FanGraphs Baseball

What do we have here? For an explanation of this series, please read this introductory post. As noted in that introduction, the data below is a hybrid projection of the ZIPS and Steamer systems, with playing time determined through depth charts created by our team of authors. The rankings are based on aggregate projected WAR for each team at a given position.

Yes, we know WAR is imperfect and there is more to player value than is wrapped up in that single projection, but for the purposes of talking about a team’s strengths and weaknesses, it is a useful tool. Also, the author writing this post did not move your team down ten spots in order to make you angry. We don’t hate your team. I promise.

Time to rate the sluggers! Your first base depth chart in bar form:

Oh Philadelphia. Our heart goes out to your slugging slugger and the slugs he used to slug. Maybe your team actually would be better without Ryan Howard, though. Let’s focus on the positive, at least at first. The two studs at the top have a lot going for them.

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It’s that time of year, when baseball media members offer their respective takes on players who will either break out or break down this season. Most of the time those impressions are based upon a combination of objective and subjective criteria, from the “eye test,” to the numbers, to gut feel — and yes, even to spring training performance. I’m going to go on record stating that I have never, even been so sure about a player’s performance declining from the previous season as I am about Minnesota Twins’ shortstop Danny Santana. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben and Sam preview the Mariners’ season with Patrick Dubuque, and Sahadev talks to Tacoma Rainiers broadcaster Mike Curto (at 26:49).

Episode 541
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 what qualities define the “franchise player” and who most possesses them in greatest abundance.

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 37 min play time.)

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A point that is often overlooked within any discussion of baseball — whether it’s in print or amongst friends — is how utterly and entirely useless the game is. Yes, it probably has some role in the construction and maintenance of regional identity or as a means by which one can become acquainted with concepts integral to the field of statistics. These are mostly secondary products of the sport, however — and certainly not the reason for its existence.

Its wild lack of utility isn’t a weakness of the pastime, however, but rather an argument decidedly in its favor. Aristotle celebrates in one of his texts what he calls autotelic activities — that is, the sort of endeavors in which one participates as an end in themselves. Aristotle argues that contemplation is such an activity. Except among Catholic people over the age of 65, sex is often discussed in the same terms. Baseball, like most sports, is another example of an autotelic enterprise: one plays or consumes it to no other end than for the purposes of enjoyment*.

*A suggestion which, admittedly, is problematized by the existence of the Phillies and their fans.

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When the White Sox signed Adam Eaton to a five-year, $23.5 extension over the weekend, the move in and of itself, wasn’t huge news. It wasn’t huge money, and Eaton isn’t a huge player, literally or figuratively. But the move wasn’t just about Eaton, necessarily, rather it was part of a bigger plan.

Take it from Eaton himself:

“I think I’m going to play more than that contract is worth, but again, we want to win here and there’s money to go elsewhere,” Eaton said. “The next three, four, five years, if I can be a savings to bring some guys in, that’s key for us.”

This quote pretty much nails it all. Eaton talks about the value of cost certainty, he talks about being part of a bigger plan, and he talks about what extensions for pre-arb players like this allow teams to do. With the Eaton extension, the White Sox have added a fourth member to a pretty clear “core four” who are now locked up through at least 2018, when the oldest of the bunch (Eaton) will be 32 years old. Both Sale and Quintana have club options for ’19 and ’20, and if all options are exercised by the end of the contracts, here’s what the White Sox are on the books for:

• Chris Sale: $53.15M through 2020 (two club options)
• Jose Abreu: $51M through 2019, though he can opt into arbitration when eligible
• Jose Quintana: $40.15M through 2020 (two club options)
• Adam Eaton: $42M through 2021 (two club options)

That’s 24 combined years of control for $186.3M, where one of the players is a top-5 pitcher on the planet and one of those players is a top-5 hitter on the planet, and all four guys are playing through their prime years. That’s a pretty enviable position for the White Sox.
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Every offseason, the somewhat distant future often comes to the forefront of conversations. Time and words are spent wondering what will happen in five, six or seven years. Space in our brains is used to speculate if these long term contracts will work out for their teams, or if Bobby Bonilla’s steady stream of income will outlast Max Scherzer’s (it will). Keeping an eye on the long term future is generally a very good idea, but games that count are less than two weeks away causing years six and seven to fade from consciousness. Before the offseason began, just three free agent pitchers had signed contracts over $100 million with new teams in the last decade. Two more names were added to that list this past winter, and now year one for Max Scherzer and Jon Lester is upon us.

The pitchers join teams at different stages of development. Scherzer comes to the Nationals as a potential piece in an immediate World Series contender. The rotation was strong before Scherzer’s arrival with Jordan Zimmerman, Stephen Strasburg, Gio Gonzalez, and Doug Fister forming one of the league’s best rotations. The Chicago Cubs’ signing of Lester is more of a signal of things to come in Chicago. The Cubs are could-be contenders in 2015, but need a few breaks to jump into the ranks of the elite. Lester heads to Chicago expected to anchor a staff that will need his best to contend.

There are already a few concerns coming out of spring for Lester. He is missing a start due to a dead arm as those around him are ramping up their workloads to prepare for the beginning of the season. Sometimes the dead arm phase is nothing more than a normal phase pitchers go through to get ready for the season. Cole Hamels and Jordan Zimmerman have had dead arms in recent springs and gone on to excellent seasons. In addition to Lester this spring, Joe Saunders, Mike Fiers, Tim Stauffer, and basically the entire Boston Red Sox rotation have reported symptoms of a dead arm.
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This morning, David Appelman announced some minor upgrades to the way we calculate WAR, including the addition of a factor for doubles plays grounded into. While the results aren’t dramatic, some players do tend to hit into more double plays than others, and those rally-killing ground balls do have a tangible harm on a team’s offense, so they should be reflected in a metric attempting to assign a single value to a player’s performance. The swing isn’t huge, but the best player at double play avoidance in 2014 — Mike Trout, because of course he was — created an additional three runs above the league average, while the worst player — Casey McGehee — took five runs off the board by hitting into 31 double plays.

These names at the extremes make plenty of logical sense, as Trout as one of the fastest players in baseball, while McGehee is a slow ground ball machine who makes a ton of contact. And if you look at the leaderboard for valued added by double play avoidance since 2002, you’ll find names that make a lot of sense. At the top, there’s Ichiro Suzuki, adding 23 runs above the league average by almost never hitting into double plays. Right behind him is Johnny Damon, another speedy left-handed batter who made his living off his legs.

Now, if I worked for BuzzFeed, I’d have some cliffhanger sentence here, something like this.

“You’ll NEVER BELIEVE who is ALSO at the top of this list!”

But since I already put his name in the headline, you’ve probably already figured out that I’m talking about Adam Dunn. That’s right; when it comes to the best double play avoiders during the years in which we have batted ball data, Adam Dunn has created as much value as any other hitter in baseball.

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We have stats to help us understand which players are least replaceable in general. But the rosters are almost set, and now we can ask a specific question. Which players are least replaceable by the personnel on the team around them, right now?

To do this, we can use the depth charts on FanGraphs, manned by the writers on staff. These oft-updated team maps dole out the playing time by keeping an eye on health and current spring training updates.

So let’s compare the position players in baseball to their backups. Because players can be listed at multiple positions, these depth charts do a decent job of looking at what might actually happen should a player go down. Take a look at the Indians, for example. Brandon Moss won’t be on the bench waiting for Carlos Santana to be hurt, but if Santana is out of the lineup, it’s most likely Moss that will step in.

We can’t use counting stats to compare the starter to the backup, that should be obvious. Since defense is still an important part of the discussion, Wins Above Replacement is a good framework for us. Let’s pro-rate everyone’s WAR to 600 plate appearances so they are on the same footing. We used decimal points with the projected WAR just because we have to — there’d be a lot of backups with zeroes otherwise.

Now all we have to do is subtract the backup’s WAR/600 from the starter’s number, and we’ll get a list of the least replaceable players in baseball. Let’s group them by the number of wins their team would lose if they had to start the backup all season.

Read the rest on Just a Bit Outside.

Using the FanGraph’s Depth Charts tool, I created a data visualization for batters’ offensive output using on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS) as the primary statistic. Pitchers have been excluded. The Depth Chart tool takes projections from both ZIPS and Steamer and accounts for playing time creating projections for counting stats (PA, WAR, etc.) and team performance. The Positional Power Rankings being released this week use the Depth Charts as well.

The histogram below creates an overview of the entire league showing the OPS distribution, which is normal with a skew to the right reflecting the infrequency of elite offensive players.

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