How lack of pitching depth and health could spoil another of Trout’s prime years.

A Ticket  to Purgatory for The Angels
by Jim Silva

    When you have the best baseball player on planet Earth, you’d think that should be enough to propel you to the playoffs every year, but sadly for the Angels from somewhere in southern California, they have only made the playoffs once this decade and actually finished below .500 each of the last two seasons. How is this possible you ask? I mean, don’t they have the best player on planet Earth – that Mike Trout guy? Yes, Mike Trout is both an Angel and the best baseball player alive. They also have Albert Pujols who himself is a former BPOPE (best player on – yeah, you get it), so how on this little blue marble can they ever miss the playoffs, much less finish below .500? As my wife likes to point out, pitching is way too important in baseball and I bet it annoys the Angels too, because their pitching is currently a collection of “Belly itchers”. The 2016 team finished in the bottom third of the American league in most team pitching stats that you might consider important, including ERA (12th of 15), strikeouts (15th of 15), hits and walks allowed (14th and 11th respectively) and home runs allowed (11th). While the entire staff contributed to the Angels pitching woes I am going to focus on their starting rotation which, in spite of the team’s hot start, appears to be in disarray yet again in 2017.
    In spite of the nightmare that their rotation was in 2016 they aren’t without talent. Shoemaker’s rookie season of 2014 was essential to the Angels last playoff appearance and almost earned him a Rookie of The Year award. It was an excellent rookie campaign as Shoemaker contributed 136 innings with an ERA of 3.04. So obviously Shoemaker has talent, but the problem is that he just isn’t a prototypical ace capable of dominating for stretches and going deep into starts three times in a seven game series to shut down whatever playoff team the Angels might face. He is a steady number two or three who will give you five or six solid innings and then yield to the bullpen. While Shoemaker hasn’t matched his 2014 season, he did put together a solid season in 2016 where he pitched the most innings of his career making it to 160 and rebounding from a disappointing 2015. Shoemaker is not the ace if Garrett Richards is healthy and in the rotation, but I will  get to him later. For the Angels to stay out of the Western Division cellar, Shoemaker will have to repeat his numbers from 2016 or do even better as the rotation goes downhill quite steeply after him.
    The current number two is 34 year old Ricky Nolasco which is like saying, “Is it cool if my mom joins us on our date?” There are uses for guys like Nolasco, but he belongs at the back of a rotation, not the front. If he’s healthy Nolasco could be a league average innings eater – last season he hung in there for 197.2 innings contributing just over 1.5 WAR for the Twins and Angels, and that’s  about the best the Angels can hope for as Nolasco hasn’t been above 2.0 WAR since he was 25 (in 2008). As the fifth starter for a team like the Dodgers, Red Sox, or Cubs, Nolasco could help to keep the pen from being overused assuming his elbow doesn’t bark at him as it has from time to time. But the Angels need more than that from their second starter and no amount of wish casting will turn Nolasco into a number two starter at this point in his career.
    Andrew Heaney is supposed to be here, probably in the three spot, but he made all of one start in 2016 before going on the DL and eventually having Tommy John surgery. That is a bad break for any team, but when you’re the Angels and counting heavily on one guy to hold together an extremely thin rotation, an injury like that is devastating. Based on the trajectory of most TJ participants, Heaney is unlikely to pitch until after the All Star break if he pitches at all this season. If you are a blamer and you need to pin your spleen to one moment in the Angels disappointing season, I highly recommend pinning it on Heaney’s crappy elbow ligament. While you’re at it you might want to hang onto your 2017 pin as well because Heaney’s absence will likely crush the Angels playoff aspirations as well as your fragile halo-encircled heart.
    So you’re trying to believe in the Angels good start and get past the whole Heaney travesty, but then you happen to glance at the starting rotation past Shoemaker (ok – he’s good), Nolasco (well at least he’s solid, gulp) and you look at the third spot barely noticing the choking sound escaping your throat as a fleeting image on the headline about an unexplained dip in Heaney’s velocity after his first start of the season and you see the name, “Jesse Chavez” and your hope dissolves just like that. Again, there is nothing wrong with using Jesse Chavez to start some games for your team and maybe do some work out of the pen, but counting on him to be the third guy in your rotation is a recipe for Mike Trout watching the playoffs on television. Chavez last started in 2015 for the A’s and was useful enough to get himself traded to the Blue Jays for Liam Hendriks and then to the Dodgers for Mike Bolsinger. He is now 33 and hasn’t had an ERA below 4.00 since 2014 with Oakland. Chavez still throws reasonably hard – mid 90’s out of the pen – but gives up a lot of home runs (career rate of 1.3 per nine). He has never pitched more than 157 innings in the majors so even if the Angels can stretch him out, if they are counting on him to make 32 starts and approach 200 innings, then they are as high as the halo outside their stadium. Chavez as a swing man is useful. Chavez as a back end guy in your rotation surrounded by starters who go deep into games is also useful. Chavez as the third guy in your rotation without a bunch of horses surrounding him is a good way to burn up your bullpen from overuse.
    Things don’t get better for the Angels as we move past Chavez to the fourth guy in the rotation, Tyler Skaggs. It isn’t that Skaggs isn’t talented – the talent is there – but he hasn’t been healthy enough to realize his considerable potential. At 25, he is still young enough to blossom and has some peripherals that give fans a reason to hope. Last season saw Skaggs return from Tommy John surgery and although the results weren’t what Angel fans wanted at least his velocity was there. Command seems to come last when pitchers come back from TJ and the control piece of command/control seemed to be an issue for Skaggs as he walked over four men a game. His hits allowed and strikeouts were both up from his career average so watching Skaggs pitch this season will tell the Angels a lot about what they have. If he can leap over Chavez and Nolasco while staying healthy it would hugely improve their chances of doing more than just annoying other teams and their fans. If Skaggs doesn’t find another level then the Angels are in serious trouble because after Skaggs it is hard to find another rotation candidate who is worth buying a ticket to see pitch, unless you really love ballpark dogs and don’t actually care what happens on the field.
    Of course Garrett Richards is the ace of the Angels – of course he is! He throws really hard and has experienced success in each of the last three seasons when he has pitched. Ah, you caught that didn’t you? Richards’ problem isn’t a lack of ability, but an inability to stay healthy. He made only six starts last season, albeit six pretty excellent starts, but sat out most of the year trying to avoid surgery on his elbow. It is unclear whether or not he will be able to participate in baseball activities this season as he is already on the DL with some arm woe. When teams say “forearm tightness”, are they being coy about a pitcher’s elbow or is this completely unrelated to the elbow and something Richards can work through and get in his 28 to 30 starts? He made part of a start this season and looked great until he came out pointing at his arm. Looking great and stabilizing a rotation are two different animals. He is currently not throwing at all, so projecting his return is difficult. Sometimes pitchers with elbow injuries can deal with it through rest and avoid surgery, but many times they end up having the surgery eventually anyway. Throwing 98 miles an hour is not easy on your arm – go ahead, get off the couch and do it right now and see how it feels – but if you can throw hard then you will throw hard. In other words, if Richards pitches he will obviously return to his fireballing, ground ball inducing ways until he can’t because he shreds his elbow – unless he doesn’t shred his elbow. If he can avoid the disabled list, assuming he can get off the disabled list, then he is the undisputed ace and the Angels have a semblance of a pitching staff. That’s a lot of ifs but welcome to Los Angeles Anaheim, wherever THAT is.
    The guy taking the spot vacated by Richards is J.C. Ramirez, who has been a reliever since he pitched in AA ball at Reading in 2011. Is this a desperation move by the Angels? Well, yeah! It isn’t just that Ramirez is a reliever and has been for a long time, it’s more that Ramirez has had limited success no matter what role he has accepted. Last season was really the first time the 28 year old has experienced even moderate success in the majors in spite of the fact that his fast ball tops out around 100 mph. With a career ERA over 5.00 and WHIP over 1.4, the Angels can’t be expecting anything other than Ramirez standing out there until manager Mike Scioscia gets tired of seeing his pitches plastered all over the yard.
    So surely there is help coming from the minors, right? Right? Sadly, if you care about the Angels and plan to still be a fan in the future, your team has one of the worst minor league systems in all of baseball. The Angels traded their top pitching prospect, Victor Alcantara, to the Tigers for Cameron Maybin. The guys close enough to be of use this season barring any huge leaps in development from guys lower in the system are Alex Myer, Greg Mahle, Manny Banuelos, Troy Scribner, and Nate Smith. Smith and Mahle show up on some lists as Angels top prospects but neither of them is likely to be more than a back of the rotation arm. Scribbler has climbed his way through the organization missing bats (and the strike zone) and might be on the verge of figuring it out. Yeah, that’s a lot of dudes, but frankly none of them are particularly exciting. Most of them are organizational depth – guys who will be used to fill spots when one of the big clubs starters has to miss a turn (which for the Angels could be a weekly thing). The point here is that the Angels rotation is in serious trouble and that likely means using their frequent flyer miles to shuttle these five guys from Salt Lake City to Anaheim to get through the season.
    The Angels have some talented guys who are starting pitchers, but they have neither health nor depth and that is a bad combination. If absolutely everything breaks right for them they could have enough to compete for a wild card spot coming out of the tough AL West. If they catch even one bad break, the whole season could unravel and honestly that is what is likely to happen because in baseball you have to assume that you’re going to catch a few bad breaks. The teams who survive these days have depth so that when the bad breaks hit they can roll with it and survive until the starter or the closer or the left fielder comes back. When, like the Angels, you are starting the season having already broken the emergency glass – well, your days near the top of the division are numbered.

The A’s rotation in flux – when promise becomes frustration.

You Need A Scorecard To Keep Track of These Guys
by Jim Silva

    Long gone are Catfish, Vida, Blue Moon, and Kenny Holtzman. Stew is now a failed GM instead of a dominant starting pitcher and community leader. Bob Welch is sadly no longer with us, and Huddy, Zito, and Mulder have all hung up their spikes. The A’s have a long history of great starting pitching going back to Philadelphia and such mound stars as Eddie Plank, Lefty Grove, Rube Waddell, and Chief Bender. But times and teams change, and the A’s no longer are run by Connie Mack or Charlie Finley and the economic realities of being a small market team in a crappy stadium means that the A’s have been unable to hang onto their stars for quite some time. This unfortunate reality has impacted the entire roster of course, but when there is talk of trades involving the A’s, the inevitable target is Sonny Gray, their 27 year old fallen ace. Cynically, many would say that the only reason he is still with the A’s is that he struggled through an awful, injury-filled 2016. I am in that camp (and I would call myself a realist) knowing the reality of the A’s situation. It’s a true dilemma when as a fan you want your ace to fail so he won’t get traded! Gray is only the most recent A’s ace to run into bad luck. The ace before Gray came up was Jarrod Parker. Parker, who is only 28, has had Tommy John surgery twice now, had his elbow in his pitching arm break (last spring) and hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2013. If Parker makes it back to the majors at all after his medical mishaps it will be a minor miracle. So yeah – bad luck only begins to describe it and now Gray is back on the disabled list with a lat strain. So what will the A’s rotation look like in 2017 even as Gray starts the season watching from the bench? Let’s pull out the crystal ball and see what the spirits have to say.
    The opening day pitcher for the A’s was Kendall Graveman who, just to be clear, is not an ace nor would he be on any major league team. That isn’t meant to be a dig on Graveman’s skill as a pitcher, just a realistic assessment, and a statement about the current state of the A’s. The A’s know he isn’t an ace and he shouldn’t have to face the other team’s best hurler on opening day, but when your ace is down you have to flex.   Graveman isn’t one of those guys who comes in and fans everyone in sight. Even though he throws his fastball in the mid-nineties his strikeout rate dropped last season, and when you are below six k’s a game and fast approaching four per game (5.23 last season), you’d better have the Cubs defense behind you, which he didn’t. The A’s were pretty awful defensively. Graveman generates a decent number of ground balls – 4th in the AL last season – but that number has dropped dramatically since his first season up with the Blue Jays. It isn’t bad to give up fly balls in Oakland because the park plays pretty big, but if you let batters put the ball in play a lot with a bad defense then you are going to give up a lot of hits, which he did – almost 200 of them last year. Also, a little over once a game one of those fair balls left the park off Graveman – another number you don’t like to see when you are pitching in Oakland and giving up lots of hits. In his defense, Graveman’s walk rate dropped to 2.27 per nine innings mitigating the base runner issue a lot. Kendall Graveman is a useful pitcher who can get you innings and keep you in the game if you can field the ball behind him. It really isn’t his fault that the A’s aren’t built that way. Still, he is a fine number three or four starting pitcher. Assuming Gray comes back soon then that pushes Graveman down a slot, but do the A’s have a number two to push Graveman down yet another slot?
    Sean Manaea isn’t a number two yet, but the A’s hope he will develop into an ace sooner rather than later. For now, Manaea needs to hang onto his growth in the second half of last season, his major league debut, and add to that growth if he wants to challenge Gray and Graveman for the top of the heap in Oakland. Manaea’s first half showed him as a young pitcher who wasn’t ready for The Show. The second half was a completely different story and Manaea looked like the top of the rotation pitcher he might someday become. His walk rate shrank and his strikeout rate ballooned causing his ERA to shrivel from 5.24 to 2.67. There is still plenty of room for growth from Manaea. He gave up 20 home runs – 10 in each half and got torched by righties – numbers the A’s want to see correct themselves. It is a good sign that the young pitcher made such effective adjustments from the first half to the second and it portends well for his growth. The A’s are hoping that he can overcome his struggles against righties this year and do a better job keeping the ball in the yard (only one home run allowed in the final month of last season). If he can make those adjustments then the A’s will have the ace they need if Gray doesn’t return to form.
    After Manaea, the A’s start the season with Jharel Cotton, a new face in the organization last year when the A’s got him in their big trade with the Dodgers for Rich Hill and Josh Reddick. Not even the A’s expected Cotton to contribute as soon as he did making his major league debut and tossing five starts with an ERA of 2.15. Cotton isn’t projected to be the next Clayton Kershaw as his debut might suggest but he could be a solid mid-rotation starter who throws hard and has excellent control. Jharel strikes batters out, has never walked more than 3.2 batters per nine innings at any stop and predictably for a pitcher who is around the plate so often, gives up a few more homers than you’d like. The low walk rate mitigates the damage from the homers and he is tough to hit too, never giving up more than 8.0 hits per nine in the minors or in his five-start MLB debut. What’s not to like? Well, Major League Baseball has a prejudice against short pitchers and Cotton is only 5’11. If he can stay healthy and pitch the way he has pitched so far in his career he might turn out to be the best of the three young hurlers the A’s acquired from the Dodgers.
    The rest of the A’s rotation is a bit of a mystery, as well as up in the air until Gray returns and the A’s can see if he is the good Sonny Gray or the bad Sonny Gray. Not that the A’s don’t have interesting options for their rotation, but like the Irish curse, “May your life be interesting” in truth you don’t want “interesting” options in your rotation, you want consistent, known quantities. The A’s get to choose from Raul Alcantara, Andrew Triggs, Jesse Hahn, Daniel Mengden, Chris Bassitt, Daniel Gossett, and Paul Blackburn (phew!). Actually, Bassitt is still working to return from Tommy John surgery, and Mengden is hanging out with Sonny Gray on the DL to start the season with a foot injury. Hahn was a disaster in 2016 and again in spring training and the A’s sent him down (and then just called him back up). Last season his strikeout rate plummeted, his walk rate went up a bit, his home run rate doubled, and his ERA exploded to over six. At this point it is unclear whether or not Hahn will return to the promise he showed in 2014 and 2015, but he is only 27 so the A’s are hoping this is a blip on the radar and Hahn can be a mid-rotation groundball-inducing machine.
Blackburn and Gossett are also starting the season in the minors – that leaves Alcantara and Triggs to round out the rotation at the start of the season. Triggs is a sidearmer, which is cool. Even cooler is how he absolutely dominated in a short stint in triple-A before the A’s brought him up and he posted some really nice peripherals like 8.79 strikeouts and 2.08 walks per nine innings. He was a waiver wire claim in 2016 and had mostly been a reliever. Once the A’s brought him up and used him in the rotation out of necessity of the injury variety, he was a revelation. Triggs absolutely deserves a shot to hold a rotation spot even though he isn’t a flame-thrower. Like Graveman, Triggs throws a sinker to induce grounders which will come in really handy once the A’s develop a good infield defense. In the meantime, he doesn’t give up walks, he manages to get strikeouts, and he suppressed home runs in the high minors. With a rotation in flux including a plethora of injuries, that kind of profile will afford Triggs the opportunity to prove that he is worth a rotation spot even after his injured rotation mates return from the DL. So that is four-fifths of the rotation, but what of that last spot?
    Raul Alcantara looks the part of a major league rotation stalwart with his mid-nineties heat and his 6’4 frame, and his numbers made it look like he was ready when he dominated over eight triple-A starts. But the 24 year old completely fell apart once he reached the majors where he gave up nine home runs in 22 innings over five starts. When your ERA starts with a “7” there is no need to look at the other digits (or let you pitch again). But Alcantara is young and the A’s need starters so he gets another shot to show that he belongs. Alcantara has shown that he can rack up strikeouts and limit free passes in the minors so there is a real chance that he could break out this year with his raw stuff and control. With three starting pitchers shelved for now, he will get at least a few starts to show that he is not the guy who put the ball on a tee last year and more the guy who scared the holy hell out of triple-A hitters.
    Finally, let’s take a look at Sonny Gray who is likely to return before we turn the calendar to May. The A’s seem to be cornering the market on short right-handed pitchers and that might come from the success they’ve had with Sonny Gray. At 5’10, he is one of the shortest starting pitchers in the majors, and if he returns to form then perhaps it will convince other organizations that a guy doesn’t have to be 6’4 to pitch effectively for multiple seasons. Starting with the good news, none of the myriad injuries suffered last season by Gray were to his shoulder or elbow. More good news – his fastball still sat around 95. Ok, and that’s about where the good news from last season ends. Gray was a complete disaster, missing a number of starts with visits to the DL and pitching like roster filler when he was healthy. While Gray’s strikeout numbers dropped, they didn’t drop much, and while his walk rate increased, again it wasn’t by much. The two numbers that best tell the story of his craptasticness are his hits allowed and home runs allowed. In his three previous stints on the majors, Gray had never allowed more than 7.7 hits per nine innings. Last season – 10.2. While hits allowed is often an indicator of luck, Gray’s pitch selection was different last season featuring fewer sliders and more changes and cutters. It’s possible that he became more hittable because of his pitch mix and not just because he was unlucky. Likewise, his home runs per nine had never exceeded 0.7 until last season when he allowed a frightening 1.4 per nine. It is possible that having his season interrupted over and over by injuries didn’t allow Gray to find his rhythm so it’s not a good sign that his spring training was also interrupted by an injury. If he can finally get healthy and stay that way, then there is a chance he can return to form and be the ace he was for his first three seasons.
    If Gray can come back early in the season and pitch like Sonny Gray instead of Dorian Gray (after the mishap with the portrait), that would take a lot of pressure off the rest of the rotation. The A’s with Gray, Graveman, Manaea, Triggs, and Alcantara has a chance to be quite good even if they remain mostly unknown. When you start using the word “if” a lot your wish-casting gets a little hopeless, but IF the A’s experience just average luck then their rotation can at least give them a chance to finish around .500, and that would be a good jumping off point for the rest of the franchise rebuild to happen. It all hinges on Gray. No amount of growth from the rest of the crew can make up for losing a true ace. I will sign off now to put a package of Flintstones Chewable Vitamins in the mail for Sonny.

The Yankees infield is getting younger, but is it getting better?

Oh, To Be Young and in The Bronx!
by Jim Silva

    The words “rebuild” and “Yankees” don’t go together because for the Yankees to give up millions in revenue by tanking it for a few seasons is not realistic. They have an enormous television contract and a brand that means they can’t tear down to the studs and rebuild. That said, the Yankees have parted ways with some of their older players in the last few years and become a younger team with potential. Weird, right? What happened to the days of Yankee GMs raiding rosters like pirates (not from Pittsburgh) with a boatload of money stealing your hometown stars? Don’t worry, that is still going to happen. The Yankees are always in the position of spending money to maintain some level of competitiveness even when they are waiting for young players to develop – like right now. The Yankees have some excellent young players either just beginning their major league careers or still developing in the minors. They also have older players with big contracts who are holding positions for the youngsters. The Yankees, unlike most teams, can afford to sign expensive players even when the team probably can’t make a strong push for the post-season. The biggest reason they are not ready to go deep into the post-season and probably not even make the playoffs is that their rotation is neither strong nor deep. But the Yankees are mid-stream on their own version of a rebuild and it is on their infield where this is most evident, so let’s take a look at rebuilding, Yankee style.
    Gone are the anchors of the Yankee infields of the 2000’s, Jorge Posada, Mark Texeira, Alex Rodriguez,  Derek Jeter, and Robinson Cano – likely two Hall of Famers and possibly four. Tex and A-Rod were the last two to hang it up (after the 2016 season) and the Yankees infield, which had been old for several years will now be a lot younger. With an average age of 27, the old man of the crew, assuming everything breaks the way the Yankees hope it will, should be Chase Headley who will play as a 32 year old. First, let’s start with what Headley is not. He is not the guy who hit 31 home runs in 2012. He hadn’t come close to that mark before 2012 and hasn’t approached it since. His second best home run tally is 20, and third best is 14, which he accomplished last season. So what is Chase Headley? Sorry Headley family, but he is an average third baseman who is being paid to be a lot more than that. For $13 million a year you want more than a 1.5 to 3 WAR guy, but unfortunately that is what Headley has become averaging 1.85 WAR in 2015 and 2016. It is highly unlikely, given Headley’s age and recent performance, that the Colorado native will return to his 6.3 WAR peak of 2012. That doesn’t mean he can’t be a useful player, but these are the Yankees and it is unclear as to whether or not Headley will be the starter all the way to the end of his contract in 2018. The Yankees can and will eat contracts if there is a reason to do so. If Headley has another sub-two WAR season or the Yankees find themselves in a position to grab a star to play third, Headley’s future will become a lot more murky, if no less lucrative. Right now he is a good defensive third baseman who just barely gets on base enough, doesn’t hit for much power and is just boring as hell – and we know how much Yankee fans hate boring players. Fortunately, Headley is the only “boring” option in the Yankees infield – at least for the starters. Let’s move on to the guy on the opposite corner, Greg Bird.
    Bird wowed Yankee fans and the rest of baseball in 2015 when he came up as a 22 year old and popped 11 home runs in fewer than 200 plate appearances. But a shoulder injury followed by surgery ate his 2016 season. Now, apparently fully healthy and with no Texeira in his way, Bird is likely to be the primary first baseman and will get the chance to show whether or not that home run pace in 2015 was a fluke. The reality is probably different from the expectation as Bird is less of a one dimensional masher than he is an all-around hitter. He is more likely to get on base at a .350 clip than he is to hit 25 home runs although he might very well slug .450 because he tends to hit a bunch of doubles. That said he is coming off a spring training where he hit seven homers and batted over .400.
    When Bird first started playing professionally he had a tendency to whiff on a lot of pitches. His strikeout rate was never lower than 20% until his second attempt at double-A which was in 2015. He did it again at his next stop – triple-A Scranton. It seems that Bird, who has always hit for a decent average and drawn his share of walks has also learned to lay off bad pitches, although I don’t have minor league swing data to back up that assertion. His glove work has been solid in the minors and his small sample size numbers from the majors were bullish on his ability to pick ‘em at first. In short, he won’t be a disaster at first and the Yankees are paying him to create runs. Whether Bird hits a bunch of bombs or just hits .280 with a  bunch of doubles, he should be a positive force in the Yankees lineup where they have had mixed success from the first base position of late. Bird might very well develop into the kind of hitter Yankee fans want him to be as long as he is given the chance to succeed being the type of hitter he actually is right now. There are other corner options on the bench, but no stars lurking on the big league roster, so let’s move on to the middle of the infield.
    Didi Gregorius was one of many young shortstops playing for the Diamondbacks who the Yankees could have traded for, but they picked Didi and his glove. In his first season with the Yanks – 2015 – Didi brought his good glove saving the Yankees between 5 and 7.4 runs (depending on which defensive metric you prefer) above league average for a shortstop. When he switched to his batting gloves, Didi didn’t. While he showed some improvement as measured by wRC+ from 75 in 2014 to 89 in 2015, he was still costing the Yankees runs with his mediocre ability to get on base (.318) and his lack of power – an ISO of .105 (think batting average but for power) and only 35 extra-base hits in 578 plate appearances. Yes, he improved, but he went from horrific to merely bad. But something positive happened last year to Didi that will likely extend his career while at the same time possibly shortening his stay with the Yankees. 2016 saw Gregorius change his profile somewhat dramatically. He drove 20 balls over the fence adding to his total of 54 extra-base hits in 597 plate appearances. That is quite a difference in the number of extra-base hits in just 19 more plate appearances and it showed in his ISO which jumped to .171. The added power pushed his wRC+ up to 98 which is essentially league average. His decreased plate discipline kept him from reaching the 100 mark as he walked only 19 times all season while reaching base at a .304 clip. By comparison, Brandon Guyer got hit by pitches 31 times last season – much more painful than taking a walk! But Didi’s offensive improvement, while mixed should have been enough to turn the 27 year old shortstop into a very valuable asset what with his nifty glove and all. Unfortunately for Didi and the Yankees, Gregorious slumped in the field costing the club between 2.9 and 9 runs depending on the metric.
    So what is Gregorius and what the heck happened last season? Well, for one thing he started swinging at a lot more pitches including pitches outside the strike zone. He also traded 2% of the softly hit balls he put in play for hard hit balls. The biggest difference in the profile of his batted balls was the number of home runs he hit as a percentage of the fly balls he hit going from somewhere in the 6% range up to 10.4% last season. Is that real? Well, Gregorius is pretty big – 6’3” and weirdly somewhere between 160 and 205 pounds, depending on what site you you look at. That is a huge gap, and it might account somewhat for the changes Gregorius underwent last season. I am guessing that one site uses his weight from when he first came up and the other site might be up to date. If he indeed got bigger in the off-season then that might account for the increased power as well as the decreased range. In a NY Post article about Gregorius the writer noted that the shortstop looked bigger, and when Gregorious stated that he was about the same weight – 210-215 – the writer, Ken Davidoff, attributed it to a different distribution of his weight, the implication being that Gregarious is more muscular now. Whether Didi is bigger and stronger, he hit for more power and his stats show diminished range. We will see what version of Didi we get once he returns from the DL after he injured his shoulder playing for the Netherlands in the World Baseball Classic. Gregorius pitched in his youth and is known for having a canon of an arm, so if the injury is serious it could hurt his defensive numbers this season too and if that happens the Yankees, not necessarily known for their patience, might move on. They are, after all, the Yankees and they have a deep farm system with prospects pushing up from the minors, but again we will get to that later.
    Second base was once the Yankee’s greatest strength, but that’s when they had Robinson Cano back in 2013. Since then, the Bronx Bombers have trotted out the likes of Brian Roberts (the age 36 version), Stephen Drew (the .652 OPS version), and Rob Refsnyder (the -0.1 WAR version) to name just a few. That was until they made a deal with the Cubs for Starlin Castro. Castro is only 26 even though he just completed his 7th season as a major league starter. It’s crazy to think that he might have growth left in his game, but last season was certainly at least different if not better for the Yankees second baseman. 2015 saw Castro’s star burn up in the atmosphere as he not only lost his starting job by season’s end, but also struggled to produce enough with the glove or the bat to remain in the lineup. Last year, at least on the surface, was a comeback season for Castro as he pounded a career high 21 home runs while hitting a respectable .270. Delving a little deeper, it is clear that Castro’s season wasn’t a disaster, but was really just a placeholder season for the Yankees. Castro isn’t bad, but he certainly isn’t the star he looked like he might become in 2012 and even as recently as 2014 when he was playing well at shortstop and creating runs at an average to above average rate. Now at 6’3 230, he is bigger and likely stronger, but no longer a shortstop having moved to second, and isn’t really a good defensive second baseman after just costing the Yankees about 8 runs according to both DRS and UZR/150 – two major defensive metrics. If he had produced a wRC+ above 100 after the move to second then you could argue for his value as a starter. If he had stayed at short and played better defense then you could argue for his value with the glove. But while chicks dig the long ball, if that’s pretty much all you do then your days are probably numbered as a starter, unless you do it at an elite level, which he didn’t.
    And it isn’t likely to get better for Starlin, although it is possible that his defense at second will improve as he gets more experience there. Castro’s offense should be the biggest concern because he creates a lot of outs and it doesn’t appear that he is maturing in the ways one would hope for a hitter who already has 4101 major league at bats. 2016 saw Castro’s walk rate stay close to 2015’s career low and his strikeout rate increase to a career high showing that he is getting worse at controlling the strike zone. That could be intentional – selling out to hit more home runs by swinging at more pitches – but again, as he isn’t an elite power hitter so that approach will ultimately hurt his value. Castro has also stopped stealing bases nabbing only four bags last season (his high is 25) and even though he hit more home runs in 2016, his slugging percentage didn’t jump that much – .433 is only 25 points over his career average and isn’t his highest number or out of line with 2011, 2012, or 2014 where he slugged in the .430s. So how long will Castro remain the starting second baseman for the Yankees? Basically until his contract runs out in 2019 or the Yankees find someone who is above average – a pretty low bar for the best baseball franchise in history – or will Castro “break out” in his age 27 season? His declining plate discipline which was already poor at best says no.
    Since this article is about the Yanks youth movement and their catcher is young, I am including Gary Sanchez in this article even though I usually write about catchers separately since they are unusual creatures and deserve a space of their own. Sanchez was signed as a 17 year old free agent and has one of the coolest nicknames in all of sports, “The Kraken”, as in “Release the Kraken!”. If I were to play major league baseball I would want to be named after a sea monster capable of dragging ships under the waves, fating many a seaman to a watery grave. I would also want to be a catcher who threw out 42% of would-be base thieves and hit 20 home runs in my first 201 major league at bats, because that is exactly what the Yanks young catcher did in 2016. Catchers who hit home runs like that, play defense like that, and also end their debut third of a season with an OPS of 1.032 and a wRC+ of 171 are rare as hell, as are any hitters who can do that for any stretch. But don’t get ahead of yourselves Yankees fans. Sanchez had one hell of a breakout party in pinstripes but it is unlikely that he is that guy. He has power, but probably not Babe Ruth kind of power that he showed in his 201 at bats last season. He averaged about 25 homers a season in the minors so if you expect him to hit 60 like his pace last year indicated then you will be horribly disappointed. As for the OPS over 1.000 – yeah, not so much. His career OPS in the minors is .799, which for a catcher who can throw is pretty great. Nobody doesn’t want a youngster like Sanchez in their organization, but his debut could seriously cost him in New York. Yes, some players show huge growth at some point in their career when something clicks for them, but it doesn’t often happen in their major league debut, and it doesn’t happen to the extent that Sanchez jumped. I really hope for his sake that the Yankees, and to a lesser extent their fans, don’t hold that bar up against his first full season in the majors or the rest of his career, because he will likely be quite good, but very few people are that good and I predict that to include Gary Sanchez. He has power, he can hit (although he strikes out a lot – even last season), and he can throw, so take that, be happy, and don’t punish him for not being Jimmie Foxx.
    As with any good youth movement, it doesn’t end with the guys who are up already, like Sanchez and Bird. The Yankees have some serious dudes pushing up from down under. Gleyber Torres, who at 20, finished last season in High-A and will likely start this season at double-A, is the Yanks top prospect and a top 10 prospect in all of baseball. Torres is a shortstop with obscene bat speed leading to solid power numbers for a youngster playing at such a high level, as well as a truckload of hyperbole from people who analyze minor league talent. He projects to be an average shortstop defensively and an offensive beast if you believe the analysts who project more based on his tools. He has succeeded at minor league levels consistently high for his youth, but reading between the lines of what analysts are saying he might not stick at shortstop as he gets bigger and less agile. If he continues to progress the way he has so far, his bat will play at third and if he manages to stick at short he could be one of the better offensive shortstops in baseball. But the distance from high-A to the majors is measured in pitfalls survived and there is a lot that could still go wrong.
    If Torres’ bat and power continue to develop, the Yankees might be happy to move him one spot to the left on the infield as they have two other shortstops in their top 10 (and a third baseman) plus a couple more shortstops in their top 15. Being flush with shortstops is a glorious thing because if they can hit, guys who can play shortstop can be moved to other positions like third base, second base, or the outfield and succeed. Jorge Mateo and Tyler Wade are very different players both moving through the minors at the shortstop position. So far, Mateo is one of the fastest players in the minors but still learning to tap into whatever power he will end up with (probably not much) and trying to get on base enough to make his speed matter. Defensively, he might end up a notch above Torres at shortstop but because of Torres, Mateo has also been tried at second base. That says more about Torres than Mateo, who should be able to stick at shortstop but needs to be flexible because of Torres’s considerable potential.
    Tyler Wade is being groomed as a multi-position guy. He lacks the tools of either Torres or Mateo, but has good speed, gets on base at a decent clip, and spent all of last season at double-A making him the guy most likely to see the majors first if the Yankees are being patient with Torres and the start of his service clock. He had a great spring training and was sent to the minors late. An injury to Didi Gregorius in spring training caused a lot of talk about Gleyber Torres starting the year in the Yankees lineup, but management squashed that nonsense and utility man Ronald Torreyes will play short until Gregorius is back, which shouldn’t take too long. That third baseman I mentioned is Miguel Andujar and he is another prospect with great tools. Andujar finished 2016 at double-A and just turned 22 so the fact that he succeeded in his first attempt at that level speaks to his talent. However, as Andujar didn’t dominate at double-A the Yankees sent him back to take another shot at the level. He looks like he could be a good defender with a canon arm at third and some thunder in his bat. The offense is based on his tools and some serious projection, but he could turn into an exciting player. He is a guy to keep an eye on in double-A this year.
    Yes, of course the Yankees have a lot of options as they should – I mean, they are the Yankees. Their options are starting to get young and exciting now and will get even younger and more exciting in the next year or two. Fear not Yankee fans – all that cheap young talent will allow the Yankees to throw bucketloads of money at a Bryce Harper or a Mike Trout before you know it.
   

The Reds infield is wisely built around Joey Votto. Are the other pieces of the infield worthy?

It’s Not Easy Being Red
by Jim Silva

    The descriptor “long suffering” has been attached to fans of many teams in varied sports. Cubs fans were certainly worthy of that epithet waiting almost 110 years between World Series victories. Cincinnati Reds fans certainly don’t deserve that label although it seems like they have been bad for a while. They last won a World Series in 1990, but before that their last appearance was in 1976 – 41 years ago. Two appearances in 41 years isn’t the worst, but it means you have to be pretty patient if you wear a hat with red “C” on it. They were arguably a dynasty in the ‘70s when they were the “Big Red Machine” and had Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Dave Concepcion, Joe Morgan, George Foster, and Tony Perez. The club made it to the World Series four times between 1970 and 1976 winning twice, so if you are a Reds fan my age (54), then you were trained to expect deep playoff runs almost every season. I know what that’s like because I am an A’s fan and they had similar success in the ‘70s. Simply put we are spoiled. Any run of more than say, five seasons without a trip to the playoffs at the very least, seems endless. I also grew up rooting for the Lakers and Raiders so you can see where my expectations came from. All three of my childhood teams won multiple championships during my formative years and were seemingly always in the mix. More recently though, all three teams have hit extended dry patches. The world has become a dark and disappointing place.
    What I’m getting at is that I understand why Reds fans would be a little on edge these days. Not only has their club missed the post-season for three seasons in a row, but they are still in the midst of a slow motion rebuild, so the playoffs seem like they might be at best a few seasons away – a virtual lifetime for those of us spoiled by success. But rebuilds are exciting in their own right, aren’t they? You know, watching athletic young players full of potential at the start of their careers – getting to see them bud into the core of your next dynasty. Cubs fans know what I’m talking about although there had to be some angst knowing that they might have been watching a rerun of many failed attempts at putting together a team that would finally redeem all that waiting. So is this a rebuild worthy of patient excitement or this just a tear down that ends with a weird house that you can’t sell because the kitchen has ugly formica countertops? Of the 10 players the Reds got in exchange for stars Todd Frazier, Johnny Cueto, and Aroldis Chapman, none of the youngsters are in the Reds top 10 prospects list and only three players appear to be major league regulars in 2017 – Brandon Finnegan, Jose Peraza and Scott Schebler – with none of the trio likely to be more than average major leaguers at their peak. That could mean that the Reds botched the trades or alternately that they have drafted so well that their top 10 is stacked with prospects so good that the other guys couldn’t break through the logjam. Let’s look at the infield first since their one remaining star around which the rebuild is happening resides there.
    When you sign a guy to a 10 year contract that pays him $225 million through his age 40 season, you develop expectations. Hopefully your expectations are based on something real instead of just hopes and dreams, otherwise you are going to be even more disappointed than you could be. Note that in almost every case you WILL be disappointed as the player enters the decline phase of his career while you are still paying him to be a superstar. Everyone declines at some point, and nobody is happy paying for a superstar when what you get is a decent player, or a replacement level player (or worse). It’s hard to predict how a player will age. So many factors can contribute to decline including injuries, general fitness, genetics, and probably a bunch of other factors that are impossible to account for. When Joey Votto is your superstar – the guy with the aforementioned contract – then what you want and what you can reasonably expect might just vary. From the outside it seems like madness when I hear all the complaints about Votto from Reds fans. What I hear most often is that he is too passive – he should walk less and drive in more runs. He doesn’t hit enough home runs for someone paid so much. He can’t fly or time travel. I hear you Reds fans. Your dude is not Superman, but is there a team who wouldn’t want him? Nope. He might not be the best first baseman in the majors – certainly not with the glove – but he is the best hitting first baseman in baseball. There are some great hitting first basemen, but nobody produces runs like Votto. Paul Goldschmidt, Anthony Rizzo, Adrian Gonzalez, and Freddie Freeman are the other guys at the top of the mountain of guys who play first base and Votto had a higher wRC+ (runs created per plate appearance that is league and park adjusted) last season than any of them. He also has a higher career wRC+ than those guys. How does Votto do it?
    Well, Votto has never won a home run title although he has hit 221 home runs in his career and smacked 310 doubles, so power is certainly part of his game (he led the league in slugging once in 2010 at .600) but not all of his game. He has also never won a batting title although his career average sits at .313 which is third for active players. But the reason Reds fans just don’t give Joey “Votto-matic” the love that he deserves is that the one stat he does lead the league in, and lead it often, is on-base percentage, the least sexy stat in baseball. He is the active leader in career OBP by almost 20 points – 20 POINTS! That is domination. Yes, it would be nice if he hit 50 home runs and drove in 140 every year, but Votto is a great hitter and a smart hitter on a team bereft of guys who get on base. So other than driving in ghosts and brownies, for Votto to drive in 100 runs he would have to lay for a better team – ouch. The Reds finished 12th out of 15 NL teams in on-base percentage and that’s with Votto finishing first in the National League at .434. So yeah – he would have to drive himself in which can only be done by hitting home runs – which he does. Could he score 120 runs? Yes, he could on a better team. Bat Votto third on the Red Sox and he scores a lot more runs. Bat him fourth and he drives in more than 100 runs and likely walks a lot less with more home runs because he would have someone batting behind him who would force the pitcher to throw him strikes. Finding someone to get on base in front of Votto and a couple guys to bat behind him so that pitchers can’t pitch around him as often as they do will make sure the Reds get better value out of the rest of Votto’s contract. Is there anyone in the infield who can be that guy?
    Jose Peraza made his Reds’ debut last season and opened some eyes. Peraza is only 22, but seems like he has been around for quite a while because he was playing professional ball as a 17 year old and has been traded twice already. When a youngster gets traded a lot before he even gets to the bigs you can take the glass half full or the glass half empty view – he is loved by many teams who trade for him or he wears out his welcome and gets traded away. Trying to remain glass-neutral, there are reasons to love Peraza and worry about Peraza at the same time. One of the main reasons to love him is his game-disrupting, pitcher-pants-wetting speed. In his first substantial exposure to the majors last season he stole 21 bases in 31 tries. 68% success is not going to be enough going forward, but Peraza is likely to improve as he learns pitcher pick-off moves. In the minors he has swiped 220 bags at an 80% success rate. Get him on base with Billy Hamilton, the Reds speedy centerfielder, and pitchers will probably just cry because someone’s base is going to get stolen and ain’t nobody’s momma gonna stop it!
Peraza can also hit, carrying a .299 career average in the minors. He has walked some, but not enough to be a top shelf leadoff guy. Ah, so that’s one reason to worry – if he doesn’t hit near .300 then his on-base percentage is unlikely to be good enough to be a starter. His minor league on-base percentage is .341 which is just a couple points under what he managed last year for the Reds big club. One concern is that his average rode on the back of an inflated BABIP (batting average on balls in play) which implies that he got lucky. It is hard to sustain a BABIP of .361 (Peraza’s mark last season), so he will likely have to add some walks to his game to maintain a sustainable on-base percentage. One number in his favor is the percentage of line drives that he hit. 27.5% of the balls off his bat last season were line drives where league average is usually around 20%. Line drives turn into hits a lot more often than any other type of ball, so that high BABIP might reflect his true ability. I won’t go too deeply into his defensive numbers yet because with such a small sample size where different metrics disagree on his ability, it is hard to say anything definitive about his ability. We can safely say that he is not currently a defensive star in the middle infield but he should be an adequate second baseman or even a passable shortstop in 2017. It will certainly be exciting for Reds fans to watch Pedraza get 500+ at-bats.
    Rebuilds are tricky and can be frustrating for fans to watch. One area of possible turmoil for the Reds in 2017 is their shortstop position. It is possible that the Reds will trade the incumbent, Zack Cozart, and move Peraza to shortstop because they have a one time top prospect in Dilson Herrera on the 40 man roster. Herrera was picked up from the Mets where he was blocked by Daniel Murphy and then fell into disfavor. One problem with top prospects is that if they don’t meet the club’s expectations they can be seen as failures instead of useful players who aren’t superstars, but we will come back to Herrera in a bit. Zack Cozart is a good shortstop with some power. Sounds good so far, right? Then you add that he has had multiple knee injuries including surgery, doesn’t walk – keeping his career on-base percentage under .300, and will play this season as a 31 year old, and maybe he doesn’t sound like the kind of guy you want to start for your rebuilding team. When you have young options to play the middle of the infield and you aren’t going to make the playoffs, it seems like you should cash in on Cozart’s good glove and 16 home runs last season, and start the young guys. There are always teams looking for a guy to play good shortstop who can catch up to the odd fastball who are willing to give you something for his services. In Cozart’s case the Reds probably can’t get much more than a flawed prospect or a prospect who has a long way to go to get to the majors. If that’s all they get and it clears the way for Herrera and Peraza to get regular playing time and prove definitively that they are or aren’t major league starters then that advances the Reds rebuild and that is a good thing.
    So about Dilson Herrera, he should get the nod to start at second if and only if Peraza gets moved to short after the Reds trade away Cozart. He profiles a bit like Peraza minus the blazing speed but with a bit more power. Herrera is a solid defender at second, but unlike Peraza can’t play shortstop. Herrera has had an excellent spring combining a high average, good plate discipline and doubles power. Yes, it is spring training with the requisite caveats about spring training stats, but Herrera has done exactly what he needed to do to convince the Reds that they should trade Cozart and hand young Dilson the keys to second base – you know, if second base had keys. That said, I would not be surprised to see Cozart start the season proving that he is healthy, although he seems to have done that in spring training. Whatever the Reds do, they need to provide playing time to their two young middle infielders starting now as neither has anything left to prove in the minors.
    The Reds actually have another shortstop in Eugenio Suarez, but he is their starting third baseman. Let me back up a step – Suarez has played shortstop in the past but he really isn’t a major league shortstop. The shift to third base was the right move, and at 25 Suarez might just turn into a solid defender although he isn’t there yet. Last season showed that he can do some things well, like hit the dang ball over the fence, which he did 21 times. That’s two seasons in a row with 21 long balls, so it appears his power is a real thing. Suarez traded some hits for walks making his first full season in the majors look more like his minor league career. Suarez has a career on-base percentage of .361 in the minors with a good number of walks and not a lot of strikeouts to go with it. So Suarez is a good contact hitter who will draw a decent number of walks and hit the ball hard. His average should fall somewhere between his .280 of 2015 and his .248 of 2016. He is only 25 so there might still be some growth in his game. If he hits 20 home runs, hangs onto his walks, and hits in the middle of his batting average numbers then he will be a contributor on offense. He is the closest thing (aside from Votto) to a sure thing manning an infield spot at Great American Ball Park.
    The youth movement for the Reds is here, although only one of their top minor league prospects is an infielder. Nick Senzel was taken with the second overall pick in last year’s draft and he is already ranked somewhere between the 15th and 30th best prospect in all of baseball. The 21 year old third baseman is a polished hitter with no glaring weakness who is likely to rocket through the minors and arrive in Cincy in two years or so if all goes well. He played most of 2016 at high A where he dominated, showing the ability to hit home runs, steal bases, hit for a high average and get on base. He did all this while managing the strike zone reasonably well. He also fielded his position well so Eugenio Suarez should be taking 100 fly balls a day in anticipation of Senzel ascending to the majors and becoming a star.
Cincinnati’s dearth of infield prospects is why it is important for them to see what they have in Peraza and Herrera. That said, don’t be surprised if the Red Stockings make more moves to add a young infielder before the trade deadline. Their infield picture is getting brighter based on players they have now who are clearly developing. Rebuilds aren’t pretty or neat. Teams can’t know how young players will ultimately develop, and major league players aren’t always easy to trade for their perceived value. The Reds have almost completely turned over their roster with a couple holdouts – the main one being Votto. But the Reds have enough quality youth on their infield to at least make this an interesting season for their fans. That might mean that they have to suck it up and get less than they want for Cozart, who  looked like he might turn into a star but ultimately didn’t. If the baseball Gods point at one of the Reds middle infielders and decide that the Reds should receive the top level performance of his projection then that would make up for the poor luck they’ve had with Cozart and it would do a lot to move the needle towards “success” in this latest rebuild of a franchise that is almost 150 years old.

The Cubs obscenely good infield returns, but can they be even better in 2017?

Infield Envy
by Jim Silva

    The Cubs infield glove men were simply amazing last season and for the most part they are back. When you think about the state of baseball these days, one thing that many old-time fans lament is the lack of stability on most teams – a casualty of free agency. No longer are players “enslaved” by their employers. They are free, after a certain period of control, to reach a mutually satisfying agreement with any team they choose. For the players, this was a development that had to happen, and it is a good thing for them – not so much for the fans, except that over time the average fan might get to cheer for many more players than in the past – and that is the “best sunshine blowing” that I can muster in this discussion.
So for Cubs fans, next season will be warm and cozy with the return of their infielders. If you just look at the WAR (wins above replacement) for the starters from 2016, they all accumulated between 3.4 and 7.7 WAR each (using the Baseball Reference version of WAR). I am using the four guys who are likely to start this year – Bryant, Russell, Baez, and Rizzo. This isn’t cherry picking because the guy I left out was Zobrist who put together a 3.8 WAR season playing more at second than anywhere else in his role as team pocketknife, where he played at least one inning at every non-catcher, non-pitcher position except third base and centerfield. Zobrist is likely to reprise his multitool role playing less at second unless Javier Baez struggles. Now this is one of those bits of info that makes Cubs fans insufferable – those four infield starters are all between 22 and 26 years of age. And that is what makes the Cubs such a frightening team – none of them are likely going anywhere for a while.
    Let’s look at the infield starting with the old guy in the group – 26 year old Anthony Rizzo. If you are a Cubbies fan you have to be happy that not only has Rizzo not peaked, but last season was a lot like the previous two seasons. There was a slight spike in doubles and a corresponding uptick in slugging percentage, but other than that (yawn) Rizzo pretty much did what a Rizzo does. He hits either 31 or 32 home runs, and gets on base between 38 and 39 percent of the time depending on how you feel about rounding. Based on WAR, Rizzo had a 2016 that was in the lower third of the pack for 26 year old first basemen who are in the Hall of Fame. I’m not saying he will make the Hall of Fame, but he is not yet 27 and has accumulated 21.7 WAR. He is certainly an elite first baseman with the glove having already put up 49 DRS (defensive runs saved) and 7.1 UZR/150 (a similar defensive measure) in his career. He is not yet an elite offensive first baseman in the historical sense when you look at guys like Gehrig, McCovey, Foxx, and many of the other first basemen in the Hall of Fame, but he is certainly in range. He has been unbelievably consistent with the bat for three seasons, and if that continues then he will be in the conversation. It will be interesting to see if there is any growth left in his bat. Can he hit 40 home runs instead of 32? Can he hit .310 instead of .285? These are really just questions, as there isn’t much to point to that would portend another jump from his current level, except maybe his increase in the number of hard hit balls off his bat each of the last two seasons from 31.6% to 34.3%. If he only maintains his current level of awesome, the Cubs will be ecstatic.
    At the opposite corner we have supermodel/wonder boy Kris Bryant, who just turned 25. Like Rizzo, Bryant is likely to have people talking about the Hall of Fame before his career is over – I mean, other than what I did just there. Bryant just finished his second season in the majors and already has accumulated 13.6 WAR. If you look at Hall of Fame third basemen – and there are only 16 of them – then Bryant is in Wade Boggs, George Brett, Eddie Mathews territory for age 23/24 seasons or their first two full seasons – whichever was better for the HOF guys. Again, two seasons does not a Hall of Fame career make, but that’s the beauty of projecting. Bryant is already one of the best third basemen in baseball, if not in the history of baseball. Like Rizzo, Bryant isn’t just doing it with the bat as the 6’5” (that’s pretty tall for an infielder not playing first base) just put together a 4 DRS/7.7 UZR/150 season. He makes a lot of plays out of his zone – an indication of his tremendous range and has also looked good in the outfield. It’s hard to know what Bryant’s ceiling is since we only have two major league seasons to look at so far and he improved in so many ways from his first excellent campaign to his second MVP season. He decreased his strikeout rate (by a lot – more than 8 percent), increased his isolated power rate (almost 50 points), and increased his percentage of hard hit balls. It probably isn’t his peak, but even if it is, he is one of the best players in all of baseball right now.
    The middle of the Cubs infield doesn’t quite leave that Hall of Fame taste in your mouth just yet, but Addison Russell and Javier Baez just turned 23 and 24 respectively and almost everyone expects more out of their bats. Baez hasn’t even been a starter for a full season yet, while Russell just completed his second season as a starter, but both men have yet to become average contributors with bats in their hands but are already tremendous defenders. By average contributors I mean neither man has produced a season with a wRC+ of 100 yet (95 for Russell in 2016, and 94 for Baez) – that would be the mark of an average major leaguer after adjusting to the park and the league. That doesn’t mean both guys are doing everything wrong when they step into the batter’s box. Let’s start with Russell.
    Addison Russell came to the Cubs in a trade with the A’s in 2014. He was regarded as the A’s top prospect because of his youth, his glove, and his offensive potential/athleticism. He now has two full seasons in the majors and is already an elite defender at shortstop, as I’ve already mentioned, and an improving hitter. Here are three numbers that indicate growth from Russell and one number that indicates better numbers in 2017 whether he grows or not. Two pretty straightforward numbers indicate that he is gaining control of the strike zone – his walk percentage which increased from 8.0% to 9.2%, and his strikeout percentage which decreased from 28.5% to 22.6% – that’s a huge change. His ISO (isolated power which attempts to isolate how much of his batting average was due to extra base hits) jumped from .147 to .179. So he controlled the strike zone better and hit the ball harder in 2016 than he had in 2015. That’s good, right? And he did it while being moderately unlucky on balls he put in play. His BABIP (batting average on balls in play) was only .277, the lowest full season mark of his career by more than 25 points. So even if Russell does what he did last season, the Gods of statistical probability are likely to smile on him and give him back 20 or so points of batting average. That would likely get him over the 100 wRC+ mark. Add that to his great defensive and you have a 4.0 WAR shortstop and that is a star-quality asset.
    Baez’s issues were different from those of Russell. His first shot at full time play – the 2014 season – had him overmatched in the field and at the plate. He was only 21 but the Cubs gave him a solid shot with 229 plate appearances and he was a hot mess. When you strike out 41.5% of the time there is no way you can do anything else to compensate for that level of futility at the plate, and Baez didn’t. It wasn’t like the signs saying he wasn’t ready yet weren’t there in the minors, but after giving Baez a real shot to adjust at the major league level, the Cubs sent him back down to learn how not to fan at historic levels, hoping that he would still hit the ball hard. Baez was one of those super hot prospects who failed and was almost forgotten. But the Cubs appear to have a good organizational memory and they worked with Baez who came back up at the tail end of 2015 with a new approach. He cut his strikeout rate substantially during his cup of coffee stay in Chicago, so the Cubs were looking for even more out of him in 2016. Chicago hedged their bets with the acquisition of Ben Zobrist who made them more versatile but also gave them a safety net in case Baez returned to his empty swinging ways. Baez more than rewarded the Cubs faith in his potential becoming one of the best defensive second basemen in the game while hanging onto the strike zone gains from 2015, only fanning 24.0% of the time. The power and speed are still there and when you have a season with a .344 ISO in the minors in your background, people are going to be looking for that breakout 30 homer season. Numbers are useful, and if you’ve read more than one of my posts you will know that I have a bit of a crush on statistics, but to really appreciate Javier Baez you only had to watch all the things he did in the playoffs. He plays the game uniquely and creatively, doing things that few if any other players do in combination. If he doesn’t turn into a star I will cry because there is no player in baseball who is more fun to watch than the Cubs starting second baseman for 2017 (and hopefully for years to come).
    When you have a team this good, it doesn’t seem fair to have young top prospects hovering in the minors, but that’s what the Cubs had before they made some in-season moves to solidify their post-season roster. They ended up trading away their top prospect, shortstop Gleyber Torres, to the Yankees to get Aroldis Chapman. There is still Ian Happ who plays second base and can hit some. Does he hit enough to justify carrying his mediocre glove? Hard to say. If he sticks at second and improves enough to be average there then yes, his bat is good enough to be a major league regular, but probably not a star. If he is forced to move to the outfield – and the Cubs have tried him there in the minors –  then he probably turns into a 4th outfielder, unless his power picks up substantially. Beyond Happ, the system is thin on infield guys who are close, but has some youngsters who are several years away. Really though, if you are a Cubs fan it would be a bit ugly of you to whine about the lack of infield help in the high minors. I mean, come on, 2016 was amazing and flags fly forever – especially the World Champion variety!

Was signing Ian Desmond the right way for the Rockies to spend their money?

To Whom Should the Rockies Hand Their Money?
by Jim Silva

    70 million dollars is a large sum of money to spend on gum, or tape, or paper cranes, or lima beans, but it is not a large sum of money to spend for five years of service from a bona fide baseball star. The Rockies spent $70 million this offseason to improve their infield and their lineup. They signed Ian Desmond, a shortstop, and more recently a center-fielder to play first base, in theory plugging the only hole in their infield. Yes, that part is a bit confusing. Why did they sign someone to play first base who has never played a professional inning – not in the majors and not in the minors – at first base? Also, why did they pay so much money to improve at first base? I mean, didn’t they already have a first baseman? They short answer is, “Yes” and the long answer is, “kinda”. Mark Reynolds, the guy who got the lion’s share of the time at first, was almost exactly league average – maybe a touch below. Another question you should be asking is, “Why did they sign Ian Desmond when the market was glutted with big, strong first basemen types?” Ah, that’s a good place to start, so let’s!
    Here is a short list of free agent first basemen who were free agents this offseason. I’ve included a few numbers to go with their names and ages. I included Desmond even though he isn’t yet a first baseman. It isn’t an exhaustive list – I cherry-picked a bit – but it is still pretty long. Several of these guys still haven’t signed.

Name/Age
wRC+ 2016/career
First base (DRS/UZR per 150 for 2016) & (DRS/UZR per 150 for career)
(Slash Line for 2016) & (Slash Line for career)
Ian Desmond/31
106/101
Never played
(.285/.335/.446) &
(.267/.316/.427)
Edwin Encarnacion/34
134/126
(0/3.5) & (-17/-6.0)
(.263/.357/.529) &
(.266/.352/.498)
Mark Trumbo/31
123/111
(0/1.3) & (12/6.3)
(.256/.316/.533) &
(.251/.303/.473)
Steve Pearce/33
136/111
(2/5.2) & (12/8.8)
(.288/.374/.492) &
(.254/.333/.441)
Sean Rodriguez/31
129/92
(1/-22.4) & (4/5.1)
(.279/.349/.510) &
(.234/.303/.390)
Brandon Moss/33
105/110
(-3/-10.1) & (-22/-9.3)
(.225/.300/.484) &
(.241/.319/.455)
Jose Bautista/36
122/132
(0/0) almost no data & (-2/-8.3)
(.234/.366/.452) &
(.255/.368/.493)
Mike Napoli/35
113/123
(-4/-6.1) & (15/3.3)
(.239/.335/.465) &
(.252/.352/.480)
Kendrys Morales/33
110/114
(0/10.9) & (11/6.2)
(.263/.327/.468) &
(.273/.331/.465)
Matt Holliday/37
109/137
(1/10.5) & (1/10.5) small sample size
(.246/.322/.461) &
(.303/.382/.515)
Chris Carter/30
112/112
(-5/-5.7) & (-19/-7.1)
(.222/.321/.499) &
(.218/.314/.463)

    Glancing at the numbers above, the weakest producers offensively based on career numbers are Desmond and Sean Rodriguez. I am basing that on wRC+ which is runs created above average where 100 is dead average and each point represents a 1% increase on the field after adjusting for park and league, and OPS combining on-base percentage and slugging percentage. If you look at last season only, then we are probably looking at Moss and Desmond – maybe Holliday too. If you base your judgement on defense then there is really no data on Desmond. If you look at his numbers in left field and shortstop it is a mixed bag, although he is probably not worse than mediocre nor better than average. Moving to a new position if he works hard he could probably reach average, but it would be foolish to count on more than that. Of the guys who have put in real time at first, Moss and Encarnacion are probably the worst of the group.  If you want to factor age into it, then Desmond is one of the youngest and Holliday and Bautista are the old guys. Basically you pick your poison, but what poison did the Rockies pick?
    What to make of all of this? Well, they signed the guy with the third highest batting career average who is probably the most athletic of the group and one of the youngest who is likely to age the best. He is also arguably the most durable – since 2010 when he became a starter he has played fewer than 150 games only once. Perhaps they were signing someone who could play multiple positions in case they made a late signing of one of the other guys on the list above who was pretty limited to first base. Other than that I am unclear as to why they would commit $70 million over five years to a guy who is perceived to be better than league average, but is in reality pretty much league average. I hear he is a great guy and who doesn’t love a player who works hard, but for $70 million one must wonder if they could have locked down one of the other guys on the list like Bautista, who signed for 1 year and $18 million, or Encarnacion, who signed for 3 years and $60 million (plus a 1 year option). They could have also gone the cheaper route and inked Trumbo, who signed for 3 years at $37.5 million, Carter who signed for 1 year and $3 million, or Pearce who signed for 2 years and $12.5 million. All those mentioned above have better offensive numbers and have played first base with varying degrees of success. Some of them are good defenders at first and some are monster power hitters, but again, all of them are better run producers than Desmond over the course of their careers and based just on last season. I guess in summation I have to say, oops. Desmond will be fine, but they could have spent their money better, hoped to solve first base internally in a year or two (Nevin, McMahon, or Welker are solid prospects who have or likely will play first) or just waited instead of jumping so early on Desmond in a market flooded with first base dudes. But the rest of the infield is really interesting.
    Moving to the other corner, third base, we have the legitimate superstar of the Rockies, Nolan Arenado. It is challenging to discuss the 25 year old without resorting to strings of superlatives about his defense and his production at the plate. Last season was his best with the bat as he created 124 wRC+, hit the ball harder more often (37.9% of the time), nearly doubled his walk rate (to 9.8%) while decreasing his strikeout rate from the previous season and still crushing 41 home runs. Jeez! He slashed .294/.362/.570 while staying close to career BABIP numbers indicating that this is just what he is now as opposed to this being  fluke season. With the glove, his 20 DRS/5.3 UZR per 150 innings played is consistent with his career numbers and he won his fourth consecutive Gold Glove. Yes, his fourth and he is only 25. It is easy to think of him as being older than he is because he has been so good since he came up. If you are into WAR (Good God, y’all!) here are his numbers for each of his four seasons in the majors in chronological order: 3.8, 4.1, 5.8, 6.5. Yes, it has gone up each year and may very well continue that trend if he holds onto his growth in plate discipline and stays healthy. He is simply the best at his position at a time when some of the best players in baseball play third base. One of the reasons that the Rockies need to try to win in the next two years is because Arenado can become a free agent in 2020 and he will be courted hard by any team with money. If he leaves it will be a devastating blow to Colorado. But the Rockies have a chance to win now and they need to capitalize on that short window, because Arenado will likely be too expensive by 2020 for all but the teams with the biggest pocket books – the Red Sox, Dodgers, Yankees, and Giants, Tigers, and Cubs and maybe a couple of other teams who will build around Nolan.
    Second base is usually the place for failed shortstops who can hit some. The Rockies starting second baseman DJ LeMahieu was in fact a shortstop as a freshman in college before moving to second base and played more shortstop than second base is his first year as a pro before reversing the trend from there on out. DJ is 28 and has been the starter at second for four seasons, since coming over from the Cubs in the Ian Stewart trade. In 2015, LeMahieu showed some growth in his ability to hit for average finishing the season hitting .301 and making the All Star team. In 2014 LeMahieu won a Gold Glove for his play at second posting a DRS of 16 and a UZR per 150 innings of 11.0. It was his second excellent defensive year in a row and he was recognized for his work. Still, DJ had never posted a wRC+ of 100 as a big leaguer so it wouldn’t have taken much to dethrone him and turn him into a utility infielder – after all he has played short, and third, as well as second, so he was well qualified to handle the bench job. Well, 2016 changed all of that possibly for good. The 6’4 second baseman hit .348 to win the batting title, contributed 128 wRC+ and posted his first season with a WAR over 2.0 as his overall game was worth 4.9 WAR.
    A lot changed in LeMahieu’s game in 2016. Since 2013, his walk rate has jumped 1.7%, then 2.0%, and finally last season another 2.3% to put him at a walk rate of 10.4%. That combined with his batting average jump gave him an on-base percentage of .416 making him an elite leadoff man. One caveat – LeMahieu is not a great base stealer although that kind of depends on what season you are viewing. Last season he went 11 for 18 so his career rate is now about 68%. If the decline is real, he is now at the point where he should just stay put. He is at best an average base runner so if you think all leadoff men need to run like Rickey Henderson then you will be sorely disappointed by Mr. LeMahieu. But the rest of DJ’s offensive game is pretty glorious. He sprays the ball all over the field and last year hit the ball hard – really hard – with a hard hit ball percentage of 35.2%. Without looking at launch angles I can’t say why more balls don’t leave the yard, but when he hits the ball that hard to all fields and only hits 11 out of the park, but tags 32 doubles and 8 triples, one can infer that he hits the ball on a line without a ton of loft. It was a huge year for him and obviously analysts wonder if he can do it again at 28. The peripherals – his yearly increase in walk rate, his increase in hard hit balls, his growth toward using all fields – point to this being the new DJ LeMahieu. I would be shocked to see him increase his output, although he could probably trade some batting average for another 10 homers or so if he wanted, but the Rockies would probably prefer to have DJ be DJ. He isn’t flashing the leather like he used to – the last two seasons have seen numbers that make him look like a league average guy instead of a Gold Glover – but his offense, combined with his solid D, make him a low level star nonetheless. He is the slightly less flashy half of the double play combination and that is just fine.
    The other half of the double play combo was Troy Tulowitzki for many years. He was the star of the team even though he was often injured. Last season was the Rockies first full season without Tulo and it was looking like they would be stuck with Jose Reyes and his considerable baggage (and bloated contract) until Reyes impugned the Rockies organizational worth, and then became embroiled in a domestic abuse scandal resulting in a suspension. This opened the door for, well, anybody but Reyes. The Rockies had a handful of interesting young shortstop types in the minors and one was about ready for a major league trial. Trevor Story won the job and put on a power show that cemented him into the starter’s job before the first month of the season was over. The Rockies wisely ate Reyes’ contract and cut him so as not to undermine Story’s confidence. Story was having a (don’t worry – I wasn’t going to say a “Storybook season”) stupendous rookie year and had pretty much locked down the Rookie of The Year Award, when he injured his thumb, requiring surgery and ending his season after 97 games and 415 plate appearances. Story had always shown solid power in the minors, but had shown a pattern of needing two seasons to master each level. Apparently Trevor forgot about that pattern, because he had 10 home runs by the end of March and 21 by the halfway mark in the season. He had slowed down a bit by the end of the second half with his average dropping to .260, but then Story apparently made some kind of change in approach (or just got some rest) during the All Star break and hit .340/.417/.698 in 15 post All Star games before his injury. If he is something between his first half and that second half surge, then he is a perennial All Star at shortstop in the National League. A rookie who puts up 120 wRC+ and plays shortstop is gold. The read on Story’s glove is that he isn’t flashy or particularly wide-ranging, but he makes plays on balls he gets to. His DRS of 4 and UZR/150 innings played of -4.5 support that claim with his range factor hurting his UZR rating. Story only made 10 errors for a fielding percentage of .977. The Rockies are used to having a great fielding shortstop, but having a solid shortstop who can rake, next to a great fielding third baseman is going to have to do until Brendan Rodgers – their top prospect who happens to be a shortstop –  advances, and forces the Rockies to make a decision. The future might have Rodgers at short and Story at third where his glove, arm and lack of range look better.
    Brendan Rodgers isn’t just the Rockies top prospect. Keith Law ranked him as the 19th best prospect in all of baseball for the 2017 season. The 20 year old third overall pick from the 2015 draft will start the season in High A after completing his first full season of professional baseball last year. Rodgers showed that he can hit, although some analysts disagree on what his home/road splits (.973 OPS at home and .682 on the road) say about what his numbers really mean. Rodgers managed 50 extra base hits including 19 home runs in 442 at bats. There was a decent amount of swing and miss to his game as he struck out 98 times, but he walked 35 times to mitigate his fanning ways. As a 19 year old playing full season ball for the first time, it means something when you put together a .281/.342/.480 slash line while playing most of your games at shortstop. He still has work to do, so don’t expect to see him in Coors Field anytime soon – his .923 and .933 fielding percentages at short the last two years mean that his glove is not ready even if you think his bat is close. This will be a big season for him as he moves up a level. If he maintains his power and continues to improve with the glove at shortstop, the Rockies can start to get excited about another potential star on the infield playing in the thin air of Denver.
    Even when you take into account the ballpark, the Rockies had an infield full of run producers and some legit stars. Arenado is one of the best players in baseball, period. Their weak spot if you can call it that is at first where Ian Desmond will likely be at least league average. The rest of the infield is set for as long as they can afford them and they will be fun to watch as they blister the ball all over the field and handle their glove work between spectacularly and adequately. One scary thought, if the Rockies get off to a bad start, look for them to trade their superstar Arenado for maybe the best haul of young talent in the last decade and not miss a beat as their young studs start to mature and push the Rockies toward a future in the postseason. Rockies fans, send Nolan your love while you have him!

The Rays Outfield Gets Rangier!

Adventures In Exploiting Market Inefficiencies In Tampa’s Outfield
by Jim Silva

    The Tampa Bay Rays have been the definition of a small market team since they got their start in 1998 as the Devil Rays. They have a reputation similar to the A’s as being clever in how they use their resources and have managed to win the rich and powerful AL East twice (2008 and 2010), and caught a wild card spot twice (2011 and 2013). They made it all the way to the World Series in 2008 but lost in five games to the Phillies. The 2008 team did it with speed, a healthy young starting rotation, an excellent and fairly deep pen, solid defense, and some pop – the team finished 4th in the league in home runs. They were young and still cheap. Evan Longoria was only 22. It would obviously be a window that would close quickly, but for a while they looked like a surprising team to beat.
Lately though, they have struggled. In 2016 they finished last in the AL East losing 94 games and they didn’t appear to be moving in a particularly positive direction. They are still on the young side, but they no longer do a good job of getting on base, and although they finished fourth in the AL in home runs, they finished next to last in runs scored. Their pitching is still desired by other teams, but last season saw some of their young staff struggle for portions of the campaign, although they were still a good starting staff if not a great one. Then the Rays traded Drew Smyly, one of their starters, for Mallex Smith, adding a speedy outfielder to the crowded outfield scene. And now they have traded their starting second baseman to the Dodgers for a great young arm in Jose DeLeon. So what are the Rays doing exactly? I think I have a clue about their outfield so let’s take a look at the fairly large crew of players projected to start the season in Florida.
    Any discussion of the Rays outfield has to start with their centerfielder – glove man supreme – Kevin Kiermaier. Few in baseball have gotten more love for their glove work than the speedy Kiermaier. Even though he spent time on the disabled list, the 31st round draft pick from 2010 still managed a 25 DRS (defensive runs saved) and 24.2 UZR per 150 innings (a similar defensive metric to DRS, but prorated per 150 innings) season. Both defensive metrics measure a player’s ability to save runs beyond the average player at his position, and Kiermaier has lived near the top of the leader board in both categories since he became a starter. He has the range, the arm, and the fearlessness that define a superior centerfielder. What he hasn’t had that would make him a star, is the bat. Last season saw some moves in the right direction, but at 26 he is approaching the point where we will have to accept that he is what he is. And what he was last season was an elite level centerfielder who doesn’t hit for high enough average (or walk quite enough to make up for it) to be a leadoff hitter even though he is a high percentage base-stealer (87.5% last season). His on-base percentage was .331 in spite of his .246 batting average because his walk rate increased to almost 10% – his career rate is 6.6%. He is also an excellent baserunner, both as a high percentage base thief (23 of 26 last season) and just running the bases where he was 2.9 runs better than average. It could be argued that a lot of his offensive value comes from his base runnings skills. If you are a WAR guy (wins above what would be created by a replacement level player), Kiermaier is almost a 3.0 Offensive WAR guy with back to back seasons of 2.7 and 2.8. His overall WAR for the last three seasons – his first three as at least a semi-regular – has been 3.6, 7.3, and 5.5 – over 7.0 is near MVP level and over 5.0 is All Star level. Granted a lot of his value is in his defense and as he ages, that will likely decline. Still, right now, there are few players you would rather have playing centerfield for your club.
    The right fielder for right now is Steven Souza Jr., who if he makes it should be the poster boy for Portuguese ballplayers, and should get a nickname like “The Portuguese Man of War” because dude is a physical specimen at 6’4 and 225 pounds. Souza is fast and powerful and that’s what the Rays wanted when they got him in a crazy three team trade from the Nationals (the trade where the Nats ended up with Trea Turner AND Joe Ross – wow!). If Souza turns out to be as good as he looks then the Rays won’t fret what they gave up in the trade (four players, including Ryan Hannigan and Wil Myers), but so far Souza has two similar seasons of “meh” in a Rays uni. His last two seasons, he has put up wRC+ scores of 102 and 94 respectively where 100 is average runs created after park and league adjustments. In other words he was 2% above average and 6% below average in his first two campaigns with the Rays. Factor in his defensive metrics – a DRS/UZR per 150 of -4/-2.4 in 2015 and an improved 2 and 6.3 in 2016 – and you get an athlete with unfulfilled potential who is 27. He has yet to do better than a 1.0 WAR so he hasn’t shown himself as even an average starter, much less the star the Rays thought they were getting when they traded for him. At 27, projecting a breakout would probably fall into the category of wishful thinking. He certainly improved afield last season, but looking at his swing patterns, it doesn’t look like he did anything that would portend an imminent breakout with the bat. Souza actually swung at more pitches last year – 49.8% driving his career rate to 47.9% – than he had in the past including more pitches outside the strike zone – 68.7% last year pulling his career rate up to 67.5% and missing more often, making contact with 68.6% of the pitches he offered at, dragging his contact rate down to 69.3%. So he is swinging more and making less contact. His walk rate also dropped to 6.6%, with a career rate of 8.7%. This is not meant to pile on Mr. Souza – in fact Souza tried to play through a hip injury before going under the knife for a tear in his labrum. So here is hoping for Souza to have a healthy year and to break out, because teams like the Rays can’t afford to miss too often.
    Left field might go to Colby Rasmus, unless it doesn’t. The Rays signed Rasmus on the cheap after he had a poor season that was probably at least partly due to a slew of injuries – he had surgery for one of them this off-season. Rasmus is, at his best, a power-hitting rangy centerfielder type who walks some, but strikes out enough to suppress his batting average. Last season Rasmus played incredible defense in left and center (career high DRS/UZR per 150 of 20 and 31.0 respectively), but his slugging was well below his career average and it looks like there was some bad luck too as his BABIP (batting average on balls in play) dipped to a career low .257. After three seasons in a row with wRC+ numbers above 100, the 30 year old outfielder only created runs at a 75 level – well below average. Teams like the Rays and the A’s have to gamble on guys like Rasmus because they don’t have the money to spend on sure bets. As gambles go this might be a good one. Rasmus is the kind of guy – assuming he turns it around –  they could easily flip at the trade deadline for a solid if not spectacular prospect. In the meantime he will get playing time in left and possibly center spelling Kiermaier.
    If Souza and Rasmus don’t win the starting jobs, the Rays have two more players who could steal playing time and even the starting jobs in Mallex Smith and last year’s trade acquisition, Corey Dickerson. Dickerson mostly played left in 2016 and did an ok job in the field posting a DRS of 2 and a UZR/150 innings of 14.6. Those are by far Dickerson’s best defensive numbers, so it is unclear whether or not they represent actual growth or a one off. Dickerson is a hitter first and foremost, and last year was less than what the Rays were hoping for with the bat possibly costing Dickerson the starting outfield job he held last season. Dickerson hit the ball hard – 24 home runs, 36 doubles, and an ISO (slugging – average intended to show how much of his hits are for extra bases) of .224 in line with his career numbers – but hit only .245 which was 34 points below his career average. Since Dickerson doesn’t walk much (6.5 % walk rate) his on-base percentage is reliant on his batting average which means in 2016 he made a lot of outs. His on-base percentage of .293 was more than 30 points below his career rate, but it might be the new normal because he went from the best hitting park in baseball to one of the worst. It remains to be seen if Dickerson can be more than a league average run producer (101 wRC+ in 2016) and more than an overall slightly below starter level outfielder 1.5 WAR. Right now Dickerson looks like last week’s news because Mallex Smith could be in one of the corner spots. It could mean that Dickerson is the primary designated hitter. If that happens, his seemingly improved glove would matter less and his subpar baserunning would matter more, so his average and walk rates would have to improve for him to be worth keeping around as more than a pinch hitter.
    Unlike Corey Dickerson, who stole zero bases in 2016, Mallex Smith has elite speed and almost no power with an ISO of around .100 every season in the minors. So far in the majors, he uses his speed better in the field than on the bases, but if he can adjust and look like he did in the minors he has the potential to lead the league in steals. In the minors, Mr. Smith got on base a touch over 38% of the time, and hit safely close to 30% of the time making him an ideal leadoff hitter – especially when combined with his blazing speed. He stole 230 bases at a 79% clip in the minors, but went only 16 for 24 in his debut in the majors last season. The Rays would hugely benefit from a guy who could get on base at the top of the lineup, and he would fit with Kiermaier, Rasmus, and Souza to cover a ton of ground in the field. An outfield of Smith, Kiermaier, and Souza, with Rasmus as the 4th outfielder giving guys breathers, would rival the Mariners new crew for best defensive outfield in the league.
    Elite speed and defense in the outfield is apparently the new way to build an outfield on the cheap. All the cool kids are doing it – ok, so the Mariners are doing it, but if the M’s and the Rays experience success with this strategy don’t be surprised if others try to capitalize on this apparent inefficiency in the market. For a team in a pitchers park that relies on deep starting pitching, it is a strategy that makes a lot of sense. Unless Mallex Smith comes into spring training and underwhelms everyone, they should go all in on the strategy and keep Dickerson in the DH spot right from the start. Rasmus makes an excellent fourth outfielder who can also come off the bench to hit and stay in any of the outfield spots. He would make it hard on opposing managers to get too cute with their pitching changes when facing the Rays starting outfielders in close games. When Rasmus gets starts, Dickerson can pinch-hit unless he is the DH, and the Rays wouldn’t lose much bringing one of their glove men in to catch flying things for Dickerson. When you can put together an elite defensive outfield and you aren’t looking to contend, it seems like you should. If it works and you are better than expected, you can bring in offense at other positions or go get more pitching. The Rays need to do something different after an awful 2016 and they have the pieces, so go bold Rays!

Mashers or glove men? How would you populate your outfield if you were the Mariners?

You won’t hear a pin drop in the M’s outfield because no pins WILL drop!
by Jim Silva

    Are you one of those people who gets excited about outfield defense? While it doesn’t sound particularly romantic when your outfield doesn’t combine for 90 home runs but instead accumulates 40 DRS (defensive runs saved), the Mariners might just pull off that kind of defense in 2017 after remaking their outfield to more of a RomCom outfield than an Action/Adventure type outfield. Their general manager, Jerry DiPoto made two moves this season designed to give a facelift to the outfield, trading away some offense in the process.
    Why did DiPoto decide he needed to change the makeup of his outfield for 2017? Well, for one reason, run prevention, particularly in the outfield, is still cheaper than run production with Jason Heyward being the notable exception. Ok, so let’s say you assemble a great defensive outfield, then what else should you consider to maximize their impact? It seems to me that picking up flyball pitchers would be a good move, especially after you trade your 23 year old potentially slick-fielding shortstop for a shortstop who had an excellent offensive year, but at best is a neutral defensive year and at worst a below average defensive year. What were the last couple moves the Mariners made? They traded a good hitting outfielder who is at best a marginal outfielder – last season he was a poor outfielder – for  Yovani Gallardo, a flyball pitcher, to add to their rotation depth. Then they made a multi-team deal to get Drew Smiley – another flyball pitcher, from the Rays. So if you want to change more than one aspect of your club you can improve your pitching without moving a single pitcher by improving your outfield defense. But this article is about the Mariners’ outfield, not their pitching staff, so back to the fly-catchers!
    The lone outfield starter who is coming back for 2017 is Leonys Martin. From 2013 through 2015, he averaged 15 DRS and never fell below 14 while putting up a UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating – similar to DRS with runs saved above average by defensive play) between 8.5 and 11.3 in the same time frame, all while playing mostly centerfield. Last season the numbers disagreed with a -2 DRS and a UZR of 3.6 although both numbers show that Martin didn’t have as amazing a year with the glove as he was used to having. Obviously one year does not a trend make, and Martin is widely considered an excellent defender. Last season he showed a bit more pop, blasting 15 home runs – the most of his short major league career – but still ended up with a wRC+ of 88 where 100 runs created is average. He doesn’t get on base enough for the homers to matter that much. Martin has yet to have a wRC+ of 100 or more in the majors and he really isn’t trending that way. He strikes out about a quarter of the time and only walks about 7% of the time so unless he hits 30 home runs, he won’t help the offense. However, if his defensive numbers come back to where they have been the three previous seasons then he will be a positive asset for the Mariners.
    Most likely to Martin’s left, will be newly acquired Jarrod Dyson late of the Kansas City Royals. Dyson mainly played centerfield for the Royals and the Mariners might decide to play him there and push Martin to left because Dyson has put up double figure DRS numbers each of the last three seasons and averaged just over 14 UZR in the same time span. Last season was his best according to DRS (19) and second best according to UZR (16.7) but both numbers have consistently agreed that he can flat out pick it no matter where you put him in the outfield. Dyson is all about speed on defense and on offense stealing 30 bases in 37 attempts last season, so he covers a lot of ground and makes things interesting for opposing pitchers and catchers when he gets on base. About that getting on base thing – like Martin, so far Dyson has been a slight offensive liability at bat with wRC+ numbers consistently in the 80s and 90s. Dyson doesn’t strike out like Martin but fails to draw walks just like Martin. Unlike Martin, Dyson has no power with seven home runs in 1539 career major league at-bats. Both men are there for their elite level gloves, but Dyson needs to get on base and play elite defense if the Mariners are going to benefit from his presence. But there is one other guy who is different from his two outfield brethren.
    The Mariners acquired Mitch Haniger in the Segura trade, and analysts are pretty excited at what he might become given regular playing time. Haniger is a late bloomer who pretty much destroyed double-A and triple-A pitching in 2015 and 2016. He hit for average, drew walks, didn’t strike out excessively, and hit for power – 36 doubles, 30 home runs, 81 walks, and 126 strikeouts in 671 plate appearances through three levels last season. He struggled with the bat, but still managed a .713 OPS in his final stop with the big club. He suffered from a poor BABIP (average on balls in play) which often indicates poor luck. He hit the ball hard 37.3% of the time and managed medium contact 45.8% when he hit the ball which means he made weak contact only 16.9% of the time. Also of note was that Haniger maintained good plate discipline in the majors with a swing rate slightly below league average, a contact rate that was almost exactly league average, and a contact rate on balls in the strike zone that was above league average. In summary, Haniger should hit enough in the majors to be a starter in a corner outfield spot. In fact he could hit enough to bat in the middle of the order as soon as next year, which would mean the Mariners offense just got a serious upgrade by adding Haniger and Segura (over Marte) in one move.
    But wait, there’s more! Haniger torched the highest two levels of the minors while playing good centerfield defense, and then continued to play well in center once he reached the majors. Next season he will be tasked with playing a corner outfield spot, where his defensive abilities should actually play up. Last season, in his brief time in Arizona, the former first round pick accumulated 1 DRS and 5.5 UZR while playing all three outfield spots (but mostly centerfield). It would be folly to try to extrapolate those numbers to a full season, but don’t be surprised if Haniger posts 10 DRS and UZR next season when he has less ground to cover. If he can do that while posting wRC+ above 100, which he has done every season of his professional career, then he will be the best of the three flycatchers on the Mariners and a regular, if not a potential star. Get your “Haniger’s Heros” t-shirts soon before they sell out!
    Whether or not you are drinking the Mitch Haniger Kool-Aid, the Mariners outfield will be really fun to watch. Seattle will miss the bats of Nori Aoki and Seth Smith, but most definitely not their gloves. The M’s rotation is now made up predominantly of fly-ball pitchers who should all benefit greatly from the outfield makeover. Don’t be surprised if the Mariners pitching coach gets a lot of love this season as his staff puts up improved numbers from 2016. It will be interesting if the Mariners manager Scott Servais stays the course as his offense slows a bit, but his defense shines. If Haniger gets off to a slow start, that would truly test the manager’s patience and the power of GM Jerry DiPoto to direct his manager’s lineup decisions. The Seattle club believe they can get to the playoffs this season and they are putting their chips on defense. As one of those guys who loves to see the D, I hope it works.
   

What’s new for the Washington Nationals outfield in 2017?

Shoot, Luke, Or Give Your Dad The Gun (trade Harper now or watch him walk in exchange for a draft pick)
by Jim Silva

    Washington D.C. has a lot of attractions that all Americans should take time to see; it’s a patriotic bucket list kind of place. For baseball fans trying to see games at every major league park – they’ve got one of those too. In fact, the capitol city has had a major league club off and on since 1901 when the American League Senators began playing in what was known as American League Park 1 – I know, really creative name, eh? This team is the only D.C. team to win a World Series (1924), but they moved to Minnesota for the 1961 season. The next Senators started in 1961 immediately after the original Senators left, and lasted through the 1971 season when they moved again – this time to Texas – to become the Rangers. That team never came close to winning anything meaningful while they were in D.C.. The latest iteration of teams in our capitol is the Washington Nationals who are the reincarnated Montreal Expos, who themselves were an expansion team brought to life for the 1969 season, starring Le Grand Orange, Rusty Staub. The Nationals/Expos franchise has often been known for their outfielders, like Monsieur Staub. Other notable outfielders who have sported the barber pole hat of Les Expos are Ken Singleton, Andre Dawson, Tim Raines, Ellis Valentine, Warren Cromartie, Marquis Grissom, and others. Today’s Washington Nationals are still largely known for their outfield – one man in particular – and as they go, so will the Nationals go. This brings me to the reason for this article – a trade. The Nationals just made a controversial trade to acquire a starting center-fielder. Let’s look at how the Nationals plan to cover the outfield in 2017.
    Let’s start with the trade before we take a look at Mr. National, Bryce Harper. There was one especially coveted arm in the Nats farm system – a tall drink of water from SoCal named Lucas Giolito. The 6’6” starter made his major league debut last season and mostly flopped. Giolito was only 21 and wasn’t exactly dominating triple-A. He is a huge physical specimen and throws hard, but after some mechanical tweaks he lost a couple MPHs off his heater. His career minor league numbers are pretty great, including a strikeouts per nine rate of 9.7. There isn’t a lot for him to prove in the minors, although he only made seven starts in triple-A (with an ERA of 2.17). As a top five prospect in all of baseball, there wasn’t anyone who didn’t want him on their team. Along with Giolito, the Nats sent Reynaldo Lopez, another hard throwing pitcher, and Dane Dunning, yet another pitcher – their 2015 first round pick – to acquire Adam Eaton (who we will get to soon).
    First Lopez – the 22 year old isn’t a giant like Giolito, but he throws like one with a fastball that topped out at 99 last season. His strikeout rates indicate that he is in fact quite difficult to hit. At double-A last year (he pitched at three levels in 2016) he fanned 11.79 hitters per nine while only walking 2.95 per nine and allowing .83 long balls per game. His numbers in the majors showed streaks of dominance but his overall numbers were what you’d expect from a 22 year old in his first look at big league hitters. Lopez was much more effective as a reliever shaving 100 points off opponents batting average, 130 points off opponents slugging, and almost two runs off his ERA when he pitched from the pen instead of starting. His numbers make a point some analysts have made about him – that he is probably destined to be a high leverage reliever, but the fact that he has had success as a starter in the minors means the White Sox will likely try him in their rotation a few more times before they concede the point.
    What’s with teams trading their first round picks these days? Do you think the Diamondbacks wish they had Dansby Swanson back? Dane Dunning has a classic pitcher’s body and in his debut season in Rookie ball and at short season A ball in the New York-Penn league he pitched like a first round pick. In eight starts he held opponents to an ERA of 2.08, a WHIP of 0.93, and generated three times as many ground ball outs as fly ball outs, likely due to his sinking fastball that he throws as hard as 95. He pitched out of the pen a lot at Florida but his pitch mix means that he will be stretched out to start. Dunning completes the haul for Eaton, and it is likely that one day he will end up in the major league rotation for the White Sox keeping pitching prospect aphorisms in mind.
    That’s a lot of background to get to one guy – Adam Eaton – but it’s important to know what it cost the Nationals to bring him into the fold because it speaks to how much they needed a center-fielder, and how highly they valued him, while at the same time possibly pointing at their plans for the future of their outfield – more on that later. Eaton was a 19th round pick by Arizona in 2010 and was traded to the White Sox in 2013 in a three-way trade that netted the Diamondbacks Mark Trumbo. Eaton is “undersized” at 5’8, gets on base, hit 14 home runs each of the last two year, and steals a few bases. He is a good leadoff hitter – not exactly the prototype as he doesn’t walk quite enough – but should score 100 plus runs for the Nationals. He has three seasons in a row (2014, 2015, 2016) of wRC+ above 110 (118, 119, 115) so his offense is 15 to 20% better than the average major leaguer. At this point in his career, his offense is not in question, but his defense is the topic of much debate and that is what makes the trade even more interesting to talk about.
    In 2014 Eaton received votes for the Gold Glove as a center-fielder, although the leading defensive metrics (a DRS of 11 and a UZR of -3.3) disagreed as to his ability with the glove. In 2016 he played mostly right field and the metrics agreed that he did a really good job (a DRS of 22 and a UZR of 23.1). So is he an excellent right fielder, but a mediocre center fielder or is he an excellent outfielder who had a tough season that happened to be the year he played center field? To determine which set of numbers is more likely to be the aberration let’s look at Eaton’s history. He has garnered outfield playing time in the majors since 2012; His first experience came with Arizona and was almost exclusively in center. In just a bit more than 185 innings, DRS and UZR mostly agree that he was value-neutral (DRS of 1, UZR of 0.0). 2013 was split amongst all three outfield spot with 266 innings in left, 232.1 in center, and an additional 28.1 in right. All together his outfield DRS was -2 and his UZR was -10.0, and if you break it down by outfield spots his best numbers were in right where he posted a DRS of 2 and a UZR of 1.7 in limited time. His numbers in the other two outfield spots were decidedly negative with both measures agreeing on his abilities. As I mentioned earlier, 2014 was split with a positive DRS and a negative UZR and all of his innings coming in center – so nothing about his play in left or right. 2015 was unanimous in condemning Eaton’s glove work as he put up a DRS of -14 and a UZR of -10.2, again, all in center field. And we are back to 2016. If you believe in history, Eaton is not a good center-fielder, but is a better right fielder. If you believe that people can change – that your college roommate can actually start doing his dishes instead of leaving them in the sink – then you are likely to believe Eaton has become a good right-fielder who is probably not a good center-fielder. Most importantly Adam Eaton and the Washington Nationals both believe that he can play center well enough at least for now. At least for now? But the guy is signed for up to another 5 seasons? Yeah, well that’s where the Nationals might be showing their cards or at least covering their “aces”.
    The Nationals have a huge decision coming – well, perhaps not a decision because they might not have a say – as their superstar right-fielder, Bryce Harper can become a free agent after the 2018 season. He debuted as a 19 year old and looked like a sure-fire five tool superstar in the making. It seemed like it took him forever to fulfill his promise since he started so young, finally winning the National League MVP Award as a 22 year-old in 2015 with a monstrous breakout season (.330/.460/.649 slash line with 42 home runs and 81 extra-base hits). Harper’s glove is neutral to marginally positive with DRS and UZR disagreeing every year, but on average placing him at neutral or slightly above in right (career totals for DRS of 5 and UZR of 6.2). Of course the fans don’t care much about his glove or arm – they want him to mash the ball and hit for average. I also think it is safe to say that most fans expected more of 2015 in 2016, but injuries likely contributed to diminished output in some of Harper’s counting stats and rate stats. Notably, he only hit 24 home runs with 50 extra-base hits and his slash dipped to .243/.373/.441. It was widely discussed that his increased plate discipline was responsible for his breakout 2015, but then the narrative shifted to blaming his “passive” approach for the drop-off in his numbers in 2016.
    Harper’s 2015 walk rate, as well as his walks per strikeout remained consistent in 2016 and was radically different from what he achieved in his first two seasons in the majors, so just glancing at those peripherals make it seems like he must have been battling injuries, even though he managed 627 plate appearances and 147 games. If that is the narrative you choose to believe, then all should be right in the world for Nats fans in 2017 with Harper having an off-season to recover. But if you think his approach has become too passive and pitchers have learned to take advantage of him, then 2015 Harper might be the new normal. So is he a 9-10 WAR guy or a 3-4 WAR guy? You know – Mike Trout or Yoenis Cespedes.
    A couple of things to remember before we look at some revealing stats about Harper’s 2015. First, the guy is only 22 and has one Hall of Fame type season under his belt. Second, Harper hasn’t experienced the type of injury that is likely to diminish his abilities, like a torn rotator cuff, a major eye injury, or catastrophic ankle or knee injury. At 22 he should be able to recover and be his healthy self to start 2017. Also, even last year in an off year for him, his walk numbers were excellent showing that he held onto some of that 2015 maturity. That said, when looking through stats that show what happened to balls hit by Harper, three stats stand out that make 2016 a little scary for Nats’ fans. First of all, he just didn’t hit the ball that hard – certainly not as hard as he had in previous seasons. To be more accurate, Harper hit the ball softly more often than in any of his previous Major League campaigns. His career rate of softly hit balls is 15.2 and in 2016 it was 19.8 after a 2015 where only 11.9% of his batted balls were hit softly. Could that have been caused by a nagging injury? Sure, it’s possible. Along with that stat, Harper’s line drive rate dropped to a career low 17.2 % down 22.2% in 2015 and dropping his career rate to 20.7%. One more stat to keep in mind before you decide whether or not you should mail the Nats a crisp twenty to help them sign Bryce to a mega-contract. Your star right-fielder popped up to infielders 8.9% of the time – a career high that dragged his career rate up to 7.5%.
    Again, all three of these negative indicators could have resulted from a nagging injury that Harper played through, but it is also possible that 2015 and 2016 were both aberrant and the real Harper lies somewhere in between the two levels. Since he is represented by Scott Boras it is highly unlikely that the Nationals will be able to sign him to a long-term contract before he becomes a free agent so they get two more chances to decide what he really is before they have to push all their chips in or figure out what life will be like without him. And here is where Adam Eaton comes in. Eaton, and his club friendly long-term contract, could move to right to take Harper’s place if the Nationals fall out of contention and they decide to trade him for a cruise ship full of prospects. They would still need to find a center fielder of course, but at least they would have Eaton in a position where he has shown more ability than centerfield. So if you had to put your chips down on a particular outcome, you might watch the standings closely. If the Nationals are not clearly in the race as the trade deadline approaches, look for them to move on from their superstar into the post-Harper years starting as soon as this July. After all, if they are not going to sign him to a longterm contract, then they should get as much as they can for him, and the sooner they move him, the better the haul will be. Keep in mind that if they are in a pennant race they would be foolish to move him unless they got multiple parts that would be controllable and would help them now, as well as some prospects that would make their fans’ socks roll up and down. It would be a different scenario if the Mets jump out to a 12 game lead or something crazy like that.
    The Nationals, like all teams in baseball, need a left fielder too, of course. 37 year old Jayson Werth will return for what is likely his last season with the Nationals (he is signed through 2017). Worth can still hit for some power although he is no longer good for a .500 slugging percentage. The last two seasons have seen his batting average and on-base percentages drop dramatically as well, so that now his batting average/on-base percentage is in the .240/.330 range instead of his previous .280/.370 level. Worth has been an obvious defensive liability for a couple of seasons, even though he shifted from right field to left. His DRS/UZR numbers for 2015 and 2016 were -10/-7.3 and -8/-6.1 respectively mainly due to diminished range numbers. Last year was a bit of an improvement from his awful 2015, but he still only contributed about league average production. There isn’t a lot to say about Werth that would surprise anyone since he is 37 and following a somewhat predictable career arc at this point, and the Nationals will move on from him after 2017. He definitely put up star level numbers through 2014 and he will likely remain a fan favorite after he leaves. Keeping him healthy by resting him would make him more productive so that his last year in D.C. won’t be ugly. It is unclear at this point in the off-season who the Nats will use to spell Werth, but I would be shocked if they didn’t make some kind of minor move to get someone.
    After Werth leaves, the Nats will face some difficult questions, the foremost of which is who will play the outfield. Their one top prospect who plays the outfield is Victor Robles who at age 19 was ranked as the 49th best prospect in baseball. He is now the Nats’ top prospect since the Eaton trade and he looks like he could eventually be a star. But the fact that he is 19 should make the point that he is not ready for the majors having finished last season at high-A. Most of the Nationals other hitting prospects are a couple years away so the organization will have to find answers to their outfield depth issues through trades or free agency. Andrew Stevenson and Juan Soto are coming. Stevenson is 22 and finished 2016 at double-A while Soto is only 18 and just finished his first season in pro ball by dominating rookie ball and short season class A. So while they wait for the wave of young outfielders to arrive, the Nationals have other questions to answer that could impact the outfield picture, such as, is Trea Turner the answer at shortstop? If he isn’t and the Nats can find another answer (like Wilmer Difo) at short, then Turner might end up back in the outfield. Turner is an offensive star already so he will play. The only question is where – the Nats say that Turner will be shortstop in 2017 after having let Danny Espinosa leave this off-season.
    It is a scary time for the Nationals. They have a lot of stars on their roster and the expectation has been that they should be winning now – and by winning, I mean going deep into the playoffs and possibly the World Series. Their post-season work hasn’t been up to snuff so far – they’ve won the NL East three out of the last five seasons only to fall in the first round of the playoffs. Since they aren’t the Cubs, the Dodgers, or the Yankees, their window to compete might be close to closing. They may be able to extend it by trading Harper, or that kind of move might be the start of a rebuild. The stars are once again aligned for them to win this season and they have a set outfield, so perhaps Harper will play in a World Series in the Nationals uniform before the seemingly inevitable move to a big market team. The franchise’s future hangs on how the team handles Harper as the building block of their future (with a hugely increased payroll) or as a chip to build for their next great five year run.
   

New additions to the Blue Jays answer some questions and raise others.

How Many DH’s Does It Take to Fill The Albert Hall (or the Jays infield)
by Jim Silva
    So let’s say you work at Billy’s Cheese ‘N Soup as the soup wrangler. There is only one soup wrangler, and you have been the guy for a few years because you are really good at your job. In fact, you were on the cover of Soup Wrangler’s International last year, and everyone agrees that even though you are about to leave your prime, there is no evidence that you are slowing down.  Billy’s has an opening at the Cheese Ambassador position, but you just don’t have the tools to be a top notch “Cheeserista” so nobody considers you for the opening, and why should they when you are such a diva at wrangling the “hot and steamy”. But your contract is up and Billy knows you’re looking for a big payday, what with your great stats and national reputation. Still, you aren’t worried because Billy would be a fool to lose you, right? But then, just as you were making appearances on Top Ladle and Heads of Chowda, Billy goes and signs one of your rivals from Stu’s Stew! That is essentially what just happened to Edwin Encarnacion when the Jays signed Kendrys Morales to be their designated hitter, the one position where Encarnacion’s glove work (batting glove in his case) won’t hurt the team.  In fact, the two men have a few superficial traits in common. They are both solidly built big men who have no business playing in the field (although once upon a time Morales put up some decent numbers at first base). They both hit lots of home runs, and they are both 33 and like collecting butterflies (not really – but fun image). Upon closer inspection, it is pretty clear that Morales is Encarnacion-light – and I don’t mean just their salaries. Let’s use oWAR (offensive wins above replacement) and RC+ (runs created per plate appearance adjusted to park and league) to compare the two players, since defense isn’t really part of either man’s game these days.
Year
Encarnacion (oWAR/RC+)
Morales (oWAR/RC+)
2016
3.7/134
1.0/110
2015
4.8/150
2.7/130
2014
4.2/151
-1.0/72
2013
4.0/146
2.7/119
2012
5.5/150
2.3/119
Looking at the table above it should be pretty clear that Encarnacion is quite a bit better than Morales. Of course, skill is not the only factor in determining which player teams go after. Morales signed a three year contract for $33 million whereas Encarnacion reportedly already turned down a four year offer from the Blue Jays for $80 million. $9 million dollars a season is a big difference when you are comparing designated hitters. However, as teams drop out of the EE auction, his agent must be wondering if turning down the four for 80 deal may have been a mistake.
    Rogers Center, where the Blue Jays play their home games, is essentially neutral, based on park factor numbers from 2016. A lot goes into how a park influences offense including the temperature, so a one year park factor does not necessarily dictate future performance, but last season Rogers Center was not a band box. That said, if you look at who played the most games there, i.e. teams from the AL East, it makes sense that a lot of home runs would be hit there. With that in mind, the Blue Jays signing of Kendrys Morales shouldn’t inspire fantasy baseball managers to run out and pick up the slugger thinking that his home run production is going to skyrocket because he will get to play half his games in Rogers Center instead of Kaufman Stadium, a consistent pitchers park. The Jays also signed Steve Pearce, for $12.5 million, to play first base for the next two years. Pearce, like Morales, hits balls hard (not quite as many home runs) and (unlike Morales) is not limited to the easy end of the defensive spectrum. Also unlike Morales, Pearce gets on base – last season he had a .374 on-base percentage leading to an oWAR/RC+ of 2.3/136 in only 302 plate appearances. His lefty-righty splits were pretty even although for his career he mashes lefties while carrying a .245/.322/.406 slash line against righties. Many players become more than just platoon mashers when they get more exposure to their weak side, so Pearce might have turned the corner and become an everyday first baseman, or even a jack of all gloves kind of player that seems to be de rigueur these days. Assuming the Jays don’t sign Bautista or bring back Encarnacion, Pearce is likely to get a lot of opportunities to answer that question more definitively.
    The middle infield for the Jays is interesting in that they have a young second baseman who is still establishing himself, and an older shortstop who was looking like a lock for the Hall of Fame earlier in his career, but developed a reputation as an injury waiting to happen. The second baseman, Devon Travis, is one of those well rounded guys who doesn’t get a ton of love because he just isn’t spectacular at anything flashy. His glove is slightly above average – his DRS and UZR numbers were 2 and 1.6 respectively. He hits for average but doesn’t draw enough walks to be a leadoff guy with only 20 walks in 432 plate appearances. He hits the ball hard – a .454 slugging percentage – but only 11 of his hits left the park last  season. He is even a solid baserunner with a UBR (Ultimate Base Running) number of 1.6 runs above average, but he only stole four bases, albeit at an 80% success rate. I know – yawn – but do you want him on your team playing everyday? Heck yeah! A second baseman with a wRC+ of 109, a WAR of 2.5, and a slash line of .300/.332/.454 is a really nice piece to have in the middle of your infield and either near the top or the bottom of your lineup. One caution – his BABIP (batting average on balls in play) was a lofty .358. Some guys have high BABIPs most of the time, but generally a high BABIP is a sign of possible regression. A lot of Travis’ value is tied up in his high batting average (since he doesn’t walk) so if his BABIP drops to .300, for example, and he continues to eschew the free pass then he will fail to be an above 2.0 WAR guy. If that happens then Travis will cease to be a viable starter. Stay tuned!
    Tulo! Tulo! Tulo! That’s what fans shout when Troy Tulowitzki comes to the plate. He has been one of the more exciting players in baseball since he established himself as a starter for the Rockies during the 2007 season when he was only 22. Tulowitzki has two Gold Gloves, two Silver Slugger awards, finished second for the Rookie of The Year award, has MVP votes in six different seasons and has made the All Star Team five times. He also has failed to get 550 plate appearances since 2011 when he was 26 because he has hit the disabled too many times to count. “But when he plays” – which is likely how the majority of sentences about the 32 year old shortstop begin – he is still one of the best shortstops in the game. He combines a power bat, a decent eye, and a top notch glove to make him a well-rounded star. His career numbers are a bit misleading if you are trying to find out what Tulo is today – in part because he is out of his prime, but also because he has left the launching pad that is Coors Field, one of the best hitters park in the history of Major League baseball. In the course of 11 seasons he has hit 217 home runs with a slash line of .292/.364/.501 in 5142 plate appearances. Those numbers portend a nice retirement for Tulo, but if his goal is The Hall are they on track to be enough?
One way to begin to answer that question is to determine what Tulowitzki is today. Last season is probably more representative of the new normal for Tulo. In 544 plate appearances he hit 24 home runs and slashed .254/.318/.443. His value numbers were a WAR of 3.3 and wRC+ of 106. Diving a little deeper, let’s look at two numbers that might signal a slight decline, and two that say Troy is just fine, thank you.  Pitchers still throw the Blue Jay shortstop the same mix of pitches they have always thrown him and in about the same percentages – about 55 to 58% fastballs, about 25% cutters and sliders, close to 10% curveballs, and the rest a mix of various pitches. What has changed is that Tulo is missing more pitches when he swings the bat. In 2015 and 2016 he hit about 80% of the pitches he offered at which is a drop from 2012 where he made contact with almost 90% of the pitches he swung at. It has declined almost every year since 2012 to 83.7 in 2013 and 82.9 in 2014 – his career rate is now at 83.5%. Also of note over the last two seasons is that when he swings at pitches inside the strike zone he makes contact less often – 85.0% in 2015 and 85.8% in 2016. His career rate is 88.2% and he eclipsed the 91% mark three years in a row from 2010 through 2012. It isn’t the end of the world but you can maybe start to see it from here. Even that is too dramatic, because a shortstop who can hit 24 home runs is a rarity. A shortstop who hits 24 home runs AND carries Tulowitzki’s glove is more than rare – hence all the Hall of Fame talk.
    At 6’3 you’re supposed to be too big to stick at shortstop, but not only has he stuck, Tulo has shone. He has only made double digit errors twice in his career – 11 in 2007 and 10 in 2010 – and currently sports a .985 career fielding percentage. For people who care about records – that’s one right there. He is the all-time leader in shortstop fielding percentage. He is also 6th all-time in Total Zone Runs as a shortstop, showing that he also has range. And he doesn’t seem to be slowing down with the glove as his DRS and UZR were 10 and 4.9 respectively last season. So even with a slightly slowing bat, he is still one of the best all-around shortstops in the game when he is on the field. He already has a case for inclusion in the Hall of Fame, albeit a weak case. For Tulowitzki to nail down a spot for his plaque, he has to have a few more season of 500+ plate appearances at around his current level. At that point it would be difficult to argue against him.
    For A’s fans, the bitterness may never end at the loss of Josh Donaldson, their reclamation project turned superstar third baseman. All he did during his first year in Toronto was win the AL MVP and propel the club into the post-season. Oh, and last season – his second with the club – he had a very similar offensive year with a few fewer home runs, more triples, a lot more walks, fewer strikeouts and fewer doubles all contributing to a one point increase in wRC+ from 154 to 155. So he is basically more than 50% better than the league average hitter at creating runs. Dude! Donaldson’s glove work is solid too. With a DRS of 2 and a UZR of 4.2, his numbers showed a bit of a drop off, but still solid work at the hot corner. Add him to an infield with Tulo and Travis, and your pitchers will be happy campers. Donaldson will be in the mix for the MVP every season for a few more years as he has just turned 30. With 78 home runs in the last two seasons, and a potent lineup in front of him, to go with improving strike zone control, he will put up excellent counting stats – home runs, runs scored, and runs batted in – while maintaining a healthy batting average and on-base percentage as long as he can remain healthy, which doesn’t seem to be a problem for the former catcher.
    Who else will man the infield for the Blue Jays in 2017? This early in the off-season it’s hard to say exactly who will be on their bench, but let’s try. Justin Smoak has been a disappointment since he was taken in the first round of the 2008 draft by the Rangers. Three things are clear about Smoak. He has a lot of power – 106 home runs in 2886 plate appearances in the majors, he can’t get on base – a career OBP of .308, and he has no business wearing a mitt and crossing over the chalk lines onto the field. No business, unless the mitt is an oven mitt and he is delivering his famous double chocolate chip cookies to his teammates during the seventh inning stretch, because nothing says, “I love you” like fresh baked cookies. Slash lines aren’t always the most informative statistics when looking at a player’s offense, but in Smoak’s case his slash line paints a pretty clear picture of what he does – .228/.308/.392. He was pencilled in to be the Jays first baseman before they acquired Steve Pearce, but really he should be a bench bat or a DH when your other DH is injured. Last season was typical for the 6’3, 200 pound masher. He hit 14 home runs in 341 plate appearances, but his slash line was almost perfectly in line with his career numbers. His wRC+ was 90, which is a little low for him and his WAR was -0.1 because his glove was so awful. With 0.3 career WAR you can only hope that he breaks even, costing you about as many runs with his glove as he earns with his long flies – you know – unless you keep him from putting any kind of leather on his hands EVER! Seriously though, looking at DRS and UZR they disagree at times about Smoak’s ability in the field. He has only one positive DRS season and a career total of -16 DRS. With UZR, however, he has only two negative seasons and a career 0.6 UZR total. Last season, both metrics agreed that his kung fu was no good, so the Blue Jays should listen up and minimize his exposure to balls flying at him unless he is toting a bat with which to defend himself.
The Jays are flush with wee lads who play the middle infield including Darwin Barney. Most of Darwin Barney’s value is tied up in his glove. Like Michael Jackson, Barney wears many gloves and wears all of them well. He had positive DRS and UZR numbers at 2nd base, shortstop, 3rd base, and the outfield in 2016 – a lot of his positive numbers stem from his excellent range. Unlike O.J. Simpson – another famous glove-wearer, Barney doesn’t contribute much on offense. His wRC+ of 86 last season was 13 points above his career average but still significantly below average (100). A look at his career slash line is also telling – .249/.297/.343. He doesn’t get on base often, nor does he hit for much power apart from a few doubles. He is not the kind of guy you want to start more than occasionally, but his defense is good enough that he will provide positive value when your starter needs a breather. The fact that he can provide better than league average defense at four different positions allows the Jays to carry an extra bat or an extra pitcher, and there is certainly value in that which doesn’t show up in his statistics.
    Ryan Goins is a slightly younger, slightly weaker hitting, not quite as consistent afield, although quite rangy, version of Darwin Barney. Scintillating, eh? Goins was essentially the starting second baseman for the Jays in 2015, because Devon Travis was hurt quite often, and he wasn’t awful – I know, damning with faint praise. Kind of like Barney last season, he provided value with his glove, but didn’t hit enough to let him do it again – wRC+ of 84 with 1.5 WAR almost all due to his fielding. But 2016 was tough on Goins – he completely fell apart. His fielding dropped off, his bat went downhill and he didn’t get to play much after June. He spent time on the DL because he hurt his forearm pitching the 18th inning of a game. When he was healthy he bounced up and down between triple-A and the majors. It was a lost season. I’m not sure why the Jays would keep both Barney and Goins so we will have to see how everything shakes out.
    Two youngsters to keep an eye on for a future Jays infield spot – probably not 2017 – are Rowdy Tellez and Richard Urena. Tellez is a big man who hits with power and plays first base, hits home runs (23 last season at double-A as a 21 year old), but also walks plenty and doesn’t strike out too much (63 walks to 92 k’s last season in 438 at bats). Scouting stats has its limitations, and Keith Law suggested that he might struggle against more advanced pitching as he struggled to catch up to fastballs during AFL play before last season. If he continues to produce in the minors, Rowdy will get a chance in late 2017 or 2018. Urena is a power hitting shortstop who failed to get on base enough when he moved up to double-A. His walk rates weren’t bad when he was in A ball so perhaps he was just over-eager as a 20 year old facing double-A pitching. He has always hit for average and pounded out a truck load of doubles and triples. Last year he had 44 extra base hits in 518 at bats between high-A and double-A, so his bat is already ahead of most double-A middle infielders. His pattern has been to control the strike zone better in his second turn at a level in the minors, and he is only 20, so keep an eye on his walk numbers in double-A this year. I’m not sure what to make of his glove as he has made a bunch of errors at shortstop everywhere he has played – 30 last year – but again, 20 years old. Blue Jays fans should start to get excited around 2019 or so.
    This won’t happen, but it would be really cool if it did so I WANT it to happen. Encarnacion is in an ugly spot because of the current collective bargaining agreement that forces the team that signs him (if they aren’t the Blue Jays) to surrender a first round pick to the Jays. The Yankees and Astros have both signed DHs in the last couple weeks so the market for him has shriveled considerably. The Jays are really the team best suited to sign him since they only have to give him money, and at this point it would be less money than they would have paid a few weeks ago. The Rangers are still out there if we are talking about teams with money and a need at first and DH, but Encarnacion is competing with Mark Trumbo (who hit 47 home runs for Baltimore last season) who also would cost the signing team a draft pick, and Mike Napoli (34 home runs for Cleveland in 2016) who would not cost a draft pick. Now the Rockies might be interested too since they already gave away their first pick when they signed Ian Desmond. They would likely need to shed an outfielder to make it work and they just gave Desmond a boatload of money, so it would be a bit surprising if Colorado was Encarnacion’s landing spot. All that being said, I want the Blue Jays to set up a deal to trade Morales pending their signing of Encarnacion then go after Edwin, showing him some love, and encouraging him to come home. After the parade for Encarnacion, trade Morales for some useful pieces, even if it means throwing in a little money to sweeten the deal. The Jays are set at third and up the middle, so the only mystery is how they handle first and the DH spot, and they seem to have answered those questions for now, although at what appears to be a downgrade at both spots. The Jays are a confusing team. Are they going for it while giving up on Encarnacion and Bautista or are they switching ponies and becoming a defensively strong group with strong pitching? The rest of the off-season will show what direction the only team left in Canada intends to do going forward.