FanGraphs Baseball

It’s become a practice of the present author in recent years to purchase — before FanGraphs’ annual spring pilgrimage to the desert — to purchase a new ballcap in February, with a view towards cultivating within my colleagues a combination of jealously and respect that my actual “work” is incapable of producing.

Last year, an exhaustive search — painfully documented over a series of posts — resulted in the acquisition of a Winston-Salem Spirits cap from 1994 with a weird red sun and melancholy eagle on it.

This year’s edition of the search began last week and continues today.

To wit:

NOS 90s SEAGRAM’S GIN snapback hat rap hip hop (Link)
Style: Tasteful Snapback
Time Left: N/A
Cost: US $14.99 (Buy It Now)

There are many reasons for an octogenarian male to fall asleep whilst fishing for lake trout from the bow of a reasonably priced pontoon boat. To do so in the absence of this tastefully appointed cap, however, is poor form. Poor form all around.

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Maybe it was all a setup for the headline, but in Anthony Fenech’s piece about Justin Verlander and his effort to return to glory — titled “Tigers’ Verlander ‘way ahead of the curve’ early this spring” — the pitcher points to the current state of his curveball as a sign of early success.

“I’ve seen a pretty dramatic difference,” he said. “The curveball seems to be a lot better already than it was at any point last year.”

Catcher Bryan Holaday, who stood in for the final few pitches of the session, agreed, saying the spin was nice and tight.

Verlander notices the difference, especially in the break, from last year, when his breaking pitches, “Neither one of those pitches was good at all last year. They didn’t have the same bite.”

Much of the previous analysis of Verlander’s poor year focused on his fastball velocity and fading release points. And the pitcher himself referenced those factors a bit when, later in the piece, he admits that he was underweight due to last year’s offseason surgery on his core.

But this might be the first time we’ve heard about the curve missing tightness.

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On February 17, 2011, Jose Bautista signed a five-year, $65 million extension with the Toronto Blue Jays. Bautista’s contract was one of a dozen similar extensions signed by players that Winter. From the 2008 to 2011, at least 11 players signed extensions similar to Bautista’s every winter (Extensions between end of the postseason and February 17th, using MLB Trade Rumors Extension Tracker). At the time, Bautista had fewer than six years of service time, agreed to a contract exceeding two years, and the contract bought out at least one free agent season. Offseason extensions are a fairly common practice, but in recent years, they have become increasingly rare. Since 2011, no offseason has seen double-digit extensions. Only Giancarlo Stanton, Kyle Seager, Wade Miley, and Devin Mesoraco signed similar contracts this Winter, matching a recent low of four from two offseasons ago.

While the number of extensions has gone down considerably in winter, the costs associated with these contracts have not experienced the same downturn. From 2008 to 2011, 47 Winter extensions cost teams $1.66 billion while the last four winters have seen teams sign extensions totalling $1.51 billion in guaranteed money to just 22 players. $150 million dollars is hardly a small amount, but the number of deals dropped by more than half, causing the cost to sign an individual extension with a player to go up considerably.

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Navigate to Ron Wolforth’s website and you’ll immediately see this.

Normally I’m hesitant to engage with places that approach me like I’m watching the pitching equivalent of QVC at 4 a.m., but Ron Wolforth has the track record to make bold statements: he’s worked with Trevor Bauer since the first round pick was 14 years old, and most recently he took Scott Kazmir from out of baseball to pumping mid-90’s gas for Cleveland in the span of a year. That second achievement is what we’re going to pay attention to today, because the news came down this past week that the Oakland Athletics signed Barry Zito to a minor league deal with an invitation to spring training. Why is this of specific interest to us, you may ask? Because Zito has been working with Wolforth for the past four months to completely revamp his delivery and regain his lost velocity. The most recent reports say Zito is throwing in the high-80’s after the training, with Wolforth guaranteeing 90 MPH by “April or May”.

Ron Wolforth is more scientist than scout – the type of outsider that the baseball establishment views with a sideways look. His reputation improved with Bauer getting drafted in the first round in 2011 (he even secured an invitation to spring training with Cleveland in 2013 after Bauer was traded from the Diamondbacks), but the feeling you get is that he’s still not completely trusted – that his methods are out of keeping with the entrenched mentality of the game’s established coaches. The same resistance to intellectual approaches that kept sabermetrics out of the game (and still does in some circles) is part of what is keeping Wolforth out of it.

That’s where Barry Zito comes in. There are differences in Kazmir and Zito’s cases: there is the age difference — which is nearly five years — and the fact that Kazmir is a power pitcher while Zito is known more for relying on secondary offerings. The fact remains, however, that both have one major thing in common: they were out of baseball, struggling with an almost total loss of fastball velocity, and turned to Ron Wolforth for help. Kazmir was written off; he regained almost ten MPH and made it back. Can Zito follow the same path? Read the rest of this entry »

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Since my specialization at FanGraphs is graphics creation, I aim to produce many non-traditional, yet thought-provoking data visualizations regarding different aspects of baseball throughout the year.

With free agency is winding down as pitchers and catcher report to Spring Training, I created two graphics showing different views of the free-agent signing period from November to February 18, 2015. I pulled data from FanGraph’s 2015 Free Agent Tracker, which includes the signing date, salary information and the contract length.

The first graph shows the total Average Annual Value (AAV) of all players signed each week. From this visual, teams spend the majority of their money within the first two months of the off-season with the bulk of the money spent right after the Winter Meetings. January and February show substantially less activity except for Max Scherzer’s $210 million, 7-year deal. Overall, most of free agency activity takes place before Christmas.

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Throughout the early stages of the calendar year, I’ve been taking a pre-spring training look at each of the six MLB divisions from a slightly different perspective. Utilizing batted ball data, we’re going back over the 2014 season, attempting to calculate each club’s true talent level. Making adjustments for teams’ offensive and defensive K and BB rates and team defense, each team’s true talent 2014 won-lost record is calculated. Then, we’ll take a look at the current Steamer projections for 2015, evaluate key player comings and goings, and determine whether clubs are constructed to be able to handle the inevitable pitfalls along the way that could render such projections irrelevant. The next to last installment of this series features the NL West. Read the rest of this entry »

A couple of days ago, I examined how the players listed on Kiley McDaniel’s top 200 list graded out according to KATOH — my prospect projection system. Well, not exactly. I actually examined how his top 142 prospects — those that he ranked — graded out according to KATOH. I left off the 58 honorable mentions who just missed the cut for receiving a full writeup. Each of these guys received a 45+ FV rating from McDaniel, which means their most likely to peak as weak everyday players or back-end starters. Think Charlie Blackmon or Mike Leake. While none of the names listed below are likely to be stars, or even average regulars, all of them are pretty good bets to make at least some sort of big league impact. Read the rest of this entry »

So, look. I don’t want to write any more about Cole Hamels. You don’t want to read any more about Cole Hamels. We’ve all basically covered every possible angle of the Cole Hamels thing. It’s tired, and all anyone wants is to be able to move on. But, on the other hand, yesterday I published articles about Chris Young, Huston Street, and fan opinions of pitching coaches. So now I’m writing about Cole Hamels again.

At least this time there’s new information. Ken Rosenthal wrote this earlier:

The Padres wanted Hamels. The Padres made an aggressive offer for Hamels. The Padres are one of nine teams that can acquire Hamels without his permission.
[…]
It is not known precisely how they view the Padres’ top three prospects — righty Matt Wisler, catcher Austin Hedges and outfielder Hunter Renfroe. But a source last month said that in the Phillies’ view, the Padres might “not have enough.”

That’s pretty concrete. That’s reporting that the Padres made a bid. They’re one of apparently four teams to have made an actual bid, but now from Bob Nightengale, we get names:

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Let’s play a game. It’s a guessing game! We can play it because I haven’t yet ruined the surprise in the title.

Ready? Oh, wait — that’s right. Before we play, there is one stipulation. You have to know who George Springer is.
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