In a year not otherwise flowing with surprises on the team level, the Texas Rangers have been a big one. A 50-46 record isn’t one that’s dominating the American League or the AL West but it’s good enough that if the season ended today, the Rangers would finish 16 games ahead of their preseason ZiPS projections on a seasonal basis. One of the players most responsible for Texas’s surprise prediction-rebellion is Mike Minor. At 8-4 with a 2.73 ERA — even his 3.82 FIP is just fine in 2019’s Sillyball environment — Minor made his first All-Star Game. From missing two seasons with shoulder problems to becoming a successful Royals reclamation projection to growing into a solid No. 2 starter to being named an All-Star, Minor’s emergence has been one of the best stories in baseball in 2019. And sports being cruel sometimes, the Rangers may very well be best-served by allowing Minor to wear another uniform in the denouement.

Coming into 2019, the computer’s reasons for Rangers skepticism were straightforward: Texas had some interesting, top-tier talent but also a stunning lack of depth around the diamond. Not a single Ranger had a three-WAR season in 2018 and the team’s WAR leader, Jurickson Profar, was an Oakland Athletic. Even the team’s most interesting talent had questions, whether it was Joey Gallo‘s batting average, Jose Leclerc‘s sustainability, Rougned Odor alternating between being Jeff Kent and Clark Kent, or Nomar Mazara’s puzzling lack of development. On some level, ZiPS wasn’t wrong, as the Rangers still lack depth, but it missed out on the magnitude of their good performances. Mike Minor and Lance Lynn look like pitchers you’d actually like pitching in a playoff game, Joey Gallo has spent much of the season challenging the Alomar Line instead of the Mendoza, and Hunter Pence is having one of the wildest, out-of-nowhere offensive comebacks that I can remember.

So, given all these happy surprises, which have led to real playoff contention, why should they explore a Minor trade? Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

There have been a lot of homers in baseball this season. Perhaps too many, as Jay Jaffe wrote back in June. At its current pace, the majors will average 227 home runs per team, clobbering the 2017 mark of 204 and coming in way ahead of last year’s 186 mark. When Barry Bonds broke the single-season home run record in 2001, the major league team average was 182. When McGwire and Sosa dueled, it was 169. When Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth’s record, the team average was 152. So how is it that we have a 50% increase in home runs from the time Maris hit 61, and a 22% increase over last year, and yet still don’t have a player likely to hit 60 homers?

Here are this year’s home run leaders through Tuesday’s games along with their projected total, their current pace based on team games, and the number of homers per 700 plate appearances (which will be more important later):

Projections, which are admittedly somewhat conservative, expect there to be one 50-homer hitter at the end of the year (Cody Bellinger), as well as a handful of players with at least 40 homers. Even if we go by pace and the hitters hit exactly was well as they have up to this point, Bellinger and Yelich will have great seasons but fall a few homers shy of 60. Yelich and Hunter Renfroe are the only players on a 60-homer pace if they were to get to 700 plate appearances. While all the home runs being hit might make it seem like a 60-homer season should happen, the sheer number of homers in the game don’t actually dictate what the league leader might do. The graph below shows the average number of home runs by team per year along with the home run leader for that season: Read the rest of this entry »

On an extremely superficial level, Tyler O’Neill looks like any other high-level prospect bouncing between the minors and the majors. After posting a 107 wRC+ in his first shot at Triple-A in 2017, he’s been excellent there over the past two years, putting up a combined 143 wRC+ in 427 PA. He’s been above-average in parts of two seasons in the majors — a 121 wRC+ over 232 PA. If the Cardinals didn’t have such an outfield logjam, he might have earned more major league playing time; indeed, the team traded Tommy Pham last summer in an attempt to find more plate appearances for O’Neill and Harrison Bader.

Look even slightly closer, though, and the narrative of O’Neill as average baseball player falls apart. Here is O’Neill, after his teammates tore off his jersey and undershirt following a walk-off home run. Even through the water droplets on the camera lens, his bulk is obvious:

How average can someone with biceps the size of most human beings’ legs be? Read the rest of this entry »

As is the annual tradition at FanGraphs, we’re using a week around the All-Star Game — when the industry pauses to take a metaphorical breather — to take stock of the top-50 trade chips in the sport. For more context on exactly what we’re trying to do here, see the Honorable Mentions post linked at the top of the page.

For this post and the top 10 to follow, I’ll present a graphic (by way of the wizard Sean Dolinar) breaking down each player’s objective skill level (represented, in this case, by a five-year WAR projection from ZiPS), contract/team-control details, rank in last year’s series, and then year-by-year details of age, WAR, and contract through the end of 2023, although a couple players have control beyond those five years, and some, you’ll notice, show projections for fewer years to reflect when those players reach free agency. For those readers who are partial to spreadsheets rather than blocks of text, I’ll also include all of the players we’ve ranked so far in grid format at the bottom of the post.

It should be noted that the ZiPS WAR forecasts influenced the rankings a bit. For players who were bunched together, it acted as an impartial tiebreaker of sorts, but the industry opinions I solicited drove the rankings.

With that said, let’s get to the next 10 spots on this year’s Trade Value list.

Snell signed an extension this winter that locks him up through his age-30 season, which would’ve been his first year of free agency. He really belongs as the last guy in the previous article, so you can see him on the tier with fellow possible/current aces German Marquez, Shane Bieber, Jacob deGrom, Jose Berrios, Chris Paddack, Aaron Nola and (given the late revelations I’ve since added to his blurb about the details of his contract) Max Scherzer. All of these guys rank from 20th to the low-30s, and could be put in almost any order. Most sources I spoke with moved them as a group and generally kept the same names at the top/bottom as I have, shuffling the order in the middle a bit. Once you take Scherzer off the table as the best pitcher in baseball, ZiPS essentially has Snell, Jacob deGrom, Marquez, Bieber, and Nola tied for second among those pitchers over the 2020-2024 term. Snell is the only lefty in the group, he’s on pace for his fourth straight year of 31 regular season starts, his velo has been stable year-to-year at an average of 95.7 mph, his 3.12 FIP over his last 58 starts is a sustained run of elite performance, and his extension is for reasonable money, for exactly as long as I’d be predicting No. 2 or 3 starter performance from him. Read the rest of this entry »

12:02

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon folks, and welcome to The Chat That Almost Wasn’t. I was scheduled to appear on MLB Now today, with a production meeting in this time slot but last night’s Yankees rainout led to a doubleheader whose opener will be aired on MLB Network, consigning my planned soft on this weekend’s Hall of Fame inductions to the vapors. Anyway, lots on tap. I’ll be appearing tonight in NYC as part of the Varsity Letters tribute to the late Jim Bouton (https://lpr.com/lpr_events/gelf-magazine-varsity-letters-july-18-2019/). After driving up to Cooperstown tomorrow, I’ll be signing and selling copies of The Cooperstown Casebook on Saturday (https://www.facebook.com/events/2256500964601525/), and then speaking at a SABR meeting on Sunday evening ( SABR @sabr As #HOFWKND approaches in Cooperstown, read @SABRbioproject on baseball’s newest Hall of Famers: sabr.org/latest/read-sa…. All fans are welcome to attend #SABR Induction Day meeting at 6:00 p.m. Sunday with @janeleavy1 @jay_jaffe @SplitSeason1981 & @byErikSherman too! 17 Jul 2019 )

12:03

Jay Jaffe: I have not, but i’m hoping to this weekend. I have heard nothing but great things about him in his capacity with the Angels, and I hope that translates to his work at the Hall, but i have no idea where he stands on some of the issues I hold dear as compared to his predecessor. (Hmmm, that gives me an idea…)

12:09

Jay Jaffe: Woof, -14 DRS compared to 0.4 UZR, and a similar contrast last year. First and foremost, let’s remember that UZR specifically does not account for shifts (which are plays made out of zone), and also has a lot of regression built into it.  The Red Sox have yielded a .307 wOBA on shifts, the 8th-worst in MLB. So maybe some of it is that. And some of it must be range, but I’m not totally sure.

Read the rest of this entry »

Justin Turner jumpstarted his career following a swing change prior to the 2014 season. The Los Angeles Dodgers third baseman has spoken on the subject several times, with no shortage of stories chronicling his journeyman-to-slugger evolution.

That doesn’t mean that Turner doesn’t have more to say about hitting. He still has plenty to share on the intricacies of his craft, both philosophically and as they pertain to his own experience. When it comes to a good thing, there’s always room for more.

The conversation that follows took place this past Sunday.

———

David Laurila: Do you see hitting as more or an art, or more of a science?

Justin Turner: “Honestly, I think it’s both. When you’re talking about the mechanics of the swing, and the position you’re trying to get in, there is definitely science involved. You need to understand how your body works — or, if you’re working with someone else, understanding how their body works — in order to get into the best position to have consistent success.

“Then, when you’re in the box, you have that cat-and-mouse game with the pitcher you’re going to face three or four times. How is he going to attack you? How is he going to approach you? That’s more of the art of hitting.”

Laurila: Doing what feels natural isn’t always going to be optimal. Is that accurate?

Turner: “Usually, what’s natural is what’s comfortable. You definitely want to feel comfortable in the box, but sometimes when you get into bad habits, comfortable isn’t always the right answer. I think there’s a time for feeling uncomfortable, to get yourself out of some unwanted habits you have. If that makes sense.”

Laurila: Can you elaborate? Read the rest of this entry »

Adam Wainwright wasn’t supposed to be pitching this season. After a 13-year run that had become increasingly injury-plagued since 2015, he was contemplating retiring at the end of 2018. His five-year contract extension, which had been paying him almost $20 million annually, was expiring at the end of the year and he had spent the majority of the season on the injured list with elbow inflammation. At 37 years old with a very successful and storied career under his belt, no one would have questioned him if he had hung up his spikes.

Wainwright returned to the mound for four starts in September and rediscovered his feel for pitching, even if his results didn’t exactly match. He allowed 12 runs in just over 22 innings in the final month of the season despite posting a 3.21 FIP during that stretch. Instead of a last-minute retirement tour, those four games became the building blocks for his resurgence this year.

It turns out the Cardinals weren’t ready to part with Wainwright either. They re-signed him to a one-year, incentive-laden contract with a $2 million base salary. With Carlos Martinez injured and then sent to the bullpen, Michael Wacha ineffective and also relegated to relief, and Alex Reyes not yet ready for prime time, the Cardinals have had to rely on Wainwright a little more than they were supposed to. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a strange couple of weeks for Francisco Cervelli. The 33-year-old Pirates catcher, who hasn’t played since May 25 due to a concussion, was quoted as saying earlier this month that he was giving up catching due to the toll of multiple concussions, but on Saturday, he refuted that report. Either way, his career appears to be at a crossroads, and his situation serves to remind us just how vulnerable catchers are to such injuries.

Cervelli — whose surname means “brains” in Italian, hence the nickname “Frankie Brains” — began the season in a slump and was hitting just .193/.279/.248 when, in a game against the Dodgers, Joc Pederson’s broken bat struck him in the mask:

He was placed on the seven-day injured list, and after undergoing several rounds of tests, wasn’t cleared to resume baseball activities until late June. It was the sixth documented concussion of the catcher’s 11-year major league career; he suffered one with the Yankees in 2011, two with the Pirates in 2017, and two last year. While he served primarily as a backup during parts of seven seasons (2008-14) with New York — a period that included a near-full season exile to Triple-A and a 50-game Biogenesis-related PED suspension — he’s been the Pirates’ primary backstop since arriving in a November 2014 trade for reliever Justin Wilson, one that rates as quite the heist given that Wilson’s 1.5 WAR in his lone season in the Bronx (though Yankees general manager Brian Cashman did flip him to the Tigers for Chad Green and Luis Cessa, a move that’s still paying dividends). Read the rest of this entry »

Ronald Acuña had Steve Cishek right where he wanted him. He had worked the count to 3-0, and with a man on first base, Cishek was in a tough situation. The Cubs led by only two, and that put Cishek in quite the bind. Walk Acuña, and the tying run would be aboard with no one out. Give him a pitch to hit, and the game could be tied in a single swing. Acuña waited, Cishek dealt, and the result:

Cishek, no doubt, made the exact pitch he was hoping for. Still, it was a tremendously aggressive swing from Acuña, at a pitch that he couldn’t do much with. No real harm done — Acuña walked on the very next pitch. Cishek, as it turns out, was wild that day — he’d walked Freddie Freeman before Acuña, and he walked Nick Markakis after him to load the bases. All three scored, and the Braves won. Still, what was Acuña doing swinging there? Cishek had thrown seven straight balls to start the inning. The Braves weren’t punished for Acuña’s aggression, but the swing seemed a bit out of place. Read the rest of this entry »