In “Hardball Retrospective: Evaluating Scouting and Development Outcomes for the Modern-Era Franchises”, I placed every ballplayer in the modern era (from 1901-present) on their original team. Therefore, Roy Halladay is listed on the Blue Jays roster for the duration of his career while the Brewers declare Gary Sheffield and the Cardinals claim Mordecai Brown. I calculated revised standings for every season based entirely on the performance of each team’s “original” players. I discuss every team’s “original” players and seasons at length along with organizational performance with respect to the Amateur Draft (or First-Year Player Draft), amateur free agent signings and other methods of player acquisition.  Season standings, WAR and Win Shares totals for the “original” teams are compared against the “actual” team results to assess each franchise’s scouting, development and general management skills.

Expanding on my research for the book, the following series of articles will reveal the finest single-season rosters for every Major League organization based on overall rankings in OWAR and OWS along with the general managers and scouting directors that constructed the teams. “Hardball Retrospective” is available in digital format on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, GooglePlay, iTunes and KoboBooks. The paperback edition is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and CreateSpace. Additional information and a discussion forum are offered at TuataraSoftware.com.

Don Daglow (Intellivision World Series Major League Baseball, Earl Weaver Baseball, Tony LaRussa Baseball) contributed the foreword for Hardball Retrospective. The foreword and preview of my book are accessible here.

Terminology

OWAR – Wins Above Replacement for players on “original” teams

OWS – Win Shares for players on “original” teams

OPW% – Pythagorean Won-Loss record for the “original” teams

Assessment

The 1953 Milwaukee Braves         OWAR: 52.2     OWS: 300     OPW%: .664

GM John Quinn acquired 88% (22/25) of the ballplayers on the 1953 Braves roster after assuming the reigns from his father Robert Quinn in 1945. Based on the revised standings the “Original” 1953 Braves secured the National League pennant by a 16-game margin over the Brooklyn Dodgers. Thus began a streak of seven consecutive National League titles while pacing the Senior Circuit in OWAR and OWS.

Eddie Mathews (.302/47/135) established career-bests in home runs, RBI and SLG (.627) during his sophomore year. The slugging third-sacker placed runner-up in the 1953 NL MVP race and led the circuit in round-trippers. Al Dark (.300/23/88) rapped 194 base hits, clubbed 41 doubles and scored 126 runs from the leadoff slot. Johnny Logan slashed 27 two-base hits and registered 100 tallies. Del Crandall walloped 15 dingers and earned the first of eight All-Star invitations. Earl Torgeson aka “The Earl of Snohomish” drove in 64 baserunners while batting .274. Bill Bruton placed fourth in the 1953 NL Rookie of the Year balloting after collecting 14 triples and leading the League with 26 stolen bases.

Mathews is listed as the third-best ballplayer at the hot corner according to Bill James in “The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract.” Five teammates join him in the top 100 rankings including Warren Spahn (5^th-P), Dark (27^th-SS), Logan (39^th-SS), Crandall (30^th-C) and Bruton (73^rd-CF).

Warren Spahn (23-7, 2.10) flummoxed opposing batsmen as he completed 24 of 32 starts and paced the National League in ERA, victories and WHIP (1.058). Hoyt Wilhelm aka “Old Sarge” provided 7 wins and 15 saves in 68 relief appearances. Returning from two years of military service, Johnny Antonelli delivered a record of 12-12 with a 3.18 ERA.

The “Original” 1953 Milwaukee Braves roster

Honorable Mention

The “Original” 1902 Beaneaters         OWAR: 44.1     OWS: 314     OPW%: .580

Vic Willis (27-20, 2.20) shouldered a massive workload, completing 45 of 46 starts and leading the National League with 410 innings pitched and 225 strikeouts. Alas, Boston (81-59) finished three games behind Cincinnati. Togie Pittinger (27-16, 2.52) matched Willis’ win total and registered 36 complete games. Charlie “Piano Legs” Hickman (.361/11/110) led the circuit with 193 hits and 288 total bases. Chick Stahl, Jimmy Collins, Fred Tenney, Patsy Donovan, Kitty Bransfield, Joe Kelley and Dan McGann exceeded the .300 mark in batting average.

The “Original” 1983 Braves    OWAR: 51.0     OWS: 293    OPW%: .568

Dale Murphy (.302/36/121) received his second straight NL MVP award. “Murph” topped the charts in RBI and SLG (.540) while earning the second of five successive Gold Glove Awards. Brett Butler led the League with 13 triples and Glenn Hubbard (.263/12/70) received his lone All-Star nod. Craig McMurtry (15-9, 3.08) merited a runner-up finish in the 1983 NL Rookie of the Year balloting. Larry McWilliams (15-8, 3.25) whiffed 199 batters and set career-bests in virtually every pitching category as he placed fifth in the Cy Young voting.

On Deck

The “Original” 1948 Indians

References and Resources

Baseball America – Executive Database

Baseball-Reference

James, Bill. The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. New York, NY.: The Free Press, 2001. Print.

James, Bill, with Jim Henzler. Win Shares. Morton Grove, Ill.: STATS, 2002. Print.

Retrosheet – Transactions Database

Seamheads – Baseball Gauge

Sean Lahman Baseball Archive

I decided to do a little experiment today and put the first third of the season under a microscope. I thought, what better way to compare MLB teams then by using a fantasy baseball format? Using seven offensive stats (AVG, wOBA, BABIP, OBP, ISO, K%, BB%) and seven pitching stats (BB/9, HR/9, BABIP, HR/FB, ERA, WHIP, K/9) I compiled the numbers from around the league. After getting the numbers, I went through and noted where each team stood in the overall standings for each stat. For every top-10 a team had in a given category, I gave them a point; the teams with the most points, theoretically, should be in the mix for the 10 playoff spots this September. Three teams — the Cardinals, Dodgers and Tigers — had the highest scores with 10 overall points. The next highest was the upstart AL West leading Astros and the red-hot Blue Jays. Both teams are interesting cases but with the Blue Jays sitting in third place in a, let’s say, competitive AL East, I have to wonder, how good are the Blue Jays and how far can they go?

This isn’t the Blue Jays of old; with the addition of Josh Donaldson and Russell Martin and the emergence of young, productive players like Kevin Pillar, Devon Travis (before he got hurt), Chris Colabello and Danny Valencia, the Blue Jays have a balanced and deep offense. We know teams that live and die by the home run generally have trouble staying consistent throughout the season. This has been the problem with the Blue Jays in the past, waiting for Bautista and Encarnacion to heat up and then when they do, watch out. This year however, has been much more of a consistent team effort. With the top offense in baseball the Blue Jays are third in AVG, first in wOBA, 10th in BABIP, third in OBP, second in ISO, seventh in K% and seventh in BB%. All of that adds up to scoring runs, which they do very well, leading the league with 5.47 RPG. In my fantasy reality projections, the Blue Jays received a point for every offensive stat, the only team to do so. It’s the pitching categories however that raise my questions.

Although they had a total of 8 points, the Blue Jays were in the top 10 of only one pitching category: they’re third in BABIP. This isn’t to say that their pitching has been bad, as they’ve actually been pretty decent so far this year. Mark Buehrle has been his same old self, Drew Hutchison with his 5.33 ERA is 6-1, Aaron Sanchez has recovered nicely from a rough start of the season, Marco Estrada is a nice piece to have and although R.A. Dickey’s knuckleball hasn’t been as good as in years past, he’s still keeping them in the game and at least saving the bullpen. Speaking of the bullpen, it’s been a lot better as well this year. Brett Cecil, Roberto Osuna and Liam Hendricks all have K/9 above 9.0 and the bullpen as a whole has an ERA of 3.38, lower than the league average of 3.50. But is all of this enough to win the division or at least get a wild-card birth?

The AL East has been a mixed bag this year. Every team, besides the Red Sox, seems to be a hot or cold streak away from dominating or falling off the face of the earth. The Rays are currently leading the AL East by 1 game over the Yankees and 2 games ahead of both the Orioles and Blue Jays. The Rays are pretty much the opposite of the Blue Jays, as they don’t hit a lot of home runs and where the Blue Jays lead not only the division but the league in runs scored per game, the Rays are last in the division and 26th in the league with 3.73 RPG. The Rays have an AL East best 3.26 ERA and the Blue Jays, of course are at the opposite end of the spectrum, ranking fourth in the division at 4.26. These numbers bring into to play run differential, where the Blue Jays lead the division at +69 and the Rays are fourth with a +7 run differential. Anything is possible but it just feels like the Rays won’t be able to hold on throughout the season, especially facing the offenses in the AL East. Speaking of the other teams not named the Red Sox, let’s look at the Yankees and Orioles and see how their success may impact Toronto.

Both the Orioles and Yankees have mostly played good baseball throughout the season. The Yankees have definitely exceeded expectations and the Orioles have been a streaky team but are still hanging right in there. I think these two teams pose the biggest threat to any potential Toronto success. With the AL Central as loaded as it is, it’s entirely possible that two AL wild-card teams come from that division. It’s also highly possible that one could come from the AL West — the Rangers are playing better, the Angels have a similar record to the Blue Jays, Yankees and Orioles and I know it sounds crazy but I’ll never count the A’s out until it’s mathematically impossible.

All that being said, I think it will be hard for Toronto to secure a wild-card birth; I think they have to win the division. The Yankees and Orioles are second and third in the AL East in RPG with 4.53 and 4.50 respectively and both have a better team ERA than the Blue Jays do. The Orioles have a run differential of +35 and the Yankees are at +12, so it’s certainly possible if the numbers stay where they’re at that the Blue Jays can just outscore everyone more often then not. But pitching wins championships — just ask the Giants — and if the Blue Jays want to have the success they’re looking for, they’ll need to improve their starting rotation.

The question then becomes, where do they get the help? We saw what happened to the A’s last year when they went for everything and broke up a successful offense to secure their starting rotation. I’m not suggesting the Blue Jays do exactly that but I do think they need to make a move to get a proven starter. Toronto is invested in young starters Hutchison and Sanchez who have performed well but not great, and veterans like Buehrle and Dickey are a good presence for a young staff, but they seem to lack that workhorse, front-of-the-rotation guy. Filling the void from within is always the preferred method but it doesn’t appear that the Blue Jays have anybody waiting in the wings.

Perhaps R.A. Dickey can regain his form and become the ace that he was with the Mets, but that’s a lot to hope for. Toronto’s farm system was ranked 19th in MLB going into the season, making it difficult to trade for a top-tier starter without dealing major-league talent but surely they could put something together for a major-league starter without breaking up their core players. If they can make a move, I think they’ll greatly increase their chance of winning the division. If they don’t, they’ll have to hope everyone stays healthy and the offense keeps rolling. One thing is for sure, it’s baseball and anything can happen at any time. For now we’ll just have to wait and see, and of course, enjoy the dingers.

Earlier this week, the New York Times reported on the FBI investigation of the Houston Astros’ compromised database and the current suspicion that the culprit are none other than the St. Louis Cardinals. The hacking of Houston’s proprietary in-house information sharing system, called Ground Control, caused major waves last year when Deadspin published excerpts from their internal discussions about players and trade negotiations. The Astros ended up with some egg on their face, and Jeff Luhnow was quoted as saying he was avoiding electronic communication during the early days of the known leak for fear that the Astros’ systems remained unsecured.

What is so shocking about the (alleged) penetration of the Astros’ systems by members of the Cardinals’ front office is that it does not appear to be a high-tech hack: according to the NYT, the likely intrusion vector was Astros’ general manager Jeff Luhnow’s own user credentials, which reused the same password that he had formerly used to access the Cardinals’ own proprietary system (codenamed Redbird) when he worked there.

Targeting credentials of users who reuse the same password to access multiple systems is a popular method of hacking. A surprising number of smart, highly-placed individuals (like Luhnow) often don’t perceive the risk that they take by using the same password across multiple accounts. Hackers look for sites and apps that have poor password security, steal the passwords from those less-secure places, and then test the passwords against higher-security systems. Some examples of poor password security practices include storing passwords in plain text in the database, not encrypting passwords with a one-way hash where the password can’t be taken back out of the database, or using an inexpensive encryption method that can easily be broken by throwing computing power at the problem. (The Cardinals were allegedly able to pull Luhnow’s password out of the database, so Redbird’s passwords were likely either stored in plain text or encrypted using a less-safe two-way encryption technique.)

Reusing passwords across multiple accounts is an example of poor “password hygiene”. As email addresses become increasingly popular as usernames, it has become easier to guess one half of the username-password credentials pair for a user of a site or application. The most effective strategy for proper password hygiene is to use a unique password for every account you have and to use a password manager to securely store those credentials. I use 1Password because it works on Mac, PC, iOS, and Android and stores credentials on my own devices rather than on someone else’s server, but there are plenty of other popular solutions such as LastPass, KeePass, and Dashlane.

An additional strategy for improved security is two-factor authentication (2FA). The idea behind 2FA is that you authenticate yourself with “something you know” (your password), and “something you have” (your phone). The second part can be a text message that’s sent to you when you log in, or a special code that is generated every few seconds that you can use as a sort of second password. Those special codes are generated using a hardware device (if you’ve ever seen an RSA keychain token, that’s an example of hardware 2FA) or by a software app such as Google Authenticator or Authy. 2FA helps protect you against someone stealing your password, because unless they also have your mobile phone, they can’t get into your accounts. Many sites feature 2FA as an option, and the list continues to grow.

My last piece of advice is to rotate passwords on a regular basis. 1Password reminds me when a given password has been in use for too long, and I can go ahead and change it. (It even flags accounts that have had reported breaches, which is a great help.) If Jeff Luhnow had been rotating his password regularly, even though the Cardinals (or whoever the bad guys were) started out with his credentials, they would have lost access whenever he rotated, which helps stop the bleeding of confidential information.

If you think you’re not important enough to be hacked, it can be an ugly surprise to discover that hackers target everyone. The consequences of sloppy hygiene could be your bank account being drained, your Gmail messages or your wedding photos being deleted, or your Facebook account being seized. These things happen to “normal” people every day. The additional effort for a little bit of extra security goes a very long way. The bad guys are often looking for the easiest targets. Making yourself a little harder to attack is the first line of defense.

The Cleveland Indians can be a frustrating team to follow.  As a small to mid-market ball club, the Indians do not have the luxury to spend big in free agency, and when they do, they usually have to spend extra to bring in overrated players (see Kerry Wood, Nick Swisher, and Michael Bourn).  As a result, the Indians hedge their success on taking risks.  This process started in the early ’90s when they signed their young players with big potential to long-term contracts.  As a result, the Indians turned into an offensive juggernaut with stars such as Jim Thome, Sandy Alomar Jr., Kenny Lofton, Omar Vizquel, Carlos Baerga, and many others.  However, many people do not realize that the Indians also lost on some of the risks that they took in that era with cases such as Eric Plunk, Herb Perry, and so on.

This strategy has continued to this day, and has resulted in a very promising, yet frustrating team.  Carlos Santana has been productive with his high OBP, but never the player the team envisioned.  Jason Kipnis has had up and down years.  Lonnie Chisenhall has shown moments of brilliance, but has been unable to sustain those moments, resulting in his demotion to Triple-A Columbus last week.

While the offense has been widely inconsistent, the rotation has, for the most part, been brilliant.  Corey Kluber is second in the league in strikeouts with 111.  Danny Salazar, Carlos Carrasco, and Trevor Bauer have been inducing a lot of long walks back to the dugout as well, ranking tied for sixth, seventh, and ninth, respectively.  These four have a combined 3.65 ERA, which is quite remarkable considering that the most respected starting rotation in the Majors (the Nationals) has logged a 3.60 ERA.

However, this is not where the story ends.  As everyone (hopefully) knows, major-league rotations consist of five starting pitchers (unless you’re the Mets for a few weeks).  With the fifth starter added in, the Cleveland Indians rotation has an ERA of 4.37, almost three-quarters of a run higher.  This is absolutely startling.  By themselves, the fifth starters in the rotation have gone 3-8 with an 8.33 ERA.  I’ll repeat that, an 8.33 ERA.  The only fifth starter to win at all has been Shaun Marcum, the man who had not pitched in the major leagues since halfway through 2013.  In the games that a fifth starter has pitched in, the Indians have been outscored 88-48.  Opponents have nearly doubled the Indians run output when a fifth starter has taken the hill.

Are there games that the Indians should have won when a fifth starter has pitched? Absolutely.  But in order to have any shot of making the playoffs, someone has to step up in the back of the rotation and close up the black hole.  A .375 winning percentage does not a contender make.

In some ways, baseball is a simple game. For a hitter, it boils down to: see ball, swing at ball, hit ball hard, jog around bases (the Frankenstein approach). Of course, it’s not really that simple and there are many other variables involved. Still, a simple goal for a hitter would be to hit the ball hard as often as possible. With that in mind, I thought I’d investigate what happens when a batter hits the ball hard on a regular basis.

I took all players with 150 or more plate appearances so far in 2015. All data in this article is through June 14. Using players with more than 150 plate appearances gave me 236 players.

To start off, I looked at the correlation between the old-school statistic of batting average with hard, medium, and soft hit percentage. You may think that players who hit the ball hard more often would have higher batting averages. This is true. The correlation between batting average and hard hit percentage for these 236 players was .18. For both medium and soft hit percentage, the correlation was negative. The more often you hit the ball hard, the higher your batting average. The more often you hit the ball medium or soft, the lower your batting average.

Here is a table that shows the correlation for other metrics:

The statistic that correlates most with hard-hit percentage (Hard%) is Isolated Slugging (ISO), with a correlation of .73. Hitting the ball hard more often leads to getting extra-base hits more often. The top three metrics in the table—ISO, HR/FB, and SLG—are all measures of power and correlate quite nicely with Hard%. The two measures of overall hitting production—wRC+ and wOBA—also score high on this chart.

Both strikeout rate and walk rate correlate positively with Hard%. When you swing hard, you are more likely hit the ball hard and also more likely to miss, so hitters who have a higher Hard% also have higher strikeout rates, in general. Hitting the ball hard also correlates with walking more often. Perhaps pitchers a more careful to hitters who can beat them with one swing of the bat.

Hard% has a positive correlation (0.36) with fly-ball percentage, no correlation with line-drive percentage, and a negative correlation with groundball percentage.

With all of that in mind, I decided to separate hitters into groups based on hard-hit percentage and compare their composite batting lines. Consider the charts below. There’s a great deal of information here, but if you go down the column as Hard% goes down, you can see the effect on other statistics.

The group of hitters who have a hard-hit percentage of 35% or higher have combined to hit .276/.356/.491. Their .276 batting average is 9 points higher than the next-highest group, their OBP is 22 points higher, and their slugging percentage is 49 points higher. They have a .215 ISO, a solid 10.2% walk rate, and the best HR/FB rate, at 17.5%.

As the hard-hit percentage goes down, the other numbers go down also. By the time you get to the bottom group, those with Hard% below 23%, the composite batting line is .252/.303/.332, with an ISO of .080 and a HR/FB rate of 3.4%. This group strikes out less often than any other group, has the highest rate of soft-hit balls, and the lowest rate of fly balls. These are your typical light-hitting shortstops (Alcides Escobar, Elvis Andrus) and speedy outfielders (Billy Burns, Sam Fuld).

The three wRC+ columns show the number of hitters with a wRC+ at 100 or higher, the number below 100, and the percentage of above-average hitters in each group. For example, 86% of the hitters with Hard% above 35% have been above-average hitters this year, while just 19% of the hitters with Hard% below 23% have been above-average. If you’re not hitting the ball hard with some frequency, you are unlikely to be productive. The break-even point where half the players are above average hitters and half are below is in the range of 27% to 28% hard hit balls.

Let’s take a closer look at these groups.

Diamond Group (35% and higher Hard%)

.276/.356/.491, .321 BABIP

.215 ISO, 17.5% HR/FB

10.2% BB%, 22.3% K%

WAR/600 PA: 4.0

wRC+ >100: 43 players (86%)

wRC+ <100:   7 players (14%)

Best Hitter: Bryce Harper, 216 wRC+

Median Hitter: George Springer, 131 wRC+

Worst Hitter: Matt Kemp, 78 wRC+

• Top five hitters in this group, by wRC+: Bryce Harper, Paul Goldschmidt, Miguel Cabrera, Mike Trout, Anthony Rizzo.
• Middle five hitters in this group, by wRC+: Andrew McCutchen, Jose Abreu, George Springer, Adam Lind, Seth Smith.
• Bottom five hitters in this group, by wRC+: Mark Trumbo, Will Middlebrooks, Matt Adams, Steve Pearce, Matt Kemp.
• Bryce Harper is the top performing player in this group, hitting .333/.469/.721 with a Hard% of 40.4% and a 216 wRC+. He’s the Hope Diamond of Major League Baseball right now.
• Giancarlo Stanton has the highest Hard%, at 51%. Stanton’s .341 ISO is second in baseball to Harper’s .388. Stanton’s Hard% is 5% higher than the next-highest player in baseball, Brandon Belt.
• Nine of the top ten hitters in baseball by wRC+ are in this group (Nelson Cruz missed the cut with a Hard% of 32.9%.
• The seven below-average performers with a 35% or higher Hard% are Jorge Soler (96 wRC+), Jay Bruce (96 wRC+), Mark Trumbo (93 wRC+), Will Middlebrooks (80 wRC+), Matt Adams (79 wRC+), Steve Pearce (79 wRC+), and the enigmatic Matt Kemp (78 wRC+) bringing up the rear. These players are hitting the ball hard at a high rate but have still been below average hitters.
• Speaking of Kemp, what is up with this guy? After a bounce-back year in 2014, when he hit 25 home runs in 599 plate appearances, Kemp has just two homers so far in 274 plate appearances. He’s the Robinson Cano of the National League. His 35.4% Hard% isn’t bad, but it’s not as high as last year’s 40.3%. He also pulled the ball more often last year (43.8%) and his ground ball rate is at a career high (48.7%, career rate is 41.9%). He is struggling big time on fastballs after crushing fastballs in 2014. It’s been an ugly start to the year for Kemp, just ask Bud Black.
• Two players in this group who are very close to a 100 wRC+ are Ryan Howard (100 wRC+ and Pedro Alvarez (104 wRC+). They both have been terrible against left-handed pitchers, having struck out at least 30% of the time against lefties. Also, when they do make contact against southpaws, they aren’t making good contact, with identical 25% Hard% versus lefties.

Quartz Group (31% to 35% Hard%)

.265/.334/.442, .300 BABIP

.177 ISO, 14.1% HR/FB

8.6% BB%, 19.4% K%

WAR/600 PA: 2.9

wRC+ >100: 39 players (75%)

wRC+ <100: 13 players (25%)

Best Hitter: Nelson Cruz, 175 wRC+

Median Hitter: Evan Longoria, 115 wRC+

Worst Hitter: Christian Yelich, 68 wRC+

• Top five hitters in this group, by wRC+: Nelson Cruz, Mark Teixeira, Andre Ethier, Albert Pujols, Stephen Vogt.
• Middle five hitters in this group, by wRC+: Danny Espinosa, Carlos Santana, Evan Longoria, Khris Davis, Mark Canha.
• Bottom five hitters in this group, by wRC+: Justin Maxwell, Luis Valbuena, Robinson Cano, Michael Taylor, Christian Yelich.
• The magic pixie dust that Nelson Cruz was sprinkled with in April (206 wRC+) and May (188 wRC+) seems to have worn off in June (78 wRC+). His ISO has dropped from .402 to .262 to .000 by month (although he has continued to be fortunate on balls in play with a .393 BABIP in June). He’s also seen a big drop in the percentage of hard hit balls, from 40.6% in April to 30.1% in May to 21.4% this month. This has coincided with a drop in fly ball rate, from 55.1% to 27.4% to 21.4%. Cruz was never going to keep up his torrid early-season pace but he’s also not as bad as he’s looked recently.
• The player at the bottom of this group, Christian Yelich, has an above average Hard% of 34.2%. Unfortunately, his sky-high ground ball rate (69.1%) and miniscule fly ball rate (15.4%) mean those hard hit balls are not providing much production (68 wRC+).
• Another player in this group, Luis Valbuena, is having a very peculiar season. He’s hitting the ball hard (31.5% Hard%) and hitting a ton of fly balls (50.3%), which has resulted in 14 home runs in just 234 plate appearances. His career high was set last year when he hit 16 dingers in 547 plate appearances. Valbuena has seen his fly ball rate increase in each of the last three seasons from 35.4% in 2012 to his current rate of just over 50%. That all sounds very good until you look at his ugly .185/.256/.412 batting line, good for an 86 wRC+. With all of those balls flying over the wall for home runs, Valbuena has a .169 BABIP. It’s surprising that a player could hit 14 home runs in 234 plate appearances and be a below-average hitter but Valbuena is doing it.

Apatite Group (28% to 31% Hard%)

.267/.325/.417, .307 BABIP

.150 ISO, 10.8% HR/FB

7.3% BB%, 18.4% K%

WAR/600 PA: 2.5

wRC+ >100: 30 players (60%)

wRC+ <100: 20 players (40%)

Best Hitter: Jason Kipnis, 160 wRC+

Median Hitter: Torii Hunter, 110 wRC+

Worst Hitter: Alexei Ramirez, 51 wRC+

• Top five hitters in this group, by wRC+: Jason Kipnis, Josh Reddick, Justin Turner, Russell Martin, Brian Dozier.
• Middle five hitters in this group, by wRC+: Edwin Encarnacion, Trevor Plouffe, Torii Hunter, Daniel Murphy, Brad Miller
• Bottom five hitters in this group, by wRC+: Aaron Hill, Nick Castellanos, Ryan Zimmerman, Mike Zunino, Alexei Ramirez.
• Jason Kipnis tops this group of players with a 160 wRC+, 50 points higher than the median player in this group. He’s having his best season. Looking at his numbers, he’s striking out less often than he ever has and has a .375 BABIP that is 68 points higher than his career mark. He’s also hitting fewer fly balls than ever (26.9% FB% compared to a career mark of 30.8%). He’s replaced those fly balls with line drives. His current Hard% almost exactly matches his career rate, but he’s done it in an interesting way. In three of his first four seasons, his Hard% was around 27% (2011, 2012, 2014). In 2013, his Hard% was 35.3%, which would put him up in the elite group (the Diamonds). That 2013 season was his best before this year’s revival. Kipnis is not going to OBP over .400 and likely won’t slug over .500, but he’s looking more like the 2013 version of himself than last year’s colossal disappointment. Maybe this is what a healthy Kipnis looks like.
• The two players at the very bottom of this group in wRC+ are Mike Zunino and Alexei Ramirez. Zunino just strikes out way too much (36.7% K%). He has power (.159 ISO, 13.0% HR/FB) because he does hit the ball hard, but he doesn’t hit the ball hard often enough to be productive.
• Alexei Ramirez is actually hitting the ball hard more often than he has in any season in his career. His current 28.4% Hard% is quite a bit higher than his career mark of 23.7%. His batted ball profile hasn’t changed, with a similar rate of line drives, ground balls, and fly balls. He does have the lowest BABIP of his career, at .256 (career mark is .293) and he’s walking at the lowest rate of his career, although he’s never been one to walk much.

Calcite Group (25% to 28% Hard%)

.262/.313/.378, .303 BABIP

.116 ISO, 7.4% HR/FB

6.3% BB%, 16.9% K%

WAR/600 PA: 1.8

wRC+ >100: 16 players (30%)

wRC+ <100: 37 players (70%)

Best Hitter: Mike Moustakas, 133 wRC+

Median Hitter: Jean Segura, 91 wRC+

Worst Hitter: Danny Santana, 42 wRC+

• Top five hitters in this group, by wRC+: Mike Moustakas, Dustin Pedroia, Brandon Guyer, Cameron Maybin, Rajai Davis.
• Middle five hitters in this group, by wRC+: Cory Spangenberg, Juan Uribe, Jean Segura, Martin Prado.
• Bottom five hitters in this group, by wRC+: Dustin Ackley, Lonnie Chisenhall, Chris Owings, Jordy Mercer, Danny Santana.
• The Bizarro World version of Mike Moustakas tops this group. This is the first time Moustakas has ever been an above average hitter in his major league career, but it doesn’t look like Hard% has much to do with it. His Hard% of 25.6% is right in line with most of his career and close to his career average (last year’s 31.7% is an outlier). The rest of his batted ball profile is quite different, from the lowest fly ball rate and highest ground ball rate of his career, to the direction he’s hitting the baseball. After never hitting the ball to the opposite field more than 22.7% of the time in a season, Moustakas’ 33.3% Oppo% this season is a career high. That may explain some of his elevated .346 BABIP (.270 career mark). He’s also striking out less frequently than he usually does (11.1% K% to 16.1% career mark). On the other hand, looking at his monthly splits throws up a big red flag. Moustakas went opposite field 39% of the time in April, 30.7% of the time in May, and is at 26.3% in June and has seen his wRC+ drop from 170 in April to 112 in May and June (aided by a .368 BABIP in June). Whatever changes he made in April don’t seem to be sticking, as his batted ball locations in June look much more like his career marks than they did in April. This Tiger may be reverting back to his original stripes. It seems strange that he would consciously make that change despite being so effective in April, so it could be that pitchers have adjusted and are pitching him differently.
• Among this group of 53 players with Hard% between 23% and 28%, Salvador Perez has the most home runs, with ten. This is interesting because Perez has had much higher Hard% rates over the last three years, when his lowest mark was 29.8%. This year, he’s hit fewer hard hit balls but has the highest HR/FB of his career. That doesn’t seem like something that can continue going forward.

Talc Group (23% and below Hard%)

.252/.303/.332, .290 BABIP

.080 ISO, 3.4% HR/FB

6.4% BB%, 14.8% K%

WAR/600 PA: 1.1

wRC+ >100:   6 players (19%)

wRC+ <100: 25 players (81%)

Best Hitter: Nori Aoki, 131 wRC+

Median Hitter: Eric Sogard, 69 wRC+

Worst Hitter: Rene Rivera, 24 wRC+

• Top five hitters in this group, by wRC+: Nori Aoki, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jose Iglesias, Billy Burns, Dee Gordon.
• Middle five hitters in this group, by wRC+: Alcides Escobar, Elvis Andrus, Eric Sogard, Freddy Galvis, Jimmy Rollins.
• Bottom five hitters in this group, by wRC+: Melky Cabrera, Chase Utley, Jose Ramirez, Omar Infante, Rene Rivera.
• If you aren’t hitting the ball hard on a regular basis, you better find some holes. The top 12 hitters by wRC+ in this group have BABIPs at .311 or higher and the top five are significantly higher than that: Aoki–.344 BABIP, Ellsbury–.379, Iglesias–.367, Burns–.366, Gordon–.418.
• On the other hand, the players at the bottom of this group in wRC+ are not only struggling to hit the ball hard but also struggling to get those balls to drop in for hits: Utley–.189 BABIP, Jose Ramirez–.205, Infante–.241, Rene Rivera–.198. Of course, this may not stop Infante from starting the All-Star game, but that’s a whole different topic.
• These players don’t hit home runs, for the most part. Of this group of 31 players, just two have more than four home runs and 25 of the 31 have 0 to 2 home runs.
• Stephen Drew leads this group with 9 home runs, despite a Hard% of 20.4%. His career rate is 30.6% and he had a 38.8% Hard% in 2013, the last year he was an above average hitter (109 wRC+). In that 2013 season, Drew had a fly ball rate of 41.6%. Drew then went unsigned prior to the 2014 season and missed spring training and the first two months of the year before joining the Red Sox in early June. He appears to be a very different hitter than he’d been before. His Hard% has been 23.2% and 20.1% in 2014 and 2015 after regularly being around 30% in previous seasons. He’s also greatly increased his rate of fly balls, from a consistent 40-42% from 2009 to 2013 to around 50% the last two seasons. Along with the increase in fly balls is an increase in the number of balls he pulls. His career rate is 41.2%. Over the last two seasons he’s pulled the ball over 50% of the time. Along with these changes in batted ball profile, Drew has a .182 BABIP since joining the Red Sox in early June of 2014. It’s hard to believe that missing a half season could result in such a dramatic change in a player’s batted ball profile, but it may have happened to Drew and it’s not a good thing for him.
• Jimmy Rollins is the other hitter in this group with more than four homers. He currently has seven. His HR/FB rate is 10.6%, which would be the highest he’s had since 2007. Unfortunately, that’s about all he’s done well on offense, as he is hitting .199/.260/.336 (.265 wOBA, 68 wRC+).

Byron Buxton and Francisco Lindor were called up for the Minnesota Twins and Cleveland Indians respectively. Both players are 21 years old, Buxton in the outfield and Lindor at shortstop. SOSA doesn’t officially project players that didn’t play last season in the MLB — I have to manually input data for projections.

One major difference between Buxton and Lindor is that Buxton was called up straight from AA. SOSA calculates its MLE’s (Minor League Equivalencies) by comparing the minor-league level the player is coming from to the MLB. Systems like Oliver directly link them, other systems chain their projections.

Despite both hitting around .280 in the minors, Buxton takes the bigger hit. Because he’s coming from AA his numbers are brought down further. SOSA has Buxton slashing .204/.283/.372 at the Majors, with Lindor slashing .217/.295/.306 with Cleveland. The discrepancy? While Buxton has a worse batting average and on-base percentage, he’s projected for a better slugging percentage than Lindor.

While Lindor is projected for eight more doubles and four more home runs than Buxton, Lindor is projected for 280 more at-bats. With the young outfielder coming up earlier than expected, he can likely outperform his projected four doubles, seven triples, and four home runs. Buxton already had twelve triples and twenty stolen bases; with speed transferring well to the majors, Buxton could find a solid role with the team that his batting average doesn’t accurately represent.

The talented Cleveland shortstop’s projection is considered more accurate. He’s projected for a solid 469 at bats, producing a wOBA (Weighted On-Base Average) of .266, near the bottom of the pack in what I called top-tier prospects this off-season. With projections for twelve doubles, three triples, and eight home runs, Lindor’s offensive value does exist, but he has much to prove at the big-league level

So while Buxton and Lindor’s offensive value doesn’t match that of some prospects called up earlier, they’re both above-average defenders, and they will find ways to contribute to their teams. If you have questions about Minor League Equivalencies, SOSA, or stats feel free to hit me up on twitter @AthleteInvictus.

When Xander Bogaerts was a 16-year-old kid playing baseball down in Aruba, looking up to his idol Derek Jeter, I’m sure he too had dreamed of one day playing in an All-Star game. Well, that dream may soon become real for the 22-year-old shortstop.

In 2009, when Bogaerts was just 16-years-old he was offered a professional contract by the Boston Red Sox, a contract that featured a $410,000 signing bonus.

Cruising through the minor leagues, Bogaerts soon became the talk of the town in Boston when he was ranked the 6th overall prospect in baseball by MLB.com. Entering the 2013 season, it wasn’t expected that Bogaerts would see any time at shortstop that season due to the acquisition of Stephen Drew.

He was brought up though, and good thing he was. Bogaerts exceeded most expectations in the 2013 postseason batting .296 in 12 games eventually helping the Red Sox to their third World Series title in 10 years. He returned to his homeland of Aruba and was treated to a red carpet as well as a parade with the natives lining the streets.

In 2014, he was shuffled back and forth from shortstop to third base, messing up his development and also taking a toll on him offensively. He did, however, manage to hit 12 home runs in 144 games. His average though dropped considerably from what many thought it would be. Bogaerts also showed how you can have awesome plate discipline in Triple-A, but it doesn’t always translate right away into your big-league career.

This year, Bogaerts is excelling in all aspects of his position. On offense and defense, the youngster has the temperament like that of a seasoned veteran. And it’s great. He doesn’t take his at-bats into the field and he certainly doesn’t take his fielding miscues (or lack thereof) into the batters box.

In 56 games this season, Xander is batting .297/.343/.401. Not to mention he has been one of the hottest hitters in the game in the last 30 days batting .352/.383/.466 while posting a 137 wRC+ in that span as well. And, Bogaerts also is getting base hits on pitches all over the strike zone. That shows a huge improvement in his plate discipline and pitch-selection skills over the past season.

On the defensive side, Bogaerts has shown a strong improvement from last year when he posted a Defensive Runs Saved of -9. This year, thanks to his offseason work in Arizona with Dustin Pedroia, and also adjusting his footwork with infield coach Brian Butterfield, Bogaerts has a Defensive Runs Saved of -1.

So why isn’t Bogaerts being talked about as if he’s an All-Star? His numbers show that he is certainly All-Star-Game worthy. The top five vote collectors for the All-Star Game at shortstop are Alcides Escobar, Jose Iglesias, Marcus Semien, Jed Lowrie and Jose Reyes. How does this make sense? I’ll tell you — because for some reason, this year in particular, the All-Star Game is a popularity contest, and it’s not based on skill. What do the numbers say to you? They don’t lie.

If it was based on skill, there wouldn’t be seven Kansas City Royals in the lead to start the All-Star Game this year. Pablo Sandoval wouldn’t be third in the AL third baseman voting. David Ortiz wouldn’t be fourth in the DH voting. And Dustin Pedroia most definitely would not be trailing Omar Infante in the second baseman voting. We will wait and see if Bogaerts has a shot at the All-Star Game this year, but if not, we can then tell that this system is flawed and is not based on skill and skill alone.

With apologies to Clevelanders everywhere, I can think of a number of reasons why Pedro Alvarez would rather be in Pittsburgh than in Cleveland, or C-Town, or The Mistake on the Lake, whichever you prefer. Pittsburgh is located where the first Europeans reached the “Golden Triangle” at the confluence of the Ohio, the Monongahela, and Allegheny rivers. “Golden Triangle” not only sounds very appealing, in a slightly sexual way, but to my knowledge none of the three rivers confluence-ing in Pittsburgh have been on fire like the Cuyahoga River that runs through Cleveland.

Pittsburgh has regularly finished near the top of lists of “Most Livable City in the U.S.”, including last year when the ‘Burgh narrowly beat out Honolulu for the top spot. It was the third time in seven years that The Economist had Pittsburgh at or near the top of the list of the most livable cities in the continental United States. Cleveland, on the other hand, was named the most miserable city in the United States, according to a 2010 poll by Forbes.com.

So it’s clear the Pedro Alvarez is quite fortunate to be with the Pittsburgh Pirates as opposed to the Cleveland Native Americans, just for the pure livability factor of the city.

When it comes to baseball, this pattern continues. The Pirates are 31-25 (.554) and in second place in the NL Central. Cleveland is 27-29 and in fourth place in the AL Central (all data is through June 7^th). According to the playoff odds at FanGraphs, the Pirates currently have a 67.6% chance of winning their division or being a wild card team. The Indians are at 51.5%. If not for the parity of the American League, this gap would be even greater.

More importantly, and the point of this article, there’s something very specific to Pedro Alvarez that makes it fortunate that he’s with Pittsburgh this year and not Cleveland. Pedro Alvarez does not hit well against left-handed pitching. This is not a major revelation. I think most people reading FanGraphs know that Pedro struggles against lefties. In his career, Pedro has hit .193/.263/.315 against lefties, with a walk rate of 8.3% and strikeout rate of 36.7%. Yikes! His wRC+ against lefties in his career is 61. Against right-handed pitchers, Alvarez has hit .248/.321/.474, with an improved walk rate of 9.5%, a much improved strikeout rate of 26.9%, and a 118 wRC+. For reference, based on his career wRC+, Alvarez hits like the 2015 version of Starling Marte (.256/.317/.473 this year) against right-handed pitchers and like the 2015 version of Lonnie Chisenhall (.209/.241/.345 this year) against lefties. Chisenhall was just sent to the minor leagues. Pedro Alvarez, like former Pirate Andy Van Slyke before him, is fortunate that he lives in a predominantly right-handed world.

Adding to the good fortune for Alvarez this season is the limited number of left-handed pitchers the Pirates have faced. The average team in the Major Leagues has had 24.8% of their plate appearances against southpaws. The Pirates have had the lowest percentage of plate appearances against lefties, just 17.5%. That’s more than one standard deviation below the average. The Cleveland Indians are on the opposite side of the coin, having had 38.0% of their plate appearances against lefties, which is more than two standard deviations above the average. Consider the handedness of the starting rotations of the non-Pittsburgh and non-Cleveland teams in the AL Central and NL Central:

The non-Cleveland teams in the AL Central have 12 right-handed starters and eight left-handers (40% lefties) currently in their starting rotations. The non-Pittsburgh teams in the NL Central have 17 righties and just three lefties currently in their starting rotations (15% lefties).

I was curious how big a difference this would make for Pedro Alvarez, so I decided to look at it in two different ways.

For the first scenario, I took Pedro’s batting line against lefties (20 PA) and righties (173 PA) this year. I figured out what percentage of the team’s plate appearances against each type of pitcher Alvarez has had. I then applied those percentages to Alvarez if he were to play on a team that has seen the league average number of lefties and on the Indians, who have seen the most lefties this year. Here are the results:

Alvarez goes from a .244/.316/.453 hitter with the Pirates to a .220/.289/.403 hitter with the Indians. Not only would he be moving from one of the most livable cities in the U.S. to one of the most miserable, his production would take a big hit. He also loses some playing time because the Pirates have limited him against lefties and the Indians and the league-average team have faced fewer righties.

This leads me to the second scenario. The Pirates have rightly limited the number of plate appearances against lefties for Alvarez this year. Just 20 of his 193 plate appearances have been against southpaws. If Alvarez was transplanted to Cleveland, or to a league-average team, perhaps they would also keep Alvarez riding the pine when a lefty is on the mound. In this second scenario, I moved Alvarez to the Indians and to a league-average team and limited his plate appearances against left-handers to his actual number of 20.

If he were limited to 20 plate appearances against lefties, Alvarez would hit similarly well but would lose playing time. In the case of a hypothetical move to Cleveland, Alvarez would have 41 fewer plate appearances, the equivalent of around 11 games based on his current 3.6 plate appearances per game played.

Pedro Alvarez, you are a fortunate man. Not only do you live in a world with many more right-handed pitchers than lefties, but you also play for a team that has seen more right-handers than any other team in baseball. Now go enjoy the spectacular view of Pittsburgh while riding on the Duquesne Incline, then get a Primanti Brothers sandwich and head over to Point State Park near the “Golden Triangle” and enjoy one of the country’s largest fountains on a beautiful Pittsburgh day.

(I feel like I should maybe apologize to any Clevelanders who might be reading this, but I don’t know if they have Internet in Cleveland yet, so it’s probably not necessary.)

Delino DeShields currently has a .395 BABIP en route to a .291 average. A .395 BABIP is probably unsustainable, but I was shocked when I saw the Steamer projection of .287 BABIP for DeShields, going forward. A .287 BABIP for a guy like DeShields is just unreasonable. He’s one of the fastest guys in the league, and his baseline BABIP should be well above .300 as he can turn groundouts into infield singles.

So I decided to crunch some numbers, which ultimately confirmed my suspicions. A BABIP of .286 is too low.  Looking at batted ball data, .315 is what I calculated his expected BABIP to be going forward. I’ll explain below:

DeShields has 13.6% infield hit%.

League average is 6.7%.

DeShields is more than twice as likely to get an infield hit, which is 6.9% more likely than average to get a hit in general. As a side note, he’s also 50% on bunting for hits, which is astounding (also more than twice league average).

Baseline BABIP for groundballs is .232

Add a DeShields speed .069 infield groundball advantage, and therefore you’re looking at a DeShields baseline groundball BABIP of .301.

Line drives are the best — .690 baseline BABIP according the source above. Fly balls have .218 baseline BABIP. Speed shouldn’t have much of an effect on these so I’m not adjusting them, other than accounting for infield fly balls which are guaranteed outs.

I’m going to calculate the expected BABIP for DeShields based on the above data. The expected BABIP will equal the summation of the following:

Flyballs — .218 x .261 (26.1% FB, minus the difference between DeShields IFFB and league average, which is .111 minus .095 = .016; .261-.016=.245) = .05341

Groundballs — .301 x .638 (63.8% GB) = .192038

Line Drives — .690 x .101 (10.1% FB) = .06969

= .315 BASELINE BABIP

We can take that average and take away his strikeouts/walks to determine his expected batting average/OBP going forward.

22.1% Ks. So we’ll take the baseline BABIP multiplied by .779. = .245 expected batting average.

13.1% BBs. So we’ll take the baseline BABIP multiplied by .648 (Ks and BBs out) = .204. Add back the BBs. = .335 expected OBP.

I haven’t even gotten into directional placement of grounders, so it could be true that DeShields is even better than these projections I just calculated.

Regardless, league averages are .252 average and .314 OBP. DeShields is proving to be roughly a league-average hitter by expected batting average, and clearly above-average hitter if you’re looking at expected OBP.

In other words, DeShields is here to stay.

The 2014–2015 offseason was not kind to Mike Doyle. The 10-year manager lost two of his team’s best hitters, and his ace pitcher is coming off shoulder surgery. Meanwhile, his opposite number, Joe Barton, has problems of his own. He has the impossible task of unearthing a pitcher capable of stopping Doyle’s offense, or else face a seventh straight loss to their archrivals in this year’s championship game. Yes, against all odds, and despite all your preconceptions, there’s a lot on the line at this year’s annual Congressional Baseball Game.

There’s plenty of uncertainty about what will happen this Thursday night, when Doyle’s Democrats meet Barton’s Republicans under the Nationals Park floodlights. But one thing we don’t have to be unsure of is the numbers. One year ago, I posted here at FanGraphs about a groundbreaking new dataset: advanced metrics for the most legit office baseball league of all time. (Thanks to those of you who responded favorably—and who didn’t immediately laugh me out of the virtual room. Your reward is 1,500 more words on the subject!)

The CBG’s own mini FanGraphs Leaderboard—looking suspiciously like a Google spreadsheet—is now updated with the past six years of statistics (as always, many thanks to the game’s dedicated scorekeepers who provided the data). Like the real FanGraphs Leaderboard and individual player pages, it is divided into Standard, Advanced, and Value statistics, all calculated according to this site’s official methodology. Figures earlier than 2009 and more advanced than those three sections are sadly unavailable (my FOIA for Pitch F/X data is taking forever…).

Of course, any statistics are meaningless without context, so I’ll give you some. Here’s how the teams break down for what’s likely to be the closest Congressional Baseball Game in years.

Projected Democratic Lineup

The once-mighty Democratic offense (averaging 15.2 runs per game the past six years) has major holes to fill this year at third base and in the leadoff slot. Since 2009, 3B Tim Bishop and OF Adam Smith have each generated 8 wRC, a mark exceeded by only one other congressional ballplayer; both are gone this year. Bishop, a patient-but-lumbering Adam Dunn–type, was designated for assignment by the voters of New York last November, while veteran tablesetter Smith (.444/.565/.500) is a casualty of hip surgery.

However, that still leaves the Democrats with four elite hitters—the top four, in fact, going by WAR for position players. Florida’s Patrick Murphy (.687 wOBA) and Colorado’s Jared Polis (.556 wOBA) have demonstrated impressive power, while the more speed-dependent Tim Ryan of Ohio feels like a natural successor to leadoff. But these swing-state swingers don’t even play in the same universe as Louisiana congressman Cedric Richmond. The man does everything: walk (29.4% BB%), hit for power (.333 ISO), and, oh yeah, pitch (spoiler alert!; see below). His offensive runs above replacement, at 6.7, is higher than the rest of the Democratic roster combined (6.0). It’s little wonder that GOP manager Barton opted to intentionally walk him three times in last year’s game. When a guy’s slugging percentage (1.167) indicates he averages over a base per plate appearance, he probably deserves a free pass every time he’s up this year.

Beyond the starting nine, the Democrats have a few nice complementary pieces off the bench. Pinch-running artist Eric Swalwell has scored five runs and stolen five bases in just two games, causing him to lead the league in wSB and Base Running value. Jersey number IX (for Title IX) Linda Sánchez, the only woman on either roster, is a feared pinch-hitter with her .857 OPS.

The one weak spot in the order—as in many an MLB lineup—may be catcher, where Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy has OPSed just .583 since 2009. However, his job is safe, as Democratic coaches swear by his defense and game-calling ability. Defense has been a team-wide Democratic focus during their current winning streak; the team hasn’t made an error in its last two games. More tellingly for the FanGraphs crowd, Republican batsmen have a .338 BABIP off Dem pitcher Richmond—pretty low for a league of 50-year-old fielders covering a big-league-sized field. (By comparison, Democratic hitters have a .476 BABIP the past six years, reflecting a less polished GOP defense.)

Projected Republican Lineup

Democrats may aspire to switch places with the majority GOP in the halls of Congress, but they’d never trade their baseball lineup for this one. Yet Republicans aren’t as bad as they look; our six years of data overlap neatly with their six-year losing streak, and those wRC+ numbers are dragged down by an overall offensive environment grossly inflated by Democratic blowouts.

The GOP’s one hitter who rates above even that lofty baseline is Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana. One of the Republicans’ hardest-working players, Scalise has forced his way into the starting lineup after years as a bench player with the league’s fifth-highest wRAA—behind only the Democrats’ four elite sluggers. Texan Kevin Brady and Illinois’s John Shimkus have played in the CBG since the 1990s, when their stellar play (in 1997, Shimkus hit the game’s most recent over-the-fence home run) fueled a 12-year Republican dynasty. The grizzled veterans may have lost a step since then, but they have slumped less than the Republicans’ other players. Finally, Senator Jeff Flake, like former fellow Arizonan Mark Trumbo, has a real gift for power (.214 ISO) but doesn’t get on base well (zero walks in his last 14 plate appearances). It makes him a curious choice for leadoff—one that Barton will hopefully reconsider in 2015.

The bottom of the lineup drops off sharply and features the bottom three CBG players by WAR. Bill Shuster, Tom Rooney, and Dennis Ross each clock in at –0.2 wins above replacement, although bad luck has been a factor. Ross, who represents the Tigers’ spring training home of Lakeland, FL, sports an unfortunate .167 BABIP and has at least displayed the ability to draw a walk (10% walk rate). Yet putting the ball in play at all has proven to be a problem. In 41 combined plate appearances, Shuster, Rooney, and Ross have combined for 10 whiffs. (By contrast, in 40 plate appearances of their own in the Congressional Baseball Game, Democrats Murphy, Polis, and Richmond have never struck out.)

A poor eye is a theme for Republican hitters. Their active roster has a 7.1% walk rate and a 27.6% strikeout rate; that’s bad even if you’re facing Major League pitching, let alone the still-good-but-not-Clayton Kershaw Democratic staff. Barton should be preaching patience to his team, noting that, in last year’s game, Democrats actually had more walks than hits en route to 15 runs.

Projected Democratic Pitchers

For four years running, only one man has taken the hill for the Democrats—and one is all they’ve needed. The team’s best hitter, Richmond, is also their workhorse pitcher, and he is in absolute control of the game when he’s on. An unparalleled two-way threat, Richmond has a total WAR (combining offensive and pitching value) of 1.5—in just four games! In four complete games pitched (caveat: the Congressional Baseball Game is seven innings long, not nine), he has taken a no-hitter into the final inning as well as thrown a shutout (and that was in two separate games). His Game Scores by year have been 77, 55, and 76 before dipping to 33 last year. Ominously, Richmond was pitching through an injury last year, and he is still recovering from November shoulder surgery here in 2015. The GOP will take another game like last year’s, when they were able to hang six runs on him, while Democrats are just holding their breath for the long-term health of their 41-year-old ace—still a spring chicken by CBG standards.

Projected Republican Pitchers

To put it gently, the Republicans are better at twirling government shutdowns than shutdown innings. Though their hitting may not be top-shelf, that’s not their real obstacle in trying to reclaim congressional bragging rights; their (in)ability to get Democrats out is.

It’s unclear whom Barton will tap to start the 2015 game. Pennsylvania righty Pat Meehan has an impressive strikeout rate but a scary walk rate, and he has only ever been used in relief. Marlin Stutzman of Indiana probably won’t get a second chance after giving up six runs and only getting four outs in his 2014 start. I endorsed him for the start last year on the strength of a good K-BB%, but I fell victim to small sample size; he now has thrown more balls than strikes in his (slightly longer) career.

For whatever my recommendation is worth nowadays, the Republicans should start Shimkus. As unsightly as that FIP is, a 100 FIP- tells us that it’s actually league average (remember, this is a really hitter-happy league). He’s also the only GOP hurler with good command—his 7.8% BB% is even lower than Richmond’s. Like many ageing pitchers, he’s reinvented himself as a control artist who doesn’t miss many bats (9.8% K%). As with his offense, Shimkus used to be more dominating on the mound; he pitched the Republicans to multiple wins in the mid-2000s. If Barton does indeed give Shimkus the ball on Thursday, he’ll see a very different approach, but he hopes it can still add up to the same old result.