On Thursday evening Brewers have made some significant acquisitions to their outfield, notably acquiring Christian Yelich in a trade with the Marlins, and signing Lorenzo Cain to a five-year, $80-million deal. The Brewers have added around 7 Wins in a single day, at least according to Steamer, which has Yelich projected for 4.0 WAR and expects Cain to produce a WAR of 3.3. The point is, the Brewers have other outfielders such as Domingo Santana, Keon Broxton, and Brett Phillips, whose future with the team are now unclear.

One can make the argument that Broxton is perhaps more likely a bench player than the star player he seemed to be in his brief 2016 campaign. Keeping him as a fourth outfielder would not be an unreasonable expectation. Santana is likely at least an average outfielder, if not more, so keeping him around would be a waste of his talent, so trading him would make sense. Brett Phillip’s strong showing late in the 2017 season makes him a valuable trade chip, too, especially considering that he still has not exhausted his rookie eligibility.

Rumors of the possibility of the Brewers trading the two outfielders were confirmed by Bob Nightengale:

The Milwaukee #Brewers now are shopping outfielders Domingo Santana and Brett Phillips for a starting pitcher

— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) January 26, 2018

While Santana is no doubt an interesting player worth examining, Phillips is whom this article concerns. It seems that Brett Phillip’s value could be at its peak right now, for a multitude of reasons. An overarching theme of many transactions in Baseball this winter, or lack thereof, has been the seemingly increasing value of prospects to teams. This high value may be peaking right around now. First of all, contending teams with the need for an impact veteran player at the deadline will be less concerned about trading prospects at that time. However, also as a result of the reality that next winter there will be the star-studded free agent class, which should, in turn, facilitate more transactions throughout the baseball industry as a whole.

Phillips played in 37 games last season for the Brewers, yet he is still rookie eligible and is controllable through 2023, for the next six seasons. He posted a 104 wRC+, adding 2.2 runs on the bases, while accounting for 4.5 runs saved on defense. He showed off his cannon of an arm by throwing a ball 104-mph according to Statcast, and made multiple other throws from the outfield over 101-mph.

Those are all reasons why the 29 teams in baseball not named the Brewers should be high on him! He has done everything well in the Major Leagues thus far, so on the surface, there are not necessarily any real red flags in his profile. Though upon examining his brief showing in the big leagues last season more closely, there are reasons to be concerned about his ability to sustain the success he had.

Regression to the mean is always likely, and this is the essence of the story Phillips’ data is suggesting. What is so interesting about Phillips though, is that there is another player who seems to have a very similar skillset. Looking at the Major League hitters’ strikeout rates in 2017, Phillips and Drew Robinson both struck out 34.7% of the time. That is how the players were first connected by the author, which ended up being the basis for what has turned out to be a really interesting investigation.

Here are some of last year’s numbers for both players:

The performances are in a small sample, which is the primary reason to be doubtful that this comparison is necessarily very accurate. However, it is nonetheless captivating that the two players had such similar seasons in 2017. It gets better though! They both hit left-handed and throw right-handed, and take a look at how similar their swings are!

Phillips:

Robinson:

The swings are pretty similar, agreed? The finishes are slightly different, but the bat paths and leg kicks of both players are certainly quite reminiscent of each other. Phillips had an average launch angle of 13.27 degrees, while Robinson’s average launch angle was 14.29 degrees in 2017. Given such a finding, it would seem to make sense that they have relatively similar bat paths through the hitting zone. Consider the most recent tool grades given to each player by Fangraphs Prospect Analyst Eric Longenhagen:

Phillips has a better arm, and Longenhagen gave him a 45 FV, while he gave Robinson only a future value of 40 on the 20-80 scouting scale. Though one could reasonably argue that they are kind of the same player. At the very least, these are two players with very similar hitting abilities and performances thus far.

While Phillips produced a WAR of 1.0 during his 37 games with the Brewers in 2017, Robinson’s WAR was 0. What has to be kept in mind, however, is the fact that Phillips was riding a .408 BABIP, that is highly unlikely to occur again. Steamer projects both players to hit .229 in 2018, illustrating the similarities in their profiles. Phillips is expected to put up a 77 wRC+ figure, with Robinson actually having the edge with a mark of 86 wRC+ projected by Steamer in 2018.

These are two players that are similarly mediocre, in the writer of this article’s best estimation. The fact that Phillips does not have a good chance of getting any meaningful playing time in the outfield this season is already enough to justify Milwaukee trading him away.

The reality that his value is perhaps at its highest right now, as a result of a great debut performance with the brew crew in 2017, also strongly points towards the idea of trading him. Throw in the fact that he is controllable for six more years, and there seems to be little reason for his value to increase. The Brewers would do well to acquire some pitching in exchange for Phillips. The time is now to do so!

All Data used in this article was taken from Fangraphs, as well as MLB.com and Statcast.

As we all know, this has been a long, frustrating, mostly inactive offseason for the Mets. After a 92-loss season, they have done little to improve a pitching staff that finished with the second-worst ERA in the National League last year, other than the fairly risky signing of 32-year-old Anthony Swarzak.

They have holes or uncertainties at every position in the infield to some degree and have created a five-man outfield logjam with five starting-caliber, but injury-prone outfielders outside of Jay Bruce.

There are countless paths the Mets could take to try and build a competitive roster, but that’s a topic for another time. What I want to get into is a certain player who must be given a fair chance at a starting role, and that is 24-year-old outfielder Brandon Nimmo.

A first-round pick from 2013, some considered Nimmo a disappointment due to his lack of flashy tools, despite solid numbers throughout the minors. He always maintained a healthy OBP due to his high walk rate and solid contact ability. After a great 2016 season in Triple-A where he put all his tools together to hit .352/.423/.541, he put up a sub-par but not horrible 88 wRC+ in his first 80 plate appearances in the Majors.

Nimmo started to swing the bat more that year, so while his walk rate decreased a little bit, he hit a career-best .352 and still had a spectacular .423 OBP. He also hit for the most power he had ever hit for in a minor league season, and while some of that may be attributed to the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, it was still very encouraging and suggested that Nimmo could develop into a quality Major Leaguer.

With the Mets having a rough 2017 season, Nimmo’s playing time began to increase more and more throughout the year, and he made the most of it. The main thing about Nimmo that was so impressive was his consistent ability to have good at-bats. He has an elite eye at the plate and a unique ability to lay off almost any pitch outside the strike zone.

In fact, among hitters with at least 210 PA last year, Nimmo had the fifth lowest O-Swing percent in all of baseball. He also had the 10th best walk percentage in baseball, behind names such as Joey Votto, Aaron Judge and Mike Trout, and ahead of names such as Josh Donaldson, Kris Bryant and Paul Goldschmidt. He quietly was one of the most disciplined hitters in the league.

Another encouraging sign for Nimmo is how his power developed as the year went on. Never known as a slugger, he showed very little power in his brief 2016 stint with the Mets, and that continued into 2017 as he had just one extra-base hit in his first 25 plate appearances.

His power started to rise in August when he recorded a more respectable .100 ISO while hitting his second career home run (first of the year) along with three doubles, but his power output really started to rise in September and October, when he got the chance to play every day and put up a .219 ISO, which is not only respectable but above average.

To put that into perspective, Chris Davis, Justin Turner and Jose Altuve all had ISOs lower than .210 in 2017. Now, I’m not saying that Nimmo will ever have as much power as those guys, but it’s really encouraging to see how his power developed as he got more comfortable with major league pitching, and is a sign of his potential for the future.

One thing that could be improved about Nimmo’s game is his tendency to strike out. He struck out 27.9 percent of the time, which isn’t terrible, but it is high, and improving this facet of his game would make a huge improvement overall. He didn’t strike out because he was chasing pitches or swinging wildly.

As I mentioned earlier, Nimmo has one of the best eyes at the plate in all of baseball and has a simple, compact swing. The fact of the matter is that Nimmo may have actually been somewhat too selective, as he swung at only 59.3 percent of pitches inside the strike zone, compared to the league average 66.7 percent.

In the rare times that he did swing outside of the strike zone, he made contact 7.6 percent below average. When he swung at pitches in the zone, he made contact at roughly a league average rate, so there’s some room for improvement there as well.

While Nimmo does have some strikeout problems, his are much more easily fixed than the typical young player who comes up and slashes at everything in the dirt since Nimmo already has a great knowledge of the strike zone.

Contact isn’t a huge problem, his contact rate was one percent above average, it’s really just knowing when to take a hack at a hittable pitch, which is something that can definitely improve over time, especially for a hard-working, intelligent young hitter such as Nimmo.

With an improved strikeout rate, I could see Nimmo hitting for a higher average in 2018 even if his BABIP dips, which would add to his already impressive OBP.

But now to get to my main point, which is that the Mets need to give Nimmo a chance at an everyday role despite having five capable outfielders on their team. In his 215 PA last year, he hit .260/.379/.418 with a 117 wRC+.

Granted, he did have a somewhat high .360 BABIP that will likely regress, but Nimmo is someone who has been able to post high BABIPs in the minors, so maintaining an above-average BABIP is certainly feasible.

His .158 ISO is only slightly below league average, and the improvements he showed throughout the season suggest that he may even be able to add a little power in the future. Add league-average power to a great OBP, decent baserunning and passable defense, and you’ve got a starting caliber player.

Something that I think is getting overlooked, however (besides his surprisingly not-awful power), is just how valuable his ability to get on base is, and why the Mets need this guy at the top of the lineup consistently.

His 117 wRC+ was identical to Carlos Santana, Trey Mancini and Yasiel Puig, and was just one point behind Jay Bruce and Francisco Lindor. It was also higher than players such as Christian Yelich, Lorenzo Cain, Neil Walker, Lucas Duda and Ryan Braun. Getting on base is one of if not the most valuable skill there is to have as a hitter, and it is something in which Nimmo excels.

Watching him for the past couple years now, he seems to be constantly improving, leading us to believe that there is more in store for the soon-to-be 25-year-old. His 1.1 WAR stretched out to 550 PA equates to a 2.8 WAR, which is above average for a starter and greater than what the recently re-signed Bruce put up last year in 619 PA.

In fact, an argument could be made for starting Nimmo over Bruce, due to the fact that Nimmo provides much better value on the bases and in the field, where he can play all three outfield positions.

Regardless, the Mets need to realize that they have a quality player developing here, and in my opinion, it would not be wise to trade him considering his potential and five years of control left. If I were the Mets right now, I would have him be my Opening Day center fielder.

The Mets need to play Nimmo, and they need to bat him leadoff. Michael Conforto is a great hitter, but he’s not a leadoff hitter. Amed Rosario is not a leadoff hitter. Asdrubal Cabrera is not a leadoff hitter. Nimmo, however, is the embodiment of an ideal leadoff hitter which is someone who works the count consistently and gets on base.

They may platoon him with Juan Lagares, which is understandable considering Nimmo has struggled against lefties so far in his career and Lagares brings elite defense to the table, but no matter what, Nimmo has done more than an adequate job of proving that he is someone worth giving a chance to. Let’s hope for even more improvement from Nimmo in 2018.

Thanks for reading! If you liked this article, you can follow me on Twitter for Tweets about all things baseball, largely including but not limited to the Dodgers and the Mets. I am also a writer for MetsMerizedOnline.com, MetsMinors.net and The K Zone, where this article originally appeared.

A philosophical question many people have likely pondered is the decision of whether it is more beneficial to be daring and to take risks, or to simply remain content with the status quo and use a more risk-averse approach. Being audacious requires a willingness to leave the comfort of society’s praise and expectations, and this ambition is too often discouraged. As a Baseball fan, one can relate these themes to styles of pitching and philosophies for being successful as a pitcher.

In the age of the juiced ball and home run spike, it would seem safe to say that the most prevalent style of pitching involves throwing lots of pitches towards the low-outside corner of the plate. If one thinks about the last time they watched a Baseball game, they would very likely remember the number of times they saw the catcher set up his target on the edge of the lower part of home plate. The idea is to basically throw the baseball as far away from the hitter as possible, while barely catching the plate. One would imagine that the idea is to generate ground balls and induce strikeouts, when pitchers throw to this location. Throwing pitches up in the zone is typically associated with allowing hitters to elevate the ball and get to more of their power.

Can one reasonably fight fire with fire, or should they simply use water? In Baseball terms: Is the art of ground-ball induction a worthwhile endeavor for pitchers, or should they challenge hitters more aggressively with their pitch locations?

Visually, these are the two examples that help one understand the essence of what the differing pitching philosophies entail:

Marcus Stroman painting the low-outside corner:

Chris Sale blowing hitters away with high heat:

Chris Sale was arguably the best pitcher on the planet last season; he was honestly chosen as an example for this piece because his statistics are a part of the data being analyzed here. Marcus Stroman’s numbers are also a part of the data being interpreted; his ground-ball rate of 62.1% ranked highest among all qualified starting pitchers in 2017. Sale, on the other hand, recorded the ninth-lowest ground ball rate among qualified starters, at 38.7%.

This investigation is going to look at the twenty starting pitchers across Major League Baseball who were best able to induce ground balls this past season, as well as the other twenty who generated the fewest number of them. To start, it is apt to examine the durability and effectiveness of the two different kinds of pitchers being evaluated. Below are two tables showing the ground-ball rates, games started, and innings pitched by two very different kinds of pitchers:

Ground Ball Artists’ Durability Statistics:

Leading the ground ball pitchers above is Marcus Stroman, who is the model for all pitchers striving to generate weak contact. Also included is Carlos Martinez and his impressive 9.53 K/9 last season, as well as Yankees ace Luis Severino. One can never forget Clayton Kershaw, of course. Martin Perez and Luis Perdomo do not appear to be much more than league average starters, and Andrew Cashner’s drop in strikeouts does not inspire confidence moving forward. Aside from those three players though, the rest are some very accomplished and talented pitchers.

Low Ground-Ball Rate Pitchers’ Durability Statistics:

Taking a look at the individual pitchers who generated the lowest percentage of ground balls, it is notable to see the back-to-back National League Cy Young Winner, Max Scherzer. Also included is Chris Sale, whom the writer of this article thinks was the best pitcher in Baseball last season. However, it is imperative not to forget about the man at the top of the table, Marco Estrada. He has actually been a very good player throughout the past couple seasons for the Blue Jays. It is simply hard to feel good about the future outlook of the man nicknamed “Estradabien” with his 89.8 mph average fastball velocity, who generates the least number of ground balls among qualified Major League starting pitchers. The point is really that there are varying levels of talent and performance in the group of pitchers in the table, which is a part of what makes this investigation so captivating.

If a pitcher is getting hitters to pound the ball on the ground, he is seemingly more likely to be efficient with his pitch count, and should theoretically be able to stay in the game longer. Though this theory does not hold true in the case of the pitchers being evaluated here. The qualified starting pitchers with the lowest ground ball rates averaged almost two more starts comparatively with those who had the highest ground ball rates in 2017. The same low ground-ball rate pitchers also pitched approximately seven more innings than the ground-ball artists threw this past season.

This finding begs the question: Are pitchers who are less interested or talented at generating ground balls more durable than the pitchers who are more successful in doing so? Half of the twenty ground ball inducing pitchers (10) went on the 10-day Disabled List last season at least once, while only twenty percent of the pitchers with the lowest ground-ball rates (4) required time on the Disabled List. It would appear based on this data, that ground-ball pitchers are more injury prone comparatively with pitchers who seem less interested and able to induce ground balls.

Staying healthy is obviously a significant part of being a successful player, especially in the case of pitchers. The table below, however, shows the important stats one is usually looking for when comparing these two different kinds of pitchers:

2017 Performances of High and Low Ground-Ball Pitchers

This data slightly favors the high ground-ball pitching philosophy, which is quite an interesting development. Yet at this point it is still not necessarily clear whether one approach is favorable to the other. The data representing the results of both pitching philosophies is simply too similar to come to a sound conclusion thus far.

Thus it would be prudent to view the 2018 projections for both kinds of pitchers, to have an idea of what pitching philosophy is potentially going to make the players more successful moving forward. Steamer projects the High ground-ball pitchers to produce an average WAR of 2.65 in 2018, with the Low ground ball pitchers expected to produce 2.35 WAR on average. Again, there is a slight inclination to lean towards the ground-ball approach, yet the difference in projected performance from both types of pitchers is marginal. At this point it would seem like a good idea to simply accept that there are different ways of pitching, and depending on the pitcher’s skillset, he should pitch to his strengths.

Taking a look at how the two different styles of pitching fared in 2016 is also important. The high ground ball rate pitchers produced an average WAR of 2.72, in comparison with the 2.65 WAR put up by the pitchers with the lowest percentages of ground balls. Given that there has not been a significant difference in production between the two different styles of pitching over the last two seasons, could this be related to the home-run spike and juiced baseballs?

Despite suspicion that these themes could have been related to how pitchers have performed and approached their location of pitches to hitters, the fact that there was not a significant difference in performance between the two different ground ball rates does not provide evidence for them being a real factor in this investigation. While it would be more satisfying to say that throwing the ball up in the zone is preferable to painting the low-outside corner of the plate, or vice versa, there simply is not sufficient evidence for either being truly better than the other.

In this case the answer seems to lie in the middle – aces like Chris Sale and Max Scherzer are clearly having success with high heat up in the zone to hitters. Marcus Stroman is keeping hitters from making quality contact by keeping the ball down and throwing a great sinker. Luis Severino is using some of the best velocity of any starter in the Major Leagues to generate ground balls. Perhaps this was always too binary of an exploration of what is an inherently open-ended question. Hopefully, this article has at least helped advocate for pitchers who challenge hitters up in the zone, without criticizing the admirable approach of keeping the ball down in the zone and inducing ground balls.

All data used in this piece was taken from Fangraphs.

Are the Pirates actually worse after trading Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole? Probably not. The trades addressed their weakest spot on the field, even though they caused sore spots off the field.

It’s usually doom and gloom when big names leave, and small names come back in return. But, the value of the smaller players can add up. In this situation they do.

The most important thing is to understand the context of who the Pirates are. The Pirates were not a World Series contender before the trades, or even strong playoff contenders. They were, and still are, a team that needed things to break the right way in order to compete for a playoff spot in a division with the Cubs, Cardinals, and Brewers. 

However, a small market team can compete on the fringes, and the Pirates are doing that.

The Pirates weakest spot in 2017 was the 7th inning. Their starters had a 7.08 ERA in 47 innings pitched after the 6th. The team, as a whole had a 5.00 ERA in the 7th inning. The Pirates were nearly a whole run worse than the league in the 7th inning, which posted a 4.19 ERA. Over 162 innings that’s 14.58  (let’s call it 15) runs. Overall, the Pirates were an above average pitching team, but the 7th inning was their downfall.

The mid-game struggles are further highlighted by the Pirates inability to keep up with the league average when entering the 6th and 7th. Teams that entered the 6th with the lead won 82.8% of the time; those who entered the 7th with the lead won 87.1% of their games. The Pirates only won 77.3% and 86.4% of those games, respectively.

On average, teams that entered the 6th inning tied won 50% of their games. The same applies to teams entering the 7th inning tied. The Pirates won 52% of the time when tied going into the 6th inning. They only won 45.8% of the games in which they were tied going into the 7th inning.

Moreover, the Pirates were less adept at making comebacks than other teams. The league average winning percentage for teams trailing entering the 6th inning was 17.2%, and 12.9% when trailing entering the 7th inning. The Pirates ended the season with a 15.5% and 9.7% winning percentage in each respective situation.

Juan Nicasio left the team in free agency this off-season. His stellar 2017 is the reason for the Pirates’ great 8th inning performance last year, but the Gerrit Cole trade addressed this loss through the acquisition of Michael Feliz, who will likely, at least in part, take over Nicasio’s 8th inning role. The Cole trade also alleviated the loss of Cole himself, as the Pirates acquired Joe Musgrove, who Steamer projects to have a nearly identical season, if not better season than Cole himself. (Editor’s note: Steamer has not yet accounted for Musgrove’s projected switch from the bullpen to the rotation in regard to his rate stats).

What about the 7th inning? This is what the McCutchen trade addresses. Kyle Crick may seem underwhelming, but he may be exactly what the Pirates need in order to extend and bolster their bullpen.  Crick will be relied upon to team up with A.J. Schugel, George Kontos and Daniel Hudson to address the 7th. The four of them are unlikely to be dominant, but the Pirates will be well-served if the four players can mimic, or slightly exceed the league average. More important, the group will need to provide Clint Hurdle with enough confidence to remove his starters by the 6th inning. The group is ill-equipped for the final third of games, but they are seemingly capable of providing average to above-average performance in the first 6 innings of a game.

Kyle Crick and Michael Feliz may not inspire passion in a fan base that lost a face of the franchise, and head of their rotation, but those are the types of players the Pirates need to stay competitive, with or without Cole and McCutchen.

This doesn’t address the loss of McCutchen on offense, but there’s a reasonable expectation that players on the team will be able to patch together those losses in the form of a healthy Starling Marte (Steamer 2018 Projection: 3 WAR, 2017 1.2 WAR), a healthy Gregory Polanco (Steamer 2018 Projection: 1.8 WAR, 2017 0.5 WAR), a more developed Josh Bell (Steamer 2018 Projection: 1.2 WAR, 2017 .8 WAR), etc.  The team will also need to add a veteran outfielder to hedge against a likely Adam Frazier regression and to provide time to figure out where Austin Meadows fits into the 2018 Pirates.  However, the picture as a whole suggests that this team is no worse off in the field than it was with the 2017 version of Andrew McCutchen (3.7 WAR).

The Pirates rightly buried the memories of the past to focus on the present and the future. They addressed their weakest spots by picking up players that will contribute now, and provide them a cost-controlled future. McCutchen and Cole were not the right places to invest for the future, therefore the Pirates rightly divested now, and they are, at worst, not worse off for it.

It’s going to be really hard for the Pirates to win 90+ games again. This was the case with Cole and McCutchen. It’s also the case without them. But, they may actually have a better shot now than they did before the trades. Bullpen depth isn’t sexy, but it’s necessary.  Particularly for this team.

***All stats in the tables above were taken from Baseball-Reference.com. All Steamer projections and 2017 WAR citations are from Fangraphs

As basically anyone who follows baseball has noticed this years free agency has dragged on through today January 24th with really nothing of note happening. It’s frustrating for the fans, the media and most of all the players. I decided to look back at the last six years to the 2012-2013 offseason and compare the money spent on all free agent contracts of three years or more as most of the best players get some sort of lengthy deal. To this point this offseason less than half of the top 50 free agents according to mlbtraderumors.com have signed and only one of their top 10, Wade Davis. Only 8 free agents among FanGraphs’ top 20 have signed.

Let’s start with the obvious, the number of deals this offseason is extremely low to this point in the winter. I looked back at all the deals each year and verified the date the deals were announced and sorted by month. Here though is the total number of deals three or more years in length as of January 20th in each of those years.

As you can see this year teams just aren’t wanting to commit to longer-term deals hardly at all. Currently this offseason there have been just nine deals of any real length. Three of those were signed by the Colorado Rockies alone with the signings of Wade Davis, Bryan Shaw and Jake McGee. Every deal of three or more years this offseason has been for just three years, no longer deals have been signed as of yet. At this point in the year the number of deals is for all intents and purposes half, or less than halfof what has been normal in recent years so everyone is right to think this year’s Hot Stove is quite cold.

So what kind of money are teams committing?

Again as seen here, for this point in the year the $ spent are incredibly low as well. These figures will surely rise when/if the top free agents start to sign but as they sit currently the low level of spending is almost mind-blowing. Four of the five previous years by January 24th teams in MLB had committed either very close to well over a billion, yes with a b, dollars to free agents on long term deals. This year’s total currently sits at $415 million. To put that in perspective in the 2015 offseason David Price and Zack Greinke combined for more money than that at $423.5 million between them. So what’s different this year? Has the free agent spending bubble burst? It’s most certainly not the qualifying offer and the loss of a draft pick holding teams back anymore.

Here you will see the total spent as the months passed in previous offseasons. What is obviously missing this year is all the big names signing in December like most years. Now the biggest question is when will those names sign? Will it be before the end of January… February… Spring Training? We are only 20 days away from pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training and the picture of this offseason is not pretty.

While baseball fans wait for the free agent market to finally unthaw, J.D. Martinez waits for a contract offer enticing enough for him to sign. Early reports suggested that Martinez and his agent, Scott Boras, set an early asking price at seven years, $210 million. Clearly, nobody has taken the bait. Among Martinez’ likely suitors, many have moved onto other options; the Cardinals traded for Marcell Ozuna, and the Giants traded for Andrew McCutchen, seemingly leaving the Red Sox as Martinez’ lone serious suitor.

The latest report, from Buster Olney, is that Martinez has an offer on the table from the Red Sox worth five years, $100 million. Taking the reports at face value (although Boras himself has simply declared the report “inaccurate”), the offer obviously comes up short of Martinez’ demands, which is why this article is being written in late January to begin with. To that end, here’s an excerpt from Jeff Passan’s recent column at Yahoo Sports on baseball’s economic system:

“Recently, one of the best free agents available this offseason met with a friend, and he admitted something shocking: He was preparing to sit out until the middle of the season. The market for his services this winter was so thin, the offers so incompatible with his production, that he worried he was going to need an external force to compel teams to pay him what his numbers say he’s worth. Maybe it would take a playoff race.”

Can we assume that the hitter in question is Martinez? Of course not, but considering the discrepancy between his asking price and the reported Red Sox offer, it wouldn’t be an outlandish guess. While I understand that the Red Sox have leverage in that they presumably don’t have anyone to bid against, I will argue that Martinez will be well worth a contract in excess of 5/$100M.

From 2014-2017, his Age 26 through  Age 29 seasons, Martinez posted an astounding 149 OPS+ (my apologies for not using wRC+ in this column!), with a low of 139 and a high of 166. To that end, I researched players from the DH era (circa 1973) that posted an OPS+ between 140 and 160 in their Age 26 through Age 29 seasons. Presumably, these players would make for suitable Martinez comps as we attempt to project his offensive production over the next five to seven years. Of course, some of these players are still active and haven’t played enough to give me complete data, such as Ryan Braun, so they have been eliminated from the dataset. I was left with 38 comparable players, which is a large enough sample for our purposes today.

In this chart, I condensed the sample into averages because 40 rows and 9 columns doesn’t embed so cleanly. These are Martinez’s comps for their age-26 through age-29 seasons, their offensive production for the next five years (through age-34, which is Martinez’ floor value at this point) and then their production in the sixth and seventh following years (ages 35 and 36, which represent Martinez’ ceiling value at this point).

The average player from my sample posted a 147 OPS+ in their age-26 through 29 seasons, which matches up neatly with Martinez’ 149 mark. You’ll first notice the drop off in production for these players in their age-30 through 34 seasons. There are several reasons for this. Yes, natural decline was at work, but the original search for Martinez comps included a 2000 plate appearance minimum; this means I was guaranteed to be given players both as good and as healthy as Martinez in their Age 26-29 seasons without the same guarantee they would be healthy in the years that followed. This also means players like Mark McGwire (146 OPS+ in 1913 PA) were excluded from the sample because he was injured, despite the 189 OPS+ he would put up in 3462 plate appearances through Age 36.

Nevertheless, it’s a reasonable regression one can expect for players entering their 30s, and the good news is that they were, on average, very productive (134 OPS+) and very healthy (559 PA). This is what the Red Sox believe to be worth 5/$100M, but I would argue that this data shows they should be willing to tack on a sixth year without blinking. Of the original 38 player sample, 36 players played their age-35 seasons; they were still very productive (Khris Davis has been producing along these lines the past two years) and healthy enough to play a full season.

The real question surrounding Martinez is – or at least should be, if the market weren’t so cold – whether he should be given a seventh year or not. From his comps, the sample size drops significantly for the first time down to 33, the average playing time falls below the league qualifying minimum for the first time, and the production drops below what you’d want from your DH (the reference point here would be Miguel Sano from the last couple of seasons).

At face value, I would absolutely give Martinez the sixth year, and absolutely not give him the seventh. At the same time, we should dive into our sample a little deeper and discover why some players did well and why others tanked in their 30s; perhaps there is something we can correlate with Martinez so we can get an even better projection. From the original sample, here are the twenty best performers in their age-36 seasons (based on a combination of plate appearances and OPS+).

The reason I picked the twenty best rather than the top and bottom ten is that the bottom ten would be littered with folks such as Cliff Floyd or Dale Murphy, who only came to the plate 17 and 63 times respectively during their age-36 seasons. Using the ten best players captures those who were magnificent offensive performers with full playing time. Using the next ten players captures those who were mediocre in full playing time. This looks good to me.

This would be the time for me to explain why I haven’t mentioned WAR in this piece: J.D. Martinez has been horrible on defense!

He was best suited as a DH years ago, but being on a roster with Victor Martinez and then being traded to the National League forced him to play right field, which depressed his value. If Boston signs him, he’ll see absolutely no time in an outfield that will be covered by Jackie Bradley, Mookie Betts, and Andrew Benintendi for the foreseeable future. As a DH for the rest of his career, Martinez will be solely judged by his offensive production and ability to stay on the field.

Again, our question is whether Martinez receiving a seventh year is justified. More specifically, this boils down to “In seven years, will Martinez be in the left column or the right column?” Both sides of the list contain incredible players, but there’s a way to make a reasonable projection. Here’s the same list, but instead of rank, you’ll see the positions these players spent significant time. Those who had significant time at 1B/DH are highlighted in gold.

In this exercise, let’s consider 1B/DH to be significantly less stressful positions than the others. After all, there is a significant correlation between time spent in the field and sustaining an injury that leads to decline. While players like Brian Giles, Dave Parker, and Ken Griffey Jr. saw injuries and offensive decline catch up to them after years chasing down balls in the outfield, players like Rafael Palmeiro, Carlos Delgado, and Jim Thome aged extremely well by not exerting the same stress in the field.

Martinez is almost certain to spend no time in the field at Age 36. Hell, he might not spend much time in the field ever again. So I consider him a slam dunk to be placed in the group on the left. Referring to the averages from the first chart in this article, I’ll the over on Martinez when the time comes. To be clear, I donJD’t necessarily think he should be given the seventh year outright – an option would probably be most appropriate – but I think this data solidifies my comfort in giving him a sixth guaranteed year.

In a winter in which the market is changing in ways we have never seen before, it’s difficult to predict what  Martinez will earn. It’s important to remember that dollars are a construct; we can’t assume Martinez will get $150 million from the Red Sox because Adrian Gonzalez did after amassing similar numbers. Teams like the Red Sox are wary of contracts like the one given to Gonzalez, who will earn $21.5M from that deal this year. In this market (or lack thereof), it’s impossible for me to put dollars or years on Martinez, but I do know this: Martinez is a special hitter, and he’ll age especially well.

He will be a productive hitter for the next six or seven years, and there’s no dollar amount that can change that.

I was at first very critical of the Pirates trades. I didn’t think the surplus value is bad, but I didn’t like getting older prospects with lower ceilings who are MLB-ready instead of higher-upside guys who are farther away. My thinking was that the Pirates can’t buy upside, and while those good depth pieces help them to stay around .500, they don’t make them a great team. However, what if that is what the Pirates want? I thought it might make sense to tank completely and rebuild for a couple years, but maybe there is value to being an average team in the two-WC era.

So first I looked at what is needed to win a WC.

Year NL AL
2017 87 85
2016 87 89
2015 97 86
2014 88 88
2013 90 92
AVG 89.8 88

So roughly 88 wins are needed, and you have a chance with 85+.

I compared last year’s projections (average of PECOTA and FG) with the actual results and calculated the absolute distance (eliminating negative numbers to make the math easier) and the difference (found the projections here).

The average difference to the projection was 7.1 wins. Those differences don’t mean projections are bad; there is always under and overperformance, unlikely breakouts as well as injuries. Also just Pythagoran luck or bad luck can easily make up 3-4 wins or more. Of course this goes both ways — an 81-win team can easily have a 71-win season, but there definitely is a chance.

As you can see in the upper graphic, usually around 88-89 wins get you a WC, although you sometimes can get one with 85 or sometimes 90+ is required. So a .500 team needs to make up like seven games to get into the postseason. With a little bit of overperformance, one or two Pythagoran luck wins and one or two wins picked up in deadline trades, that is quite possible. Actually 30% of the MLB teams last year were plus-7 or better. That means a .500 team might have around a 30% chance to get (actually half) a playoff spot. That isn’t great, but if you are a .500 team for six years, that would mean two WC game appearances.

Now of course that is not ideal. Ideally you want a talent-oozing rebuild like the Cubs, White Sox, or Braves. But other teams now also have recognized the value of cheap controllable talent, and are much stingier with their top prospects. Also, currently many .500 teams have given up and prefer to start a rebuild or at least do nothing. That means, if anything, it might become a little easier to make a WC, because the emergence of the super teams might cause the in-between teams to push the reset button to become the next Cubs or Astros.

Maybe that is really what the Pirates were thinking. The Dave Stewarts are gone, and usually those plus 50M surplus-value trades that made rebuilding so attractive don’t happen anymore. Now you have to fight for every million of surplus value, as any intern or even hobby sabermetrist can easily get a pretty good guess of the surplus value of a trade. So maybe the Pirates are trying to use a little game theory here and go against the trend to try finding a market inefficiency. It is a little like with poker. If you play beginner levels, you don’t need to worry about game theory and out-thinking the opponent — you just play the plus-EV hands, occasionally make a bluff to keep them off balance, and then you win. But at higher levels, everyone plays the correct hands, and game theory and out-thinking the opponent like a chess player becomes more important. The early sabermetric age was a bit like beginner-level poker, and you just needed to make mathematically correct calls because enough Dave Stewarts were feeding you. But now there isn’t that much difference between analytical departments, so that for smaller-market teams, even less than optimal plays can become profitable if they catch the market off balance. A team like the Dodgers doesn’t need to do that; they just need to play the mathematically correct hand and avoid mistakes to let their resources do the work, as they just start with pocket aces more often.

But a cash-constrained team like the Pirates might need to do more to out-think opponents and go against the trend, because they can’t do what anyone else does with half the resources and expect to beat them. Sure, they would have preferred a GM giving them a Shelby Miller trade, but it just wasn’t available, so maybe they re-evaluated and chose a path of sustained mediocrity to chase the second WC.

The Pirates version isn’t sexy, just like the 2000s A’s way wasn’t sexy. People love to dream. They don’t want the bird in the hand — they want the two in the bush. Fans don’t want an outlook of “we can be an 83-win team for a couple years and maybe make a WC or two,” they want to dream about becoming the next juggernaut. Fans are extremely emotional about their prospects. They want to believe anyone is the next Babe Ruth and getting a couple of 25-year-old prospects doesn’t really elicit that dream. The Pirates fans don’t want that — they want to be the White Sox and have all those studs coming up. But then again, that is no guarantee, as just one or two years ago they had those studs themselves in Glasnow and Meadows and it didn’t work out that well (for now, of course — they could still break out).

At first I hated the trades, but maybe it is good that a team chose to actually value mid-80s wins rather than tanking like anyone else. Sure, it isn’t nice that their owner has tight pockets, and you would have wished for more, but a future where we just have super teams and tankers is really boring. Maybe that tanking hype is already self-correcting currently. Anyone might’ve wanted to be the next Cubs, but as more try it and at the same time the buyers get stingier with their prospects, that becomes increasingly harder to do, and maybe as a consequence teams start to value those half-playoff spots more. Baseball really needs a middle field or the regular season will become a long and boring spring training for the postseason (which admittedly has become really great with all those super teams).

Ah, Odubel Herrera. When you read his name, what’s the first thing that pops into your mind? Is it the lapses on the basepaths? Is it the absolute joy he displays on the baseball field? Is it his stellar defense in center field? Is it his free-swinging approach at the plate? Is it the BAT FLIPS? No matter what Odubel Herrera brings to your mind, I doubt your first thought is of a disciplined hitter with an advanced approach at the plate. But, what if it was?

Let’s take a look back to April of 2016. Odubel Herrera was starting his second big-league season, coming off a very productive rookie season, where he played excellent defense in center field, sprayed hits all around the field, and, quite frankly, was one of the few reasons to watch the 2015 Phillies. However, Odubel walked at a well below-average rate of 5.2%, and struck out more than average, at 24%. He didn’t hit for much power, and his statline was greatly aided by an unsustainable BABIP of .387. I believed, and probably rightfully so, that if Odubel failed to make changes at the plate, his offensive value would suffer. With that being said, watching Herrera at the plate in April 2016 was one of the most unexpected transformations I’ve ever seen from a major-league player.

So, what changed for Odubel in April of 2016? To get an idea of how different he was at the plate, take a look at this chart, comparing his career plate-discipline numbers to his April 2016 plate-discipline numbers.

Odubel Herrera’s Plate Discipline Metrics

Wow. While these rates were accumulated over a fairly small sample size of 104 plate appearances, the differences between his April 2016 numbers and his career numbers are absolutely stunning. His O-Contact and Z-Contact rates were within 2 percentages of his career numbers, and his Z-Swing percentage was only three and a half percent less.

Meanwhile, Herrera’s O-Swing% in April 2016 was over 15 points lower than his career rate. For reference, in 2017, the players with the most similar O-Swing rates to April 2016 Odubel Herrera were Anthony Rendon, Brett Gardner, and Chase Utley. As you would expect, three extremely disciplined hitters with good control of the strike zone. They rated 12th, 13th, and 14th in O-Swing% among hitters with 300 or more plate appearances. Very impressive.

When we look at players who, in 2017, had similar O-Swing rates to Odubel’s career numbers, we see a much different trio of hitters. Tommy Joseph, Darwin Barney, and Jose Iglesias. Not exactly a group of fearsome hitters at the plate. They rated as 251st, 252nd, and 253rd among hitters with at least 300 plate appearances, out of 287 hitters. Not so impressive.

Could Herrera’s improved discipline stats have been aided by simply being pitched outside of the zone more often? No, not the case. Throughout his career, Odubel has been pitched inside the zone on 41.9% of pitches. In April 2016, he was pitched inside the zone even more often, with 48.9% of pitches coming inside the strike zone.

Did Herrera make a conscious decision to be more selective at the plate? It looks like that may be the case. I found a few articles about Herrera’s improved plate discipline in April 2016, including this one from the Morning Call. The article speaks of Odubel Herrera and his father having an issue with his relatively high strikeout rate during his rookie season. Unhappy with his high strikeout rate, Herrera came into 2016 planning to display a more patient approach at the plate. That, he certainly did.

So, what changed after April of 2016? Odubel Herrera quickly regressed towards his career average O-Swing%. Herrera finished 2017 with a hideous 40% O-Swing rate, one of the worst marks in baseball. He walked only 5.5% of the time, and struck out 22.4% of the time. Both rates are similar to the ones he produced in his rookie season. He put up an even 100 wRC+, which is actually pretty impressive for someone who swings at so many bad pitches. However, if Herrera ever wants to be something more than a league-average to slightly above-average hitter, he’ll need his plate-discipline metrics to look more like they did in April of 2016 than they have throughout his career.

Odubel Herrera walked an incredible 22.1% of the time in April 2016, while striking out only 17.3% of the time. For one month, Odubel Herrera borrowed Joey Votto’s eyes at the plate. Since then, he’s looked a lot more like Odubel Herrera. Will he ever look like Joey Votto again? For a player as unique and ever-changing as Odubel Herrera, I don’t want to rule it out. This is what’s fun about baseball. In a few months, we’ll get to see.

In 2004, a 24-year-old kid from Oklahoma named Matt Holliday debuted for the Colorado Rockies. Just a couple years later in 2006, Holliday received his first MVP votes, finishing 15th in the voting. A year later in 2007, the Rockies went to the playoffs for just the second time in franchise history and Holliday finished second in the MVP voting. In 2011, a 24-year-old kid from Texas (then a clean-shaven baby-faced kid) named Charlie Blackmon debuted for the Colorado Rockies. A few years later in 2016, Blackmon also received his first MVP votes, finishing 26th. The following year, much like Holliday, the Rockies claimed a playoff berth with Blackmon leading the way and finishing fifth in MVP voting. The similarities don’t end there; two players who don’t seem very much alike had very similar stretches in very similar circumstances while playing in the same outfield a decade apart.

Let’s start with the basics.

You can see just how close these two were in everything except for RBI. Of note with the RBI is Holliday often batted third or fourth while Blackmon always hit from the leadoff spot yet fell only 65 RBI short, which according to this article by RotoGraphs’ Scott Spratt denied Blackmon of approximately 10-13 RBI per 600 ABs. From the outside looking in, Holliday just by looking at him seems much more of a HR threat than Blackmon, and 2017’s MLB-wide HR surge definitely comes into play, but a HR is a HR is a HR, and in that regard they are neck and neck. These numbers alone are pretty impressively close, but let’s go deeper.

For all intents and purposes these numbers are identical, except the ISO which for Holliday is a little higher.

Now the final numbers to look at. Again these numbers except for wRC+ are essentially the same. Both players hit for near identical averages, OBP and so on. Blackmon has a little more in the WAR department, mostly because in the two-year timeframe he stole 10 more bases than Holliday and was better in the field. The only real difference between these two at this point is their age and service. Holliday was just 26 with two years of service time in 2006, while Blackmon was 29 and will be a free agent after 2018. So what does this all mean? Nothing really going forward, but the parallels between the two who exactly a decade apart literally made footprints in the exact same spots for the same team and had similar results on their teams seasons was surprising and interesting.

Bill Shakespeare had it right over 400 years ago. A baseball game in its essence is a sequence of plays, always starting at the same point and then tracing out a unique road that leads to the final outcome. And all the best games have a long and winding road. Having previously established that Power WPS is the ULTIMATE measure of how exciting a baseball game is, we’re ready for the real fun to begin. The fun of course being the compiling of various lists which can be the basis for pointless arguments. Since we rate the games based on the plays, we should establish a framework by first talking about the plays. When we remember a game, what we really remember is a few plays. So what is a typical play, what is the distribution of plays, what is a ‘big’ play?

Through 2017 there have been 305 playoff series, comprised of 1535 games and 119,712 plays, or about 78 plays per game. The average play moves the probability by 3.4%; The median play moves the probability by 2 percent. The table below shows the distribution of all those plays.

Only about 6.27 percent of all plays move the needle by as much as 10%, so a typical game will have about 5 of those.

Only about 1.14 percent of all plays move the needle by as much as 20%. A typical game will have about 1 of those. That’s the play they’ll show on the evening news.

Only about 0.42 percent of all plays move the needle by as much as 30%. About 1 in 3 games would feature a play like that.

Only about 0.13 percent of all plays move the needle by as much as 40%. About 1 in 10 games would feature a play like that.

Only about 0.03 percent of all plays move the needle by as much as 50%. A team might have about 4 of them in a season.

Caveat: BBRef has updated the percentages over time, my results reflect the values I captured over the years which may differ slightly from the current values.

Choosing one great game, we can see what at all of those levels look like. Game 6 of the 2011 World Series (Cards 10 Rangers 9, in 11 innings) has them all.

In the top of the 2nd, Ian Kinsler hit a 2-out double with a man on second tying the game at 2 (11%)

In the top of the 7th, Adrian Beltre hit a leadoff homer, breaking a 4-4 tie (21%)

In the bottom of the 11th, David Freese led off with a walk-off homer (37%)

In the top of the 10th, Josh Hamilton hit a 1-out 2-run homer to break a 7-7 tie (43%)

In the bottom of the 9th, David Freese hit a 2-out 2-run triple to tie the game at 7 (54%)

Obviously, the biggest plays will tend to come at the end of the game when there are fewer (or no) opportunities to come back.

But what are the highest rated early plays in a game?

1st play 12%: A Pete Rose homer off Catfish Hunter in G5 of the 1972 WS

2nd play 16%: Most recently a Stephen Piscotty 2-run homer off Jason Hammel in game 4 of the 2015 NLDS

3rd play 21%: A 1-out 2-run homer by Frank Robinson off Don Drysdale in game 1 of the 1966 WS

4th play 23%: A 1-out 3-run homer by Willie Stargell off Doug Rau in Game 3 of the 1974 NLCS

5th play 24%: A 2-out 3-run homer by Garrett Anderson off Randy Johnson in Game 3 of the 2005 ALDS

6th play 26%: A 2-out 3-run homer by Lucas Duda off Jason Hammel (AGAIN) in Game 4 of the 2015 NLCS

7th play 23%: A 2-out 3-run double by Moises Alou off Greg Maddux in Game 1 of the 1997 NLCS

8th play 25%: A 2-out 3-run homer by Bob Watson off Jerry Reuss in Game 1 of the 1981 WS (bottom of 1st)

9th play 26%: A 2-out 3-run homer by Ron Cey off Dave Righetti in Game 3 of the 1981 WS (AGAIN) (bottom of 1st)

10th play 26%: A 2-out 3-run double by Alex Gordon off CJ Wilson in Game 3 of the 2014 ALDS (bottom of 1st)

11th play 33%: A 2-out Grand Slam by Ryan Roberts off Randy Wolf in Game 4 of the 2011 NLDS (bottom of 1st)

12th play 26% yada

13th play 28% yada

14th play 22% yada

15th play 24%

16th play 33%: A 1-out 3-run homer by Gene Tenace off Jim McGlothlin in Game 5 of the 1972 WS (bottom of 2nd)

17th play 25%

18th play 39%: A 2-out Grand Slam by Jose Canseco off Tim Belcher in Game 1 of the 1988 WS (Top of 2nd, turned into a footnote 7 innings later)

19th play 30%

20th play 30%

The earliest we get a 40% play is

41st play 42%: A 2-out grand slam by James Loney off Ryan Dempster in Game 1 of the 2008 NLDS (top 5th). Gives team 2 run lead

The Earliest we get a 50% play is

56th play 55%: A 2-out 2-run Pete Rose homer off John Candeleria in Game 3 of the 1975 NLCS (top 8th). Gives team 1 run lead

Speaking of those over 50% plays, how many of those biggest 41 plays that changed the odds by at least 50% can you think of? No credit for naming the Pete Rose play…

Part of the fun of a list like that is the memories of players I have not thought of in many moons (apologies to the Cleveland Indians for that cultural appropriation) and other players that I’d never heard of in the first place. Of course while these plays turned an individual game around, some had a greater impact on the outcome of a series, those plays being the ones that happened in the closing games of a series. We can make that list too…

Here are the 24 plays that changed the odds of victory for a playoff series by at least 35%. NINE of them occurred in just four games (they are marked with funny symbols).

Yep, of the top 24 decisive plays EVER affecting a series outcome, Three happened in Game 5 of the 1980 NLCS.

You can also factor in the series level (WS =100%, CS=50% DS=25%). As this focuses down to just a few games, repeats become more common

A list dominated by the 42 World Series that went a least seven games.

Now don’t get accustomed to seeing these kind of results. One would need to watch nearly a decade of games to see this many impactful plays.