Brandon Moss in Cleveland
It’s tempting to say Brandon Moss will be about the same in his new digs. Without delving too deep, it looks like the slugger goes from a good lineup in one pitcher’s park to a good lineup in another. But there are plenty of reasons to like Moss more today than yesterday. He’s an Indian now.
The overall park factor for offense in Cleveland and Oakland is identical: 97. But once you break it down, it looks more favorable for Moss. He’s a lefty, and the park factor for lefty home runs in Oakland was 88 and with the Indians it was 109. That Cleveland number is tied for sixth-friendliest in baseball. That’s a nice change.
On the road, Moss will see better parks, too. The lefty homer park factors in Oakland (88), Anaheim (91), Texas (109), Houston (106), and Seattle (99) are slightly worse than his new division — Cleveland (109), Chicago (106), Detroit (100), Minnesota (91) and Kansas City (93). Maybe just a little bit better.
There’s the concern about his hip surgery, but maybe it’s not such a concern. After all, he was able to ‘struggle’ to 25 homers with that injury, and now it’s fixed. Also, Jeff Zimmerman has found that players that played through injury are subsequently under-projected in the power department. Because the projections are agnostic as to the cause of the power outage, they just assume it was age or play related. If the power was down due to the hip and it’s fixed, there’s another reason to like him this year.
Time for the notes of caution. Because of a late bloom, Moss is 31 and post-peak in the power department. Also, he could get platooned. He’s been above-average against lefties to date (101 wRC+), and Oakland started playing him mostly every day this year, but he’s also been called a platoon player before. You may not want to project him for much more than 550 plate appearances to be safe.
Also, even if we believe that Moss may be 20% better off in the power department this year — 25% due to parks, minus something for aging, plus something for playing through injury, if you want to follow this bad math — that might mean five more homers this coming season.
No matter. You can probably pencil project Brandon Moss into about a .245/.330 season with just about 30 homers and around 90 RBI. Only four first basemen hit 30 last year, and only 11 players overall. Your Brandon Moss stocks just went up.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
Scott Courlander covered this over at Fantasy GM
http://scottcourlander.sportsblog.com/posts/1375073/who_the_hell_is_joe_wendle_.html
Keith, I hope this doesn’t come off as rude, but the post you linked didn’t cover anything of what Eno wrote about here. Did you mean to post this comment on a different post/article?
Lancellotti Link, Secret Chimp?
Hi Scott!
This makes Ike Davis draftable in deeper leagues too with almost guaranteed playing time vs. RHP.
agreed
Hasn’t Moss been found out to a certain extent? I would be a little more bearish just given his struggles in the second half last year and the accompanying Fangraphs articles. I’m skeptical that he can make the necessary adjustments.
I feel like he can lay off the high pitch, it’s not always called a strike.
2012-2014
Nelson Cruz: 6.5 WAR
Brandon Moss: 6.4 WAR
So does he play in RF in Cleveland over David Murphy? Or 1B and shift Santana to C/DH sometimes?
Santana is not going to catch anymore. Too many concussions. Would have to think the Indians plan on moving Murphy, and Moss is primary right field with some Raburn mixed in against tough lefties. Unless the Indians now plan on trading Santana or something
He’d like to play the outfield I think http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/brandon-moss-in-cleveland/#comments
This is super pedantic, but I’m a superpedant: The lefty homer park factors in {AL West – Oakland} are slightly better than the lefty homer park factors in {AL Central – Cleveland}. He’ll likely see an improvement from moving divisions, but it’ll be 100% — maybe 105% — due to the difference between Jacobs Field and the Coliseum.
(Er, the point being that he won’t “see better parks on the road.”)
I’d trade Seattle for Kansas City.
Was going to post the same comment. His road park factors in the AL West ( excluding Oakland) were 101.25 on average. His road park factors in the Central ( excluding Cleveland) will be 97.5.
So a little bit worse, rather than a little bit better.
I just don’t get it. The As are totally blowing up their roster and not even getting fair value back. Moss is a legit major leaguer with several years of team control left being traded for a Double-A below average 2B. This is so one-sided it isn’t even funny.
If he gets arrested on suspicion of insanity , the trades he has been making the past 2 weeks provide overwhelming evidence. It’s like he left his favorite nephew in charge of the team while he’s on vacation. These trades would be vetoed even in Dynasty league. Wendel will be 25 in April, and does not project to be a major leaguer of any note.
Why are the As tanking it? Poor Oakland fans.
It’s got to be all about saving money.
Yep.
What do we make of (1) Moss was rumored to be traded for a 25-year-old minor leaguer plus of course his arbitration salary estimated to be $7M, (2) three days at least elapsed giving anyone time to make a better offer, and (3) the deal happened as originally rumored? If the real life GMs don’t think Moss is worth that much, maybe the hip injury is serious and maybe we’re over-estimating him?
I’m asking because otherwise he looks to be a bargain as described in this article.
im hoping the hip injury and late year struggles deplete his stock so i can snag him for cheap again