Once upon a time there was a 31-year-old right-hander who spent years toiling as a fifth or sixth starter for the Rangers. But then one year he signed with a new team who thought he could be their ace, and so an ace he became. Or did he?

Scott Feldman is off to a remarkable start. He’s pitched 20.2 innings in three starts, and allowed a grand total of 1 run, and only 7 hits. Of the 7 hits, 6 were singles.

Unfortunately, it’s a little too early to believe fairy tales can come true. Let’s find out why.

First of all: Scott Feldman is not striking guys out. Of the 79 batters he’s faced, he’s struck out just 7, which is the second-lowest K rate of any starting pitcher, behind only Brett Anderson. In fact, Feldman is walking (8) and plunking (5) more guys than he strikes out. That does not inspire confidence.

So what’s his secret? Well, opposing batters hit the ball a lot against Feldman, but they don’t reach base safely. When opponents swing and put the ball in play, their batting average (BABIP) is .119. The league average BABIP is about .300, because when you hit the ball at professional defenders, there’s about a 70% chance they will get you out. Several factors influence this average: pitchers causing weak contact, hitters having natural talents (or lacks thereof), hitters being fast enough to beat throws to first, defenses of varying qualities, and just plain old luck. 

Holding opposing hitters to a .119 BABIP screams “luck.” But there are other things we can check first.

Let’s look at Feldman’s arsenal. Is it different? Yes. For the first three years of his career, Feldman leaned on his fastball; from 2010-13 he replaced the traditional fastball with a sinker and a cutter. So far in 2014 Feldman’s primary pitch has been his curveball, which he throws 37.7% of the time; after that comes the cutter, with his changeup and sinker used very rarely.

Here is a list of the top three curveball throwers in 2013, and what % of their pitches were curvaceous:
1. Jose Fernandez (33.6%)
2. Scott Feldman (27.5%)
3. Adam Wainwright (27.3%)

So is Feldman ditching the sinker and leaning on the curve because that will give him better results? Maybe, but if that’s the case, he should have ditched the cut fastball instead: in 2013 his sinker and curve generated ground balls more than half the time, but many cutters went for line drives, including over half of the doubles and triples he gave up. Unfortunately, that’s not the pitch he replaced. It’s the pitch he kept.

So far this year, Feldman’s efficiency as a ground-ball pitcher has actually taken a hit. But it’s too soon to make sense of the data, or at least too soon for me, because the data is confusing. Maybe Feldman is deliberately trying to generate fewer groundballs, or maybe random things are happening and other teams are hitting the ball everywhere.

Either way, the Astros defense has had to work almost every time a batter steps in against Feldman. And not a single Astro has committed an error while he’s pitching. There are a few good defenders on Houston’s team (Jason Castro, Jose Altuve, Matt Dominguez, and Dexter Fowler). But there are also plenty of not-good defenders. One surprise is that shortstop Jonathan Villar, whom I have seen make some bone-headed plays in the past, has so far reversed course from being a bad defender to a good one. But it’s only been two weeks; time will tell.

Indeed, looking at the fairy-tale start to Scott Feldman’s year, “it’s only been two weeks” is the best explanation. He does not strike batters out; he leads all the MLB in hit-by-pitches; his fastest pitch so far has been exactly 90 mph; and he is relying on a patchy defense which has yet to fail him once. The curveball is pretty good, but no starting pitcher can rely on a curve as a primary pitch. And that .119 BABIP is a fluke. Last year Feldman’s opponents went .258 when they put the ball into play, which put him in the top ten among all pitchers. But even if Feldman has a real skill for making the ball go to his defense, .119 is crazy, and he will soon be dealing with twice as many baserunners.

One of these days, the clock will chime midnight and the balls opponents hit off Feldman will start getting past defenders, dropping into the outfield grass, popping out of gloves, or going over the fence. That’s not bad; that’s normal. When midnight tolls, he won’t turn into a pumpkin. But he will turn back into Scott Feldman.

Winning is expensive in 2014. According to the FanGraphs “Dollar” variable, players in the current market should be paid $5.4m per win they contribute. But, as is the case in such an unpredictable sport, many players are paid too much, and others outperform their pay.

Although baseball is hard to predict, the Steamer projections do an exceptional job forecasting hitter performance. Using these numbers, I want to give a brief preview of what players are expected to be the best bargains and the ones who will be the most egregiously overpaid for this upcoming season. However, I want to avoid making just another list of players who are getting paid a lot and won’t play much (see Alex Rodriguez). Rather, for the overpaid players, I just want to look at guys who will play, but ineffectively. Therefore, I set a minimum at 300 projected plate appearances for each hitter.

The best and worst value players aren’t any surprise. Mike Trout, the supposed best position player in 2014, is getting paid twice the league minimum. The highest paid position player who will play in 2014, Ryan Howard, is projected to perform like a replacement level player.

This chart illustrates what severe outliers these two are.

That’s not groundbreaking or surprising. Instead of talking about how obviously overpaid and underpaid specific players are, I’ll just present the list of the biggest cases.

1. Mike Trout
WAR: 8.1
Salary: $1m
Value: $42.7m

2. Evan Longoria
WAR: 6.6
Salary: $8m
Value: $27.6m

3. Paul Goldschmidt
WAR: 5.2
Salary: $1.1m
Value: $27m

4. Andrew McCutchen
WAR: 6.3
Salary: $7.5m
Value: $26.5m

5. Buster Posey
WAR: 6.6
Salary: $11.3m
Value: $24.3m

6. Andrelton Simmons
WAR: 4.6
Salary: $1.1m
Value: $23.7m

7. Matt Carpenter
WAR: 4.3
Salary: $1.3m
Value: $21.9m

8. Josh Donaldson
WAR: 4.1
Salary: $0.5m
Value: $21.6m

9. Salvador Perez
WAR: 4.2
Salary: $1.5m
Value: $21.2m

10. Yasiel Puig
WAR: 4.5
Salary: $3.7m
Value: $20.6m

This is certainly an exceptional group of players, and they got on this list for a few different reasons. For the most part, age and the renewal/arbitration system played a key role. The Rays’ deal with Longoria is widely considered one of the most team friendly deals in history. Andrelton Simmons just came off one of the greatest fielding seasons of all time, and Salvador Perez has already been worth nearly 3x his salary this season. Also, in hilarious Billy Beane fashion, Josh Donaldson is somehow getting paid the league minimum.

The front offices who have these players are hopefully counting their blessings. Some aren’t quite as lucky, though. Here are the 10 most overpaid players this year.

1. Ryan Howard
WAR: 0.1
Salary: $25m
Value: -$24.5m

2. Alfonso Soriano
WAR: 0.3
Salary: $19m
Value: -$17.4m

3. Mark Teixeira
WAR: 1.5
Salary: $23.1m
Value: -$15m

4. Adam Dunn
WAR: 0.1
Salary: $15m
Value: -$14.5m

5. Dan Uggla
WAR: 0.3
Salary: $13.1m
Value: -$11.5m

6. B.J. Upton
WAR: 0.7
Salary: $14.1m
Value: -$10.3m

7. Prince Fielder
WAR: 2.6
Salary: $24m
Value: -$10m

8. Carl Crawford
WAR: 2.1
Salary: $21.1m
Value: -$9.8m

9. Nick Markakis
WAR: 1.1
Salary: $15.4m
Value: -$9.5m

10. Victor Martinez
WAR: 0.6
Salary: $12m
Value: -$8.8m

A pretty common trend exists here: big free agency signings who aren’t expected to perform as well as they should this year. Prince Fielder is pretty easily the biggest surprise for me on this list, but a $24m first baseman really does need to hit remarkably well to be worth that. Derek Jeter, getting paid $12m and expected to get a WAR of 0.7, just missed the list at 11th.

Overall, young guys are more likely to be underpaid, and older guys are more likely to be overpaid, almost entirely due to the league’s free agency rules. This list is just another tiny reminder in the pile of research that a team filled with young talent will be more cost-effective than building a team through free agency.

Well well well, MLB has a new replay system set up for every game of this year. Some people – although I would say most – are not too fond of this new system, myself included. They would say that it slows down an already slow enough game, which is true. The way the system is structured allows managers to be exploitative by confirming with their bench to see whether or not it the call should be challenged. This part of the process is what really gets me. Granted I haven’t seen too many games this year but already I miss the arguments between managers/coaches and the umpires; they were fun and made the game pretty interesting (especially when the manager of the team playing against yours got ejected). Regardless, this post is not intended to analyse the dynamics between managers and umpires but rather look at how successful the replay system has been and to examine the tendencies of the challenges. Using the twitter account @MLBReplays I examined all of the calls challenged so far this season. While the sample size is arguably small it did take quite a long time to examine various angles from the 49 calls made (as of the morning of April 9th 2014). For each replay I collected the following information which I then organized into a spreadsheet: Read the rest of this entry »

When I first began this piece, the idea was to title it “Who Has the Most Unusual Skillset in Baseball?” then to spend the majority of the time referring to several players and choosing one, based on statistical evidence, that best fit the bill. However, upon seeing what Alcides Escobar accomplished last season, good, bad, and ugly, there really was no argument to be made for anyone else.

Now, when I say unusual, what I am looking for is a player who somehow possesses incredible strengths and infuriating weaknesses at the same time.  In other words, the complete opposite of balance and well-roundedness. When it comes to Escobar, he has tremendous skills in the field, is electric on the base paths, and may very well be the worst hitter in all of baseball.

Let’s begin with Escobar’s defense. Last season, he was unquestionably one of the best defensive shortstops in baseball. Andrelton Simmons is better than everyone, we know that, but only he and Yunel Escobar bested Alcides Escobar’s UZR/150 of 12.1. Admittedly, if we turn to DRS, Alcides Escobar looks less impressive. Still, he is pegged by DRS as an excellent defender. He finished 2013 7^th among 21 qualified shortstops, right behind Troy Tulowitzki and ahead of Yunel Escobar. Overall, while he’s not Andrelton Simmons, and may not even be the best defensive shortstop not named Andrelton Simmons, almost every defensive metric rates him as a well above average to elite defensive player.

Now, in the spirit of beginning and ending with a positive, this is the time where we must address Alcides Escobar’s hitting. Escobar is the worst hitter in almost every relevant statistic. His ISO of .066 ranked second to last in the league among qualified players, only greater than Elvis Andrus, and we know what kind of power he has. His OBP of .259 was the worst in baseball. (That’s a bad batting average!) His walk rate of 3% was the second worst, superior to only A.J Pierzynski. His wOBA of .247 was easily the worst in baseball, and as a result, his wRC+ of 49 was the worst in the game as well, less than half of what is considered average and the worst mark since Caesar Izturis in 2010. This paragraph feels less and less like a paragraph and more like a checklist of offensive ineptitude. Sure, the argument can be made that Escobar will be slightly less horrible at the plate in 2014, thanks to a depressed BABIP of .264 last season, but aren’t we past that point with him? He did have a BABIP of .344 in 2012, but that was an aberration. Despite his impactful speed, in four full major league seasons, the rest of his BABIP marks are well below .290, including an identical to last season mark of .264 in 2010. Even if his BABIP were to skyrocket from his mostly uninspiring career numbers to above average, something like .300-.305 (unlikely to happen) he would still struggle mightily as a hitter given his lack of power and inability to draw walks.

Now back to a strength of Escobar’s, baserunning. While it is often more difficult to analyze the positive or negative contributions of a player on the base paths, the statistics at our disposal clearly show that Escobar is a difference maker when he reaches base. While 22 stolen bases may not seem like an incredible total, it did tie him for 18^th in the league. Also, he was never caught. Not even once! That is an awesome display of efficiency. Beyond that, there are metrics that suggest he is far better than the 18^th best base runner. Starting with UBR, which pegs him as the 14th best at 4.0. Not surprisingly, metrics that factor in base stealing look even more fondly upon his work. This includes BsR, or baserunning runs above average, where his score of 8.0 ranked him fifth in the Majors. wSB isn’t far behind, as he comes in at 6^th there, at 3.9. The last two stats speak volumes to just how crucial efficient base-stealing is relative to volume base-stealing. Depending on which statistics you value most, Escobar rates as somewhere between a top 20 base runner, to as high as the top five, making him one of the few true difference makers on the bases.

Now that we have examined each element of his game, the question becomes: Given his strengths and weaknesses, what is his value? Does his hitting negate his other contributions, or is he still a positive player? This is why I love WAR! Without it, it would be nearly impossible to even estimate the value of a player like this, given how impactful he is whenever he is on the field, for better or worse. While FanGraphs has him as having been a shade above a one win player in 2013 with a 1.1 WAR, Baseball Reference isn’t nearly as generous, where his WAR was 0.3. Neither of these numbers are particularly impressive, but the 0.3 is especially concerning.

It’s not as if, over the course of his career, he has been much more valuable, either. Based on WAR, FanGraphs views 2012 as Escobar’s best season, with a WAR of 2.1. The problem is, as covered previously, that was the season where his offensive production ballooned to near-league average level (96 wRC+) thanks in large part to a .344 BABIP, something he is highly unlikely to replicate.  It only gets worse when you realize that, while his WAR is reflective of a late game defensive replacement/pinch runner, he was far from that in 2013. He played in 158 games, and somehow managed to compile 642 plate appearances!

It seems that Escobar would fit best as a bench player in the Brendan Ryan/Nick Punto mold. This would require him to be with a team that gets impressive offensive production from the shortstop position, so as to hide his hitting flaws, but is not nearly as impressive on the defensive side, allowing him to contribute in that way. In his current role, however, where he is forced to be the everyday shortstop for a Royals team attempting to compete, he is at best a non-factor.  Isn’t it funny how that’s what we discover about a player who is the complete opposite of a non-factor in everything he does?

Leading into the currently-young 2014 season, one of the biggest stories in baseball was the rash of pitcher injuries — with UCL injuries and Tommy John surgery seeming unusually frequent this year.

For Patrick Corbin’s case, in particular, my immediate thought was “Hm, I recall he increased his velocity last year”… which of course led me to wonder if the velocity increase actually caused his injury in some way.

I don’t know how common this line of thinking is.  So far as I can tell, the discussion of velocity and injury more frequently goes the other way, that a velocity decrease may be the first sign that something is wrong.  Or maybe this is actually a more common suspicion than I realize.  If nothing else, it seems to merit a closer look/increased discussion.

The logic here is simple: for most players, velocity only seems to decrease from year to year (although it may increase within a season).  So when a player bucks the usual pattern and increases velocity between years, you have to wonder what exactly he did.  At least some of the time, guys may be cheating a little (doing something not entirely sound, mechanically) to get that extra “oomph.”  This is of course is where the injury part enters.  If indeed some guys are cheating, maybe it’s only a matter of time before they blow out an elbow (or shoulder).

So can a velocity increase be a sign that a guy’s cheating and thus a future injury risk?  Answering this thoroughly takes some time and effort, more than I can probably spare this week, but I thought I’d at the very least get some reader thoughts.  Eventually I hope to look at guys from many different seasons,  comparing the injury rate of guys who did vs. did not see a notable velocity increase the preceding season.  (I’ll be using this list of TJ patients, which seems fairly complete.  Probably it would be better to add shoulder injuries, too, if someone has a list.)

For those curious, here are the 2012 and 2013 velocities for the five big names of this year’s “Tommy John cohort.”  Unfortunately there’s hardly anything that can be taken away from such a small list.  Harvey and Corbin had velocity increases (consistent with the conjecture), while the others did not.  But Beachy was coming off a previous Tommy John surgery performed in 2012, while Medlen’s 2012 was partially in the bullpen, so it’s not exactly clear what to make of their 2012 vs. 2013 velocities.

(Overall FB velocities in this table.  Maybe it would have been better to just compare 4-seam vs. 4-seam, but I didn’t want to have to worry about composition for now.)

It might be a few weeks before I myself have time for a closer look.  BUT, if anyone else wants to spearhead the effort sooner, please feel free to do so, and I’m of course happy to help.  As always, reader thoughts and feedback are welcome!

Giancarlo Stanton. What a trip this guy is. One second he is hitting home runs and the next he is running to first and coming up lame with a pulled hamstring, or a knee injury, or even an eye injury. He is an enigma that we seemingly know little about. He is hard to project into the future because of the injuries, but the one concrete thing we know about him is that he possesses monstrous power.

Recently I have come to see Stanton as similar to Ken Griffey Jr., in that he hammers the ball and could put up single season home run figures similar to Griffey’s, who hit 56 home runs in consecutive seasons. In addition, Griffey averaged 32 doubles per season, while Stanton averages 36, Griffey had a career OPS of .907, while Stanton’s is .892, and they are only .001 point apart in slugging percentage. I could go on with more statistics, but you get the point, these guys are like statistical clones. Stanton does not have the benefit of playing in the Kingdome like Griffey did, so we should even take into account the fact that Stanton currently plays half of his games in the Petco Park of the East.

Unfortunately, they are also similar in the injury department. I’m not saying Stanton will miss as many games as Griffey, but Stanton has missed 95 games due to injury since the beginning of 2012. What is even more worrisome is that he is hurting in many different regions of the body. I alluded to the numerous injuries in the opening; he has missed time for arthroscopic knee surgery, shoulder issues, and hamstring issues. The ability of each of these separate injuries to flare up again is something that should concern all fans of Stanton, as well as fantasy owners. In fact, I owned Stanton last year in my own fantasy league and we had a running joke going that we couldn’t call him “Giancarlo” (we referred to him as “Mike”) until he hit five home runs. I thought this was a very trivial joke at first, but the other owners had the last laugh because Stanton did not reach five homers until June 15^th, mainly due to injuries.

If Stanton can stay healthy, he may be this generation’s Griffey. He does not have the flair, mechanically perfect swing, or happy-go-lucky attitude that Griffey seemed to carry on and off the field, but Stanton is similar to him where it matters most — in the statistics category. As an avid baseball fan I would certainly not be opposed to watching Stanton bash 600, or even 700 homers over the next 15 years and I know every Marlins fan would thoroughly enjoy that kind of production, assuming he stays in Miami. He may not have quite the average that Griffey achieved (Stanton career: .267, Griffey career: .284) but he can certainly smash the ball at a consistent clip.

Strange as it is, I want Stanton to be like Jeremy Renner in Hurt Locker. I want him to step up to the plate and discern what puzzle the pitcher (or the insurgent) is putting in front of him and then solve the riddle and hit the ball 450 feet, like when Renner disarms a circle of six IEDs. Then, I want him to keep the bomb suit on and run around the bases so he doesn’t injure himself. In fact, he should keep the mask on so he doesn’t get an eye injury again.

I am basically asking for Stanton to break numerous batting records all while playing at half speed (or maybe in a bomb suit) so that he will stay healthy. I know that is unfeasible, but we basically have a prior tale of what will happen if he keeps getting injured. We can always just take a look back at Griffey’s career and see what Stanton’s production will be if he keeps landing on the disabled list at his current pace. But the interesting and exciting thing is that if we want to know what could’ve been if Griffey’s career hadn’t been riddled with injuries, we might get a realistic clue if Stanton can get healthy and remain that way for the years to come. Hopefully we will be able to sit back and enjoy the moments of Stanton’s career where he “disarms” pitchers and launches moon shots off the Marlins’ scoreboard.

On opening day of this season the White Sox attracted a crowd of 37,422 in a win over the Minnesota Twins. In much contrast to their sell out crowd on opening day, their 2nd and 3rd home games drew much less people. The White Sox reported that their 2nd home game of the year was attended by 10,625 people however, there appeared to be much less people in the park then the club reported. You can decide for yourself, but there are clearly less than 10,000 people at this game and the attendance figure was probably closer to 1,000. The Sox saw very similar attendance in their 3rd home game of the season as well. These numbers are pathetic but people might argue it’s because the team is in a rebuilding stage and fans have no expectations for their team this year.

That might be part of the issue but the amount of people that have attended their games so far is embarrassing to the organization. Also, in White Sox history when the team is contending for a playoff spot they have always struggled to sell to tickets to very important games. A prime example of their woeful attendance when they are in contention was on September 25, 2012. The White Sox were tied atop the AL Central with the Detroit Tigers. With 8 games remaining in the season, the Sox were facing the Cleveland Indians in a crucial home game. Almost any other big league team would get a sell out crowd but the Sox only attracted 13,797 people which filled about a third of their stadium. These attendance figures should be very alarming to the Sox organization and show that changes of some type are needed.

Another interesting part of the Sox’s attendance problems is that offseason signee Jose Abreu isn’t helping draw crowds at all. Typically if a big name player, is debuting for a team, fans will come out to see them play. Abreu, had tons of hype surrounding him as he had shown elite power and the ability to hit for average in the Cuban league. The signing of Abreu is obviously not a publicity stunt, and is a move to improve the quality of the team. fans however, have shown no interest is seeing their potential all-star 1st baseman play. The fact that this young, exciting player is a negligible factor in whether or not fans will attend games is problematic to the franchise.

Another problem with the White Sox is that the games are fun to go to, yet people still don’t go. From first hand experience going to White Sox games, I actually really enjoy the environment there. As an fan who will go to US Cellular Field not to root for a particular team but just to watch baseball, I have always enjoyed my experiences there. The park is in very good condition and the food is unique and pretty good. The firework shows at the end of night games I have always found to be very cool and have been known to attract people to games who aren’t necessarily big baseball fans but just want to have a good time. Ticket prices aren’t unreasonably high as the average ticket cost $29 as of 2012. Going to White Sox games are an enjoyable and affordable experience yet nobody goes.

Not attracting crowds when in contention, when having high profile players, and having a quality stadium suggests that people in Chicago flat out do not care about the team at all. The organization might need to do something drastic to attract more fans. An option for the Sox that might help the organization is relocation. There are many cities that would love to have and MLB franchise and I think that Portland, Oregon would be an excellent option for the White Sox.

Portland is a city populated with just over 600,000 people similar to Seattle and Denver. Portland only has one major sports team (Portland Trail Blazers, NBA) and has shown in their attendance figures that they love and will support their team (5th in the NBA in attendance). Another notable piece of information is that the Portland Timbers the Major League Soccer franchise based out of Portland sells out every single game and attracts over 20,000 people for home games. In a very low market sport that is in the shadow of the major four sports in the USA, Portland has supported their MLS team. If Portland were to receive the Chicago White Sox, attendance figures would skyrocket and the team would be a much more relevant part of the city. The change from Chicago to Portland might be a problem with the fact that the Sox are in the AL central and Portland is dead west, but the MLB could easily realign to make things more easier in terms of travel.

Another problem people might point out is that Portland is a much smaller market than Chicago and the franchise might not make enough money. However, around the MLB the White Sox are widely considered a smaller market team as they are in the shadows of the Cubs who have a much larger fan base and is the more prominent team in Chicago. A move to Portland would allow the team to receive much more attention, and would help the organization sell more tickets. This is why Portland would be an excellent fit for the Sox and would drastically improve the state of the franchise.

The Chicago Cubs have gotten off to a very slow start in the 2013-14 season scoring a total of 9 runs in their first 5 games and as a result of that they are 1-4. The buzz around the city of Chicago is all about the excitement of top prospects Javier Baez, Albert Almora, and Kris Bryant tearing up minor league pitching and rapidly moving up in the Cubs System. All of these players have fantastic stats but the stats don’t truly matter until these players can be productive big league players. The problem is is that these prospects have shown day in and day out that they are ready to move on to the bigs. Almora, might not be quite there yet but Baez and Bryant have proven they are by dominating minor league pitching and posting good spring training numbers. Cubs GM Theo Epstein won’t pull the trigger on sending these guys up. Bringing these players up will significantly improve the quality of the team but many more changes will need to take place in order for the Cubs to be a team to win games on a consistent basis. Here are 3 other things that need to happen for the cubs to start their path to being successful

1. The cubs need to find a reliable, all-around, everyday 2nd baseman. There are many different solutions the their problem at 2nd but first let’s establish what the problem is. Darwin Barney has proven that he is an excellent fielding 2nd baseman but he is an absolutely horrendous hitter. In 2013, Barney posted an atrocious slash line of .208/.266/.303. Not only does this show that he rarely gets hits or gets on base, but when he does it’s mostly because singles. The Cubs have many possible solutions to this problem. One possible solution is to bring up Javier Baez and play him at short and Starlin Castro at 2nd or vice versa. Doing this might slightly weaken the 2nd base spot defensively, but drastically improve it offensively. With the Cubs pitching being surprisingly good in the first few games of 2014, their offense is a glaring problem and Baez would improve it instantaneously.

Another solution would be to slide Luis Valbuena over to 2nd and make Mike Olt the everyday 3rd baseman. Currently, Olt and Valbuena are splitting time at third which is detrimental to the team because both players have shown offensive value to the cubs. Valbuena had an excellent eye and has proven to be adept at drawing walks. He also has shown solid power as he hit 12 homeruns in 108 games in 2013. Olt has also shown the ability to hit for power as he had 5 homeruns in a very good spring training that earned him a spot on the opening day roster. Either of these solutions would be a much better fit for the Cubs then having Barney as the everyday 2nd baseman.

2. If the Cubs want to be good now, their bullpen needs to be consistent, and deeper. The bullpen has been a problem for the Cubs for a very long time. However in 2014 they might show some signs of improvement. In 2013, reliever Pedro Strop Posted a solid 2.83 ERA in 35 innings with the Cubs. In his time in Chicago, he only gave up 11 earned runs, 5 of which were in one performance. Along with solid numbers Strop possesses a 97 MPH power sinker in addition to his best pitch which is his slider. Strop will be put into a much bigger role this season and if the cubs want to succeed he will need to continue to pitch at a high level. In the offseason the cubs also signed lefty Wesley Wright and Jose Veras who in recent history have proven themselves as reliable bullpen options to their clubs. Players like Brian Schlitter and Hector Rondon will also need to step up for the Cubs. If Strop can continue pitching at a high level and the rest of the pen can consistently pitch in late innings. The Cubs will improve as a team very much.

3. Lastly if the Cubs want to succeed Anthony Rizzo and Starlin Castro must have bounce back years. There are many things that I could criticize about these 2 players but there a few problems in their games that are in the most need of fixing. In 2013 Rizzo only hit .233 if Rizzo continues to hit in the heart of the cubs line up, a .233 average is unacceptable. If he was hitting 50 homeruns it might be a different story but .233 with only 23 HRs isn’t going to cut it. In order for the Cubs to succeed, Rizzo will either need to hit 10-15 more homers or improve is average by around 30 points.

Starlin Castro is a much bigger problem for the Cubs. Spending most of the season in the 3 spot, Castro posted a weak slash of .245/.284/.347. Castro’s numbers were only a bit better than Barney’s which makes him a big problem. In addition to his poor offensive play, Castro has been an extremely inconsistent defensive SS his entire career. There is optimism for Castro though. In Castro’s first 2 full big league seasons, he was voted to the All-Star Game and hit close to .300 in both of those seasons. Castro has shown in his career that he has the ability to hit, the question. is will he be able to have seasons reminiscent to his all-star years. Only time will tell for Castro but if he can bounce back along with Rizzo the Cubs might actually be a legitimate team.

Although many things need to happen for the Cubs to be a playoff contender, fans should be optimistic for the future. With a farm system fortified with elite prospects throughout and an improving bullpen, the cubs need their “key players” to perform at a higher level. If all of these things can happen, there might be October baseball played at Wrigley sometime in the near future.

The plate discipline stats at FanGraphs are fantastic. Lots of stuff can be drawn from them – and the articles I’ve linked to are only scratching the surface both of what’s already been done and what we can still do with them. So many things are great about them: they’re very stable, they’re good indicators of other statistics that might be less stable, and they’re  completely isolated to the batter and pitcher. The problem is, they only go back to 2002 (for the BIS ones) or 2007 (for the Pitchf/x ones). So what if we want plate discipline numbers for players from before then? How do we know how often Babe Ruth or Willy Mays or Hank Aaron swung at pitches inside the zone, or how often they made contact on pitches outside the zone?

Regressions, that’s how.

Using the Baseball Info Solutions plate discipline data (only because it goes back farther, and also has the SwStr% and F-Strike% stats), I ran a multivariate regression with R to find all the plate discipline numbers provided on FanGraphs: O-Swing%, Z-Swing%, Swing%, O-Contact%, Z-Contact%, Contact%, Zone%, F-Strike%, and SwStr%. I used the following stats as variables in the regression: BB% and K% (for obvious reasons), ISO (I figured maybe power hitters were more prone to different types of numbers), BABIP (same goes for hitters who could maintain higher BABIPs), HR% (same thinking as ISO), and OBP (combining hitting ability and plate discipline, even if somewhat crudely). My dataset was every qualified hitting season from 2002 until now. I couldn’t use any batted ball data (GB%, FB%, etc.) as a variable because we don’t have that prior to 2002 either. So that was what I had.

Some stats worked better than others – for example, the r^2 for Contact% was an excellent 0.8089, while for Zone% it was a measly 0.1551. And of course, it’s possible that the coefficients would be different for prior eras than they are now. But, hey, what can you do. Here, first, are the r^2s for each statistic, so you know how much to trust each number:

And now for the actual coefficients:

(If you can’t see the whole table, here)

Note that for all the percentages – including the plate discipline numbers – I turned them into decimals: for example,  a BB% of 12.5% will be turned into 0.125, and  an O-Swing% of 20.7 will be 0.207, so if you’re calculating these on your own, keep that in mind.

There are some strange things in that table that I wouldn’t really expect. Here’s one: a higher O-Contact% leads to a much lower OBP, or maybe vice-versa*. The only logical explanation that I can offer is that balls out of the zone that are hit fall for hits less often, so BABIP and therefore OBP will each be lower. League average BABIP on balls out of the zone in 2013 (based on a quick search I did at Baseball Savant) was .243, well below the league average of .297. But that -1.89 coefficient still seems like too much. Some more explainable ones: HR% and Zone% are strongly inversely correlated (the more dangerous a hitter’s power, the fewer pitches they’ll see in the zone), BB% and O-Swing% are strongly inversely correlated (the fewer pitches you swing out of the zone, the more you’ll walk), and K% and SwStr% are fairly strongly correlated (the more you swing and miss, the more you’ll strike out).

To first examine these stats a little bit more, let’s take a look at the regressed numbers for players who have played since 2002 and compare them to their real numbers. Here’s Barry Bonds’s 2002 (the asterisk means it is the regressed, not real, numbers)

Hmmm… not off to the greatest start. Z-Contact, Zone, F-Strike, and Contact percentages were pretty good, but the rest were waaaay off. O-Swing gave out a negative number. As good as Barry Bonds might have been, that just isn’t possible. SwStr% is also pretty off – only pure contact hitter Marco Scutaro has ever posted a swinging strike percentage that low since the BIS data started being recorded, and nobody has every been lower. (Scutaro had 1.5% in 2013). Not terrible, though. How about Miguel Cabrera’s 2013 MVP season?

Hey, not bad! The O-Swing is pretty off, and the O-Contact is a little too low, but other than that they’re all fairly close to the real values. I think we’re getting somewhere here.

Now let’s look at some seasons for which we don’t have the real numbers. Ever wondered how Babe Ruth’s plate discipline was in 1927?

Not bad. We obviously can’t verify this (at least not without a lot of painstaking effort, and likely not at all) but that seems reasonable enough. Average contact rates in the zone, good swinging strike percentage, not very many swings outside the zone. How about the king of plate discipline, Ted Williams? Here are his numbers from his 1957 season, in which he had a 223 wRC+ and nearly 10 WAR:

Wow. Really, really good. That’s a crazy low O-Swing% and yet a fairly middle-of-the-pack Swing% overall, which goes exactly with what we would expect from a man with a famed, disciplined plate approach. He rarely swung and missed, making contact on nine out of ten swings and only whiffing on one out of every twenty five pitches he saw.

I could really go on and on, but I think I’ll end by showing you the (supposed) single worst season by these regressed plate discipline numbers between 1903 and 2001. See if you can guess who it is:

This will shock you, I’m sure, but… It’s Dave Kingman.

* Most likely, high O-Contact% causes low OBP and not vice-versa. This brings us into dangerous territory, however, because we don’t want to assume that everyone with low OBP has high O-Contact%. There are other factors that go into low OBP as well, and somebody could very easily have a low O-Contact% and a low OBP. It is like this with each of the regressed stats. But this is the best I could really do.

On March 31, Eno Sarris posted a RotoGraphs article analyzing what his fantasy settings and preferred players say about him. If fantasy settings were beer, Eno appears to view deep, auction format h2h keeper leagues with the same affection he holds for a High-ABV Pacific Coast Double IPA.

However, most fantasy baseball writing and analysis is tailored to a far more mainstream palate. The “standard 5×5” settings– shallow (10-12) mixed league rotisserie scoring on AVG, RBI, R, HR, SB x ERA, W, K, SV, WHIP–are the Coors Light of the fantasy world.

I created a simple Google Form to poll RotoGraphs readers on our preferred fantasy settings. After about a week and nearly 150 responses, I have first results to report.  With even more data this year–or collected across multiple years– we may be able to identify trends in the way fantasy baseball is played by, if not the public generally, the average RotoGraphs reader.

Original Form available here
Complete Responses are available here

Based on the first 148 responses, 26.3% are only in 1 league for 2014. 62% of respondents are in 2-5 leagues. While there are a dedicated few of us who are in more than 5 leagues, the overwhelming majority is clearly more capable of achieving a healthy fantasy baseball-life balance.

Here is a basic breakdown of the data as of April 4:

Total Leagues: 470
Head to Head: 205
Keeper: 234
Mixed: 403
Deeper than 12 teams: 140
5×5: 176
OBP or OPS instead of AVG: 222
Holds or Saves+Holds: 156
Auction: 158

Bonus Questions (that Eno didn’t ask himself)
Leagues using FAAB: 136
Leagues with Minor League Reserves: 126
Preferred sites:

• Yahoo!: 67
• ESPN: 60
• CBS: 27
• Ottoneu: 15
• Other: 11

The primary takeaway, based on results as of this writing, is the number of non-“standard” leagues reported. One respondent is in 17 leagues, and all 17 are standard 5×5 format. That’s great for this sir or madame who is clearly an advocate of the more-is-more approach, but he’s really skewing our poll here by being so far from the mean. If we remove his response, the results show only about 35% of the league settings reported are standard 5×5. More data about the specific settings used, and the demographics of the respondents, would embiggen our collective understanding here. It may be that the responses captured are not from a representative sample of RotoGraphs readers.

But scientific rigor and caution have never been effective barriers when it comes to anonymous website readers providing criticism or opinion. So allow me to extrapolate wildly based on this extremely limited data set:

5×5 is a dinosaur. It is a relic. Dinosaurs and relics are a lot of fun, and can be pretty awesome, and really everyone loves dinosaurs and relics both. Just like most red-blooded humans can shut up and stomach an ice cold serving of the Silver Bullet on a given day, and some days feel refreshed.

There is a type of person, though, who is content to leave dinosaurs and relics in museums, and to tolerate a vent-mouth can of the taste of the Rockies only when it is the last option available in your brother-in-law’s fridge. Let us call this person “the RotoGraphs reader.” He or she is more apt to try a new taste, to reach for something a bit more complex and perhaps even more challenging. The stats represented in the standard 5×5 format no longer represent how this RotoGraphs reader evaluates the baseball player, genearlly. The brand of fantasy baseball she or he plays reflects this. Standard is no longer the standard.

And perhaps, just as the statistical revolution has won in the real measurement of performance for actual game of Baseball, it is on the cusp of a major victory in the virtual game of Fantasy Baseball. AVG and Saves have long been abandoned as helpful or relevant stats by discerning fans and front offices alike. For the RotoGraphs reader these stats are less relevant every day to his or her enjoyment of the fantasy game.

What do your settings say about you? This is the question Eno, in his wisdom, posed to us. Each of us will have individual answers, but collecting those answers can reveal possible answers to a bigger question: what do our settings say about the state of the game?