The Oakland Athletics caused a bit of a stir this past winter when they acquired Jim Johnson from the Orioles. Johnson has been one of the more consistent and durable relievers over the past several years, but for a team on a low budget, spending $10 Million on a reliever didn’t seem like the most valuable use of limited resources.
It’s time we talked about Marcell Ozuna. This is partly because of what he did to Stephen Strasburg last night and because I wanted everyone to start their Friday with some gratuitous baseball porn. But it is also because Ozuna represents an intriguing breakout candidate this season, and we may be witnessing his development before our very eyes.
(GIF by David Temple, who rules. Full video here. Also let’s not kid ourselves I mostly just wanted to post that GIF.)
Welcome to the regularly updated Top 50 Impact Rookies for 2014. This ranking tool grades freshman players based on their projected MLB impacts for 2014 so it will vary significantly from typical Top 50 or 100 prospects lists.
#1 Xander Bogaerts | Red Sox (3B/SS)
| Age | PA | BB% | K% | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | wRC+ | Off | Def | WAR |
| 20 | 50 | 10.0 % | 26.0 % | .250 | .320 | .364 | .304 | 86 | -0.4 | 0.2 | 0.2 |
April 10: With Boston’s decision not to resign veteran shortstop Stephen Drew, Bogaerts was handed the starting shortstop gig in Boston at the age of 21. The regular playing time — as well as his advanced feeling for hitting — makes him an early favorite for the Rookie of the Year award in the American League (along with the Yankee’s Japanese import Masahiro Tanaka). Read the rest of this entry »
Agenda
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Nathan Eovaldi followed up his 2014 debut — three runs, six hits, eight strikeouts, no walks in seven innings — with another strong performance Sunday. He lost the game, but eight strikeouts against no walks in seven innings is impressive, even when set against three earned runs on six hits. Is he a must-acquire suddenly? After all, he’s averaging over 96 on his fastball.
I remain skeptical, but I’m always willing to admit I’m wrong, so it is without biases that I try to appraise Eovaldi’s 2014 arsenal.
I don’t necessarily agree with all of the conclusions that Mike Podhorzer came to about the closers in Milwaukee and Chicago earlier today, but his writeup makes sense, and it is still notable what’s happening in those cities. The fireballing favorite was passed over for a couple of veterans. That’s too bad because the only thing I’ve seen that says much about closer change is fastball velocity and strikeout rate. Neither Matt Lindstrom nor Francisco Rodriguez own real leads over Nate Jones and Jim Henderson in those categories. And yet, it’s the veterans with more service time that are closing right now.
Maybe that’s not by accident. Matt Murphy wrote a great piece about how it’s possible that teams are using veteran closers on short term contracts in order to keep their arbitration-eligible young relievers cheap. No saves means no bucks in arbitration. Whether or not teams are actually doing so on purpose, there are ready examples in Oakland, Cleveland, and Tampa Bay (and now Chicago and Milwaukee) where the arbitration kid lost out to the free agent contract vet. Should we add age to the equation when we are thinking about closer changes?
You know, I can advocate for different types of leagues. I can talk about the pros and cons of head-to-head, and how redraft leagues are great for the refresh, and about deep leagues and shallow leagues. It’s my job!
But when it comes to playing, to the leagues I actually join, the rubber hits the road. In other words, I vote with my wallet when I join these leagues, because I’m spending actual time and energy in this way. So I thought I’d look through my leagues and see what kinds of leagues I like. And while I’m there, I might as well count up my pitchers so you can see what sorts of arms I’m investing in. My arms and my leagues, and now you know what I *really* like.
In the course of human events, there aren’t many things worse than late spring training injuries.
Wars? Pandemics? Human-enslaving robots? Broken hearts? Male bike shorts? People who microwave fish at work? These things are all very bad, but they are not worse than late spring training injuries. So it has been a tough couple of weeks in baseball, as fans and fantasy owners have watched pitcher after pitcher go down. Good ones, too. Kris Medlen and Brandon Beachy and Patrick Corbin and Jarrod Parker and Aroldis Chapman and Josh Johnson. Now even Yu Darvish and Clayton Kershaw and Doug Fister. Some of these are worse than others, and certainly Chapman’s was more jarring than your run-of-the-mill Tommy John surgery, but they are all significant blows on the eve of the season nonetheless.
We can wallow in our collective self pity, or we can attempt to pick up the pieces and move on. This is where Jesse Chavez comes in. Kind of. Maybe.
My colleague Blake Murphy just got done telling you why the Dewan method for finding spring breakouts isn’t all that successful. Even when Blake tried to control for quality of opponent, it turns out that small samples are just small samples. In the regular season, ISO takes 550 plate appearances to “stabilize.” That requirement doesn’t change just because it’s Spring Training.
There are plenty of roster decisions to go over in today’s Roto Riteup, but that doesn’t mean we’re too busy to include some arbitrary endpoints.
On today’s agenda
1. Tanner Scheppers gets Rangers’ Opening Day nod
2. Nicholas Martinez makes Opening Day Rotation
3. Marcus Semien makes the White Sox
4. Clayton Kershaw to miss Sunday’s start
5. Erasmo Ramirez to start game two for Seattle
6. Fun with arbitrary endpoints
