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

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'98 HR chase never happened.

I refuted this already.

When it comes to the steroid argument, all of you are just regurgitating common knowledge, I've looked into this, extensively, and it's extremely difficult to arrive at any other conclusion besides.

1. The effects of steroids are vastly overstated by the general public.
2. The practically effect of steroid use on your ability to hit a baseball is mostly mysterious and incredibly difficult to discern.


There are various arguments that always repeated when it comes to steroid use and most of them are just flat out wrong, I'll go through most of them in the simplest and most concise way possible.


a) If steroids aren't effective how come we saw a massive spike in offense in the late 90's early to mid 2000's???


Baseball power numbers have been trending upwards at a steady pace since Babe Ruth entered the game, for this claim to be true baseball power numbers would have to increase at rate discontinuous with past seasons.

and while power numbers have increased, another thing people seem to have completely ignored is MLB started juicing the ball in about '94 . if you look at the numbers
there is a massive spike in power that occurs basically in the span of one year and unless every decided to do PED's at the exact same time the suddenness of this jump can't be explained by steroid use.
The juiced ball theory is pretty well research by a number of people,
So how do we apply the juiced ball theory to the power increases in the "steroid era"

478513


If you adjust for the ball juicing power in baseball hasn;t actually increased but decreased in relation to other eras.

478514


If you look at just the "steroid era", you don't even have to adjust for the ball juicing, just remove the one year where power jumped because of the introduction of the rawlings ball, power in the modern era has mostly remained flat.

If players are using steroids and they are so effective, shouldn't we see a gradual increase as more and more players use it?


b) Look at how Big Barry bond was, look at Brady Anderson, Luis Gonzalez??! That HAD to HELP.


I'm not going to pretend that Barry, Brady and maybe Luis didn't do steroids, ultimately this argument doesn't hold up when you actually think about the kinetic chain of a baseball swing, and the piratical application of more muscle mass.

700


This chart http://webusers.npl.uiuc.edu/~a-nathan/pob/batspeed.pdf basically figures out that by increasing you muscle mass by 10%, it could theoretically result in an increase in power of 10 ft.

Here is the problem: This chart assumes that all muscle mass gained are practically applicable to a baseball swing, ANY scouts will tell you, that power is generated mostly from the lower half and if you look at pretty much ANY study on the effects of steroid use, you will find that they are particularly most useful for increasing Upper body mass.


So lets say a 200 pound ball player uses steroids, gains 20 pounds of raw muscle How much of that will actually how up on the field? How much of that will be lower body mass, vs. upper body mass? 5 pounds maybe? Who knows? point is 20 pounds of pure muscle is A LOT, and its not likely that somebody is going to go from singles hitter to doubles and hr's with that. 2.5% growth in mass, will only get you theoretically about 2 to 4 ft, that is not incredibly effective or significant.
 
In baseball there is no such thing as an "unmovable" contract, especially when the team trading the player is willing to eat a ton of money. Soriano was moved last year, he just nixed the trade to the Giants.

I don't think big contracts hamper teams like other sports with salary caps, just a cop out.

Think about the "unmovable" deals you're talking about. Zambrano, deal was expiring at the end of the 2012 season, player option that was not going to vest. They received Chris Volstad and paid $15 out of the $18 million owed. He was a headcase that they had to get rid of, should've just DFA'd him. Volstad was terrible.

Farm system is being rebuilt but not with these dumps. Kyle Hendricks was a good get for Ryan Dempster.

The only reason person they truly needed to dump was Zambrano for obvious reasons. Teams are locking up players now, so building via free agency will be a lot tougher.

Best of luck to the Cubbies.

Sooo, Pujols and Hamilton contracts aren't unmovable right about now?

We would have wanted to move Soriano 3-4 years ago, but couldn't. Now we can. Eating 25 million >>>>> eating 85 million. :lol:


Bottom line is Theo is rebuilding us with a much stronger foundation that our previous GM's. Period.
Doesn't guarantee success, I perfectly understand that, but he's at least attempting to fix the franchise correctly, all the way down to Single A if he has to.

Has nothing to do with optimism or whatever the hell Born and DMX are talkin about.

And the Pirates are finally in the mix after 21 years, not sure putting > in front of any team is all that big a deal. *shrugs*
 
Red Sox Extend Dustin Pedroia at Ian Kinsler Price.

Last week, in rating Dustin Pedroia 25th on the trade value list, I noted that he was “an elite player making a relative pittance for the next two seasons.” That is still true, but his relative pittance is going to grow substantially starting in 2015, as the Red Sox have agreed to sign Pedroia to a long term contract that will keep him in Boston through 2021.

As Rob Bradford notes in his message, the contract is a seven year deal for approximately $100 million that begins in 2015, so it could also be seen as a six year extension given that the Sox already had a team option for that year. No matter how you want to phrase it, Pedroia has gone from being under team control for the next two years to the next eight years.

Given that he was going to be paid $11 million in 2015 without the extension, and that the new deal pays him “around $100 million”, we can note that those extra six years cost the Red Sox something in the range of $90 million in new money. And, given the rising prices of high performing players, this a smart move for Boston, especially given what his asking price might have been if he signed after Robinson Cano.

Over the winter, we saw Felix Hernandez and Justin Verlander — both two years from free agency — sign extensions that added five years of team control for $135 million and $140 million respectively. Elvis Andrus, also two years from free agency, signed an eight year, $120 million extension. While Pedroia isn’t a perfect comparison to any of these players, getting him for less than $100 million over six years seems like a pretty nice little discount.

Maybe the best comparison overall for this deal is the Ian Kinsler extension from last year. The Rangers owned his rights for two more seasons when they gave him a $75 million extension over five years, so the AAV on that deal and this one seem quite similar, with Pedroia getting one extra guaranteed season. Interestingly, if you look at Kinsler and Pedroia from their three years leading up to the extension, they look pretty darn similar.




Name PA BB% K% ISO BABIP AVG OBP SLG wOBA wRC+ Fld BsR WAR
Dustin Pedroia 1,803 10% 11% 0.151 0.319 0.301 0.373 0.453 0.359 123 33 0 15.3
Ian Kinsler 1,823 11% 11% 0.203 0.260 0.262 0.352 0.465 0.357 114 29 19 15.0

Kinsler hit for more power, Pedroia had a higher BABIP, but in the end, it added up to a pretty similar overall package. The defensive reports on Pedroia are a lot stronger than on Kinsler, who began his career as a pretty brutal second baseman, so perhaps you want to give Pedroia a little bit of a boost for defensive value if you don’t trust UZR equating their value in the field. Either way, though, they’re going to end up in the same ballpark, which was probably a point of evidence used by the Red Sox in negotiations, I’d imagine.

That comparison is both good for the Sox (since Kinsler’s extension was a lot cheaper than others we’ve seen) and maybe a little scary for the Sox, since Kinsler immediately posted the worst offensive season of his career after signing the deal, and it’s not entirely clear that Kinsler would get that same $75 million this winter had the Rangers not locked him up last spring, but he’s still a valuable piece and the deal hardly looks like an albatross. And Pedroia has a stronger track record than Kinsler, especially on defense.

But, there remains skepticism about the aging curves of second baseman in general. There’s a conventional wisdom that says that the position takes a physical toll on players that other spots on the field do not, and people point to guys like Roberto Alomar who just lost all his skills earlier than expected. However, I don’t actually see a lot of evidence that we should be too scared of how second baseman age relative to how everyone else ages, anyway.

A couple of years ago, I wrote about this while discussing Chase Utley‘s aging curve. Utley has obviously had some injury problems over the last few years, but has remained a highly productive player when he’s on the field, and as I noted in that article, most second baseman who had been as good as he had in his twenties continued to be productive in their thirties. I also looked at the issue in March, when discussing Robinson Cano’s next contract, and didn’t see any compelling data that suggested offensive oriented second baseman just stopped hitting after turning 30.

There are second baseman who have gotten old in a hurry, just like there are players at every position. If second baseman are more prone to premature aging, I haven’t yet seen evidence to support that idea.

In Pedroia, the Sox have one of the games premier players. He might not be tall, and he might not produce in the way that a lot of other players produce, but he’s one of the most valuable baseball players on the planet. Pedroia likely won’t be as good from 32-38 as he was earlier in his career, but at the price Boston is paying, he doesn’t have to be. With the going rate of inflation in baseball, $15 million per year could easily be the market price for an average player by the middle of this contract.

The last couple of years of this deal probably aren’t going to look so great, as Pedroia is unlikely to still be a good starting second baseman in his late thirties. However, the price for the first few years is so low that the overall deal should be a net positive for the Red Sox. Pedroia’s a star who has never been paid like one, and with this deal, he never will be. But he’s going to spend the rest of his career in Boston, most likely, and that is probably more important than maximizing his earnings.

Miami Adds Top Prospects to Outfield Mix.

The Miami Marlins organization made a bold move on Monday night when it was announced that outfield prospects Christian Yelich and Jake Marisnick were promoted from Double-A to the big league squad. In return, 2013 rookies Derek Dietrich, an infielder, and Marcell Ozuna, an outfielder, were returned to the minor leagues. Interestingly, Ozuna checks in with the highest WAR (1.9) of any Marlins hitter in 2013. On the recent Top 50 prospects list at FanGraphs, Yelich came in 12th overall, while Marisnick checked in at 46.

The two rookies will join young slugging right-fielder Giancarlo Stanton to provide the club with an impressive core to (hopefully) build around for the future. The addition of Yelich and Marisnick could quickly give the Marlins one of the best defensive outfields in the game despite the Stanton’s struggles in 2013. Both Justin Ruggiano and Juan Pierre could be relegated to back-up roles, or shopped on the open market.

Yelich, 21, entered 2013 ranked as the Marlins’ second-best prospect behind Cuban right-hander Jose Fernandez on Miami’s Top 15 prospects list at FanGraphs. He’s more than capable of playing center-field but will likely play left field in deference to Marisnick. At the plate, Yelich shows a beautiful left-handed swing that should allow him to maintain a strong batting average at the big league level and perhaps chase some batting titles down the road.

At 6-foor-4 and with good bat speed, the California native projects to develop at least average power for a left-fielder but he’s currently more of a line-drive, doubles hitter. Yelich also has good speed which helps him a lot in the field and on the base paths but he may not be a huge base stealer in the Majors. Although he has both a 30-plus and 20-plus stolen base season under his belt, Yelich has struggled to stay healthy so he may remain tethered to the bag more often in an effort to cut down on wear and tear.

Marisnick began the year ranked fifth on the Marlins top prospects list. He entered the organization last November during the Jose Reyes trade with the Toronto Blue Jays and he joins catcher Jeff Mathis, shortstop Adeiny Hechavarria and pitcher Henderson Alvarez as the fourth member of the deal to play at the big league level for The Fish. Veteran shortstop Yunel Escobar also came over in the deal but he was later flipped to Tampa Bay for Dietrich.

Marisnick, 22, can already provide above-average big league defense thanks to excellent range, good reads and a strong arm. He makes tough plays look easy. His speed helps him both in the field and on the bases where he could nab more than 20 bases in a full season. However, the young hitter has a lot growing still to do at the plate.

He needs to be more selective at the plate and choosing better pitches to drive could help both his power output and his batting average. He’s also still getting comfortable with his hitting mechanics and the Jays organization tried to rework his swing on more than one occasion. With his speed, Marisnick could be a top-of-the-order hitter but his reliance on his batting average for his on-base percentage (due to his low walk rates) could become problematic as his minor league strikeout rates of 17-22% could impact his ability to hit more than .240-.260.

Of the two prospects, Yelich should come out of the gate more quickly with his reliable bat. The toolsy Marisnick could struggle early because of the issues noted above, but arguably he has a higher ceiling if everything clicks and he becomes a four- or five-tool player. He could probably use another 300 to 400 at-bats in the minor leagues to help further iron out his offensive wrinkles but his outfield defense could save quite a few runs for the Marlins.

The Split Personalities of the Cardinals.

One of the most remarkable things about the Cardinals’ clutch hitting — aside from the reality of the Cardinals’ clutch hitting — is the way it refuses to regress the way we’d expect it to. From a Cardinals game recap over the weekend:

At the end of April, the team was batting .327 with runners in scoring position. A month later, the average was up to .333. Three months in, it sat at .335. And after going 2-for-5 with runners in scoring position on Sunday, the Cardinals now boast a mark of .338. No team in baseball history has even come close to maintaining such a pace.

The Cardinals came out of the gate hitting well with runners in scoring position. At least by batting average, every month they’ve only gotten better. That’s not what regression looks like. That’s the polar opposite of what regression looks like. It’s been enough to make some people wonder. Just what are the Cardinals doing, and how are the Cardinals doing it?


What the Cardinals have been doing is coming up with timely hits. That much isn’t a secret. Buster Olney likes to tweet about it, and if you ask any of the Cardinals or the coaches, they’ll tell you it’s about a mature, responsible approach. The players want to be hitting in big spots, and they don’t try to do too much, and that explains why the Cardinals’ numbers are so historically high.

Over nearly a thousand plate appearances, the Cardinals have a team 141 wRC+ with runners in scoring position. They’ve generated a hit in every third at-bat, and they’ve slugged .468. At this writing, Evan Longoria has a 141 wRC+. The Cardinals, with runners in scoring position, have hit as well as Evan Longoria, as a team. That’s going to get noticed, because it’s amazing. We’re almost into August.

But all the talk about the Cardinals’ hitting with runners in scoring position ignores something important: the Cardinals’ hitting with the bases empty. Over more than two thousand plate appearances, the Cardinals have a team 89 wRC+ with nobody on. At this writing, John Buck has an 89 wRC+. The Cardinals, with the bases empty, have hit as well as John Buck, as a team. That hasn’t been noticed so much, because it isn’t sexy, but there’s significance in here.

Believe if you want that the Cardinals are capable of amazing things with the pressure on, but how do you explain the performance under a little less pressure? Those are still mostly important plate appearances, and, where are the results? If the pressure results are a consequence of a solid approach, why has that approach failed the team in other situations? Or, why hasn’t that approach been adopted in other situations? If the Cardinals deserve praise for their clutch performance, they deserve also criticism for their performance with nobody on. I mean, as long as we’re assigning responsibility.

The split is too wide. It will regress. At the very least, any reasonable person would expect it to regress, and if it doesn’t, that’s just because the season stops at 162 games. This is the simple, easy point. The Cardinals aren’t that good, or that bad. They deserve some credit for what they’ve already done, just like Mike Cameron deserves credit for having homered four times in one game, but Cameron never did that again. Cameron didn’t make that a habit.

Here’s easy evidence. A year ago, the Cardinals had a very similar baseball team. Similar team, same manager. With nobody on base, the Cardinals posted a .326 wOBA and a 106 wRC+. With runners in scoring position, they posted a .328 wOBA and a 106 wRC+. Whatever they’re supposedly capable of now, they weren’t capable of last season, with mostly the same roster. Again, it’s really easy to say the Cardinals are going to regress to something more normal.

Might there be some meaningful differences in how plate appearances have been distributed? Well, for one thing, this year almost all of the Cardinals’ hitters have been good. But, David Freese and Jon Jay have gotten 16% of plate appearances with no one on, and 22% of plate appearances with runners in scoring position. Matt Carpenter and Carlos Beltran have gotten 25% of plate appearances with no one on, and 17% of plate appearances with runners in scoring position. No solutions can be found here. This isn’t a distribution thing — this is just a weird thing.

By OPS, there’s a 125-point difference between the Cardinals’ scoring-position performance and their overall performance. No team has posted a bigger gap since 1969, with the 1981 Brewers showing up at 124. Just six teams have come in at greater than 100, with the Cardinals leading the way. With more than two months left to go, the Cardinals are on a historic pace. That much probably isn’t surprising.

Something I’ve more recently become interested in, as far as the Cardinals are concerned, is how regression might look. The Cardinals can be expected to hit worse with runners in scoring position. But they can also be expected to hit better with nobody on, and there are more of those plate appearances. And more success with nobody on leads to more scoring-position opportunities. To what extent might these dual regressions cancel out? What’s the effect on run scoring of more timely hitting? What’s the effect on run scoring of less timely hitting?

The core of the research:

runsgamewoba.png


That’s runs per game, plotted against wOBA, on the individual-team level since 1969. The relationship is obviously strong, deliberately strong, and it allows us to play around. For example, the Cardinals this year have a .328 wOBA and are averaging 4.97 runs per game. As a group, the 26 teams with .328 wOBAs have averaged 4.58 runs per game. Those teams have also averaged very slightly negative base-running scores, while this year’s Cardinals are a few runs worse.

That equation up there on the graph allows us to calculate an “expected runs per game.” Do so and 73% of teams fall within +/- 0.20. I decided first to look at the 20 teams from the sample with the most lopsided performances in terms of hitting with runners in scoring position. These 20 teams averaged an .813 OPS with runners in scoring position, and a .719 OPS overall. They also averaged 4.48 runs per game, against an expected average of 4.37. By base-running, they averaged -1.4 runs.

Then I looked at the opposite 20 teams — those teams with the worst relative performances with runners in scoring position. These 20 teams averaged a .676 OPS with runners in scoring position, and a .731 OPS overall. They also averaged 4.29 runs per game, against an expected average of 4.50. By base-running, they averaged -0.8 runs.

By that evidence, hitting poorly with nobody on doesn’t cancel out hitting well with runners in scoring position, even though there are far more plate appearances in the former sample. And hitting well with nobody on doesn’t cancel out hitting poorly with runners in scoring position. It makes good sense, because those scoring-position plate appearances have a higher leverage to them, as there’s more to be gained from each hit. The Cardinals have hit too well with runners in scoring position and too poorly with the bases empty, but as a consequence of this they’ve scored more often than they should be expected to.

Which is kind of reflected by their projected 4.44 runs per game. The Cardinals have averaged more runs per game than any other team in the National League. They’re projected to be behind the Rockies, and though they should still be good, they should score less often, because this split shouldn’t sustain, no matter how long it’s been sustaining. It doesn’t make sense why this would be reality, so absent any compelling reason, we needn’t accept it as reality. We need to accept what’s already happened, but it isn’t completely reflective of the team’s true ability.

Which is all to say: you could’ve guessed this conclusion. It’s nothing particularly surprising. The Cardinals have been too good at producing runs, and going forward they should be less good. They’re still a very good team, and they presently have the lead in their division so they’re sitting in a comfortable spot. It helps that they ought to start performing better with nobody on base. But when there are people on base, on dangerous bases — expect more stranded runners. The Cardinals can only do so much, from here.


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It’s Time To Move The Trade Deadline.

The trade deadline is in eight days. Thus far, we’ve seen the Cubs trade away Scott Feldman, the Cubs trade away Scott Hairston, the Cubs trade away Matt Garza, and most recently, the Cubs getting close to trading away Alfonso Soriano. Okay, sure, the Marlins traded Ricky Nolasco too, but you would not be wrong to suggest that it has seemed for most of July that exactly one team was open for business while everyone else just kind of stood around and looked at each other.

More teams are going to get involved over the next week and a day. The Astros will probably trade Bud Norris. The White Sox will probably trade Jake Peavy, Alex Rios, and perhaps others. The Brewers might deal Yovani Gallardo, maybe. The Marlins might decide to dump relief pitchers and their salaries. But, by and large, this is shaping up to be an absolute snoozer of a trade deadline, and it may very well be time to question whether or not July 31st is the right date going forward.

The deadline has actually bounced around a lot, historically. As noted in this article on SABR.org, the first instance of a trade deadline appeared in the National League in 1917, and in that year, the deadline was August 20th. The AL came on board a few years later, and in 1921, it moved to August 1st, then in 1923, they pushed it way up to June 15th. It shifted back to the current July 31st date in 1986.

But when July 31st was picked as the date, there were 26 teams, four divisions, and no wild cards, so it wasn’t particularly difficult to discern whether or not a playoff run was in the cards by the end of the season’s fourth month. Now, however, there are 30 teams, six divisions, and two wild cards per league, so the percentage of teams that “make the playoffs” has more than doubled from 15% in 1986 to 33% in 2013. And now, with two wild cards in each league, nobody thinks they’re a seller by the end of July anymore.

The Royals, at 45-51, aren’t selling. The Mariners (47-52) aren’t selling either, and that goes for the Phillies (49-50), Rockies (48-52), and Blue Jays (45-53) too. I can understand why the Giants, coming off a World Series title, aren’t selling even at 45-53, and it’s probably too tough for preseason darlings like the Nationals (48-51) and Angels (46-50) to give up on what they thought were very good teams heading into the season. But, still, that’s a bunch of teams going nowhere hanging on to their veterans.

With the second wild card offering lower hanging fruit, even mediocre teams are deciding that they’d rather keep their teams together than punt a season too early. After all, the Phillies are only seven games back of both the Braves and Reds, giving them twice as many chances to believe that a team in front of them might fall apart. The NL West is lousy, so even the struggling Rockies and Giants are still less than a half dozen games out of that race. Under this playoff system, you have to be downright awful in the first half — or have a front office completely committed to a rebuild — in order to talk yourself into selling at the end of July.

So, why not do everyone a favor and move the deadline back a couple of weeks, or maybe even a full month? After all, if the entire point of having a trade deadline is to prevent teams from using their resources to buy a bunch of hired guns late in the season, then our current pair of deadlines fails that simple test anyway; just look at the Dodgers mega trade with the Red Sox from last August. Did anyone think that trade — completed on August 25th — corrupted the purity of the NL West race? Would we really be unhappy if teams could acquire rent-a-veterans in mid-August instead of at the end of July?

From my perspective, pushing the trade back a few weeks would be a win for everyone.

The Contenders: By allowing teams a few more weeks to evaluate their playoff odds, more teams would eventually come to the conclusion that they should sell, creating a larger pool of talent from which to pick. Unpredictable injuries that occur after August 1st could be accounted for, so a team wouldn’t have to go into the playoffs at a disadvantage simply because a key player had the nerve to get injured in the season’s fifth month.

The Sellers: Moving the deadline back a few weeks would create a larger advantage for teams that were committed to selling early — the teams that probably need prospects the most — and would give bubble teams more information in their buy-sell-or-hold decision process. By not waving a white flag in July, teams that should be building for the future could hold on to veterans a bit longer, putting a better product on the field for the close of the season and providing a more entertaining brand of baseball without sacrificing future value.

The Players: More players traded means fewer qualifying offers for veteran free agents, and more players ending up with legitimate contenders rather than than playing out the string for a team that thought they were going to be in it in July. Reallocating quality players from non-contenders to playoff clubs means a larger share of playoff revenues would go to veterans, rather than young players that teams called up when they couldn’t find anyone to trade for.

The Fans: MLB Trade Rumors is a traffic monster for a reason: fans love trades. They love thinking up trades, talking about trades, and reading about trade reactions. Our traffic goes way up at the end of July and during the winter meetings, and I’m sure it’s not just a FanGraphs specific bump. People love trades. Maybe there are diminishing returns to having too many trades, but I’m pretty sure we’re not anywhere near that point yet.

The July 31st deadline isn’t some time honored tradition that we can’t mess with. It’s an arbitrary point selected from a time when there were four playoff teams per year; now there are 10. What’s the point of having a bunch of teams paralyzed by indecision because a .500 record no longer means that you’re out of the race at this time of year?

Teams are already making trades in August anyway. Let’s just do away with the distinction between the waiver and non-waiver deadlines and have a unified trade deadline of August 15th, or even August 31st if you really don’t care about a team’s playoff roster looking like their Opening Day roster. After all, with the Luxury Tax as a spending deterrent, there are other tools in place that are serving the supposed function of the trade deadline.

I think I could make a stronger case that we don’t need a trade deadline at all than that it should remain July 31st, given the current playoff system. I’m still a fan of the second wild card, but a boring trade deadline seems like an unintended consequence rather than an actual goal being accomplished. Moving the deadline back to August could eliminate that consequence and give everyone a more interesting, and more effective, trade season.


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Cubs Strengthen Organizational Depth with Garza Deal.

The Matt Garza sweepstakes finally ended on Monday, with the Texas Rangers emerging victorious in their long pursuit of the Chicago Cubs veteran hurler. In return for the 29-year-old right-hander, Chicago obtained three young players — third baseman Mike Olt, as well as pitchers Justin Grimm and C.J. Edwards — and one or two players to be named later (depending on who the first PTBNL is).

The return for Garza — a free agent at the end of the season — is solid, although there is no sure-fire A-Grade prospect in the haul. The top player is Olt, whose value is down in 2013 thanks to massive strikeout rates in Triple-A and vision problems that could be related to a concussion he suffered in 2012. Prior to the 2013 season, though, his value was at an all-time high. I ranked him as the second best prospect in the Rangers system behind fellow infielder Jurickson Profar, and 47th overall on the Top 100 prospects list — the third highest ranked third base prospect behind Minnesota’s Miguel Sano and Washington’s Anthony Rendon (who is currently playing second base).

Olt just missed the recent mid-2013 Top 50 prospects list based on his recent struggles and the questions that have haunted him since last year when I suggested he was being overrated after slugging 28 home runs in Double-A. Even before the injury he appeared to be a future low-average hitter whose main strengths would be his power and above average glove at the hot corner. In other words, he’s not a complete player, or a five-tool talent.

Olt wasn’t a great fit in the Rangers’ system because he was blocked by perennial gold glove winner Adrian Beltre and the organization considered moving him to right field or first base where his defensive skills would mostly go to waste. The Cubs system will certainly welcome him with open arms, despite the presence of multiple young infielders. Former first rounder Josh Vitters is more or less a bust although he’s still young at 23, and current third baseman Luis Valbuena, 27, has had an inconsistent season and career. Another former Rangers prospect, Christian Villanueva, is currently playing at Double-A.

The biggest threats to Olt’s future may be current shortstop Javier Baez, who may eventual outgrow his current position, and 2013 first rounder Kris Bryant, a fellow third baseman. Olt, though, has a decent head start on both players. The Puerto Rico native still has a lot of work to do on refining his aggressive (but powerful) approach at the plate. Bryant, who possesses even better raw power than Olt or Baez, is ] about a year away from being Major League ready and could shift to the outfield to eventually replace veteran Alfonso Soriano, whose massive eight-year contract comes to an end after the 2014 season.

Grimm, 24, has spent the majority of the season in the Rangers’ starting rotation during his rookie campaign. I ranked the right-hander ninth on the Rangers’ pre-season Top 15 prospects list and noted his potential to develop into a No. 3 or 4 starter. The ceiling remains despite posting a 6.37 ERA (4.25 xFIP) and allowing 116 hits in 89 innings of work. Despite his struggles, the prospect is expected to learn from his mistakes. As one prospect evaluator stated to me in the off-season, Grimm “continues to always look at ways to improve and get better.”

The third known prospect in the deal is Edwards, who narrowly missed the Top 15 list and would have landed 19th had the ranking been expanded to include 20 prospects. A great find by the Rangers scouting department, the right-hander was selected in the 48th round of the 2011 amateur draft. His 2013 numbers have been eye popping with 122 strikeouts and a large number of ground-ball outs in 93.1 innings. The concern with Edwards, though, is that he has a slender frame despite standing 6-foot-2 and his lack of projection on his changeup hints at a future bullpen role. He could develop into a high-leverage reliever thanks to his mid-to-low-90s fastball and above-average breaking ball. Despite the questions, I would probably rate him among the Cubs’ Top 10 prospects.

The players to be named later are expected to be chosen from a group of pitchers. Had I been building the deal with Texas, I would have coveted two infielders in Luis Sardinas or Rougned Odor. With that said, the Cubs front office did a nice job of addressing organizational need while shedding half a season of a solid veteran pitcher during a rebuilding year. While this trade may not return any stars, it’s a nice collection of valuable pieces for a player the Cubs weren’t going to keep.


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After Braun Suspension, Many Questions Still Unanswered.

Major League Baseball suspended Ryan Braun for the remainder of the season on Monday for “violations of the Basic Agreement and its Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program,” according to a press release the league issued. The release also included a statement from Braun in which he admitted that he had “made some mistakes” and was “willing to accept the consequences of those actions.” The suspension for the remainder of the season amounts to a 65-game punishment.

A press release with statements from both MLB executives and Braun strongly suggests the suspension was the result of negotiations between the two sides. We also have this from Bill Shakin of the Los Angeles Times:

Hearing Braun approached MLB proactively, rather than being presented with a proposed suspension and starting to deal from there.

— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) July 22, 2013


But before any such discussions took place, MLB and Braun likely had tentative game plans. MLB may have been planning to suspend Braun for much longer than 65 games. Braun undoubtedly was planning to appeal any such suspension. Braun gave up his appeal and agreed to serve the suspension immediately, likely in return for shorter suspension period.

That’s what we know or can reasonably infer from the information the league provided. But there are many questions we don’t have answers to; questions that will shape the remainder of the league’s Biogenesis investigation.


1. Was the league planning to suspend Braun for 100 games and if so, on what basis?

As I explained in this post, the Section 7.A. of the Joint Drug Program states:

A player who tests positive for a Performance Enhancing Substance, or otherwise violates the Program through the possession or use of a Performance Enhancing Substance, will be subject to the discipline set forth below. (emphasis mine) 1. First violation: 50-game suspension; 2. Second violation: 100-game suspension; 3. Third violation: Permanent suspension from Major League and Minor League Baseball.

But players’ union chief Michael Weiner said last week that non-analytical positives — those violations arising from evidence other than a failed drug test — fell outside the escalating 50-game, 100-game and lifetime ban in Section 7.A. Weiner suggested that without a failed drug test, players would be punished under the “just cause” provision in the collective bargaining agreement and that suspensions could start as low as five games and go as high as 500.

We don’t know if the MLB planned proceed under Section 7.A. and charge Braun with two separate violations of the Joint Drug Program, adding up to 100 games. Or whether MLB intended to invoke the “just cause” provision and pursue a suspension even longer than 100 games. It’s also possible that MLB invoked the “just cause” provision in addition to Section 7.A., citing Braun’s statements denying use of PEDs in 2011 (when he successfully challenged a failed drug test in 2011) or with his recent refusal to answer questions when the league’s investigators interrogated him.

This uncertainty is unsettling, as it creates the public perception that the league — and to some extent the players’ union — are bypassing the plain language of the Joint Drug Program because of the breadth of the Biogenesis problem. I’ll have more on this point as the situation unfolds.

2. Does Braun’s suspension amount to a “first violation” even though it’s for 65 games?

MLB’s press release doesn’t say whether the suspension counts as a first time violation under Section 7.A., leaving Braun with one more “strike” before a lifetime ban should he test positive for PEDs in the future.

3. What precedent is set based on Braun’s 65-game suspension?

Typically, a negotiated punishment doesn’t set a legal precedent for how the league will handle suspensions for other players. On the other hand, the arbitrator’s decision following an appeal of a suspension establishes a precedent on how the collective bargaining agreement and Joint Drug Program are to be interpreted and applied. Nevertheless, there are things we can glean from Braun’s punishment that will likely affect how MLB moves forward in the Biogenesis matter.

First, if in fact Braun approached MLB to cut a deal, then MLB quite likely has credible evidence that Braun used or possessed PEDs — evidence in the form of documents and testimony from former Biogenesis employees. And that means the league likely has credible evidence of use or possession by other players. Tony Bosch may be an unsavory character with a shady record, but it appears he provided original Biogenesis documents, explained what they meant and vouched for their authenticity. Yes, he will be subject to vigorous cross-examination if any player appeals a suspension, but Braun’s attorneys (and the players’ union) obviously believed the documents carried enough weight to make a longer suspension stick.

Second, Braun’s 65-game suspension will be used by all sides in future negotiations. Players against whom the league has less weighty evidence — and who are willing to accept responsibility, forgoe an appeal and serve their suspension immediately — will be in a position to negotiate for a shorter suspension. Players with stronger, deeper or longer ties to Biogenesis — and those unwilling to accept responsibility — will be looking at longer suspensions.

We now know what will happen to Ryan Braun as a result of the Biogenesis investigation. But there is much more that we don’t know. Those answers will come in time, raising new questions, beginning the cycle anew.


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Ryan Braun Suspended For Rest of Season.

Well, the first shoe in the BioGenesis case has fallen. Faced with the possibility of having the issue continue to linger into 2014, Ryan Braun has agreed to a deal with MLB, and will be suspended for the rest of the 2013 season, which in the Brewers case, amounts to 65 games.

While Braun’s not going to enjoy being suspended, this is actually a pretty good resolution for the Brewers overall. Their 2013 season is obviously finished, and the marginal value of Braun’s contributions this year weren’t really going to matter to the organization. Without him in the line-up, they might even end up with a better draft pick than they would have otherwise in a year where the amateur talent is supposed to be pretty good.

More importantly, this should close the book on the BioGenesis case as far as Braun is concerned, which means that his 2014 status should no longer be in doubt. Braun basically is agreeing to serve a 65 game suspension in a season where those games are meaningless in order to avoid getting suspended in a year where any missed games might impact a pennant race.

For Braun’s own personal legacy and record, this is a blow, but for the Brewers, it’s hard to imagine a better outcome, given that MLB clearly wasn’t going to let this go. Yeah, it’s 65 games, but this is the equivalent of getting pinch hit for in a blow-out. The 2013 Brewers weren’t going anywhere with Ryan Braun, and so now, they put this behind them next spring and try to win with their best player able to spend the whole season on the active roster.

It will be interesting to see how many other players on non-contenders agree to similar deals, putting the appeals process aside and just agreeing to serve their suspensions in lost seasons. If I’m a non-contender and I’ve got a player linked to BioGenesis, I’m strongly urging them to do the same.


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What Getting Matt Garza Could Tell Us About the Rangers.

UPDATE: Matt Garza has officially been traded from the Cubs to the Rangers, reportedly in exchange for Mike Olt, C.J. Edwards, Justin Grimm, and a player to be named later. This post was originally published on Friday, July 19.

Matt Garza hasn’t been traded, yet, so Matt Garza hasn’t been traded to the Rangers, yet. In fact, a report circulated late Thursday night that the Rangers were examining their other options, backing away from the Garza pursuit. The price, they say, is a high one. But, Friday’s reports have made a Cubs/Rangers trade appear imminent, and as a matter of fact one could go down while I’m in the process of writing this post. That would be annoying for me but delightful for you. It’s a virtual certainty that the Cubs will deal Garza very soon, and the Rangers seem like far and away the most likely destination.

Joe Davidson says the Rangers and Cubs are reviewing the various medicals. If true, that implies this is at the later stages, and what’s unknown is what the Rangers would be giving up. It stands to reason Mike Olt would probably be involved, along with others, but I’ll leave prospect coverage to prospect coverers. Most important, here, is Garza — the free-agent-to-be — going to Texas, and what such a transaction might tell us about the way the Rangers view themselves.


Little details first: the Rangers are two games back of the A’s in the American League West, and they and the Rays are the current wild-card leaders. The Orioles are nipping at their heels, and then the Yankees and Indians are nipping at the Orioles’ heels. Garza is in line to be a free agent in a few months, and because he’d be going away in a midseason trade, he’d be ineligible to receive a qualifying offer, so there would be no free-agent compensation. Garza isn’t from Texas, but any team that lands a pending free agent has the benefit of getting an exclusive negotiating window, which isn’t without value. The Rangers could have the inside track on signing Garza to an extension, if that’s something they wanted to do.

So, the Rangers like Garza because the Rangers want to upgrade their starting rotation. Why might that be? Here are Rangers starting pitchers currently on the disabled list:

•Yu Darvish
•Matt Harrison
•Colby Lewis
•Alexi Ogando
•Nick Tepesch
The Darvish injury isn’t a major one, and he’ll be back real soon. He’s expected to start Monday. Ogando is expected to start Tuesday. Lewis is in the minors on a rehab assignment. Harrison is throwing bullpens. Tepesch is trying to get over some elbow inflammation. It’s a small miracle the Rangers are where they are in the standings, given all the injuries they’ve faced, and the rotation hasn’t been what it was expected to be behind Darvish and Derek Holland.

But, Ogando is supposedly just about ready to resume pitching in the bigs. Lewis is supposed to be just a few weeks away. Harrison is supposed to be just a few more weeks away. That would give the Rangers five starters — five talented starters — for some of the season and all of the playoffs, and that would suggest they don’t truly have a great need for Garza’s services. On talent alone, Garza wouldn’t be a big upgrade over any of those five. He’s not as good as his little ERA.

So if the Rangers are this committed to adding a starter, it follows that the Rangers probably have some doubts about how their arms are going to return and perform. Ogando’s coming off shoulder discomfort, and his velocity is down from where it was when he was a starter before. Lewis is coming off elbow surgery, and he’s already experienced one setback. Harrison is recovering from back surgery, and he’s not even yet involved in game action. Maybe one or two of these guys will return at or around 100 percent, but to count on all three? There are too many questions, and the Rangers can’t count on what they have in house.

Of course, there are others. Tepesch has shown promise, but an elbow injury is an elbow injury. Justin Grimm was demoted to the bullpen. Martin Perez is back from injury and pitching, but his results still aren’t close to matching the perception of his talent. Josh Lindblom has five starts. Ross Wolf has two. The Rangers have leaned on pitching depth and survived, but Garza would be a guy both good and healthy, which is a top priority as teams face the home stretch.

Between now and the end of the season, maybe Garza would get 14 starts with the Rangers, if they got him right away. That’s not a lot, and realistically, maybe he’d be a one-win upgrade. Maybe a little more than that. Then Garza would figure to slot into the playoff rotation, if the Rangers qualified, somewhere behind Darvish and Holland depending on the progress of the other arms. Then Garza would face the prospect of free agency. Put that way, he doesn’t seem like a player worthy of fetching a high price. Garza’s a non-elite starting pitcher. He’s not Cliff Lee. He might not even be the best starter available, depending on Jake Peavy. But to understand the reasoning, you have to understand the Rangers’ current position.

Matt Garza wouldn’t change the look of the whole team, but he’d be a probable upgrade at a point where that upgrade might be the difference between making the playoffs and missing them. Or, between winning the division and qualifying for the one-game wild-card playoff. Looking at the projected standings page, both the Rangers and A’s are projected to finish at 90-72. The Rays are at 91-71, and then the Yankees, Orioles, and Indians are projected to finish within striking distance. You can basically think of this as being a high-leverage situation, where pluses and minuses are magnified. There’s real, meaningful incentive for the Rangers to upgrade as much as they can, even if the actual upgrades aren’t so substantial. It was the Rangers, after all, who came apart down the stretch a season ago and lost to the Orioles at home in the one-game playoff. That’s fresh in the organizational memory, and the Rangers would like to not do that again.

So a team like Texas is looking to make a short-term improvement. The whole point is trying to make the playoffs, and just winning the wild card isn’t quite enough anymore. A team like Chicago is looking to make longer-term improvements, and that’s why there’s a fit. That’s why this is probably happening. A year ago, a few months before free agency, Zack Greinke brought the Brewers Ariel Pena, Johnny Hellweg, and Jean Segura. Only Segura was a top-100 prospect, and Garza isn’t better than Greinke was, but the Brewers of course are thrilled with their current shortstop and maybe Mike Olt would become that kind of value. This is a trade that could benefit the Cubs without tearing down the Rangers’ system.

For what it’s worth, it’s not like Garza doesn’t have his own question marks. He’s recently had some elbow problems, and in 2011, his strikeout rate was 31% above the NL league average. So far this year, it’s 13% above the average, and Garza’s allowed his highest rate of contact since 2010. He’s throwing more fastballs than he has as a Cub, and he’s allowing more fly balls than he has as a Cub, and Garza would suffer a little bit going from NL Chicago to AL Texas. As much as Garza carries around some name value, he’s not a top-of-the-line starter. He’s a starter who gets talked about a lot, and who throws hard. The magnitude of his actual impact would probably be smaller than the magnitude of the perception of his impact.

But Garza’s good, and he’s available, and the Rangers have the pieces, and the Rangers have a use. Maybe Texas, too, would be interested in trying to sign him to a long-term extension. Last offseason, a 29-year-old Edwin Jackson got four years and $52 million. A 29-year-old Anibal Sanchez got five years and $80 million. Garza will be 30, and he could be looking for Sanchez-type money. The recency of his injuries might drive down the average annual salary or reduce the length of the guaranteed commitment, but Garza would probably want four or five years, and $14 – 16 million each. The Rangers know that, because I guessed that in five minutes and the Rangers are a lot smarter than me.

The Rangers have five talented starters, but three of them have legitimate injury question marks, and the Rangers aren’t in a position where they can deal with that much uncertainty. Garza could make them a little more stable and a little more good. And though his actual addition wouldn’t make the Rangers substantially better, it could make them better enough. A small upgrade is only a small upgrade until it makes all the difference in the world. The Rangers probably understand that better than most.


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Zack Greinke’s Babe Ruth Season.

On Saturday in DC, there was a showdown between the Dodgers and the Nationals, as two teams with high expectations looked to kick-start strong second halves. The Dodgers won 3-1, but that’s not important, for this. The matchup on the mound was Zack Greinke vs. Gio Gonzalez. In the top of the third, Greinke batted and led off with a first-pitch double to deep center. Mark Ellis, Yasiel Puig, and Adrian Gonzalez would leave him stranded. In the top of the fifth, Greinke batted again and drilled a second-pitch single up the middle. Around him, Tim Federowicz, Ellis, and Puig struck out swinging. That night, Hanley Ramirez led the Dodgers with three hits, and Greinke was alone in second with two.

By now you might’ve heard something about this. After reading that first paragraph, you’ve certainly heard something about this. Zack Greinke has been having a hell of a year at the plate. Obviously with pitchers batting the samples are always tiny, but that generally doesn’t stop pitchers from posting miserable offensive statistics. Greinke, at this writing, is batting .406. No other pitcher in baseball is batting at least .400. No other pitcher in baseball is batting at least .300. No other pitcher in baseball has a wRC+ in the triple digits.


The highest wOBA of all time was posted by Babe Ruth in 1920. That year, his wOBA was 250 points higher than the league average. So far this year, Zack Greinke’s wOBA is 267 points higher than the league average, for National League pitchers. That’s how Greinke’s offense has already been worth 0.9 wins above replacement, while his pitching comes in at 1.1. Astros position players have been worth -0.6 WAR. Marlins position players have been worth 0.7. Zack Greinke, as a position player, has been more valuable than the Astros, and the Marlins, and the Astros and Marlins combined. Greinke stands some chance of being a contributing pitcher to end a year with a higher offensive WAR than pitching WAR. It’s not unprecedented, and for Greinke it probably won’t happen, but these are extraordinary circumstances.

If you’re wondering, the highest offensive WAR for a pitcher in the designated hitter era is 1.4, posted by 2008 Carlos Zambrano. At the other end, three pitchers have been worth -1.0 WAR in the same era, including 2005 Aaron Harang, who had two hits in 78 plate appearances. Most of the time, no one really cares about a pitcher’s offensive performance, but at the extremes it can really add or subtract value, and this year while Greinke has somewhat underachieved on the mound, he’s legitimately made up for it with the bat. Maybe the latter won’t continue, but maybe the former won’t continue.

It’s interesting to examine Greinke’s statistics. A third of his balls in play have been line drives. He’s taken 55 swings, and missed just five times. That’s good enough to rank Greinke second in contact rate among regular pitchers, behind only Barry Zito. And let’s compare and contrast some Greinke swings with a Zito swing:

Greinke2B.gif.opt_.gif


Greinke1B.gif.opt_.gif


ZitoGB.gif.opt_.gif


Greinke isn’t afraid to take a real swing, to try to do real damage. Zito’s whole approach is that he just wants to be able to touch the baseball with the bat, and he swings gently so as to simply make the defense make a play. For Zito, the goal is making contact. For Greinke, the goal is reaching base, and he happens to make contact along the way.

And as much as Greinke seldom reveals much in the way of emotion, he appears to delight in his offensive success:

greinkesmile.png


Equally as interesting as Greinke’s success is tracking Greinke’s improvement. He started getting regular at-bats when he joined the Brewers in 2011. Below, a data table of certain significance:

Season Team PA BB% K% O-Swing% Contact% wRC+ 1st-Swing%
2011 Brewers 59 5% 15% 36% 81% 5 64%
2012 Brewers 38 0% 21% 40% 84% 51 42%
2013 Dodgers 39 10% 8% 22% 91% 179 36%

Greinke has been swinging at way fewer first pitches, and he’s been making more frequent contact. He’s chased less often out of the zone while not changing his rate of swings within the zone. From 2012-2013, only three players have had a bigger drop in strikeout rate. Only three players have had a bigger drop in out-of-zone swing rate. Only 16 players have had a bigger increase in contact rate. This is, of course, all based on setting embarrassingly low plate-appearance minimums, but if we’re going to talk about pitchers hitting we have to make some analytical sacrifices. Or we’d just write “he’s done well and it won’t keep up because he’s a pitcher and they all suck.” That would presumably apply to Greinke, but that’s also no fun. We’ll work with what we can work with.

You might notice that Greinke has four walks and three strikeouts. That’s more walks than strikeouts, and that doesn’t even include the hit-by-pitch. During the DH era, counting all pitcher seasons with at least 20 plate appearances, only three times has a pitcher ended with more walks than strikeouts. In 2007, Tom Glavine had one more. In 1986, Ricky Horton had two more. In 1977, John Urrea had three more. I guess here is where I’ll point out that Greinke also has a stolen base.

A quote from an article from February 2011:

“Zack was definitely excited about hitting,” Wolf said. “I gave him a hard time right away. I said, ‘Hey man, this pitching staff can hit. We have a lot of hits and a high batting average, and I don’t want you bringing us down.’ He said he likes to hit homers.”

From a few months ago:

This is also not to say that Greinke hasn’t been doing tee work or taking soft-toss BP in the newly remodeled indoor batting cage, which I absolutely believe that he has – and probably for quite some time now; after all, as Greinke’s former manager Mike Scioscia once said “Zack likes to hit.”

Greinke was a free agent last winter, and there was talk that his fondness for hitting could steer him to the National League. Sure enough, he wound up in the NL, and though his reasons for doing so were numerous, that he gets to hit is most certainly enjoyable. A lot of fans might not care for watching pitchers bat, but a lot of pitchers have the times of their lives, and Greinke doesn’t treat it like it’s something he just has to do. He treats it like something he wants to do and wants to do well, and to date he’s blown away his positional competition. He’s blown away a lot of position-player competition.

Interestingly, this year on the mound, only Jonathon Niese has struck out a lower rate of opposing pitchers. Niese has struck out six of 29. Greinke has struck out six of 28. If Zack Greinke is involved in a pitcher plate appearance, it’s probably going to be unusual.

On July 8 against the Diamondbacks, Greinke went 3-for-3 with a successful sacrifice bunt. Two days later, he was used as a pinch-hitter in a high-leverage situation. Facing Josh Collmenter, he worked an eight-pitch walk. Greinke, again, was left stranded.


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Sooo, Pujols and Hamilton contracts aren't unmovable right about now?

We would have wanted to move Soriano 3-4 years ago, but couldn't. Now we can. Eating 25 million >>>>> eating 85 million. :lol:


Bottom line is Theo is rebuilding us with a much stronger foundation that our previous GM's. Period.
Doesn't guarantee success, I perfectly understand that, but he's at least attempting to fix the franchise correctly, all the way down to Single A if he has to.

Has nothing to do with optimism or whatever the hell Born and DMX are talkin about.

And the Pirates are finally in the mix after 21 years, not sure putting > in front of any team is all that big a deal. *shrugs*

1) The Angels are not looking to move either at the moment, however if they eat 80-85% of the contract like the Cubs are doing, would that make them moveable? I would say yes.

2) I agreed with you when you said money doesn't matter, because it doesn't, not in MLB. You lost me at payroll flexibility, if money doesn't matter, why is payroll flexibility even mentioned.

Cubs are on the hook for about $55-57 million next year with only 8-9 players under contract (*not counting arb eligible), they are going to need a lot of help. The foundation is being built, but if single A is your ticket, then it's going to be a long road to success. Theo's Red Sox weren't built the way he is trying to build the Cubs.
 
Look I am not going to go on and on with this.

I believe what I believe, and it's based on research.

All I know is that If steroids are as effective as you think they are the question still remain.

1. Why has offensive production remained consistent with historical trends.
2. Why aren't player numbers more volatile than normal.



THE FACT REMAINS: There is no evidence of any enhanced player performance to be found in the STATISTICS of the game.

Period.

If steroids are effective for hitting a baseball, they are invisible to the measurements that we have available to us.

Unless someone can actually show me proof, I'm not going to buy steroid hype just because they work in other sports.

So we can safely assume the Home Run numbers of certain players that period are chalked up to juiced balls and other ball park factors is what you are saying.

You can use your broad MLB graphs and numbers for the league as a whole but I would like to hear your reasoning on specific individuals' stat spikes.

More specifically, what you are implying is PED use had minimal affect from an aged 35-41 Barry Bonds. That entire process he went through with Balco and his doping regimen had minimal affect on his numbers and career arc.

Because if you say "well for Bonds, yeah it's obvious" then your entire argument about this is moot.
 
Sox weren't in as bad of shape as we were.

Again, 80-85 of those deals is how much man? :lol:
Pujols is no longer STL Pujols, they owe, what, 180 mil? They may have to carry that for how long????? That's fairly unmovable.

I see what you're asking with money no object, but flexibility. My point was I don't care paying Sori 15 months of salary vs 4 years worth. That's more my point. Then we can use his spot to eval prospects, ala Lake even when DeJesus gets back. Or maybe another prospect + Lake in the OF. Then add whatever piece we get for Sori.

At some point, all the kids come up. Who sticks, sticks. Who fail, we spend to fill in the blanks.
 
Stan Musial Hit The Heck Out Of Some Triples.

Hitting triples is pretty hard. At the height of triple-icity, they only comprised six percent of all the hits in the majors in any given season, and that was back in the first Dead Ball era. Today that figure hovers around two percent. Back in Stan Musial’s day it wasn’t a great deal higher — 3.3 percent during the seasons of his career (1941-1963, with 1945 excepted). And yet, Musial, a power hitter, hit the heck out of some triples.

As I mentioned, hitting triples is no small feat. One of the reasons they are mentioned as one of — if not the most — exciting play in baseball is because they rarely happen. Only 110 players have ever crossed the 100 triple plateau, and 74 of them played the entirety of their career before the color barrier was broken. Just three of those players — Carl Crawford, Jose Reyes and Jimmy Rollins — are active. And there’s a decent chance that we won’t see anyone cross that threshold any time soon. None of the next 10 players on the active triples leaderboard are under the age of 30. Next up is Dexter Fowler, who has compiled 53 triples by his age-27 season. But Fowler has only tripled three times this season, a sharp drop from the 10-plus triples he had accrued during each of the past four seasons.

Looking at the 110 players who have totaled 100 or more triples, we can see just how rare of a bird Musial really was. Musial was merely an average baserunner in his time. His 4.4 speed score was slightly above average for his time period, and would be exactly average today. Among those with 100 triples though, he was decidedly below average. If you consider a 5.5 Spd to be above average, as it is listed in the FanGraphs’ glossary, then 84 of the 110 players with at least 100 triples posted an above-average speed score. As a group, they averaged a 6.2 Spd. There were just 10 players in the group with a Spd lower than 5.0:




Player Spd 3B From To
Joe Cronin 4.9 118 1926 1945
Joe Medwick 4.8 113 1932 1948
Mickey Vernon 4.8 120 1939 1960
Sam West 4.7 101 1927 1942
Luke Appling 4.7 102 1930 1950
Pete Rose 4.7 135 1963 1986
Doc Cramer 4.4 109 1929 1948
Stan Musial 4.4 177 1941 1963
Nellie Fox 4.3 112 1947 1965
Charlie Grimm 4.1 108 1916 1936

One thing sticks out right away — with the exception of Rose, these guys all played a very long time ago. Back then, ballpark dimensions were a little more girthy, and one might surmise that it would have been easier for a non-elite runner to wallop triples with aplomb. And in fact, the dimensions of Sportsman’s Park/Busch Stadium I were fairly liberal. For Musial’s career (or most of it, anyway), the dimensions were as follows:

Left field: 351.1’
Left-center: 379’
Deepest corner just left of dead center: 426’
Center field: 422’
Deepest corner just right of dead center: 422’
Right-center: 354’
Right field: 309.5’

Not outrageous, but that left-center field certainly sounds Death Valley-ish on paper, and center was deeper than many parks are today. We don’t have detailed park factors for that era, but the Cardinals’ basic park factor never dipped below 100 during Musial’s time there. Sometimes, particularly towards the end of his career, it was one of the best offensive ballparks in the game. Sometimes it was merely neutral. But it was never a bad offensive ballpark. And with a wall that was 11-feet high all the way around, perhaps it was pretty conducive to triples. Except that as a left-handed hitter, Musial was perhaps not as well suited to take advantage of its dimensions as were other hitters.

Looking at Musial’s splits, we find that they were essentially even — he hit 90 triples at home and 87 on the road. He hit a larger percentage of doubles and homers at home, and singles on the road, but his triples broke right down the middle. It’s safe to say that in terms of triples at least, he didn’t derive any sort of special benefit from his home ballpark.

Going back to our triples list though, we can see that Musial was a pretty decent baserunner despite his lack of speed. We know that wSB numbers before the 1950’s are a little touch and go, so you have to take them with a grain of salt, but compared to his brethren in the ‘40’s, he was pretty good — his 6.6 wSB ranked 27th out of 304 qualified players. It was during this time that Musial hit most of his triples:

1940-1944, 1946-1949: 108 triples
1950-1963: 69 triples

In the ‘40’s, Musial tallied seven straight double-digit triples seasons, including two 20-triple campaigns. For the decade, he led baseball by a wide margin. His teammate, Enos Slaughter placed second with 84 triples. This once again gives rise to the notion that maybe the Cards’ home park was a big helper, but Musial hit more than half of them on the road — 50 at home, 58 on the road. He led the majors in individual seasons three times as well, and tied to lead the National League on two other occasions, though one of those times was in 1951. Nevertheless, he did most of his damage as a younger man. That was true of his career in general — it’s not like he started trading triples for doubles or homers — his production dropped off pretty sharply in his last five years. He managed to turn in one final .300/.400/.500 season in his age-41 season, but in those last five years he hit .283/.369/.466 — good, but nowhere near the legendary numbers he had posted earlier in his career.

Legendary is assuredly what Musial was in not only the game of baseball but also in life. He was one of the game’s premier sluggers, and that is why it is a bit surprising to find that he ranks in the top 20 in triples all-time. In fact, he is one of only five players in the 400 homer/100 triple club that I just made up:




Player HR 3B From To
Stan Musial 475 177 1941 1963
Lou Gehrig 493 163 1923 1939
Willie Mays 660 140 1951 1973
Babe Ruth 714 136 1914 1935
Jimmie Foxx 534 125 1925 1945

It strikes me as pretty incredible that Musial hit more triples in his career than did Mays. Mays was a much faster player and better baserunner in general — he stole more than four times as many bases as did Musial — yet in a relatively equal number of plate appearances (12,493 for Mays, 12,717 for Musial) Musial hit 37 more triples. In fact, Musial was a historical outlier in this respect as well. For his career, he hit 99 more triples than he stole bases, which is second all-time to one Joe DiMaggio, who we find in this homers/triples group if we lower the threshold to 300 homers:




Player HR 3B From To
Stan Musial 475 177 1941 1963
Rogers Hornsby 301 169 1915 1937
Lou Gehrig 493 163 1923 1939
Al Simmons 307 149 1924 1944
Willie Mays 660 140 1951 1973
George Brett 317 137 1973 1993
Babe Ruth 714 136 1914 1935
Joe DiMaggio 361 131 1936 1951
Jimmie Foxx 534 125 1925 1945
Steve Finley 304 124 1989 2007

The group doubles, but it is still select. And Musial still has the most triples in the group. Also, if you prefer a rate statistic, Musial was one of just 11 players to have a career .200 ISO or better as well as 100 or more career triples:




Player ISO 3B From To
Stan Musial 0.224 177 1941 1963
Rogers Hornsby 0.218 169 1915 1937
Lou Gehrig 0.292 163 1923 1939
Al Simmons 0.201 149 1924 1944
Willie Mays 0.256 140 1951 1973
Babe Ruth 0.348 136 1914 1935
Joe DiMaggio 0.254 131 1936 1951
Earl Averill 0.216 128 1929 1941
Jimmie Foxx 0.284 125 1925 1945
Babe Herman 0.207 110 1926 1945
Jeff Heath 0.216 102 1936 1949

It’s essentially the same list. We swap out Brett and Finley for Averill, Heath and Herman. But you know, I figured I’d do it for the sake of completeness. And for the children, of course.

Hitting a baseball isn’t exactly easy, and hitting triples is even harder. But Stan Musial made a career of making difficult things look very simple. I had previously never associated him with being a triples hitter, but he was actually one of the best triples hitters of all-time. He places well on just about every triples leaderboard, and he also was one of a very select group of sluggers to total a lot of triples. He was so prolific that he was even able to sustain the skill somewhat in his later years. His 62 triples from age 30 on are more than four times the number of triples that Albert Pujols has hit in his entire career. Musial was the total package.


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Carlos Delgado at the Top of His Game.

Carlos Delgado‘s official retirement in 2011 sort of slipped under the radar. It was understandable, since it came in April right after the beginning of the season. It was a bit unfortunate, though, because Delgado had an wonderful career. Yesterday at the Rogers Centre, the former Met and Marlin slugger was recognized by the team he was most closely associated with, the Blue Jays, during a ceremony in which he was inducted into the Jays’ “Level of Excellence.”

[It's a tremendous name, isn't it? I can imagine the brainstorming that went into it. Team President: "You need to come up with a name for our version of a Ring of Honor that is a bit different. Something like, 'Level of Excellence,' but, you know, better." {President leaves rooms.} Marketing Person to others: "'Level of Excellence' okay with everyone?" {Others shrug in assent.}]

Delgado was outstanding, but he was no Hall of Famer. He move from catcher to first base early on, and even that position was a stretch, no matter how hard he tried. He was bad on the bases. But the guy could hit. From 1997 to 2004, he was one of the best hitters in the American League. His 148 wRC+ over that span was the equal of Alex Rodriguez and better than Edgar Martinez and Frank Thomas.

Delgado never won the MVP, but he placed second in 2003, when he hit .302/.426/.593 (159 wRC+) with 42 home runs. And that wasn’t even his best year, 2000 (when he finished fourth in the voting) was. Delgado finished his career with 473 home runs, and his career 135 wRC+ is actually better than, for example, George Brett‘s 132. Sure, Brett was a good third baseman as opposed to a bad first baseman, but who is going to say that Brett’s bat wouldn’t have played at first? I assume FanGraphs readers are smart enough to get the point — Delgado was good.

Relevant anecdotes and personal reflections are best left to others. More complete career overviews can be found elsewhere. What I can do here is recall some of Delgado’s biggest hits according to Win Probability Added (WPA).

Biggest Playoff Hit

Delgado only went to the playoffs once, with the 2006 Mets. Delgado actually was courted by the Mets when he was a free agent after 2004, but opted to sign with the Marlins. After the Marlins 2005 spending spree didn’t work out, they (surprise!) had a fire sale and traded Delgado to the Mets. Hey, Florida got Mike Jacobs in that trade, who says they were shafted the fans? So Delgado ended up a Met after all.

Delgado was nearing the end of his career, but at 34, he still had something in the tank when it came time to hit. He powered his way to a .265/.361/.548 (128 wRC+) lie in his first season in New York on the Mets’ way to the divisional title. Although the 2006 Mets are remembered for their failure to reach the World Series, that can hardly be blamed on Delgado. He hit .351/.442/.757 (204 wRC+) with four home runs in just 10 playoff games. During the Mets’ there-game sweep of the Dodgers in the NLDS, he hit .429/.429/1.071. He was even better in the Mets’ 4-3 series loss to the Cardinals in the NLCS: .304/.448/.826 with three home runs and three doubles.

Delgado’s biggest hit of the playoffs came during Game Four on October 15. Although the Mets would end up winning the game 12-5, that was a later-innings occurrence. In the top of the fifth, the game was tied at two. With runners on first and second and none out, Delgado hit a home run that put the Mets up 5-2 (.217 WPA), and that opened the floodgates for the eventual blowout.

Four Home Runs

When a player hits four home runs, one might reasonably assume his team won in a route. But that was not true on September 25, 2003. Delgado was coming to the end of one of the best seasons of his career as the Blue Jays welcomed the then-Devil Rays to Toronto. There was something of a (pathetic) rivalry between Toronto’s also-ran teams and the Tampa Bay’s miserable ones back then. Delgado not only hit four homers, but is, the only player to have ever done so in only four plate appearances. And given how close the game was, none of them were inconsequential “stat padding” homers.

The first was in the bottom of the first, a three-run shot to put the Jays up 3-0. In the fourth inning, Delgado’s solo shot put the Jays up 4-1. By the bottom of the sixth, though, the Jays were down 6-5, but Delgado tied the game up with another solo home run. The Jays fell behind again in the eigth, 8-7, when Delgado tied the game up with his fourth home run of the day, the Jays’ biggest play of the game (.271 WPA), though they went up for good later in the inning to win 10-8. Delgado finished the game with a total WPA of .684.

Delgado’s Biggest Hit

Few would doubt that the four-homer game was Delgado’s biggest single most memorable day. However, in terms of WPA impact, his home run on July 8, 2004 was bigger than all four of those put together. The Mariners were up 4-0 on the Blue Jays and Dave Bush in the second, but by the bottom of the fifth Toronto had rallied back to go up 6-4. The Mariners took the lead 8-6 in the eighth when Randy Winn hit a two-run homer. That was the score in the bottom of the ninth when Seattle sent their closer, Everyday Eddie Guardado, to the mound. With one out, Dave Berg managed a solo home run. The Jays managed to get two more on with two outs for Delgado. You know how this story ends: Delgado hit one into the second deck for .816 WPA and the walk-off win.

2013 Anti-Trade Value: The Five Worst Contracts.

Last week, I went through the 50 best assets in baseball, as rated by overall trade value based on their performance, age, and contract status. Today, we finish up the Trade Value series with the five players farthest from making the list. This is the Anti-Trade Value list; the guys who would be nearly impossible to trade because of their outsized contracts and undersized performances.

The take home notion: Beware the aging slugger.


#5 Prince Fielder (1B)


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Age PA BB% K% AVG OBP SLG wOBA wRC+ Fld BsR WAR
29 434 11.5 % 17.3 % .269 .362 .453 .354 122 -6.6 -2.5 0.9

Under Team Control Through 2020: $24M per year

Maybe it’s just a slump. Good players have mediocre stretches, and even in Fielder’s down season, he’s still posting a 122 wRC+. Perhaps he finishes strong and provides a few more elite offensive seasons for the Tigers.

That’s a lot of ifs and maybes for $168 million over the next seven years. Fielder wasn’t highly prized by many teams as a free agent because of the costs associated with a supersized DH-in-the-making and the historically poor aging curves of position players carrying that much weight. The first year of his deal turned out just fine for Detroit, but if 2013 is the start of a trend, this deal could get ugly in a hurry.

Fielder is among the worst defenders and worst baserunners in the sport. He’s only good if he’s mashing, and right now, he’s not mashing. One dimension players making $24 million per year have to be among the game’s best hitters to have value, and while Fielder might get back to that level, a team would have to have a tremendous amount of confidence in a rebound in order to take him off the Tigers hands.

He certainly isn’t untradeable, especially given the lack of bats on the market right now. I’d imagine Detroit could even get another team to pick up most of the rest of his deal. Even coming off a mediocre season, I could see Fielder getting $120 million over seven years from a team desperate for a cleanup hitter. But that is still well shy of what Detroit is paying him, and the Tigers would have to kick in a lot of cash in order to move his contract.

Estimated Cost to Trade: $48 million

#4 Josh Hamilton (OF)


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Age PA BB% K% AVG OBP SLG wOBA wRC+ Fld BsR WAR
32 387 6.7 % 25.3 % .223 .279 .409 .297 89 0.7 1.6 0.6

Under Team Control Through 2017: $15M, $23M, $30M, $30M

It was less than a year ago that Hamilton incited a bidding war. In addition to the Angels, the Mariners reportedly offered Hamilton $100 million over four years, with a couple of team options that could push it to $150 million over six years. So, maybe $103 million over four years with no team options now shouldn’t be completely immovable.

Except Hamilton has been worse than anyone could have possibly imagined. There were warning signs, sure, but a .223/.279/.409 line that translates into an 89 wRC+? As bad as Hamilton’s plate discipline is, this is still way below any reasonable forecast coming into the season. But it’s the kind of performance that justifies why the Rangers just showed little interest in retaining him, and the kind of performance that suggests that the end might be closer than we might have thought.

Hamilton, right now, projects as about an average player when he’s healthy, which is not something you can really count on with him. This is the kind of season that would relegate him to a one year “pillow contract”, as he’s lost his only real valuable skill at age-32. If he had this kind of season a year ago, maybe he ends up taking the qualifying offer and playing for $13 million to try and bounce back.

For a guaranteed four more years, I can’t see any team being willing to go over $40 million, leaving $63 million in dead money. It’s not just how the mighty have fallen, but how quickly the mighty have fallen, that is the big surprise here.

Estimated Cost to Trade: $63 million

#3 Ryan Howard (1B)


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Age PA BB% K% AVG OBP SLG wOBA wRC+ Fld BsR WAR
33 317 7.3 % 30.0 % .266 .319 .465 .332 110 -1.2 -3.0 0.4

Under Team Control Through 2017: $25M, $25M, $25M, $10M buyout

You’ve probably read enough about the Ryan Howard contract by now. It’s been a running joke for years, and is probably going to go down as one of the least productive contracts in sports history. While other deals have turned bad after getting signed, this is maybe the last contract to be an obvious disaster from the minute of conception, and given the increasing education of baseball executives, it might be the last of its breed.

The good news is that the end is in sight. While it’s an utter waste of almost the entire $85 million, it will only limit the Phillies for three more seasons, plus the buyout cost in 2017. Howard is unlikely to provide much value during the remaining years on the deal, but those years are ticking away, and he won’t hamstring the franchise for that much longer.

Estimated Cost to Trade: $70 million

#2 Alex Rodriguez (3B/SS)


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Age PA BB% K% AVG OBP SLG wOBA wRC+ Fld BsR WAR
37 11163 10.9 % 18.2 % .300 .384 .560 .401 144 17.3 36.1 111.3

Under Team Control Through 2017: $25M, $21M, $20M, $20M

The salary is detrimental, but the circus that surrounds him is a pretty big deterrent to other teams as well. Rodriguez’s combination of health issues and never ending link to PEDs make him just about untradeable even before you factor in the huge salary. Put those things together and there’s probably not a player in the game that would generate less interest in the trade market.

On performance alone, Rodriguez is one of the best players of all time. It’s too bad that such a career is going to end this way.

Estimated Cost to Trade: $86 million

#1 Albert Pujols (1B)


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Age PA BB% K% AVG OBP SLG wOBA wRC+ Fld BsR WAR
33 419 9.3 % 12.4 % .252 .325 .434 .324 107 -1.0 -3.1 0.5

Under Team Control Through 2021: $23M, $24M, $25M, $26M, $27M, $28M, $29M, $30M

If you’re wondering, that’s $212 million over the next eight years. Not only did the Angels give Pujols a massive contract, but they backloaded it, so after the first two seasons finish, they’ll still have only paid him $28 million of the $240 million he was guaranteed. Basically, the Angels borrowed heavily from the future in order to finance their 2012 and 2013 playoff runs. Oops.

Unlike some of the other names on this list, Pujols would still be in demand if the Angels made him available. He was nearly a +4 WAR player last year, and while he’s regressing, he still projects as a pretty good player in the short term. But 8/212 is so far beyond what he would actually get as a free agent, the Angels would have to send along the biggest check in sports history to make Pujols’ decline years someone else’s problem.

Best case scenario, I think a team might talk themselves into Pujols as a $15 million per year player for the next four years. I could see him getting the Nick Swisher contract, basically. There’s enough reason to think he could still hit for a few more years, and provide enough short term value to make that kind of contract a viable risk for a contender. But that’s 4/60, leaving $152 million in dead money. Rodriguez and Howard combine for about $156 million in dead money. Basically, the Pujols contract is as toxic as the next two worst contracts in baseball put together.

It’s a good thing the Angels have Mike Trout.

Estimated Cost to Trade: $152 million


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I wonder how many minor leaguers are juicing. I'm sure quite a bit

From what I remember the minors always had tougher testing policies than MLB and hey had hgh testing a while ago....I think since they don't have a union they can't fight strict testing and all that.


Look I am not going to go on and on with this.

I believe what I believe, and it's based on research.

All I know is that If steroids are as effective as you think they are the question still remain.

1. Why has offensive production remained consistent with historical trends.
2. Why aren't player numbers more volatile than normal.



THE FACT REMAINS: There is no evidence of any enhanced player performance to be found in the STATISTICS of the game.

Period.

If steroids are effective for hitting a baseball, they are invisible to the measurements that we have available to us.

Unless someone can actually show me proof, I'm not going to buy steroid hype just because they work in other sports.

Wait what!?!? :rofl: so dudes who hit like 20hr max per year suddenly getting massive power and hitting upwards of 45homers isn't enough evidence to you? :lol: Roids and HGh aren't even just about improving your power, they help accelerate healing and let people have much faster recoveries from otherwise debilitating injuries that would take a while to come back from. What proof do you want? A lab test on a guy off Roids and his power an strength then test him post Roids? C'mon now man.

Look at a dude like Griffey, one of the GOATs and m favorite player ever, he missed like 700 games and still got 630 homers :wow: in an era where mad dudes were on the juice. He had a natural break down of his body over the years. Had he been juicing Griffey would've gotten 800 EASY.

Barry Bonds going from a great all around guy with speed to a dude with arms busting out the sleeves and his head growing 2 sizes bigger isn't evidence to you?! :lol: nobody is saying bonds wasn't a GREAT player before he juiced but Roids make a mediocre player have increased power and you can hit balls longer than you would otherwise that's common sense. Yeah you still need to hit the gym but it helps you get stronger much faster and recover much quicker to do more reps. That's one of the more ridiculous things I've seen.
 
Look at a dude like Griffey, one of the GOATs and m favorite player ever, he missed like 700 games and still got 630 homers :wow: in an era where mad dudes were on the juice. He had a natural break down of his body over the years. Had he been juicing Griffey would've gotten 800 EASY.

the kid was and is my favorite all time player. but you cannot say the above with certainty, you just can't. like i hate saying it. but i love how we all call griffey's break down natural because we all loved him. maybe it was natural, but given the period he was in, can't say for sure. and that's the real tragedy with this whole PED and steroid ********. it sucks.
 
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Might as well make the stuff legal.

No point of the guys trying to do it right to suffer.

Kinda Srs
 
@JimBowdenESPNxm: Jim Axelrod of CBS is reporting that Alex Rodriguez could be facing a lifetime ban from MLB. Not confirmed


:wow:

sorry if late, i just read it on twitter. wild
 
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