So we all know the Cubs signed Jon Lester to a six-year, $155 million dollar contract this offseason. The Cubs presumably believe they will be competitive if not this season then the next, and therefore decided to get themselves an ace. This however bodes the question, is Jon Lester even the Cubs’ best pitcher going into 2015?

Last year proved to be a breakout year for right-hander Jake Arrieta. Arrieta was drafted in 2007 by the Baltimore Orioles and made his Major League debut in 2010. He spent a little over six years with the Orioles before he was traded to the Cubs in 2013. Arrieta posted good numbers in the minors, in fact in 2010, at Triple A he had a 1.85 ERA before getting the call to the Majors that same season. In the Majors, however it was a different story. From 2010-2013 Arrieta was downright awful, never pitching more than 119.1 innings in a season and never posting an ERA below 4.66, which he did in his rookie year.

2014, though, was different. Arrieta posted the best numbers of his career, finishing with a 2.53 ERA, a 2.26 FIP, and a 2.73 xFIP. He also recorded a career high in innings, netting 156.2 innings pitched. How was Arrieta able to this? A guy who had never had an ERA below 4.66 recorded a Cy Young-caliber season? He even might have had a shot at the Cy Young Award if he’d pitched more innings.

Well Arrieta essentially stopped walking hitters and started striking out a bunch of hitters. He posted the best K-BB% of his career at 20.5% and he also stopped giving up home runs at .29 HR/9. There are several ways a pitcher can become better; some of them create a new pitch, some of them make a mechanical adjustment, and some just sequence their pitches better. I think in Arrieta’s case it comes down to sequencing and maybe mechanical although I have no way of truly knowing whether the latter is true or not.

Here is an example of the type of pitches Arrieta threw from 2010-2013 according to Brooks Baseball.

Here is Arrieta’s sequencing in 2014.

Two elements really stand out to me through these tables. The first is that Arrieta has not added a killer new pitch. The second is that Arrieta is throwing a lot less four-seam fastballs and a lot more sliders, especially to left-handed hitters. He’s also increased his curveball usage. Arrieta essentially is mixing his pitches a lot more than in previous seasons, which could be an answer to his sudden spike in production. If you’re thinking, well, maybe he’s throwing harder, he’s not. His fastball velocity last year was 93.4, which is pretty much where it’s been its entire career (career fastball velocity: 93).

Does this guarantee that Arrieta will be better than Lester next season? Probably not. Lester still has Arrieta by a wide margin in innings. Lester’s consistently pitched more 200 innings throughout his career, while Arrieta’s never pitched more than 156.2. Also even though Arrieta is mixing his pitches better, this isn’t necessarily predictive that he will keep doing it or keep doing it with the same success rate. If I personally had to put money on it I would still give a slight edge to Lester. That being said I wouldn’t be surprised if Arrieta was better than Lester next season and going forward.

Arrieta at 28 is still three years younger than Lester (31). While Arrieta’s fastball velocity had kept steady, Lester’s fastball velocity has been on a steady downward decline since 2010. Last year his fastball velocity was the lowest of his career at 91.5 and if it keeps dropping we could see a significant decline in Lester’s production. Throughout his career, Lester’s ERA and peripheral indicators have consistently been in the mid- to low-threes. It wouldn’t surprise me if Lester fell back to that norm, or even took a step back.

Essentially, it is difficult to predict which pitcher will regress and which one will keep the same level of production. For all we know, they could both regress. The point here is to demonstrate that Lester will not necessarily be that much better (if better at all) than Arrieta in 2015. For all we know, Arrieta might be the next Cubs ace.

Ever since the Cubs acquired top shortstop prospect Addison Russell from the Oakland Athletics in the Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel deal people began to speculate that Starlin Castro’s time in Chicago may be coming to a close sooner rather than later. Castro’s name began to pop up in trade rumors all the time, Castro to the Mets, Castro to Seattle etc… but Cubs President Theo Epstein and General Manager Jed Hoyer told teams that Castro wasn’t going anywhere. With all the middle infield talent the Cubs have people see Castro as the odd man out. The front office repeated their message about Castro being their guy early in the offseason by saying “ Starlin is our shortstop in 2015.” I know a lot of people expect Castro to be traded at some point, but I’ll go over why I think they should keep the three-time All-Star, and how he’s becoming a better player.

Contract

First off Castro is still young currently 24 years old (he’ll turn 25 in spring training). Castro also has a team friendly deal at 7yr/$61M with an option for the 2020 season. This contract averages out to $8.7M each year, although the contract is back loaded, but still an average of $8.7M is a bargain for a premium position in today’s MLB market.

Lets compare Starlin’s contract to another young shortstop, Elvis Andrus of the Texas Rangers. Andrus signed an 8yr/$120M contract with the Rangers.

As you can see Andrus is due significantly more money than Castro. Compared to Andrus’ contract Castro’s seems like a bargain. But the real question is who is the better player, and is Andrus worth $60M more than Castro? Lets look at each player’s career numbers.

Andrus has posted of career line of (.272/.335/.345) with an OPS of .680, 20 points lower than league average. He has totaled 20 home runs in 6 seasons. Castro has a career line of (.284/.325/.410) with an OPS of .735, 35 points higher than league average. Starlin has clubbed 51 career home runs in one fewer year than Andrus. By comparing these two players numbers and contracts you can clearly see that the Cubs are getting a great deal on Castro. Castro not only makes far less than Andrus he is a superior offensive player, and is also younger with more upside. I believe that Castro’s contract could become more of a steal if Castro becomes a better player, which he is starting to show signs of. Lets go over how Castro is starting to become better in all facets of the game.

Improving Power

Castro totaled 14 home runs in 2014 tying his career high set back in the 2012 season. Starlin would have easily set a new career high if not for an ankle injury that cost him most of September. Despite missing almost 30 games Castro still put up a career high SLG% of .438 besting his 2011 season SLG% of .432. Keep in mind that is the season where Castro hit .307 and had over 200 hits so therefore his slugging percentage was based more on singles and triples and fewer long balls.

One reason for Castro’s improving power is that he is starting to hit more fly balls, and those fly balls are starting to leave the ballpark. In 2010 when Starlin got called up as a 20 year old he looked like a 16 year old due to his lean frame. Castro hit only 3 home runs that year and was mainly a singles hitter when he first started his career. In 2010 Castro’s groundball percentage (GB%) was 51.3% and his fly ball percentage (FB%) was 29.2%, this equaled a groundball to fly ball ratio (GB/FB) of 1.76. Castro’s home run to fly ball ratio (HR/FB) in 2010 was only 2.6%, which ranked 19^th out of 22 qualified shortstops. As you can see when Starlin first came up he was a singles hitter who mainly hit the ball on the ground, which isn’t a bad thing, and when he did elevate the ball it rarely left the yard.

Let’s look at these same numbers in 2014. His GB% dropped to 45.3% and his FB% rose to 32.3%, which equaled a GB/FB ratio of 1.40. Now where the biggest change happened is in his HR/FB ratio — it skyrocketed to 10.1%. This means 1 out of every 10 fly balls that Starlin hit traveled over the wall for a homer. His increased HR/FB ratio brought him to 4^th among qualified shortstops in HR/FB ratio, which is a huge improvement over his rookie season.

With more fly balls from Castro you’ll see more of this…

and this…

and this…

Not only is Castro hitting more home runs; he is hitting more impressive home runs like these above. Watching Castro’s 2014 season I found myself saying, “wow that was far” on more of his home runs than ever before in previous seasons.

For these reasons above I believe that Castro is poised to show even more power in the coming seasons due to his increased FB% as well as his vastly improved HR/FB ratio.

Improving Defense

Lets take a look at Castro’s fielding numbers from the beginning of his career until now.

When Starlin came up in 2010, defense was the biggest weakness of his game by far. In 2010 he committed 27 errors in 123 games, which ranked as the 2^nd most in the MLB that year. His FP% of .950, was 2^nd to last among qualified shortstops in 2010. In 2011 Castro committed 29 errors, which was the most in the majors that year, although he still ranked last in FP% among shortstops, his FP% rose by 11 points. In 2012 Castro tied for the major league lead in errors at 27. 2013 was more of the same tying for the second most errors in the majors, but in 2014 we saw a great improvement by his committing only 15 errors. This improvement is Starlin’s fielding brought him towards the middle of the pack in FP% among shortstops. Castro even had a 38-game errorless streak in 2014 as well, showing that he has gotten over his problem of making the routine throw to first.

Although the metrics are down on Castro as a defender, I see Castro get to balls that he has no business getting to. For example Castro is one of the best shortstops at making plays on bloopers and shallow fly balls, like this for example.

Castro has great range on balls hit over his head. Not only can he make the plays in shallow left and center field, he covers a lot of ground moving laterally and is quickly able to get to his feet and unleash a strong throw, like this for example.

As you can see Castro is improving his defensive game year by year and there is no evidence to suggest that he can’t get any better in 2015 as well. This is just one of the many ways that Castro is steadily improving his overall game.

Comparing Castro to Other Shortstops

As offensive numbers are down in recent years, finding a premium offensive shortstop is a hard thing to do. Lets see how Castro stacks up compared to other shortstops around the league in 2014.

Among qualified shortstops Castro led all of them in batting average at .292, He was 2^nd in OBP at .339, and 3^rd in SLG at .438. I’ll take a guy any day of the week that ranks in the top three of those categories among his position. Castro also ranked sixth in line drive percentage at 22.3% (which beat his previous career high by 2%), trailing the leader by only 2%. Castro also ranked first in batting average on balls in play (BABIP); these two categories combined shows that he is putting the ball in play and hitting the ball hard all over the field, which will generate a good average as well as power. Another stat where Castro is ranked in the top three among shortstops is wRC+; his wRC+ was 115, 15 points over league average, good enough for third among shortstops.

One knock on Castro in his career is that he doesn’t walk enough, but looking at the shortstop position as a whole no one is posting a staggering OBP (Except for Troy Tulowitzki, who is in another league compared to every other shortstop, but he can’t stay healthy). Therefore Castro’s .339 OBP is extremely good for a shortstop in the game today. I think people need to compare players to others playing that same position, because if you look at Castro’s numbers compared to other shortstops Starlin is clearly a top three shortstop in the game offensively.

What Do You Do With All These Shortstops?

Some people see the Cubs’ surplus of shortstops as a problem, but I see it as a good problem to have. Normally your shortstop is your most athletic player and covers the most ground, so why not have three of them in the infield? I think if the Cubs fielded and infield of Castro, Javier Baez, and Addison Russell, that infield would gobble up every groundball. Whether Castro sticks at short or if Russell comes up and becomes the shortstop that everyone thinks he will be, the Cubs could have a huge defensive advantage by playing three shortstops in the IF.

Playing three shortstops in the IF would shift Kris Bryant, who will be an average defensive 3B at best, to the outfield where his defense wouldn’t be as much of a concern. Bryant in LF would fill the one spot where the Cubs don’t have a top prospect. This would mean you would have a top prospect at every position in the future. For example C: Kyle Schwarber (if he can stick at C), 1B: All-Star Anthony Rizzo, a combination of Baez, Castro, and Russell all fitting at 2B, 3B, and SS (future positions TBD), LF: Bryant, CF: Albert Almora or Arismendy Alcantara (Alcantara could become super utility as well, a Ben Zobrist role), RF: Jorge Soler. I don’t know about you but a lineup filled with all those top prospects and all that power excites the heck out of me.

Overall I think Starlin Castro is severely under-appreciated not only by the MLB, but also by Cubs fans. Castro has improved in many areas, and I believe that he is among the top three shortstops in the game. Castro is starting to show that he has more power in that bat with an increased FB% and in his FB/HR ratio. Keeping Starlin Castro as well as all of the other shortstops could be very beneficial for the Cubs.

The A’s winning the West after a huge offseason makeover in 2015 might seem like an unlikely achievement, but here are seven reasons why this is not at all unachievable:

1. The New-Look Infield

In 2015 the Athletics will be throwing out a fresh face at each of the four starting infield positions. Here’s a quick look:

Especially from an Athletics fan’s perspective, the left side of this chart looks very nice. The names Moss and Donaldson are very important and dear to you; however, the right side of this chart is actually more productive overall. While Moss and Donaldson have the highest wOBA of the eight players at .351 and .339 respectively, Jed Lowrie and Eric Sogard have the two lowest at .300 and .262 respectively. This averages out to be a wOBA of .313. The Average wOBA for 2015’s infield is .320.

You might be thinking that Lawrie does not compare to Donaldson, and you could be right. The fact of the matter is that Lawrie is a downgrade from Donaldson, but not by all that much, meanwhile, Zobrist is a huge upgrade from Sogard at 2B. And even Sogard is an upgrade from Punto as the UTIL infielder.

Other important categories that favor the 2015 infield are BB%, K%, FB%, Contact%, OPS, OBP, etc. Also, the new infield got quite a bit younger and faster.

The 2015 infield also has a higher average wRC+ at 104 in comparison to 2014’s 102.5. These aren’t huge differences, but the A’s are expecting better years from Lawrie, who was injured a lot in 2014, Davis, who hit 32 HR in 2012, and Semien, who hasn’t really had much of a chance in the majors yet. These moves were necessary, not only to save money, but because the 2014 team didn’t actually win the AL West. I’m now going to compare this new INF to a team that did win the West, the 2012 A’s.

The 2012 INF consisted of Josh Donaldson, Stephen Drew, Cliff Pennington and Brandon Moss. There were other guys in the mix earlier on in the season, i.e. Jemile Weeks, Brandon Inge, however, these were the guys that got it done down the home stretch.

These numbers are almost identical, however the 2015 team has a slight edge in every category. That is despite the fact that the A’s expect growth from the incoming players this season. Even after the significant losses of Josh Donaldson and Brandon Moss the A’s infield is more than capable of pushing them toward another Western division title.

2. The Designated Hitter

The Athletics’ DH numbers from 2014 are not where you want them to be. Yes, Melvin will still use this spot as a “half-rest” day for players like Crisp, Reddick and Lawrie, but the newcomer Billy Butler will most likely fill the spot the majority of the time. Butler is a huge upgrade from the A’s team DH numbers last season in which Callaspo, Moss, Norris, Jaso, Vogt, Dunn, among countless others had at bats. Let’s take a look at the 2014 A’s DH numbers vs. Billy Butler’s 2014 numbers. (he also had a down season):

This chart shows that Butler is a significant upgrade at the DH spot, as he will bring a lot more production to the middle of this lineup. I should also bring up his career numbers, which are a wOBA of .351 and wRC+ of 117. If Butler can get back to his career form, the A’s offense is looking at a huge boost, but even if he doesn’t and repeats his 2014 performance, the DH spot is still getting a nice upgrade.

3. The Rotation

The starting rotation for the A’s no longer consists of Jon Lester, Jeff Samardzija or Jason Hammel, but it is still a very strong group with huge potential. I’m going to compare the projected 2015 group to the 2012 and 2013 rotations that led the A’s to division titles.

2012

2013

Projected 2015 (2014 STATS)

As you can see, the 2015 rotation wins four out of the six categories. They won the majority of the categories already, but this 2015 staff has the potential to be better than these numbers show. In past years, the A’s success had a lot to do with their strong pitching staff — this is a big reason why I believe they will win the west in 2015 — however, we need to take a look at the projected rotations of the four other teams in the division to see how the A’s compare to each of them.

Here are the five teams’ projected rotations for 2015:

Angels

Mariners

Rangers

Astros

Athletics

The Mariners and the Athletics both have really solid pitching staffs. The Mariners have arguably the best pitcher in the American League in Felix Hernandez. The Angels also have a good young ace in Garrett Richards, but he is coming off an injury; it will be interesting to see how he bounces back. Sonny Gray proved that he is a true ace last season, going over 200 innings and pitching extremely well in big games. The numbers do give the A’s a slight edge; they won three of the six categories and the Mariners won two of them. King Felix, Iwakuma and the solid supporting cast are hard to bet against, but 1-5, the A’s have a better staff according to last year’s numbers.

4. Speedee Oil Change

Anytime manager Bob Melvin calls on the bullpen, the A’s should be confident. There are so many capable arms out there that it’s really not fair. Honestly, a starter could go four innings with a lead and that would be enough for this bullpen with Otero, Abad, Cook, O’Flaherty, Clippard and Doolittle in the mix. There are plenty of other options as well that might not get a shot because it’s already crowded with talent out there. The starters, however, are very capable of giving you six or seven innings consistently, which makes this bullpen even that much more deadly, allowing Melvin to create left-on-left matchups or vice versa. The fact of the matter is, if you can’t score, you can’t win. While the starting staff is very solid, getting to the bullpen might not be the opponent’s best option when facing the A’s. Another positive for the A’s has been their ability to fight their way back into ballgames the last few years. With a bullpen like this who can keep the deficit where it is, the probability of achieving a comeback is that much greater.

As shown by the Royals on the successful end and the Dodgers on the opposite end, the strength of your bullpen can make or break your season.

Let’s compare the A’s bullpen to the other teams in the division by highlighting the projected top six bullpen arms for each team:

Angels

Mariners

Rangers

Astros

Athletics

The Mariners and Athletics each won two out of the five categories. The Athletics also came in second in two other categories. Although this chart shows the Mariners and the A’s as pretty evenly matched, the Mariners have a lot of aging players in their pen, so we cannot be sure if they will keep up the good numbers. The Astros got a lot better by adding Luke Gregerson and Pat Neshek, but that still wasn’t enough to make them the best in the division, especially after the A’s went out and traded for the two time All-Star, Tyler Clippard. All of these teams except Texas have a very strong bullpen, so trying to come back from a deficit is going to be a tough feat in this division.

The A’s also have a lot of other options past these six players, probably more so than the other four teams, making injuries less of a factor for them.

5. Coco Crisp

When Coco Crisp is at the top of the lineup, the A’s are a better team. Over the past three seasons there’s no player who has had as much of an overall impact on this team than Coco. Whether it’s at the plate, in the field or in the clubhouse, Crisp’s impact is significant. Despite losing a lot of star players, the A’s will not take a step backward because they still have their most important piece in Crisp. If Crisp would have been traded away this offseason, I don’t believe the A’s would be ready to compete for the AL West title in 2015. There would be too long of an adjustment period, someone else would need to step up big time and fill his shoes. Luckily, the A’s don’t have to worry about that yet. Bottom line: the A’s need Coco Crisp.

6. Depth and Versatility

Having a deep roster is always important in a 162 game season. You will have players go on the DL, it is unavoidable. Being able to replace the injured players with capable major leaguers is key to a team’s success in the long run. Billy Beane has constructed a 40-man roster with tremendous depth, especially with pitching. The A’s have eight or nine guys capable of making the starting rotation, not to mention two others (Jarrod Parker and A.J. Griffin) due back this summer. There are upwards of ten players competing for a spot in the bullpen as well. It will be interesting to see who makes it on to the 25-man roster, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Triple-A Nashville has a stacked opening day roster. Having great options in the minor leagues is key for any team, and the A’s will definitely have that this season with Kendall Graveman, Chris Bassitt, Sean Nolin and Brad Mills, four starters likely to be starting in Triple-A. Also, RJ Alvarez, Eury De La Rosa and Evan Scriber, three above-average bullpen arms will likely be starting down there as well.

The A’s lineup is a very versatile group this season. Eric Sogard, A’s second baseman the last few seasons, has moved into a utility INF role; he plays excellent defense, and for a defensive replacement, he can handle the stick pretty well. Ben Zobrist is known for his ability to play all over the diamond with above-average defense, and also for getting the job done from both sides of the plate; his career wOBA is .344. Craig Gentry and Sam Fuld can play all three outfield positions with ease while providing speed off the bench in pinch running situations. Marcus Semien will likely be the everyday SS, but he can play all over the infield as well. Stephen Vogt will mostly catch, but he can play first base and corner outfield if the A’s need him to. The amount of options the A’s have, if injuries do occur, are limitless. It will be entertaining to see how Bob Melvin constructs his lineup card every day.

7. The Manager

Bob Melvin is the perfect manager for a team of misfits and players who have never played together previously. He will bring this group to play for each other, as a unit, one day at a time. Melvin is great at creating matchups that benefit the team and give them the best chance to succeed. The roster that has been assembled this season is perfect for just that. It is loaded with skilled, versatile players. Bob Melvin has done it before and he will do it again.

Earlier this offseason, the Dodgers and Marlins completed a large trade, with Dee Gordon, Dan Haren, and Miguel Rojas getting shipped to Florida (along with $10 million) while Andrew Heaney, Enrique Hernandez, Austin Barnes, and Chris Hatcher headed out west in return. The Dodgers, whose new front office was in a midst of one of the most ridiculous trading benders in recent memory, then turned around and less than an hour later sent Heaney to the Angels in exchange for second baseman Howie Kendrick. While Heaney was a valuable piece, touted as one of the game’s top left handed pitching prospects who was also considered close to the majors if not already capable of handling it, the Dodgers were clearly happy to get Kendrick in return, an under the radar stud at second base who was worth over four and a half wins last year.

Ignoring the other teams in the trades for a moment, the Dodgers come out of these moves looking much better than they had before. Austin Barnes and Chris Hatcher are both valuable pieces that provide the Dodgers with bullpen and bench depth that they sorely needed. Even if Dee Gordon’s first half was not an aberration, and even if you take issue with both players’ defensive stats, the worst anyone could argue is that both second basemen are close to equal, but most would agree that Kendrick is an improvement over Gordon.

Now obviously, there was more to the trade than their straight up value. Gordon is young and affordable with five more years of team control. Kendrick, while also relatively cheap, is 31 and in the last year of his contract. However, I’m not interested in comparing Kendrick and Gordon. I’m interested in the last piece that the Marlins sent to the Dodgers in their trade, a 23-year-old utility player by the name of Enrique Hernandez. Hernandez broke into the majors for the first time in 2014, playing a total of 42 games with both the Astros and Marlins (he was a part of the Jarred Cosart deal). Among many other skills (which we will soon examine), Hernandez has the ability to play second base, and he was actually pretty decent in his short stint in the majors last year. So what I’m curious to look at is whether the Dodgers are better off with Kendrick manning second and Hernandez on the bench, or whether giving Hernandez the starting job and keeping Heaney might have been the better move for the organization.

Let’s start by examining Hernandez. His primary weapon is versatility, having spent time at SS, 2B, and 3B, as well as all three outfield positions, providing plus defense everywhere he played. On top of that, he also managed to provide value with the bat, posting a .248/.321/.421 line, which was good for a 110 wRC+ last year (I know, offense was crazy down last year). Now granted, that was only in 134 PAs, which leads to the question whether that success was sustainable. Hernandez was not a good hitter in the minors. A 6^th round pick in 2009, he averaged an 85 wRC+ across three levels from 2011-2013, and for a while it didn’t look like he was going to amount to anything much. However, something seemed to click in 2014, as he posted above average numbers across three levels, including the big leagues.

So what changed? Well, his strikeout rate dropped (at least in the minors, it spiked once he started facing big league pitching), and his walk rated jumped. He also started hitting for a lot more power, which did manage to carry over to the majors. In an interview with Jimmy Price, Hernandez credited his recent success to a mechanical adjustment in winter ball.

I went into winter ball and decided to figure out what was wrong with my swing. I tried a few things, not really worried about how my season was going, I was just trying to get better and there it was. I tweaked a little something in my batting stance and it clicked. All of the sudden [sic] I was seeing the ball better, recognizing pitches a lot earlier and I started driving the ball again.

These signs (increased walk rate, more power, a mechanical adjustment) all point to a real offensive outbreak as opposed to a fluky few games. On top of that, he even posted a below average BABIP in the majors while still being productive. ZiPS also thinks his breakout is at least somewhat sustainable, projecting him for a .306 wOBA for next year. Combine that with his plus defense, and the system believes he will be worth 2 WAR. While nothing remarkable, that seems like a completely capable starting second baseman.

So now let’s turn our attention to Howie Kendrick, who will be manning second base for the Dodgers on Opening Day, save any Simpsons-esque misfortunes. I suppose injury would be another possibility, but I digress. Kendrick was a top prospect coming up through the Angels system, with sky-high expectations set upon him. While Kendrick didn’t turn into a superstar, he carved out a nice niche for himself, playing plus defense while always being at least average with the bat, sometimes much more. And while he started out his career as an average regular, he turned himself into a well above-average player as he entered his prime, averaging more than four wins per season over the past four years. Last year Kendrick hit a very solid .293/347/397, good for a 115 wRC+. He also provided plus defense, posting a 6.7 UZR. In short, he was really good.

However, next year isn’t necessarily a guarantee of the same thing. ZiPS still likes Kendrick to produce 3.7 WAR, which would be right in line with his past few years. However, Steamer is quite pessimistic, projecting a drop in both offense and defense, and sees Kendrick only being worth 2.4 wins. Let’s split the difference and say that Kendrick will be about a 3-win player next year. Now even here, Kendrick is a clear upgrade over Hernandez, but he does come with some caveats of his own. For starters, Kendrick is 31 years old, and he is also in the last year of his contract that will see him make $9.5 million in 2015. While the salary is a major bargain, the Dodgers will likely have to purchase some of Kendrick’s decline years at the price of his prime years if they sign him to an extension, and he could turn from a bargain into another bad veteran contract.

Now if the Dodgers don’t extend him, they can just take his 2015 and its surplus value, offer Kendrick a qualifying offer at the end of the year, accept the draft pick and move on. Since estimates peg a sandwich round pick to be worth about two wins, we can also factor that into Kendrick’s value. But now we turn our attention to the piece that brought Kendrick to Los Angeles from Not Los Angeles: Andrew Heaney.

The 23-year-old Heaney was highly touted coming up through the minors. He was rated as the Marlins’ number-one prospect by Baseball Prospectus and the number-30 prospect in baseball headed into the 2014 season. Scouting reports were all positive, pegging him with three plus pitches and a repeatable delivery. Bringing all of this from the left side made him all the more attractive. Heaney did nothing to disprove that, starting the year by tearing up AA and holding his own in AAA as well. That culminated with him getting called up to the majors in June when the Marlins were in need of some rotation help.

Unfortunately for them (and Heaney), he was flat-out bad upon reaching the show. Across four starts in June, the young southpaw gave up 15 runs in just 20.2 innings. Heaney only struck out 13 while walking six, but his true enemy was the longball, as he gave up five home runs. Those are all bad totals, which led to his FIP of 6.18. His BABIP of .297 also suggests that he wasn’t really unlucky in any discernible way. These bad outings led to Heaney being sent down on July 6, a day after giving up five runs in just 3.2 innings.

After he spent the rest of the minor league season in Triple-A, the Fish called Heaney back up for another cup of coffee in September, this time using him out of the bullpen. While he wasn’t anywhere near as terrible as his starts in the summer, Heaney wasn’t extremely impressive either, posting a 3.71 FIP in 8.2 innings of long relief. While Heaney is still a highly regarded prospect, and his two stints in the majors are an incredibly small sample size, there are some worrying signs. The home runs are obviously not good, but Heaney also had a Z-Contact% of 93.9. This means that pitches in the strike zone that hitters swung at were hit 94% of the time. That number would have been the highest among qualified starters last year by a lot, and it might suggest that he doesn’t quite have enough to get it by major league hitters, at least not on his fastball.

However, a SwStr% of 9.6 was actually quite good, suggesting he might have to live off his breaking stuff in the show. FanGraphs’ pitch values also support this, rating his fastball as a poor pitch while his slider is average and his change is plus. However, these reasons might have given the Marlins the motivation to move him for Dee Gordon when the opportunity arose. Yet, most scouts (or at least the ones who write on the internet) still look highly upon Heaney. Kiley McDaniel gives him an overall future value of 60, which translates to an above-average starter in the majors. ZiPS also sees potential, projecting the youngster to produce more than a win if given a starting role, albeit with a 4.42 FIP (the system anticipates he’ll still have home run troubles).

But the value of Heaney isn’t what he is now, it’s what he will become. Heaney offers his team six years of team control, his age 23 through 29 seasons. Those are exactly the years you want to control, getting a player right through his prime, then being able to say goodbye as the guy turns 30 and starts to decline. Even if Heaney follows a late aging curve, and doesn’t start realizing his potential until 26, and even if he just becomes a league average starter, it’s still a reasonable expectation that he will produce at least 9 wins over the next six years, save for any injury (which is obviously a realistic but unpredictable possibility).

So, would the Dodgers have been better off keeping Andrew Heaney? Going by ZiPS projections, Heaney and Hernandez combined might be able to provide Kendrick’s 2014 in the aggregate this year, and that doesn’t even include the value the Dodgers would have gained from Heaney in the future. But, there is a lot more to it than that. So even factoring in the potential draft pick or extension Los Angeles might get, the two seem to be more valuable over the long term. However, the Dodgers obviously want to win now. Kendrick not only provides an upgrade over Hernandez for 2014, but they can also fill their fifth slot in the rotation with someone better than Andrew Heaney, which they might have done with the combination of Brett Anderson and Joe Wieland. It also allows the Dodgers to move Hernandez to the bench, where his versatility can be fully utilized. Considering the Dodger’s relatively old infield, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect Hernandez to start at least twice a week, possibly more, while providing the team with value on both sides of the ball.

So while keeping Heaney might have provided more value in the long run, it is important to remember that a win now might be more valuable than a win later to a team that is expected to contend for the World Series. Also, the front office folks might not have been as high on Heaney after his brief foray into the major leagues, but they took advantage of an Angels team that still wanted him. Or after already signing Brandon McCarthy, trading for Joe Wieland, and possibly planning on acquiring Anderson as well, the Dodgers might not have wanted to stunt Heaney’s development with another year in the minors. Regardless of the motivation, the LA brass decided that the team was better off with Howie Kendrick than it was with Andrew Heaney. If Heaney turns into a star and Kendrick implodes this year, it might be a move they end up regretting, but this Dodger front office has been executing a very specific game plan all offseason long, and this trade was just another part of it. So odds are they won’t end up regretting this move, because if there is one thing we know for certain, it’s that those guys are much smarter than I am.

Clay Buchholz is probably the hardest pitcher to project (I also waited until the end to write this write-up) because his performances in the past have been so widely inconsistent. To borrow a line from Jason Mastrodonato, “Baseball-reference.com creates comparable player lists based on the numbers, and the players Buchholz is compared to – Rich Harden, Shaun Marcum, Ricky Nolasco, Ian Kennedy and Wade Miller, among others – are perhaps equally talented as they are sporadic.”

So before going down the rabbit hole let’s take a look at his baseline numbers first. From 2008-13 he has a 3.66 ERA. 1.30 WHIP, 17.9% strikeout rate and 9.1% walk rate. Last year he was really bad; last year’s ERA was the highest it’s been since his rookie year in 2008. When asked about his poor numbers not even Buchholz himself was able to identify why.

He was incredibly unlucky last year as his BABIP and strand rate were much than his career norms. It’s easy to say both numbers will positively regress, but there’s a reason why last year’s BABIP was 30 points higher than his career average and the strand rate was nearly ten percentage points lower than his career average.

Let’s take a look at the performance of his pitches (table below). I categorized his pitch types into two categories: Hard and Soft. Hard consists of the fastball, sinker and cutter and Soft consists of the curveball, splitter and changeup.

The biggest reason why his BABIP was so high was due to the Hard pitches. Even though the Hard pitches had a high BABIP he didn’t allow a lot of hard contact as evidenced by normal slugging percentage. Let’s take a deeper dive and look at his performance against left-handed and right-handed hitters.

The table below shows his performance throwing Hard pitches against left-handed and right-handed batters.

He had huge spike in BABIP against lefties last year, but like the previous table lefties didn’t make a lot of hard contact against him. He also saw an uptick in BABIP against righties too so maybe it was bad pitch location that caused the high BABIP?

The image below shows the percentage of pitches by pitch location for Hard pitches. The three locations are Up, Down or Middle.

Last year he continued to throw Hard pitches down in the zone so it’s counter-intuitive because keeping the ball down in the zone is one of the most effective ways to be successful. If he kept the ball down then why was his BABIP so high? The table below shows the BABIP of Hard pitches thrown in various locations. Those locations are classified as Up, Middle and Down.

He’s thrown Hard pitches down in the zone at the same clip for the past three seasons, but his BABIP shot up immensely which indicates he was extremely unlucky last year.

Some fantasy owners may say the reason for his poor performance was a decrease in fastball velocity, but his velocity was barely less than 2013 and only one mph less than the 2011 season.

In late September he had surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee, which could have been a factor to his poor performance because it was the same knee that put him on the DL in May. However, when asked Buchholz insisted he was fully healthy.

After looking at all this data I conclude he got unlucky with the BABIP and if he continues to throw Hard pitches down in the zone he should be very successful next season. The big question is how successful?

Last year he posted the lowest walk rate of his career while continuing to throw Hard pitches down in the strike zone. If he’s able to continue both trends and the BABIP positively regresses he could have an ERA in the 3.40-3.50 range with a sub 1.29 WHIP. Injuries are always going to be a concern for Buchholz (he’s never pitched more than 190 innings in a regular season), but he has tremendous upside. The infield defense should be very good and he’ll likely be pitching with a lot of runs on the board. His ADP will likely be suppressed so fantasy owners will likely be able to draft him at a substantial discount. I’m going to take a chance on him and so should you.

Johnny Cueto was very good in 2014. By traditional metrics, he was excellent: 20 wins, 242 strikeouts in 243 2/3 innings, a 2.25 ERA and 0.96 WHIP. By more advanced metrics, he was good but not quite that good: 3.30 FIP, 3.21 xFIP, 3.15 SIERA. Per FanGraphs, Cueto had 4.1 WAR, ranking him 14^th among pitchers. Baseball-Reference had Cueto with 6.4 WAR, which placed him 6^th among pitchers. No matter how you look at it, Johnny Cueto was good in 2014.

Johnny Cueto threw 3659 pitches during the regular season last year, making him one of only six pitchers to throw 3500 or more pitches. [NOTE: for this article, I’m only using major league regular season pitches thrown.] Cueto is not a big guy for a pitcher. He’s listed at 5’11, 215. The other five pitchers to throw 3500 or more pitches last year were David Price (6’6”, 220), Corey Kluber (6’4”, 215), James Shields (6’3”, 215), Max Scherzer (6’3”, 220), and R.A. Dickey (6’3”, 215). Of these six pitchers, Cueto had the greatest increase in pitches thrown from the previous year.

So, based on his high pitch total last year and low pitch total the year before, should we be worried about Johnny Cueto in 2015?

Let’s start with the high pitch total. Using the Baseball-Reference Play Index and the FanGraphs Leaderboards, I gathered some information. The following chart shows the number of pitchers who threw 3500 or more pitches each year going back to 2000, along with the average number of pitches thrown per pitcher in their high-pitch year, the average number of pitches thrown by those same pitchers in the following year, and the difference between the two.

As you might expect, pitchers who throw 3500 or more pitches one year are likely to throw fewer pitches the following year. That’s the nature of regression to the mean. To throw 3500 pitches, a pitcher is likely to be having a good, healthy season. Things happen in baseball and it’s difficult for any group of pitchers to have back-to-back good, healthy seasons. Some are going to get injured and some are going to pitch worse and pitch less. In this case, the average difference was 379 pitches. Over the last fourteen years, pitchers who throw 3500 or more pitches one season have averaged 379 fewer pitches the following season. These days, 379 pitches is about 3 or 4 starts.

What about performance following a 3500-plus pitch season? The following chart shows how pitchers who threw 3500 or more pitches in one season performed in the following season.

Once again, keeping in mind regression to the mean, it’s not surprising to see that these pitchers were worse the following season. Looking at ERA+, 58% of these pitchers were worse in the year following their high pitch total year. The majority (63%) also had lower strikeout rates, but improved walk rates (52% improved their walk rate in the year after their high pitch year).

More specifically, the following chart shows the difference in innings pitched (IP) and runs allowed per 9 innings (RA/9):

Over the last fourteen years, pitchers who threw 3500 or more pitches in one year averaged 228 innings pitched that year. In the following year, they dropped to 205 innings pitched, a difference of 23 innings (this matches up well with the 379 fewer pitches thrown). In their high pitch count year, these pitchers had an RA/9 of 3.87. The following year, their RA/9 went up to 4.08, an increase of 0.21 RA/9.

Is this bad news for Johnny Cueto and the other five pitchers who threw more than 3500 pitches in 2014? Not really. I’ve mentioned regression to the mean a couple times. Based on regression, we would expect these pitchers to pitch fewer innings and have a higher RA/9.

With this in mind, here is a look at these 131 pitchers and their innings pitched and RA/9 in the year after they threw 3500 or more pitches compared to their Marcel projections for that year. Thanks to The Baseball Projection Project, I was able to find Marcel projections going back to 2001. The following chart shows each pitcher’s next-year Marcel projection for innings pitched and RA/9, along with each pitcher’s next-year actual innings pitched and RA/9.

Over the last fourteen years, pitchers who threw 3500 or more pitches in a season were projected by Marcel to pitch 194 innings the following season. They actually pitched 205 innings in that following season, for an increase of 11 innings over their Marcel projection.

When it comes to performance, we find that these pitchers averaged a 3.87 RA/9 in their high pitch total season and were projected by Marcel for a 4.05 RA/9 for the following season. They actually had a 4.07 RA/9 in the following season. It’s a very slight increase of 0.02 RA/9, which shouldn’t be anything to worry about, really.

So it would appear that throwing 3500 pitches in one season should not be a big cause for alarm. The pitchers who have done this recently did not perform any worse than their projections would have expected.

With Cueto, though, there was that other thing that worried me—his large increase in pitches thrown from 2013 (953 pitches thrown) to 2014 (3659 pitches thrown).

With this in mind, I looked at the 131 pitchers in this study to find the pitchers who had the largest increase in pitches thrown from one year to the next. I set the limit at no more than 2000 pitches thrown in the year prior to that pitcher’s 3500-plus pitch season. There were only 10 pitchers, including Cueto, who threw fewer than 2000 pitches in one season and more than 3500 pitches the next season. That screams “small sample size!”

Unfortunately, there is a problem with even this group of comparable pitchers—they aren’t very good matches for the Johnny Cueto Experience. For example, one of them was Barry Zito. Zito only had 92 2/3 innings in the major leagues in 2000, the year before he threw more than 3500 pitches, but he also pitched 101 2/3 minor league innings that year, so there really wasn’t a big increase in the number of pitches thrown from one year to the next. He gets eliminated. The same is true for Steve Sparks, Roy Halladay, Randy Johnson, Noah Lowry, and Adam Wainwright, all of whom had additional minor league innings that would push them over the 2000 pitch limit. Unfortunately, that leaves very little to work with—just three pitchers (Woody Williams, Roy Oswalt, and Chris Capuano).

These three pitchers did throw fewer innings in the year after their 3500-plus pitch year, but to a lesser degree than the group as a whole and they pitched more innings than projected by Marcel. Also, this group actually improved their RA/9 in the year after their 3500-plus pitch year and were much better than their Marcel projection.

Based on throwing 3500 or more pitches, it doesn’t appear there’s anything to worry about with Cueto. Based on such a large increase in pitches thrown from one year to the next, we don’t really know because there just haven’t been many pitchers allowed to do that over the last 14 years. My gut still tells me to be wary but the numbers don’t see a problem.

Jeff Zimmerman posted an interesting article on Friday. It prompted me to try to analyze the relationship between (i) an outfielder’s ability to make plays, and (ii) an outfielder’s ability to save runs. From my analysis below, the relationship is not as hand-in-glove as I initially would have thought.

From what I understood about Jeff’s article, he advanced a new defensive metric called “PMR,” which stands for Plays Made Ratio. Jeff calculated this ratio using data from Inside Edge, which categorizes every ball in play into one of six buckets. Jeff explains:

Most of the fielding data falls into two categories. The zero percentage plays are just that, impossible plays, and make up 23.2% of all the balls in play. Balls in this bucket are never caught and always have a 0% value. The other major range is the Routine Plays or the 90% to 100% bin. Defenders make outs on 97.9% of these plays, which make up 64.0% of all the plays in the field; the 2.1% which aren’t made are mostly errors. In total, 87.2% of all plays are graded out as either automatic hits or outs; it is the final ~13% which really determine if a defender is above or below average.

Between almost always and never, four categories remain. Even though each category has a defined range, like 40% to 60%, the average amount of plays made is not exactly in the middle of each range. Here are the actual percentage of plays made in each of the four ranges.

With these league average values and each individual player’s values, a ratio of number of plays made compared to the league average value can be calculated. To have the same output of stats like FIP- and wRC+, I put Plays Made Ratio on a 100 scale where a value like 125 is 25% better than the league average. Here is the long form formula and Jason Heyward’s value determined for an example.

Plays Made Ratio = ((Plays made from 1% to 90%)/((1% to 10% chances * .063%)+( 10% to 40% chances * .289)+ (40% to 60% chances * .576) + (60% to 90% chances * .805))) * 100

Heyward’s Plays Made Ratio = ((1+10+9+26)/((14*.063)+(16*.289)+(9*.576)+(27*.805)))*100

Heyward’s Plays Made Ratio = (46/32.4)*100

Heyward’s Plays Made Ratio = 142

Heyward had a heck of a season. Of the 66 playable balls hit to him, normally only 32 of them would have been caught for an out. Heyward was able to get to 46 of them, or 42% better than the league average. He has consistently had above league average values with a 133 value in 2012 and 125 in 2013.

Jeff posits that the new PFM metric gives us new insight that FanGraphs current go-to defensive metric (Ultimate Zone Rating) does not:

Now remember this stat [PMR] only looks at how often a fielder would have made the play considering their position on the field. The team could be playing its outfielders back to prevent a double or their infielders in for a bunt which could put the defender out of position. Additionally, it doesn’t look at the final results of the play (at least for now). If Sir Dive Alot is playing in the outfield and he loves to try to catch every ball hit his way, then he will get to a few extra flyballs by diving all the time, but those he doesn’t get to will pass him by for more doubles and triples. Also, an outfielder could be good at making plays while coming in versus going deep; balls which fall in over his head would be more damaging than those which fall for shallow singles. While his Plays Made Ratio may be high, the number of runs he saves, as seen by UZR or Defensive Runs Saved, may be lower by comparison.

This got me thinking about the relationship between a player’s PMR and his UZR, and, more specifically, his RngR. As I understand RngR, it is the component of UZR that estimates the number of runs a player saves, or surrenders, due to his range. RngR isolates the contribution a player’s range makes to his Ultimate Zone Rating by ignoring the contributions from his arm and his ability to limit errors.

Intuitively, it would make sense that a player’s PMR and his RngR would be strongly correlated. In other words, a player whose range allows him to make more plays than average would also be the same type of player whose range would allow him to save more runs than average. A simple two-by-two matrix, with RngR along the left side and PMR along the top would show the following quadrants:

My intuition is that players would fall in either quadrant (2) or quadrant (3). The interesting questions arise with players that would fall in quadrant (1) (those who exhibit poor range, but whose range saves runs), and in quadrant (4) (those who exhibit good range, but whose range does not save runs). There are several explanations for why a player may fall into quadrant (1) or (4).

Jeff noted three possible explanations.  First, a player may be overly aggressive, which would may lead to more outs (a higher PMR) but also more misplays resulting in doubles and triples (a lower RngR). Second, “an outfielder could be good at making plays while coming in versus going deep; balls which fall in over his head would be more damaging than those which fall for shallow singles. While his Plays Made Ratio may be high, the number of runs he saves, as seen by UZR or Defensive Runs Saved, may be lower by comparison.” Third, a player (or his team) may be particularly well adept at positioning himself, which would amplify his RngR rating, but not necessarily his PMR (as Jeff noted when discussing Nick Markakis).

How does the relationship between PMR and RngR look if it is applied to actual players? To find out, I looked at all center fielders who between 2012 and 2014 had at least 70 “total chances” (defined by Inside Edge as balls hit to that fielder where there is between a 1% and 90% likelihood that the ball is caught). That provided me a list of 18 center fielders. Next, I calculated each player’s rate-based RngR/150 (calculated by his total RngR divided by the innings he played in center field, multiplied by nine, multiplied by 150). That revealed the following table:

A scatter chart of this information looks like this. I also added a best-fit line to the scatter plot. My intuition that a player’s RngR/150 would be strongly correlated with his PMR is contradicted by this data. In fact, according to this data, (and based on my very limited skillset at statistical analysis, which may be completely incorrect), only 15% of the runs saved due to these 18 center fielders’ range can be explained by their Plays Made Ratio.

Even more interesting than the two-by-two matrix characterization introduced above, are the points on the scatter plot that are either way above (Juan Lagares and Lorenzo Cain) and way below (Dexter Fowler) the linear trendline.

The data suggest that Lagares/Cain and Fowler have similar range in center field, but that the former use their range to save more runs than the latter. One possible implication of this information is that Fowler is not optimizing his ability and that through better decision-making (such as being more aggressive or less aggressive on fly balls) or better positioning he could save more runs. As discussed earlier, it could also mean that Fowler is not (relatively) adept at playing balls hit over his head or in the gap, which leads to more doubles and triples.

On a larger scale, a possible implication of this data is that teams could significantly improve the amount of runs their center fielders save by (i) coaching their center fielders to make optimal decisions regarding their aggressiveness and (ii) properly positioning their center fielders. I would be curious to analyze what is the optimal amount of aggression a center fielder would have in going after balls hit to the outfield, the optimal way to position himself. For example, is it better to play shallow and be aggressive in cutting off singles (which Lagares has a reputation of doing) or to play deep? Those questions are best answered in a follow-up post/article.

The Oakland Athletics may have finally completed their roster turnover on Wednesday with their most recent deal sending Yunel Escobar to Washington for RP Tyler Clippard. However, you can never know if Billy Beane is finished making moves. With that being said, I’d like to break down the roster from last year to this year and assess whether or not the team will actually regress in 2015. The fact is that the Athletics got quite a bit younger this offseason and acquired many players with a lot of team control remaining. The distant future appears brighter now than it did prior to this offseason, but the main question is, will the Athletics be able to compete in 2015 as well as they would have prior to the roster turnover? Lets take a look at the numbers:

STARTING LINEUP

I will start by comparing the most common nine players in the A’s lineup last year to their projected starting nine this year, using WAR and wRC+:

[All stats give on the chart will represent the 2014 season in the MLB only. In further commentary I may bring up career numbers or minor league numbers for some players.]

2014 AVG WAR = 2.1 / Total wRC+ = 929

2015 AVG WAR = 1.7 / Total wRC+ = 937

As shocking as it may seem, this displays that the A’s should in fact score more runs with their lineup in 2015 than they did with Donaldson, Moss and Cespedes in the heart of their lineup last season. Although, this chart only accounts for 2014 stats, in which Billy Butler (among others) had an off year. If the A’s can get him back to, or even near his 2012 form, in which his WAR was 2.9 and his wRC+ was 139, they could be in for a significant upgrade on offense as a whole. One of the reasons why this lineup has the potential to be more successful even after losing a guy like Donaldson is because of the acquisition of Ben Zobrist. While Brett Lawrie is -4.7 to Donaldson in WAR and -28 to Donaldson in wRC+, Zobrist is +5.4 to Sogard in WAR and +52 to Sogard in wRC+, more than making up for the loss of Donaldson. While the A’s did use a lot of other DH besides Callaspo in 2014, he totaled the greatest amount of plate appearances from that spot, which might lower the 2014 numbers a little.

The average WAR is down slightly from last season, but with Stephen Vogt behind the plate and Marcus Semien most likely getting the every day job at SS, the A’s feel they are upgrading defensively. Semien’s numbers represent his slim 255 plate appearances in the majors last season, but in TripleA his wRC+ was 142. You cannot expect that out of Semien at the major league level, but it shows that he has potential to improve in 2015. The A’s did use a lot of players at each position last season and they will again in 2015; that is why it is important to also take a look at the bench players from last year and the projected bench for this year.

BENCH

While the 25-man roster is not set in stone for 2015 just yet, here is last year’s most commonly used bench players versus next year’s projected bench.

2014 AVG WAR = 1.1 / TOTAL wRC+ = 344

2015 AVG WAR = .48 / TOTAL wRC+ = 367(407)

While these numbers are a bit skewed due to the fact that Canha has not yet reached the majors and also because Jaso was actually a starter while he was healthy, they do give a good idea of what to expect in 2015. Sogard takes over for Punto as the reserve infielder. Fuld and Gentry will most likely platoon in LF, same goes for Vogt and Phegley at C. Since Fuld and Vogt are LH, they will see more time in the starting lineup, leaving Gentry and Phegley on the list of bench players for 2015. Gentry and Phegley will see most their time against lefties, which will likely help their overall numbers. The A’s always do a great job shifting their lineup to create the match ups they want, expect more of the same with platoons and late pinch hitting in 2015.

STARTING ROTATION

The starting rotation is an area where a lot of people say they A’s have question marks. This may be due to the fact that they lost Jon Lester and Jason Hammel to free agency and traded away Jeff Samardzija to the White Sox earlier this off season. However, the A’s held the best record in baseball for months in 2014 with a rotation featuring Sonny Gray, Scott Kazmir, Jesse Chavez, Drew Pomeranz and Tommy Milone. Four of those guys will be returning in 2015, with a slew of other young arms fighting for a spot in the rotation. Anyone from Chris Bassitt, Jesse Hahn, Sean Nolin or Kendall Graveman would be an upgrade or at worst an equal replacement of Milone. Let’s take a look at the numbers for the five players who started the most games for the Athletics last season VS the A’s projected rotation for next season using ERA, WHIP and WAR from the 2014 season:

2014 AVG: ERA = 3.46 / WHIP = 1.22 / Avg WAR = 2.56

2015 AVG: ERA = 3.12 / WHIP = 1.18 / WAR = 1.96

Keep in mind that ERA and WHIP are better when they are lower and WAR is better if it is higher. While this list does not consist of Jon Lester, the A’s were at their best when they still had Chavez and Milone in their rotation. Also, it was a small sample size for Pomeranz, so we cannot expect numbers quite that solid again in 2015. However, with all that being said, the A’s, despite losing All-Stars, should not take more than a tiny step back in 2015. This rotation is still very solid and is in fact younger this year than last. Not only that, the A’s now have a lot more depth with three other pitchers not on this list that could fill a rotation spot, Chris Bassit, Sean Nolin and Kendall Graveman. Also, we cannot forget about the Tommy John rehabbers Jarrod Parker and AJ Griffin, who could make their way back into this rotation before the All-Star break. Both Parker and Griffin were huge contributors to the A’s success in both 2012 and 2013.

BULLPEN

There are a lot of similar faces coming back to the Athletics’ bullpen in 2015. So, instead of continuing with the format I’ve used for position players and the starting rotation I’m quickly going to compare Luke Gregerson and Tyler Clippard, the one main difference in the bullpen for 2015.

Player ERA / WHIP / WAR

Luke Gregerson 2.12 / 1.01 / 0.9

Tyler Clippard 2.18 / 1.00 / 1.5

These numbers are very similar, making Clippard a perfect replacement for Gregerson, taking over the 8th inning duties in front of incumbent closer Sean Doolittle. I don’t think many people expected the A’s to make a move to acquire another back end of the bullpen piece. Even after losing Gregerson, they seemed to have a very solid bullpen, but now it is even more solidified with a proven set-up man in Tyler Clippard. Another important thing to note about Clippard is his ability to create fly balls. His FB% in 2014 was 49.4% also, his IFFB% was 19.3% and that will likely increase mightily with him now pitching in Oakland. He is the perfect pitcher for the o.Co Coliseum. The A’s will pay Clippard more than they would have paid Escobar in 2015, but they are saving money in the long run due to the fact the Escobar is owed 14 million over the next two seasons and Clippard becomes a free agent after this season (in which he will make around 9 million).

Now let’s take a look at 12 potential options for the Athletics bullpen in 2015. Some of them are locks, but the others will either gain a spot due to the fact that they did not make it into the rotation or if they have a solid showing in spring training.

There are a lot of very solid options for the A’s bullpen in 2015. I’d expect to see, Doolittle, Clippard, O’Flaherty, Cook, Otero and Abad for sure, but I expect all of these guys to make an impact at some point, if not this season then in 2016.

TAKEAWAY

The Athletics have a very deep pitching staff. With Sonny Gray and Scott Kazmir headlining the rotation, they have a plethora of options to fill the remaining three spots. Pomeranz, Hahn and Chavez look to be the leading candidates, although Billy Beane himself has mentioned Kendall Graveman as someone he sees making the rotation out of spring training. The A’s also have a very strong bullpen, especially after the recent acquisition of All-Star set-up man Tyler Clippard. After losing Josh Donaldson, Brandon Moss, Yoenis Cespedes and Derek Norris (four All-Stars), the A’s lineup for 2015, according to wRC+ actually got better. It’s not always the big name All-Stars that make a team successful. Oakland has proven this many times in the past, most recently in 2012, right after an offseason makeover similar to this year’s. The one piece that has remained since before the 2012 makeover and after this 2015 makeover, is Coco Crisp. There cannot be enough said about the value of Crisp to the A’s organization. With Crisp healthy in CF and the newly acquired pieces filling in around him, I expect the A’s to be back competing for another American League West division title in 2015.

Brandon McCarthy got off to a rough start in 2014 with the Arizona Diamondbacks. Between the atrocious ERA (5.01) and the seemingly endless supply of baseballs leaving the yard (HR/FB rate of 20%), the D’Backs cut their losses and dealt McCarthy to the Yankees in early July for Vidal Nuno. What the Yankees saw was a pitcher who was terribly unlucky and just needed a little more time for variance to run its course. Well, and maybe a few things that needed adjusting.

McCarthy was among the league leaders in BABIP at the time of the trade with a .345 mark, and many seemed to think this number had to come down. BABIP after all is pretty volatile, and takes several years to stabilize, so we can expect a large amount of variance in a time period as short as a few months. The real questions are: how deserving was McCarthy of an inflated BABIP? Are there tendencies that make some pitchers more prone to higher rates than others? What can teams do to fix higher BABIPs?

First, let’s take a look at McCarthy’s zone profiles in 2014 before being traded.

No wonder hitters were teeing off against McCarthy; lefties saw plenty of offerings over the middle of the plate while righties were exclusively pitched low-and-away. Hitters could walk up to the plate with confidence knowing they’d either get a pitch in their wheelhouse or only in a few spots. This took any advantage of unpredictability out of the hands of McCarthy and subjected him to a higher than average BABIP.

Now, let’s look at how they changed after being dealt.

After coming over to New York, McCarthy looks like a completely different pitcher. The biggest changes appear to be throwing inside on right handed hitters and keeping the ball away from left handed hitters. His new found ability to mix up his locations helped keep hitters off-balance.

As for McCarthy’s pitch selection before and after the trade, that changed as well.

Left Handed Hitters

Right Handed Hitters

Left handed hitters saw a dramatic increase in four-seamers, with the sinker, cutter, and curve all being mixed in rather evenly. Righties also saw a drift away from the sinker and a more even distribution of pitches. The result was a modest .307 BABIP from July onwards. This all makes me wonder if the Yankees have found a market inefficiency — pitchers with an excellent skill set, an inflated BABIP, and zone profiles plus pitch arsenals that were all too predictable. Alter the sequencing to fix the pitcher, and you’ll see the outcomes line up more accurately with the underlying skill set.

Well, if they did it once, can they do it again? Or at least try to?

Enter Nathan Eovaldi. Eovaldi has impressed scouts for years with a blazing mid-90’s fastball. Unfortunately, the results haven’t matched his potential. Like McCarthy, Eovaldi was marred by the same tendencies- an inflated BABIP (.323) with an ERA that’s well above his FIP (4.37 vs 3.37), but he had an impressive walk rate (1.94 BB/9). His zone profiles provide some insight as well:

Eovaldi pitched almost exclusively down-and-away to right handed hitters in 2014, much like McCarthy before coming over to New York. Left handed hitters saw a buffet of pitches in the bottom half of the zone, with a high percentage coming low-and-in.  Eovaldi’s pitch usage was rather predictable as well.

Left Handed Hitters

Right Handed Hitters

Eovaldi features a fastball, slider and curve against LHH and only a fastball and slider against RHH. This would help explain his higher-than-normal BABIP — he’s just too predictable. Hitters known they can wait on 1 or 2 pitches in a general area and have good chance of guessing correctly. While Eovaldi didn’t have as wide of a pitch selection to choose from as McCarthy, I’m willing to bet the Yankees work with him to change this. I’m thinking that we see either a new pitch all together, or perhaps he works with pitching coach Larry Rothschild on his sinker and/or change. These adjustments plus more variance in the pitch location department could make a world of difference for Nathan Eovaldi in 2015.

I got caught up in an interesting Twitter debate Friday afternoon regarding Astros 2B Jose Altuve with FantasyAlarm.Com’s Ray Flowers that prompted a detailed response from Flowers about our Altuve dispute where he doubled down on his assertion that Altuve’s ADP of 10th overall is huge mistake.

The main crux of his argument is that Altuve is not an across-the-board contributor. He claims Altuve’s lack of power in this current environment makes him a terrible choice at the end of the 1st round.  In this article I’m going to demonstrate why this shouldn’t be a major concern for you.

Hitting Your Marks

In 5×5 rotisserie leagues, the goal is to construct a lineup that gives you a chance to accumulate as many points as possible in the various categories. In NFBC 15-team leagues, I’ve come up with these target numbers for each category.

Hitting each of these five offensive targets should put you in the Top 3 of each category, accumulating at least 65 of the maximum possible 75 points. There are 14 hitting positions to fill, so you are looking for these averages per active roster spot:

Value Is Value

The key to winning fantasy baseball leagues is to constantly find the best value in each of your picks no matter what round you are in. Getting power-happy in the early portion of the draft has been a trendy tactic over the past couple years as power has declined in baseball. Let’s look at a couple of the players Flowers suggested he’d rather pick over Jose Altuve in the 1st round and their Steamer projections:

NFBC has a player rating system that compares a player’s statistics to league average and creates a score to show what their true 5×5 Roto value is. Based on the above 2015 Steamer projections, here is where each of these players would have finished last season:

Altuve is the more valuable player based on 2015 Steamer projections (and most likely more valuable based on any credible projection system).

And now we get to Flowers’ main point. He says that “Power is harder to find than ever before.”  He is absolutely right but that does not mean there isn’t an island of misfit power bats available in the middle rounds. You should not be worried about missing out on power in the early rounds because THERE IS home run pop that you can add later in the draft.

In a recent NFBC draft of my own – where I took Altuve 12th overall – I had the powerful but flawed Chris Carter land right in my lap in the 10th round, 139th overall. Let’s look at his projection:

Carter, a source of tremendous power, has been scaring the daylights out of fantasy owners for the past couple of years. Nobody wants to take on his treacherous batting average as it will surely drag their team average into oblivion. Well because we took the proper value in the first round (Altuve), we are now in a position where Chris Carter is worth significantly more to us than to the guy who took Anthony Rendon or Adam Jones. We get extra value from Carter because we can absorb his batting average better than they can!

Here is what our first round pick, combined with Carter would look like as a composite player. Remember, we need 18 HRs, 66 Runs, 66 RBIs, 11 SBs, and .270 Avg to crack the Top 3 of those categories.

If we were to have chosen Rendon or Jones in the first round, Carter would be a terrible fit for us in the 10th round. We’d be in solid shape in three categories, but face crippling deficits in stolen bases and batting average. But because we chose Altuve (the most valuable of the 3 players), it allowed us to spend some of our excess batting average and stolen bases to acquire a middle-round power bat that nobody else wants to touch. With Altuve+Carter, we exceed our minimum requirements in FOUR categories and are not very far behind in a 5th.

A NFBC Draft Champions league that I won in 2013 stands out in my memory. The early rounds of the draft provided me a surplus of batting average and stolen bases, and I continued to take the best player available each round after that. The brutish Adam Dunn, who was coming off a terrible .159, 11 HR season, was getting drafted around 185th overall that year as people feared the damage his average would do. Because of the excess wealth I accumulated in other categories, Dunn was worth more to me than everybody else. I determined that if Dunn were to bounce back to the .220 range, I could absorb his average and bet that his home run power would return. After all, he did average 40 HRs a year for seven straight years prior to his 2012 abomination. I ended up being able to reach above his ADP and take him in the 11th round, 165th overall. He provided me with 41 HRs, 96 RBIs, and 87 runs in 2014 and was a key cog in winning the league.

Finding Speed

I suppose the counter argument to this approach would be, “Well we don’t need batting average lagging Chris Carter or Adam Dunn in the 10th round. Since we accumulated the extra power with Rendon or Jones, we can go after a speed merchant in these rounds. Perfectly reasonable case to state. You should be trying to balance your roster out. But does it work better than Altuve+Carter? Let’s look at the speedy Ben Revere, who went late in the 8th round of my draft, 118th overall. Under this scenario, since we took more power early, let’s grab this high average/stolen base machine from the Phillies and make up the ground we lost, right?

And our new composite player:

Revere is a light hitting lead off man with virtually zero pop. You have now elevated your composite player into the upper echelon in stolen bases and batting average at the expense of HRs, runs, and RBIs. Despite Revere getting drafted a round or two earlier than Carter, the combinations with Rendon or Jones are worse in those three categories compared to Altuve+Carter.

There’s a myth going around that cheap steals are always available late in the draft. While it’s true you can occasionally hit the jackpot on a Dee Gordon from time to time, it is a very risky play to ignoring steals early in hopes of finding one of these guys late. These players are also dangerous to the health of your power categories as you can see from the Revere example. It just seems like an unnecessary strategic risk to plan on these guys delivering for you. Other owners plot this same strategy and often they reach above ADP to grab one of the speedsters you were also planning on supplementing your power with. Roster construction? Out the window.

Also, Chris Carter is not your only option to complement your team in these middle rounds. There are several very good targets to keep an eye for if you’re lucky enough for Altuve to land in your lap at the end of the 1st round. Lucas Duda (.234, 24 HR) and Marcell Ozuna (.255, 22 HR) were both available in the 9th round. I personally drafted Brandon Moss (.248, 28 HR) in the 12th round. Pedro Alvarez (.242, 26 HR), I got in the 14th round. Again, I could absorb these averages because I repeatedly took the best player available earlier in the draft, often players with overlooked batting averages. I constantly kept an eye on my roster construction to ensure I could absorb these lower batting averages and lack of stolen bases.

In 2014, there were 56 hitters drafted between selections 201-to-300. 16 of these hitters would hit at least 18 home runs. Meanwhile, 15 of the 56 managed 11 steals.

Back to my particular draft this year, after choosing Altuve 12th, I took Jacoby Ellsbury with my 2nd round pick, 19th overall. Between these two players, Steamer projects only 24 home runs between them. Even though I happened to not grab any huge raw power bats in the first two rounds, I still managed to construct a 14-man lineup that is projected to hit the magical 250 HR mark without falling behind in the other categories.

Altuve and .300

A repeated argument was also made that Jose Altuve “is not lock to hit .300 this year”. I believe this is a very pessimistic position to take and I haven’t heard a sensible reason for it. This is a player who hit .286 over his first 1300 PAs as a 22-23 year old youngster. Despite increasing his Swing% rate to over 50% last year, he made more contact than ever (4.4% SwStr) with an uptick of power on his way to a ridiculous .343 average.  This is an elite hit tool.

Not even the most bullish Altuve supporter would think he’s going to hit .343 again. That would be a very unfair expectation. However, not a single person who is bearish on Altuve has made a compelling argument why this 24-year-old can’t hit .300 again. Of course Altuve is “not a lock to hit .300”. By that argument there is no player who is a lock to hit any of their projections, including Mike Trout.

Yes, HR power has declined over the years. But so has batting average. Over the last six years the league average has fallen from .264 to .251. You are not going to find too many players past the 10th round who are going to give you 600+ PAs of near .300 average to complement your sluggers, and if they do hit those numbers they are tremendously weak in other categories.

To wrap this up, I’m telling you not to buy into the hysterics that there is no power available after the early rounds. Do not buy into the major regression talk. You should have no fear in drafting Jose Altuve with your first selection if he’s the best value on the board.