Archive for Player Analysis

In case you missed Part One of my AFL notes, I covered Clint Frazier, Dominic Smith, Ian Clarkin and five other interesting prospects playing in this year’s Arizona Fall League. Just a disclaimer: I was out in Arizona for fun, and I wasn’t paying too much attention to defensive ability for any one player. These scouting reports would be more complete if I was actually scouting for an MLB organization.

Austin Meadows, L/L OF (PIT)
He’s 6’2″/200 and a plus athlete. He hit .307/.357/.407 in the Florida State League (High-A) and won’t turn 21 until next May. I was excited to watch him play, given the hype around his name, but I wasn’t impressed. Maybe he’s tired, or maybe he doesn’t care about the Fall League, but in those eight PAs, there wasn’t a single one that instilled faith in me. Despite a noticeable confidence approaching the box, he seemed almost apathetic at the plate. I can’t remark on him as a defender, but he’s clearly a good athlete, so I doubt corner outfield would give him too much trouble. With McCutchen, Marte, and Polanco ahead of him though, he’s got a tough road to major-league playing time. In my opinion, the Pirates would be smart to trade him during the offseason and improve their 2016 MLB roster.

Yandy Diaz, R/R 3B (CLE)
Pretty impressive stature; listed at 6’2″…weight could be anywhere between 185-205, but he has above-average athleticism for his size. A Cuban-born defector with fairly natural motions at third base, and good arm action making the throws across the diamond. He turned 24 in August, but he had a pretty solid year at AA (.315/.412/.408). With his size, you’d expect him to hit for more power, but he compensates with the type of plate discipline that may allow him to stick around until something clicks. Based on body alone, I’d compare him to a young Edwin Encarnacion (not anywhere the raw power, though). By no means is Diaz a surefire MLB contributor, but his main detractor is something he has a real chance to build upon. With the frame he has, I still see room for the power to develop, and he could turn into a quality everyday MLB third baseman.

Alex Blandino, R/R INF (CIN)
I just didn’t see the ballplayer in this guy. He made one fairly challenging play at second base, but he had so many empty plate appearances; swinging at first-pitch breaking balls, or taking called third strikes down the heart of the plate. In a hitter-friendly league, he seemed like an automatic out. Blandino was a first-round pick in 2014, and had a pretty solid year at High-A in 2015, but he’ll be 23 to start the season next year. I’d be surprised if Blandino ever lives up to his first-round price tag. Insert pun about him being a ‘bland’ prospect.

Brett Phillips, L/R OF (MIL)
One of the key pieces in the deal that brought Carlos Gomez to Houston, Phillips has a shot to contribute for the Brewers as soon as Opening Day 2016. He’s similar to Clint Frazier, with slightly less muscle mass (and power). As one of my friends noted, “He’s a good downhill runner.” As with Frazier, Phillips strikes out a bit too much, and it could easily be the difference in Phillips being a Quad-A player and an MLB regular. The tools are impressive, though; I could see some Alex Gordon seasons in him.

Adam Brett Walker II, R/R DH/1B (MIN)
Built like a tight end; 6’4″/230+. Great athleticism for his size, yet he was limited to DHing in the AFL. He needs to shorten his swing. His hands drop, causing the barrel of his bat to loop through the zone. He swings and misses at way too many pitches because of a weak top hand. I had essentially written him off after 11 PA…and then he hit a ball over 450 feet.

Photo Credit: Buck Davidson (@BuckDavidson)

The raw power is enormous. At least a 7. When he gets his pitch, he hits it a long way. He hit 31 HRs and stole 13 bases at Double-A Chattanooga, showing the power and athleticism are very real, but only to the tune of a .239/.309/.498 triple-slash as a 23-year old. He lead the Southern league in K-rate, striking out 35% of the time. He’d be lucky to hit .150 in the Majors right now, but he’s not unfixable. If Minnesota’s player development staff can get him to fix his swing plane, this guy could theoretically hit 40 home runs.

Gary Sanchez, R/R C (NYY)
Another big guy, Sanchez looks the part of a major-league catcher. 6’2″/220+, with decent athleticism and an average arm. He’ll never be a stud defensively, but he could theoretically stick as a 120-game catcher. He displayed some pretty lively power, driving home runs to left- and right-center. I spoke with a cranky, yet knowledgeable, Yankees fan who didn’t think much of Sanchez, but I’d be happy to have him in my system. He turns 23 this December, and he’s already posted a .295/.349/.500 slash at AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Berre. He could become more of a 1B/DH type with age, but his bat seems good enough to be around average for a DH. If he can stick behind the plate, the Yankees have a very valuable asset on their hands. He could develop into a .260/.340/.450 catcher.

(UPDATE) Jurickson Profar, switch-hitting MI (TEX)
I had the pleasure of seeing his first PA back my first day out there…and (true story), he laced a double to right field and as he was sliding into second base, Nate Orf turned to the dugout and simply said, “He’s back.” The respect this guy gets from his peers is enough to justify the hope alone. Profar’s already had a taste of the dream, whereas many of these guys are working to get there. His swing looks as natural as ever. When I was in attendance, it was a hit parade for the former LLWS Champion. Texas will have a very nice problem come Opening Day 2016, with Odor, Andrus, and Profar. Where he’ll play defensively, I’m not too sure (left field?), but I’m fairly certain he’ll be right back on track come April of next year. Kid’s a special talent.

Overall general thoughts on the AFL from a fan’s perspective: it’s incredible. I stayed with a few friends in the greater Phoenix area, and we split a $120 ‘family pass’ — which permits entrance for up to six people to any and all of the AFL games for the season (including the Fall Star Game and the championship). The four of us were able to attend nine games each in a seven-day span, and we sat in the first row behind home plate or the dugout every time, all for $30 a piece…that’s a little over $3 a game(!). I was able to witness a literal team-wide drum circle going on in the Surprise Saguaros dugout, which rallied them to a dominant 18-3 victory over the Glendale Desert Dogs. The entire week was a fantastic experience at such a reasonable price. If you have a family and want to take your kids to a bunch of professional baseball games, and take in ‘the future of baseball’, do yourself a favor and book a trip for the Arizona Fall League for the same price as taking the family to a regular season MLB game.

I have some more thoughts, particularly on a handful of pitchers, so I’ll be writing up another (shorter) post in the next few days. Again, thanks for reading.

With the World Series over and all the free agents declared it’s now time for my second-favorite part of the MLB season: the offseason. The 2015 free-agent class is pretty deep and includes some elite players. In this article I wanted to figure out a way to determine monetary value for the top three starting pitchers available this year: Zack Greinke, David Price and Johnny Cueto. All of them are aces and certainly heading for a big pay day but I wanted to develop a way of using the recent big contracts pitchers have signed and the production of great players in the past to determine what kind of pay day these guys are heading for.

Since 2009 there have been nine pitchers to sign a major deal: Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Felix Hernandez, C.C. Sabathia, Jon Lester, Zack Greinke, Cole Hamels and Matt Cain. (I didn’t include Masahiro Tanaka because he didn’t face big-league hitting until he signed his contract.) The average salary amount for these contracts was $168 million and had an average year length of about 5-6 years. When we’re looking at contracts there are many things to consider but two of the biggest factors has to be dollar and year amount. For all three of these pitchers, this may be their last big contract, so maximizing potential is crucial. Every team would love to add a pitcher of their caliber but not every team is in a position to pay for them. That’s part of the reason I wanted to figure out a way to see what dollar amount these pitchers’ production has warranted so far, in comparison to the big contracts signed since ’09 and speculate what can be expected of them for the length of the contract.

To figure out the dollar amount I looked at the nine players’ contracts and figured out the average yearly salary for each individual. I then took that number and divided it by their career WAR, essentially figuring how much it cost the team for the player’s WAR production. Here are the results I got (in millions).

Clayton Kershaw – $5.2m
Justin Verlander – $7m
Felix Hernandez – $6.5m
Jon Lester – $8.9m
C.C. Sabathia – $6.7m
Cole Hamels – $7m
Matt Cain – $9.4m
Zack Greinke – $7.7m
Max Scherzer – $7.5m

I averaged out the numbers, rounded off and got $7.3 million per WAR created. I then took that 7.3 number and multiplied it by Greinke’s career WAR to get, 27.7. So theoretically a year of Zack Greinke pitching is roughly $27.7 million. For David Price it’s $29.2 million and for Johnny Cueto it’s $21.1 million. It’s hard to predict where the market will go once teams start the bidding war, and I’m sure some team is willing to pay above the WAR value to ensure they get their man but for now I’m going to use these numbers to speculate year amount and production.

To determine the amount of years each player could receive, I decided to compare their career production with that of a similar type of pitcher. Let’s start with Zack Greinke. For Greinke I went with Greg Maddux as a comparison; obviously Greinke throws harder but I felt their command of the strike zone and pitches put Maddux and Greinke in the same boat. Below I’ve compared Greinke’s first 12 years in the big leagues to Maddux’s and I certainly think they’re close.

Zack Greinke      Greg Maddux

ERA = 3.49          ERA = 3.06
IP = 2,092.1         IP = 2,596.7
BABIP = .299       BABIP = .283
WAR = 3.8           WAR = 5.5
K/9 = 7.97            K/9 = 6.27
BB/9 = 2.37          BB/9 = 2.23
FIP = 3.52            FIP = 3.06
HR/9 = .92           HR/9 = .49

At age 32 Maddux had a better WAR than Greinke and threw about 500 more innings, but the latter may work in Greinke’s favor. The next part will help determine how many years a team can reasonably expect Greinke to pitch at an elite level. I looked at Maddux’s career numbers from age 32-38 and these were the results.

Greg Maddux (Age 32-38)

ERA = 3.21
IP = 1,581.6
BABIP = .285
WAR = 5.3
K/9 = 6.18
BB/9 = 1.50
FIP = 3.46
HR/9 = .81

As you can see from the results, Maddux was still pitching at an elite level from ages 32-38. From the ages of 39-41 however, you have a different story.

Greg Maddux (Age 39-41)

ERA = 4.20
IP = 827
BABIP = .291
WAR = 3.5
K/9 = 4.93
BB/9 = 1.39
FIP = 3.88
HR/9 = .91

Still good enough to be a major-league pitcher but a far cry from his prime. For Greinke’s situation I think you can expect a similar outcome, so a contract of 6 years at $166 million would be incredibly reasonable for a team. But this is America and money talks; whichever team is willing to pay the elite price tag for more then six years, I think, will be the winner of his services. A seven-year contract between $27-$29 million would be palatable and completely plausible but I think you start to handcuff yourself as a team going for eight years at that rate. Greinke had a dominant 2015 and if there ever was a time for him to test the open market, it’s now. We’ll see what teams are willing to shell out for him but for now let’s move on to David Price.

Unlike Greinke, David Price has never had a chance to test the open market and after another stellar season in the big leagues, Price is gearing up for a big pay day. As I mentioned before Price has a WAR value of about $29.2 million per season and at the age of 30 could see a lengthier contract then Greinke. To figure out future production I could only go with another tall, hard-throwing left-hander by the name of Randy Johnson. Price has eight years under his belt and his comparison to Randy Johnson looks something like this.

David Price          Randy Johnson

ERA = 3.02          ERA = 3.44
IP = 1,439.8         IP = 1,457.8
BABIP = .275       BABIP = .279
WAR = 4              WAR = 4
K/9 = 8.34            K/9 = 9.78
BB/9 = 2.43          BB/9 = 4.46
FIP = 3.30            FIP = 3.43
HR/9 = .80           HR/9 = .76

Price and Johnson compare very well, with Johnson having the advantage in K/9 but Price’s BB/9 is significantly better. Both have a WAR of 4 and nearly identical IP, BABIP, FIP and HR/9. Over the next eight years Johnson went on to be one of the most dominating pitchers in the game and during that stretch had some of the greatest seasons we’ve seen from a pitcher, period. Here are his numbers from 1996-2003.

Randy Johnson (’96-’03)

ERA = 2.93
IP = 1,660.8
BABIP = .308

WAR = 7
K/9 = 12.04
BB/9 = 2.79
FIP = 2.85
HR/9 = .94

This was by far the prime of Johnson’s career and although Price may not put up those types of numbers, he has a good shot of coming close. An 8-year deal for $233 million would be a steal if Price could come close to Johnson’s numbers. Price’s situation is similar to Greinke’s whereas whichever team is willing to pay elite prices for the most years will probably win out. Like Maddux, if you look at the back end of Johnson’s career, you’ll see the decline in results. Still effective for a major-league pitcher but not worth the elite money they once were.

Randy Johnson (’04-’09)

ERA = 4.00
IP = 1,011.6
BABIP = .290

WAR = 3.8
K/9 = 9.09
BB/9 = 2.21
FIP = 3.70
HR/9 = 1.21

Again, whichever team is willing to pay the elite price tag for these years of Price’s career will probably be the winner. It’s a gamble for sure to exceed eight years but eight elite seasons of David Price might be worth a year or two of mediocre Price. This brings us to our last top-tier starting pitcher and the one who perhaps stands to gain the most by being in the same class as Greinke and Price: Johnny Cueto.

First off, I want to say that I think Cueto is a great pitcher and one who deserves the “ace” title, and I know he’s spent most of his career in a hitter-friendly ballpark, but I don’t think his numbers warrant the price tag that Greinke and Price may receive. That being said, pitching is crucial for success in the big leagues and there are only a few top-tier pitchers available via free agency. A team that loses out on Greinke and Price could very well overpay for Cueto’s services to ensure they get one of the best available. For comparison I decided to use Jake Peavy; although Peavy is still playing I think his time as the ace for San Diego and his funky delivery pair nicely with Cueto. Here are the comparisons for the two pitchers through the first eight seasons of their careers.

Johnny Cueto          Jake Peavy

ERA = 3.31            ERA = 3.34
IP = 1,418.7           IP = 1,360.1
BABIP = .272         BABIP = .286
WAR = 2.9             WAR = 3.7
K/9 = 7.35              K/9 = 9.00
BB/9 = 2.65            BB/9 = 2.94
FIP = 3.87              FIP = 3.46
HR/9 = .94             HR/9 = .90

Through similar innings pitched Cueto and Peavy have comparable ERA, BABIP, WAR, BB/9, FIP and HR/9. The WAR value that I came up with for Cueto was $21.1 million per season, a number I think he can certainly get for a number of years. He’s only 29 and unlike Greinke and Price, may be able to sign two major contracts in his career if he can maintain elite status throughout the first one he is about to sign. If he were to sign a four- or five-year deal (4 years/$84 million or 5 years/$105), it’s not crazy to think that a team will pay the elite price tag for another three or four years of a quality Johnny Cueto.

The red flag I see with Cueto is the amount of innings he’s thrown; at 29 he’s only 21.1 innings away from David Price’s total of 1,439.8. As is the case with Jake Peavy, injuries completely derailed effectiveness and Peavy quickly went from “ace” to a 3rd or 4th starter. I’m not saying Cueto is destined to get hurt — his chances are the same as anyone, but paying the high price required to get him makes the possible injury sting even more. Here are the numbers Jake Peavy has put up over the past 6 seasons.

Jake Peavy (’10-’15)

ERA = 4.06
IP = 893.8
BABIP = .281
WAR = 2.3
K/9 = 7.39
BB/9 = 2.31
FIP = 3.82
HR/9 = 1.04

As I mentioned above, injuries greatly affected Peavy’s last six seasons and that’s not the best situation to compare future production from Cueto but it could be a caution to whichever team signs him as to the other end of the spectrum. We all hope for the best but you have to plan for the worst and shelling out $21m+ per season for those types of numbers doesn’t necessarily make sense.

Again I think Cueto is in a great position here, he’s young enough to sign a big deal and still have the potential to land another one down the road. It just depends on effectiveness and health; if both of those stay on his side, he should have no problem getting another big contract around 34 or 35.

After it’s all said and done, we’ll truly know the answer and that’s part of the fun. Speculating how much, how long and where players will end up helps get through the grueling winter months and I, for one, love it. Let me know what you think below and as always, thanks for reading.

This increasing time of games has been cited by Major League Baseball to be a deterrent to fans, jeopardizing ticket sales. Total game time has increased between 2.85 hours in 2004, rising to 3.13 hours in 2014. In 2015, MLB implemented rules to help speed up game time. These rules included forcing batters to stay in the batter’s box during at-bats, and decreasing the time between innings to 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Back in April, after the first few weeks of the season had passed, MLB reported success on their initiatives, stating that if current paces were maintained, average game time would drop below the 2.92-hour mark for the first time since 2011.

A more dramatic possible change was to implement a pitch clock, forcing pitchers to throw their next pitch within 20 seconds of receiving the ball back from the catcher. Currently, the rulebook states (Rule 8.04) that pitchers should throw their next pitch within 12 seconds of receiving the ball from the catcher. However, this rule is not enforced. FanGraphs presents data on the time between pitches, called Pace, which is calculated by taking the total time in an at-bat, and dividing it by the number of total pitches. Between 2010 and 2014 (for pitchers who threw at least 50 MLB innings), the slowest pitchers were Jose Valverde in 2012 (32.4 seconds), Joel Peralta in 2012 (32.3 seconds), and Joel Peralta in 2014 (32.1 seconds). The fastest pitchers were Mark Buehrle in 2010 (16.4 seconds), Mark Buehrle in 2011 (15.9 seconds), and (drum roll please… ) Mark Buehrle in 2015 (15.9 seconds). However, what goes into a pitcher’s selected pace? Focus on execution of their pitch? Embracing the glow of the national spotlight? There hasn’t been much (if anything) to describe the relationship between a pitcher’s self-selected pace and pitching performance.

I looked at the average pace for all pitchers who threw a minimum of 50 innings in years 2010 through 2015. The time between pitches increased steadily between 2010 and 2014, rising from 21.9 seconds in 2010, to 23.5 seconds in 2014. In 2015, the influence of the new pace-of-play initiatives could be seen, with pace decreasing to an average of 22.2 seconds between pitch. Definitely a step in the right direction from MLB’s perspective, but how did this impact pitching performance?

Focusing on xFIP for all pitchers from the same cohort (a minimum of 50 IP), a trend existed for xFIP to decrease between years 2010 and 2014 – an inverse relationship compared to pitching pace. In 2010, the average xFIP was 3.98, compared to 3.60 in 2014. In 2015, xFIP increased to 3.84.

View post on imgur.com

Is this truly a reflection of pitchers requiring an extra second or two to steady themselves and prepare to throw their best possible pitch in a given situation – or are other factors in play? From a physiological perspective, reducing the time between physical efforts can result in an increased accumulation of muscle fatigue. A recent paper published in the journal of Sports Sciences by Wang and colleagues (2015) found pitchers in a fatigued state were less able to throw strikes. A possible explanation of this relationship is found between increased pitching pace and decreased xFIP.

Major League Baseball will surely press forward with what is best for the game, and the business of baseball. It would be worthwhile for coaches, pitchers, and player’s union representatives to further investigate how pitchers self-select their pace between pitches. Further work is required to establish if there are any negative health consequences associated with decreasing the time between pitches. This should be completely ruled out before any further initiatives are taken by the MLB to speed up the game of baseball.

References

Seven days, nine games. Eight guys who stood out to me.

These aren’t necessarily the best players I saw in the Arizona Fall League (AFL), just the eight guys who I’m particularly bullish on. Alex Reyes has a lights-out fastball/curveball combo, and some of the best mound presence I’ve ever seen from a 20-year old, but he’s been written about by many others…so I decided to write about these eight.

1. Lewis Brinson, R/R OF (TEX)
6’3”+, long, athletic outfielder with a frame that has plenty of room to fill out. Above-average speed and athleticism, enough to probably steal 20-25 bases at the big-league level today. Good approach at the plate, takes his hacks, and doesn’t waste any at-bats. Despite a fairly wiry body, Brinson still has impressive in-game power (400+ ft. HR to center)…once his frame fills out, this kid very well could be an All-Star. He strikes me as being a surefire MLB contributor, and he has the upside of a Starling Marte or Jason Heyward. Brinson won’t turn 22 until next May, and he’s already had a very impressive campaign at AA, plus 37 PA at Triple-A in which he mashed to a .433/.541/.567 line. I didn’t really know much about him prior to the AFL, but I was impressed from his first plate appearance. My personal favorite player at the AFL this year.

2. Dominic Smith, L/L 1B (NYM)
He’s a professional hitter. His approach is very refined, his swing is incredibly simple. Very impressive hitter given he only turned 20 this past June. He’s a big boy though, with a body similar to Michael Conforto or even a slightly lighter Kyle Schwarber. Given he’s pretty bulky and left-handed, his defensive flexibility is limited to first base. I don’t believe he’s had any time in the outfield, but I suppose he’s athletic enough to play a reasonably below-average LF. With that said, his bat will play for any of the 30 teams. He’s a very balanced hitter and has a stroke with almost no extraneous motion. Short and compact swing, and he really uses his thick lower half to drive the ball. The second night I was out there, I saw him hit a ball about 420-430 feet with that same easy stroke — the ball just sounds pretty coming off his bat. Others have raved about his ability, and it’s pretty easy to tell there’s some serious talent there just by looking at his fall-league numbers, but he has the mechanics to support it. However, I did see him struggle a bit against lefties, including a downright ugly check-swing strikeout on a sidearm slider about six inches outside. The lower-end of the spectrum for Smith might be a James Loney-type platoon first baseman; best-case scenario is a pure .300 hitter who develops some legit 30+ HR power during the prime of his career (maybe a lefty-only Victor Martinez).

3. Clint Frazier, R/R OF (CLE)
He’s not quite 6-foot, but Frazier looked like one of the strongest guys in the AFL. Seriously, his forearms are huge. Above-average tools pretty much across the board, Frazier is a natural athlete. He doesn’t quite have the range to stick in center, but he’s been playing there for the Scottsdale Scorpions. Considering he just turned 21 two months ago, Frazier is a very impressive player. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see him crush the ball in Double-A next year, and work his way into at least a cup of coffee in Cleveland. He still swings and misses a bit too much, particularly on breaking stuff down, but he consistently drives the ball, and has the type of speed to turn some doubles into triples. There’s no doubt he’ll be a major leaguer, but if he continues to whiff too much, he’s probably more of a Travis Buck-type 4th outfielder. I liked what I saw though, so I’m pretty bullish; I see him being something like a right-handed Kole Calhoun with a bit more stolen-base ability.

4. Ian Clarkin, LHP (NYY)
Besides Alex Reyes, Clarkin might’ve the most intriguing pitcher I saw in the AFL. With that said, my immediate thoughts were Clarkin’s  a 3-starter with #2 upside. Very clean, very smooth, fundamental delivery…similar in robotic-nature to Cliff Lee. Very nice life on his fastball, and while I didn’t have a gun, I’d guess Clarkin was sitting 91-92, and touching 94 when he needed to. From a 20-year old lefty, that’s pretty fantastic.

Drafted 33rd overall in 2013, Clarkin sat out the entire 2015 season with elbow inflammation. Clearly, the Yankees should be concerned his UCL might be a ticking time bomb, but they should be very pleased to have this lefty in their system. His secondary stuff was good enough, mixing in an above-average curveball with an average change and cutter. While he doesn’t have the lights-out type of stuff some other guys have, Clarkin brought a very mature approach to the mound. As long as he stays healthy, look for him to develop into a dependable lefty starter with some standout seasons (a la Gio Gonzalez with a little more command). At worst, he’s a solid lefty bullpen arm, but I think injuries would be the only thing standing in the way of him being a starter.

5 & 6. Jack Reinheimer, R/R SS (ARI) and Tyler Smith, R/R 2B/SS (SEA)
These two guys are ballplayers, flat out. In my head, I lumped them together before discovering they were both drafted by the Mariners in 2013 (5th and 8th rounds, respectively). They started the 2015 season as the middle-infield combo at Double-A Jackson. Reinheimer’s the more natural defender, with a legit chance to stick at short, whereas Smith is primarily more of a second baseman going forward. Luckily for Smith, they were separated in June when Reinheimer was acquired by Arizona in the deal that brought Mark Trumbo to Seattle.

Of the two, I prefer Reinheimer overall, but Smith flashed a bit more power, pulling a ball about 380 feet for a low-flying home run that left the park in a hurry. They both have athletic bodies (6’1/186 and 6’0/190) and an instinctive feel for the game, but Reinheimer is a full year younger. He also has a slightly better hit tool — enough that I could see him hitting .280 during his prime. He’s not a franchise shortstop you build around, but he’s a very nice piece for the Diamondbacks to have. He has a solid approach at the plate, an athletic stance, and the swing plane to spray line drives around the field. He reminds me of a better version of Cliff Pennington (a 3.5 win player with Oakland in 2010), whereas Smith is more of a Cliff Pennington version of Cliff Pennington. Both should contribute at the MLB level in the near future.

7. Ramon Torres, switch-hitting 2B/SS (KC)
The first game I went to was a Thursday afternoon matchup between Surprise and Scottsdale at the Giants’ Spring Training complex. I got there early enough to catch the second half of Surprise’s infield/outfield, and there was really only one player who stood out to me. The only natural defender I saw was Ramos Torres. He was playing second base, and he made all the plays easy; ranging to his left or right, it didn’t seem to slow down the 5’9/155 Royal. His middle-infield counterparts (including Yadiel Rivera and Aledmys Diaz) left a lot to be desired, but Torres looked very fluid. The multi-million dollar question becomes: can he hit? I hadn’t ever heard of this guy, so I was able to scout him without presumption. What I saw that day was not very impressive. A seemingly weak, left-handed contact swing that didn’t instill much confidence. Granted, the kid’s only listed at 5’9/155, but it hardly looked like the type of swing that could keep you above the Mendoza line in the big leagues. 0-4 with 2 K’s; I left the park saying, “If only he could hit.”

Good thing I got to see him play multiple games. Two days later he crushed a home run, right-handed, probably close to 385 feet. It was his only hit of the day (1-5 with a BB), but the power he generated was enough to make me stand up out of my seat. The next time he played, three days later, I was also in attendance. Batting second in the best lineup in the AFL, Torres displayed some serious pop from the left-side. This time, pulling a ball for a stand-up triple off the right field fence at spacious Salt River Field. This ball might’ve gone even further, given the power alleys are 390 feet away. Impressive in-game pop from both sides of the plate for a natural up-the-middle defender? Yes, please. I’m having a hard time putting an exact comp on Torres, but I could see him having the upside of a switch-hitting Elvis Andrus, with a good chance of at least being a respectable utility infielder like Adam Rosales.

8 (Bonus). Nathan Orf, R/R INF (MIL)
25 year old utility-type infielder and AFL “taxi squad” member (essentially, roster filler only active on Wednesday and Saturday games to give the ‘real’ prospects some extra rest). Nate Orf is a ballplayer through and through. Despite only reaching AA this year at the not-so-tender age of 25, Nate Orf was one of the most impressive players out in Arizona. Only 5’9”, Orf is about as easy to overlook as Dominic Smith is to notice. Orf seemed to get a hit every time he was up, spraying the ball all over the field and showing an advanced eye at the plate. Granted, Orf was facing pitchers some 3-to-5 years younger than him, but he seemed to hit line drives to the opposite field at will. He also made some nice defensive plays at third, and while he’ll never have the power to be much of an everyday corner infielder, Orf has the type of approach to the game that will make him an excellent bench player in the Major Leagues someday soon. Easily one of the most fun guys to watch while I was out there.

I saw JP Crawford and AJ Reed, and neither did anything to ‘wow’ me — though, Crawford’s multiple errors came pretty close. The only thing that surprised me was how big Crawford is. He’s every bit the 6’2/180 he’s listed at, and has the frame that makes me think he could be a 20+ HR threat at some point in his career. I’ll be putting together a Part II because there are a few other guys I’d like to cover, both negative and positive, including Austin Meadows, Brett Phillips, Yoan Lopez, Chance Sisco, and many others. Thanks for reading.

Lucas Duda.  The Dude.  The Big Lebowski.  If there is one player on the Mets who would be most deserving of the title of “Most Underrated” it would be Lucas Duda.  I arrived at this conclusion based on my own subjective, and fallible, perception of the casual baseball fan’s perception about Lucas Duda; which I would assume would be somewhere in the vicinity of none.  Some of his relative underratedness may stem from the fact that he was relatively “streaky” during the course of this regular season, which is an inherent trait of a player who produces a large amount of his value by way of the home run.  Also, after Duda had eight straight hits go for home runs during the course of a seven-game stretch in late July, Yoenis Cespedes caught the eyes of the national media from basically the moment he was traded to New York.  That being said, I think Mr. Duda deserves a little recognition for his solid year, especially since he looms as an important figure in the active World Series.

On the surface Duda has almost exactly replicated his breakout 2014 in 2015.  For reference, this table of arbitrary statistics:

His overall value has remained almost exactly the same over the past two years as he has churned out two straight 3-win seasons.  His walk rate and strikeout percentage have been fairly stable as well, as has his various swing rates.  In this regard Lucas has been remarkably consistent.

However, there is one portion of Duda’s underlying statistics that differed significantly from this year to the rest of his career.  Duda pulled the ball less, and went to opposite field more.  Here is another table to illustrate this fact:

* The table starts in 2012 simply because the prior years don’t really provide any additional insight

And here are the batted-ball maps for 2o14 and 2015 to further illustrate Duda’s change in approach:

It looks as though Duda has tried to make himself a more balanced hitter, and decrease the amount of shifts he faces, as he has made an obvious attempt to go the other way more often this year.  This didn’t result in any additional offensive value this year – as we saw in the first table his overall value stayed steady – as we didn’t even see an increase in BABIP.  Regardless, this seems to be a trend worth keeping an eye on, and worth remembering during the World Series.

In specific regard to the World Series, Duda has a relatively significant platoon split; Career 91 wRC+ vs LHP, 136 wRC+ vs RHP.  With the Kansas City Royals featuring right-handers Yordano Ventura, Edinson Volquez, Johnny Cueto, Chris Young, Wade Davis, Ryan Madson, and Kelvin Herrera, among others, Duda looks to occupy an important role during the series.  With all of Kansas City’s probable starters being right-handed Duda should start every game, and it doesn’t seem like he will be pinch-hit for too often with Kansas City’s three best relievers being right-handed as well.

Lucas Duda; chronically underrated, and under-spoken, might just be the Mets’ most pivotal player during this World Series.  Or not.  Probably not, there are a lot of players on a baseball team, but he will assuredly be a pivotal player.  The Dude Abides.

Let’s look at two pitchers:

________           ERA       ERA+      FIP     K/9     BB/9     HR/9

Jake Arrieta      1.77         222         2.35     9.3       1.9         0.4

Pitcher X               5.23          80         4.75     6.9       4.0         1.2

Pitcher X is not Jake’s long lost brother, but is in fact Jake Arrieta – those are his cumulative stats from 2010-2013, his first four years in the majors. And that’s not a small sample size; Arrieta accumulated 409 innings in his first four years. The top line is from 2015, a season which has put Arrieta within shouting distance of a Cy Young award.

No other pitcher has had a surge like this after floundering so badly for his first four years, but even before 2015, Arrieta was traveling through a baseball landscape witnessed by very few humans. Just 26 pitchers in major-league history have amassed over 400 innings in their first four years and “achieved” an ERA+ of 80 or worse. The list is here. It’s most notable for its lack of notability — an array of names of you haven’t heard of, interspersed with a few modern guys who, for the most part, failed to make an impact.

The other notable thing about the list is how short it is; most teams will have given up on a pitcher this consistently bad long before he’s eaten 400 innings of paychecks. Beside Arrieta, just two of the 26 had successful major-league careers as starters: Bullet Joe Bush and Camilo Pascual. None of them ever came close to Arrieta’s 222 ERA + in 2015; in this respect, Arrieta walks (or rather suppresses walks) alone.

Arrieta came up in 2010 to participate in two 90-loss Orioles seasons, but the Birds were taking flight, and in 2012 they would win 93, before slipping to 85 wins in 2013. These were good teams, patched together with Dan Duquette’s yard-sale bargains and Buck Showalter’s newly humanized intensity.

Arrieta had a quiet breakthrough in 2012, his third year with the Orioles, when his K/9 spiked at 8.7, while his BB/9 plunged from over 4 down to 2.7. These front-line starter numbers were buried by his 6.20 ERA, which in turn stemmed in part from a high homer rate (1.3/9). The Orioles understood that beneath the ERA there was progress, and did not trade him.

In 2013, Arrieta gave most of his gains back. The strikeouts remained, but he began walking the house. Even FIP began to have doubts, and on June 17 they shipped him to the Cubs (along with Pedro Strop, now a competent set-up man) in exchange for backup catcher Steve Clevenger and 90 mediocre innings from Scott Feldman. It looks like a disastrous trade now, but at the time it seemed suicidal for a contender to hand Arrieta the ball every fifth day.

Perhaps the Orioles’ inflexible approach to pitching mechanics impeded Arrieta’s development. Perhaps he developed a new pitch, or refined an old one. Maybe he needed a change of scenery. Whatever the case, Arrieta didn’t become Jake Arrieta with the Cubs right away. He brought the walks and homers with him in his carry-on luggage when he touched down in Chicago in late June. His strikeout rate actually dropped. But perhaps most importantly, his WHIP plunged, from over 1.7 with the Orioles in 2013 to just over 1.1 with the Cubs. Both rates were BABIP driven: in Baltimore, .343, in Chicago, an equally unsustainable .190. But Arrieta took advantage of his luck, using the emotional breathing space the sudden drop in traffic provided to focus on developing his devastating sinkerslidercutterwhatever. In this case the change of scenery provided an immediate and positive, if accidental, dividend. Arrieta’s BABIP has since returned to a normal neighborhood: .274 in 2014 and .246 in 2015. (His success this year was only partially BABIP-fueled, a fact that should the scare the pine tar off the bats of NL Central hitters.)

Although no one on the List of 26 is really a comp for Arrieta, Pascual probably comes closest, thanks to his dominating stuff. Featuring a knee-buckling curve, Pascual achieved strikeout rates that wouldn’t look at all out of place in today’s game. From 1958-1964, Pascual K/9 never fell below 7; this in an era when league strikeout rates were typically in the 5s. Wildness and gopheritis plagued Pascual in his early years, but he became a rotation mainstay for the Senators in ’58, and stuck with the franchise until 1966, a year after the now-Twins went to the Series.

Pascual had a quiet breakthrough in 1956, his third year with the Senators. His strikeout rate spiked at 7.7/9, while the walk rate dropped to a (still high) 4.2. Victimized by a ghastly 33 homers, his ERA was awful, but there were signs of promise. In 1957 it all went backwards. His ERA peaked at an eye-watering 6.11 on May 4, and after ebbing somewhat, reached another appalling summit at 5.49 on June 22, about the same time in the season that Arrieta’s career ended in Baltimore.

But the Senators did not blink. It was around this time, in the sweltering 1957 summer, that Camilo Pascual became Camilo Pascual. The strikeouts came back, the homers did not. He finished with a respectable 4.10 ERA, a figure he would easily beat for the next 8 years.

Pascual was only 23 during his Crossroads Year; Arrieta was 27, a much easier age for a team to give up on a player. Arrieta has Scott Boras as his agent; Pascual had the reserve clause as his ankle bracelet. Perhaps most importantly, the 1957 Senators were simply abominable. They would lose 99 games (out of 154!) in 1957, and indeed would exceed 90 losses during every season from 1955-1959.

In 2013, the Orioles couldn’t risk nine more Jake Arrieta starts if they hoped to contend; In 1957, the Senators wouldn’t contend until 1962, by which time they had moved to a different time zone. The 2013 Orioles’ team success produced a roster assembly failure, while the 1957 Senators’ team failure produced a roster assembly success.

Pascual was very good for several years. Arrieta has been outstanding for two. His FIP has been very consistent in his two full years with the Cubs: 2.26 in 2014, and actually slightly higher (2.35) in 2015.  Arrieta’s remarkable climb has reached the top rung; it remains to be seen how long he can stay there.

No this isn’t a piece for accountants so please don’t give up on it or go to sleep!  It is an MVP discussion, and there is always a lot to talk about with the MVP, the very definition of which is vague, entitling anyone to interpret it how they wish.  There are perpetual questions– is it for an outstanding player or one who can meet some criteria of clutch?  Can a pitcher be more valuable than an everyday player?  Must a candidate play on a contender?

This article lays out a framework for quantifying these issues.   As described, a definitive answer requires a little more data than we now have, but it’s possible to have this data for an interesting quantitative measure of the MVP.

Let’s start with principles:

• The objective is to win a championship. I don’t expect this to be controversial, is it?  As we’ll get into, this doesn’t mean a non-contender can’t win, but it will be more difficult for them to do so.
• Context and chances matter. We aren’t trying to pick the best player, we’re trying to pick the most valuable.  We’re not trying to forecast the future, we’re looking back at the past.  Whether a player benefits from the luck of situations or of opportunities, the player who capitalizes upon his luck seems to this author to have been more valuable than an unlucky player who doesn’t have as many such opportunities.  Dave Studeman and Dave Cameron have written well on this topic.  If you don’t agree, take it up with them.  (For future research – must an author’s first name begin with the letter “D” to believe this?)  Further, the context of a player’s team matters – clinching a pennant on the last day is more valuable based upon context than an April rout or a meaningless September game between call-ups.

Introducing CPA

Accordingly, we’ll take something old, Win Probability Added, (WPA) and dust off and tweak something else old, Championship Leverage Index (CLI) to make up a new statistic to measure value – Championship Probability Added (CPA).  Our formula is CPA = sum of all daily WPA x CLI.

The facets of WPA are discussed thoroughly in another Studeman article.  Suffice to say, it captures a hitter’s or pitcher’s contribution to the probability of his team winning a game, which we can take as a player’s value to his team in the particular game.

As for the importance of the game to the team, Studeman and Sky Andrecheck have developed a measure of the game’s importance, the Championship Leverage Index, how the outcome of a game affects a team’s championship probability, but, as Studeman pointed out in his WPA article, the new wild-card format makes calculation of CLI difficult.

Fortunately, FanGraphs has a big part of the answer in their playoff probability table, which daily measures a team’s playoff and championship probabilities.  The day to day changes in these probabilities are indicative of each game’s importance, although a full measure of a game’s importance would require running the simulations 15 more times to determine the change in probability for each game’s alternative outcome.

There are different measures of championship probability in these tables based upon projections or upon random (coin toss) probabilities for a season’s balance.  The projection-based probabilities may be more accurate, but, for our purpose, measuring the value of each game, the coin toss probabilities are more useful.  1) The projection-based probabilities are more volatile early in the season as they vary not only with the game’s outcome, but with players’ individual performance which in turn affect his team’s projections.  Thus early-season games are weighted more highly than late games.  2) A player’s individual impact can be diminished because it already has been factored into a team’s projections.

The 2015 MVP Race by CPA

For now, without the complete probabilistic simulations, we’ll try to approximate the value of a game by taking the absolute value of a daily change in a team’s championship probabilities.  We use the absolute value of the daily change since it measure’s the game’s importance whether or not a team wins.  Without this, a player would be penalized if his team loses a game, even if he has a big (valuable) game (high WPA).

For now, the daily changes must be recorded from FanGraphs by hand, so we’ll run with an illustrative example rather than a definitive analysis.  Let’s start with the top two players by WAR in each league:

In the AL, both the Angels and Jays were in contention, although, the Jays’ chances became markedly better later in the season.

While the Angels had a low probability, there was still a lot of opportunity for Mike Trout to benefit from swings in their chances in the end, but he couldn’t make up all the ground on Josh Donaldson’s high WPA during the Jays high CLI second-half run.

On the NL side, WAR leader, Bryce Harper, had his CPA affected by the Nats dropping out of playoff contention.

Harper’s early-season lead fell by the wayside as Kershaw’s performance improved from its negative start and the Dodgers remained in the championship hunt.

So, definitive MVP stat?  Not yet, but hopefully a step in that direction.  Calculating a probabilistic CLI would be a big help.  Improvements to WPA to incorporate base running and fielding would help too.

Thoughts?

My name is Rich Rieders and I am a 2015 graduate of Rutgers Law School. Over the winter, I participated in Tulane University’s 9th Annual Baseball Arbitration Competition and we finished in 2nd place overall out of 40 teams.

In order to prepare for the competition, I created a database (going back to 2008) consisting of all arbitration awards and players who signed 1-year contracts avoiding arbitration along with their respective statistics. Using regression analysis, I was able to determine which statistics correlate most with salary. In turn, I have created a projection system that can accurately predict arbitration salaries. My projections are more accurate than the ones featured on MLBTradeRumors.

I will be releasing my 2016 projections once the season is over and all awards are announced.

The goal of this article is to properly explain how arbitration salaries are determined and how to choose the best comparative baseball salaries (comps) as outlined in Article VI, Section E, Part 10(a) of the CBA. You can think of the comps as legal precedent. The closer the comps are to the player’s stats, the more comps you have and the more recent those comps are, the stronger your argument.

First and foremost, the purpose of the arbitration process is to compensate the player for his actual results on the field, not to give him a salary based on what we expect he will produce in the upcoming season. We concern ourselves with only the traditional stats. I know this is a complete departure from the way we normally think here on FanGraphs, but salary arbitration is a completely different animal. In essence, arbitration salaries are determined by the accumulation of traditional counting stats.

For our purposes, there are six types of players who are up for arbitration in a given offseason and each type has its own separate valuation. The six types of players are:

(1) First-year-eligible SP

(2) SP who have previously been through the arbitration process

(3) First-year-eligible RP

(4) RP who have previously been through the arbitration process

(5) First-year-eligible position player

(6) Position players who have previously been through the arbitration process.

I will explain, in detail, how to properly choose player comps for each of the six group of players. In this segment, we will focus just on the starting pitchers.

For a SP who is arbitration eligible for the first time, here are the statistics that correlate most with eventual salary:

Platform IP: 60.83%

Platform GS: 57.59%

Platform SO: 54.41%

Platform W: 53.12%

Career IP: 50.56%

Career SO: 47.45%

Career W: 42.76%

Career GS: 37.10%

When initially looking for player comps, these are statistics we are going to focus on. Keep in mind that although ERA is not listed, it is nonetheless important as ERA is still one of the default statistics during a hearing and the first basis for comparison. Note that rate stats almost always have a very low correlation since rate stats do not take into account playing time.

Let’s use Atlanta Braves starter, Shelby Miller, as an example of a first-year-eligible SP.

Shelby Miller is arbitration-eligible for the first time going into 2016 with 3 years and 30 days of service time (3.030). In his platform season (2015), Miller made 33 starts recording 6 wins, 171 SO with a 3.02 ERA in 205.1 IP. Over his career, Miller has compiled 575 IP, 32 W, 483 SO with a 3.22 ERA in 96 GS. The objective here is to find the players who avoided arbitration by signing a 1 year contract with statistics that are most similar to Miller’s. The more recent, the better. The best way to do that is to set a floor and a ceiling and then work your way towards the middle.

From Miller’s perspective, let’s look at Miguel Gonzalez’s 2014 platform season. Like Miller, Gonzalez posted a low win total despite a very strong ERA. Gonzalez made 26 starts, recorded 10 wins, 111 SO with a 3.23 ERA in 159 IP. Over his career, Gonzalez compiled 69 starts, 30 wins, 308 SO with a 3.45 ERA in 435.2 IP. Although their ERA and win totals are extremely close, Miller bests Gonzalez in all the most important categories and has significantly more playing time and strikeouts. Therefore, we can definitively state Miller should receive more than Gonzalez did. As such, Gonzalez’s 2015 salary of 3.45 million should be the floor.

From Atlanta’s perspective, let’s look at Chris Tillman’s 2014 platform season. Like Miller, Tillman pitched a similar amount of innings and games with a pretty low ERA. In his platform season, Tillman made 34 starts recording 13 wins, 150 SO and a 3.34 ERA in 207.1 IP. Over his career, Tillman compiled 45 W, 680.1 IP, 511 SO with a 4.00 ERA in 118 GS. Although Miller has the better ERA, Tillman is superior in all the other major categories. Hence, we can conclude that Miller will receive less than Tillman. We can use Tillman’s 2015 salary of $4.315 million as the ceiling.

Given the above, Shelby Miller is likely to receive somewhere between $3.45 million and $4.315 million. Now that we have a range, let’s find someone towards the middle.

In 2011, Justin Masterson made 33 starts with 12 W, 158 SO, 3.21 ERA in 216 IP. Over his career he made 87 starts, with 28 W, 485 SO, 3.92 ERA in 613.2 IP. Those numbers are quite similar across the board with Miller having a better ERA, but fewer IP. Masterson’s 2012 salary was $3.825 million. Alex Cobb ($4.0 million in 2015),  Travis Wood ($3.9 million in 2014) and Steven Strasburg ($3.975 million in 2014) are all good comps as well.

As for my model, Miller projects to receive $3,859,816 +/- $145,351 which is perfectly in line with the comps above. MLBTradeRumors projects him at $4.9 million, which is not only significantly higher than the above comps, but would beat the record for a first-year player by nearly 600K.

For a player who has already been through the arbitration process before, the valuation is completely different as career statistics are no longer used the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. time around (except in a few rare cases). This group of players are the most difficult to project since we use fewer variables due to the exclusion of career stats and how there are fewer SP across the league than relievers or position players. Nonetheless, we can still get a pretty good idea what their eventual salary will be.

For an SP who has previously been through the arbitration process, the stats that correlate most with eventual salary are:

(1) Platform W: 69.12%

(2) Platform RA9-WAR: 64.04%

(3) Platform SO: 60.97%

(4) Platform fWAR: 58.93%

(5) Platform IP: 58.34%

(6) Platform GS: 49.75%

For example, let’s look at Angels SP Garrett Richards who is arbitration eligible for the second time going into 2016. As a Super-2 going into 2015, Richards received a $3.2 million salary. That figure includes everything he had done in his career up to that point. Thus, when determining his 2016 salary, we don’t need to focus on previous seasons. We need only determine what his 2015 season was worth and give him a raise. In his platform season (2015), Richards made 32 starts recording 15 wins, 176 SO, 3.65 ERA, 2.5 fWAR and 2.8 RA9-WAR in 207.1 IP. We want to find the players whose stats are most similar to Richards.

First let’s discuss Matt Garza’s 2010 platform season (a bit old, but still useful) where he made 32 starts recording 15 wins, 150 SO, 3.91 ERA, 1.9 fWAR and 2.8 RA9-WAR in 204.2 IP. Other than the strikeout numbers, we have a virtually identical season. As such, Richards is likely to receive a raise higher than Garza’s $2.6 million raise going into 2011. We can consider a raise of $2.6 million to be his floor.

Next let’s look at C.J. Wilson’s 2010 platform season (again old, but useful still) where he made 33 starts recording 15 wins, 170 SO, 3.35 ERA, 4.1 fWAR and 5.1 RA9-WAR in 204 IP. Wilson has the same amount of wins and virtually the same number of SO although Wilson has a clear advantage in fWAR and RA9-WAR with a slightly better ERA so it’s pretty safe to say that Richards is likely to get a raise lower than Wilson’s $3.9 million raise. The $3.9 million should be the ceiling.

Homer Bailey’s 2012 platform season is a great final comparison. Bailey made 33 starts recording 13 wins, 168 SO, 3.68 ERA, 2.7 fWAR and 2.8 RA9-WAR in 208 IP. Both players are virtually identical statistically. Bailey received a raise of $2.925 million so Richards is likely to receive a very similar raise himself. Shaun Marcum ($3.1 million in 2011), Jordan Zimmerman ($3.050 million in 2011) and Max Scherzer ($2.975 million in 2013) are all good comps as well.

Therefore, we can be certain that Richards will receive a raise somewhere between $2.6 million and $3.9 million. As for my model, Richards projects to receive a raise of $2,923,484 for a total salary of $6,123,484+/- $336,500 and, unsurprisingly, that is perfectly in line with the comps above. MlbTradeRumors is projecting a raise of $3.6 million for a total salary of $6.8 million which I think is a bit generous given the comps we have at our disposal, but not unreasonable.

Next up: Relief Pitchers.

We’ve come to the end of the 2015 regular season and it’s time to start looking towards the playoffs. As with every year there have been surprises and disappointments. One of the most anticipated events of each season is the debut of rookies and how they will perform throughout the year. Big things were expected from Kris Bryant this year and he definitely did not disappoint. Originally drafted by the Blue Jays in 2010 in the 18th round (546th overall), he was committed to the University of San Diego and the Jays didn’t offer enough to sway him. In 2013, the Cubs drafted him 2nd overall and he did nothing but climb the ranks until he made his MLB debut on April 17, 2015. His first game didn’t go as well as he hoped, going 0-4 with 3 K’s, but debuts mean nothing except for a little extra media hoopla. He cruised the rest of the way through the season on his way to one of the most impressive rookie seasons in recent memory, posting the 3rd highest WAR of any rookie since 2001. Only Mike Trout (10.3 WAR in 2012) and Albert Pujols (7.2 WAR in 2001) posted higher better WARs in their rookie campaigns.

I was looking over Bryant’s stats and his K% really jumped out at me. Although Bryant hit 26 home runs on the year, I began to wonder if there were any comparable seasons. Now the only criteria I used for comparison was: (1) as many or more home runs (26) and (2) equal or greater K%. Only 13 other players met this criteria since 2001 and they are listed in the table below.

Besides an awfully high K%, for which he ranks 23rd overall since 2001, out of all the players on this list, he posted the most impressive WAR. He’s also in some pretty elite company with respect to power hitters. There are four 40+ home run seasons on that list and many 30+ homer seasons. In addition to providing value with his bat, he also provided a positive UZR rating at a highly demanding defensive position. This combination is what made Kris Bryant so attractive to teams since the 2010 draft.

Using the same player list as above, I looked at their seasonal BABIPs, and I found one particular season of interest. Bryant’s 2015 season. Bryant posted a 0.381 BABIP this year, and the next-closest player on the list was Mark Reynold’s 2009 season at 0.338 which is still quite a difference. Looking at Mark Reynold’s seasonal stats from 2008 to 2011, his batting average follows the same pattern as his BABIP.

And a plot showing the relationship between AVG and BABIP (data from 2001 to 2015). There is an increasing relationship between the two, but there is some pretty wide variation. Nonetheless, I’ve highlighted Bryant’s data point from the 2015 season in red and it’s pretty clear that it represents an outlier for his batting average.

If we consider that the players listed in the tables above are from the same pedigree, their career BABIPs average out to around 0.298. Now I’m not saying Kris Bryant is going to follow the same trend, but based on the strikeout rate he posted this year he’s very aggressive at the plate and I know we are going to expect that inflated BABIP to come back down to Earth so I think we can expect some regression next year. As a reference Danny Santana posted a BABIP of 0.405 in 2014 only to drop down to 0.290 this year which saw his WAR plummet from 3.3 to -1.4. I looked at the relationship between HR, SB and a few other stats and batting average showed the highest correlation with BABIP from the stats I looked at. Based on this I expect his batting average will be the most likely to be affected with a downfall of BABIP. I really don’t think the home runs are going to go anywhere, but I think we can likely expect to watch that batting average fall. It remains to be seen how this will affect his peripheral stats, but as long as he continues providing solid defense at the hot corner he is going to provide lots of value on a major-league roster. I’m sorry to say Cubs fans I think you should expect some offensive woes next year.

Now that the regular season is over, it’s time to talk about awards. I mean people were already talking about awards, but now it’s time to really start talking about awards. Perhaps the most hotly contested award this year is the NL Cy Young. Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke, and Jake Arrieta are in three-headed race for the award, and they’re all incredibly close in terms of quality of performance, making it nigh impossible to pick a single winner. So I thought I’d give picking one the old college try. For simplicity reasons I decided to only compare Kershaw and Arrieta, who seem to be the two most often pegged as deserving in the sabermetric community. So, let’s dive in.

First things first, Kershaw has a pretty significant advantage when it comes to FIP metrics. His 29 K-BB% is seven percentage points higher than Arrieta’s 22%. Kershaw’s huge lead in strike-zone control more than makes up for the fact that he’s let up home runs a bit more often than Arrieta (10% and 8% HR/FB rate respectively). Boiling it down, Arrieta’s 61 FIP- trails behind Kershaw’s (52) by almost ten points.

Where things start to get murky is when one looks into their contact management ability. On the surface it appears Arrieta has a leg up here. Their IFFB% is basically identical. But as I mentioned before Arrieta has given up a few less home runs, and has also induced more groundballs.

Arrieta’s production on groundballs is also much better: he’s allowed a .377 OPS on grounders to Kershaw’s .468. Although it’s not that simple, because all defenses are not created equally, and the quality of the fielders behind you can have a big effect on the production of the groundballs you induce. So in that respect it’s worth noting that the Cubs ranked 6th in UZR/150 among all teams, while the Dodgers ranked 13th.

But there’s other ways of determining groundball production. Grounders that are pulled, generally, are more likely to turn into outs than grounders hit to the opposite field. Thus, it would make sense that a pitcher who gets batters to pull their grounders more often would have better production on their grounders, regardless of the quality of his team’s defense. So who’s induced pulled grounders more often? It turns out Arrieta – although only by the slightest margin. He’s induced a pulled groundball on 0.052% of his pitches, while Kershaw’s done the same on 0.047% of his.

So the difference between their pull rates is essentially negligible. But there’s more ways yet to evaluate groundball production. For instance, the velocity on those groundballs. Logic dictates that it’s easier to field a slow-moving groundball than a fast-moving one. After all, slow things are generally easier to pick up than fast things. Thus a pitcher who is more disposed to generate grounders of modest velocity is more likely to have better production on those groundballs, once again regardless of defense.

To figure out who had been better at coaxing soft grounders, I employed Baseball Savant’s PITCHf/x search tool. I set the batted-ball type to groundballs for obvious reasons. I set the maximum batted-ball velocity at 80 MPH because I couldn’t find the league average and 80 seems like a reasonable number. As it turns out, Arrieta has produced soft grounders on a greater number of his pitches than Kershaw (4.4% to 3.6%). Again the difference isn’t huge (the separation between the best and the worst in this particular metric is only about 4.5%) , but further implicates that Arrieta has been the better manager of contact. To sum it up, It does appear as though Arrieta has an advantage in the contact-management department, but not as large as it looks at first glance.

At the end of the day, these are two similarly great pitchers having two great similarly great seasons, and both should be celebrated as such. But if I had to pick one for award purposes, I think I’d go with Kershaw. If only because I believe more in his strike-zone-control numbers than Arrieta’s contact-management ones.