in Boston, it’s fair to say that things aren’t exactly working out according to the team’s plans.

And now the Red Sox are heading towards a crossroads. This experiment hasn’t worked, and with just six weeks to go before the trade deadline, the Red Sox have to start considering the fact that they may be sellers at the deadline. The upside of being terrible is that it’s a good year to be selling talent, but the Red Sox are struggling in large part because their big expensive acquisitions have been lousy, and it’s not so easy to dump $100 million contracts a few months after they were signed. The path forward for the Red Sox isn’t so obvious, but let’s try to figure out some priorities for this team’s short-term and longer-term future.

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Last week, I walked through the KATOH projections for each of the college players taken in the first round of this year’s amateur draft. The first round is obviously the most important one, as it produces the largest share of the game’s productive players. Nonetheless, the proceeding rounds also generate their fair share of quality major leaguers. So, today, I’m going to take a look at some of the hitters selected in rounds two through eight who rated favorably according to my KATOH system.

David Thompson, 3B, New York Mets
Draft Round: 4th
KATOH Projection: 5.7 WAR

After mediocre freshman and sophomore seasons at Miami, David Thompson broke out in a big way in 2015. The third baseman smashed 19 homers and 18 doubles in 64 games on his way to a .333/.445/.658 showing in the ACC. Thompson’s breakout likely had something to do with his finally being healthy. Originally a two-sport star at Miami, Thompson opted to give up on his football career following a litany of injuries. Between undergoing four surgeries, while also trying to play both baseball and football, it’s easy to see why he only managed an .800 OPS as an underclassman. It’s pretty rare for a player to run an ISO north of .300 while striking out in fewer than 10% of his trips to the plate, especially in the ACC, which happens to be one of the best college conferences in the country.

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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
Cleveland at Chicago NL | 20:05 ET
Bauer (74.0, 107 xFIP-) vs. Arrieta (77.0 IP, 69 xFIP-)
Chicago and Cleveland, between them, have debuted four noteworthy young players this season — of which three are famous and one is less famous. Kris Bryant, Addison Russell, and Francisco Lindor were ranked 1st, 3rd, and 14th, respectively, among all prospects by Kiley McDaniel this offseason. The former two have produced roughly four wins in roughly 400 plate appearances for the Cubs; Lindor, for his part, recorded his first major-league appearance this past weekend. Omitted from McDaniel’s preseason top-200 list (as well as every other preseason-type of list), but noteworthy nonetheless, is third baseman Giovanny Urshela. The 23-year-old Urshela lacks the tools of the three aforementioned players, but has exhibited average power and above-average contact skills as a minor leaguer — in addition to possessing a strong defensive reputation. He’s probably not the reason one ought to watch this game between the Cubs and Indians tonight. That said, in the event that one is consuming this game among a crowd of friends or even awkward acquaintances, one is now equipped to bore his companions with certain passing comments about Giovanny Urshela.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Chicago Television.

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We’re all moving forward on the baseball calendar. Pitchers and catchers? Way back there. Spring training games? Opening Day? Well behind us. And we’ve just recently seen the completion of the amateur draft, so now we look ahead again. The next specific date is that of the All-Star Game, followed by the non-waiver trade deadline. However, while the trade deadline comes after the exhibition, we’ve just entered trading season. Unofficially, it kicked off with the Mark Trumbo deal. More officially, it always lurks on this side of the draft.

Trading season is relevant to everyone. If your favorite team is sitting pretty, maybe this is where it makes the move that puts it over the top. If your favorite team is stuck in the middle, maybe this is where it makes the move that makes all the difference. And if your favorite team blows, maybe this is where it makes the move that sheds salary or directly benefits the future. For everyone, trade talk fills the time between games. For some, trade talk is also a welcome distraction.

This time of year, there’s always chatter about who’s most in need of what. I thought, for purposes of this post, I might try to make it mathematical. I looked at every certain and fringe contender, position by position, and tried to identify the positions of greatest need as trade season heats up. I wound up selecting five positions, because I think five is a good number, and a better number than four or six. Why do I think that? That would be a different article.

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“We’re some kind of hot right now.”

Those words were spoken by Toronto manager John Gibbons following today’s 13-5 shellacking of the Red Sox at Fenway Park. Truer words have rarely been spoken. The Blue Jays have won 11 straight, outscoring their opponents 88-44 in the process. The club currently boasts the best run differential in MLB, at +71.

Infielder Ryan Goins said “The only word to describe it is ‘fun,’ adding that “Everybody is coming here every day, knowing we’re going to win.” Outfielder Kevin Pillar, who acknowledged that the team is “well aware it’s 11 games,” echoed the F word, saying “It’s fun for baseball and it’s fun for our fans.”

An entirely different F word is on the tongues of Bostonians. Boos rang through Fenway Park as the shellshocked Red Sox lost their sixth straight. The team picked by many to win the AL East is now 10 games under .500 and taking on water fast. Manager John Farrell, who was once let go by the Blue Jays, is seemingly in danger of a similar fate in Beantown, a recent vote of confidence from ownership be damned. (And if you listen closely, you can hear a chorus of ‘I told you so’s’ from north of the border.)

I asked Gibbons if he could sense frustration in the opposing dugout.

“Every team in this league goes through that,” said Gibbons. “We’ve been on the same side of it, where nothing seems to go right. You struggle and your fans start ripping you. Especially in this town. This can be a cruel business and this town is the worst. Here and probably New York. They let them have it. Sometimes there’s no place to hide when things go bad.”

Things are going very badly in Boston right now. In Toronto, it’s a different story. Blue Jays players are making sure to say the right things – “We’re just taking it day by day and trying to win games ” – but the smiles in the clubhouse this weekend were evident. This team is confident. The Red Sox are looking for places to hide.

Episode 572
Kiley McDaniel is both (a) the lead prospect analyst for FanGraphs and also (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio — during which edition he discusses some early-round selections in baseball’s amateur draft, the particular futures of some collegiate second baseman, and also baseball-player makeup versus regular-person makeup.

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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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
Seattle at Houston | 14:10 ET
Elias (58.0 IP, 108 xFIP-) vs. McCullers (31.0 IP, 71 xFIP-)
While the major-league debuts of Byron Buxton and Francisco Lindor are entirely notable, it’s also true that watching an entire game merely to the end of observing a single position player ultimately provides a poor return on one’s leisure investment. Consider: a single batter records, on average, only four or five plate appearances per game. Defensively, a shortstop (like Lindor) makes about four or five plays per game, while a center fielder (such as Buxton) makes fewer than three usually. As such, neither Buxton nor Lindor are likely to feature prominently in more than 10 of the roughly 75 total plate appearances that compose a nine-inning contest — less than 15% of the whole event, in other words. What reason dictates, instead, is that the viewer ought to watch the young and talented Lance McCullers pitch for the young and talented Houston Astros while monitoring the Cleveland and Minnesota games for the relevant at-bats within them.

This is merely one application of what might or might not be called hedonic arithmetic.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Seattle Radio.

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I was at Progressive Field earlier this week to see the Indians host the Mariners. A stone’s throw away, the Cavaliers were playing Golden State in the NBA finals. The latter series has the city captivated and on the precipice of euphoria. When the basketball game got out on Tuesday night, hordes of fans below my hotel window chanted “Let’s go Cavs!” and blew air horns to celebrate a win. A brass band played somewhere down on the street. It sounded like Mardi Gras, and it was only Game 3.

“They’re going to blow the roof off this place if they win,” Indians outfielder Nick Swisher told me. “People love their sports around here, and it’s been a long, long time since there’s been a championship.”

Fifty-one years, to be exact. The Browns won the NFL title in 1964, and since that time it’s been a multi-sport combination of heartbreak and non-contenders. According to Swisher, who grew up in Ohio, “That’s why you see so many people coming out to support the Cavs.”

Meanwhile, with no basketball game as competition, the official attendance at Progressive Field on Wednesday night was 12,305. The number of fans who actually showed up was probably closer to seven or eight thousand. On the season, the Indians have drawn an average of 16,836, with only the cloudy-future Rays spinning fewer turnstiles. Cleveland was also second from the bottom last year, and in 2013 they ranked just one spot higher despite 92 wins and a Wild Card berth. Read the rest of this entry »

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
Cleveland at Detroit | 16:08 ET
Carrasco (68.1 IP, 72 xFIP-) vs. Verlander (Season Debut)
This game marks the return of Justin Verlander from a triceps injury that’s prevented him from appearing over the first two-and-a-half months of the season. Of some interest is what he’s able to exhibit by way of arm speed. After recording an average fastball velocity of 94.3 mph in 2012, he produced a figure exactly 1 mph less than that in 2013 and then another 1 mph less than that in 2014. His capacity to prevent runs has declined at a corresponding rate. Regard, by way of example, his xFIP- marks over each of the last three seasons, all in samples of 200-plus innings: 80, 92, 111. Decidedly upward, is the trend one identifies. During his second rehab start with Triple-A Toledo, Verlander’s fastball topped out at 94 mph while sitting in the low-90s, according to MLive.com’s Brendan Savage — figures which suggest that he’s returned, probably, to the 2014 edition of himself, but also probably not to the more dominant version which preceded it. In conclusion, all life is like a fleeting shadow and/or passing mist.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cleveland Radio.

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