Let's slow down on the Angels' parade

It's 2018, the winter meetings are long gone and there are still so many moves to be made, but as of today, if you were to ask around, a lot of people would tell you the Angels won the offseason.

Getting Ohtani by itself could do it, considering how much surplus value he brings to the table, but Billy Eppler also brought in Ian Kinsler via trade, Zack Cosart through free agency, filling big holes in their infield, and resigned Upton, I know the Yankees and Cardinals made nice additions as well, but they can't top this.

It's always interesting to debate about whether or not it's a good thing to win the offseason or not, and based on the track record of past winners it probably isn't, Padres and White Sox sure know that, but the Angels didn't follow the path of those two franchises, there was no Matt Kemp trade, Myers to CF, or thinking that Melky Cabrera, David Robertson, and Jeff Samardzija are going to take a 76 win team to the playoffs, their acquisitions on paper seem better.

As with any team that makes splashy moves, the media and fans tend to overreact. On MLB Network a few weeks ago the Angels lineup was referred to as "Stacked". Yes, the Angels improved their roster, but they are not stacked. Their pitching staff consists of Ohtani, Richards if he can stay healthy and a bunch of borderline AAAA players, their best pitcher last year was Yusmeiro Petit and he left the team;

Putting that aside, let's focus on hitting, which is what they were referring to.

Right now, the Angels lineup would have these nine players.

C, Martin Maldonado
1B, Albert Pujols
2B, Ian Kinsler
3B, Zack Cozart
SS, Andrelton Simmons
LF, Justin Upton
CF, Mike Trout
RF, Kole Calhoun
DH, Shohei Ohtani

Part of the reason why they are getting so much attention is catcher notwithstanding, all eight hitters experienced success at some point in time.

Let me ask you a question, how many of those 9, plus Luis Valbuena who is on the roster making 8 mil and should get a lot of at-bats, between 1B, 3B, and DH, were above average hitters in 2017?

The answer is 3.

Trout, Upton, and Cozart.

Note: Simmons technically was above average, but by very little and considering this was an outlier year in his career, projections have him declining for next season.

Their OPS and wRC+ in 2017.

Maldonado: .645   73

Pujols: .672   78

Kinsler: .725   91
Simmons: .752   103
Cozart: .933   141
Upton: .901   137
Trout: 1.071   187
Calhoun: .725   98
Valbuena: .726   94

Ohtani obviously didn't play and Steamer has him at 113 wRC+, which is pretty good, but it's very hard to predict how he will perform given the uniqueness of his situation, so we'll just have to wait and see.

Here is what you take away from that, Trout is insane, Maldonado's really bad, Pujols can't hit anymore, Mike Scioscia will be lucky to get league average production out of him.

Kinsler and Calhoun are very likely to bounce back, but why?.

For starters they both had off years.

Here are a few stats to prove it, along with the timespan.


wRC+
Kinsler: 91(2017)   123(2016)   110(Career)

Calhoun: 98(2017)   117(2016)   110(Career)


wRC+ and wOBA

Steamer Projections
Kinsler: 97, .313    Calhoun: 108, .329

Zips
Kinsler: 97, .313.    Calhoun: 105, .325


And any improvements those two experience in relation to what they produced this past year, gets offset by the inevitable regression from Upton and Cozart.

Zack Cozart had a career year and J-Up had his best season since 2011, a few red flags, that point to a decline are:

1, The former Red is a 32 year old shortstop with a great glove that finished 2017 at the top 15 in baseball on OBP, SLG and wOBA, if anyone thought there was even a 25% chance he repeats that, he'd have gotten much more than 38/3.

Zips and Steamer have him at a 100 wRC+ for 2018, which is a significant improvement from his career number (90), his defense makes him an above average player, just don't expect to see a perennial All Star out there.

Justin Upton the same thing to a lower degree.

He had a .268 ISO and 137 wRC+ in 2017, his career marks are .210 and 121, also bound to regress a bit.


Zips: 112 wRC+   .229 ISO.

Steamer: 113 wRC+   .219 ISO.

Andelton SImmons as an overall player is great, his hitting is around average, projections have him declining a little as well, considering he never hit like this, it becomes a plausible statement to make, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him at the same level 100-105 wRC+.

Why do i expect that, since his awful 2014 with the bat, in which he was still worth 1.9 WAR, he has been gradually improving as a hitter, unlike the last 2 who came out of nowhere, which is no guarantee, but it's a safer bet to sustain.


His wRC+ and wOBA by year since 14.

71, 81, 90, 103

.273, .290, .302, .323

The x-factor for them is Shohei they clearly need him as a pitcher, but if he can really produce as a DH, it would be very helpful.

Obviously the 2B and 3B play for the Angels in 2017 was awful, and the new acquisitions should help out, but the club from Anaheim had the worst lineup in their division last year, finished at the bottom in:

AVG, OBP, ISO, SLG, wOBA, and wRC+.

Close behind the Rangers. A's, Mariners and Astros were far ahead.

And you can't really count on that much improvement on the hitting end from those guys, the pitching isn't deep nor reliable.

A point worth making, is that their potential defensively is very high, Simmons, Cozart, and Kinsler will form a great trio on the infield, but keep this in mind, out of the top 12 teams on Defense in 2017, stat that uses UZR and is part of the WAR equation, 3 teams made the playoffs.

Cubs 1rst

Dodgers 3rd

Nationals 6th.

The mighty Astros finished 29th, defense helps, a lot, it doesn't carry you into the postseason.

Bottom line is this, the Angels can be significantly better, but with so little pitching, be cautious when stating they'll see the Red Sox/Yankees in the Wildcard game in the AL, it will take all Ohtani can give them, a healthy Garrett Richards and some surprising pitchers outperforming their projections, for it to happen.

As always feel free to comment, suggest and anything else you can think of.

See you later. 

A comparison, doing justice to an overlooked all-time great

Hi everyone, looking over some of my first articles I've noticed quite a few mistakes, not necessarily related to the content itself more towards how it was represented. With that in mind, I decided to do some adjustments and republish them, giving you guys a better reading experience.


Here is the first one of them. It's never perfect and it's still a work in progress, but I'm striving to get better every single day and I hope you enjoy it.



As I was browsing through the FanGraphs website, 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. There are 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: 2850 Games, 12503 Plate Appearances.

The second player:1850 Games 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, suggest, subscribe and anything else you can think of, any questions you may have, I'm here to answer them.

The Cleveland Indians' window might close, but it's not because of that reason.

One of the narratives that have been going around in this unusual offseason is that the Cleveland Indians' window is closing. Some people used that as part of an argument for them to make some moves and go all in, others just stating that there is a lot of pressure on them to win it all this year.


That notion is simply wrong.


It goes without saying that things happen, things no one predicts and this might be the last year the Indians enter the season as the clear-cut favorites, but that doesn't make such scenario likely.


A variety of reasons contribute to that, but before we dive into Cleveland specifically, let's look around the AL Central and see what potential threats the Indians will face.


The Kansas City Royals, Detroit Tigers, and Chicago White Sox are all in early stages of big full-on rebuilds, with basically zero shot of really competing in the next couple of years.


The White Sox and Tigers are ahead in their rebuilding stage, and I'd give them 3 years before really competing at least. The Royals well it will be a while.


The only other team left is the Twins, a team in transition, coming off an 85 win season with a lot of talent, but you don't really know yet.


As much as I am high on Buxton, Sano is a DH, Dozier a free agent to be, after that nothing really jumps off the page, Berrios has potential but you don't really know what you are getting yet. The farm system is good, which helps, and maybe they hit it with one of these guys, but the Indians are just better, and barring really significant changes will continue that way for the near future.





Addressing the Indians' situation, people are making too big a deal of Miller and Allen being free agents at the end of the year. They are important, but contrary to what you are led to believe in, relief pitchers don't affect teams windows of contention.



The Washington Nationals were a great team in the first half of last year with a lousy bullpen, if you have a good offense and good starting pitching it's more than a manageable situation. Yes in the postseason it would hurt them, but I'll tell you this it'd hurt the Twins more to lose Brian Dozier.



Analyzing their situation, the Indians are a low budget team, but they also have 3 of their 4 biggest assets signed to long-term super team friendly contracts in:


Carlos Carrasco, 33/4 a couple of team options.

Corey Kluber, 51/4 also a couple of team options, based on escalators could go up to 59/4.

Jose Ramirez, 48.4/6 two team options as well.

And the fourth one Francisco Lindor has four years of control left.


Edwin Encarnacion and Jason Kipnis are the closest things they have to long-term, big financial commitments and they can come off the books as early as 2020, with a combined 7.5 mil buyout.


This is also a team with Bradley Zimmer, Trevor Bauer. Danny Salazar, Francisco Mejia, and several other important assets.


Their projected payroll for 2017 is 136.4 mil


For 2018 is 119.7 which means they will:

1, have the opportunity to resign one of them, with some creativity maybe both.

2, in the event they choose to sign elsewhere, on a deep free agent pool, Antonetti will surely find a way to replace them.


Summing it up, the Indians have:

Literally no dead weight in payroll.

Future flexibility.

A great high-end talent on both ends of the ball, with Kluber and Carrasco leading the staff, Ramirez, and Lindor anchoring the lineup.

Which when combined together, makes for a very good outlook.


Kluber and Carrasco are 31 and 30, but the position players are very young and they should be fine for at least the next couple of years.


Just like in most teams, there are red flags, they might very well collapse earlier than i think, but when their window closes it won't be because they lost Miller and Allen, that I know for sure.


Whether it's solid replacements, resigning either one of them, they'll be fine.


Relief pitching impact is bigger in the postseason, don't forget that.


As always feel free to comment, suggest, subscribe and anything else you can think of, any questions you may have, I'm here to answer them.


To help this blog become a sustainable project long-term, show your support at Patreon

Top 10 Right Now, CF and RP

Hi everyone, I'm sorry about the lack of articles lately, just had a lot on my plate this weekend, wasn't feeling too good yesterday, but I'm back and here we go with part 4 of the top 10 series. Today we'll tackle centerfield and relief pitchers.


Top 10 CF by the Shredder (MLB Network)

1. Mike Trout, Angels
2. Tommy Pham, Cardinals
3. Charlie Blackmon, Rockies
4. George Springer, Astros
5. Lorenzo Cain, Brewers
6. Christian Yelich, Brewers
7. Kevin Kiermaier, Rays
8. Chris Taylor, Dodgers
9. Michael Conforto, Mets
10. A.J. Pollock, D-backs

My top 10 CF

1, Mike Trout

(Grand Canyon)

2, George Springer
3, Michael Conforto
4, Charlie Blackmon
5, Lorenzo Cain
6, Kevin Kiermaier
7, Byron Buxton
8, Tommy Pham
9, Chris Taylor
10, Jackie Bradley Jr.


Tier 1: Mike Trout.

Tier 2: George Springer and Michael Conforto.

Tier 3: 4-10


Nothing needs to be said about Trout being so far ahead of everyone else, but the reason why Springer and Conforto belong in tier 2 and all the others in tier 3 is that they áre simply better hitters than the others, their hitting is on another level.


Conforto is for real. A piece on him will come explaining that, before the season.


Kiermaier is underrated, love the floor with him and Buxton.


I believe in Taylor and Pham's breakouts but only that much, which is still pretty good.


Top 10 RP by The Shredder (MLB Network)

1. Kenley Jansen, Dodgers
2. Andrew Miller, Indians
3. Craig Kimbrel, Red Sox
4. Chad Green, Yankees
5. Archie Bradley, D-backs
6. Zach Britton, Orioles
7. Corey Knebel, Brewers
8. Aroldis Chapman, Yankees
9. Brad Hand, Padres
10. Raisel Iglesias, Reds

My top 10

1, Kenley Jansen.
2, Craig Kimbrel.
3, Andrew Miller.
4, Aroldis Chapman
5, Chad Green
6, Wade Davis.
7, Roberto Osuna.
8, Corey Knebel.
9, Felipe Rivero
10, Tommy Kahnle/Archie Bradley.


Tier 1: Jansen and Kimbrel

Tier 2: Miller.

Tier 3: Chapman, Green, and Davis.

Tier 4: Osuna, Knebel, Rivero and Kahnle/Bradley


Firat let me explain my ranking, it's great to have top-flight relievers, but in the regular season like the Nats proved last year, you can be a great team with an atrocious bullpen, so with that mind and the inevitable fluctuation that comes with relief pitching performance,  one must take into the account the old school part of this, who do you trust in a big spot.


An example of this is my ranking of Wade Davie, all the guys behind him were more dominant than him last year, he is not the same as he once was, but he is still very good and gives you performances like the one in game 5 against Washington.


There are several pitchers that didn't make the list and have top 10 stuff, guys like Betances, Britton, Devenski and more, it's about recent events, very unpredictable.


As always feel free to comment, suggest, subscribe and anything else you can think of, any questions you may have, I'm here to answer them.

Todd Frazier at 8.5 million dollars per year is a bargain

The New York Mets earlier this week agreed to terms on a 2 year 17 million dollars deal with Todd Frazier. That was a very good sign by Sandy Alderson, and I'll spend some time addressing why that is the case, but first. For those of you worried about the Free Agent market and the lack of action in it. Teams unwilling to offer big contracts, players possibly having to settle for less money. The contract that Frazier signed is probably the best representation of that.


Carlos Santana, Lorenzo Cain, Wade Davis, Zack Cozart, Tyler Chatwood, Bryan Shaw, Jake McGee, Brandon Morrow and several other free agents got fair deals, they have nothing to complain about, and from all we know, reported by reliable sources Eric Hosmer has been offered a more than fair deal in the 140 over 7 vicinity.


Going back to Frazier, there is no question he got underpaid, both in years and money, there are several factors that might have played a role in that, but I think the most plausible explanation is the fact we now have surplus of 3B in talent in the game, resulting in very few possible landing spots, giving him a thin market. Is just very hard to really argue about collusion or anything related to that when we have a dozen examples of players that received fair deals, along with free agents sitting on very large offers. Until we see JD Martinez, Jake Arrieta or any other high profile guy panicking and signing a small deal below their value, there is just not much to go on, when arguing about a market collusion.


Now analyzing the sign itself, Todd Frazier is as consistent a player as you'll see on the open market.


He has played at least 147 games in each of his last 5 seasons.




Since hitting for a .273 batting average in 2 of his first 3 full seasons (12-14) he has seen his AVG steadily decline:


2014: .273
2015: .255
2016: .225
2017: .213


That could be a cause for a concern, except for the fact that as his average has declined, his power (ISO) and walk rate (BB%) has increased.

ISO:
12-14: .192
15-17: .234


BB%:
12-14: 8.0%
15-17: 9.9%


Therefore making up for most of the value he might have lost.

wRC+:
12-14: 114
15-17: 110

wOBA:
12-14: .340
15-17: .334


What i'm trying to say here is you shouldn't make too much of the .213 average he had this year, as he still gave pretty good value. 3.0 WAR in 2017.


His defense is good, which helps his overall value, to illustrate it, i'll take advantage of something i used on my JD Martinez article.


Looking at the last years, 14-17, 2014 is the year Martinez moved to Detroit and turned his career around, here are his numbers in comparison to Frazier.


JD Martinez

300/362/574     .274 ISO

134.0 wRAA     .392 wOBA     148 wRC+


Todd Frazier

243/333/464     .221 ISO

46.8 wRAA     .338 wOBA     113 wRC+


It's more than clear that Martinez is a far better hitter, but when you look at WAR.


Martinez: 14.6
Frazier: 14.8


While the average fan or any analyst that's "down" on WAR, may use that as a way to knock the stat, saying that it doesn't make any sense. The proper thing to do is analyze the numbers and see why Frazier is ahead and doing it so you'll quickly understand the reason behind it.

Hitting is one of the 3 aspects of a position player's WAR, the other 2 are base running and defense, who often get overlooked, look at how both /players fare in those categories.


Martinez:

-11.4 Base Running

-18.9 Fielding

-23.9 Positional Adjustments.

Hence -42.8 Defense.

Frazier:
2.9 Base Running
13.8 Fielding
3.3 Positional Adjustment

Hence 17.1 Defense

For the former Diamondback they are all negative when as for the newest Met, they are all positive, which affects significantly their WAR numbers. Take all off this into account and at 8.5 mil per year over 2 seasons you are getting a bargain.

Based on all of this information, you get a decent idea of what Frazier is going to give the Mets in these next couple of years, but to complete our analysis, let's take a look at his projections for 2018

According to Steamer:

227/318/436 Slash Line

10.6 BB%     22.8 K%     .209 ISO

0.8 wRAA     .323 wOBA     104 wRC+

2.1 WAR

This is a very conservative projection, betting on some regression across the board, and in the event, he produces at this level, he'll easily return the investment made on him and then some.

I'm a fan of the Zips' projections, but i couldn't find them for Frazier as a Met, so i'll just use the one from Frazier as a Yankee in 18.

249/334/482 Slash Line

10.3 BB%     22.3 K%     .233 ISO

5.7 RC/27    .345 wOBA     115 wRC+

3.5 WAR

wRAA not available.

If he produces at that rate, Sandy Alderson should be ecstatic.My educated guess is that he will fall somewhere in the middle of these two and provide the Mets with one of the best value signs of this free agent market.

Low to mid 200's AVG

Low to mid 300's OBP

Mid 400's SLG

2-3 WAR

That's around what you should expect from The Todd Father.

As always feel free to comment, suggest, subscribe and anything else you can think of, any questions you may have, I'm here to answer them.

A small announcement and another article with a different take on Pitching WAR

Getting ready to write, and looking at the progress made, since I started doing this, the support you guys give me simply by coming in here and reading my articles. It occurred me that it makes no sense to publish exclusive articles on Patreon right now.

I'll continue to put all of my writing over there as part of the ad-free reward for supporters, and whenever that first Patron comes around, he/she will receive two exclusive insightful articles that I'll be sure to spend extra time on, but for now until we are really established as a go-to website/blog when it comes to baseball takes (ironically) I'll write all the content here.


Here it is my first exclusive Patreon supporters only article, available to you, let me know what you think.


As I was getting ready to write another piece on pitching WAR and why it should be based on ERA, not FIP, after seeing the numbers of Corey Knebel and Roberto Osuna propelled me to do so. I had an epiphany.


One of the hardest things to do in baseball is to accurately separate pitcher and defense, what do we give the pitcher credit for, what do we give the defense credit for.


FIP was created to do exactly that, take away sequencing, luck, and defense, giving you a measurement of the pitcher's performance, and over the majority of them, it does that pretty well.


Once in a while, you get a pitcher who masters the ability to outpitch their FIP but even those guys tend to even out over the course of their careers.


For instance, a guy like Matt Cain during his prime well known for doing that finished it off with a 3.68 ERA, 3.92 FIP.


The point is, FIP is pretty accurate, and over the long haul, a pitcher's ERA through the ups and downs of the defense around him, the fluctuation in performance during high leverage situations and the lucky-unlucky Ferris wheel all pitchers go through, tends to balance itself out towards what his performance earned him.


As you all have seen my thought process in stating that the proper way to calculate WAR was through ERA came from the idea that WAR was created to measure added value. Since luck affects results, results determine value and WAR is added value, therefore luck must affect WAR, and FIP is designed to strip away the luck factor.


But as I was writing this article, it became clear to me that I could not blame a pitcher for his poor defense and in regards to the two other factors, luck and sequencing do matter, but to this day no one has been able to give an objective, logical explanation of what really affects it. The majority of pitchers tend to fluctuate on those two and eventually settle on what their ability should give them, plus I have a proper way to include them and not just dismiss their value, will get to it later.


It goes beyond simply realizing that it wasn't all the pitcher's fault, that was already clear, what came to me was that as soon as the act of:


Windup, delivery, pitch, batter's reaction, swing or take.


Is completed, the pitcher's job has ended, obviously he has fielding duties but as the pitcher it has, at that point he added whatever value he did to his team, it's done and then what happens afterwards it should be considered as the defense giving value away, not subtracting it from the pitcher.


For example:


Chris Archer throws a fastball right on the corner, the batter gets a piece of it and hits a fly ball into left field with a catch probability of 85%. Corey Dickerson doesn't get to it, becoming a double, the ball should've been caught, later in the inning, that hitter comes around to scores on a couple of sacrifice flies, that run goes into Chris Archer's box score, but when in fact as soon as the ball left the bat, Archer finished his job and gave his value on that play to his team.


ERA based WAR is flawed because it benefits pitchers with a better defense, but it has its merits given it values luck and sequencing which aren't recommended to predict future value but are a part of the added value.


You can't deny a guy who performed better when pitching with 2nd and 3rd and doing it so gave up fewer runs added more value, whether that's sustainable or not is a whole different story.


FIP based WAR is also flawed given it strips away luck and sequencing which are two factors that affect added value, therefore going against the principle behind WAR, which is, measuring how much value did a player give his team.


But also has its merits, stripping away the defense element, basing the performance solely on what the pitcher did, which is all he should be responsible for, also discounting luck and sequencing thereby making it easier to predict future performance and future WAR.


My belief is you should never dismiss something that has merits and positive sides, like both of these versions, do.


You should look for ways to use both, so I propose the following.


Use ERA based Pitching WAR to represent added value, I said pitchers shouldn't be responsible for their defense, but we are not at a point in which we completely understand defense, much less separate it from luck and sequencing to get the perfect WAR version.


Use FIP based WAR as the equivalent of xwOBA, have an expected Wins Above Replacement.


What is xwOBA really, but what a hitter's wOBA would look like under normal circumstances, same goes for xWAR, which dismisses luck and sequencing, numbers that change added value but fluctuate and tend to regress to average, and defense which is not the responsibility of the pitcher, basically giving you what his WAR would be like, under normal circumstances.


As always feel free to comment, suggest, subscribe and anything else you can think of, any questions you may have, I'm here to answer them.

Top 10 by position. Part 3, SP and 1B

As we reach another weekend, it's time for another edition of top 10 players right now, today we'll rank the 10 best starting pitchers and first basemen.

MLB Network's Top 10 SP

1, Clayton Kershaw
2, Corey Kluber
3, Chris Sale
4, Max Scherzer
5, Stephen Strasburg
6, Madison Bumgarner
7, Noah Syndergaard
8, Carlos Carrasco
9, Justin Verlander
10, Kyle Hendricks

My (proper) top 10 SP.

1, Clayton Kershaw.
2, Corey Kluber.
3, Max Scherzer.
4, Chris Sale.
5, Stephen Strasburg.
6, Noah Syndergaard
7, Madison Bumgarner
8, Jacob DeGrom
9, Luis Severino
10, Zack Greinke/Justin Verlander/Carlos Carrasco

Tier 1: Kershaw.

Tier 2: Kluber, Scherzer, Sale and Strasburg.

Tier 3: Syndergaard, Bumgarner, DeGrom, Severino, Greinke/Verlander/Carrasco.


Few notes.

1, Yes Kershaw is in another tier, one if his own. Look at career ERA+

Kershaw 161

Next, closest are Sale, Kluber, and Strasburg in the 130's. Scherzer is high 120's (127).

He had an off year, compared to career years from his competition, and finished second in ERA+ to Kluber.

In 2016 he pitched in levels none of them have ever reached.


2, On that last spot i just could not make a decision, very close, if you back me up to a corner, i'll say, Carrasco is probably slightly better, but the track record and all that comes and durability (Carrasco career high is 200.0 Innings, second best is 183.2) make it very close.


3 guys to watch out.

Aaron Nola, Chris Archer and James Paxton.

Just missed the cut, like all 3 of them, especially the first two, Paxton scares me a bit.





MLB Network's top 10 1B

1, Joey Votto
2, Freddie Freeman
3, Paul Goldschmidt 
4, Anthony Rizzo
5, Cody Bellinger
6, Jose Abreu
7, Edwin Encarnacion
8, Brandon Belt
9, Matt Carpenter
10, Carlos Santana

My (proper) top 10 1B

1, Joey Votto.
2, Paul Goldschmidt.
3, Freddie Freeman.
4. Anthony Rizzo.
5, Cody Bellinger.
6, Jose Abreu.
7, Carlos Santana.
8, Matt Carpenter.
9, Eric Hosmer.
10, Joey Gallo/Will Myers.

Tier 1: Votto, Goldschmidt, Freeman and Rizzo.

Tier 2: Bellinger.

Tier 3: Abreu, Santana, Carpenter, Hosmer, Gallo/Myers.


Two notes.

1, Regarding Bellinger, he might very well belong in tier 1, but as we stand today, i can't put him in the same level as the first four, nor put him with the latter 5, he is kind of in between, although, closer to tier 1.


2, Myers had a down year, but looking at his talent, past performance, projections, and analyzing what went wrong, i'm optimistic about a bounce-back season, defense killed his value in 17, uncharacteristically bad with the glove, not that he is a Gold Glove 1B, but he was significantly worse in 2017.


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