Eric Hosmer is one of those guys you either love or hate. His career, which includes one World Series championship and two American League pennants, has been just as polarizing.

First, who Hosmer is. Consider his WAR each season since 2011:
1.0
-1.7
3.2
0.0
3.5
-0.1
4.1

Interesting pattern; let’s look into that. The chart below is Hosmer’s career plate discipline (bolded data are positive WAR seasons).

Nothing appears to be out of sorts, no obvious clues to suggest a divergent plate approach.

Moving on, I noticed his BB/K rate did relate to his productive seasons; that alone can’t possibly explain his offensive oscillations. While his strikeout and walk rates did vary, the differences were a matter of two or three percentage points, at best.

So, I decided to look at his batted ball contact trends and found that his line drive rate directly correlated with his higher WAR seasons; 22%, 24%, 22% in 2013, 2015, and 2017 respectively with 19%, 17%, 17% in 2012, 2014, and 2016 accordingly.

OK, so his launch angle must be skewed. But, like his plate discipline, no outliers were demonstrated; his 2017 season should be easy to pick out. The below animation is a glance at Hosmer’s three-year launch angle charts, in chronological order.

How about his defense? Well, something seems off about that, too.

He’s won a Gold Glove at first base four out of the last five years. He looks great on the field, but unfortunately, his defense reflects the same way as a skinny mirror; his UZR/150 sits at -4.1 and his defensive runs saved are -21. Since 2013 (the first year he won the award) he ranks 13th in DRS and 12th in UZR/150 out of all qualifying first basemen. So, middle of the pack basically but worth four gold gloves? Probably not.

As we could have surmised, he’s simply an inconsistent player. Falling to one side of the fence yet?

One thing is a certainty; his best season was, oddly enough, his walk year with the Kansas City Royals in 2017. Now, I’m not about to speculate that Hosmer played up his last year with the Royals to get a payday (which he most certainly got). Looking back at his WAR in the first part of the article, you can see his seasonal fluctuations suggest he was due for a good year.

Keeping with the wavering support of Hosmer, is the contract he acquired to play first base with the San Diego Padres. His eight-year deal (with an opt-out in year five), will net him $21 million each season. He will draw 25.8% of team payroll. When his option year arrives in 2022, he’s due for a pay cut of $13 million in the final three years.

A soundly contructeed contract as, according to Sportrac’s evaluation, his market value is set at $20.6 million a year. To note, the best first baseman in baseball, Joey Votto, signed a ten-year deal in 2015 for $225 million dollars (full no-trade clause). Starting in 2018, Votto is slated to make just $4 million more than Hosmer will in the early portion of his deal. Did San Diego overspend? It all depends on what their future plans are for him.

In any case, Hosmer will join a team that, following his arrival, is currently 24th in team payroll. In 2019, they will hop to 23rd. It could go down further upon the arrival of their handful of prospects who look to be the core of the team.

So who will the Padres have going forward? Using wOBA, probably the most encompassing offensive statistic, I decided to forecast what the coming years will look like for Hosmer. It goes without saying that defense is nearly impossible to project. So, for argument’s sake, we’ll continue to assume Hosmer will be an average defender at first.

Since Hosmer’s rookie year in 2011, the league average wOBA is approximately .315. Hosmer should stay above that through the majority of the contract. But, let’s be more accurate. Using both progressive linear and polynomial trend line data (based on both Hosmer’s past performance and league average wOBA by age), I was able to formulate a projection for Hosmer through age 35 (no, I’m not going to lay out any of my gory math details).

OK, I lied. Here is the equation I used to come to my prediction :

From age 28 on is what we want to look on from. Hosmer is expected to take a dive offensively in 2019 with a bounce-back year in 2020, sticking with his past trends. A year before his opt-out clause (where he’s slated to make $13 million), his wOBA is expected to regress at a stable rate. He’ll continue to be league average or better during the twilight years of his career.

Prognosis

Hosmer seems to be appropriately compensated. You could argue that he’s making too much, but the Padres had the money to give him and they are banking on Hosmer to be highly productive at Petco. But, chances are (according to his history), he won’t maintain (or exceed) his 4.1WAR in 2018. He’ll be labeled as a bust but ought to have a few good years in him during the $21 million salary period. And, as my forecast chart shows, his 2022 pay cut comes at just the right time.

*This posts and more like it can be found over at The Junkball Daily

Amid the snaillike pace of the free agent and trade market this offseason, the argument that MLB owners are in collusion against the players does not hold water. It is, instead, the player’s failure to recognize the swing of the pendulum, and to fight back with some creativity in their thinking.

Owners throughout all of MLB, whether they operate in large or small markets have (finally) figured out they’ve been overpaying players at the top of the wage scale for more than a decade. Correction, the nerds with the analytical skills have figured it out for them, and they’re serving it up to owners on a silver platter.

Of all the stats out there today, the most powerful one is Wins Above Replacement, commonly known as WAR. WAR is a number arrived at utilizing a complicated algorithm which boils a player down to how many wins he represents his team if the team had to replace him.

Writing for Bleacher Report, Joel Reuter put together an impressive coalition of stats to demonstrate what he calls a player’s “Net Value,” which is derived from the player’s WAR value (1.0 = $8 million in salary (see FanGraphs), minus the player’s actual salary. Here’s an example of how a few of the Yankees and Mets rated in 2017.

New York Yankees Best

New York Mets Best

New York Yankees Worst

New York Mets Worst

Now, let’s take Reuter’s accounting one step further. If we total up the Net Values on the plus side benefiting the owners, the Yankees “saved” $43.7 million last season and the Mets saved $48.4 million. On the negative side where the owners took a hit, the Yankees “lost” a total of $28.8 million on those three players and the Mets $25.7 million.

Which, in sum, seems to show that owners are not taking as big a bath as they would like us to believe. And further, that it’s possible players are being underpaid instead of overpaid. To draw any firm conclusions, though, a comprehensive study encompassing the entire payroll of both the Yankees and  Mets would need to be executed, which is something the Major League Player’s Association might want to tackle in making their case to MLB and the public.

My thinking is drawn more to the number of years in contracts rather than the money per year that concerns owners and general managers throughout MLB. Giancarlo Stanton, as an example, will likely be worth every penny he is paid – until he reaches a point when he isn’t. At that point, Stanton will become a reincarnation of Teixeria and Alex Rodriguez, each of whom burdened the team financially as their careers faded.

And if we reach far back into MLB’s past, players were routinely issued one-year contracts based exclusively on last year’s performance. MLB will never go there again, but the point the owners and GM’s seem to be making is the need for the pendulum to swing back the other way, in which two and three-year deals represent the top of the pay stratosphere.

[su_pullquote align=”right”]The game as we’ve known it is over. And the players need to come up with some better ways to fight what is happening – other than saying, “I’m gonna take my ball and go home.”[/su_pullquote]

The players and their union (MLBPA) are balking mainly because they (now) realize they shot themselves in the foot when the signed the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that is with us until 2021. There was talk of boycotting Spring Training, but that will never happen.

But, is it collusion on the part of the owners? Of course, it is. If you and I and ten other people decide to go to the movies tonight, is that collusion? It could be if we plan to rob the concession stand. But otherwise, it’s just twelve people who had the same idea at the same time, and they are acting on it.

The Players Need To Get Creative

The players can do themselves a favor by stepping up the analytics game themselves. They already have one bullet in their arsenal which is MLB Merchandise. For example, how many Matt Harvey t-shirts have been sold over the years? How many pairs of Yoenis Cespedes batting gloves, Noah Syndergaard headbands, and so on? We’re talking big money here, folks. Last year, according to Forbes, MLB Shop took in $9.5 billion (that’s billion with a B) in revenue, a $500 million increase from 2015. For being #1 in the T-shirt sales department, how much money do you think Aaron Judge collected?

Similarly, the players argue that fans come to the ballpark to watch them perform athletic feats that often challenge gravity. True enough, but why not use that as a means to demonstrate the value some of these players have for, as George Steinbrenner liked to say, putting asses in the seats?

Why not, for instance, issue a card to each fan entering the ballpark with a list of all players in uniform that day with one instruction. Check the names of five players on your ballot who you came to see play today. Total ’em up at the end of a season, and the players have their version of WAR. Only this stat can be called TAP, for Tickets Sold Above Replacement.

Individually and as a unit, MLB players are not political animals. They seek only to play the game they have grown up with and love to play. No one, these days, goes to the poorhouse playing major league baseball. No one needs a second job driving a milk truck during the offseason like Hank Bauer, and Yogi Berra did for years during their playing days.

At the time time, the MLBPA and the players themselves need to understand that owners and general managers are (indeed) drawing a line in the sand. In days to come, Albert Pujols and even, Giancarlo Stanton will be seen as dinosaurs, the topic of conversation in bars across America for the contracts they won.

The game as we’ve known it is over. And the players need to come up with some better ways to fight what is happening – other than saying, “I’m gonna take my ball and go home.”

Footnote: A good follow-up read if you have the time appeared in the New York Daily News, and features MLB player, Brandon Moss, who has some controversial views on the current stalemate (“We Screwed Up”)

It was difficult to exist as a baseball fan in 2017 without hearing the phrase “fly-ball revolution” and its family members “exit velocity” and “launch angle.” The idea that ground balls are not great and fly balls are pretty decent isn’t something that only major league batters have figured out and adjusted their approach accordingly. College hitters have taken notice, and purchased trips to Ding Dong City as well.

Trends in college baseball mirror trends in MLB: homers were up this year (from .61 per team per game to .75 per game); and strikeouts were up from 7.17 per game to 7.54 per game — a record high.

— Aaron Fitt (@aaronfitt) January 5, 2018

Even though Major League Baseball has vehemently shot down the idea of the baseball being juiced, the NCAA has been rather transparent when it comes to ways to improving offense in the game. Instead of reverting back from BBCOR bats to the rocket launchers used beforehand, a flatter-seamed baseball was introduced in 2015 after scoring had fallen to 5.08 runs per game and a record low of 0.39 home runs per game. Since then, scoring has jumped to 5.77 runs per game (still a far cry from the 6.98 runs per game the year before BBCOR bats were initiated ) and 0.75 home runs per game.

Home run totals have gone up 80.1% since 2014. Again, these totals are nowhere near the insane days when home runs per game was near 1, but

The increase in home runs isn’t just a product of changing the ball. It’s a systematic shift in how players across all levels of the game are approaching hitting. MLB teams have used Trackman data to change hitter’s swings to an optimal level, and now colleges and high school showcases have started to install Trackman systems in their stadiums. Trackman data at colleges certainly isn’t publically available, and all of my emails to coaches asking them to hand it over were not returned.

Without the sophisticated data, I was only able to track the number of ground balls, line drives, pop up, and fly balls that were hit when an out was made from play-by-play data.

View post on imgur.com

Line drives have been stable, but ground ball outs and fly ball outs have been slowly diverging over time. Even without the data to pinpoint launch angle changes amongst college players, it’s still no secret as to what the players are attempting to do; hit the ball in the air.

As any pulse-having FanGraphs reader will know, the surge in home runs has risen in line with the other two of the Three True Outcomes™, strikeouts, and walks. This has been no different at the collegiate level as well. K% has increased from 16.0% in 2014 to 18.3% in 2017, and BB% has increased from 9.0% to 9.9% in the same time. These numbers are understandably off from where the MLB was in 2017 (21.6% and 8.5%, respectively) given that the command of college pitchers isn’t as developed as it is among professional players, and anecdotally speaking, there is more effort to pitch around team’s star players in college than there is in the pros. The NCAA will never be able to perfectly recreate the conditions that exist in professional baseball in college, the days of college coaches instituting modern day dead-ball era philosophies are quickly coming to an end.

These changes to the ball and the way teams approach the game is part of what needed to be done to make baseball at the collegiate level more exciting for fans. It’s no secret that college baseball ranks well below the excitement of its basketball and football counterparts. It’s still to be determined whether a Three True Outcomes™ approach to the game is what’s best for baseball, but with Major League baseball looking to strengthen its relationship with the college game and record number of games appearing on television this year, interest in the game is only going the way of the baseballs, up.

A special thanks to Christopher D. Long and his godsend of a GitHub for supplying the data to make this research possible. 

Pitchers are fickle beings. Relief pitchers are really fickle beings. Edwin Diaz, for example, burst onto the scene in 2016. Jeff Sullivan detailed how he generated comical whiffs with both a 98 mile-an-hour fastball and a fwippy, drops-off-the-table slider. He also worked in the zone while doing it, which is pretty much the best combo you could ask for from a pitcher.

But in 2017, Diaz essentially laid an egg. His Ks were down. His walks were up. He couldn’t stay in the zone nearly as much, so batters swung less. When they did bite, they hit him much harder than in 2016. His manager talked about how his mechanics had become wonky. He went from being the game’s 13th best reliever to being its 54th.

What’s curious about those wonky mechanics is that they appear to have only burdened his fastball. Not his slider.

Diaz throws his fastball nearly 70% of the time. More than just impacting what was in the zone and what was out of it in 2017, though, his wild tendencies with the heat also appeared to influence his pitches on the edges of the zone. Hitters were more willing to take their chances holding off on a pitch on the paint, as evidenced by a nearly two percent drop in whiffs on those offerings from 2016. With the slider, it seemed to induce more swings.

If Diaz is going to throw the fastball so much, then the obvious tweak he needs appears to be with that offering. But what if the Mariners looked at what Diaz has done best in his time in the Majors, and tried to amplify it?

Overall, Diaz’s fastball hasn’t been terrible. But it hasn’t been good, either. By wOBA, it ranks 137th out of 354 pitchers in the last two years. It was beaten up by righties in 2016 and then lefties in 2017. Even if the year-to-year stickiness of those numbers isn’t necessarily reliable, the real hammer has always been the slider. It’s yielded a meager .187 wOBA. By expected wOBA, Statcast actually says it’s even been 22% better than that. Diaz simply upping its usage would likely bring more whiffs for him. The pitch generates a greater percentage of swings and misses (33.8) than the fastball gets misses and called strikes together (30.4).

There’s also this: Diaz throws the slider 15% less to lefties than to righties, who have also hit his fastball harder and more consistently. He has room to use it more against opposite-handed hitters, and doing so seems like a natural progression.

Beyond that, there might be two things Diaz could tinker with in regards to his breaking ball that could enhance his overall game. He primarily pounds the low, glove side corner of the zone with it. Commanding the pitch to additional parts of the zone — say, in the vein of Kenley Jansen’s cutter — would force hitters to attempt to be more accountable to it, while still being subjected to its devastating drop. This could pair really well with a more erratic fastball, too. If a batter has to be aware of the slider breaking in different portions of the plate, they could be coaxed to swinging at a wilder heater coming at them 10 mph faster.

While it would require more sophistication and time, Diaz could also adjust his arm slot for his slider depending on the handedness of a batter to give it a different look. This may come with more caveats than benefits at first. Max Scherzer has said this kind of approach takes years to master. Zack Greinke has suggested it provides one globby, less useful look more than two distinct ones. And of course, Diaz has already been cited as having control issues at times. But the fact of the matter is he’s young and immensely talented and finding ways to make his slider more of a weapon should be a priority. It could be what makes his potential dominance undeniable.

—

Data from Statcast; gif from PitcherList. 

I have wondered about this. Unlike my other articles this is going to be less analytical so don’t be mad at me and maybe discuss in the comments. There is a lot of talk about why middle ground teams are not investing to get better.

Now, of course, competitive baseball is better but we also can’t expect teams to fight a futile fight. We do now have better projections, aging curves and other stuff and we can’t teams to just act like this didn’t exist. Winning should be the goal but throwing away the future doesn’t make sense either.

In theory, the second Wild Card is another playoff spot but in reality, it is really only half a playoff spot. There is value in the Wild Card but teams are not really attacking it preseason, they will wait and see and then maybe make a small deadline move. It really isn’t worth to throw away the future for a 30% or so https://www.fangraphs.com/community/the-pirates-and-the-value-of-being-around-500/ chance of reaching a coinflip game if you are a .500 team.

The second Wild Card has mostly hurt the first Wild Card team and it has increased the incentive to be a super team especially in a weak division. IMO,  being a super team is too big of an advantage because there is also less risk to being in being kicked out by a weakened Wild Card team that has used its ace in a one-game playoff.  And at the same time there is too little reward for being the fourth best team.

That means teams either try to tank to become a super team or they try to stay a boring .500 team doing not much hoping to occasionally luck into a Wild Card like the pirates might want to do now.

We can’t just force teams to spend money foolishly, if we want teams to spend more and try to be competitive we need to actually increase the incentive to win as a non super teams and maybe also punish the super teams with a little more variance.

Now of course not anyone wants that. Some like the best team to win and baseball already has some of the more luck influenced playoffs but if you want teams to compete you need to change the rules.

One possibility would be doing away with the second Wild Card so that being the Wild Card really guarantees a playoff spot. Another thing you could do is doing away with the divisions and make it top 4 per league directly to the playoffs or maybe even use NBA-style 16 team playoffs (although that would be too much variance for me).

IMO we shouldn’t talk so much about punishing bad teams but about making good not great more lucrative. Currently, 2/3rd of each league just have little inventive to be buyers because the super teams have too much of an edge and the second Wild Card might have increased that division.

The second Wild Card was a good idea but teams have really voted with their feet and decided the second Wild Card is not a full playoff spot and thus not worth chasing with a lot of resources.

The grades on Cristian Pache’s Fangraphs page, reported on during 2017 are impressive: 70-grade speed, 70-grade arm, 60-grade future glove.

With 50 considered the average for a given tool, Pache is one of the few with discernible, impact tools that isn’t on two of the industry’s biggest top 100 prospect lists – Baseball America and MLB.com.

The reason for the omission is reasonable. As JJ Cooper (@JJCoop36) mentions in the comment section of Baseball America’s list, the projection, or assumption of future production in lieu of tangible results, regarding Pache’s bat prevent buzz from swelling. With zero home runs across 750 plate appearances in the minors, despite the majority of those chances coming in one of the worst parks for power in the minor leagues, State Mutual Stadium, it’s hard to disagree with Cooper’s point.

Projecting Pache (great sitcom title), is a task any player evaluator must deal with to really understand his bat’s viability to reach the major leagues; his defense and speed are already apparent. While I’m not a professional scout or player evaluator, tinkering with some video will hopefully present the case for Pache’s bat as it stands and whether you believe in the emergence of another plus tool.

July 2015

(Video from YouTube, Fangraphs)

Starting with Pache’s roots, this combination of videos in the gif above is from the year he was signed, 2015. What stood out to me was how Pache dealt with his lower body and front foot from swing to swing; the two swings in the gif above provide the most noticeable difference. Inconsistent isn’t poor terminology, per say, but I’d rather consider it raw. As these swings both look like they’re coming from live pitching, I immediately thought of a column written for the Collegiate Baseball Scouting Network. Nick Holmes, the author of this particular post, has deep roots in player development in Latin and South America and mentions how a lot of talents, like Pache, don’t receive ample exposure to in-game situations like amateurs in the United States do. This can cause muddying of skill perception from batting practice and drills to the actual games themselves.

While this variation in stride – toe tap on the left; modest leg kick on the right – was initially a knock in my eyes, my perspective evolved to consider it a feature that repetition could iron out. Pache’s ability to simply make contact gives me pause when critiquing an aspect of his game that might not be a detriment at all.

Keep in mind this video is from 2015.

Pache earned around 250 plate appearances in affiliated ball during 2016, and as we’re about to dive into, some of that smoothing I briefly entertained may have emerged.

Summer 2017, Ronald Acuna

(Acuna video via YouTube, RKyosh007; Pache video via YouTube, The Minor League Prospect Video Page)

A baseline in swing evaluation often makes capturing the intended point clearer. While I shy away from one-to-one player comparisons, aesthetic comps can be valuable for descriptive purposes. These two points are key disclosures to justify my pairing up of the game’s top prospect, Ronald Acuna, with my topic of interest, Cristian Pache. I acknowledge up front this is an aesthetic comparison to help us understand Pache’s swing.

Acuna came to my mind when looking at Pache’s tape. (Whether that comparison arose because of bias from watching far too much Acuna tape, I cannot confirm or deny). Their pre-pitch setup and core motion towards the ball are eerily similar, despite a slew of differences from the variation in pre-load hand placement to Pache’s slightly open stance. On top of that, Acuna initiates his swing much earlier than Pache, building a substantial amount of momentum that results in a bigger stride and force moving towards the ball. I also love how throughout Acuna’s building of momentum his hands are on the verge of proceeding into his swing. The trigger Acuna has once he chooses to explode his hips is mesmerizing. This difference is noticeable when watching Pache’s hands drift back and up into their hitting position as he goes into his load. I don’t expect Pache to evolve into an exact replica of Acuna, but the difference allows for visualization of where Pache can adjust to focus on the biggest issue facing Pache’s bat: the plane on which he makes contact.

Launch angle, once a mysterious and complex point, has become basic-knowledge for most fans. As we see players tinker for the better with their bat path at the major league level, it’s only natural for similar trends to occur in the minor leagues. In this case, something I’d be very interested to see Pache entertain.

Working backward, watch where Acuna’s hands finish in his swing. The tip of Acuna’s bat finishes much higher in relation to his upper body than Pache’s, which stays somewhat level with his shoulders. Now start to focus on earlier and earlier parts of Acuna’s swing that lead to where his bat finishes. Applying the same exercise to Pache shows you why scouts are able to confidently project out Acuna’s power and why some may be hesitant to give Pache 15-home run power.

Acuna and Pache are almost polar opposites when it comes to their bat path through the zone. Yet even with this differences, we’re not looking at polar opposites in terms of the how and where each player is hitting the ball. Acuna has a much better ability to go the other way – something I’d love to see Pache do more of – but the most important thing is that Pache’s ability to get the ball off the ground might be improving. His ground-ball rate, once around 65 percent in 2016, is now closer to 50 percent. Comparing the gif of Pache from 2015 to his swing next to Acuna shows a subtle difference in the path of his bat, which could be a reason for this tendency to get balls off the ground.

Pache is trending in the right direction, towards Acuna. I don’t think he’ll ever possess the all-fields power Acuna holds, but he doesn’t need it to raise his offensive ability to average, allowing his other skills to flourish at the major league level.

…Twitter?

(Via Cristian Pache’s Twitter, @CristianPache25)

This brings us to Pache’s Twitter, where we can get the most recent look possible at the glove-first prospect’s swing. While these aren’t game-speed swings, I want to point out that Pache seems to be raising his leg slightly more, hovering on his back foot like he never did in 2015, or even in his swing next to Acuna. It’s not necessarily an improvement in Pache loading on his back hip like you’ll see with hitters like Josh Donaldson, but it’s an improvement over Pache’s early tendency in 2015 to generate power from aggressively shifting all his weight into his front foot to generate any resemblance of power.

This could induce even more building of momentum towards the ball, or it could be more of his batting practice-style swing that doesn’t translate into his game tendencies. The result, in a perfect world, could be the most valuable thing of all: more line drives. Or it could be nothing at all. Only Pache’s game-speed hacks in 2018 will provide an answer.

I can be found gif’ing up hitter adjustments on Twitter – @LanceBrozdow.

A version of this post can also be found on BigThreeSports.com.

Most of what happens in a baseball game are influenced by chance. A ball hit on the screws can end up in the outstretched glove of a diving fielder. The outfield wall could be just six inches too tall, keeping a home run in the park. Strike three could be called ball four by the home plate umpire. Traditional statistics can’t account for all of this, hence why sabermetricians have developed context-specific statistics like DIPS (defense independent pitching statistics) or wRC (weighted runs created). These stats try to explain the outcomes of batted balls while controlling for defense and ballparks.

I sought out to try and create a model that controls for defense, but from the hitter’s perspective. A model that could predict batted ball outcomes could be used to better evaluate hitters and their quality of contact. Using 2017 MLB pitch-by-pitch Statcast data’s batted ball statistics (launch angle, exit velocity, outcome and spray angle), I used a random forest to model whether a batted ball would be a hit or an out. I trained my model on 20% of the data, and felt confident the training set and test set were identical, with similar means and standard deviations for launch angle, speed and spray angle.

I chose to use a random forest because it runs multiple decision trees on subsets of the training set and averages the results across the sets. A Random Forest model uses k-decision trees, or binary ‘decision’ or outcome model, to model the data. Random forest algorithms minimize variance and bias through averaging; a random forest helps prevent overfitting, something I was afraid of doing. Using the Random Forest provided much better accuracy than running a Logistic Regression, my alternative hypothesized model, due to the number of trees (10) and the nature of a decision tree versus a regression.

Without further ado, the results (in visual form):

There’s quite a bit going on in these plots. Let me break it down.

These plots are of every fair ball hit (with a few misclassifications) in 2017 and their landing (or caught) locations. The dark blue balls in play are hits, while the light blue balls are outs. On the left are the actual hits and outs, while on the right are the predicted hits and outs. There are almost a hundred thousand points on these plots, making it difficult to sift through. Here is an explanation of these plots in tabular form:

My model does a much better job at predicting outs than hits. It was correct almost 90% of the time at predicting outs, compared to merely 66% of the time predicting hits. From From the perspective of hits being good (the batter’s perspective), 10% of outs were false positives, and 34% of hits were false negatives. I believe my model did better with outs because there are many more outs than hits – league-average BABIP is .300, or 30% of the time a ball in play is a hit, 70% of the time it’s an out. The model was accurate 81.4% of the time. Despite the high accuracy, the model only ran a .1769 R-Squared. That is, the model was able to describe 17.7% of the variance in batted ball results.

Overall, I feel this model can help predict batted ball results. Two main drawbacks of the model are that it only predicts hits instead of the type of hit and that it requires more data to increase accuracy. I believe having fielder data, such as shifts and defensive capabilities, would greatly increase the accuracy of the model, though at the risk of overfitting (given the small samples of fielded balls in certain areas).

I plan to explore this model further and look at individual batters to compare their actual hits to the predicted ones.

When talking about launch angle much focus is on swing plane and of course rightfully so. Many players like Jose Bautista, Josh Donaldson, Daniel Murphy and Justin Turner have demonstrated that it is possible to change the swing and achieve spectacular gains in power output.

However also the plate discipline by the hitter and the way he is pitched have an effect. Looking at Statcast data the average launch angle in the upper third oft he zone is around 20 degrees, while it is only 5 degrees in the lower third. Of course that doesn’t mean higher pitches are better to swing at, high pitches are also known to induce more pop-ups and whiffs on certain types of fastballs (high spin) but for players who have trouble to elevate the ball it can make sense to swing a little less in the lower part of the zone. On the other hand a high whiff or popup rate type of player who has a good launch angle it might make sense to leave the high pitches alone.

I did a breakdown of the zones for right-handed hitters. I looked for LA but also exit velocity to see where the good parts are. Unsurprisingly pitches over the plate do better in both LA and EV. Inside pitches did better in the LA but worse in the EV and for outside pitches it was vice versa, better LA but worse LA.

Just high and low both did about the same in EV but high did better in LA by far. When looking finer we could confirm that the combination of low and away gave the lowest launch angles and up and in gave the highest, but up and in also by far yielded the worst exit velocities probably because there is the least space to get the barrel around up and tight – so there is a trade-off between EV and LA.

View post on imgur.com

Over the plate is, of course, good and middle pitches too as are up and away and down and in. The down-away to up-and-in axis is probably to avoid.So ideally a batter would have a slightly tilted away from him zone (imagine the zone is a rectangle piece of wood and the batter pushes the top of the piece away from him so that the top is farther away from him than the bottom. Also it should be a little wider in the middle than in the very edges (like an ellipse)

.

View post on imgur.com

Of course, the pitcher has a say in this too. If a hitter adjusts pitchers will adjust too. There are some batters who can beat that a little like for example Brian Dozier who is very quick to the inside and thus can crowd the plate a little without opening apart but for most hitters that is not really true. So if a batter has a swing change and then struggles in the second half we should probably also look at the swing and pitch profile. Still, it is good for a hitter to match his swing rates and hot zones as even good pitchers will miss their target quite a few times. A batter not aware of his hot zones could leave serious potential on the table.

I also found one interesting thing. I looked at right-handed batters mostly in my analysis but also did a quick check on lefties. The lefties had a higher LA on inside pitches than the righties but a lower one than the righties on outside pitches? Why is that? handedness of pitchers faced maybe? I found indeed that righties facing opposite-handed pitchers indeed have a higher LA on inside pitches than against same-sided pitchers and against LHPs it was vice versa, so there seems to be an effect there.

And, lastly, the LA on offspeed pitches (10 degrees) was slightly lower than on fastballs (11 degrees). Surprisingly low breaking balls had a higher LA than low FBs but inside OS pitches where easier to lift.

View post on imgur.com

I’m sure that you’ve seen a plethora of articles about how the FA market is in free-fall. Here’s Craig Edwards talking about the decline in payrollthat might either be a cause or a result of the slow market, here’s Tom Verducci speculating on the reasons behind the slow market, here’s Jay Jaffe talking about how the slow FA market might have its own structure to blame – we could write an encyclopedia of literature about why the FA market has stalled out so much. But curiously enough, there’s a group of FA that isn’t really experiencing these difficulties – relief pitchers.

Methodology

Previously, I discussed using a similarity tool to generate most-similar comparisons based on batted ball data and peripheral data. In this article, I’ll use the same notion to find most similar FAs and compare the contracts that historical comps have signed to the ones signed by 2017’s FA class. We can use this to illustrate the differences between the position player market, the SP market, and the RP market.

I modified my similarity tool to generate similarity scores for players on the basis of their production last season (in fWAR), their production over their career up until their free agent year (again, in fWAR), and their age, with age weighted twice as much as the other production measures. I then downloaded free agent contract data for all MLB free agents from 2006 to 2017 from ESPN, adjusted those figures to account for inflation, and then added production data to my dataset.

Then, using the tool, I generated a list of the most similar free agents for players in a given year – we are then assuming that, within a position, a player who produces X amount of WAR in a year, has Y amount of career WAR, and is Z years old should generate the same contract as a player who is of similar age with a similar history of production. While this assumption ignores aging curves and the strength of the market, it gives us a rough idea of who is most similar to whom in terms of production entering free agency, and we can then compare what contract they received versus what contracts players have historically received for similar production.

For an example, let’s look at Todd Frazier. Here are Frazier’s most similar comparisons at 3B, according to the tool.

Since 2006, the runaway for most similar play to Frazier is Peralta, who made nearly twice as much in terms of AAV as Frazier, received twice as many years, and received three times as much guaranteed money! Uribe and Hudson each made similar deals to Frazier in terms of AAV, but neither had anywhere close to Frazier’s history of production.

Frazier’s deal is emblematic of the problems facing the free agent market today. Among ESPN Top-25 free agents that have signed, here are each’s most similar free agents and the deals that they’ve signed.

Across the board, free agents are signing contracts that are either in the ballpark of their comparables or significantly lower. Some of these are imperfect comparisons that ignore market factors — Gary Matthews Jr. was competing with Barry Bonds, Jim Edmonds, and Alfonso Soriano in 2006 while Cain’s only major competition this year was J.D. Martinez, a guy who would probably be best served signing somewhere as a DH — but, still, there exists a shocking trend in underpayment, where players are getting fewer years and less guaranteed money than their most similar comps.

Take, for example, Carlos Lee versus Carlos Santana:

I can certainly see the reasons for giving Lee a six-year deal, and Santana surpasses Lee in every respect except for being a year older. It astounds me to think that Santana, who is a much better player than Lee ever was, got half the deal that he did. Santana feels like a victim of the market.

And just last year, consider that Justin Turner received a $65/4 deal from the Dodgers, which was called “a massive bargain” for the Dodgers by Dave Cameron:

“…realistically, given the Cespedes/Fowler/Desmond signings, it feels like Turner should have gotten something like $90 to $100 million in this market. And as Craig Edwards showed in his piece on Turner in November, that’s pretty much what we should expect him to be worth based on recent comparable players.”

If the Turner deal was “a massive bargain”, then the Zack Cozart deal was finding a diamond ring on the sidewalk.

Even if we rely upon conservative estimates and think that Cozart settles in around a 2.5-3 WAR player, especially after losing the positional adjustment bonus from playing at SS, Cozart is still being paid like he’s still in arbitration while producing like he’s in his prime. Something is wrong, oh so terribly wrong with the MLB FA market, and we can talk and talk about it until Rob Manfred comes in and institutes a debate clock to speed up pace-of-discussion. But strangely enough, RPs seem insulated from this market downturn.

The Differences Between Position Players, SPs, and RPs

I split up our MLB FA Class of 2017 into Position Players, SPs, and RPs, and then looked at each player who received an MLB contract and whose most similar free agent also received an MLB contract.

What about players who received minor league contracts or players who signed in Japan? My data contains 40 position players who have signed free agent contracts, and of those, 19 have taken minor league deals or signed in Japan. 13 of those players’ most similar free agents also took minor league contracts, but six of the players who took minor league deals had most similar free agents with major league deals. Of five free-agent SPs who signed minor league deals, 2 of them took minor league deals when their most similar player had received a major league deal. But not a single RP who took a minor league deal had a most similar FA with a major league contract. Not one.

Conversely, among position players, only three players received MLB contracts when their most similar player only got a minor league deal out of 20 FAs with MLB contracts (and one of them was Alcides Escobar signing with the Royals, which is cheating). That figure is 2 out of 11 MLB starters, but it’s 8 out of 26 among MLB relievers.

In other words: in a year when position players and SPs are more frequently being forced to take minor league and overseas deals instead of MLB deals when they might have historically deserved an MLB deal, the reverse is true of relievers.

Perhaps the best example of this phenomenon would be Bryan Shaw, who signed a 3-year deal with the Rockies for $27 million dollars earlier this offseason. Here are Bryan’s closest comps according to the tool.

No one among Shaw’s closest comps got even a third of the guaranteed money he was offered, and Soriano, who had a much better history of production, received only a one year deal for $8.3 million (adjusted). Shaw’s most similar reliever, Chad Guadin, couldn’t even get a major league deal! Sure, the Rockies have historically had to overpay free agent pitchers to get them to sign, but nowhere near to this degree. A contract like this for a reliever of Shaw’s caliber is without precedent.

The Virtues of not waiting for the market to collapse around you

The next logical step is to examine why relievers are flourishing when others are floundering: There does not immediately appear to be a single, straightforward answer to this question, but rather, several confounding factors.

One of the largest drivers of this trend has been the rise in demand for relievers. As I discussed last season for Sporting News, thanks to the postseason success of teams with “super-pens” (Cubs, Indians, Dodgers), relievers have been sought after in both trade and free agency, and as a result, teams are willing to pay pretty pennies to build their own super-pen.

Using a $/WAR framework, it’s obvious that relievers are usually paid considerably more in terms than position players and starters in terms of $/WAR (which I would attribute to the fact that WAR, as a largely context-neutral metric, undervalues relievers whose value is very context-dependent). But $/WAR for relievers has spiked quite a bit from last season to this off-season.

There’s a substantial amount of year-to-year variation, but $/WAR for relievers is at its highest level since 2007 – thus, I’m inclined to believe that relievers are being valued more than they have been in recent seasons. But at the same time, $/WAR might be an indicator of another market trend — the fact that most relievers were off the market well before the FA market collapsed in on itself.

MLB’s transaction tracker counted 69 reliever free agents who signed MiLB or MLB contracts this offseason. Forty-seven of them signed before 2018. In the span of Dec. 12-17 (about the same time as the winter meetings with some lag to account for processing the signings), 12 relievers signed MLB free agent deals for multiple years – guys like Anthony Swarzak, Steve Cishek, and Brandon Morrow. Just like that, most of the big-names RPs were off the market, well before people realized how awful the free agent market would truly be.

RPs who signed in January or later didn’t experience as much of a boon as those who signed earlier as well. RPs who signed MLB deals in January or later whose most similar FA also signed an MLB deal saw only 5% more money, and 4% fewer years, and only two signed MLB deals when their most similar FA had signed a minor league deal (though only nine MLB RP FAs have signed in 2018, so take this with a sprinkling of “small-sample-size-salt”).

It also raises the question: have the RPs taken the FA money away from other types of players? I plotted the percent of FA money spent on RPs versus other players, and it would certainly appear as though RPs are occupying much more of the market in terms of overall money now compared to years past.

However, teams are not shortchanging SPs and position players to pay RPs – there has thus far been extremely little money thrown around thus far. Even if the remaining FAs sign large contracts (which seems unlikely in their current situation), it will still take nearly seven hundred million dollars worth of contracts in order for FA spending to reach 2016 levels.

While the current distribution of money is skewed towards RPs, that is more of a result of having many RPs already signed with more SPs and position players still waiting for contracts than it teams robbing SPs and position players to pay RPs.

There has simply been a large absence of money in free agency – partially because many FAs have yet to sign, but also because many SPs and position players have not paid what they have been paid in the past. But that hasn’t been a problem for RPs, because many RPs got in on the ground floor. The end result? A new dynamic in the FA market. Here’s hoping that we see some correction in the market, and soon – I’m running out of things to write about other than how slow the FA market is…

Mike Moustakas is a free agent, and, like the seemingly 10,000 other players, remains unsigned. Along with JD Martinez and former Royals teammate Eric Hosmer, he’s considered one of the top available position players available and is discussed as a guy who could land a multi-year contract somewhere north of $70 million. But “Moose” is special in that he’s especially unfortunate to be a free agent right now.

Let’s play a game. Each of these stat lines from 2017 is an active third baseman, which of these players is worth at least $17.4 million per season AND a draft pick?

1) .260/.367/.461, 117 wRC+, 4.1 WAR
2) .249/.323/.450, 106 wRC+, 3.5 WAR
3) .273/.349/.513, 119 wRC+, 3.4 WAR
4) .272/.341/.472, 112 wRC+, 2.5 WAR
5) .248/.357/.487 111 wRC+. 2.5 WAR
6) .272/.314/.521, 114 wRC+, 2.2 WAR

Did you guess player #6? Because that player with the acceptable-but-definitely-not-amazing 2.2 WAR last season is in fact Mike Moustakas. The others in this group? In order: Eugenio Suarez, Kyle Seager, Travis Shaw, Jedd Gyorko, and Jake Lamb. Solid players, but not exactly the centerpieces of their respective franchises. To get a sense Moustakas’s production in comparable dollar value, those five players COMBINED to earn $18.71 million total in 2017, just a notch (in MLB contract terms) above the qualifying offer Moose already turned down.

In fact, that $17.4 million Moose declined would have given him the 6th highest annual salary among all third basemen in 2018, landing right in between Nolan Arenado ($17.75 mil) and free-agent-to-be Manny Machado ($16 mil). In other words, Moustakas wants top-5-player-at-his-position type money, a category to which he clearly doesn’t belong. For instance, last year among third basemen, Arenado and Machado ranked 4th and 14th in WAR, compared to Moustakas alllll the way down at 22nd. His numbers don’t look much better for offensive rating (20th) or abysmal defensive rating (79th) either. As far as BsR is concerned, he was the second worst 3B on the basepaths all year with an atrocious -5.4 rating, only stumbling ahead of the notoriously rock-footed Asdrubal Cabrera (sidenote here: c’mon Mets, the joke’s over).

Compared to one of the guys who will fill a previously open 3B role for an expected Moustakas bidder, Evan Longoria, Moose looks like an even more remarkable bust. Despite overall lackluster offensive numbers, .261/.313/.424 96 wRC+, Longo still managed a higher WAR (2.5) as a result of his respectable ratings among 3B in defense (14th) and BsR (13th). To top it off he’s “only” making $13.5 million next year, making him a significant bargain over what it would cost to sign Moustakas despite the moderate drop in offensive production, especially considering the relative gains in defense and baserunning.

As the Giants did have to part with top prospect Christian Arroyo to complete the deal, this is actually a solid baseline from which to compare Moose. Would most teams give out a Longoria-sized contract and a draft pick to acquire Moustakas? No? How about for even more money? Still no? Shocking.

So who is even around for Moustakas to sign with? Someone has to want his 38 home runs, right? Well…

The market for third basemen was actually fairly robust in the onset of the offseason, but as we’ve gotten deeper into winter, it seems as though just about everyone has filled the role or spent their money elsewhere. iInept orpower-needyy teams with hopes to compete, such as the Angels (signed Zack Cozart), Giants (traded for Evan Longoria), and Mets (signed Todd Frazier), have filled voids. Similarly, teams like the Yankees, Cardinals, and Phillies were reported to show some interest, but have all since opted to spend their money elsewhere, adding Giancarlo Stanton, Marcell Ozuna, and Carlos Santana, respectively.

Of course, any team would love to unilaterally add another 30+ homeruns to their stat sheet, but in this modern homerun happy era of baseball, dingers aren’t really all that hard to find. The market is still saturated with available niche power hitting corner guys with higher walk rates such as Morrison, Duda, Carter, Napoli, Reynolds, and Lind, most of which will likely provide greater on field value per dollar spent than Moose will. Additionally, the successes of teams like the Cubs, Astros, Rockies, Diamondbacks, Red Sox, and Indians to find and develop premier young, inexpensive power hitters has further strained a market that in the past been governed by whichever available name was the most prolific.

Then of course there’s the two elephants in the room: Machado and Donaldson.

The two soon-to-be free agents are certainly affecting this year’s free agent crop, but no one has lost more future money as a result of their impending free agency than Moutsakas. Not only are Machado and Donaldson much more highly touted as all around third basemen, being both offensive difference makers and defensive wizards, they’re going to cost their future signatory teams a fortune to bring onboard, factors which are extremely limiting to Moose’s potential suitors. Just the potential to sign one of the two titans next offseason (or the likes of Bryce Harper, Charlie Blackmon, Daniel Murphy, Andrew McCutchen, and many more!) affects how a multitude of teams are using their dollars this winter. Teams don’t want to sign a hitter to a massive, long-term contract if there are better options next season around the diamond, and if a they plan on expanding their payroll in future seasons, they’ll need to plan to get under the luxury tax for this coming one. Thus despite the availability of funds for teams like the Yankees and Phillies, the incentive to sign someone now just isn’t there. Combine this economic sentiment with Moustakas’s on field production (or comparatively lack there of) and draft pick compensation, and you’ve found a perfect storm of free agency limbo.

Ok, so what’s the field actually look like then? Somebody’s gotta want this guy. Who out there is willing to shell out a multi-year, $70mil+ contract, and give up a draft pick to do it?

Well there are only three teams without obvious opening day starting third baseman that I can tell: the Yankees, Royals, and Braves. Yankees will more than likely look elsewhere for a cheaper, single-season solution, as they look to stay under the luxury tax for 2018 before throwing the bus at Machado in the offseason. Moustakas could opt to return to the Royals, but they are much more intent on resigning Hosmer to a long-term deal. The Braves have an opening and the funds but they don’t seem to be in compete mode for the next few seasons, so it’s doubtful that they’ll make a free agent splash like Moose unless its a deal for 5+ years.

There is always the option of signing a one-year deal with someone, but how many teams are willing to give up a draft pick for one year of a guy? The correct answer is no one, especially if the on field production is shaky to begin with. There is the possibility that the Royals come out with a one-year deal, as they of course wouldn’t have to forfeit a draft pick, but that doesn’t appear to be a part of the Royals’ long term strategy. As they dive into full fledged rebuild mode, the Royals are looking to get younger, stock picks, and cut costs. So it makes sense to sign someone like Eric Hosmer to a long term deal, but very little sense to give out a massive long term contract to a guy they don’t view as a centerpiece of a franchise. There just isn’t much motivation for a team with little anticipation to compete this year to go out and overpay for one season of an overrated niche power guy with a low walk rate, forgoing a future pick in the process.

Moose probably doesn’t have much interest in a one-year deal anyway, regardless of the salary. Though it would undoubtedly benefit him to re-enter free agency next year without the compensatory pick attached to him, as a player can only receive a qualifying offer once, the notion of having to compete with Machado, Donaldson, Murphy and others in next year’s market is less than enticing. Being at best the 4t- ranked free agent at your position, especially when the teams losing the top 3 will likely look for in house options to fill the vacated roles, is not a recipe for a big contract. Because of this, there’s little reason to think that next year’s market will be any more advantageous for Moustakas, especially if his peripheral stats stay steady through next year.

Thus it’s increasingly looking as though the most likely path forward for Moose is in the Todd Frazier 2-year deal mold, but the lingering questions of with whom and for how much remain murky. Frazier signed for just $17 mil total over those two years, well below the three-year, $42-million deal he was projected to received, as he fell victim to many of the same analytical obstacles plaguing Moustakas. However, despite the lower projected price tag, Frazier’s .213/.344/.428 slash line, 108 wRC+, and 3.0 WAR in 2017 actually parallels quite closely to Moose’s offensive production, and his positive defensive rating (10th among 3B) clearly sets him apart. Here it becomes increasingly apparent why the Mets, yet another team previously thought to be interested in Moustakas, opted for his free agent alternative. A slight downturn in homeruns, in exchange for comparable production, better defense, and much less money is far too sweet of a deal to overlook.

So yes, Moustakas, the Scott Boras client who turned down a qualifying offer, whom MLB Trade Rumors projected to receive a $85mil/5year contract at the start of the offseason, who will be just 29 years and 199 days old come opening day, can’t seem to find a job. And, well, honestly, would you pay the man? Teams are too analytically savvy nowadays and every MLB executive has access to Fangraphs. If I’m Scott Boras I have the Royals and Braves on speed dial and I’m calling them every hour in the hopes of making magic happen. But if I’m Mike Moustakas, I’m investing in a really comfy couch and fine-tuning my March Madness bracket.