2016 MLB thread. THE CUBS HAVE BROKEN THE CURSE! Chicago Cubs are your 2016 World Series champions

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I don't think Lester goes back to Boston. The rumors were that Boston doesn't really want to resign him and he feels mistreated by the low offers Boston made him.



I still don't understand how Oak up Ces just for a rental. Did not see this coming :smh:
 
jaguars-fan-confused-wtf.gif
 
Oakland being complete trash in a few seasons :pimp:

Oakland winning the WS this season :pimp: :pimp: :pimp:
 
JimBowdenESPNxm JIM BOWDEN
The official trade is Lester, Gomes, Cash for Cespedes and Competitive Balance pick as first reported by @alexspeier
 
:lol: I'm still in shock this happened. Big kudos to Billy Beane to going for it this year...but Boston wins the WS, sucks this year and gets rewarded with one of the better power hitting RHB in the league :lol:
 
:lol: I'm still in shock this happened. Big kudos to Billy Beane to going for it this year...but Boston wins the WS, sucks this year and gets rewarded with one of the better power hitting RHB in the league :lol:

That's what leverage is all about. Maximize what you have however you can, either by trading, extending or holding onto the player.

Of course, it helps when Lester publicly says he'd re-up with Boston even after being traded. But that isn't really Oakland's problem at this moment.
 
:lol: I'm still in shock this happened. Big kudos to Billy Beane to going for it this year...but Boston wins the WS, sucks this year and gets rewarded with one of the better power hitting RHB in the league :lol:

That's what leverage is all about. Maximize what you have however you can, either by trading, extending or holding onto the player.

Of course, it helps when Lester publicly says he'd re-up with Boston even after being traded. But that isn't really Oakland's problem at this moment.

Oh I know.

It's just not fair.

:lol:

Bad enough I had to deal with them winning last year.
 
I think it's possible the A's aren't done either. We still have a surplus of starting pitching and catching prospects, we could package them for a good hitter at 2nd or something.
 
So how do you order a rotation for the ALDS?

Shark, Lester, Gray? Then toss Kazmir in there if you get to the ALCS?
 
Gray/Kaz are interchangeable I think at the 3rd spot. I might choose Kaz at this point, but Gray has been lights out in July.
 
Jim Bowden
clarification: Cespedes is Free agent after 2015 because he has an opt out clause that allows him to be a free agent and avoid arbitration.
 
Jim Bowden
clarification: Cespedes is Free agent after 2015 because he has an opt out clause that allows him to be a free agent and avoid arbitration.

This isn't too bad. Go to Boston for 1.5 seasons. Then leave that dump and get paid.
 
The Other Thing about Aroldis Chapman.

I understand the lot of you are preoccupied with thinking about the imminent trade deadline. I understand some might think I write about Aroldis Chapman too much. But Chapman is maybe the funnest pitcher in baseball, so I wanted to take a moment to share a fun fact that has to do with what people don’t talk about when they talk about Chapman and his unparalleled skills. You can go right back to thinking about the deadline in a few.

The Chapman story, of course, is about his fastball, of course. People who hardly know anything about baseball know that Chapman throws the baseball faster than anybody else. It’s the kind of fact that appeals to both die-hards and casual come-and-go sorts, and the heater makes every Chapman appearance a spectacle. After every pitch he throws, all eyes in the ballpark turn toward the radar-gun display. There’s injury concern when Chapman throws a heater slower than his body temperature. Chapman is crazy specifically because people can’t imagine squaring up a fastball at 100+ miles per hour. You think of Chapman and you think of whiffs, because the fastball seems downright unhittable.

It’s basically unhittable, yeah. It’s unhittable in the way that 2014 Clayton Kershaw is perfect — it’s not literally true, but it’s about as close to true as it’s going to get for any human. Here’s a familiar sight: Chapman blowing heaters by major-league hitters.

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Chapman’s contact rate this year is stupid. His strikeout rate this year is stupid. His strikeout rate is closer to 60% than 40%. His strikeout rate is closer to 80% than the overall reliever league-average. Yes, it’s hard to hit his fastball. It’s also hard to hit his slider, when he throws it, and he’s occasionally mixed in a mean-spirited changeup, too. But check out some other swings Chapman has generated just this week, against the same opponent featured above:

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Well that makes sense, right? Chapman’s fastball is hard to hit, so it’s also hard to hit fair. Everybody understands that, against Chapman, hitters swing and miss a lot. What no one really talks about is that, also, against Chapman, hitters swing and hit the ball foul a lot. Foul balls are strikes. Foul balls are good for the pitcher, especially when he possesses putaway stuff.

Against Chapman this season, about 42% of all swing attempts have whiffed. The league average is roughly 21%. Against Chapman this season, about 70% of all balls struck have been hit foul. The league average is roughly 48%. The lack of contact is absolutely nothing new. Turns out, the same goes for the quantity of foul balls. Let’s examine Chapman’s career, playing with z-scores, or number of standard deviations away from the average.

Remember that, assuming a normal distribution, greater than 99% of everything should fall within +/- three standard deviations of the mean. Certain baseball stats aren’t quite normally distributed, but they’re close enough for the assumption to not be misleading. Here’s a plot of Chapman’s whiffs over swings, and fouls over contacts:

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In 2011, Chapman’s whiff rate was 2.6 standard deviations higher than the average. This year that’s all the way up to 4.1. Meanwhile, his foul rate has been extremely high, too, the whole entire time. This year it’s also up to 4.1. It’s excellent to be three standard deviations better than the average. Four is insane. 2014 Aroldis Chapman, it follows, is insane. He almost can’t be hit, and when he is hit, he almost can’t be hit fair.

Chapman isn’t the only guy with obscene whiff rates and foul rates. Here’s a table of six foul-happy names, covering the window of 2011 – 2014:

Pitcher Foul/contact% Whiff/swing%
Aroldis Chapman 64% 39%
Craig Kimbrel 61% 38%
Kenley Jansen 62% 34%
Ernesto Frieri 62% 30%
Jake McGee 62% 26%
Jason Grilli 60% 29%
It should be obvious that these numbers are closely related to high and high-velocity fastballs. In that regard all these pitchers are similar, so Chapman isn’t totally off by himself, but he still has the highest foul rate of the group, and the highest whiff rate. And his numbers in 2014 are better than ever, as he’s just not even giving opponents a chance. Presumably, this has something to do with the fact that Chapman’s average fastball velocity is the highest it’s ever been.

You might be curious about 100+ mile-per-hour fastballs, isolated. Here’s a Chapman-specific table:

Stat 2011-2014 2014
Foul/contact% 70% 72%
Whiff/swing% 41% 45%
In Play/swing% 18% 15%
Those pitches are both harder to hit, and harder to hit in play, as I’m sure we all assumed. Not that Chapman hasn’t done good work with both of his other pitches, but in part because of those other pitches, his fastest fastballs have gone by almost unhurt. He has allowed runs before, but I don’t think anyone’s worried about them. His FIP right now is 0.49.

Obviously, Aroldis Chapman gets a lot of swings and misses. Less obviously, but intuitively, he also gets a lot of swings and foul balls. The end result: against Aroldis Chapman, it’s almost impossible to swing and put the ball in play. On average, about 40% of all swings strike the baseball and hit it fair. Here’s Chapman, year by year:

2011: 24% in-play rate
2012: 22%
2013: 22%
2014: 17%

His in-play rate right now is genuinely less than half of the major-league average. Chapman, for his career, has allowed 14 home runs. He’s yielded a .272 BABIP. There are rewards there, that in theory are accessible for any major-league hitter. But they’re surrounded by an almost impenetrable field of lasers and land mines, as it turns out having less time to react means hitters are less likely to both make contact and make worthwhile contact. It’s no secret why Aroldis Chapman succeeds. But it’s ever so fun to break down the How.

The New And Improved Jon Lester.

As the grains in the hourglass slip away toward the trading deadline, Jon Lester has become the most focused-upon target of buyers. As recently as a month ago, this didn’t seem to be a particularly likely scenario, but the surge of the Tampa Bay Rays and the plunge of the Boston Red Sox has caused the wheel to spin from David Price to Lester. While Lester has been exceptional this season, his 2013 performance would be characterized as no better than solid, and he was one of the game’s biggest disappointments in 2012. What has happened to bring Lester from there to here, and is his current form sustainable going forward?
I got my first baseball job in the fall of 2002, an amateur scouting position covering the northeastern US for the Milwaukee Brewers. I had the privilege of working with a part-time scout by the name of Eddie Fastaia, who was based in Brooklyn. Eddie helped me get my feet on the ground, and is a tireless worker, indispensable asset, and personal friend. He had contacts everywhere, and knew where to find the prospects, winter, spring, summer or fall. One of the leading summer programs in the Northeast was – and is – the Bayside Yankees program, based in the New York City area. In general, their lineup was composed of top Northeast prospects, with the occasional kid from elsewhere in the country mixed in.

In the summer of 2001, Eddie was covering the Bayside Yankees, and his ears perked up when he noticed an impressive-looking lefthander taking the mound for Bayside. He prided himself on knowing the prospects from his area from a very young age – and he had no idea who this kid was. He quickly touched base with the Yankee coaches, and found out that the ringer was a kid from Tacoma, Washington, named Jon Lester. On one hand, Eddie was disappointed, as he thought he had a local find on his hands, but always the team player, he quickly notified the office of this kid’s presence, and his exceptional performance. In the several years that I worked with Eddie, he told his Jon Lester story to me many times – scouts do not forget the moment when they come across a really good one that they had no idea they were about to see.

The Red Sox tabbed Lester in the 2nd round of the 2002 draft, paying him like a first rounder, and the rest is history. He rose steadily, if somewhat unspectacularly, through the Sox system, going 32-31, 3.33, with a 446/203 K/BB ratio in 483 2/3 innings as a minor leaguer. Those stats look quite a bit more impressive when you consider that Lester always ranked as one of the youngest players at each minor league level, reaching Double-A at age 21 – and striking 163 batters in 148 1/3 innings – and making his major league debut on June 10, 2006, at age 22.

He was an extremely consistent performer throughout his first few seasons with the Sox, and having a pretty strong club behind him made his traditional numbers quite eyecatching. After the 2011 season, Lester’s career won-lost record stood at 76-34, for a ridiculous .691 winning percentage. His worst seasonal ERA+ figure over that stretch was 124. Lester clearly ranked among the very best young pitchers in the game. His stock took a hit in 2012-13, as he posted a dreadful 4.82 ERA in the former season, and bounced back just a little to post a 109 ERA+ in 2013. A year away from free agency, what once appeared to be a certain 2015 bonanza was now at least somewhat in doubt.

In addition to his significant regular season contributions to the Red Sox’ cause, Lester has been an invaluable postseason contributor, going 6-4, 2.11, overall, including a 3-0, 0.43, tour de force in three World Series starts. The Jon Lester of the 2013 postseason was a different cat than the regular season version, and he has kept the ball rolling deep into 2014.

Let’s dig a little deeper into Lester’s 2012-14 performance to find out the keys to his metamorphosis into the monster he has become, by reviewing his 2012-14 plate appearance outcome frequency and production by BIP type data for some clues. First, the frequency information:


FREQ – 2012
Lester % REL PCT
K 19.0% 105 59
BB 7.8% 110 68
POP 9.4% 106 60
FLY 24.6% 81 10
LD 25.2% 104 65
GB 40.8% 109 73

FREQ – 2013
Lester % REL PCT
K 19.6% 103 60
BB 7.4% 101 53
POP 10.0% 133 81
FLY 26.4% 94 39
LD 21.1% 98 41
GB 42.5% 99 44

FREQ – 2014
Lester % REL PCT
K 25.7% 127 82
BB 5.5% 71 16
POP 9.7% 125 76
FLY 27.2% 97 34
LD 20.6% 99 41
GB 42.6% 98 40
The biggest change in Lester’s profile from 2012-13 to 2014 is the large increase in his K rate. Lester’s 2012-13 K rates were the two lowest of his major league career – his K rate percentile ranks of 59 and 60 in those two seasons lag well below the 89-95 range he resided within between 2009-11 as well as his 2014 mark of 82. Arguably just as important is the dramatic increase in his BB rate this season. After posting higher than average BB rate percentile ranks from 2010-13, it has dropped precipitously to 16, by far a career best, in 2014.

Lester’s batted ball profile has changed quite a bit as well. He began his career with a fairly significant ground ball tendency – from 2008 through 2012, his grounder rate percentile rank ranged from 63 to 87. As that grounder tendency has waned, Lester has begun to induce popups at a better than MLB average rate, with his popup percentile ranks ranging from 60 to 82 between 2011 and 2014. Lester is one of the rare pitchers who combines a high popup rate with a low fly ball rate – his fly ball percentile ranks have ranged from 10 to 39 since 2008.

So what we have is a high K guy who lost that touch for two seasons, and a one-time ground ball guy who has gradually morphed into a popup generator without developing a fly ball tendency. That’s just the frequency data, though. Let’s take a look at the production by BIP type allowed by Lester in all three seasons, both before and after adjustment for context, to get a better feel for the batted-ball authority he has allowed:


PROD – 2012
Lester AVG OBP SLG REL PRD ADJ PRD ACT ERA CALC ERA TRU ERA
FLY 0.424 1.065 202 142
LD 0.585 0.775 87 95
GB 0.213 0.257 87 86
ALL BIP 0.338 0.550 113 103
ALL PA 0.268 0.325 0.436 109 101 4.82 4.37 4.05

PROD – 2013
Lester AVG OBP SLG REL PRD ADJ PRD ACT ERA CALC ERA TRU ERA
FLY 0.325 0.755 114 100
LD 0.608 0.800 86 100
GB 0.240 0.279 108 116
ALL BIP 0.318 0.488 95 99
ALL PA 0.249 0.306 0.383 93 96 3.75 3.60 3.71

PROD – 2014
Lester AVG OBP SLG REL PRD ADJ PRD ACT ERA CALC ERA TRU ERA
FLY 0.250 0.615 74 80
LD 0.646 0.873 97 91
GB 0.301 0.325 153 104
ALL BIP 0.324 0.478 96 85
ALL PA 0.235 0.278 0.347 78 71 2.52 2.96 2.67
The actual production allowed by Lester on each BIP type is indicated in the AVG and SLG columns, and is converted to run values and compared to MLB average in the REL PRD column. That figure is then adjusted for context, such as home park, team defense, luck, etc., in the ADJ PRD column. In the three right-most columns, his actual ERA, his calculated component ERA based on actual production allowed, and his “tru” ERA, which is adjusted for context, are all presented. For the purposes of this exercise, SH and SF are included as outs and HBP are excluded from the OBP calculation.

First, the magnitude of the impact of the improvement in Lester’s K and BB rates since 2012 should be noted. Adding his K’s and BB’s back to total BIP caused his overall ADJ PRD to go down by two (from 103 to 101) and three (from 99 to 96) basis points in 2012-13, while adding them back caused it to decline by 14 (from 85 to 71) basis points in 2014.

There is another line item, however, that is arguably just as impactful to his 2012-14 performance. Note the dramatic change in the amount of damage Lester has allowed on fly balls during this period. In 2012, hitters batted .424 AVG-1.065 SLG on fly balls against Lester, for 202 REL PRD, adjusted down to 142 ADJ PRD for context. In 2013, they batted only .325-.755 on fly balls, for an exactly MLB ADJ PRD figure of 100. In 2014, he has improved even further, to .250-.615 on fly balls, for an ADJ PRD figure of 80 once adjusted for context.

Managing fly ball contact is a really big deal in Fenway Park. Using my own park factors based on granular batted ball data, Fenway has a fly ball park factor of 151.1, inflating offense more than any park except for Coors Field. The Green Monster is the primary driver of this, as many fly balls that are routine outs elsewhere become doubles in Boston. Despite this fact, Lester has allowed well less than average actual fly ball production this season, not an easy feat.

It should also be noted that Lester is having exceptional overall success this season despite allowing actual production of .301 AVG-.325 SLG on ground balls, good for a 153 REL PRD figure, though that is adjusted for context – mostly bad luck – down to 104 for context. Lester’s 2014 2.67 “tru” ERA figure is very close to his actual ERA, and represents over a full run’s worth of improvement from his 2012 and 2013 marks.

What, if anything, is Lester doing differently to make these changes possible? Well, his pitch selection has changed fairly dramatically in recent years. He had begun to use his sinker more frequently through 2012, pushing his grounder rate upward, but his swing-and-miss rate downward. Since 2012, he has thrown his cutter (up from 13.3% in 2012 to 24.2% in 2014) and his four-seam fastball (up from 32.5% to 41.1%) much more often, at the expense of his sinker (down from 27.9% to 16.7%) and changeup (from 11.8% to 3.7%). His sinker has by far the lowest whiff rate (4.9% in 2014) of his pitches, and his cutter, with an 11.3% whiff rate, is one of his best bat-missers.

His improvement goes way beyond missing bats, however. After all, his 9.5% overall swing-and-miss rate is pretty low for a guy with his K rate, and isn’t terribly far above the MLB average or his career mark of 9.1%. What is Jon Lester doing to manage fly ball contact so well? Lester is actually getting hitters to hit higher fly balls – by a fairly significant margin – than he has in the past. If you split the exit angle between the upper (bordering popups) and lower (bordering line drives) boundaries of the fly ball categories, the average MLB pitcher will allow a third of his fly balls in the upper region, and two-thirds in the lower region. This is a big distinction, as hitters bat .098 AVG-.234 SLG on fly balls in the upper section, and .380 AVG-.990 SLG in the lower.

In 2012, only 25.9% (36 of 139) of the fly balls allowed by Lester were hit into the upper tier, well worse than MLB average. That percentage rose to 32.5% (53 of 163) in 2013, almost exactly the MLB average, and has now risen to 46.2% (48 of 104 fly balls) thus far in 2014. That’s about as high a “high fly ball” percentage that I have seen from a starting pitcher.

Is there some randomness in there? Sure. While some regression can be expected, this trend is real. Looking a little deeper, we see that 39 of these 48 “high fly balls” were hit off of Lester’s four-seamer or cutter. Yes, Lester is missing more bats this season, but just as importantly, he is spotting his fastball and cutter so expertly that, A) his BB rate is way down, and B) he has suffocated fly ball contact, in a fly ball-friendly environment. What we have seen thus far in 2014, is Lester’s perfect storm, his peak. His many suitors may only be getting him for 10 starts or so, but they are betting on getting something resembling the apex of a very, very good pitcher’s career.

By the time you read this, Jon Lester may have a new uniform. A cursory review of opinions across multiple media platforms reveals quite a difference of opinion regarding what he will command in a deal. The lack of acquiring team control, the assumed likelihood of his return to Boston in 2015, and the elimination of draft pick compensation for rental players leads some to believe that the return may not be that significant. The marketplace will likely say otherwise. It already has, in the case of Jake Peavy, a lesser pitcher with the same acquiring team control who fetched a solid package from the Giants. The Peavy package lacked a consensus impact prospect – expect one or more teams to step up with such a prospect in their pursuit of Lester before the clock strikes midnight… make that 4 PM Eastern.

The Cardinals Will be Good for Justin Masterson.

For some time, it’s been evident that the Cardinals could use some help in the starting rotation. They matched up well for all the big names, with the only question concerning the organization’s willingness to part with a major prospect. Word is, the Cardinals might still part with a major prospect for a big name, but midday Wednesday the Cardinals zigged and dealt for a guy who was good a year ago, a guy with a 5+ ERA.

Justin Masterson, who’s still on the disabled list, is going to St. Louis, and going to Cleveland is prospect James Ramsey. The Indians aren’t giving up, but they no longer had room for Masterson, and they turned him into actual value. Meanwhile, the Cardinals have at least addressed a short-term hole, improving without dealing from the top of the farm. At best, Masterson is an impact splash. At least, even the somewhat troubled version is a better fit with the Cardinals than with the Indians.

One year ago, Masterson struck out a batter an inning and maintained excellent peripherals. As a low-angle righty with a sinker and slider, he’s always had a large platoon split, but in 2013 he was good enough against lefties to not get exploited. Things have been different in 2014 — the strikeouts are down, the walks are up, and the velocity isn’t there. Though Masterson has allowed plenty more runs than one would expect, his adjusted FIP and his adjusted xFIP have gotten worse by 21 points. Mickey Callaway has an idea of what’s been going on:

“I think the knee affected him pretty bad,” said Callaway. “It affected the way he landed and was able to throw against his front side. It probably accounted for the difference in velo (velocity) that we’ve been seeing.”

Masterson’s former pitching coach thinks the knee injury is responsible for the struggles, and Masterson should be beyond the injury now. Apparently it’s something that’s bothered him since early April, and it’s an easy explanation to believe. On the other hand, back in April, when Masterson was struggling a bit, Callaway said he was healthy and would be just fine, so you can’t just automatically put all the stock in these things. Masterson might just be worse now. It’s not like he’s ever been a command pitcher.

For the Cardinals, there’s obvious upside; maybe the injury was holding Masterson back. He’s due to be activated this week, and it’s entirely possible he’ll re-discover his 2013 velocity and pick up his game. Part of their thinking is that Masterson could be a quality starter for another three months. But there’s also something else: even if Masterson returns inconsistent, St. Louis presents for him a better situation.

Masterson’s been hurt by walks, but he’s also been devastated by damage on balls in play. We all know him to be among the most extreme groundballers in the league. So, let’s look at some 2014 team-level defensive rankings:

Indians, overall

last in UZR
last in DRS
Cardinals, overall

8th in UZR
1st in DRS
Indians, infield

last in UZR
last in DRS
Cardinals, infield

3rd in UZR
1st in DRS
Masterson is going from pitching in front of the worst defense in baseball to pitching in front of arguably the best. So he doesn’t even have to improve to generate improved results, because fewer balls are going to get through or find grass with St. Louis. There might be no more extreme defensive swing in the league, so it’s almost like Masterson is going to get to go bowling with bumpers. At least, it could feel like that. The Cardinals will give him support.

And then they’ll just see what he is. If he comes back throwing harder, he could be real good. If he comes back the same, he’s still good insurance at the back of the rotation, and he could be a reliever in October if Michael Wacha comes back healthy. A short-inning Masterson would cripple postseason righties, and he’d probably be able to hold his own against lefties. It’s worth pointing out, I think, that Masterson hasn’t exactly been all over the place, even at his wildest. Here are his year-by-year rates of pitches thrown at or below two feet off the ground:

Year Low%
2008 31%
2009 27%
2010 36%
2011 26%
2012 33%
2013 30%
2014 46%
This year has the highest rate by far, suggesting that Masterson has just been missing a bit too low too often with his sinker. Nearly half of his pitches have been at two feet or lower, and if he’s able to bring things up a bit, those low balls can quickly turn into low strikes and weak grounders. It’s a matter of inches, and better to have Masterson missing down than missing up.

There might be one more small consideration. Masterson is set to debut with the Cardinals this weekend against the Brewers. Carlos Gomez bats right-handed. Ryan Braun bats right-handed. Jonathan Lucroy, and Khris Davis, and Aramis Ramirez bat right-handed. For the Pirates, Andrew McCutchen bats right-handed, as do Russell Martin, Starling Marte, and Josh Harrison. While the Reds have the left-handed Joey Votto and Jay Bruce, they’ve both had injury problems and Bruce isn’t producing these days at all. There are important divisional games coming up down the stretch for the Cardinals, and it could be a real benefit to have a righty-killer like Masterson on the staff. It’s a little thing, but the leverage of those games could be through the roof, so little things turn into big things.

So, from the Cardinals’ perspective: maybe healthy Masterson gets better. He was real good just last summer. Even if he doesn’t get better, he could be something on the order of league-average, and he’ll have a far better defense behind him than he’s used to. He’s well-equipped to turn into a short-inning stopper in the playoffs. It’s a worthwhile addition at the cost of a non-elite prospect.

And for the Indians, that non-elite prospect is better than the compensation they probably weren’t going to get in the offseason, since they probably weren’t going to extend to Masterson a qualifying offer. Even if they did, maybe they’d get stuck with Masterson for $15 million, and if they got a draft pick, that pick likely wouldn’t end up as good as James Ramsey. Marc Hulet, before the year, ranked Ramsey seventh in the Cardinals’ deep system, and the outfielder has done nothing to drop his stock.

Though he’s a late-24-year-old in Double-A, he’s also got an average of .300, an on-base percentage near .400, and a slugging percentage over .500. Most reports say he’s capable of handling center field, and he wasn’t expected to hit for the power he’s shown. Strikeouts are a bit of an issue, and Ramsey isn’t the baserunner you’d expect him to be given that he’s a capable center fielder, but there’s good-player upside, with a high probability of making the majors. Even if Ramsey turns out to be a league-average type, those players are valuable in their controlled years, and Masterson had two more months left. It’s a good, close-to-ready get for a player who for months had been nothing but trouble.

The Indians managed to sell without selling out. The Cardinals managed to get better without touching their most-prized young possessions. The upside is obvious for both, and even if the players involved just hit their 50th-percentile projections from here on out, then the Cardinals have short-term help and the Indians have a half-decent outfield prospect who isn’t far away from his arrival. It’s not often you see deadline trades between a couple of contenders, but this one makes an awful lot of sense, and the two teams remain contenders still.

Why I’m a Bit of an Oscar Taveras Skeptic.

The Cardinals are reportedly kicking the tires on David Price and Jon Lester, and presumably, they’ve probably at least inquired about Cole Hamels. It’s no secret that they’re looking for pitching, and they both the means and the motive to make a big move. And not surprisingly, trade rumors with the Cardinals inevitably invoke Oscar Taveras‘ name.

According to all the prospect guys, Taveras is the Cardinals best prospect, and one of the best prospects in the game. But while I’m not a prospect expert by any means, I will say that I hold some reservations about Taveras’ long-term value, as I think he fits the mold of the hitter that prospect analysts miss on the most often.

Taveras’ calling card is his bat. Yeah, he’s played some center field, but he’s probably a corner outfielder, and he’s not a Carl Crawford or Brett Gardner type who can have center fielder type value in a corner position. He’ll be good if he hits, and if he doesn’t, he won’t. What one thinks about Taveras essentially comes down to how good of a hitter you think he can be.

And while he was a monster in Double-A a couple of years ago, Taveras’ Triple-A line over the last year or so isn’t really all that exciting. Here’s what he’s done in Memphis between 2013 and 2014.

448 PA, 6.2% BB%, 11.8% K%, .172 ISO, .313/.358/.485, 117 wRC+

That’s not a bad performance for a guy who spent a good chunk of that time as a 21 year old, but he hasn’t exactly crushed Triple-A pitching either. The contact skills are there, but the power hasn’t shown up yet, and this skillset basically needs power to work. There are plenty of scouting reasons to think he’ll hit for power, and he’s done it before, so my skepticism isn’t that he definitely won’t hit for power; I’m just not sure that he will, and his Triple-A performance reminds me a lot of some other prospects who were supposed to hit for power and either didn’t or haven’t yet.

For instance, here’s Jesus Montero‘s career Triple-A line.

1,410 PA, 8.8% BB%, 19.9% K%, .209 ISO, .290/.353/.499, 126 wRC+.

Taveras isn’t the cover-your-eyes defender that Montero is, so his floor is higher, but Montero is probably the most similar recent offensive prospect to be rated extremely highly despite some just okay Triple-A numbers that were explained away by his age. And this isn’t just cherry picking now that Montero has flopped and lost most of his value; I was a skeptic about his potential back when he was getting hyped to the moon as well.

And, really, if you’re interested, you can look back through the minor league leaderboards and look for guys who put up similar performances — based on low walks, high contact, moderate power, above average overall wRC+ — to what Taveras has done in Triple-A at young-ish ages.

In 2010, we find Montero, but also Mike Moustakas and Jose Tabata. Hank Conger was in that mix too, though he was drawing more walks.

In 2011, there’s Montero again — though his K% was going the wrong way — along with Dayan Viciedo, Lonnie Chisenhall, and another meh year from Moustakas.

In 2012, we find Josh Vitters and L.J. ****. Yeah.

In 2013, we get Wilmer Flores, Chris Owings, Nick Castellanos, and J.R. Murphy. You could try and squeeze Xander Bogaerts in there if you wanted, though he’s always been a lot more disciplined than Taveras.

This is hardly an exhaustive study, of course, but most of these guys came with some degree of prospect hype, and by and large, they’ve mostly not hit in the big leagues. That L.J. **** failed to develop doesn’t mean that Taveras is worthless, but that Taveras has hit kind of like L.J. **** at the highest level of the minors should perhaps make us pause when discussing him as a truly elite prospect.

Taveras is a very nice prospect, but I think there’s a case to be made that he’s the kind of minor leaguer that teams should be willing to trade, because the consensus about his potential has been outstripping his performance for a while now. Perhaps Taveras will get back to the hitter he’s been projected to be, and he’ll turn into a legitimate star. But if he doesn’t, he’s probably not a very good big leaguer, and projecting future offensive performance is the hardest thing for scouts to do. While he’s still very young and has plenty of time to improve, there’s a decent chance that Taveras will never have more value to the Cardinals than he does as a trade chip right now.
 
Jim Bowden
My sources tell me that Price and Zobrist will remain with the Rays and they haven't been made an offer even close to what it would take to get them

Jim Bowden
Lester will take less years and less money to return to Boston...but he's not taking less than what Homer Bailey got from Cincinnati
 
To me, that is a horrible trade by the A's. They gave up one of the best young hitters in the game right now who is very dynamic and on the books for another season for a 2 / 3 month rental...
 
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I still think this is a decent trade for oakland... and lester is not going back to boston... they didnt want to overpay a 30yr old with a big contract and risked losing him for nothing so they got cespedes... i think its a good trade for both teams
 
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