Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.
Read the rest of this entry »
Over the course of this week, we’ve somehow managed to cover nearly every transaction. But by my count, there are four that we failed to comment on, and that is simply unacceptable. So let’s tackle them, in no particular order:
This is one of those rare trades that could end up being a win-win or a lose-lose, so of course I love it. When it went down, Howie Kendrick had not yet been traded, so it was a bit of a mystery as to why the Angels wanted Rutledge. Now that Kendrick has migrated up I-5 however, it makes a lot more sense. Sort of.
I’ve written about Rutledge before, and since I did back in May 2013, he hasn’t really shown much. To wit:
Rutledge still has a decent 90 wRC+ projection for next season, but it’s unduly influenced by those first 150 PA. Rutledge is still just 26 next year, so it’s not over yet, but we can probably chalk him up as a fluke at this point. The Rockies have somewhat committed to DJ Lemahieu at second, and in a world where Troy Tulowitzki is healthy, they have almost zero use for Rutledge.
The Rockies do need bullpen help though, and getting Diaz could be a nice under the radar move. Diaz jumped from High-A, to Double-A to the majors last season, and struck out more than one-third of the batters he faced at each of the three levels. He also stranded an absurd 86.4 percent of base runners in Double-A, and his FIP still ended up being lower than his ERA. It remained so in the majors, but just for a miniscule sample. He throws just two pitches, and one of them is not a curveball, and he has good velocity separation thanks to his 97 mph cheese. The downside is that it is just 5.2 innings of low-leverage relief work, and he wasn’t a top prospect last year in what was/is a pretty weak Angels farm system, so Rockies fans shouldn’t get too excited. At least, not yet.
Banished to the bullpen last season, Detwiler didn’t have the kind of pitch mix and/or stuff that plays up in the bullpen, and he was essentially buried on Matt Williams’ depth chart. He ranked ninth out of 12 Nats relievers in gmLI (leverage when entering the game). In other words, the Nationals didn’t need him. So they flipped him to Texas, who most certainly does need starting pitchers.
Aside from the walking injured, Martin Perez and Matt Harrison, Detwiler now becomes the Rangers’ third-best starter behind Yu Darvish and Derek Holland. If that sounds like an indictment of the Rangers’ current roster, well it is, but that’s why they’re trying to upgrade it. Detwiler gets a lot of ground balls, but his xFIP routinely paints him as someone who seems like he should be allowing more home runs than he does, and moving from Nationals Park (home run park factor of 97) to Globe Life Park (106) will certainly test that out.
De Los Santos is probably the prize in the deal for Washington, and he received a brief mention in Kiley’s Rangers’ prospect piece back in August. Here’s a video Nathaniel Stoltz shot of him early last season:
Earlier in the week, the Pirates signed a lefty starter in Francisco Liriano, and then they went out and got a lefty reliever in Bastardo.
Bastardo should help in Pittsburgh, whose relief corps had just the 20th-best FIP in the game last year against left-handed batters. The great thing about Bastardo though is that he is not just a LOOGY. For his career, he has near-identical 3.34 and 3.33 FIPS against lefties and righties, respectively, and he has thrown 55 more innings against right-handed batters. His K-BB% is four percent better against lefties, but it is certainly not necessary to remove him when a right-handed batter steps into the box. In fact, last season, he was better against righties than he was lefties.
In return, the Phillies get Rodriguez, who has been a notable player in the past. He didn’t do much in his Double-A debut that was worth hanging your hat on, as he struck out just 5.2 percent more hitters than he walked, but he did improve in his brief time in the Arizona Fall League. He is essentially the exact kind of player the Phillies should be targeting in these sorts of deals — possibly high impact wild cards that are within striking distance of the majors.
Did you know that Mark Reynolds hit 22 home runs last year? Yeah, he totally did, for the Brewers. Myself, I had forgotten all about Reynolds, but he actually had himself a nice little season, putting up a 1.6 WAR figure that was his best mark since 2010. Oddly, much of it was on the strength of his defense at both first and third base. Unless Reynolds found the fountain of flexibility and/or youth at age 30, I wouldn’t put too much stock in those numbers repeating themselves, but there are certainly worse bench players to have. Reynolds was one of just two players to have a BABIP at .218 or under and still post a 80 or better wRC+. That .218 BABIP easily represented a career low, and may be due to a lack of line drives hit last year, but if his BABIP regresses back up to his career norms, he could end up being a very useful bench bat indeed.
The 2014 Winter Meetings went on at a fairly furious pace, all things considered. There was of course speculation as to what kind of moves would be done. Jon Lester was expected to sign — he did. There were rumors Matt Kemp could get traded — he was. The Red Sox were thought to be looking to alleviate their crowded outfield — this also happened. But a ton of other things happened. The White Sox tried to get better, the Reds had a mini fire sale, and the Dodgers turned the Winter Meetings into their personal Out of The Park game. I don’t really want to call it a tradeapalooza, but I want to call it a tradepocalypse even less, so I’ll stick with the former. And in the middle of it all was the Twins signing Ervin Santana to a four-year, $55 million contract. If one were skimming the pages of MLB Trade Rumors looking for the fallout of the Winter Meetings, the Santana headline would most likely cause them to shrug unemphatically. Because Ervin Santana, as a player, is an unemphatic shrug. And he’s probably the best that the Minnesota Twins can do. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s probably fair to say that, among the panoply of transactions which occurred this past week, that those produced by Thursday’s Rule 5 draft — which event marked the end of this year’s Winter Meetings — weren’t the most notable.
That said, even since 2006 (when an extra year of protection was added under the new CBA), the Rule 5 draft has produced both an MVP (Josh Hamilton) and Cy Young (R.A. Dickey). Probably flawed research by the author suggests that, on average, at least one selection within the draft will average a win or better per season following same.
In the weeks when between Billy Butler’s contract was bought out and today, with Kendrys Morales brought to Kansas City on a two-year, $17 million deal, the Royals ranked dead-last in FanGraphs’ projected Designated Hitter Depth Charts. Not dead-last amongst American League teams: Dead. Last. Less projected WAR from their DH spot than 15 NL teams, none of which actually employ a designated hitter.
With Morales now in Kansas City, one can see that the Royals have now soared up the depth chart rankings…up to the #24 position, with an estimated 0.6 WAR now due to emit from this spot in the lineup. The Texas Rangers now have the dishonor at being the lowest-ranked AL team, headlined by the light-hitting combination of Mitch Moreland and Rougned Odor. The Royals are now only just ahead of the Miami Marlins (featuring a rotation of Justin Bour/Jeff Baker/Donovan Solano/Derek Dietrich) and the Philadelphia Philles (Darin Ruf/Grady Sizemore/Cesar Hernandez/Cameron Rupp/Maikel Franco).
By the time the Jeff Samardzija trade became official Tuesday at baseball’s winter meetings in San Diego, Chicago White Sox general manager Rick Hahn was fielding secondary questions about the chances of extending Samardzija’s contract beyond 2015. Most — if not all — of the questions reporters asked Hahn pertained (fairly) in some way to Samardzija, who gives the White Sox a formidable top of the rotation with left-handers Chris Sale and Jose Quintana. It’s possible, however, that another player the White Sox received in the deal with the Oakland Athletics will get a chance to help his new team long after the coming season.
Billed in 2008 as a generational talent who had the signing bonus to prove it, 6-foot-7 right-hander Michael Ynoa is getting a fresh start with the White Sox after struggling with serious injuries, reaching bloated expectations and getting frustrating results since turning pro. In a secondary scrum with reporters that came after the TV cameras shut off, Hahn was excited to talk about Ynoa after trying to explain — for a third or fourth time or 20th time — that the matter of Samardzija’s contract wouldn’t be resolved that day.
The story of the week was all about the Dodgers, whose new front office pulled off a trading frenzy that dramatically re-shaped the look of one of baseball’s strongest rosters. Before the Dodgers took over, though, all the conversations had to do with the Cubs, who added Jon Lester, Miguel Montero, and Jason Hammel within a matter of a couple days. The Cubs moved to open their contention window early, and one of the possible side effects involved the plan of the Reds. There was thought that, with the Cubs loading up, the Reds would be more motivated to sell pieces off and build for the future.
Indeed, with the winter meetings wrapping up, the Reds made a couple of trades that dealt away members of the starting rotation. Though they might’ve gotten lost in the insanity, Cincinnati sent Mat Latos to Miami, and it sent Alfredo Simon to Detroit. Both are due to become free agents in a year, and the moves signaled to some that the Reds are ready to tear down. But in reality, the Reds are preparing to give contention one more go in 2015. With the two quiet trades, the Reds trimmed payroll and added to the long-term outlook, and the roster didn’t actually lose much of anything.
The Reds have occupied one of the most difficult positions in the game. It’s been pretty clear their window is closing. Yet, the roster contains a number of high-impact, quality players. There’s been too much talent to tear it all down, but the team hasn’t had the money to supplement the talent already in house. So they’ve been stuck in between, with almost an entire rotation looking at one final year of team control. The Reds had difficult waters to navigate.
And if you examine the team projections we have at FanGraphs, the Reds look like they might be the worst team in the NL Central. They’re projected for as many wins as the Twins, barely surpassing the Padres and Diamondbacks, so on that basis the Reds don’t appear like a team that should be focusing still on the one season ahead. But there are reasons for optimism here. Legitimate, short-term optimism. And the moves they made added longer-term pieces at the same time, helping the Reds stay relevant while improving 2016 and the seasons beyond.
| 12:05 |
: Why start using snappy intros now?
|
| 12:05 |
Know anything about Jason Garcia? What do the Orioles see in him that they’re willing to take him in Rule 5 draft despite him never pitching above high-A? |
| 12:07 |
: As far as I know, I was the first to report Garcia hitting 100 mph in instructs. His velo popped after TJ and he’s flashed an above average breaking ball, but he doesn’t have lots of experience and hasn’t been above Low-A. Good flyer to see if he can survive in the deep end.
his player page: http://www.fangraphs.com/st… |
| 12:08 |
YORE LATE KILEY |
| 12:08 |
: I see my fans are lucid as usual
|
| 12:09 |
What kind of season do you see for Rodon this year? |
It probably won’t happen this way, but when Dick Enberg is introduced at the Hall of Fame as the 39th winner of the Ford C. Frick Award, the deejay should replay Curt Gowdy’s opening line from the baseball portion of “The Naked Gun”:
“Hello! l’m Curt Gowdy, along with Jim Palmer, Tim McCarver, Dick Vitale, Mel Allen, Dick Enberg and Dr. Joyce Brothers.”
After all, being part of a seven-person broadcast booth must have been one of the more challenging moments in Enberg’s career, which will be celebrated at Cooperstown on July 25. The 20-person panel of voters, which made its announcement at baseball’s winter meetings Wednesday, probably didn’t take too seriously Enberg’s supporting role in “Naked Gun” into account. And that’s OK. Enberg also has spent nearly 20 seasons combined as a play-by-play lead for the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Angels, along with having an exhaustive career calling baseball (and football, and tennis, and golf) on network TV. Cooperstown will be Enberg’s fifth Hall of Fame.
After having typically appeared in the very hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past couple years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Colorado Rockies. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.
Other Projections: Atlanta / Los Angeles AL / Miami / Milwaukee / Tampa Bay.
Batters
For those who haven’t dedicated much time of late to the study of the Colorado Rockies, finding that ZiPS projects outfielder Carlos Gonzalez for fewer than two wins in 2015 might be a surprise. It’s less surprising, of course, in light of Gonzalez’s 2014 season, during which he recorded a -0.3 WAR in 281 plate appearances. The cause of that uncharacteristically poor performance was largely a BABIP about 60 points lower than his career average. The cause of his limited playing time was some combination of a damaged patella tendon, a finger tumor, a calf contusion, and a sprained ankle. It’s reasonable to assume that there was some interaction between the injuries and the deflated offensive numbers.
With regard to how Colorado might best deploy their other three outfielders, ZiPS’ computer math would appear to advise a platoon of Charlie Blackmon and Drew Stubbs, with Corey Dickerson occupying left field by himself. Blessed with less athleticism than Gonzalez, Dickerson nevertheless features a similar offensive approach, dependent upon power on contact, but with something less than ideal plate discipline.
