Archive for October, 2011

What to Expect in 2012 from the Top HR/FB Surgers

Trying to decipher which breakouts are for real, or at least repeatable the following year, and which are mostly a fluke is one of the more enjoyable tasks during the off-season. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to be truly confident in our guesses, no matter how much supporting data we could find that validates our side. Of course, the easiest thing to do is just predict that every surger will regress. And more times than not, you will be right. But where’s the fun in that? Below are the 5 hitters who experienced the largest HR/FB ratio jumps from 2010. Note that only qualified hitters each year were looked at.

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Eno Sarris Pan FanGraphs Chat

Hey let’s talk about everything! Baseball, ugliness, burgers, beverages.


Prospect Chatter

Welcome to Prospectlandia! It’s a magical place filled with potential…that I just made up right now. This isn’t exactly peak season here, so to speak, but don’t be disappointed. There’s Arizona Fall League action and various instructional sessions going on, but for the most part, there won’t be any major developments or news for a few months.

But! That doesn’t mean we should stop talking shop around these parts. Which is why I’m going to continue my usual end-of-the-week in-season prospect coverage (read: Mining the Minors) by instead focusing on, well, whatever comes to mind, topical or otherwise. In the interest of straightforwardness — the whole concept of Prospectlandia is already sketchy enough — let’s just call this thing Prospect Chatter.

And by “this thing,” I mean anything from random ramblings on specific players who are either in the news or in my head for some reason or another, to reactionary ruminations on upcoming rankings churned out by FanGraphs, as well as other veritable sources. And of course, if there’s a prospect in particular that any of you wants to discuss, please weigh in below.

So come visit Prospectlandia — a destination for all seasons.

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Batted Ball Outliers: Starting Pitchers

Pitchers tend to induce different types of batted balls. Some are fly ball pitchers. Others induce ground balls. While there are always pitchers at the extremes, a few pitchers go beyond the norms on a yearly basis. Today, I am looking at pitchers whose 2011 batted ball data was outside the normal range of values.

To get the extreme baselines, I took the the top and bottom values for a pitcher with over 400 IP total over the past 3 years. Here is a look at some pitchers that may be in store for some batted ball corrections in 2012

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Hey, Didn’t You Used To Be Casey McGehee?

My colleagues Michael Barr and Howard Bender did a very thorough job this year outlining the relatively weak crop of third baseman, but here’s the Reader’s Digest version: Just 13 teams had their 3B get enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title, nearly a quarter were more than 10 percent below league average in terms of wRC+ at what is typically considered a premium position for offense.

Casey McGehee’s wRC+ of 68 was the worst of the qualifiers at 32 percent below league average, but he was not the worst at the position — take a bow, Chone Figgins and your wRC+ of 34 — though that’s a fairly low bar by which to judge success. McGehee wasn’t even the worst of the remaining four third baseman, that would be Brandon Inge, who posted a wRC+ of 48. But while Inge is hitting .333/.444/.600 in the playoffs, McGehee has been relegated to a pinch-hitting role and is just 1-for-5 in his limited opportunities.

Jerry Hairston Jr. may have unseated McGehee in the short term, but it’s unlikely that the Brewers will go into 2012 banking on 140-150 games out of Hairston, meaning that they’ll either give McGehee another look or they’ll dig into the free agent market. There are some interesting names in that bunch — Aramis Ramirez chiefly among them — but not many of them stand out as definite upgrades over McGehee, especially since he’s just in his first year of arbitration and therefore likely to be cheaper than a free agent. Read the rest of this entry »


ottoneu Keeper: Matt Joyce

About a year ago, I very happily traded Ian Stewart for Matt Joyce and Reese Havens in an ottoneu league. Joyce was just $3; Stewart was $12 (Havens was also $3 but that isn’t really relevant – this is not a story about my infatuation with MI prospects, which is how I ended up with Stewart in the first place).

I thought this was a steal but the feedback from other owners was basically, “meh.” I was pretty surprised. Sure, Stewart had been a very good player, but he was about to lose 2B eligibility and move to a position where his value was much lower (I also had Ryan Zimmerman and Jose Bautista). I had turned a guy with what I saw as questionable value and a too-high salary into a dirt cheap #2 or #3 OF. But since then, I have heard a ton about every outfielder on the Rays roster (Carl Crawford became a Red Sox, Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon became Rays, Manny became retired, Sam Fuld became a legend, Desmond Jennings became a star, BJ Upton became trade bait), but Joyce seemed to get lost in the shuffle.

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Roy Oswalt Ages, Adapts, Achieves

Roy Oswalt heads into the off-season with about as much uncertainty as he’s ever had as a major league pitcher. After suffering through some back injury and flirtations with retirement, Oswalt, 34, will be a free agent unless the Philadelphia Phillies exercise his $16 million dollar option. Rather nebulous on an epic scale, GM Ruben Amaro has mentioned they’re having “internal discussions” about whether or not to pick up that option. Now, internal discussions could be serious consideration or it could be smoking cigars and playing Donkey Kong — we’re merely left to speculate.

Smart money says they aren’t likely to pick up the option, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want him back on more team-friendly terms. Obviously, where he ultimately lands will have implications for his fantasy value, but before we can make any determinations about park factors and defense, it’s worth looking at how Oswalt has evolved over the past couple of seasons and investigate what kind of performance we can anticipate going forward.

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Matt Harrison Breaks Out, What Happens in 2012?

In the short period I was able to watch last night’s Rangers-Tigers game, I unfortunately chose the time when the announcers reminded us Braves fan of the trade several years ago. The trade being the one that sent Mark Teixeira for half a season to Atlanta and brought back Neftali Feliz, Elvis Andrus and Matt Harrison, amongst others (including one catcher whose name I don’t feel like spelling at the moment). Andrus and Feliz have already been contributed good value to the Rangers and Harrison decided that in 2011, it would be his turn to make the Braves look foolish.

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Willingham & Morrison: Power Production from Free Agency

Power is typically the hardest to come by in free agent pools across the land, but Josh Willingham and Logan Morrison were likely undrafted in many shallower leagues (think 12-team and fewer mixed leagues), yet contributed solidly in the homer category. Let’s see what we might expect for 2012.

Josh Willingham

Jason Catania discussed him a bit yesterday, but I wanted to look a little more in-depth. Willingham is a free agent this off-season and has always hit in pitcher’s park. Of course, that hasn’t stopped him from posting a .214 career ISO, but it will still be interesting to see where he ends up. Willingham is an extreme fly ball hitter, which is what you love to see from a power guy, though it does hurt one’s BABIP, and resulting batting average. His HR/FB has jumped around between 11.3% in 2010 to a career high 17.5% this past season. It would probably be wise to assume a bit of decline in his FB% (maybe to the mid-40% mark, rather than high-40%), while his HR/FB dips as well, though his new home park may have some effect here.

The good news is that although those two factors would take a bite out of his home run total, his contact rate should improve from its career worst mark. As Jason mentioned, health is the key for Willingham, but if it cooperates, another season of mid-20 home run production to follow. And if all the stars align, he does have the skills to clear the 30-homer plateau for the first time.

Logan Morrison

After hitting just two home runs in all of 2010 (albeit in just 244 at-bats), Morrison surprised many by swatting 23 out of the park this season. But maybe we shouldn’t have been surprised. In early 2009, he fractured his right wrist, causing him to miss two months of action and he complained of continued soreness during spring training in 2010. This would help to explain the power outage. In 2007 in Single-A, he hit 24 homers in 453 at-bats with a .216 ISO, so the power skills had certainly been displayed before. That said, he needs to hit more fly balls to increase my confidence in the power being sustainable, and it is hard to believe he will come close to repeating an 18.1% HR/FB ratio.

He should absolutely see more at-bats next season, assuming he doesn’t miss another meet-and-greet or have a Twitter battle with new manager Ozzie Guillen. So although the rate of homers is sure to decrease, his increased playing time should ensure another season of 20+ homers. Factor in a .265 BABIP that should jump and you have a guy who may even yield a profit versus his draft day cost.


Keeper Question: Adam Wainwright

How different would the Cardinals’ season have been if Adam Wainwright hadn’t walked off the mound in spring training with a torn ulnar collateral ligament? Their improbable September run surely wouldn’t have been so dramatic, in fact, they may have been closer to the division-winning Brewers than they were to the Wild Card runners-up. It’s even possible to concoct a scenario where they don’t trade Colby Rasmus for bullpen and rotation help, though there’s ample evidence to suggest that Rasmus would have received his marching orders anyway.

At this point, even though losing Wainwright was a big blow, it’s impossible to say the Cards would have progressed any further than they have without him. They’re tied 1-1 with the Brewers in the NLCS, and while a rotation of Chris Carpenter, Wainwright, Jaime Garcia, and Kyle Lohse looks more imposing than Carpenter, Garcia, Lohse, and Edwin Jackson, St. Louis has done more with less all season.

Next season the Cards may or may not have Albert Pujols to key their offense, but they will get Wainwright back, and while that’s not quite a push, it could soften the blow of Pujols’ absence. Of course that assumes Wainwright’s recovery path looks more like Jordan Zimmermann’s or Stephen Strasburg’s than, say, Francisco Liriano’s. This leaves the Cardinals and fantasy owners in largely the same place, wondering which Wainwright will show up in 2012.

While I can’t promise you that Wainwright will take the mound for his first start as though nothing had changed, three factors make me confident that he’s worth keeping.

First, given the state of both the surgical and rehab plans, successes are now much more common than failures. While J. Carl Cook’s words — “minor surgery is surgery someone else is having” — are certainly accurate, repairing a UCL is no longer exotic and unusual in the way it once was. Teams generally have a doctor they like to use, a rehab plan they trust, and results are getting more consistent because of it. For a sense of what the surgery and standard treatment plan are, I highly recommend this piece by Sports Illustrated’s Will Carroll, who does a great job of laying out what the state of the art really is. Regimentation alone doesn’t guarantee a perfect outcome, but it does make it more likely that a player will make a full recovery.

Second, the Cardinals have a track record of getting pitchers back to form quickly after they return to the majors. Even with some consistency in the rehab plan, some teams seem to be more successful than others at getting pitchers back at or near their previous level. The Nationals, for example, have had two key pitchers go under the knife recently and neither seems too worse for the wear. They’re playing it safe with both Zimmermann and Strasburg, but both showed the stuff upon their return that made them top prospects. The Twins, on the other hand, haven’t seen the same level of success in getting pitchers back quickly. Both Joe Nathan and Liriano found success after their surgery, but both took longer than expected to reach that point.

Carpenter had his surgery in the midst of the 2007 season and while he hasn’t been the healthiest pitcher in baseball since then, his elbow is no longer a source of his problems. More recently even than Carpenter, Garcia had the procedure and is another success story. It’s easy to forget that Garcia’s strong rookie campaign in 2010 was also his first year back from his Tommy John surgery. He showed no ill effects in either that season or this one. Like the fine print at the bottom of every investment bank’s ads, past performance is not a guarantee of future results; that said, the team’s recent success in bringing starting pitchers back effectively gives me high hopes for Wainwright’s return.

Finally, Wainwright’s pitch selection had become more varied over the past three seasons. If he were a two-pitch pitcher, I’d be concerned. A pitcher who has only a fastball and one great offspeed offering runs a larger risk of struggling to find command of the slider or curve and getting shelled as hitters wait for a fastball in the zone.

I hate to keep burying Liriano, but this is what happened to his 2009 season — the team understandably wanted him to throw fewer sliders, but this lead to his fastball getting tagged to the tune of 25.4 runs below average. Wainwright throws four pitches, all of which graded as above-average offerings in 2010, which makes it less likely that he’ll find himself in a position where he can’t throw anything for a strike except the fastball.

There is one caveat I should point out before unequivocally recommending that you keep Wainwright: There are very few pitchers I am in favor of keeping, especially in mixed. Pitching is so deep right now that even if you were to lose Wainwright, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to find a suitable replacement. There are considerations to be made based on more than just Wainwright’s health, but those are going to be based on how many players you can or want to keep, as well as league idiosyncrasies.

Wainwright has been worth about 6 wins in both of his last two seasons. Had he done it again in 2011, it would have made him a top-10 pitcher this season, even in a year of very good pitchers. He may not be as sure a thing as Roy Halladay or Clayton Kershaw, but everything I see points to Wainwright entering the 2012 season as an effective pitcher and a solid, top-of-the-rotation fantasy arm.