Some of my favorite moments in baseball are provided by players who, for one reason or another, absolutely should not have done what they just did. Ben Revere hitting a dinger. Vlad Guerrero swinging in the middle of an intentional walk. Willie Mays Hayes sliding short of the bag. Those moments are magical and hilarious.

And perhaps less amusing, but more exciting, there are guys who don’t give a flip if they’re behind in the count and don’t have any leverage. They’re still reaching base at a strong clip, providing small thrills by getting there when it looks like they’re all but back in the dugout. Below are the guys who did it most in 2016.

Read the rest of this entry »

I realize the title of the article is a very bold statement. If you are looking for conclusive proof through overwhelming data, I would suggest checking back several years from now, well after what I discuss will have largely played out. What I will offer, however, are signs and anecdotes that a significant opportunity does exist. That opportunity: A systematic process for both identifying and fixing hitters performing below potential.

Coming from an investment research background, I was able to discover several specific things where consensus views are either misplaced or do not exist. While I can’t get into specifics in terms of the “what” (yet), the “how”, and “why”, I was able to find these things are interesting to consider. This article (and possibly series of articles) could be considered a “ride along” if you will, where I will share some key parts that I believe are interesting to an analytically-focused baseball audience. Further, there is an upcoming fork ahead where a decision will be made as to strategic direction – attempting to influence wins or selling products. If the latter, I will detail everything either here or on a to-be-established blog.

There are different paths to research success. The keys that I’ve observed are: 1) Determine the primary drivers – i.e. pick a narrow lane, 2) Go deep to discover where consensus views are misplaced or do not exist, and 3) Constantly ask yourself where you might be wrong or what could you be missing. When I started research into hitting, it was this last item – the lack of self-questioning — that really stuck out. The coaching side of baseball at all levels seemed cemented in its views, clearly unwilling to consistently ask itself these very important questions. After almost getting punched by a coach several years ago, I was convinced that the emotion, ego and attachment to opinions that befall many smart investors were likely creating a large opportunity.

One more investing parallel and then I’ll get to some data. In the 2008 financial and housing crisis, one of the primary reasons that a tremendous opportunity to bet against the housing market arose was that the models, based on historical data, assumed housing prices would not decline on a nation-wide basis. However, a small number of investors, focusing on fewer, yet more significant signs were able to make billions by betting against the models and strongly-held consensus views. Similar to this example, baseball organizations don’t believe an opportunity exists because the historical data indicates that it doesn’t. Let’s take a look.

In the past nine years, there have been 92 cumulative changes to the hitting-coach position across major-league baseball. The pitching-coach position, on the other hand, has turned over only 45 times in the same period. The average age of the position is 52.6, and the coaches have an average 19.7 years removed from active play (read – all have significant legacy views). It doesn’t appear that any are adding significantly more value than the group and no individual or organization is consistently fixing broken hitters with recurring success. I believe the real signs are in the anecdotal evidence, which tell a completely different story.

Anecdotal Evidence an Opportunity Exists

J.D. Martinez – In early 2012, I sent a letter and video to his prior organization discussing the opportunity in fixing his mechanics, as well as the opportunity through a systematic process of identifying and fixing underperforming hitters (much the same as you are reading here). In December 2013,  after seeing the specific changes I was looking for, I made the following comment to Dan Farnsworth’s article – Rule 5 Darkhorse J.D. Martinez:

“…..These changes are some of the most significant (and in the right direction!) that I have seen for a major league player….. if he keeps moving his swing in this direction, he will be a major offensive producer in the next few seasons.”

He was released just a few months later. You likely know the rest of the story. Credit and thanks to Dan Farnsworth for writing the article.

Alex Bregman – Upon his major-league debut, I noticed a significant flaw that would likely prevent him from succeeding at the major-league level, and made the following comment in Eric Longenhagen’s post “Scouting Astros Call up Alex Bregman”:

“….only the power and HRs won’t be there consistently because he is cutting his swing so short. With his current approach, I think he’s going to have a far tougher road than what most are projecting.”

The swing shortness was of a particular type that I had come across with several other players who had used a particular swing-training device. I had a very high degree of conviction as to the likely results.

On August 7^th, I noticed he had changed his swing and he and also said “It’s just a mechanical issue that we’re working out to get back to how it was.”  I made the following comment on the same post.

 “….. since his terrible start and now likely subsequent improvement may be cast as randomness, better luck, or just needing more major league ABs, I think the real story here is relatively clear – the changes in his mechanics and approach were the primary driving factors both on the way down and the way back up (hopefully?) and would have occurred regardless of the playing level (AAA or MLB).”

Subsequent to his statement of “getting back to my old swing,” he changed his public comments — stating that he really didn’t make a swing change. I’m guessing so that no one gets thrown under the bus. Since the media bought into the revised, post-spin version of events, that seems to be the current consensus view, even though it is clearly inaccurate.

Looking at these cases and other turnarounds, the key takeaways are:

1) The solutions are not coming from within the organization

In the vast majority of cases, players are finding their own solutions. Players seek out advice from other players as well as outside sources. There are numerous quotes from hitting coaches with comments along the lines of “I don’t mess with the mechanics. When they get here, they already know how to hit.” Many hitting coaches appear to have taken the Hippocratic oath approach of “do no harm.”

2) The examples of significant and sustained turnarounds are extremely limited

I screened for players with below-average wRC+ for at least two seasons and also a wRC+ of 120 or more for the past two years. J.D. Martinez was the only return. There have been other notable improvement stories – Jose Altuve, Josh Donaldson, Manny Machado, Nelson Cruz and Anthony Rizzo; however, all were generally at least average or better before the improvement.

Using the same methods that identified the players above (as well as other players commented on this site), I find approximately 50 players at the MLB level who are performing well below their potential and could realize transformational improvement – if given the correct prescription. I won’t bore you with the complete list, but here are the top seven.

• Mike Zunino
• Travis d’Arnaud
• Ryan Flaherty
• Kevin Kiermaier
• Yasiel Puig
• Jason Castro
• Jake Marisnick

Depending on how things transpire, as noted in the first section above, I may go into detail on both the video and data analysis that leads to the conclusions above in future posts.

The Gap in the Middle

With baseball’s data/analytics side not going deep into mechanics and the coaching/player development side not doing significant research challenging current views, it is not too difficult to consider that there might be an opportunity gap in the middle, relative to new thoughts on mechanics. When I examine how these organizations with vast budgets and resources are missing key things, this “gap in the middle” seems to make the most sense. In hindsight, it was definitely a source underpinning my findings.

I believe it is fairly safe to say that baseball organizations are definitely missing something – it’s just a matter of the size of the opportunity. The recent fly-ball emphasis is a case in point. It’s somewhat ironic that this is being cast as something “new” when Ted Williams wrote and talked about it (i.e. the swing should not be down but up in the general plane of the pitch) 47 years ago. I am confident the “fly-ball movement” is not the magic bullet many seem to believe. Pursuing this path will only divert focus away from a more valid, comprehensive, and systematic solution.

Arguably, there is no other sport where mechanics play such a significant role in a player performing to potential. Without question, teams and coaches have struggled with this issue, given the high turnover of the hitting-coach position and the lack of consistent value-added input in regard to mechanics. Given the connection of mechanics to performance and performance to value, the possibility of an effective solution should not be considered lightly.

In weighing the evidence, on one side, there is significant historical precedent indicating systematically fixing players has not been possible. Clearly, even the best hitters in the game have not been able to transfer what largely exists in their muscle memory to other players. On the other side, there are a few anecdotes that may not seem significant in isolation; however, taken together, there is a logical story line that warrants consideration. The probability that the signs above are purely random and that they also have no connection to the bigger picture as discussed is extremely low. Given the stakes, shouldn’t organizations be asking themselves “What could we be missing?”

STATEMENT:

Catchers are undervalued in points leagues based upon their ADP compared to the relative replacement value to their position.

BACKGROUND:

I play in a head-to-head points league with a pretty standard scoring system for hitters. Points leagues tends to be a little more straightforward than rotisserie leagues with projecting player value, because you can translate the projections directly into your scoring system. The end game is total points for the player, and it does not matter how they achieve it, whether through stolen bases or home runs etc. In an effort to gain a little insight into the total points rankings rather than just sort all players by points and draft off of that list, I’ve used z-scores to attempt to calculate the value of a player’s points relative to the positional average. I wanted to quantify how much value you may gain from drafting Carlos Correa at SS as opposed to Paul Goldschmidt at 1B, even though Goldschmidt is projected to score more points. This is not a particularly new concept, as there is  a great series articles written by Zach Sanders about it here: http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/value-above-replacement-part-one/ .

In calculating the z-scores based upon Steamer projections, I have found that the top three catchers (Posey, Sanchez, Lucroy) have a higher score than expected, and it would seem to place their actual value among the top 20 hitters overall, despite projected significantly fewer points than their peers, while maintaining an ADP anywhere from the 4th to 7th rounds. It would seem that it may be smart to exploit this value differential in points leagues.

WHY ARE THE TOP CATCHERS UNDERVALUED?

Based upon Steamer projections and using a standard points-league scoring system, the z-scores for Posey, Sanchez, Lucroy put their top-end value with players such as Manny Machado and Paul Goldschmidt, and the low-end value with Xander Bogaerts. Buster Posey has a z-score of 2.31, Gary Sanchez has a score of 1.36, and Jonathan Lucroy has a score of 0.75. You may disagree with the ranking of Sanchez over Lucroy etc., but the main takeaway is that there is significant value with the top three catchers, as the next-highest projected scoring is Stephen Vogt, who has a z-score of -.05.

In rotisserie leagues, catchers do not carry as much value, because while Gary Sanchez may be projected for 28 HRs and cost a 6th-round pick, you can wait 6-8 more rounds and draft a Yasmani Grandal and only lose a projected 8 HRs. In points leagues, the difference between Sanchez and Grandal might be close to 100 points. That is the difference between having Paul Goldschmidt or Brandon Belt as your starting 1B. For reference, here are the projections with z-scores for 1B and 3B. I used replacement values of 23 for 1B and 17 for 3B based upon this article: http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/value-above-replacement-part-two/

I am not advocating that, because of the numbers, you draft Posey over Rizzo or Sanchez over Bryant, because that would limit any potential value you may get by drafting Posey at his ADP. I also do not believe they carry as much value as those players despite the z-scores. I am just saying that, at least in points leagues, it may be time to reevaluate the value of the top catchers, compared to other positions. Having a Posey, Sanchez, or Lucroy in points leagues gives a significant value week to week in head-to-head leagues, or for total points. Additionally, there is added value in having a catcher like Posey or Sanchez, who also perform occasional 1B or DH duties, which increase their ABs and scoring potential. Ideally, with a top catcher, you are not playing musical chairs week to week at the position, hoping for good match-ups, only to end the week with a catcher who may have scored under 10 points.

Based upon projections and experience, points leagues tend to be fairly top-heavy with scoring, where the top five or so at each position hold significantly more value than they would in standard rotisserie leagues. That is because there are only 20-30 points separating the No. 6 3B from the No. 12 3B, and spaced out in 22 weeks in head-to-head points, it is a difference of 1-2 points per week.

CONCLUSION:

I do not believe you should be drafting Posey or Sanchez in the first two rounds in fantasy points leagues, because it would not be the most efficient way to accumulate valuable players. I do think that catchers are particularly undervalued in points leagues relative to their draft positions. In points leagues, it is more valuable to have a top-three player at a weak position than having the No. 6 player at a strong to average position, even if traditional wisdom may say to draft Freddie Freeman over Gary Sanchez, because points leagues tend to equalize scoring after the top few players.

So my advice is to ignore conventional wisdom that says wait on catchers, and disregard ADPs that put players like Freddie Freeman, Jose Abreu, Jonathan Villar and Xander Bogaerts over Gary Sanchez or Jonathan Lucroy.

There’s no shortage of people who think Michael Conforto should never have been demoted last season. The thinking among members of this group is that the Mets messed around with Conforto’s development by twice transporting the 23-year-old outfielder to Las Vegas rather than allowing him to work through his struggles in the majors.

Whether you agree with this sentiment or not, there is no arguing that Conforto did struggle, especially against LHP. There is also no arguing that the acquisition of a left-handed RF at last year’s trade deadline was directly related to said struggles.

The presence of that left-handed RF, Jay Bruce — and maybe more importantly the $13-million 2017 salary associated with Bruce that has scared off potential trade suitors to date — leaves the current state of the 2017 Mets outfield quite complicated.

As it stands now, hundred-millionaire Yoenis Cespedes has permanent claim in left, and Curtis Granderson seemingly has permanent claim in center, leaving Bruce or Conforto to man right. The defensively-superior Juan Lagares could spell Granderson against lefties (if he makes the roster, that is), which would leave one of Granderson/Bruce/Conforto in right. Further, there is some talk of Jose Reyes getting time in the outfield. So yeah, pretty complicated.

A 2015 summer addition, Conforto never had a chance of being Super Two-eligible post-2017. But last season’s two Vegas vacations have left his current service time at 1.043. Stated another way, if Conforto starts 2017 in Vegas and spends the first 48 games there, the Mets gain another year of team control. Given the superfluous state of the Mets current OF, this scenario, which would have sounded outlandish in March of 2016, is now worth considering.

Michael Conforto Salary Chart

While it’s impossible to predict Conforto’s future arbitration salaries, I arrived at this estimate using the general rule of a 50% increase in salary each year of arbitration. A low-ish estimate of $2 million for Conforto’s Year 1 arbitration salary would yield a $6.75 million Year 4 arbitration salary, while a high-end estimate of $4.5 million for Conforto’s Year 1 arbitration salary would yield a $15.2 million Year 4 arbitration salary. $10.7 million is not only pretty close to the exact middle of these two numbers, but also conveniently lines up with the value of 1 win in 2022 when using 5% inflation.

If Conforto turns out to be just an average regular, the Mets would still gain $10.7 million in 2022 surplus value. If he’s a lot better than average while in the heart of his prime, then the Mets’ 2022 surplus value would be much greater. If you think Conforto will be below average in 2022, then what the Mets do with him in 2017 is mostly irrelevant. Any way you slice it, the potential long-term financial advantage is discernible.

It’s no surprise that Conforto’s playing time projections are all over the place — Depth Charts projects 245 PAs, Steamer projects 319 and ZiPS projects 558. 48 games equal 29.6% of the season, which equates to 73 PA using Depth Charts projections, 94 PA using Steamer projections, and 165 using ZiPS projections. Take the average of those three and you get 111 PA for Michael Conforto over the first 48 games.

Which brings me back to my original title of this piece — is the value of 111Michael Conforto PA in 2017 worth more than a one-year deal for ~$10.7mil in 2022, Conforto’s age-29 season?

There are plenty of variables to consider when answering this, but the most important is probably comparing the 2017 versions of Conforto and Bruce. While Conforto projects as a better hitter, fielder and runner than Bruce, Bruce did run a 124 wRC+ against RHP 2016 and holds a 115 career mark. No one is confusing Bruce for Bryce Harper, but he’s a perfectly suitable platoon option in RF.

Also relevant is the Mets’ schedule over the first 48 games.  Using FanGraphs projections, the weighted projected win percentage of the Mets’ first 48 opponents is .477 — roughly the equivalent of a 77-win team. Now of course these 48 games won’t count any less than the 114 that will follow, but if you truly think Conforto is a better option than Bruce AND you had to choose 48 games to play Bruce over Conforto, the first 48 would be pretty ideal.

While Conforto looked miserable at times last year, it’s impossible to ignore that he posted a 152 wRC+ from July 2015 – April 2016 at the ages of 22-23. While his 2016 Barreled Balls May Not Have Been Ideal, he continued to hit the ball hard amidst his struggles.

I hope Michael Conforto is in RF when Noah Syndergaard throws his first 100mph fastball against Julio Teheran and the Braves on Monday, April 3. But if he’s not, then he must be 2000 miles away, getting at-bats in Las Vegas, rather than a matter of feet away, wasting away in the dugout in Queens. The latter simply doesn’t pay.

The Nationals have had what seems to be a perpetual issue at closer. They have churned through Drew Storen, Tyler Clippard, Rafael Soriano, Jonathan Papelbon, and now Mark Melancon. Some people have touted Koda Glover as the solution for the next half century, but he remains mostly untested. For a team with a great record of developing starting pitchers such as Jordan Zimmermann, Tanner Roark, and Stephen Strasburg, and a general manager in Mike Rizzo whose list of faults is one name long — Jonathan Papelbon (I’m still hopeful about Adam Eaton) — it is somewhat surprising that they have not been able to address the omnipresent glaring issue at the end of games. The potential solution might be in the starting rotation: Joe Ross.

It may not seem obvious, but Ross is a perfect candidate to be moved to the bullpen. Ross has never pitched a full season as a starter. He pitched 105 innings this most recent season, and missed the middle of the season sidelined with a shoulder ailment. The slider that he threw 39% of the time this season is known to wear down a pitcher’s arm, and it did wear down his brother Tyson’s. A move to the ‘pen might save Joe Ross’s arm.

Ross’ numbers are far superior his first time through the order. As Eno Sarris detailed in his article “Who Needs a New Pitch the Most,” Ross’s velocity decreased a full mile per hour during his average start, his strikeout rate dropped by over 10 percent, and his wOBA against shot up from .248 his first time through the order to .371 his second time through.

Most importantly, Ross really only throws two pitches, a slider and a sinker. Two pitches are typical of a reliever, but a solid third option is often required to stick in the rotation. His sinker currently averages about 93 mph, so a move to the end of games could see that number rise to 95. He might also be able to get away with throwing his slider, which batters have hit just .173 against, more often. That combination is tantalizing.

It doesn’t make sense to give up on Joe Ross as a starter just yet, but if his arm fizzles out yet again this season, the Nats should give him a shot in the ‘pen.

Consider the current payrolls of two teams:

Team            Payroll          MLB Rank

Team A      $133.7M                9

Team B      $133.3M               10

You, being a reader of some intellectual attainment, have probably divined that one of these teams is the New York Mets. That would be Team A. Team B is the Seattle Mariners. As we enter 2017, just under eight years after Bernie Madoff’s guilty plea, the Mets still have the payroll of a team playing the 18th-largest city in America; four of NYC’s five boroughs have more people.

Mets’ GM Sandy Alderson has assembled a team that is essentially the anti-Cubs: the Mets’ core is their young, cost-controlled pitching staff, which was the best in the majors last year according to FIP-. Supporting the staff is a cast of position players that produce roughly MLB-average offense (16th last year in wRC+) and defense (15th in UZR/150). The Mets payroll is upside-down, heavily invested in the modestly effective position players, while the outstanding pitchers mostly throw for food. The most expensive pitcher on their roster is Addison Reed, at $7.75M. At Mets prices, for the coming year, that would buy you around one-third of Yoenis Cespedes or David Wright.

The Alderson formula has produced three years of 80+ win teams from 2014-2016 (82, 89, and 87, according to Pythagoras). But clouds are gathering. Seven of the eight starting position players on opening day will be at least 30 years old. Even the young pitching is less young than you might think. Matt Harvey will be 28, and Jacob deGrom already is. The pitchers’ long war with soft tissue has intensified: After last season, Steven Matz finally donated his bone spurs to science, but worryingly is planning to throw slower in 2017. Perhaps necessity will beget virtue, but Matz’ room for error may decline with his average velo. Noah Syndergaard still has his bone spurs, and Zack Wheeler may never start another major-league game. And so on.

Which brings us to today’s topic, which is focused on the Mets’ peculiar outfield, and their especially peculiar decision to give Jay Bruce most of the starts in right. The Mets’ failure to move Bruce in the offseason has been well-chronicled. Bruce had seemed to get his career back on track with 402 blistering plate appearances with the Reds in 2016, and the Mets jumped at the chance to get him in exchange for two pieces deemed expendable (Dilson Herrera and Max Wotell). Bruce cratered in New York, posting the second-worst ISO and wOBA of his career (if you were to consider his time in New York to be a separate season). After that performance, Met fans would have traded Bruce for a traffic jam in Fort Lee, but Alderson wanted more.

You can see Alderson’s logic: Having traded two prospects away (Herrera has exceeded his rookie eligibility, but he’s still only 22), Alderson now wanted two prospects back. As the Forbes article linked above noted, this misread the market. But it also misread Jay Bruce. In 2016, Bruce’s combined wRC+ was 111, good for 14th in the majors out of 21 right-field qualifiers. Bruce’s career wRC+ is 107 — so, far from being an anomaly, last year taken as a whole was simply Jay being Jay. Alderson paid for those 402 tantalizing plate appearances with the Reds in 2016, rather than considering Bruce’s entire body of work. Right field is an offensive position, and Bruce’s offensive contributions are modest. On a playoff team, he’s probably better suited to a bench role.

Steamer projects Bruce to regress to a wRC+ of 97 this year, while the man Bruce will effectively bump from the lineup, Michael Conforto, is projected to achieve 113. It’s possible the Mets’ internal projection system gives Bruce a much better prognosis; it’s likely the other 29 teams’ systems don’t think much of Bruce, or he wouldn’t still be a Met. Steamer thinks Conforto is worth about 0.7 wins more than Bruce, with Bruce getting over 100 more plate appearances. Giving Conforto the everyday role (or at least the everyday role against northpaws) and reducing Bruce’s playing time could be worth a win or so to the Mets.

How important is that win? Extremely, it would seem. As noted above, the Mets have assembled a team capable of getting into the playoffs, but not likely to overwhelm the competition. In this sense the Mets aren’t like the Cubs at all; the Cubs were assembled to crush their competition in the regular season, while the Mets plan is to squeeze into the playoffs and then say a number of Hail Marys that can only be expressed in scientific notation. The Cubs could have afforded to start Jay Bruce in right last year, and in fact they started someone worse (offensively, at least) and still broke a century-old curse. The Phillies could afford to start Jay Bruce in right in 2017 (and indeed wanted him, though not at Alderson’s price), because wins in 2017 will likely mean little to them. For a team like the Phillies, with some money to spend and no plans to win this year, Bruce would be useful cannon fodder — someone to run out there most days who allows them to keep their more valuable prospects in the minors.

The Mets are in a far different position than either of these teams, neither certain to dominate nor certain to fold. FanGraphs projects the Mets to win 83 games this year, which would put them just outside the second wild-card spot. I think that exact total may be a little pessimistic, but focus on their overall position in the league rather than the specific number. Four teams are projected to have between 82 and 88 wins (the Mets, Cards, Pirates, and Giants); it is fairly easy to imagine any two of them being the wild cards.

Moreover, the Mets are in win-now mode. As noted above, this is an old roster, and there’s not a lot of help on the way. The Mets have just two players in MLB’s top 100 prospects, though one of them is Amed Rosario, who could solve the Mets’ shortstop problems for a decade. With a Seattle-size payroll, and two long-term contracts (Cespedes and Wright) destined to get ever more albatrossy as the months tick by, the Mets need to scrape for every win they can now. The fragility of the Mets’ starters, who are unquestionably the team’s strength, gives the task further urgency.

Seen in this light, the decision to play Bruce seems to be an unforced error. The Mets have three options here:

• Use Bruce as a bench player: This fits Bruce’s current skills. He can be an effective left-handed pinch-hitter, and play three corner spots in a pinch. It is admittedly difficult to pay a player $13M to spit seeds for six innings, but as noted above, the Mets need to win right away, and Bruce can help them do that.
• Pay some other team to make Bruce go away: The Mets asking price for Bruce over the winter was too high: They wanted prospects in exchange for paying none of his salary, and Alderson now knows that was unrealistic. But the Mets might be able to get another franchise to take perhaps half of his salary in exchange for a low-A player with some upside; high-velocity relievers with arm or control problems are sometimes the currency of exchange in trades like this. And it’s difficult to believe that the relatively cash-strapped Mets could find no good use for $7M.
• Start Bruce to enhance his trade value: This seems to be what Alderson has in mind: hope that Bruce gets hot like he did last year, and then flip him for at least the two prospects that it cost to get him in the first place. This kind of stock-market baseball makes sense only if the wins don’t matter, but every win will matter for the Mets this year.

The Mets have an interesting team. A lot of people would actually like them if they weren’t the New York Mets. In piloting this intriguing but surprisingly cost-constrained franchise, the usually sure-handed Alderson shouldn’t compound his initial error in acquiring Bruce by misusing him now that he’s here.

Quick thought experiment for you: what’s the worst pitch a pitcher can throw? You might say “one that results in a home run” but I disagree. Even in batting practice, hitters don’t hit home runs all the time, right? In fact, let’s quantify it — according to Baseball Savant there were 806 middle-middle fastballs between 82 and 88 MPH thrown in 2016. Here are the results of those pitches:

So 86% of the time, we have a neutral or positive result for the pitcher, and the remaining 14% something bad happens. Not great, but when a pitcher *does* give up a homer on one of these pitches, there wasn’t really more than a 5% chance of that happening.

No, for my money, the worst thing a pitcher can do is to throw an 0-2 pitch that has a high probability of hitting a batter. The pitcher has a huge built-in advantage on 0-2, and by throwing this pitch he throws it all away and gives the batter a free base (or, at best, runs the count to 1-2). But everyone makes mistakes.

That’s Clayton Kershaw, hitting the very first batter he saw in 2015 with an 0-2 pitch. Here’s Vin Scully, apparently unwilling to believe Kershaw could make such a mistake, calling the pitch:

Strike two pitch on the way, in the dirt, check swing, and it might have hit him on the foot, and I believe it did. So Wil Myers, grazed by a pitch on an 0-2 count, hit on the foot and awarded first base. So Myers…and actually, he got it on his right knee when you look at the replay.

I was expecting more of a reaction from Kershaw — for reference, check out this reaction to throwing Freddie Freeman a sub-optimal pitch — but we didn’t get one. I wouldn’t worry about him, though — he’s since thrown 437 pitches on 0-2 counts without hitting a batter.

Kershaw is pretty good at avoiding this kind of mistake, but the true champion of 0-2 HBP avoidance is Yovani Gallardo*, who has thrown well over 1,200 0-2 pitches in his career without hitting a batter once. Looking at a heat map of his 0-2 pitches to right-handers (via Baseball Savant), you can see why — it’s hard to hit a batter when you’re (rightly) burying the pitch in the opposite batter’s box.

*Honorable mention: Mat Latos, who has thrown nearly as many 0-2 pitches as Gallardo without hitting a batter

Of course, 0-2 HBPs are fairly rare events, so it shouldn’t be too surprising to find that a few pitchers have managed to avoid them entirely. In fact, most pitchers are well under 1% of batters hit on 0-2 pitches. To get a global overview of how all pitchers did, let’s look at a scatter plot of average 0-2 velocity versus percent of HBPs in such counts over the past three years (click through for an interactive version):

I think one of these data points sticks out a bit to you.

I hate to pick on the guy, but that’s Nick Franklin, throwing the only 0-2 pitch of his life, and hitting Danny Espinosa when a strikeout would have (mercifully) ended the top of the ninth of this game against the Nationals. Interestingly, Franklin was much more demonstrative than Kershaw was, clapping his hands together and then swiping at the ball when it came back from the umpire. He probably knew that was his best opportunity to record a strikeout in the big leagues, and instead he gave his man a free base. Kevin Cash! Give this man another chance to redeem himself. He doesn’t want to be this kind of outlier forever.

Josh Johnson could pitch. In this decade, seven players have put up a season in which they threw 180+ innings with a sub-60 ERA-: Clayton Kershaw (three times), Felix Hernandez (twice), Kyle Hendricks and Jon Lester in 2016, Zack Greinke and Jake Arrieta in 2015, and Josh Johnson in 2010. That was the second straight excellent year for Johnson, making the All-Star team in both 2009 and 2010, and finishing fifth in the Cy Young balloting the latter year. Early in 2011 he just kept it going, with a 0.88 ERA through his first few starts. In four of his first five starts that year, he took a no-hitter into the fifth inning. Dusty Baker — a man who has seen quite a few games of baseball in his life and normally isn’t too effusive in his praise of other teams’ players — had this to say at that point:

“That guy has Bob Gibson stuff. He has power and finesse, instead of just power. That’s a nasty combination.”

It seemed like he was going to dominate the NL East for years to come.

Josh Johnson felt pain. His first Tommy John surgery was in 2007, when he was just 23. His elbow had been bothering him for nearly a year before he finally got the surgery. His manager was optimistic at the time:

“I think he’ll be fine once he gets that rehab stuff out of the way,” Gonzalez said. “You see guys who underwent Tommy John surgery, they come back and pitch better.”

But the hits kept coming. His excellent 2010 season was cut short because of shoulder issues (though he didn’t go on the DL) and his promising 2011 season came up short because of shoulder issues. Those same issues had been bothering him all season but he pitched through the pain for two months.

“It took everything I had to go and say something,” he said. “Once I did, it was something lifted off my shoulders. Let’s get it right and get it back to feeling like it did at the beginning of the season.”
…
“I’m hoping [to return by June 1st],” he said. “You never know with this kind of stuff. You’ve got to get all the inflammation out of there. From there it should be fine.”

That injury cost him the rest of the season.

Josh Johnson loved baseball. Think about something you loved doing, and your reaction if someone told you that you had to undergo painful surgery with a 12-month recovery time in order to continue doing it. Imagine you did that, but then later on, someone told you that you had to do it again if you wanted even an outside chance of performing that activity, but the odds were pretty low. Josh Johnson had three Tommy John surgeries, because they gave him a glimmer of hope of continuing to play baseball.

Josh Johnson had a great career. It’s only natural to look at a career cut short by injuries and ask “what if?” but he accomplished plenty. He struck out Derek Jeter and Ichiro in an All-Star Game, threw the first pitch in Marlins Park, and made over $40 million playing the game he loved. He even lucked his way into hitting three home runs. Now he’s a 33-year-old millionaire in retirement; I think he did all right.

January is notoriously slow for baseball activity, but the other week gave us two interesting extensions to digest. Wil Myers was extended for six years and $80 million, while Danny Duffy received five years and $65 million. Both of these players have had interesting careers thus far. Wil Myers has been polarizing in various ways since he was traded for James Shields. The most recent development has been his transition from playing OF to 1B, and seeing if he would be a valuable asset. As for Duffy, he spent part of the season in the Royals’ bullpen before sinker/slidering his way to potential ace status. If you look at both of their production over the last four years you see the following:

The table above doesn’t exactly inspire much confidence paying these two individuals the approximate GDP of Qatar. Obviously, the Royals and Padres liked what they saw this past year and were ready to buy into the future. Both Duffy and Myers have youth on their side at 28 and 26 so the teams are buying recent improvements and prime years. Steamer, too, is optimistic about both players, projecting Duffy for 3.1 WAR and Myers for 2.4 WAR.

These deals are not without risk and there is real concern about the inconsistency of both players. As illustrated above, both Duffy and Myers have had years of above-average production and also years where they barely scratched replacement level. These deals may be seen as opportunistic for both player and team, but let’s take a look to see where the value may lie. First, we need to look at how much the team paid and the expected breakeven value.

Based on this analysis, the teams are paying these players to be exactly what they have been over the past four years. At first glance, this seems like a steep price for the pair who have had middling results but players who have shown superstar upside, even inconsistently, have immense value. A similarity both players share is signing these contracts under team control. Each presumably would have done better on the open market but decided to sell after career years.

Given the significant swings in performance, these contracts are unique because the total value of the contracts may be recouped over 1-2 years. Just this past season, Duffy and Myers were worth 2.8 and 3.8 WAR, respectively. Using the 99^th percentile outcome for both these players, a 5 WAR outcome seems to be the absolute ceiling for these two players. Using the same 8M per WAR valuation, a 5 WAR season would produce a value of $40M. This would account for 62% of Duffy’s breakeven WAR and 48% of Myers’. If they were to return to their previous form and be worth 1.6 WAR each year for the remainder of the contract, the team would still enjoy a significant amount of surplus value. If you think 5 WAR is optimistic and prefer to think of their ceiling as closer to 4 WAR, the math still favors the teams’ side of these deals.

Danny Duffy and Wil Myers represent players who offer youth and inconsistency, and they have shown glimpses of stardom. Their respective contracts build both optimism and risk into the final dollar value. The unique part of these deals is quantifying the risk associated with these players. Given their inconsistencies, the teams should potentially expect to receive most of the value in one year while receiving middling results in the others. The Padres and Royals are betting on talent and recent improvements. Teams generally extend players with the idea of receiving consistent year-to-year value. Duffy and Myers portray a more boom-or-bust scenario. Generally, we have an idea of how a contract will go after Year 1; given these two players, we won’t know the result of the deal until the very end.

Recently, the Cleveland Indians signed slugger Edwin Encarnacion in a bold move to get their formerly middle-of-the-pack offense kick-started.  The deal, which pays $65 million to Encarnacion over three years, can’t be considered a good or bad deal yet — that is still to be determined.  If Edwin, who is, like everybody in the world, constantly getting older, performs like he did for the past two years, then the deal will be a steal for the Indians.  Yet if Edwin begins to show his age at the plate, then the deal will hardly be worthwhile.  Most likely, though, he will accumulate 25-35 (on an overly optimistic side) home runs, while batting for a not noteworthy .280.

Looking over the signing, one can easily come to the assumption that Cleveland will be better with Edwin.  Certainly, any level-headed person wouldn’t consider him to be a minus.  However, nobody has really come out and said that Edwin is the difference between a good team and a great team.  Yet from looking through the depths of Cleveland’s roster, one sees something uncontrollably powerful occurring slowly but surely in Cleveland.  Something that has been in development every since the Indians brought Jason Kipnis to the big leagues in 2011.  And now, with the addition of Edwin Encarnacion, they seem to be done.

What the Indians have done through the past five years is that of a front-office masterpiece.  Last year, they came within a game of winning of the World Series, and this year, they are poised to make a run for the trophy again.  As mentioned before, it all started with the arrival of a noncommittal prospect named Jason Kipnis in 2011.  Kipnis had played well, but definitely not worth a mention in any top-prospect lists.  In the majors, he took a few years to blossom, but he’s been on the rise ever since.  He is now a solid second baseman with speed and power, the second-sacker of every team’s envy.

That same year, Francisco Lindor entered the rookie team of the Indians.  Unlike Kipnis, he became a highly-touted prospect, and his first appearance in the major leagues, in 2015, was widely watched.  And ever since that first game, Lindor has not looked back, joining Kipnis in the ranks of the best middle infielders in the league.

This past year, 2016, was when all the front office’s hard work finally blossomed.  At first, the season did not start out very well.  Stalwart right fielder Michael Brantley got injured early on, and the season’s prospects looked slim.  Yet about a third of the way through the season, something amazing happened.

The Indians were not doing badly, but were definitely not excelling in the season.  So, in a radical move, they decided to see how a prospect would fare in the bigs.  So they summoned Tyler Naquin from the farm system and immediately implanted him in center field.  Thankfully, the lanky Naquin performed above and beyond anyone’s expectations.  He finished the season in the contest for Rookie of the Year, despite missing a good chunk of the season.  Meanwhile, a player who had spent a few years in the bigs yet never really got to play was coming into his own just about the time when Naquin came up.  Jose Ramirez had been drafted by Cleveland after the 2010 season and was called up in 2013.  He didn’t get much playing time, and was sent back down to the minors the next year.  He was called up again in 2015, and played poorly.  However, he wasn’t ready to ruin his big-league career.  At around the time Naquin came up, Ramirez became hot.  He started playing like he hadn’t ever in his career.  Somehow, someway, a switch had been flipped inside him.  Somehow, someway, the Cleveland Indians were in business.

Although the Indians had failed to win the World Series, the season had still been a wild success.  They had built a powerful machine, and with Brantley back in right field for the 2017 season, who knew what could happen?  But still, they seemed to be missing something.  Even with the amazing midseason reinforcements and Cleveland’s powerful lineup (Napoli, Santana, Lindor, Kipnis), the Indians were 18th in the majors in runs scored.  They were getting many runners on base, as their .329 OBP (tied for seventh-best in the MLB) testified.  They just needed one more piece, a guy who could get those many baserunners home.  And although Napoli was big and strong and hit majestic homers, he just wasn’t the guy the Indians needed.  So they signed Encarnacion.  With him on the team and Brantley back, possibilities are boundless.  Their lineup (shown below) will be incredibly potent.

1.  Francisco Lindor;  Shortstop

2.  Jason Kipnis; Second Base

3.  Edwin Encarnacion; DH

4.  Michael Brantley; Right Field

5.  Carlos Santana; First Base

6. Jose Ramirez; Left Field

7.   Lonnie Chisenhall; Third Base

8.  Roberto Perez; Catcher

9.  Tyler Naquin; Center Field

Although the order could be debated on, its potency and presumed consistency are undeniable.  There are only 1.5 holes in the lineup (Roberto Perez=1, Chisenhall=.5), and other than that, the rest of the lineup is stocked with really good players. That’s seven really good players in one lineup.  That is something special.  The lineup is also well-rounded.  There are Lindor, Kipnis, Brantley, and Ramirez providing consistency, while Encarnacion and Santana provide the dingers.  Of course, the four who provide consistency can be relied on to produce at least 15 homers a year.  And although the batting order looks very impressive, the pitching rotation is what really makes the Indians special.  The pitching rotation made it to the World Series minus two of their best pitchers — Salazar and Carrasco — and almost won it!

The addition of Encarnacion will, in my opinion, prove to be great.  The Indians will leap from 18th to fifth in offense in the majors, and they will have a very good regular season.  Again, this is just my opinion, but the Indians do look awfully dangerous come the 2017 season.