Thursday, November 30, 2017

Remember This Name

Just wanted to do a quick article on a player i really like heading into next season, a prospect who dipped his toe in the big leagues and through a limit number of at-bats, faired very well, and no is not Rhys Hoskins he's great we all know it, i am talking about a guy that flew under the radar.

Jesse Winker, he is a corner OF for the Reds who was picked 49 overall in the 2012 Draft, late bloomer, lefty 6.3/215 he will turn 25 in August next year, why I'm a fan, for starters he played great in the majors with no unsustainable stat line, it's not like he BABIP'd .400. In 47 games and 137 Plate Appearances he had a:

298/375/529 slashline, on a .322 BABIP

one lower than the one he averaged on AA and AAA, by now you guys probably know i love wRC+ his was at 135, his O-Swing% at 20.4 is very good, for some context the 4 hitters that were lower thab him this year were Votto, Carpenter, Pham, and Trout, great company right he didn't swing in the zone a lot at 64.7, but made a ton of contact at 87.0%, his overall Contact% at 84.0 was very high and his Swinging Strike% at 6.8 was great, you don't want to overanalyze a small sample size but all of this is in line with his great hitting tool, 55/70 on FanGraphs, he has 20-25 HR pop and could benefit from a higher FB% 30.9. But being more of a doubles hitter, 40 grade on raw power he could succeed with a below avg FB percentage. His defense could use more work, but it's his hitting that will carry him and for a guy who found success in A, AA, AAA and early in the majors, with his skillset, i see no reason to believe he won't be a successful hitter in the majors. One of my under the radar sleeper picks to succeed next year.

Comment subscribe, suggest, Twitter @E_Max27.

The Truth About Bumgarner

In life we all tend to label people, associate them with something, that's not particularly wrong per say, a lot of times that label is a good way to describe someone, but once in a while you'll find someone that gets pushed down by that label, someone who struggles to be seen outside of it. I want to talk about a player who was labeled, but whose career and achievements go beyond that. That player is Madison Bumgarner.

The giants pitcher despite already having 2 rings, including 15 Innings of shutout ball in World Series play was widely viewed as a pretty good starting pitcher, not that much more, but then it came the magical 2014 postseason one that began with a bang, a complete game shutout performance, 9 IP, 4 Hits, 10 K's, he had a solid game in the NLDS, but thet were already up 2-0 and wound up losing that game but winning the series in 4, in the NLCS threw 7.2 Innings of shutout ball with 7 K's in a Game 1 Win, and pitched the clincher in game 5 with  8 IP 5 Hits and 3 Earned Runs. In the World Series he was beyond lights out, overall 21 IP. Only 1 Earned Run, great 7 Innings of 1 Run, a game 5 shutout and a scoreless relief appearance to bring the Giants a WS win.

Basically he carried the team on his back, pitching in 6 different postseason wins, became SI's Sportsman of the year and in the process was labelled as a good regular season pitcher who massively improves his performance in the playoffs, he became a "postseason pitcher" such notion has since gained even more support with his performance in the 2016 Wildcard game shutting out the Mets in NY, the sole fact he has 2 Wildcard shutouts is mind-boggling. But enough stating the obvious, let me tell you why MadBum is better than you think.

Bumgarner entered the league in 09 as a 19-year-old but he only pitched 10 innings that year so I'll be looking at league numbers since 2010.

Here are MadBum's number this decade and how they rank among all starters. (Min. 1000 IP)

3.02 ERA 2nd
1.10 WHIP 6th
32.6 bWAR 8th

Ok so let's begin with this, since becoming a major league pitcher he is tied for the second-best ERA in baseball behind Kershaw, would you've known that, no way, keep this in mind, ranking these players since 2010, all of the pitchers who are ahead of him on WAR get the benefit of discounting their bad starts, when they struggled, the split begins at the same time their dominance does, whether is Felix, Kershaw, Greinke, and others. The problem with Bumgarner is that he doesn't dazzle, he just constantly pitches well with no overwhelming skill, while he ranks 6th in K% at 24.2, he doesn't have Scherzer, Sale, Kershaw stuff, while he ranks 8th in AVG at .229 he's not as crafty as Greinke, Maddux, Hendricks.

My point is MadBum is meh, you know, the dude excels at pitching but he has no overwhelming skill, he's not at the top of any leaderboard but he's close enough to be very good at everything, my final point is for future performance the stata show you shouldn't really count on him to keep up with some of these guys in terms of Runs Allowed (ERA), although it wouldn't surprise me considering he's done it for so long, in terms of past performamce he's been as good as anyone other than Sale and Kershaw in his career, Sale's tied with him for second in ERA since 2010 but his ERA+ at 139, shows he's considerably above, don't kid yourself Madison Bumgarner is among the best in the league and he has been at least one of the top 10 pitchers in the game not as a dominant, not as a crafty but nevertheless really effective.

Hey, i am not an idiot, next season would I take him one year over Scherzer? No.

But his past performance shows they pitched to very close results, Bumgarner slightly better ERA, same FIP (3.18), a slight edge in ERA- for Max 78 to 82.

The point is this comparison is far closer than Scherzer to Kershaw, that one is a consequence of complete recency bias by the media, people look at the numbers, ok let me wrap it up otherwise I'm going to rant in here forever.

As always hit me up on Twitter @E_Max27, comment, subscribe, suggest whatever you feel like it.

See y'all.

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

This is Weird

Hi everybody, today I was browsing through the FanGraphs website and I found something very interesting, something that dazzled me, by now I think all of you know I like to make comparisons, the reason behind that is as follows, in life and in sports as a whole, we, before evaluating a player's production need to first figure out what is average production, after that to fully understand if what you have is great you look for similar players in similar situations and then compare them. 


An example, how do you know that the production level you're getting from Adrian Beltre right now is great, because the majority of great players at his age have experienced serious decline, how do we know Mike Trout is historically great, because when comparing him to any of his peers he blows them out of the water and so on so forth, you can find several examples, my point is you need comparisons to contextualize and give true meaning to a stat, that without it, is just a random number.


Anyway, enough introduction. To avoid any sort of pre-set judgment and any bias you may have, I won't give you the names, just the stats, by the way, both players play/played the same position.


1rst Player

281/363/433 Slash line
9.3 BB%   14.0 K%   .152 ISO
352 wOBA     115 wRC+
35.71 WPA/LI.    378.0 RE24
65.8 WAR


2nd Player

276/359/469 Slash line
9.2 BB%   15.1 K%   .193 ISO
358 wOBA.    120 wRC+
29.69 WPA/LI     321.75 RE24
64.5 WAR


Very similar players right, what if I were to tell you that one of them is considered a sure-fire no-brainer first ballot Hall of Famer and the other one widely viewed as a borderline candidate, who probably won't get in, and consider this the HOF one had 40 postseason games no rings and batted a mediocre

234/295/323 with 2 HR, 11 RBI


The other one had a robust 68 games with a ring and a

224/364/410 with 10 HR, 27 RBI


So anyone would ask what on earth are these voters thinking, I will explain. 


This situation is a testament to what is the key factor that people often overlook.


Milestones.


You didn't get it, here is the deal.


The first player played in 2850 Games with 12503 Plate Appearances.

The second player, played in 1850 Games and had 7676 Plate Appearances.


Yet he equaled the first one's cumulative production, only 1.3 less WAR on 1000 fewer games, think about how remarkable that is, but despite it, the less talented player is a Hall of Famer because he got over the magic number.


3060 Career Hits, while the other one had only 1850.


First Player, Craig Biggio
Second Player, Chase Utley


One last thing, Utley still caught him in WAR despite Craig stealing 414 bags to Chase's 151.


The Hall of Fame is so messed up that no one cares anymore so I won't make a big deal about it, but the fact is Utley deserves his place among the all-time great second basemen and this article is undeniable evidence that Chase was clearly a better player than Biggio and that is remarkable considering how great Biggio was.


Again same WAR on a 1000 Games disadvantage, WOW.


As always feel free to comment, make a suggestion, subscribe and even tell me I am insane, I will change it up in the next few articles to avoid creating a pattern, give you guys different context, with a different presentation.


Hit me up on Twitter @E_Max27 more than happy to answer any questions.


See you later

Monday, November 27, 2017

A False Premise

Hello everyone, I was looking into some past free agent classes trying to find players I could compare with Eric Hosmer and I noticed a very interesting pattern.


A lot of people like Hosmer and hey what's not to like, he is athletic, he is the leader of his team, he makes exciting plays like going home with that crazy slide in the WS, he is young and overall he just looks good which causes the perception he is far better than he actually is.


The general consensus is he will be overpaid, there is no getting around it and he might start hitting the ball in the air next year due to some adjustment the team that signs him conviced him to do, which is a longshot, but even if you sign him based on a potential adjustment, that's still overpaying on a bet, right now there is no plausible way to justify paying him anything close to what he's going to get based on his past production, despite all of what I mentioned, he's virtually a lock to be massively overpaid, why is that? I ask with an answer in mind already.


Despite all of the things I`ve said earlier qualifying as plausible answers to my question, there's one overwhelming reason.



We and I mean all baseball people tend to assume that the following premise is a reality when its as far from that as it can be, the premise is:


Young Free Agent equals Great Player, don't believe me, I'm going to give you a list of players.


Jason Heyward 184/8.  27 Years old

Rick Porcello 82.5/4.   27 Years old

Melvin ''BJ" Upton 75.25/5.   28 Years old

Carl Crawford 142/7.   29 Years old

Prince Fielder 214/9.   27 Years old

Jose Reyes 106.6.  28 Years old

Pablo Sandoval 95/5.   28 Years old

Jordan Zimmermann 110/5.  29 Years old


What all of these players have in common, they all became Free Agents before turning 30 and together as a whole had two seasons worthy of their contracts.


Prince Fielder in 2012 and Rick Porcello in 2016, that's it, the rest stunk, a few 2 win seasons but well below expectation, the only contract which you could argue it's mildly close to being kind of ok is Porcello the rest is a joke.


Every single one of them had their qualities but none were complete, all had big clear flaws.


Jose Reyes was a light hitting shortstop with little power relying on defense and baserunning to increase his value, not a good bet to age well, Crawford the same thing with even worst plate discipline, Jason Heyward is a wizard with the glove CAN'T HIT,  way too inconsistent with the bat.


Melvin Upton, not enough power to make up for lousy plate discipline and low AVG, for crying out loud his OBP the year leading up to FA was .298, I repeat .298, Prince Fielder a DH and its not like he was peak Pujols/Cabrera with the bat, he was very good not great, which is just not enough to earn 214 over 9.


Pablo Sandoval, really, the guy had 2 very good years in 09 and 11, but was declining defensively, 3 straight 2 WAR years before becoming a Free Agent with wRC+ around 110, Rick Porcello signed the deal in his walk year but it was close enough I included him, both him and Jordan had one really good year in between them, that was Jordan in 14, otherwise it was a lot of good not great, which you shouldn't pay over 20 mils for.


So before I state my final thought, I'll say Bryce Harper, a FA to be next year does not fit in here as he is not flawed, for anyone thinking about signing Hosmer.


Signing young talented but ultimately flawed players as great as they look, it does not pan out, i looked at this decade only and found irrefutable evidence that such notion is true.


Hosmer`s flaws: inconsistent, worse fielder than it might look and hits way too many groundballs.


Feel free to comment, leave suggestions and anything else you feel like it.

See Y'all later.

Friday, November 24, 2017

Note

I`ve said this many times, but I want to reiterate that anyone reading any of the articles is more than welcomed to comment, give your take on the subject and make future suggestions, and I only say this because looking at the number of readers, logic`s there should be at least some comments

Thursday, November 23, 2017

Pitching WAR

Well, i wasn't planning on writing anything today, but it appears we have some time in between football games and I decided on dropping some content on you guys.

Today I want to talk about and demonstrate why I decided to use Baseball-Reference's pitching WAR instead of the FanGraphs version, just to clarify, I'm a big fan of their writers, Cistulli always cracks me up in his podcast and overall really enjoy their work, but to me this is very debatable at the very least.

While both sites use very similar formulas there's one big diference, FG uses FIP, BR uses ERA. This alone changes everything, before i make my point, a quick rundown of ehat is WAR.

WAR stands for Wins Above Replacement, which basically means, that number is the amount of wins that player provides you in relation to the number of wins you'd get from a replacement level AAAA player, when considering that you cannot tell me it's plausible to use a stat (FIP) that isolates runs from the long ball and completely disregards every other run scored, when in the game a wild pitch with a runner on 3rd base scoring and a solo shot means the same, any average Joe knows the responsibility of a pitcher on the long ball its far bigger than on a wild pitch, sac fly, single that could be caught, but that doesn't matter when counting for a stat that measures added value.

Let me give you an example on my NL Cy Young post I started to really notice this, more people every year are turning towards WAR when talking about awards, and even some voters also, which is fine but not fine when looking at a FIP based version, you just cannot do it. I'll give you an example, I recently compared Elsbury and Cain and their stats when entering Free Agency, now I am going to compare two pitchers and their numbers this year.



First One

K,% 24.2.  BB% 3.8.  K-BB% 20.4
AVG .252.  BABIP .303.  LOB% 67.5
ERA 4.42   FIP 3.61   HR/FB 13.8%
WAR 3.8

Second One

K% 22.7.  BB% 9.6.  K/BB% 13.2
AVG .213.  BABIP .258.  LOB% 81.6
ERA 2.96   FIP 3.93.  HR/FB 11.1 %
WAR 3.3

The takeaway from this is easy, for two talented pitchers, one got really unlucky, the second one got very lucky, and if you had to take the over under on either one of those you'd have to take the first pitcher to bounce back and the second one to decline some, it doesn't take a genius to know who added more value/wins to his team, not even close, despite that the first pitcher had a higher WAR, with only 6.2 more innings, 207.2 to 201, both started 32 games.

By the way the first one is Jeff Samardzija and the second one Gio Gonzalez, Gio finished sixth on the Cy Young vote, Jeff was a huge disappointment and looking at the BR's WAR version you see Gonzalez at 6.6, and Samardzija at 2.4, I could give you other examples but it would be redundant.

While I know FG's WAR has some qualities it goes against what WAR was designed to represent.

Bottom line is: Luck affects results, results determine added value, WAR is added value, therefore Luck must affect WAR, and FIP eliminates luck

Sorry for the overuse of I, Big Narcissist.

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

A Winning Formula

Hi everyone, I'm here today to talk about the one team in baseball that is most affected by its surroundings, the team that Jim Leyland admitted to being incapable of managing it, the one who to this day has never had an ace-like starter, the Colorado Rockies.

This Denver team in its short history already has had its moments, making the playoffs in the first year on Coors Field (95), winning the pennant over their division rival, D-Backs following a crazy September run that saw them winning 21 out of 22 heading into the WS, where they were crushed by Boston, but nonetheless a great achievement for such a young franchise.

They returned to the playoffs in 09 but didn't make any noise and that is it when it came to postseason action for them until obviously this year where they won 87 games and held off the Brewers for that second wildcard spot, eventually lost to Arizona in what was a very exciting game, but in the bigger picture, Rockies fan ought to be excited about the future with this young roster and prospects such as Brandon Rodgers, Riley Pint, Ryan McMahon and Raimel Tapia coming up, but since is very easy to get caught in assumptions and just presume that something is dependent on some things happening, if this makes any sense at all, the point is the Rockies were good, but not for the reason you think

In 2016 the Rockies offense scored 845 Runs, good for second in baseball, that doesn't mean much, they will always score a lot of runs, because of Coors, if you look at a park-adjusted number like wRC+ they ranked 20 at 94, for some context here are some playoff teams that year, WAS 97, SF 97, LAD 97, TEX 98, NYM 98.

In 2017 they scored 824 Runs, 21 less than the year before, again not reading too much into that, the interesting stat is that they ranked 27th in wRC+ at 87, ahead only of PIT, SD, and SF, obviously the worst among playoff teams, the two other teams under 100 were BOS and ARI.

It's undeniable that their offense suffered quite the decline, but their record was vastly improved, all because of the pitching staff.

Now I'm not here to say Colorado is some great staff, not at all, I want to show the Colorado formula at least for this year

On the hitting side, they had two great hitters that completely carried the team, I cannot overstate this, one number sums it all up, their overall batting WAR was 13.7, 12.1 belonged to Charlie and Nolan, the rest of the hitters amounted for 1.6 WAR.

On the pitching side they were very sneaky in the sense that nothing really jumped out at you, everybody just kind of a performed well, I'll show what I mean.

The Rockies staff this year had 3 different pitchers with 3+ WAR seasons, again for some context that's more than the Astros (2),  Cubs (1),  STL (1 and a half, Martinez had 2.9), MIN (1), that's pretty great, especially for Colorado.

They also were 7th in ERA- at 90, and last but not least according to Baseball Reference's Wins Above Avg b5 Position their pitching staff ranked 5th at 9.5 behind only CLE, ARI, WSN, and NYY, ahead of powerhouses like the LAD, BOS and CHC, not too shabby am I right.

Also to point it out no one really stood out but they pitched well enough to have 9 different pitchers with at least 1.3 WAR, 3 Oof them at 3, 3 at 2, and another 3 at 1, and that's without accounting for late season additions Pat Neshek and Chad Bettis, Neshek pitched well, Chad not so much, but the important thing is this staff is young, is good and with improvements from guys like Jeff Hoffman, Jon Gray, German Marquez and Kyle Freeland they'll make a lot of noise.

I think you all got my point, Colorado won 87 games this year on the backs of Arenado, Blackmon and a staff with good to pretty good performers all around, with no one jeopardizing the team and everyone contributing.

There was no Corey Kluber but also no Ubaldo Jimenez.

Anyway that's a wrap, see Y'all later, again writing off my phone, it sucks

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

An Interesting Comparison

Hi everybody, so today I'm going to make a comparison between two very similar players, who by some reason are or have been treated very differently throughout some point in time along their careers. Before I give you their names, I'll give you their stats to really empathize the proximity of talent level among them.

Through his first 3204 Plate Appearances, this is what this player compiled a

297/350/439 Slash-line
6.9 BB%   12.8 K%   141 ISO
346 wOBA   109 wRC+
20 DRS Overall
23.3 WAR

Through his first 3052 Plate Appearances, this other player compiled a

290/342/421 Slash-line
6.7 BB%   18.6 K%   131 ISO
332 wOBA   107 wRC+
92 DRS Overall
23.5 WAR

Both after putting up these numbers became Free Agents, the first one as a 30-year-old FA got a 153/7 deal, the second one will turn 32 right at the beginning of the season and heads into this year's Free Agent class expected to make around 70/4.

MLB Trade Rumors predicts he gets exactly that.

As you probably already know by now, the first player is one Jacoby Ellsbury, the second is Lorenzo Cain.

So when you look at those numbers and then look at what they got and/or will get does that make any sense at all, you can tell me that Ellsbury had that magnificent 2011 season where he had a 150 wRC+ and a 9.4 WAR, but that is the definition of what an outlier year is, folks should put a page of his numbers that season next to the word outlier in the dictionary.

Why because before that he had 2 full seasons with a wRC+ of 91 and 98, because of his other abilities those were still very good years with a combined 6.2 WAR in 08 and 09

In 2010 he played in just 18 games, in 2012 after the huge year. he played half a season with a 683 OPS, 84 wRC+ and a 1.2 WAR, the year before Free Agency he had a very good season.

298/355/426 slash line, 112 wRC+ and 5.6 WAR.

With that in mind, no team should have signed him with the expectation that he'd come even close to duplicating the 2011 performance, it was just completely unrealistic, and he still got 153/7.

4 years ago, since then the market and player value have increased every year. 

Now today, 4 years later Lorenzo Cain only a 1 year and a half older than Ellsbury was back then, on a market that pays more than it did is expected to make half what Jacoby did on a much more consistent career at both hitting and on defense.

Less Stolen Bases and showing some signs of decline on defense, not the same CF this year and last as he once was but still nonetheless a very good one, certainly better than Ellsbury, and despite the huge headstart that Jacoby got with that outlier year, they still entered FA with roughly the same hitting numbers

109 to 107 wRC+ edge to the former Red Sock.

Now you tell me am I nuts or there's something really wrong here. Lorenzo will get too little and Jacoby got WAY, WAY too much and now looks like an albatross.

Let me know your thoughts on it, comment, subscribe and make your suggestions.

Quick note, it was very challenging took me a while but I was able to write this from my phone

Monday, November 20, 2017

I`m Sorry Again

I can`t overstate how disappointed I am with myself and this whole situation, my keyboard has been on and off these last few days, the days I wrote an article were the ones it worked, what makes it even worse is that I have so much content and ideas all ready to be written and the reality is I'm not exactly wealthy, so it becomes more difficult to spend money on this sort of thing, anyway whenever it starts to work I'll post some articles, it took me a decade to write this on the virtual keyboard, and again sorry, even if no one cares, i really enjoy doing this

Sunday, November 19, 2017

Update

I already have 2 articles coming up tomorrow, there`s a poll in the sidebar, pick a team and I'll tell what they should do and why they should do it, sorry for no posts this weekend

Friday, November 17, 2017

Subscription

Whoever enjoys these articles and wants to see more of them, subscribe, make suggestions and comments and I`d be happy to respond. Just wanted to throw this out there

NL Cy Young

As of today the 17th of November we now know all the award winners for this past season, I really don`t see any surprises, Judge and Bellinger were complete locks for ROY, while I defy anyone to read my AL MVP article and still argue that Altuve should`ve won the award, I expected him to win it, and while Votto was the best overall hitter not by much but nonetheless was, the 59 HR put anyone over the top, that`s 2 short of the highest total ever by a steroid-free player, in the Cy Young, Sale basically shot himself in the foot on the second half and despite that, it took a historic run from Kluber to reach him, and there was really no doubt who would win, but I'm here today to talk about the NL Cy Young race.

For the second year n a row, we owe Kershaw`s back for the existence of such race, last year the fact that he wasn`t the winner is mind-boggling, consider this, in 2003 Eric Gagne won the award with an incredible season, but here are the numbers of the top 3 candidates.

Gagne 82.1 IP   1.20 ERA   .30 ERA-   3.7 WAR

Prior 211.1 IP   2.43 ERA   .57 ERA-   7.4 WAR

Schmidt 207.2 IP   2.34 ERA   .56 ERA-   6.7 WAR

*Using WAR from Baseball Reference, will explain why the change, in the end of the article

Anyway, a hell of a year for NL pitchers, but as you can see, picking Gagne was no cake walk, on a per inning bases Eric still had the highest WAR, but Prior and Schmidt had very strong years

Now let`s look at the award, last year, the following 3 were the top 3 1rst place vote-getters, the actual top 3 finish was Scherzer, Lester, Kendricks

Scherzer 228.1 IP   2.98 ERA   .70 ERA-   6.2 WAR

Hendricks 190  IP   2.13 ERA   .51 ERA-   5.0 WAR

Kershaw 149 IP   1.69 ERA   . .42 ERA-   5.6 WAR

It`s pretty obvious that Clayton was significantly better than both Scherzer and Hendricks, and that the main reason Max won it, was the fact he pitched 38.1 Innings more than Kyle and 79.1 more than Clayton, but here`s my point, this insane advantage in Innings lead to a 0.6 lead in WAR, a cumulative stat, the ERA- shows Kershaw was as better compared to him, as Gagne was compared to Prior and Schmidt, all of this makes for a very good case in favor of the Dodger ace, and if you gave it to Gagne you should give it to Kershaw, or at least some consideration that reflects on a closer race.

Now this year once again Clayton had his season cut short by a back injury, and along with that developed a little bit of an HR problem, that gained more attention in the postseason considering he broke the all-time playoff record for HR allowed by a single pitcher, with all that in mind he still lead the NL in Wins, ERA, K/BB ratio, a lot of that can be tracked to his 87.4 LOB%`, which also lead baseball and the interesting thing is if it was any other regular pitcher, most analysts would say, well this guy will regress that LOB% is not sustainable and eventually his HR issues will expose him, but since is Kershaw this might`ve just been an anomaly and next year he`ll bring back that HR/9 to his career norms, and he could also just find a way to pitch aroun such issues, you don`t know, what we do know is he is the best in the game and you expect him to just find a way to continue his greatness.

So here are the numbers for the 3 finalists this year

Scherzer 200.2 IP   2.51 ERA   .57 ERA-   7.3 WAR

Kershaw 175 IP   2.31 ERA   .56 ERA-   4.6 WAR

Strasurg 175.1 IP   2.52 ERA   .58 ERA-   6.5 WAR

Here`s my take on it, one all 3 pitchers had very similar results given the proximity of the ERA-, Strasburg, and Scherzer were more dominant and kept the ball in the ballpark, something Clayton struggled with, but in the end that doesn`t really matters, what matters is that whatever the level of dominance Max had, he this year wins it on his 25 IP edge, why, because all of three had basically the same outcomes, FIP is great for some stuff, but you shouldn`t use it as award criteria, you should use it for helping project future performance, all in all what I'm saying is all 3 pitched to relatively the same outcome, Max with more dominance, and more IP, but it`s the IP edge that gives him the award.

Lastly, from now on I'll use Baseball Reference WAR version for pitchers since it takes into account ERA, not WAR, which makes a lot more sense when measuring the value of the player. HR isn't the only way to allow runs



Thursday, November 16, 2017

The D-Backs Situation

Today I want to talk about the tricky situation of one particular team in the NL, that team is the Arizona Diamondbacks, they finished the year with 93 wins, making the playoffs for the first time since 2011, and while their season ended with a sweep in the NLDS by the hands of the LA Dodgers, most Arizona fans are hopeful of a brighter future.

Two offseasons ago Tony LaRussa and Dave Stewart made a lot of noise, with bold moves in a failed attempt to jumpstart its team into contention, among those moves  were the Greinke signing where reportedly they came into the bidding war at the last moment and beat the Giants for the services of the former Dodger, the infamous Shelby Miller trade, that saw Arizona give up Ender Inciarte, Aaron Blair and number 1 pick of the Draft Dansby Swanson, quick note, I don`t think a move was ever more pivotal in the firing of a GM than that one, but here`s the interesting part, everybody remembers these two, but here goes a very interesting Trivia question for you, that really defines how badly the 2016 season went for the D-Backs.

Who among all starting pitchers that were at some point in the Arizona roster that offseason finished number 1 in WAR?

The correct answer is Jeremy Hellickson at 3.3, ahead of Greinke, Ray, Corbin, Miller and many others.

Jeremy at the time making 7 Million Dollars, as an FA to be, was dumped to PHI to free up some money that was later given to Greinke.

Also notable that was the offseason they acquired Jean Segura from Milwaukee, who went on to have a career year but don`t forget who they gave up, Chase Anderson who just had a breakout year and looks like a well above average starter.

So all in all the D-Backs really don`t have a good memory of that period in time, but the good news is that after a disastrous season they fired the front office leaders, got Mike Hazen in town and bounced back in great fashion, reversing their record from 69-93 to 93-69, with bounce-back seasons from Greinke and Corbin, breakout years from Ray, Walker, Godley and Bradley and the steady performances of Goldschmidt and Lamb, along with the timely acquisition of JD Martinez, all of which is great, but now we`re left to wonder can they sustain the sucess they had this year, with the Dodgers and Nats and their juggernauts, the Cubs, Giants Cards and Brewers all with resources and all of the intentions to improve their roster right now, the Rockies and Pirates with interesting teams that with some luck could make noise, can Arizona get back to the playoffs, I'm here to give you a scenario that sees them doing that, and no it doesn not involve JD Martinez.

First and foremost to all of you Arizona fans, they cannot bring back JD, nor they should, it`s so beyond consideration, you do get they are a low budget team, whose highest payroll ever was around 110, Greinke makes 34 by himself, I really don`t need to say anything else so let`s get back on track.

When it comes to pitching there`s not really that much to do, looking at ERA- their staff as a whole ranked second (80 ERA-) in all of baseball, behind only the historically great Indians, and they stand to bring every major piece back, Greinke, Godley, Ray, Corbin, and Waker, that`s a pretty formidable staff, Bradley, Delgado, Sherfy, and Chafin, it`s a really solid bullpen combo and that`s without counting Shelby Miller who`s projected to comeback midway through next year and could be extended on a relatively cheap contract given his injury and rather poor recent performance.

On the hitting side here`s what you get Goldy`s top-notch performance at 1B, Peralta, and Pollock get 600 AB at LF and CF, Lamb kills righties at 3B and after that 2B is a question mark since Drury seems to be stuck at average-ish play, SS you have Owings, Ahmed and Marte and no certainty, Tomas is a DH who can`t hit, career wRC+ below 100, Chris Herrmann took a major stepback this year and it`s impossible to understate how bad of a hitter Jeff Mathis, no ofense but career wRC+ of 50, so with a payroll projected at 116 as of right now you got plenty of places to improve, a very thin farm system and no whiggle room, budget wise, here`s what I propose.

Don`t bring back Owings, look for anyone who`ll take him and give you any sort of intriguing AAA reliever, he`s projected to make close to 4 Million, can`t hit, ok defensively not a better option than Marte or Ahmed, who both are better defenders, I propose to KC a deal sending Tomas plus a 5-10 prospect and another one in the 25-30 area for Ian Kennedy who`s projected to make around 50 Million over the next 3 years hoping he can bounce back in a different enviroment where he was previously sucessful at least fill in as a 5th starter, Tomas will earn around 46 Mil over that same strecth, this is all projecting that the Royals head into a rebuild given their amount of Free Agents and small budger, a chance to cash in on a prospect or two in a bad contract for bad contract deal, but wait that leaves me with an extra starter, it`s logical to assume you need more than 5 but starting the season with one of Godley, Corbin or Kennedy in the pen, no, I prefer to call LA and work a deal for Yasmany Grandal to be my everyday catcher, sending Patrick Corbin their way, that`s assuming LA has no restrictions towards increasing their number of lefty starters, but Walker is far more valuable, so unless they are willing to work something with Greinke which I'd be all ears to that considering any payroll relief now would be great, and the core of starters in place could very well sustain the loss of Greinke and his 34 Million Dollar salary, and lastly I'd go after Howie Kendrick to split time between 2B and corner OF, which`d cost me around 6 Mil, bringing the payroll to about 120-125, and leave me with the following team.

Versus Righties

1 CF, Pollock
2 RF, Peralta
3 1B, Goldschmidt
4 3B, Lamb
5 C, Grandal
6 LF, Kendrick
7 2B, Drury
8 SS, Marte

Versus Lefties

1 CF, Pollock
2 2B, Kendrick
3 1B, Goldschmidt
4 2B, Drury
5 C, Grandal
6 RF, Peralta
7 SS, Marte
8 3B, Lamb

SP

1, Greinke
2, Ray
3, Godley
4, Walker
5, Kennedy

Notes, I`d try a closer by committee in the first few months and then assess the results in the deadline, Bradley would be the relief ace, why, because there`s no money to sign Wade Davis and no prospect depth to trade for Herrera, also I'd give Lamb some At bats against lefties just too see if something clicks, as if it does his value goes up through the roof and there really is no better option

Forgive me for any writing mistakes, have some stuff to do, wanted to give you guys some context today, spell check tomorrow ok.

As always a pleasure let me know what you thought of it


Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Being Controversial

More often than not, pretty much every season we see teams going for it, trading some of their better prospects for rentals in a so-called Win Now move, sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn`t, there are several ways it can go, for instance, the Royals and Cubs traded for Zobrist and Chapman respectively  on attempts to solidify already talented and playoff bound rosters, both of those deals turned out well for them, as both of those players became key components of WS winning teams, Royals in 15, Cubs in 16, what a lot of people forget is that in the Zobrist deal, Oakland got Sean Manaea and that in the Chapman deal, New York got Gleyber Torres, both now are highly valuable assets to their team (Torres is still remembered by a lot of people, considering he went to the Yankees and there was already a lot of buzz surrounding him, be that as it may, I`m sure no Cub nor Royal fan is complaining right now, why not because they won it, and in the end that`s what it`s all about, even if you come up in the short end of overall value in a trade, there are deals like the Carlos Gomez one which granted was more then just a rental as he was controllable over the following year as well, that deal stunk for HOU not only Carlos did nothing with HOU and eventually was released he cost them Brett Phillips, Domingo Santana, Adrian Houser and more importantly Josh Hader, promissing young pitcher, all the Astros have now is at the time throw in Mike Fiers an Avg arm, and last but not least there`s the deal I want to talk about, Yoenis Cespedes to the Mets.

At the time a rising young NY team was battling the Nats for the NL East title, doing it so with no hitting whatsoever their offense was awful until at July 31rst they went out and got one Yoenis Cespedes from the struggling Tigers, with Dombrowski halfway out the door he shipped the slugging OF to the Mets for Luis Cessa and Michael Fulmer, Yoenis went on a there in the second half, lead the Mets to the playoffs, where they beat the Dodgers, steamrolled the Cubs, but ultimately fell in 5 to the Royals, but the experience in NY was good enough to bring Cespedes back on a 4 year 110 Million Dollar deal, and it`s pretty clear that had he not been traded to the Mets, they probably wouldn`t have signed him, especially not at that value, so summarizing since them according to Baseball Reference he has compiled a 7.3 WAR total, while Fulmer estabilished himself in Detroit as a great SP, winning Rookie of the Year honors in 2016 and in just 2 years compiling an 8.5 WAR total, so here`s my argument if you clearly got the short end of the deal in talent, you didn`t win anything, i`d say Detroit clearlly won the deal, as much as you might argue well he changed the Mets hitting cullture gave them a big boost, i counter saying, since 15 NYM have done nothing, they went to one wildcard game in 16 and lost, their pitching has completely failed to live up to the expectations placed in that run, Noah and Jacob are the ones that stand out, and neither seems to be healthy over a full year, Matt Harvey all of a sudden stinks and Matz is well Matz, so the Mets could more than use Fulmer, he`d be right now one of their most reliable starters, so while i won`t fight you for arguing that run meant a lot to them and obviously it wouldn`t happen without him, right now i dare you to find anyone who cares that the NY Mets made the WS last year and gor cloberred by Kansas City, no Mets fan cares that much about that.

So while it`s very debatable, you can`t tell me the Cespedes deal was an irrefutable slam dunk trade for the Mets.

Miguel Cabrera and Recency Bias

People tend  to be biased towards recent events, for instance since 2010 it`s been well established that Clayton Kershaw is the best pitcher in the world, just to give you some perspective on how that is unrefutable, since the beginning of the decade, he has compiled a 52.9 WAR total, the second in that list is Max Scherzer at 39.7, and that`s with a 20 game edge to Max, his 2.20 ERA paces starters and among those with at least 1000 IP, the second is Sale at 3.02, only Clayton has a WHIP under 1.

I could go on and on but you get my point, and yet year after year whenever someone puts on a great stretch everybody jumps on the bandwagon, first it was Harvey in 2013 than Arrieta in 15 then Scherzer and Sale this year and time and time again after a while, Clayton gives us a reminder, hey I'm here, 1 great year from Harper and everyone was ready to put him on the Trout category. Now here`s the player I want to talk about Miguel Cabrera, as late as 2013 most old-timers were still clinging on to the notion that Miggy was the best player in the game, now all of a sudden, one bad year and, Who is Miguel Cabrera? He`s been demoted to the Pujols category.


We all know the albatross that his contract is, and first, let`s take a moment to rant about the stupidity involved in his extension at the time of the deal he was pushing 31 and had 2 more years left on his deal, meaning he`d essentially be 33 by the time he hit FA, as in he would have started his new deal turning 34 right at the beginning of that season, who signs a 33-year-old 1B to a 242 Million deal over 8 years, keep in mind that money figure was even bigger relative to the market of 2014, everyone at the time knew the Tigers handcuffed themselves.



Now let`s give some hope to Tigers fans all around that think Miggy is done, when comparing a player`s:


xwOBA(Expected weighted on-base average) to his actual wOBA

You can see a lot of valuable information, it can tell you Eduardo Nunez got really lucky last year given that he outhit his xwOBA by 0.073 points, which means he`s bound for some regression, now looking at the other end of the table the far and away unluckiest hitter in 2017 was one Miguel Cabrera, his xwOBA was 0.382 his wOBA was 0.322 that`s a 0.060 difference, the second  in that category was Mitch Moreland with a 0.036

His career numbers put him at a .400 wOBA, so something around .382 is more in line with what you should expect from him next year, other numbers that don't mean as much, but back up my theory, are his batted ball stats



2017 Soft%: 9.9     Medium%: 42.5     Hard%: 47.5

Career Soft%: 11.3     Medium%: 49.3    Hard%: 39.4


This shows he was hitting the ball as hard as he ever had, perhaps even more interesting are these numbers:


2017 LD%: 27.3     GB%: 39.8     FB%: 32.9

Career LD%: 22.4     GB%: 41.3     FB%: 36.3


While it is true that he had a downtick in FB% in the year of the Flyball, all of that and then some were turned into Line Drives, hence his career high LD%, so to all of you who have ruled out Miggy, I say not yet, he still has a lot left in that tank, and while it`s obvious he`ll never live up to that  contract you might still get some value in these next few years.

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Leverage

In all business the most important thing in any sort of negotiation is Leverage, you always have to ask yourself what leverage do I have, for instance when a team wants a new stadium but doesn`t want to relocate it still seeks out to other cities, just to get leverage when negotiating, you can`t threaten to leave if you don`t have anywhere to go, the same goes for a free agent who can be dead set on where he wants to go and still entertain other offers just to get leverage with that one team, instead of just settling for whatever they offer him, there are several examples of this same concept.


I want to talk about a team that it`s in a tricky scenario and has very limited options, all because they don`t have leverage, that team is the Miami Marlins.


 The Marlins who were just bought by the Jeter/Sherman group, have some moves to make, to the contrary of popular belief, they don`t have a decision to make, there`s no direction other than a rebuild, the only guys they can and/or should realistically keep are Yelich and Realmuto who are cheap and controllable long term, even Ozuna will make upwards of 10 Mil next year and it`s out the door in 2020.


According to Forbes, they lost around 70 Million in 2017 alone, their pitching staff is atrocious, overall they compiled a 5.9 WAR that`s the third worst in baseball and even the Reds and White Sox who finished worse have Rodon and Castillo, valuable promissing assets, Miami does not.


Their projected payroll for next year right now is at 131 Million, and that`s pushing its budget, for a team with very thin talent it`s completely unsustainable to pay nearly 300 Million over a decade to a player, you just cannot do it, especially when you suck, and lost insane amounts of money last year, anyone arguing for them to keep him is nuts. For all of these reasons along with the fact that Stanton has a no-trade clause, Miami has absolutely no Leverage on trade negotiations, everybody knows you have to trade him, which is why you`ll get close to nothing for him, at least not an appropriate value.


Think about this for a second, JD Martinez who resurged in 2014 and changed his career is now a 30-year-old outfielder whose entire value comes from his hitting, and has from that point on a 148 wRC+, and averaged 3.65 WAR per year, this guy will earn about 125 Mil this year if not more. 


One Bryce Harper free agent to be next year, whose career wRC+ is 141 and has averaged 4.61 WAR per year will earn at least 400 Mil, he will be 26 by the way.


Now considering that today Stanton`s a career 144 wRC+ hitter and has averaged 4.26 WAR per year at 28 years of age, how much would he get on the open market, he`s right in between those 2, age-wise, and much closer to Harper when it comes to future performance and track record, the logic points to the truth that he`d get around 300 Mil if not more given the potential bidding wars, and he`d net his team the Marlins a pick right after the first round, could he get an opt-out in that deal? Absolutely.


So with that in mind why doesn`t a team with a big budget like the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, Giants, Angels and such just trades for him taking the whole contract and giving something equal in value to such pick or even less, because, they don`t have to, Miami has to trade him and if they can eat money nobody`s gonna pay for it, same reason why no one claimed him off waivers, if you can get him with Miami covering some of the contract, you`re not going to pay for the whole thing, So undoubtedly, in the end, he`ll get traded, Miami will pay some of the money and will get less than what he`s worth.

I Can`t Even...

 So a while ago I was looking into some the former stars that are on the cusp of retiring and analyzing Hall of Fame cases, most recently of one Chase Utley and before anything I was reading his career achievements to see what he won and how that paired with other HOF second basemen, and I noticed he never won a Gold Glove, didn`t think too much of it, I never really heard anything about his defense, so I decided to dig in and see how he faired defensively in his career, and one year caught my attention, 2008.
  In 2008 Chase was in the prime of his career, coincidentally or not, the year he won the World Series, in that season he finished with 8.2 WAR, that year the Gold Glove winner in the NL on 2B was Brandon Phillips, now here`s why that`s an utter disgrace and a testament to the stupidity of some people.
 By DRS(Defensive Runs Saved), Chase Utley was number 1, not just among 2B, not just among NL players but number 1 in all of baseball with 30 DRS, Phillips had 13.
By UZR(Ultimate Zone Rating), Utley was number 2 in baseball with 18.3 second only to Randy Winn and far superior to Brandon`s 12.2
 Just for some perspective, Andrelton Simmons the defensive wizard had 32 DRS and 15.5 UZR.
 Obviously, Phillips was a very good defender that year, but do I even need to say it.

Poll

So, I`m trying out a new model for the blog, and would like to know your thoughts on the comment section, do you prefer this model or the old one, for the sake of my self-esteem or at least in the attempt to build one, could at least one person say something.

NL MVP Award

Today I'm here to talk about the NL MVP, which no matter who he is, the criteria used to decide him will be criticized, we already know the finalists, but the list of worthy candidates go far beyond Votto, Stanton and Goldschmidt. To talk about this award we first have to dwell on the notion, what are we searching for when voting for the MVP is it simply the best individual performance, regardless of the team`s record, is it the best performance among the competitive teams, somewhere in the middle where the player on a last-place team needs to be significantly better than it`s peers, there are several ways to go about it, the term Most Valuable Player, alone creates controversy, for instance, are we really considering the Most Valuable Player on each league, the consensus among any knowleadgeble analyst, fan or executive is that the three most valuable players(assets) in baseeball are Trout, Correa and Seager, that obviously factors in age, track record, contract situation, injury record and several other minor details, all of this is irrelevant to an MVP vote, MVP is all about that year`s performance which contradicts with its name, be that as it may, some of the old timers will say what`s the value of Votto`s performance if his team won 68 games and if you look at the history of this award you`ll see many times the voters defaulting to a player whose team made the playoffs, there was a considerable amount of pushback last yeat when Trout won it, when he was clearly the best player in that season, some of the new guys will say well Votto`s performance is all that matters, the fact that it matters, is this award is wide open.
 According to FanGraphs, here`s the WAR total for the 3 finalists

1. Stanton 6.9
2. Votto 6.6
3  Goldschimidt 5.3

In between that 6.9 and 5.3, you`ll find 9 players, Rendon, Bryant, Blackmon, Scherzer, Pham, Seager, Strasburg, Arenado and Turner,

There`s really no point in digging deep at the 2 pitchers so let`s focus on the hitters.

According to wRC+

1  Votto 165
2  Stanton 156
3  Goldschmidt 142

In between the 165 and 142 you`ll find 6 players Freeman, Turner, Pham, Bryant, Rendon, and Ozuna. Note, Cosart and Blackmon finished at 141

According to RE24 (Run Expectancy)

1  Votto 69.12
2  Goldschmidt 54.46
3  Stanton  53.85

In between, you`ll find only Blackmon at 55.14, for context anything above 45 is considered Excellent. Note, Votto dominated this category with a 13.17 lead over the second highest hitter Mike Trout.

Last but not least when it comes to WPA/LI(Context Neutral Wins, it accounts Wins Probably Added with Leverage Index)

1  Stanton  7.00
2  Votto  6.32
3  Goldschmidt  4.31

In between, you`ll see Bryant, Blackmon, and Turner.

Now after giving you these numbers here`s my take, it`s pretty clear that Votto and Stanton had better seasons at the plate although not by much at the plate, that`s hardly a knock on Goldy, but despite that he might win it by default when you consider how great he has been there could be a little overcompensation by the voters, after two second-place finishes by him, one player who went under the radar is Justin Turner, in the first year of his new deal in just 130 games he had a 5.5 WAR season, with a 151 wRC+ a .322 Avg and a higher walk rate than K Rate 10.9 to 10.3, all that for the mighty Dodgers, had he played the full season he`d easily be my MVP, but he didn`t so it doesn`t really matter, another interesting point, Kris Bryant had roughly the same season offensively this year as he did last year, with improved BB/K % and slightly less power, but his WAR decreased from 8.3 to 6.7 due to declining in defense and baserunning.
  Now I'm going to throw something out there, that`s just well, out there, Anthony Rendon finished the year with a 6.9 WAR, 301/403/533 slash line, 13.9 BB%, 13.6 K%,142 wRC+ a 13.6 UZR(that`s good for third overall in baseball, behind only Betts and Simmons, which basically makes him the best defender among humans in baseball), considering all of this if he was named Bryce Harper he`d win MVP, keep in mind that 6.9 WAR paced the NL, tied with Stanton, I know Baseball Reference has him at 5.9, but the mid point of that is 6.45, which is great, he obviously will not win it, because he is just Anthony Rendon who occupied the 6th spot in the Nats batting order for most of the year and because his team has Harper, Murphy, Strasburg, Scherzer, and others and he is not overwhelming with the bat, I could go on and on, my point is, among all of  the contenders for the award that played in playoff teams that`s Goldy, Arenado, Blackmon, Turner, Bryant and others he had the best overall season, and the two players you can really say outhit him Votto and Stanton, didn`t do it by a whole lot, and on top of that he added premium deffensive value, which really evened the competittion.

So, in the end, I would give it to Rendon he checks every single box, and there`s no one who outperformed him, and as I said before if Bryce Harper had that exact season I have no doubt in my mind he would win the award, just think about that, Harper with those numbers, and if he would be left out of the ballot. Hey I get it Votto was the overall top hitter, with Stanton a relatively close second, but to me, defense counts too.

All WAR numbers I used from FanGraphs, just to clarify

Feel free to comment, give me your opinion and make suggestions.

Monday, November 13, 2017

Apologies

Hi everybody and by everybody I mean the one dude who's crazy enough to come in here and read my insane ideas, anyway I'd like to apologize for the lack of content these past few days, I'm having troubles with my keyboard as in I want it to work and it's not, but I should have it fixed soon, and so, expect a lot of content in the coming weeks. Appreciate your support.

Thursday, November 9, 2017

Spending Wisely

More often than not, throughout every free agent class, we see a lot of head scratching deals being handed out, whether that is Chris Davis getting 161 Million over seven when there appeared to be no competitors willing to even come close to match that, or how about Colorado forfeiting the number 11 overall pick in the Draft to give Ian Desmond 70 Mil over 5 to play First Base, anyway there`s always a team or two, who just lose all sanity.
I`m here to talk about 1 player in particular who`s going to make way more than he should, why he will and give you a nice cheaper could even argue the better alternative.
That player is Jay Bruce, now let me clarify I have nothing against Jay Bruce, he is a good hitter with nice pop and I would welcome him into my team, just not close to what he`s set to demand.
There are several reasons why a player gets overpaid, he can be a household name, could be recency bias, a ridiculous bidding war, all possibilities, the reality is, it happens all the time, with Bruce it seems to be a combination of things.
According to Jerry Crasnick, Jay is seeking a 5-year deal in the range of 80-90 Mil, that`s roughly 17 per year, and I'm willing to bet he gets something close to that, at least 75, for some context just last year Josh Reddick got 52 over 4 with a career wRC+ 3 percentage points worst than Bruce`s, 105 to 108, but with much better defense, Justin Turner the steal of last year`s FA class also signed a mere 64 over 4 deal, coming off 3 very good seasons that saw him pile 12.7 WAR, averaging a 140 wRC+, all while evolving tremendously on defense, while both of them had some injury risks, I would gladly take them over Bruce, but since they are signed already, it doesn`t really matter.
Now let me present some numbers that back up my theory and later I'll present an alternative to him in case your team is in need of a left-handed OF bat.
Over his 10 year career, Bruce has compiled a WAR total of 20.3, 1 quarter of that coming in his 2010 campaign when he hit for a career-high 124 wRC+, .353 OBP and  5.1 WAR, in all that`s less than the 23.0 WAR sum that his fellow FA, former teammate Carlos Santana has, and keep in mind did it on 300 fewer games and with no defensive value added, outside of this year, and Santana is projected to earn significantly less than Bruce, in the range of a 3 year 50 Mil contract, and that`s considering some teams will be willing to bet on his defensive evolution on 1B this year that saw him compile 10 DRS, and it`s not like the market values Corner Outfielders much better than First Basemen, but if your need is corner OF, I got another option for you later, moving on if you look closely at Jay`s career you`ll realize he is a platoon bat 90 wRC+ and 712 OPS against lefties, with completely umpredictable defensive performance, last had positive back to back DRS in 09-10, I'll admit he had some good seasons in 09 and 13 with 16 DRS a piece, but his llast 4 years are: 
-6, 5, -11, 5, so you never know what you`re going to get and it`s very plausible that today, 30 years old Jay Bruce has seen his defensive value more than peaked, which leads me to this question, taking the Dodgers and Yankees aside no team last year surpassed the 200 million plateau in its payroll, so for any of these teams signing Bruce would be commiting almost 20% of its budget to him, an aging platoon bat with skacthy defensive numbers is not the way to go, I would recomend a 1 poossible 2 year deal to one Curtis Granderson, who despite his struggles down the strecth has shown he still has the ability to hit righties finishing the year with a 114 wRC, 110 overall in the first half, pair that up with quality defense in Right Field the last 3 years, 12, 2 and 6 DRS, also recomend Seth Smith another cheap option, very solid bat, has struggled defensively, slightly below average but will hold his own and can give you quality production, career 120 wRC+ and 821 OPS against righties, other solid buy low options include Alex Pressley, Carlos Gomez, and Carlos Gonzalez another one cheaper although not a buy low option is Logan Morrison who broke out this year and will be looking for a deal of around 40 Mil.

Feel free to comment, make suggestions for future topics, I'm open to ideas, agree, disagree, tell me I'm insane, whatever you feel like it, really appreciate anyone taking the time to read this.

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Jerry Dipoto, Go All In

The Seattle Mariners are stuck, that`s a fact, not a topic of argument, I`ll tell you what they should do, but first, some context into what exactly I am saying. There are several ways to categorize sports franchises, such as big market, average market, and small market, core franchises(as in teams who started at the same time as their league), expansion franchises and relocated franchises, but I wanna use a category that accounts for their roster and where they stand right now as to future performance, while there may be different levels within these categories, you can pretty easily divide them into:

Perennial contenders, those who for a variety of reasons are expected to contend this year and on a future window of generally 3 to 5 years, ex: LAD, NYY, HOU, BOS, CHC and others.


Stuck in the middle: these are franchises who as we stand today, don`t have enough major league talent to truly contend, nor enough minor league talent to be rebuilding with an eye in the future.

ex: SEA, BAL, TOR, KC(they are probably heading into rebuild mode, probably)

Full on rebuilders: these are franchises, who completely gave up on any hope of contending in the near future, and are managing their club with an eye on the long haul, ex: CHW, OAK, SD, CIN and others.


It`s no secret that the worst group to be in is the middle one, it might not be the worst team but it`s the one where the fans have nothing to look forward, both now and in the future, one team very familiar with such category is the Mariners, they last made the playoffs in 2001 all be it with the winningest team in baseball history, but ever since their fanbase has been stuck with season after season of mediocrity, and as we stand today, they are coming off a 78 win season which shows they have some talent, but ultimately lack a good supporting cast, now I'm not here to simply state the obvious, I want to present a solution to the Mariners problems.


Looking at their roster you`ll see a talented group that includes up and coming ace James Paxton, an aging nevertheless talented offense with Nelson Cruz, Robinson Cano, Kyle Seager, Mitch Haniger and others.


Clearly hitting wasn`t an issue as they ranked 5th overall in wRC+ at 102, ahead of CHC, WAS, BOS, ARI and COL , all playoff teams and as we stand they are set to have


Catcher, Zunino

Second Base, Cano
Third Base, Seager
Shortstop, Segura
Right Fielder, Haniger
DH, Cruz

While Zunino could use some work on his framing and Cano isn`t exactly a Gold Glover the overall defensive work of those two isn`t bad, now we have 3 spots left 1B, LF and CF, according to Baseball Reference Seattle has about 150 million on the books for this year all while accounting for arbitration raises, their payroll last year was around 190 which gives them roughly 40 million to spend, assuming there are no cutbacks , I propose that they sign Jon Jay a left-handed bat with no splits issues and solid Left Field work who is projected by MLBTradeRumors to receive around 7 mil on a 2 year deal and as sweet as it would be to plug in Carlos Santana at 1B there, I wouldn`t count on them throwing 45 over 3 on him, or anything along those lines so I would advise a run at Lucas Duda for about 6.5 on a 1 year deal which would be right along the lines of what he should be looking for and I see 2 solid platoon options both could be had, with the right offer, Sam Travis of the Red Sox and Rob Segedin, Travis played a little on the Sox this year and all be it on a small sample size hit lefties well and Rob has been great in the Dodgers AAA system the last 2 years but hasn`t really gotten an opportunity in the big leagues, I personally would go first for Segedin who would be the cheapest, at least i think so, due to the abundance of infield options the Dodgers have, that narrows it down to 1 spot, CF, now this is where I would go bold Seattle`s got an old roster and while this deal may not help them long term, they need to do something and if it doesn`t work out you tear it down and rebuild it from scratch if it works you improve your team and maybe make the playoffs, I would dangle Kyle Lewis as the headliner of a trade offer for Marcell Ozuna, i know the Marlins have said that they are only looking to trade Stanton, Prado and Gordon to free up money, but if they trade Giancarlo it`s a full rebuild and there`s no reason to keep Ozuna there, who is a valuable asset. plus I'm sure with the right offer he could be had and a deal headlined by Lewis and a couple of other top 10-15 prospects might be that, and if in the end, Miami decided to keep him or trade him somewhere else I would use Carlos Gomez as my backup plan, offer him a 2 year deal off around 23 with a vesting option for year 3. Obviously, if the Ozuna deal was completed he`d play in LF and move Jay to CF, in case that wasn`t implicit.

 That would give me a lineup of

1, Segura                         1, Segura

2, Cano                            2, Cano
3, Ozuna                          3, Ozuna
4, Seager                          4, Cruz
5, Cruz                             5, Haniger
6, Duda                            6, Zunino
7, Haniger                        7, Seager
8, Zunino                          8, Segedin
9, Jay                                 9, Jay

I believe that is the lineup of a playoff caliber team, but the real issue with the Mariners this year was the pitching staff, who needs help, assuming we get 25 to 30 starts out of Paxton next year which is a big assumption and that Mike Leake can deliver a full year with at least some resemblance of what he did in the second half, there`s another 3 spots to fill it and with about 20 million left, since Ozuna and Gomez are projected to earn about the same this year one through arbitration coming off a great year and the other one through Free Agency, so here`s what I would do, there are 3 pitchers in particular who are relatively cheap 2 coming off very disappointing year especially when in comparison to what they did the year before, but what they all have in common is above average FB% for their careers which for certain ballparks might be frightening but for the likes of Safeco Field it could very well be an advantage, they are Jeremy Hellickson, Miguel Gonzalez and Jason Vargas, I would pursue all 3 but ultimately sign just 2 considering I already have Paxton, Leake, and Hernandez with locked spots it`s obvious you need more than 5 to go through the season but you can`t just sign multiple guys and expect them to sit around until someone gets hurt and also I like Marc Gonzales as that sixth starter, that could be a long man in the pen as well, my preferred option would be Vargas at about 10 over 2, the second being a vesting option and then it depends on the price and demand of the other 2.

Now the bullpen who was good, not great 12th in WHIP, 14th in K-BB% and 13th in ERA at 4.08, there are already some interesting pieces that could form a core for a good bullpen those being Nick Vincent, Mark Rzepczynski(lefty specialist), David Phelps, Emilio Pagan, I`d like to see a full season out of Thyago Vieira, Erasmo Ramirez and Marco Gonzales could play the long man role, and obviously there`s the closer, Edwin Diaz, I really don`t think this bullpen needs much improving and with the other additions made I really don`t see any money left, we`re pushing 190 which is right about Seattle`s limit, I would start with this group see how they do and go from there.
It might not be genius, it might not work, but for teams in this situation you`ve got to make it work and if it doesn`t you tear it down and start from scratch again, it`s what the Padres did they were stuck as a 500ish team and they made a run for it, not a very good one with some big mistakes, but at least they did it, and history will tell you it didn`t work, but also didn`t doom them, they recognized the failure, tore it down and started all over again, now here we are a couple of years later, they have a young team with assets such as Will Myers, Hunter Renfroe, Manuel Margot to pair it with a loaded system, the San Diego Padres are a great precedent team for franchises that are stuck, you can go for it, you can make the big move and even if it doesn`t work, nothing is doomed.