Archive for 2016

I don’t mean to over-hype anyone. Or maybe I do. I don’t know. I seek to provide an adequate amount of hype and keep things in perspective. That said, I’m pretty excited about Josh Bell. You may know him, you may not; he’s slated to be the Pirates’ primary first baseman, maybe with a little bit of backup outfielding thrown in. Josh Shepardson talked about him and his general skill set in November. Bell’s young and a several-time top prospect, although the highest he ever reached on any given list was MLB.com’s, at No. 34 overall prior to 2015. Nothing to sneeze at, but he never carried the same hype as, say, Yoan Moncada currently does. He’s Eric Longenhagen’s No. 50 prospect this year and KATOH’s No. 25. Knowing the gory math that goes into KATOH, I’m very partial to it. Also, all of this suggests I’m not early to any kind of party here. I’m reluctant to claim as much. I just can’t help but produce my own tributes every now and then.

Bell walked more than he struck out last year. As a rookie. That’s what gets to me. Not that it’s never been done before, and it’s not like it was a huge sample size — 153 plate appearances. I found plenty of examples in the last 25 years to compare; Bell’s rookie season is almost a dead ringer for that of Doug Mientkiewicz, a first-ballot Surname Hall of Famer but otherwise mediocre ballplayer with a decent three-year peak.

Where Bell diverges from Mientkiewicz — and everyone else, for that matter — is his hard-hit rate (Hard%). Mientkiewicz decidedly did not hit the ball hard. Among rookies since 2002 (because that’s as far back as our batted ball data from Baseball Info Solution dates) who notched at least a .130 isolated power (ISO), none hit the ball as hard as Bell. Again, small samples, but this is already a decent list to top.

When we expand the sample from rookies to all hitters in that same timeframe, things become even more interesting. Here’s a list of every hitter, in no particular order, who, in any given season, minimum 150 PAs, achieved (1) more walks than strikeouts, (2) an ISO better than .130, and (3) a hard-hit rate better than 33 percent.

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I’m needlessly competitive. I’ll manufacture any kind of pathetic excuse to turn literally anything into a contest, especially if there’s a moderately easy way to tally stats for it. So, let’s review the RotoGraphs staff’s picks for the 2016 season.

We make picks every season, but as I took up curating them last season, I wanted to hold us accountable while also simply seeing how well we did. Hindsight-spoiler: we actually did pretty poorly. Having not yet evaluated the results whatsoever, I hope for better but secretly anticipate more of the same.

The rules: are dumb and contrived. You’re welcome! Anyway, I choose a winner for each category based on, yes, stats, but also the uniqueness of the pick. For example, picking Noah Syndergaard as 2016’s best sophomore pitcher wasn’t exactly groundbreaking.

Again, this is mostly for fun, but it’s also worth rewarding, with the weakest of praise, those who excelled with their picks. As a reminder, I describe the criteria for each category in the original post. With that said, let’s needlessly compete!

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I once made some bold predictions for 2016. Then I checked in on them. Some looked OK, some not so much.

The season is over now, and I can’t think of any better way to distract myself from the multiple painful ends to otherwise fantastic seasons I just endured than to review my bold predictions. Fellow RotoGrapher Justin Mason kindly said he “think[s I] nailed the boldness level. He also said, “Alex, you don’t know how [to] use [brackets].” Pffffft, whatever, Justin.

I would say I’m proud of these predictions, but honestly, I barely remember half of them. There are three I remember fondly, though, and I’m excited to see how they turned out. Let’s do this!

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Below, you’ll find the RotoGraphs staffs’ picks for the 2016 season. We, here at RotoGraphs — we like to pick things. Make lists. All that.

If you have some heavy-duty drafting to wrap up this weekend, maybe these picks will come in handy. If not, perhaps they can come in handy as guidance for some thrifty, shifty mid-season moves. And if not that, then simply appreciate these for what they are: literally the best preseason picks you’ll see anywhere. Period!

OK, maybe that won’t end up being true. Who knows! None of us are clairvoyant, and that’s a damn shame. But we do our best to pretend like we are. Anyway, enough of this rambling. Here’s what you came here for, split into two tables — 2016 staff picks for hitters, and more for pitchers.

Also, for further clarity, please refer to the category definitions that follow each table.

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I won’t bore you with introduction. You know how this works.

1) Nicholas Tropeano, Tyler Skaggs and Matt Shoemaker generate more value than Jered Weaver, C.J. Wilson and Hector Santiago.

My prerequisite Angels prediction that isn’t Justin Mason’s “Garrett Richards will win the AL Cy Young award,” this isn’t bold as much as it is irritated. One of Tropeano, Skaggs or Shoemaker will earn the #5-starter role, and injuries (namely, Weaver’s back issues) will affect the rotation at some point, too, so I would understand your reluctance to deem this bold. I anticipate, however, that some amount of poor performance will warrant the removal of one or more of the rotation’s key components of the past few seasons, thus opening the door for one of Anaheim’s younger, cheaper, more talented arms.

2) Jose Berrios will be a top-30 starting pitcher.

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