FanGraphs Baseball

We know Anthony Rendon has a diverse skill set. You could say, in fact, that he has the prototypical diverse skill set: he hits for contact and power, fields well, and as of 2014, steals bases. Even though he usually plays a position in which you don’t have to throw the ball very far, he also has a good enough arm to play third, so you could say he has all the tools in the five-sided shed. Rendon certainly doesn’t scream “five-tool guy,” but that’s mostly because he doesn’t look like the usual four or five-tool guy, not because he doesn’t put up the necessary numbers.

Rendon showed us he was really good at baseball in 2014, improving all aspects of his game. Most important to our discussion today, however, was the fact that he stole 17 bases in 2014 after stealing just one in 2013 and seven total in the minors. Anthony Rendon went from a guy who basically never stole in his professional career to the ninth-best base runner by BsR in the majors during 2014. Yes, he didn’t spend long in the minors, but that’s still a pretty unusual change.

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Today, Joe Kelly took the mound in Ft. Myers, and it didn’t go well; he gave up seven hits in 2 2/3 innings before leaving with an injury currently being called biceps tightness

Kelly said he had biceps tightness that limited him to fastballs; 'not concerned.' Says he's had it before. 'Usually doesn't last too long'

— Alex Speier (@alexspeier) March 16, 2015

Today’s performance continued a trend from his two previous spring training starts, as he’s now allowed 17 hits in 7 2/3 innings this spring; his spring training ERA currently stands at 11.05. On their own, the results aren’t a big deal, but when you combine it with a potential injury, it might be fair to say that Kelly’s spot could be up for grabs at this point.

Of course, any time the Red Sox rotation is mentioned, people will invariably bring up Cole Hamels, but Boston continues to seem uninterested in meeting the Phillies price, and they do have some interesting alternatives in-house. While youngsters Henry Owens and Eduardo Rodriguez are the two best long-term prospects and might be ready for an audition, John Farrell has made sure the beat writers keep Steven Wright’s name in the picture as well. Per Alex Speier, from this morning:

The Sox would not be opposed to adding a veteran starter to their Triple A rotation. But Farrell again expressed confidence in Steven Wright as a depth starter. “He gives us a lot of comfort. As that knuckleball has come along, he’s throwing a lot more strikes,” Farrell said. “He’s got the ability to give a contrast of style.”

Projecting the performance of knuckleballers is not quite impossible, but is something kind of close to it. Wright could be very good — as he was in a September trial last year — or he could be terrible, with pretty much any result in between seemingly equally likely. Knuckleballers are lottery tickets, especially ones with spotty track records and iffy command. Dickey’s success came after he cut his walk rate in half, which Wright appears to have done in Triple-A last year, but we essentially have half a minor league season and a month of big league action where Wright showed a consistent ability to throw strikes. If he’s not throwing strikes, he’s not any good, and it’s not a big surprise that the Red Sox wouldn’t want to count on his 2014 command improvement carrying over when trying to win in 2015.

But there are a couple of reasons why I think it might make sense for the Red Sox to give Wright a shot, especially if Kelly needs replacing on the Opening Day roster: his Z-Contact% and the knuckleball carryover effect.

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Last time, I looked at 2014’s five best pitching performances, by WPA, in a losing effort. This time we take a gander at the five best offensive performances that came in a loss. Just like the pitching performances we looked at earlier, there is one very specific way to appear on this list: have a career day during a close game, and then watch your bullpen mess the whole thing up.

It should be noted that the single greatest individual game in baseball history — which would be a whopping 1.503 WPA, or more than Ben Zobrist, Salvador Perez, or Yan Gomes provided all of last season — came from a hitter in a loss. The date was August 12, 1966, and the man was Art Shamsky, who would ultimately contribute 6.8 WAR during his eight seasons as a utility outfielder. On August 12, 1966, Shamsky did not even receive the start, but was allowed to chill in the dugout for the first seven innings before being brought in on a double-switch as a defensive substitution in the top of the eighth.

In the bottom of the eighth, Shamsky cranked a two-run homer to give his Cincinnati Reds a one-run lead over the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates would tie the game in the top of the ninth, sending the contest to extra innings. The Pirates scored one run in the top of the tenth, which Shamsky answered with a solo homer. The Pirates then scored two runs in the top of the eleventh, which Shamsky answered with — duh — a two-run homer. In the top of the thirteenth, the Pirates scored three runs off of the impeccably named Billy McCool, and the other hapless Reds went down in order in the bottom of the 13th, leaving Shamsky in the hole on the game’s concluding pitch. We recognize you and mourn with you, Art Shamsky.

On to 2014:

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Earlier today, Kiley McDaniel published his consummately researched and demonstrably authoritative prospect list for the Detroit Tigers. What follows is a different exercise than that, one much smaller in scope and designed to identify not Detroit’s top overall prospects but rather the rookie-eligible players in the Tigers’ system who are most ready to produce wins at the major-league level in 2015 (regardless of whether they’re likely to receive the opportunity to do so). No attempt has been made, in other words, to account for future value.

Below are the top-five prospects in the Detroit system by projected WAR. To assemble this brief list, what I’ve done is to locate the Steamer 600 projections for all the prospects to whom McDaniel assessed a Future Value grade of 40 or greater. Hitters’ numbers are normalized to 550 plate appearances; starting pitchers’, to 150 innings — i.e. the playing-time thresholds at which a league-average player would produce a 2.0 WAR. Catcher projections are prorated to 415 plate appearances to account for their reduced playing time.

Note that, in many cases, defensive value has been calculated entirely by positional adjustment based on the relevant player’s minor-league defensive starts — which is to say, there has been no attempt to account for the runs a player is likely to save in the field. As a result, players with an impressive offensive profile relative to their position are sometimes perhaps overvalued — that is, in such cases where their actual defensive skills are sub-par.

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The Toronto Blue Jays suffered a crippling blow when 23-year-old Marcus Stroman ruptured his ACL during fielding drills last week. Prior to Stroman’s injury, Toronto’s final rotation spot was slated to go to the winner of a competition featuring Daniel Norris, Aaron Sanchez and Marco Estrada. Presumably, at least one of the losers would help fill out the Jays’ bullpen. But sans Stroman, Toronto now needs to use two-thirds of that trio in its rotation, which only weakens a bullpen that was already looking pretty thin. The Blue Jays are scrambling to fill the void.

At this point, it only makes sense to talk about Rafael Soriano. That’s not something you hear every day, but it makes sense to talk about Rafael Soriano because these are the remaining names that currently populate our free agent depth charts:

• Ryan Doumit
• Brett Hayes
• Lyle Overbay
• Rafael Furcal
• Scott Hairston
• Jason Kubel
• Andrew Brown
• Tony Campana
• Sean Burnett
• Brian Wilson
• Rafael Soriano

We used to have something like 100 names on our free agent depth charts, and now we’re down to 11. More specifically, those 11. If you weren’t keeping track at home, that’s two catchers who combined for -1.3 WAR last year, a first baseman who’s retiring, a 37-year-old second baseman who’s played nine games since 2012, a group of three outfielders who are projected for a combined -0.6 WAR, another outfielder who’s out for the season, a reliever coming off three consecutive years of elbow surgeries, a pitcher who no longer amounts to much more than a beard, and a closer who’s saved 117 games the last three years.

That’s the long-winded way of saying, Rafael Soriano is the Last Man Standing in this year’s free agent class, and at this point, he sticks out like a sore thumb.
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Teams have long devoted a majority of Major League Baseball payrolls to starting position players and the starting rotation. Last week’s post reinforced that notion with first baseman and aces receiving more money than any other position. Shifting back to team analysis, we can take a look at how individual teams spend their resources, separating payroll by rotation, starting position players (including designated hitters), bullpen, and bench. Team spending can vary greatly. The New York Yankees’ position players would rank in the top half of MLB salaries while the Los Angeles Dodgers spend almost as much on their bench and bullpens as the Houston Astros and Miami Marlins spend on their entire teams.

One aspect of spending critical to payroll is the number of cost-controlled players a team employs. Last week, looking solely at starters, the overall breakdown was as follows.
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Zack Wheeler, last week, in explaining why his current elbow soreness was no big deal.

The second issue — recurring soreness in his right elbow — raises red flags.

“It’s something that I’ve had before and have had to deal with,” said Wheeler, who is expected to take his next turn in the rotation, which falls on Thursday.

…

“Every pitcher in here pitches through pain at some point, so it’s just a matter of dealing with it and going out there,” Wheeler said. “It wasn’t affecting me all that much so I could go out there and compete like I wanted to. So I was going to do it.”

Today, though, the MRI results have revealed a torn UCL, the injury that leads to Tommy John surgery. Assuming Wheeler doesn’t try to continue to pitch through the pain, he’ll be out until roughly mid-summer of 2016.

This is obviously a significant blow to the Mets, as Wheeler had emerged as a quality starting pitcher. This is where they depth comes in handy, however, as the drop-off from Wheeler to one of Rafael Montero, Steven Matz, or Noah Syndergaard isn’t that large. Here are the Mets current depth chart projections for their rotation candidates:

#14 Mets

Name	IP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	BABIP	LOB%	ERA	FIP	WAR
Matt Harvey	173.0	9.1	2.6	0.7	.297	74.2 %	3.07	3.08	2.9
Bartolo Colon	176.0	6.2	1.5	1.0	.308	70.3 %	4.00	3.80	1.3
Jon Niese	178.0	6.7	2.4	0.9	.307	71.2 %	3.91	3.83	1.1
Jacob deGrom	165.0	8.2	2.7	0.8	.306	72.5 %	3.53	3.40	1.9
Dillon Gee	98.0	6.7	2.5	1.1	.300	70.5 %	4.23	4.24	0.2
Noah Syndergaard	75.0	9.2	2.7	0.9	.310	72.8 %	3.54	3.37	1.0
Rafael Montero	28.0	8.8	3.0	0.9	.302	74.1 %	3.56	3.62	0.3
Steven Matz	37.0	8.4	2.8	0.8	.306	73.4 %	3.42	3.43	0.5
Zack Wheeler	56.0	8.8	3.5	0.8	.307	72.8 %	3.65	3.61	0.5
Total	984.0	7.7	2.5	0.9	.305	72.1 %	3.68	3.60	9.8

ZIPS and Steamer see Montero as Wheeler’s equal for 2015, while actually liking Matz and Syndergaard a little bit more. Of course, losing Wheeler means that one of these guys can’t replace another pitcher when a future injury occurs, so losing Wheeler is far from a good thing, but the Mets are at least positioned to absorb this kind of injury.

The problem will come if too many of Wheeler’s innings are allocated to Dillon Gee. He’ll likely step in and fill the void in the short term, but if he pitches like the projections expect him to pitch, he shouldn’t hold that spot for too long.

Ask top prospect Kris Bryant about his swing, and he’ll tell you something you may have never heard before. You’ll probably also have to ask a few knowledgable people to help explain what he means.

After talking to Bryant in Spring Training last week, I asked FanGraphs prospect maven Kiley McDaniel, professional hitting consultant Dan Farnsworth, and prospect video guru Steve Fiorindo of the Prospect Pipeline to comment on the things Bryant said about his own swing. It’s an analysis of a self-analysis, if you will, with some of the moving images below provided by Carson Cistulli.

Kris Bryant: I stood straight up in high school. I haven’t changed anything since my college years, that’s when I widened out. Sophomore year I widened out so I could get to the low pitch easier. I got more power from it too because I started using my hips and legs and I was firing through the zone a lot quicker. Now that I’m wider, I have a whole lot more power.

Kiley McDaniel: I note when a batter has a low stance, since it’s easy to notice and is descriptive, but as with pitcher arm actions and the general idea of a guy’s swing, things like wide setup/power hitter, these aren’t things you can usually change with any success. So having an opinion about it in general usually doesn’t matter, since you’re so unlikely to be able to change it long-term even if you think you have a better answer.

Steve Fiorindo: I think the widening of the stance minimizes other movements, it helps for a quiet swing, but you have to be pretty strong to do it (obviously he is). Wide base, little or no stride = less opportunity for swing to break down. I know some guys like the big leg kick, (I say do whatever works for you), but the big leg kick often leads to foot getting down and body shifting weight over the front foot too so the swing breaks down and there is nothing behind it.

Dan Farnsworth: While there’s no magic distance between the feet that can create the most power in general, on the individual level it can definitely make a big difference. For Bryant, I would imagine his base being wider allows him to more easily activate his glutes than when he was more narrow.

Think of it like doing a squat with a narrow base versus a wide base. There’s certainly a sweet spot dictated by individual anatomy that allows for the quickest firing of the strongest muscles in the lower half. The swing isn’t strictly an upward move like a squat, but the same muscles utilized to push into the ground go through much of the same movement to turn that linear force (straight into the ground) into rotational force. His best position for creating power is just a reflection of how the muscles and bones in his lower half are built, and his previous swing base probably wasn’t in as optimal of a position.

Kris Bryant: It’s almost like a rubber band between your hips and your hands. Your hips go and you have your hands kept back as long as possible, until the last second, then they have to come through and so it’s like a rubber band effect, essentially.

Read the rest on Just a Bit Outside.