Predicting Hall of Fame Pitchers Part I: or, The Voters Have Become Awful at Evaluating Starters

I’ve been meaning for a long time to write a follow up to my update looking at future Hall of Fame hitters. The pitchers presented an interesting finding though, and I couldn’t figure out how best to summarize it, so I let it sit. And before long, it just didn’t make sense to follow up; we were starting the season and everything. So, I figured I’d let it go into Hall of Fame weekend.

And now, finally, here we are. Once again into Hall of Fame season, thanks to the induction. All of the numbers are from before the season started, but the analysis is still good, so let’s go ahead.

2014 All-Star Roster Corrections, National League

The other day, I began making my list of All-Star corrections with the American League roster. I have no idea why I always start with the American League, but what’s done is done. All that’s left now is to fix up the National League.

The NL had a few more…interesting picks than the AL. Still, nothing mind-blowingly bad, but there was room to improve.

2014 All-Star Roster Corrections, American League

And now, it’s time for one of my favorite traditions: adopting a faux superior tone to criticize the All-Star Rosters!  But, it looks like I’m continuing last year’s downward trend in condescension; few of the picks this year made me sigh and shake my head in disbelief, like most of Bud Selig’s pet projects. For whatever reason, the All-Star Game rosters are just getting better and better. Maybe people take the job more seriously now that something is on the line? Maybe sites like Baseball-Reference and Fangraphs are disseminating information to voters better than ever before? Maybe Nate Silver implanted a chip into Bud Selig’s ear that whispers changes to the All-Star roster into his ear before they’re announced? Who knows!

Either way, there are still a few nits I would pick if I were setting the rosters myself, and if there’s one thing that I love, it’s discussing the minor details of a roster for a one-off exhibition game. So, let’s get down to business!

2017 Champions? What Exactly Does the Future of the Houston Astros Look Like?

What do the Astros’ future prospects look like? Just a few days ago, people were abuzz when Sports Illustrated ran this cover featuring new star George Springer and calling the Astros “Your 2017 World Series Champs”. Really, it might seem like big talk for a team that’s finished last in the majors for the past three seasons, but is it merited?

Is there a history of teams turning around like this on the strength of a minor league program bursting with talent? In fact, just how “bursting with talent” is the Astros’ farm system, from a historical context?

To answer that, I went back through Baseball America’s top 100 rankings since 2000 on a team-by-team and year-by-year basis, thanks to Baseball-Reference. My methodology was pretty basic-I gave each prospect points based on where they appeared on the list, with first getting 100 points and 100^th getting 1 point. Then, I totaled the points for each team by year.

The 2014 Astros had 314 prospect-points, thanks to Carlos Correa (7^th), George Springer (18^th), Mark Appel (39^th), Michael Foltynewicz (59^th), Lance McCullers (77^th), and Jon Singleton (82^nd). That gave them the 31^st highest ranking since 2000, and the third best system from 2014 (the Cubs had 402, while the Pirates had 359). It’s fair to say that the Astros should be doing better, what with two first overall picks heading in to this season (Brady Aiken* will almost certainly make the list next year, representing their third straight number one pick). However, it’s important to see the context of where they were just a few short seasons ago:

The Orioles Should Offer Chris Davis an Extension, Despite His Lackluster 2014

As an Orioles fan, it’s been a bit of a source of concern for me that Chris Davis isn’t repeating last year’s breakout numbers. Granted, I wasn’t expecting him to repeat those, since they were probably the extreme end of what he could produce. At the same time, though, I don’t think anyone expected him to post a .206/.327/.401 slash line half way through the season. The 28-year old first baseman was supposed to be a contributor going forward, not posting a 98 weighted Runs Created+ (wRC+, meaning he’s hitting 3% below league average).

Which is why what I’m about to say might sound crazy, but just here me out: if I were the Orioles, I’d be making every effort to resign Chris Davis right now.

Another Out of Left Field Update

After a bit of a break, I posted another update to Out of Left Field, this one a sequel to last week's piece on the concept of film adaptations.  Check it out!

What Would a Trade for David Price/Jeff Samardzija Look Like?

The trade deadline is coming up in about a month, but there’s already quite a bit of rumor buzz springing up. The two hottest commodities, it would seem so far, look like they’re going to be David Price and Jeff Samardzija. Both have ace credentials in a world were pitching is hard to get ahold of. And not only do they come with those credentials, they both also come with the entire other year under contract after this one. One might call these the ejector seat of trade scenarios; in case you enter a premature tailspin, you can jettison them to save yourself to some extent.

Either way, since I’ve been comparing past trade packages recently, I figured why not continue further down this avenue? What can a team trying to acquire Price or Samardzija expect to give up for a year and a half their services?

Well, to start with, I went around looking for ace-type pitchers who were traded in the last few years. I tried to be as complete as possible, so in some cases, I stretched the similarities, going for players who were under contract for fewer seasons, or who were more “young with potential” than “ace-like” or “old and actually an ace”, and I might have missed some, but in the end, these were the cases I found, in no order:

Out of Left Field Updated-The Edge of Tomorrow

I'm going to link to the first few Out of Left Field posts here as a reminder, since the site is still new (not yet sure how many, but at least a few). So, with that in mind, here's today's post on the new movie Edge of Tomorrow (which I very much enjoyed).

People Are Discussing Jimmy Rollins and the Hall of Fame, So I Had to Weigh In

A week ago, a Hall of Fame story sprung up, and I just didn’t have time to write about it. A few days went by and I assumed it sort of just died out. But no, here we are a week later, and there’s a second article discussing Jimmy Rollins’s Hall of Fame chances out. I figure that means I have carte blanche to write about the Hall in June, then.

Jayson Stark makes about as good of a case for Rollins as I think a person can make, and truth be told, it’s based on a lot of misdirection. One thing that Bill James always cautioned about in Hall of Fame discussions was the picking of incredibly arbitrary statistical groups. Unfortunately, that’s the main thrust of Stark’s argument for Rollins.

His main arguments, as far as I can tell, are that Rollins is the only shortstop in the 400 steals/200 home runs club, one of four shortstops the 200 home run/2000 hit club, and one of six shortstops in the 2000 hit/4 Gold Glove club. Why are these bad? Well, mostly because, despite what it would seem, they’re really not that informative. The best example of why can be seen in Stark’s second example, the 200/2000 club.

As Jayson Stark tells us, only four shortstops have both 200 home runs and 2000 hits: Derek Jeter, Cal Ripken Jr., Rollins, and Miguel Tejada. He ignores Alex Rodriguez and Robin Yount, both of whom hits those marks and has played a plurality of games at short (Yount just over 50%, A-Rod, just under), which I’ll assume is an oversight. Now, just of this group, you may notice something: even taking Rollins out of the group, there is a HUGE gulf in talent. We can debate whether Jeter and Ripken are equals in the magnitude of their awesomeness, but Miguel Tejada sure as heck isn’t on that level, no matter how you swing it. Even if we take Stark’s assurances that Rollins will blow past Tejada’s numbers, that still invites the question of whether it is at all inherently Hall-worthy to be in this exclusive club. Maybe the 200 homers and 2000 hits aren’t what gave the player Hall-level value, but instead, sometimes valuable players happen to accumulate those marks.

Was the Phillies Trade for Hunter Pence One of Baseball's All-Time Blunders?

The big news this week (well, one thing from the non-game front, at least) is the report that the Phillies may have accidentally sent the Astros a player that they didn’t mean to in the Hunter Pence trade. It’s worth noting that this was initially reported by a reporter for the Houston Chronicle, so maybe there’s some bias here, but it’s worth exploring a question it gave me: how bad was the Hunter Pence trade?

First, some background. Pence was traded in the middle of the 2011 season. The Phillies, in need of a corner outfielder to replace Jayson Werth, were a natural fit for his services, and so they acquired him for the next two and a half years at the price of Jarred Cosart, Jon Singleton, Josh Zeid, and a player to be named later that later became Domingo Santana (the player who may or may not have been included by accident). The Phillies were upset in the first round of the playoffs that season, and, after a disappointing start to the 2012 season, shipped Pence off to San Francisco.

Now, I think it’s pretty easy to say that this trade doesn’t look great for Philadelphia. Singleton is off to a solid start for his career, Cosart has been good and shows signs of improvement, and Santana is triple slashing a .295/.368/.498 line in AAA as a 21 year old (nearly six years below that league’s average age). We should give it a few years to be sure, but right now, you have to at least acknowledge that that is a lot to give up for a guy who hung around for only a year before being sent off for a disappointing return (more on that in a bit, though).

But really, that’s only part of the question. The bigger part is: is it a blunder? For those not aware, Rob Neyer once wrote a book called Rob Neyer’s Big Book of Baseball Blunders. In it, he more or less laid out two ways for a trade to be classified. First, a trade could be bad without being a blunder. Sometimes teams just miss on evaluating players, and you give up a Jeff Bagwell in order to get a piece you need to make a playoff run. For every Bagwell that turns out well for the rebuilding team, there are ten Brett Wallaces that fail to make a Hall-level impact.

However, if there were other factors involved, it could be a blunder. Was it a misread of the team’s situation? Was it a shortsighted trade made partly out of spite? Was there some other factor that made it particularly bad? Only then could it be qualified as a blunder.

Cape Cod League Update: The 2014 MLB Draft

With this, I suppose it really is the end of my Cape League series. The 2014 Draft marks the last time pre-Majors that I’ll hear about this large of a group of players from the 2012 Cape League (some of them still might be in the draft next year, but not on this overall scale). So, just like I did last year, here’s a list of the 2012 alumni who were taken in this year’s draft:


Player: Kyle Schwarber
Pick: Round 1, Pick 4
Position: C (LF on the Cape)
Cape League Team: Wareham Gatemen
College: Indiana
Major League Team: Chicago Cubs
I didn’t get to see a lot of eventual champion Wareham, but Schwarber was impressive the few times that I did see them. I featured him in my team write-up.


Player: Aaron Nola
Pick: Round 1, Pick 7
Position: RHP
Cape League Team: Harwich Mariners
College: LSU
Major League Team: Philadelphia Phillies


Player: Jeff Hoffman
Pick: Round 1, Pick 9
Position: RHP
Cape League Team: Hyannis Harbor Hawks
College: East Carolina
Major League Team: Toronto Blue Jays
Hoffman was the second half of Hyannis’s 1-2 punch that also featured last year’s first round pick Sean Manaea.

Player: Michael Conforto
Pick: Round 1, Pick 10
Position: OF
Cape League Team: Brewster Whitecaps
College: Oregon State
Major League Team: New York Mets

An Experiment

I had long been toying with the idea of adding essays about non-baseball subjects here. In the end, though, I decided it was best to keep all my writing separated into Baseball and Non-Baseball. To that end, I today started Out of Left Field. Right now, I'm thinking it'll be my writings on pop cultural things, but it may just evolve into whatever I feel like writing at the time. I also added a link to it on the main site.

The inaugural post is up over there, reviewing The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Go check it out!

The Jonathan Singleton Deal, and the Rebuilding, Finances, and Future of the Houston Astros

With Jon Singleton’s home run yesterday, it seems that a new era is officially under way for the Houston Astros. Although maybe it more accurately started two months ago with the call-up of George Springer. Or maybe a month ago, since that was when he took off (his first month was quite the opposite).

Or maybe it was Monday, when the team inked Singleton to a new contract. And not just any contract, but the largest contract in history for someone without a game of Major League experience. On one hand, a guaranteed $10 million for five years (or, if the options are exercised, $35 million/eight years) seems like a steal for the Astros. One Win Above Replacement is going for about $6 million on the free agent market, meaning that Singleton could match that without even making it to 2 WAR. On the other hand, there was no way Singleton would have cost that much as a pre-arbitration, then arbitration-eligible player. On the other-other hand, that’s still not an unreasonable total, and if Singleton is good, he almost certainly would have been worth that and more. On the other hand, Singleton still hasn’t even played a game at the Major League level. On the other hand, he’s only giving up one year of free agency, worst-case scenario, so he’ll still be paid in good time if he is worth it. All I can figure out from all of that is that the deal sounds about right in balancing risk and reward for both parties (and also that I apparently have five hands).

But this does bring up an interesting question: is this the new Astros, a small-market team? After all, they do have a rather meager $50 million payroll this season, with only two players making more than even $5 million this season (Dexter Fowler and Scott Feldman). This is a team that carried a $102 million payroll as recently as 2009; what’s going on here?

The Numbers of Mr. 3000

I've been a little busy, but I figured I'd give a heads up on some other writing I've been able to help with. Specifically, I contributed to this article analyzing the advanced stats of Bernie Mac's character in Mr. 3000. Check it out, it's a fun piece!

What Would a Giancarlo-Stanton-to-the-Cardinals Trade Look Like?

This isn’t the first time that the Cardinals have been tied in rumor to Giancarlo Stanton, but this is the first time that I’ve been able to write about it now that it’s kind of in the news again. So let’s look at it now. Should the Cardinals make this trade? Should the Marlins? If they both should, what would it take?

Let’s start with the Cardinals’ side: should they trade for Stanton? Yes. The answer is yes. Stanton is currently 24, he has a 167 OPS+ for this season and a 140 mark for his five year career. He has been playing Major League Baseball since he was 20 and he has still hit 40% better than league average. If a player like that is available, you should be fired for not asking about him. As for the logistics, he’s set to become a free agent after 2016, so a team would be acquiring him for at least two and a half seasons, plus any acquiring team would almost certainly be working to extend him, since he’ll be a free agent at the incredibly reasonable age of 27.

Now, the Marlins: would they make this trade? Well, it turns out that they have! Miguel Cabrera was traded two full seasons before becoming a free agent and for his…age 25 season. Well look at that, what a coincidence. Now, the GM has changed since then. However, the influential right hand man to the GM is still in place. Coincidentally, the GM’s right hand man is an actual sock puppet on owner Jeffrey Loria’s right hand.

All of that to say: as long as Jeffrey Loria is owner, there’s a chance that the Marlins will make some crazy cost-cutting maneuver at the expense of fielding a good team. If the team stays in contention this year, they might table talks until the offseason*, but we can’t just rule it out like we could for, oh, 29 other teams.

*And any time you’re depending on a bunch of young pitchers who might wear down, like Jose Fernandez, Nathan Eovaldi, Henderson Alvarez, and Jacob Turner, or a bunch of out-of-nowhere good seasons, like with Casey McGehee, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, and Tom Koehler, it’s fair to say “Let’s wait another month and see”.

So with that, what would a trade for Stanton look like? Well, let’s use Miguel Cabrera as a basis, since they were 24-year-old outfielders two years from free agency playing on the Marlins with career OPS+s around 140 (Miguel’s was 143, in fact). The full Miggy trade was: