Archive for Nolan Arenado

When you drafted Eddie Rosario a couple of months ago, you probably took him after the first 75 players were already picked. He may have even been the third outfielder you selected. Yet based on what Rosario has done over the nearly two months since opening day, you might rightfully believe you snuck a player with first-round value onto your roster, long after the elite hitters came off the board.

Rosario has played in all but two of the Twins’ 47 games to date, and his total of 13 home runs has him on a pace to finish in the 40-to-45 range. He is also on a trajectory to finish with more than 120 runs and 120 RBIs. Even putting those numbers into the context of this season’s power explosion, it’s clear that Rosario is having a dramatic breakout campaign, as those marks would obliterate his previous career highs (27 home runs, 87 runs, 78 RBIs).
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It’s that wonderful time of year where preliminary positional rankings starting pouring out for the upcoming season. Because I needed another reason to look like a fool by the end of it. The third base position opens 2017 with plenty of intrigue, with a couple of newish faces to the mix and one notable name departing for a new position. Let’s all pour one out for Matt Carpenter. My goal is to be far more consistent on the rankings side in 2017, which means more opportunity for folks to ponder, “Just what in the world is this guy thinking?”

Let’s get to it with some cleverly named tiers:

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With the Chicago Cubs set to wrap up the National League Central in the coming days/weeks, it’s looking more and more difficult for anyone to make a case that will topple that of Kris Bryant for the National League Most Valuable Player Award. That hasn’t stopped some from trying, and there are cases to be made for a small handful of players outside of the Chicago third sacker. One of those potential finalists could be one of Bryant’s third base counterparts, in Colorado Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado.

Our job here isn’t necessarily to decide that debate. While it does look like Bryant is currently the frontrunner, there are numerous factors to be considered in regard to the MVP beyond the offensive numbers which we will illustrate here. There’s defense to be considered as well as versatility, WAR, etc. That’s almost another debate entirely. Here, we’re only worried about the offense. So let’s delve into some of the numbers for a pair of extraordinary National League players.

Heading into Tuesday’s slate of games, here’s how the two stacked up in a general sense:

The general perspective would certainly seem to favor Bryant in most regards. He reaches base at a far higher rate, while notching an OPS that comes in almost 50 points higher than Arenado. In regard to ISO, the two are tied in home runs, while Bryant leads in doubles. It’s Arenado’s four triples that give him an edge there. But even the higher K rate for Bryant doesn’t make this a win for Arenado, considering everywhere else on the board that Sparkle Eyes has an edge. At the same time, we’re comparing two elite players here. The numbers are going to look great anyway you slice it. While we could certainly make a judgment about which is more valuable based off of this information alone, let’s dig just a bit deeper. Spoiler alert: we’re going to the splits.

Home/road splits tend to always be Arenado’s undoing. Playing at Coors Field is both a blessing and a curse in that regard. While nobody is questioning his offensive potency overall, it’s hard to ignore the disparity in production between his home and road splits:

At Coors, Arenado is predictably off the charts. His ISO is, to use a technical term, stupid when he’s playing in the confines of his home ballpark. But there isn’t a statistic here that doesn’t experience significant decline when he steps out of Denver. In most respects, the road numbers are still impressive, but not so much that they don’t still take away from the total body of work. Hooray for double negatives.

Conversely, Bryant has posted more impressive numbers on the road than at the Friendly Confines:

The favorable road split is something I touched on earlier this season, and it’s a trend that hasn’t exactly dissipated as the season has worn on. Even with that more impressive road split in mind, it’s hard not to look at that home line and still be overwhelmingly impressed. While there’s a clear decline, he still maintains a higher level in almost every single respect above Arenado, strikeout rate notwithstanding. So to this point, the general overview and the splits both seem to favor Bryant.

To some degree, consistency should be taken into account, illustrated below with Arenado’s wRC+ throughout the season, followed by Bryant’s:

And Bryant…

Obviously, with the scope of each graph, there’s going to be the appearance of a great deal of fluctuation. And it’s hard to put too much stock into the day-to-day happenings of the wRC+ world. At the same time, this does provide a nice visual when considering each player’s total offensive value in a more intricate sense. Just as the splits did, this would also appear to favor Kris Bryant, as the actual variation in his wRC+ is not nearly as significant. Perhaps more importantly, Bryant has managed to exclusively stay at or above that 100 mark since the very beginning of the season, something Arenado has not accomplished.

If we were going to take this debate out of the fantasy arena and put it on the MVP plane, then we’re bringing in other factors. Defensively, the edge would probably go to Arenado. But you also have to take defensive versatility into account, as Bryant moves around the diamond and is still an above average defender wherever he is. Sparkles in the eyes? Game: Bryant. It’s a really fascinating debate, and one that will likely continue as the regular season winds down. But for our purpose here of examining that offensive value, and thus assessing their fantasy relevance in a very general sense, the edge has to go to the Chicago Cubs superstar.

And obviously none of this is meant to disparage Nolan Arenado. He’s a supremely talented offensive player and one of Major League Baseball’s elite. But when we’re talking offense and offensive value, there is not a shred of doubt in my mind that the edge, in almost every single respect, goes to Kris Bryant.

We haven’t done a good ol’ fashioned rankings since the start of the season, so the All-Star Break seems like the perfect time to re-examine some of the selections that were made in the initial 2016 set. Obviously things have changed, but given that it’s the middle of July, nobody is surprising us anymore. We know largely who is who and what they bring to the table, while others have dropped off due to positional eligibility. While there’s still room for bounce back or decline, we know where we stand at the season’s midway point.

While these rankings still remain somewhat subjective, based on the individual elements I tend to look at, neither Kris Bryant or Jake Lamb ended up no. 1, so the bias may not have shone through as much as it otherwise could have. Enjoy the rest of your break before the stove starts to heat up.

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As we approach the end of the first month of the 2016 Major League season, there’s obviously plenty to dissect. From a third base perspective, we’ll unpack a lot of that when we get to the first set of real, actual, less-leaning-upon-conjecture rankings in the coming days. But nothing says we can’t look at some things just a touch early.

For the most part, the top guys have been the top guys. If there was a “Stock Right Where It Was Expected to Be” category, these guys would fit the bill. Manny Machado leads the category, while Nolan Arenado and Josh Donaldson aren’t too far behind. Kris Bryant is right in the mix as well, keeping all of the top tier players from those initial rankings in that upper tier, just perhaps with some reordering. Beyond that top tier, though, there’s certainly going to be some shakeup. Some guys have emerged, some guys have fallen off the map almost completely, and some guys are just there. Looking at some of these stocks will give us a better idea of what the next set of rankings could look like.

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I find early season performances fascinating (or perhaps it’s our responses to these performances that’s fascinating.) With every owner competitive and paying attention in April – maybe for the only time all year – league wide perception of talent levels can be unrealistically altered. For example, Trevor Story hits 7 home runs in his first 8 games, then precedes to hit .200 over his next 60 plate appearances. That’s about as stark a difference as you can find in a player’s performances this early in the season. Given this, how do your league-mates value him? My wager is that they value him more as the 7 HR guy that the .200 hitter, but that’s just a guess. Would the view of Story be different if those 7 HR in 8 games occurred in July?

This is all hypothetical conjecture on my part, but it does help to show the crazy swings in performance that occur over small samples. If a player (especially a prospect) has a hot start, their trade value can be boosted by that helium all year. However, some hot starts still fall through the cracks, and many players who have performed well can still be bought relatively cheaply. Hopefully this will help you consider buying some of the players who’ve had great starts to 2016. Some of them appear to have made core improvements thus far.

One of the updates I run weekly is to look at the plate discipline and batted ball leaderboards here on Fangraphs. I look for players who are swinging less than last year, while also making more contact. Eno covered some of this in his post last week, but this early in the season it can be difficult to have enough data to make any concrete conclusions about player performances. A disclaimer – at the time I wrote this I didn’t realize how similar it was to Eno’s analysis. His piece goes into more detail and you should definitely read it.

The general premise: I want to find players who are being more patient than last year, but are also making contact at a higher rate. I also track changes in hard hit percentage, but admit that I don’t focus on this nearly as much. I plan to start incorporating exit velocity and launch angle, but have not been able to at this point. This is far from a full proof method or some statistical wizardry, but it’s a quick sniff test. Given that swing% becomes reliable around 50 PAs, and contact rate around 100 PAs, I would put a little more weight on those numbers at this time. I use this to help me bid in the early season Ottoneu FA auctions, or to help target players in trades. The last thing I want to do is waste precious dollars or trade assets on what is likely to be a mirage. (This is probably more important in Ottoneu than other formats where cap penalties can hamstring you if you aren’t careful). Anyways, here’s the list of all players swinging less, making more contact, and hitting the ball with a higher hard hit frequency in 2016. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a weird week for me, delaying this article by four days. I originally intended to have this up by Monday, but a spontaneous — and completely awesome — decision to attend the NCAA Tournament provided the first delay. I got to see Oklahoma/VCU and the historically unprecedented Texas A&M win over Northern Iowa, so I didn’t feel too bad about being a day late.

Unfortunately, I got myself concussed in a fender-bender the next day (not my fault!), and spent the last few days listlessly staring out my window, the owner of a half-working brain. Hopefully, I’ve recovered enough for the following to make sense, but the fact that my 31st birthday looms this coming Monday means I’m in the midst of my annual birthday-related existential crisis, brain injury or not.

Regardless of the circumstances, it’s Bold Predictions time! I did pretty darn well two years ago, but last year my success rate was roughly equivalent to that of the Brooklyn Brawler. (Fun fact: The Brawler briefly performed in WWF as “The MVP” Abe Knuckleball Schwartz, a bad-guy persona used to rile up fans during the MLB strike of ’94.) Let’s turn the clock back to 2014 and get my boldness rate back to the sweet spot.

Here are my ten Bold Predictions for 2016, roughly arranged in ascending order from safest to craziest:

10. James Shields is not a top-65 starting pitcher, despite throwing 200+ innings for the tenth straight year.

How do we value a 34-year-old coming off a season like Shields just had? He logged over 200 innings and made his annual 33 starts, but posted his worst-ever walk rate — and it’s not even close — at 3.60 BB/9. His HR/FB ballooned to another career worst, at 17.6%. Shields also experienced career bests in two areas, strikeouts (yay!) and strand rate (hmm…).

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Last year, I hit .300 on my Bold Predictions, which is about what I aim for. That feels like the boldness sweet spot. This year, not so much. It saddens me to report that I was overly bold this year, getting just one Bold Prediction right. However, one other was incredibly close, so I’ll say that I hit .150 this season. Still, I can and will do better next year.

I have failed you, dear readers.

1. Jorge Soler is a top-ten outfielder.

Well, he was a top-100 outfielder, slotting in at No. 99 on the season. Soler battled his fair share of injuries this year, but even when he was healthy enough to play, he hit just .262/.324/.399, with 10 home runs in 404 plate appearances. For the year, he registered a 0.0 WAR. Here’s hoping he turns it around next season.

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Our Mock Draft is complete.

Team Schwartz/rounds drafted:

C: Travis d’Arnaud/17 1B: Victor Martinez/4 2B: Arismendy Alcantara/18 3B: Josh Donaldson/3 SS: Hanley Ramirez/2 MI: Jean Segura/19 CI: Prince Fielder/6 OF: Mike Trout/1; Mookie Betts/7; Ryan Zimmerman/10; A.J. Pollock/14; Steven Souza/20; Carl Crawford/24 U: Pedro Alvarez/21

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I am a chronic off-season Mets rosterbater. Many of my potential Mets trade Tweets are far from rational. Some have included proposals for Troy Tulowitzki, which then leads to trading Daniel Murphy in order to open second base for a long-term competition between Wilmer Flores and Dilson Herrera.

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