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2016 MLB thread. THE CUBS HAVE BROKEN THE CURSE! Chicago Cubs are your 2016 World Series champions
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The Greatness of Greg Maddux.
Mike Ohlman and the Passed Ball Dilemma.
2014 Top 10 Prospects: Baltimore Orioles.
Mike Trout: Top-Ten Outfield.
The Braves’ Good Problem.
Which Active Players Are Going to Cooperstown?
Greg Maddux officially becomes a Hall of Famer today, and the only controversy surrounding his election is that it won’t be unanimous. He is, without question, one of the greatest pitchers of all time. So, let’s celebrate the things that made him great.
Greg Maddux threw 200 innings in every single season from 1988 to 2001, with the streak snapping after throwing just 199 1/3 innings in 2002, before he proceeded to throw four more consecutive seasons with 200 innings pitched. That streak stopped in 2007, when he just threw 198 innings. Or, put another way, Maddux threw 198 or more innings in every single season from age-22 to age-41, even though the 1994 strike ended the season in 1994 (202 innings in 25 starts) and caused it to begin late in 1995 (210 innings in 28 starts). For 20 straight years, Maddux was a guaranteed 200 innings, even if Major League Baseball didn’t even bother to finish their season.
In 1994, the league average home run rate per nine innings jumped to 1.04, up from 0.90 in 1993, which is one of the main reasons it is often labeled as the start of the “Steroids Era”. When the strike occurred, Matt Williams was on pace to break the all time single season home run record, and five other players looked like they might get close to it as well. And in that year, the beginning of the home run boom, Maddux allowed four home runs for the entire season. Four. It’s the only season of the last 60 years where a pitcher has thrown 200 innings and given up fewer than five home runs, and it happened in the era when home runs were most plentiful. While people remember Maddux for having impeccable command, his walk rates are not historically unprecedented. His ability to never give up home runs, though, might not ever be seen again.
Of course, we shouldn’t just ignore his ability to never walk anyone either, because that was a significant part of why he was so good. In a time where offensive levels were surging and pitchers could be forgiven for avoiding the heart of the plate, Maddux pounded the strike zone like few others ever have. From 1995 to 1997, Maddux walked 2.7% of the batters he faced; among the pitchers who threw at least 600 innings in those three seasons, only two — Shane Reynolds and Denny Neagle, at 5.0% and 5.2% respectively — posted walk rates that were not twice as high as Maddux’s walk rate. When it came to not walking hitters, Maddux regularly lapped the field.
And it’s not like he was Bob Tewksbury, just grooving the ball over the plate and hoping for soft contact. While Maddux was not Randy Johnson, his strikeout totals have often been undersold because of strikeout rate has often been measured as total strikeouts per nine innings, rather than per batter faced. Because Maddux never put anyone on base, his innings often consisted of just three batters instead of four or five, giving him fewer opportunities to record a strikeout each inning. On a percentage basis, though, in-his-prime Maddux was actually a prolific strikeout pitcher.
Take 1995, for instance. Among pitchers who threw just 100 innings — a lower barrier than usual due to the shortened season — Maddux’s 7.77 K/9 ranked just 18th in baseball, in between Jeff Fassero and Mark Gardner. But by K%, which just looks at strikeouts per batter faced, his 23.1% strikeout rate was 5th best in baseball, putting him in a near tie with John Smoltz, who no one considered a pitch-to-contact strike-thrower. In fact, Maddux’s strikeout rate in 1995 was 35% better than the league average, and if you translate that 2013, his 1995 strikeout rate was essentially equivalent to the K% that Matt Harvey put up last year. 1995 Maddux was 2013 Matt Harvey if he also never walked anyone and gave up the fewest number of home runs in recent baseball history.
Not surprisingly, that 1995 season posted by Maddux is one of the best of all time. By ERA- (and minimum 150 innings pitched), it’s the 5th best run prevention season in baseball history. Only it’s not even Maddux’s best year, as his 1994 season ranks 3rd on that list. Two of the top five seasons in baseball history, in terms of run prevention relative to the league average, belong to Greg Maddux.
And remember, he threw 200 innings in both of those seasons despite the strike reducing his number of starts, so he wasn’t just getting lifted early and letting the bullpen strand his runners. In 1994, he averaged more than 8 innings per start. He went at least 7 innings in 22 of the 25 starts he made that year, and threw 9 innings in 11 of them. He put up the third best ERA- in baseball history in a season in which he basically never let his bullpen in the game.
But maybe the greatest thing about Greg Maddux wasn’t any of these accomplishments, but instead, how he did it. Unlike Randy Johnson, he didn’t look like a super hero who threw 100 mph. He looked like one of us. He was 6’0, wore glasses, and dominated with pitches that didn’t look like they should dominate. In an era of oversized athletes and outsized personalities, Maddux was just a guy doing his thing and embarrassing everyone else in the process. There wasn’t anything particularly flashy about Greg Maddux, until you looked up two hours later, realized the game was over, and the opposing team had only managed a couple of weak singles.
Greg Maddux personified greatness and humanity at the same time. I fully expect that he’ll be the best pitcher I ever see take the mound. Welcome to Cooperstown, sir. You deserve it more than just about anyone.
Greg Maddux threw 200 innings in every single season from 1988 to 2001, with the streak snapping after throwing just 199 1/3 innings in 2002, before he proceeded to throw four more consecutive seasons with 200 innings pitched. That streak stopped in 2007, when he just threw 198 innings. Or, put another way, Maddux threw 198 or more innings in every single season from age-22 to age-41, even though the 1994 strike ended the season in 1994 (202 innings in 25 starts) and caused it to begin late in 1995 (210 innings in 28 starts). For 20 straight years, Maddux was a guaranteed 200 innings, even if Major League Baseball didn’t even bother to finish their season.
In 1994, the league average home run rate per nine innings jumped to 1.04, up from 0.90 in 1993, which is one of the main reasons it is often labeled as the start of the “Steroids Era”. When the strike occurred, Matt Williams was on pace to break the all time single season home run record, and five other players looked like they might get close to it as well. And in that year, the beginning of the home run boom, Maddux allowed four home runs for the entire season. Four. It’s the only season of the last 60 years where a pitcher has thrown 200 innings and given up fewer than five home runs, and it happened in the era when home runs were most plentiful. While people remember Maddux for having impeccable command, his walk rates are not historically unprecedented. His ability to never give up home runs, though, might not ever be seen again.
Of course, we shouldn’t just ignore his ability to never walk anyone either, because that was a significant part of why he was so good. In a time where offensive levels were surging and pitchers could be forgiven for avoiding the heart of the plate, Maddux pounded the strike zone like few others ever have. From 1995 to 1997, Maddux walked 2.7% of the batters he faced; among the pitchers who threw at least 600 innings in those three seasons, only two — Shane Reynolds and Denny Neagle, at 5.0% and 5.2% respectively — posted walk rates that were not twice as high as Maddux’s walk rate. When it came to not walking hitters, Maddux regularly lapped the field.
And it’s not like he was Bob Tewksbury, just grooving the ball over the plate and hoping for soft contact. While Maddux was not Randy Johnson, his strikeout totals have often been undersold because of strikeout rate has often been measured as total strikeouts per nine innings, rather than per batter faced. Because Maddux never put anyone on base, his innings often consisted of just three batters instead of four or five, giving him fewer opportunities to record a strikeout each inning. On a percentage basis, though, in-his-prime Maddux was actually a prolific strikeout pitcher.
Take 1995, for instance. Among pitchers who threw just 100 innings — a lower barrier than usual due to the shortened season — Maddux’s 7.77 K/9 ranked just 18th in baseball, in between Jeff Fassero and Mark Gardner. But by K%, which just looks at strikeouts per batter faced, his 23.1% strikeout rate was 5th best in baseball, putting him in a near tie with John Smoltz, who no one considered a pitch-to-contact strike-thrower. In fact, Maddux’s strikeout rate in 1995 was 35% better than the league average, and if you translate that 2013, his 1995 strikeout rate was essentially equivalent to the K% that Matt Harvey put up last year. 1995 Maddux was 2013 Matt Harvey if he also never walked anyone and gave up the fewest number of home runs in recent baseball history.
Not surprisingly, that 1995 season posted by Maddux is one of the best of all time. By ERA- (and minimum 150 innings pitched), it’s the 5th best run prevention season in baseball history. Only it’s not even Maddux’s best year, as his 1994 season ranks 3rd on that list. Two of the top five seasons in baseball history, in terms of run prevention relative to the league average, belong to Greg Maddux.
And remember, he threw 200 innings in both of those seasons despite the strike reducing his number of starts, so he wasn’t just getting lifted early and letting the bullpen strand his runners. In 1994, he averaged more than 8 innings per start. He went at least 7 innings in 22 of the 25 starts he made that year, and threw 9 innings in 11 of them. He put up the third best ERA- in baseball history in a season in which he basically never let his bullpen in the game.
But maybe the greatest thing about Greg Maddux wasn’t any of these accomplishments, but instead, how he did it. Unlike Randy Johnson, he didn’t look like a super hero who threw 100 mph. He looked like one of us. He was 6’0, wore glasses, and dominated with pitches that didn’t look like they should dominate. In an era of oversized athletes and outsized personalities, Maddux was just a guy doing his thing and embarrassing everyone else in the process. There wasn’t anything particularly flashy about Greg Maddux, until you looked up two hours later, realized the game was over, and the opposing team had only managed a couple of weak singles.
Greg Maddux personified greatness and humanity at the same time. I fully expect that he’ll be the best pitcher I ever see take the mound. Welcome to Cooperstown, sir. You deserve it more than just about anyone.
Mike Ohlman and the Passed Ball Dilemma.
Just about anyone reading FanGraphs probably knows about the debate surrounding defensive statistics. About the only thing everyone seems to agree on is that all defensive statistics are inadequate reflections of defense, or at least need extremely large sample sizes to attain reliability. This is especially true with regard to catchers, whose defensive contributions are quite the riddle to solve.
These issues extend even more in the minor leagues, where the sole widely available statistics are the traditional ones–assists, putouts, errors, double plays, range factor, and fielding percentage. Needless to say, these are not broadly effective arbiters of defensive aptitude. Again, catcher defense is arguably even more elusive, with passed balls and caught-stealing percentage the only remotely notable metrics. The desperate search to link numbers to potential leads these stats to often stand for “receiving skills” and “throwing arm,” respectively, which is a gross overstatement of their utility.
In this post, I want to examine just how meaningful, or perhaps meaningless, the passed ball statistic is for catching prospects.
Baltimore catching prospect Mike Ohlman is a good example. Ohlman is a catcher, or perhaps a “catcher,” who hit .313/.410/.524 in High-A Frederick this year. He was just 22, so he wasn’t too old for the level, his 93/56 K/BB checks out, and though he hit in a very friendly home park, he still managed an excellent .290/.374/.464 mark on the road in a generally pitcher-friendly league.
I’ve seen Ohlman live, and he’s not just some unbalanced hitter beating up on inexperienced pitchers. Check out this swing:
Three things:
1.) Mike Ohlman is big.
2.) Mike Ohlman is strong.
3.) Despite the clear truth of the above statements, Ohlman doesn’t sell out for power, utilizing a fairly balanced medium-length stroke with a lot of natural leverage.
Ohlman’s relatively sound hitting mechanics, natural power, and solid plate discipline give him a chance to hit something like .265/.340/.455 in the big leagues in a few years, which would put him in the .345 wOBA range. That would place him in the upper third of MLB catchers (who hit a combined .245/.310/.388 in 2013) but would be fairly pedestrian at first base, the only other position Ohlman has a chance of playing (1Bs hit .261/.337/.436 in 2013).
Ohlman could hit enough to be useful at either spot (or DH) if he meets his upside, but the former 11th-rounder would be a much bigger find if he could stick behind the plate. Unfortunately, I can’t offer much personally on his defensive capability as a catcher, because I only saw him in the lineup as a designated hitter. I can, however, offer up a few basic facts about his defense.
1.) At 6’4″, he’s a dreaded “tall catcher.”
2.) He caught 46 times and DHed 53 in 2013, even though the other catchers on his team were 26-year-old indy ball signee Zane Chavez (45 starts) and 25-year-old journeyman Allan de San Miguel (50 starts); he also only caught in 14 of his 71 games played in 2012.
3.) In his 46 games caught this year, Ohlman allowed eight passed balls while catching 22 of 77 (29%) attempted basestealers. For his career, he’s allowed 41 passed balls in 195 games and caught 27% of base thieves.
This trio of facts doesn’t exactly paint the most optimistic picture regarding Ohlman’s future behind the plate. The scouting bias against tall catchers doesn’t help him, his inability to push aside two veterans in High-A says something about where the Orioles view his defense, and eight passed balls in 46 games caught would work out to 24 miscues in 138 contests, roughly a full season of everyday catching. By comparison, current Orioles catcher Matt Wieters has 16 career passed balls in 618 games caught; Ohlman allows pitches to get by him approximately six times as often.
Those numbers seem grim, but we need context. For one, in 2013, High-A catchers allowed 517 passed balls whereas MLB backstops permitted just 318, a split that’s even more pronounced when one considers that High-A teams played a 140-game schedule. Part of the reason for the elevated passed ball rate is that High-A catchers aren’t as talented as MLB ones, of course, but another part is that they simply have less experience, in much the same way that error rates of infielders tend to improve as they progress from their teenage years to their primes.
We can debate how relevant passed ball totals are to the quality of a major league catcher’s defense, but that’s a separate discussion. What is undeniably true, however, is that passed ball rates like those of Ohlman and many other low-minors catchers are never seen in MLB unless knuckleball pitching is involved–J.P. Arencibia led MLB with 13 in 131 contests this past season. The minimization of passed balls may not say much about a catcher’s framing skill or his ability to handle a pitching staff, but it does seem that they have to be quite infrequent for a catcher to be deemed worthy of sticking behind the plate in a major league uniform.
We need a way of measuring this standard, and I’m going to proceed using the quite crude measure of passed balls per game caught. In a perfect world, one would measure passed ball frequency by (passed balls/number of non-wild pitches that were not contacted by the batter), but we obviously don’t have that data for minor league catchers–in fact, there’s not even innings caught data for them. Games caught data obviously comes with issues–it counts catching an inning as a defensive replacement as equal to catching a 17-inning marathon–but it’s broadly functional, and the best (really only) thing to work with from the available data.
For some perspective on what is “normal” for the statistic, I looked at MLB data for the last several years and found that the average MLB rate is approximately .065 passed balls per game caught, or around one passed ball for every 15 contests, with the threshold of “passable” and “problematic” being somewhere around .1 per game.
Obviously, many minor league catchers are far above this threshold. San Diego’s Austin Hedges is touted as perhaps the best defensive catcher in the minors, but he allowed 16 passed balls in 94 games in 2012 (.17 per game), cutting down to 7 in 79 (.089 per game) this year. Texas’ Jorge Alfaro, another highly touted backstop, committed 26 miscues in 82 contests (.317 per game). There are plenty of other examples.
So the question is, do numbers like these mean anything? Do nightmarish passed ball totals foreshadow defensive inadequacy, or does almost everyone eradicate the issue with experience? Let’s look.
To obtain a sample, I looked at all catchers who were 22 between 2003 and 2007 and caught at least 50 games (at any level) in their age-22 season. Age 22 works well because it a) includes college draftees and not just high schoolers and international signees, b) most fairly talented players are in full-season ball by age 22, and c) it is still fairly representative of a somewhat nascent developmental stage. There were 131 such players, and their passed ball rates at age 22 ranged from Jose Reyes‘ mere 1 in 91 contests (.011 per game) to Lucas May‘s 31 in 78 games caught (.397 per game). The average age-22 passed ball rate was .149 per game, slightly more than double the MLB rate.
I wanted to see where the passed ball rates of these players ended up when they were essentially “finished developing.” Age 27 is the most common “peak year” for position players, followed by age 26 and 28, so for the sake of increasing the sample size of the metric, I decided to compare the age-22 passed ball rates of the catchers in the sample to their passed ball rates over their age 26-28 seasons. If a player hasn’t figured out how to curb the miscues at that age, he’ll likely never turn the corner.
Of course, not all 131 catchers in the sample managed to stay in organized baseball through their age-28 seasons. Two never played again;,11 played just one more season, 19 others didn’t make it past age 24, eight were finished at 25, eight more at 26, and seven more at 27. Mike Jacobs was moved to first base, Tyler Parker and Phil Avlas were moved to the outfield, and Jake Fox, Matt McBride, and Max Ramirez were largely moved, seeing only spot duty at catcher by their late twenties. Eight others were moved to the mound, leaving 62 of the 131 (47.33%) as still-employed catchers in affiliated ball at age 28.
First, then, I wanted to see if age-22 passed ball rate had anything to do with who was still catching in organized ball six years later. The catchers who didn’t make it average .154 passed balls per game at age 22, whereas those that did averaged .144. That’s a slight difference that probably doesn’t mean anything, and for the catchers who were done by age 27, age-22 passed balls per game had no correlation with the last year they played. Heck, Reyes and his tremendous rate were done at 24, while May’s survived behind the plate through the 2013 season.
That in itself doesn’t mean age-22 passed balls mean nothing; the ability to hit is obviously paramount, not to mention the other aspects of the catcher position defensively, and a catcher’s ability in these other areas likely plays a far bigger role in his longevity than passed ball numbers. But what of those age 26-28 passed ball rates for the 62 catchers who did stick around through their hypothetical primes?
That’s age-22 passed balls per game on the horizontal axis, with age 26-28 ones on the vertical axis. Let’s note a few things here.
First off, every single catcher in the sample got their passed ball rate down to less than .16 per game in their age 26-28 years, the worst being Steve Lerud’s .158 (the best was J.R. Towles‘ .02). Twenty-two of the 62 (35.48%) were at .16 or higher at age 22, and all of them improved to get below that threshold. Thus, we can call .16 a rough “floor” of sorts for experienced catchers. These .2 and .3 numbers that we see in the low minors are almost guaranteed to vanish, and if they don’t, the player likely will be cut or moved elsewhere on the diamond. Ohlman has a .21 career rate and was at .173 this past season; if he’s still around in six years, he’s virtually guaranteed to have taken at least a small chunk out of that number.
Second, there is a correlation. Lerud had the second-worst passed ball rate of any age-22 catcher and ended up with the worst rate at 26-28; May had the worst rate at 22 and the fourth-worst at 26-28. The best age-22 rate was put up by Brian McCann, who ended up well above-average (.04
in his prime; Towles, likewise, already had an MLB-average passed ball rate (.065) at 22. The r^2 of .1376 indicates a correlation, though not a particularly strong one.
And that leads me to my final point–while there is a general trend here, there is certainly the potential for catchers with poor passed ball rates at 22 to be relatively problem-free in that regard in their primes. Brad Davis allowed 15 passed balls in 59 games caught (.254 per game) at 22, but just 11 in 294 games caught (.037) from age 26-28. Chris Snyder went from .257 to .072, Wyatt Toregas from .286 to .088, Kris Watts from .212 to .058, Brett Hayes from .197 to .056, Nevin Ashley from .182 to .046, and Chris Robinson improved from .16 to .03. The formula of the trendline indicates that a catcher who allows a passed ball every five games (.2) at age 22 will allow just .085 per game at 26-28–a below-average mark, but one that is not necessarily unplayable, falling on the good side of .1.
In summary, while it’s easy to look at the passed ball numbers of certain young catchers and wonder how it’s possible that they’ll ever improve enough to come anywhere near capable of receiving pitches at the game’s highest level, there should never be much fear that a catcher will be letting dozens of pitches by in the prime of his career, to say nothing of the passed ball statistic’s woeful inadequacy at capturing receiving or even blocking skill in the first place. Still, a catcher’s passed ball rate at 22 does have some predictive value with regard to passed ball prevention a few years down the line, so 22-year-old catchers who are behind their peers are somewhat likely to stay behind their peers–it’s just that the gap between good rates and bad rates closes dramatically as the players gain experience and eliminate many of the head-scratching plays that come to characterize a facet of the minor league baseball experience.
These issues extend even more in the minor leagues, where the sole widely available statistics are the traditional ones–assists, putouts, errors, double plays, range factor, and fielding percentage. Needless to say, these are not broadly effective arbiters of defensive aptitude. Again, catcher defense is arguably even more elusive, with passed balls and caught-stealing percentage the only remotely notable metrics. The desperate search to link numbers to potential leads these stats to often stand for “receiving skills” and “throwing arm,” respectively, which is a gross overstatement of their utility.
In this post, I want to examine just how meaningful, or perhaps meaningless, the passed ball statistic is for catching prospects.
Baltimore catching prospect Mike Ohlman is a good example. Ohlman is a catcher, or perhaps a “catcher,” who hit .313/.410/.524 in High-A Frederick this year. He was just 22, so he wasn’t too old for the level, his 93/56 K/BB checks out, and though he hit in a very friendly home park, he still managed an excellent .290/.374/.464 mark on the road in a generally pitcher-friendly league.
I’ve seen Ohlman live, and he’s not just some unbalanced hitter beating up on inexperienced pitchers. Check out this swing:
Three things:
1.) Mike Ohlman is big.
2.) Mike Ohlman is strong.
3.) Despite the clear truth of the above statements, Ohlman doesn’t sell out for power, utilizing a fairly balanced medium-length stroke with a lot of natural leverage.
Ohlman’s relatively sound hitting mechanics, natural power, and solid plate discipline give him a chance to hit something like .265/.340/.455 in the big leagues in a few years, which would put him in the .345 wOBA range. That would place him in the upper third of MLB catchers (who hit a combined .245/.310/.388 in 2013) but would be fairly pedestrian at first base, the only other position Ohlman has a chance of playing (1Bs hit .261/.337/.436 in 2013).
Ohlman could hit enough to be useful at either spot (or DH) if he meets his upside, but the former 11th-rounder would be a much bigger find if he could stick behind the plate. Unfortunately, I can’t offer much personally on his defensive capability as a catcher, because I only saw him in the lineup as a designated hitter. I can, however, offer up a few basic facts about his defense.
1.) At 6’4″, he’s a dreaded “tall catcher.”
2.) He caught 46 times and DHed 53 in 2013, even though the other catchers on his team were 26-year-old indy ball signee Zane Chavez (45 starts) and 25-year-old journeyman Allan de San Miguel (50 starts); he also only caught in 14 of his 71 games played in 2012.
3.) In his 46 games caught this year, Ohlman allowed eight passed balls while catching 22 of 77 (29%) attempted basestealers. For his career, he’s allowed 41 passed balls in 195 games and caught 27% of base thieves.
This trio of facts doesn’t exactly paint the most optimistic picture regarding Ohlman’s future behind the plate. The scouting bias against tall catchers doesn’t help him, his inability to push aside two veterans in High-A says something about where the Orioles view his defense, and eight passed balls in 46 games caught would work out to 24 miscues in 138 contests, roughly a full season of everyday catching. By comparison, current Orioles catcher Matt Wieters has 16 career passed balls in 618 games caught; Ohlman allows pitches to get by him approximately six times as often.
Those numbers seem grim, but we need context. For one, in 2013, High-A catchers allowed 517 passed balls whereas MLB backstops permitted just 318, a split that’s even more pronounced when one considers that High-A teams played a 140-game schedule. Part of the reason for the elevated passed ball rate is that High-A catchers aren’t as talented as MLB ones, of course, but another part is that they simply have less experience, in much the same way that error rates of infielders tend to improve as they progress from their teenage years to their primes.
We can debate how relevant passed ball totals are to the quality of a major league catcher’s defense, but that’s a separate discussion. What is undeniably true, however, is that passed ball rates like those of Ohlman and many other low-minors catchers are never seen in MLB unless knuckleball pitching is involved–J.P. Arencibia led MLB with 13 in 131 contests this past season. The minimization of passed balls may not say much about a catcher’s framing skill or his ability to handle a pitching staff, but it does seem that they have to be quite infrequent for a catcher to be deemed worthy of sticking behind the plate in a major league uniform.
We need a way of measuring this standard, and I’m going to proceed using the quite crude measure of passed balls per game caught. In a perfect world, one would measure passed ball frequency by (passed balls/number of non-wild pitches that were not contacted by the batter), but we obviously don’t have that data for minor league catchers–in fact, there’s not even innings caught data for them. Games caught data obviously comes with issues–it counts catching an inning as a defensive replacement as equal to catching a 17-inning marathon–but it’s broadly functional, and the best (really only) thing to work with from the available data.
For some perspective on what is “normal” for the statistic, I looked at MLB data for the last several years and found that the average MLB rate is approximately .065 passed balls per game caught, or around one passed ball for every 15 contests, with the threshold of “passable” and “problematic” being somewhere around .1 per game.
Obviously, many minor league catchers are far above this threshold. San Diego’s Austin Hedges is touted as perhaps the best defensive catcher in the minors, but he allowed 16 passed balls in 94 games in 2012 (.17 per game), cutting down to 7 in 79 (.089 per game) this year. Texas’ Jorge Alfaro, another highly touted backstop, committed 26 miscues in 82 contests (.317 per game). There are plenty of other examples.
So the question is, do numbers like these mean anything? Do nightmarish passed ball totals foreshadow defensive inadequacy, or does almost everyone eradicate the issue with experience? Let’s look.
To obtain a sample, I looked at all catchers who were 22 between 2003 and 2007 and caught at least 50 games (at any level) in their age-22 season. Age 22 works well because it a) includes college draftees and not just high schoolers and international signees, b) most fairly talented players are in full-season ball by age 22, and c) it is still fairly representative of a somewhat nascent developmental stage. There were 131 such players, and their passed ball rates at age 22 ranged from Jose Reyes‘ mere 1 in 91 contests (.011 per game) to Lucas May‘s 31 in 78 games caught (.397 per game). The average age-22 passed ball rate was .149 per game, slightly more than double the MLB rate.
I wanted to see where the passed ball rates of these players ended up when they were essentially “finished developing.” Age 27 is the most common “peak year” for position players, followed by age 26 and 28, so for the sake of increasing the sample size of the metric, I decided to compare the age-22 passed ball rates of the catchers in the sample to their passed ball rates over their age 26-28 seasons. If a player hasn’t figured out how to curb the miscues at that age, he’ll likely never turn the corner.
Of course, not all 131 catchers in the sample managed to stay in organized baseball through their age-28 seasons. Two never played again;,11 played just one more season, 19 others didn’t make it past age 24, eight were finished at 25, eight more at 26, and seven more at 27. Mike Jacobs was moved to first base, Tyler Parker and Phil Avlas were moved to the outfield, and Jake Fox, Matt McBride, and Max Ramirez were largely moved, seeing only spot duty at catcher by their late twenties. Eight others were moved to the mound, leaving 62 of the 131 (47.33%) as still-employed catchers in affiliated ball at age 28.
First, then, I wanted to see if age-22 passed ball rate had anything to do with who was still catching in organized ball six years later. The catchers who didn’t make it average .154 passed balls per game at age 22, whereas those that did averaged .144. That’s a slight difference that probably doesn’t mean anything, and for the catchers who were done by age 27, age-22 passed balls per game had no correlation with the last year they played. Heck, Reyes and his tremendous rate were done at 24, while May’s survived behind the plate through the 2013 season.
That in itself doesn’t mean age-22 passed balls mean nothing; the ability to hit is obviously paramount, not to mention the other aspects of the catcher position defensively, and a catcher’s ability in these other areas likely plays a far bigger role in his longevity than passed ball numbers. But what of those age 26-28 passed ball rates for the 62 catchers who did stick around through their hypothetical primes?
That’s age-22 passed balls per game on the horizontal axis, with age 26-28 ones on the vertical axis. Let’s note a few things here.
First off, every single catcher in the sample got their passed ball rate down to less than .16 per game in their age 26-28 years, the worst being Steve Lerud’s .158 (the best was J.R. Towles‘ .02). Twenty-two of the 62 (35.48%) were at .16 or higher at age 22, and all of them improved to get below that threshold. Thus, we can call .16 a rough “floor” of sorts for experienced catchers. These .2 and .3 numbers that we see in the low minors are almost guaranteed to vanish, and if they don’t, the player likely will be cut or moved elsewhere on the diamond. Ohlman has a .21 career rate and was at .173 this past season; if he’s still around in six years, he’s virtually guaranteed to have taken at least a small chunk out of that number.
Second, there is a correlation. Lerud had the second-worst passed ball rate of any age-22 catcher and ended up with the worst rate at 26-28; May had the worst rate at 22 and the fourth-worst at 26-28. The best age-22 rate was put up by Brian McCann, who ended up well above-average (.04
in his prime; Towles, likewise, already had an MLB-average passed ball rate (.065) at 22. The r^2 of .1376 indicates a correlation, though not a particularly strong one.And that leads me to my final point–while there is a general trend here, there is certainly the potential for catchers with poor passed ball rates at 22 to be relatively problem-free in that regard in their primes. Brad Davis allowed 15 passed balls in 59 games caught (.254 per game) at 22, but just 11 in 294 games caught (.037) from age 26-28. Chris Snyder went from .257 to .072, Wyatt Toregas from .286 to .088, Kris Watts from .212 to .058, Brett Hayes from .197 to .056, Nevin Ashley from .182 to .046, and Chris Robinson improved from .16 to .03. The formula of the trendline indicates that a catcher who allows a passed ball every five games (.2) at age 22 will allow just .085 per game at 26-28–a below-average mark, but one that is not necessarily unplayable, falling on the good side of .1.
In summary, while it’s easy to look at the passed ball numbers of certain young catchers and wonder how it’s possible that they’ll ever improve enough to come anywhere near capable of receiving pitches at the game’s highest level, there should never be much fear that a catcher will be letting dozens of pitches by in the prime of his career, to say nothing of the passed ball statistic’s woeful inadequacy at capturing receiving or even blocking skill in the first place. Still, a catcher’s passed ball rate at 22 does have some predictive value with regard to passed ball prevention a few years down the line, so 22-year-old catchers who are behind their peers are somewhat likely to stay behind their peers–it’s just that the gap between good rates and bad rates closes dramatically as the players gain experience and eliminate many of the head-scratching plays that come to characterize a facet of the minor league baseball experience.
2014 Top 10 Prospects: Baltimore Orioles.
The Orioles front office doesn’t get enough credit for developing a solid, home-grown system that boasts some impressive talent — especially on the mound. The system lacks impact bats — outside of Jonathan Schoop — but the scouting staff acquired some intriguing hitters in the 2013 amateur draft.
#1 Dylan Bundy | 65/MLB (P)
Age IP K/9 BB/9 GB% ERA FIP xFIP RA9-WAR WAR
19 1.2 0.00 5.40 20.0 % 0.00 4.89 8.42 0.1 0.0
The Year in Review: Bundy entered 2013 as one of the Top 3 arms in the minor leagues but he blew out his elbow and underwent Tommy John surgery in late June. The talented right-hander didn’t pitch at all in 2013 because of his health issues.
The Scouting Report: Bundy’s stuff is undeniable but he also has excellent makeup, which helps him squeeze every ounce of ability out of his immense talent. His fastball sits in the mid to upper 90s and both his cutter and curveball show plus potential. His changeup should be average or better. Both his control and command have a chance to be plus attributes. The biggest concern with Bundy is his durability due to his recent surgery and modest frame.
The Year Ahead: Because he didn’t have surgery until late June, Bundy will likely miss most of 2014 but it’s possible he might get into some official game action in August. He likely won’t see any big league action during the coming season but stranger things have happened.
The Career Outlook: The injury certainly adds a level of uncertainty to Bundy’s future. However, most pitchers are able to recovery fully so the Oklahoma native could still reach his ceiling as a No. 1 or 2 starter at the big league level. Youth is certainly on his side as he didn’t turn 21 until November.
#2 Kevin Gausman | 60/MLB (P)
Age IP K/9 BB/9 GB% ERA FIP xFIP RA9-WAR WAR
22 47.2 9.25 2.45 42.0 % 5.66 3.99 3.04 -0.2 0.4
The Year in Review: The fourth overall pick in the 2012 amateur draft, Gausman reached the Majors in his first full professional season after spending half the year at both Double-A and Triple-A. A starter in college and during his minor league career, the right-hander pitched mostly out of the bullpen in the Majors. He struggled with his command and allowed 51 hits and eight homers in 47.2 innings of work.
The Scouting Report: The biggest knock on Gausman is his lack of a consistent breaking ball but his slider made strides in 2013. His fastball sits comfortably in the mid-90s and his splitter is a solid offering that could develop into a plus pitch. The right-hander has the frame to develop into an innings-eater and his athleticism helps him on the mound.
The Year Ahead: The Orioles’ inability to upgrade their pitching in the offseason (at least as of the date of this writing) makes Gausman an early favorite to break camp with the big league club. He has the present talent to step in and be a solid No. 4/5 starter — if not better.
The Career Outlook: Gausman’s rough introduction to The Show in 2013 should not cause anyone to doubt his future. He still has the talent to develop into a No. 2 starter at the big league level and it shouldn’t be too long before he rises to that lofty projection.
#3 Eduardo Rodriguez | 60/AA (P)
Age G GS IP H HR K/9 BB/9 ERA FIP
20 30 30 159.2 147 10 7.95 3.10 3.61 3.36
The Year in Review: The Venezuelan southpaw split the 2013 between High-A and Double-A. He showed above-average control for his age while walking 49 batters with 125 strikeouts in 145.0 combined innings. After he made 25 minor league starts during the regular season, Rodriguez compiled another five starts in the Arizona Fall League but was hit around a bit and posted a 5.52 ERA with 16 hits allowed in 14.2 innings of work.
The Scouting Report: Dylan Bundy and Kevin Gausman are names that are fairly well known among well educated fans around baseball but Rodriguez has yet to gain similar notoriety despite having the talent to challenge them in the rankings. He has an above-average fastball for a southpaw and it can hit the mid-90s with excellent movement. Both his slider and changeup should be above-average — if not plus — offerings for him when he reaches his full potential.
The Year Ahead: The experience in the AFL could convince the Orioles to push the lefty to Triple-A if he has a strong spring. Both Gausman and Rodriguez could be in Baltimore’s starting rotation in the second half of 2014. A healthy Bundy will likely join them in 2015, and them will potentially give them a stellar 1-2-3 pitching punch.
The Career Outlook: Rodriguez has the ceiling of a No. 2 or 3 starter but he’ll likely slot into the Orioles’ No. 3 slot in the future with the other young, talented arms also reaching the Majors around the same time as him. It could soon be a very good time to be an O’s fan.
#4 Jonathan Schoop | 60/MLB (2B)
Age PA BB% K% AVG OBP SLG wOBA wRC+ Off Def WAR
21 15 6.7 % 13.3 % .286 .333 .500 .364 128 0.5 -1.4 0.0
The Year in Review: Schoop’s season looked to be in jeopardy when he went down with a significant back injury in May. However, he still managed to play 70 games at the Triple-A level and also made his big league debut with five games in late September. He also tried to make up for the lost development time by playing in the Arizona Fall League but he struggled and hit just .177 with 17 strikeouts in 16 games.
The Scouting Report: The best hitting prospect in the Orioles system (by a fairly wide margin), Schoop isn’t afraid to use the whole field and currently flashes gap pop. He should hit for a solid average with 10-15 homers in his prime. Defensively, he has a strong arm but lacks ideal range for shortstop and is probably best suited for second due to his lack of traditional pop (expected from a third baseman).
The Year Ahead: Schoop, 22, will likely return to Triple-A to open the 2014 season. However, the club has question marks at two infield positions with Jemile Weeks (second base) and Ryan Flaherty (third base) projected to open the year as starters at their respective slots. Don’t be shocked to see Schoop back in the Majors by June, if his back is truly healthy again.
The Career Outlook: Back injuries have a way of lingering but the Curacao native will hopefully leave his issues in the rearview mirror as he advances into the 2014 season and beyond. If he stays healthy, he has a chance to be an above-average contributor at the big league level and could be paired with Manny Machado for years to come.
#5 Hunter Harvey | 60/SS (P)
Age G GS IP H HR K/9 BB/9 ERA FIP
18 8 8 25.1 21 0 11.72 2.13 1.78 1.31
The Year in Review: Picking 22nd overall during the 2013 amateur draft, the Orioles nabbed a high-ceiling prep arm out of North Carolina. Harvey looked even more advanced than expected during his pro debut by showing above-average control while pitching in both Rookie ball and Short-season A-ball. He produced impressive ground-ball out numbers and also struck out 33 batters in 25.1 innings.
The Scouting Report: Harvey is a projectable arm that currently throws in the 88-93 mph range and could eventually hit the mid to upper 90s. He has a curveball that should develop into a plus offering — once he learns to throw the offering with a consistent arm speed — but his changeup is well below average. Like a lot of young pitchers his mechanics could use smoothing out.
The Year Ahead: Harvey, 19, should move up to pitch in full-season Low-A ball in 2014 but should spend most, if not all, of the season there. With three very talented arms ahead of him there really is no reason to rush his development.
The Career Outlook: Harvey has the ceiling of a No. 2/3 starter but, with just eight professional starts under his belt, he has a long way to go to realize his full potential. And, as we learned with Dylan Bundy, serious injuries can pop up at any time.
#6 Mike Wright | 55/AAA (P)
Age G GS IP H HR K/9 BB/9 ERA FIP
23 27 27 150.1 158 9 8.26 2.33 3.11 3.12
The Year in Review: Wright spent the majority of the 2013 season pitching in the Double-A starting rotation. He displayed outstanding durability by making 26 starts with 143.2 innings pitched. He showed above-average control but his command was not as consistent and he allowed 152 hits. Wright, 24, was promoted to Triple-A at the end of the season to make one starter in which he held the Durham Bulls to no runs over six innings of work.
The Scouting Report: Wright can match the talent of many of the arms ahead of him on this list but he’s an impressive prospect in his own right with the ceiling of a No. 3 starter. The right-hander pounds the strike zone with his four-pitch repertoire, which includes a low-90s fastball, curveball, slider and changeup. He needs to take better advantage of his size and pound the lower half of the strike zone.
The Year Ahead: Wright should return to Triple-A for a full season in 2014 but could be one of the first pitchers recalled in the even of an injury to someone on the Orioles’ starting staff. However, he could be hurt by the fact that he doesn’t have to be added to the 40-man roster until after the 2014 season — unless Baltimore is truly convinced that’s he’s MLB ready.
The Career Outlook: As alluded to above, Wright has the ceiling of a mid-rotation, innings-eating starter and should be ready to settle into a big league rotation in 2015, if not sooner. With so many talented arms ahead of him, the South Carolina native could eventually be used as trade bait to help acquire some more offence.
#7 Tim Berry | 55/A+ (P)
Age G GS IP H HR K/9 BB/9 ERA FIP
22 34 29 166.2 167 13 7.02 2.32 3.67 3.59
The Year in Review: The 22-year-old southpaw spent the year in High-A ball and showed his durability with 27 starts. He then appeared in another seven games (two starts) in the Arizona Fall League and compiled a total of 166.2 innings. Berry flashed his above-average control but allowed 156 hits in 152 A-ball innings.
The Scouting Report: Berry attacks the strike zone with a low-90s fastball and his curveball shows plus potential. The changeup remains a work in progress but it should be at least an average offering for him. He still has work to do to become more consistent against right-handed hitters and the improved off-speed pitch could go a long way towards that goal.
The Year Ahead: Berry will move up to Double-A where he’ll look to continue to polish his secondary offerings and find a way to miss more bats. He’ll be entering his fifth pro season and could receive a taste of big league action in September, if not sooner.
The Career Outlook: The left-handed hurler isn’t flashy but he should develop into a solid back-end (No. 4) starter or middle reliever.
#8 Michael Ohlman | 55/A+ (C/DH)
Age PA H 2B HR BB SO SB AVG OBP SLG wOBA
22 466 122 32 17 67 99 5 .311 .416 .543 .433
The Year in Review: Ohlman produced a strong offensive season in High-A ball with a .313 average and .934 OPS in 100 games. He showed a willingness to take a free pass and also produced solid power — especially against left-handed pitching. Ohlman, 23, continued his hot hitting with an appearance in the Arizona Fall League where seven of his nine hits went for extra bases. He also walked 11 times compared to just six strikeouts in 10 games. He still has some rough edges to sand down behind the plate.
The Scouting Report: A former 11th round draft pick (2009) out of a Florida high school, Ohlman struggled with the bat in his first three pro seasons but it kicked into high gear over the last two years. The young catcher has the potential to be a very good hitter with a solid average and decent power, although he’s prone to slumps. Defensively, he has a large frame and projects to be average in the throwing, receiving and blocking categories. He’s considered a solid game caller.
The Year Ahead: Ohlman will move up to Double-A and will want to add some more polish to the defensive side of his game. Currently, he projects to provide above-average offensive production from a key position.
The Career Outlook: With Matt Wieters looking like a solid big league catcher, but not the star he was projected to be, there could eventually be an opening for the Orioles’ full-time catcher and Ohlman is the current favorite to fill that role if the incumbent leaves as a free agent in 2016 (if he’s not traded before that).
#9 Chance Sisco | 60/R (C/DH)
Age PA H 2B HR BB SO SB AVG OBP SLG wOBA
18 124 37 4 1 18 23 1 .363 .468 .451 .444
The Year in Review: The 61st overall pick in the 2013 amateur draft, Sisco was a beast in his pro debut with a .371 batting average and .938 OPS in 31 rookie ball games. He showed an impressive eye and patience with 17 walks. The catcher was so impressive that he earned a late-season promotion to the New York Penn League.
The Scouting Report: Sisco has only been catching regularly for a short period of time so he has a lot of work to do behind the plate but, if the bat advances too quickly, he’s athletic enough to handle a corner infield position, or possibly even left field (although the move would significantly hamper his value). At the plate, he could develop into a solid hitter with modest pop. Sisco is still young and needs to improve against left-handed pitching.
The Year Ahead: Catching depth is quickly becoming a strength of the organization with Matt Wieters at the big league level and Michael Ohlman projected to be in Double-A. Sisco should move up to Low-A ball in 2014 and there is no need to rush his development. He’ll want to continue to work on his defense and polish his approach against southpaws.
The Career Outlook: Strong offensive catchers that swing from the left side are always in high demand. It’s early — and young catchers have a nasty habit of stagnating when they hit full-season ball — but Sisco looks like he could develop into something special.
#10 Henry Urrutia | 50/A+ (DH)
Age PA BB% K% AVG OBP SLG wOBA wRC+ Off Def WAR
26 58 0.0 % 19.0 % .276 .276 .310 .257 55 -3.6 -1.5 -0.3
The Year in Review: Cuban signees have been all the rage recently with the successes of players such as the Dodgers’ Yasiel Puig. Urrutia was more of an under-the-radar acquisition but he needed less than one year of minor league seasoning to reach The Show. He hit more than .300 with good gap power at both minor league stops (Double-A and Triple-A). Urrutia appeared in the Arizona Fall League after the season and continued his scorching attack against professional pitchers.
The Scouting Report: Urrutia has an impressive left-handed swing that should allow him to hit for a solid big league average and he hangs in well against tough southpaws. He makes good contract and shouldn’t strike out much but he’s also aggressive, which will negatively impact his on-base percentage. The knock against Urrutia is that, despite his solid frame, he’ll likely never hit for much power because his swing is geared more for the line drive. Defensively, he’s not a great fielder but his arm is average; he should be relegated to left field.
The Year Ahead: Baltimore appears set with giving the newly-acquired David Lough, a defensive whiz and fellow left-handed hitter, the first shot at the regular left field gig so that should force Urrutia to Triple-A to begin the year. It’s possible that the Cuba native could win the fourth outfielder role but his lack of ability to play center field hurts him.
The Career Outlook: There are split opinions on Urrutia’s future. Some feel he has the potential to be an impact corner bat due to his strong hitting, while others feel his lack of true raw power will prevent him from being a strong everyday option at the key (traditional) power position. As long as he continues to handle southpaws OK, Urrutia should be a solid regular outfield option for a team that doesn’t mind the lack of pop from the corner — or he could be an above-average option in a platoon role.
The Next Five:
11. Zach Davies, RHP: A former 26th round draft pick, Davies is an example of excellent scouting by the Orioles. Just 20 years old, he’s ready for Double-A and has proven durable to date. He could eventually develop into a No. 3 or, more likely, 4 starter at the big league level.
12. Josh Hart, OF: A 2013 supplemental round draft pick out of a Georgia high school, Hart impressed during his pro debut even though the results were not there statistically speaking. He’s athletic outfielder with speed, a solid eye and developing gap power.
13. Branden Kline, RHP: Kline’s season was all but wiped out by a broken right lower leg. He made just seven regular season starts and got beat around in Low-A ball. Things go even worse for him when he was torched while pitching out of the bullpen in the Arizona Fall League but he was both young and inexperienced for the league. He’s expected to be fully healthy in 2014.
14. Dariel Alvarez, OF: Signed out of Cuba last July, Alvarez hit more than .400 in his first 13 pro games to earn a promotion to Double-A but found the going there more difficult. He recovered his footing a bit in the Arizona Fall League but still posted an OPS below .600. Alvarez, 25, should return to Double-A to open 2014.
15. Francisco Peguero, OF: Peguero was caught in a roster crunch in San Francisco this past off-season and was removed off their 40-man roster. A defensive specialist, his aggressive nature at the plate in the Majors has prevented him matching the success he had in the minors. Despite that he should make a solid fourth outfielder.
#1 Dylan Bundy | 65/MLB (P)
Age IP K/9 BB/9 GB% ERA FIP xFIP RA9-WAR WAR
19 1.2 0.00 5.40 20.0 % 0.00 4.89 8.42 0.1 0.0
The Year in Review: Bundy entered 2013 as one of the Top 3 arms in the minor leagues but he blew out his elbow and underwent Tommy John surgery in late June. The talented right-hander didn’t pitch at all in 2013 because of his health issues.
The Scouting Report: Bundy’s stuff is undeniable but he also has excellent makeup, which helps him squeeze every ounce of ability out of his immense talent. His fastball sits in the mid to upper 90s and both his cutter and curveball show plus potential. His changeup should be average or better. Both his control and command have a chance to be plus attributes. The biggest concern with Bundy is his durability due to his recent surgery and modest frame.
The Year Ahead: Because he didn’t have surgery until late June, Bundy will likely miss most of 2014 but it’s possible he might get into some official game action in August. He likely won’t see any big league action during the coming season but stranger things have happened.
The Career Outlook: The injury certainly adds a level of uncertainty to Bundy’s future. However, most pitchers are able to recovery fully so the Oklahoma native could still reach his ceiling as a No. 1 or 2 starter at the big league level. Youth is certainly on his side as he didn’t turn 21 until November.
#2 Kevin Gausman | 60/MLB (P)
Age IP K/9 BB/9 GB% ERA FIP xFIP RA9-WAR WAR
22 47.2 9.25 2.45 42.0 % 5.66 3.99 3.04 -0.2 0.4
The Year in Review: The fourth overall pick in the 2012 amateur draft, Gausman reached the Majors in his first full professional season after spending half the year at both Double-A and Triple-A. A starter in college and during his minor league career, the right-hander pitched mostly out of the bullpen in the Majors. He struggled with his command and allowed 51 hits and eight homers in 47.2 innings of work.
The Scouting Report: The biggest knock on Gausman is his lack of a consistent breaking ball but his slider made strides in 2013. His fastball sits comfortably in the mid-90s and his splitter is a solid offering that could develop into a plus pitch. The right-hander has the frame to develop into an innings-eater and his athleticism helps him on the mound.
The Year Ahead: The Orioles’ inability to upgrade their pitching in the offseason (at least as of the date of this writing) makes Gausman an early favorite to break camp with the big league club. He has the present talent to step in and be a solid No. 4/5 starter — if not better.
The Career Outlook: Gausman’s rough introduction to The Show in 2013 should not cause anyone to doubt his future. He still has the talent to develop into a No. 2 starter at the big league level and it shouldn’t be too long before he rises to that lofty projection.
#3 Eduardo Rodriguez | 60/AA (P)
Age G GS IP H HR K/9 BB/9 ERA FIP
20 30 30 159.2 147 10 7.95 3.10 3.61 3.36
The Year in Review: The Venezuelan southpaw split the 2013 between High-A and Double-A. He showed above-average control for his age while walking 49 batters with 125 strikeouts in 145.0 combined innings. After he made 25 minor league starts during the regular season, Rodriguez compiled another five starts in the Arizona Fall League but was hit around a bit and posted a 5.52 ERA with 16 hits allowed in 14.2 innings of work.
The Scouting Report: Dylan Bundy and Kevin Gausman are names that are fairly well known among well educated fans around baseball but Rodriguez has yet to gain similar notoriety despite having the talent to challenge them in the rankings. He has an above-average fastball for a southpaw and it can hit the mid-90s with excellent movement. Both his slider and changeup should be above-average — if not plus — offerings for him when he reaches his full potential.
The Year Ahead: The experience in the AFL could convince the Orioles to push the lefty to Triple-A if he has a strong spring. Both Gausman and Rodriguez could be in Baltimore’s starting rotation in the second half of 2014. A healthy Bundy will likely join them in 2015, and them will potentially give them a stellar 1-2-3 pitching punch.
The Career Outlook: Rodriguez has the ceiling of a No. 2 or 3 starter but he’ll likely slot into the Orioles’ No. 3 slot in the future with the other young, talented arms also reaching the Majors around the same time as him. It could soon be a very good time to be an O’s fan.
#4 Jonathan Schoop | 60/MLB (2B)
Age PA BB% K% AVG OBP SLG wOBA wRC+ Off Def WAR
21 15 6.7 % 13.3 % .286 .333 .500 .364 128 0.5 -1.4 0.0
The Year in Review: Schoop’s season looked to be in jeopardy when he went down with a significant back injury in May. However, he still managed to play 70 games at the Triple-A level and also made his big league debut with five games in late September. He also tried to make up for the lost development time by playing in the Arizona Fall League but he struggled and hit just .177 with 17 strikeouts in 16 games.
The Scouting Report: The best hitting prospect in the Orioles system (by a fairly wide margin), Schoop isn’t afraid to use the whole field and currently flashes gap pop. He should hit for a solid average with 10-15 homers in his prime. Defensively, he has a strong arm but lacks ideal range for shortstop and is probably best suited for second due to his lack of traditional pop (expected from a third baseman).
The Year Ahead: Schoop, 22, will likely return to Triple-A to open the 2014 season. However, the club has question marks at two infield positions with Jemile Weeks (second base) and Ryan Flaherty (third base) projected to open the year as starters at their respective slots. Don’t be shocked to see Schoop back in the Majors by June, if his back is truly healthy again.
The Career Outlook: Back injuries have a way of lingering but the Curacao native will hopefully leave his issues in the rearview mirror as he advances into the 2014 season and beyond. If he stays healthy, he has a chance to be an above-average contributor at the big league level and could be paired with Manny Machado for years to come.
#5 Hunter Harvey | 60/SS (P)
Age G GS IP H HR K/9 BB/9 ERA FIP
18 8 8 25.1 21 0 11.72 2.13 1.78 1.31
The Year in Review: Picking 22nd overall during the 2013 amateur draft, the Orioles nabbed a high-ceiling prep arm out of North Carolina. Harvey looked even more advanced than expected during his pro debut by showing above-average control while pitching in both Rookie ball and Short-season A-ball. He produced impressive ground-ball out numbers and also struck out 33 batters in 25.1 innings.
The Scouting Report: Harvey is a projectable arm that currently throws in the 88-93 mph range and could eventually hit the mid to upper 90s. He has a curveball that should develop into a plus offering — once he learns to throw the offering with a consistent arm speed — but his changeup is well below average. Like a lot of young pitchers his mechanics could use smoothing out.
The Year Ahead: Harvey, 19, should move up to pitch in full-season Low-A ball in 2014 but should spend most, if not all, of the season there. With three very talented arms ahead of him there really is no reason to rush his development.
The Career Outlook: Harvey has the ceiling of a No. 2/3 starter but, with just eight professional starts under his belt, he has a long way to go to realize his full potential. And, as we learned with Dylan Bundy, serious injuries can pop up at any time.
#6 Mike Wright | 55/AAA (P)
Age G GS IP H HR K/9 BB/9 ERA FIP
23 27 27 150.1 158 9 8.26 2.33 3.11 3.12
The Year in Review: Wright spent the majority of the 2013 season pitching in the Double-A starting rotation. He displayed outstanding durability by making 26 starts with 143.2 innings pitched. He showed above-average control but his command was not as consistent and he allowed 152 hits. Wright, 24, was promoted to Triple-A at the end of the season to make one starter in which he held the Durham Bulls to no runs over six innings of work.
The Scouting Report: Wright can match the talent of many of the arms ahead of him on this list but he’s an impressive prospect in his own right with the ceiling of a No. 3 starter. The right-hander pounds the strike zone with his four-pitch repertoire, which includes a low-90s fastball, curveball, slider and changeup. He needs to take better advantage of his size and pound the lower half of the strike zone.
The Year Ahead: Wright should return to Triple-A for a full season in 2014 but could be one of the first pitchers recalled in the even of an injury to someone on the Orioles’ starting staff. However, he could be hurt by the fact that he doesn’t have to be added to the 40-man roster until after the 2014 season — unless Baltimore is truly convinced that’s he’s MLB ready.
The Career Outlook: As alluded to above, Wright has the ceiling of a mid-rotation, innings-eating starter and should be ready to settle into a big league rotation in 2015, if not sooner. With so many talented arms ahead of him, the South Carolina native could eventually be used as trade bait to help acquire some more offence.
#7 Tim Berry | 55/A+ (P)
Age G GS IP H HR K/9 BB/9 ERA FIP
22 34 29 166.2 167 13 7.02 2.32 3.67 3.59
The Year in Review: The 22-year-old southpaw spent the year in High-A ball and showed his durability with 27 starts. He then appeared in another seven games (two starts) in the Arizona Fall League and compiled a total of 166.2 innings. Berry flashed his above-average control but allowed 156 hits in 152 A-ball innings.
The Scouting Report: Berry attacks the strike zone with a low-90s fastball and his curveball shows plus potential. The changeup remains a work in progress but it should be at least an average offering for him. He still has work to do to become more consistent against right-handed hitters and the improved off-speed pitch could go a long way towards that goal.
The Year Ahead: Berry will move up to Double-A where he’ll look to continue to polish his secondary offerings and find a way to miss more bats. He’ll be entering his fifth pro season and could receive a taste of big league action in September, if not sooner.
The Career Outlook: The left-handed hurler isn’t flashy but he should develop into a solid back-end (No. 4) starter or middle reliever.
#8 Michael Ohlman | 55/A+ (C/DH)
Age PA H 2B HR BB SO SB AVG OBP SLG wOBA
22 466 122 32 17 67 99 5 .311 .416 .543 .433
The Year in Review: Ohlman produced a strong offensive season in High-A ball with a .313 average and .934 OPS in 100 games. He showed a willingness to take a free pass and also produced solid power — especially against left-handed pitching. Ohlman, 23, continued his hot hitting with an appearance in the Arizona Fall League where seven of his nine hits went for extra bases. He also walked 11 times compared to just six strikeouts in 10 games. He still has some rough edges to sand down behind the plate.
The Scouting Report: A former 11th round draft pick (2009) out of a Florida high school, Ohlman struggled with the bat in his first three pro seasons but it kicked into high gear over the last two years. The young catcher has the potential to be a very good hitter with a solid average and decent power, although he’s prone to slumps. Defensively, he has a large frame and projects to be average in the throwing, receiving and blocking categories. He’s considered a solid game caller.
The Year Ahead: Ohlman will move up to Double-A and will want to add some more polish to the defensive side of his game. Currently, he projects to provide above-average offensive production from a key position.
The Career Outlook: With Matt Wieters looking like a solid big league catcher, but not the star he was projected to be, there could eventually be an opening for the Orioles’ full-time catcher and Ohlman is the current favorite to fill that role if the incumbent leaves as a free agent in 2016 (if he’s not traded before that).
#9 Chance Sisco | 60/R (C/DH)
Age PA H 2B HR BB SO SB AVG OBP SLG wOBA
18 124 37 4 1 18 23 1 .363 .468 .451 .444
The Year in Review: The 61st overall pick in the 2013 amateur draft, Sisco was a beast in his pro debut with a .371 batting average and .938 OPS in 31 rookie ball games. He showed an impressive eye and patience with 17 walks. The catcher was so impressive that he earned a late-season promotion to the New York Penn League.
The Scouting Report: Sisco has only been catching regularly for a short period of time so he has a lot of work to do behind the plate but, if the bat advances too quickly, he’s athletic enough to handle a corner infield position, or possibly even left field (although the move would significantly hamper his value). At the plate, he could develop into a solid hitter with modest pop. Sisco is still young and needs to improve against left-handed pitching.
The Year Ahead: Catching depth is quickly becoming a strength of the organization with Matt Wieters at the big league level and Michael Ohlman projected to be in Double-A. Sisco should move up to Low-A ball in 2014 and there is no need to rush his development. He’ll want to continue to work on his defense and polish his approach against southpaws.
The Career Outlook: Strong offensive catchers that swing from the left side are always in high demand. It’s early — and young catchers have a nasty habit of stagnating when they hit full-season ball — but Sisco looks like he could develop into something special.
#10 Henry Urrutia | 50/A+ (DH)
Age PA BB% K% AVG OBP SLG wOBA wRC+ Off Def WAR
26 58 0.0 % 19.0 % .276 .276 .310 .257 55 -3.6 -1.5 -0.3
The Year in Review: Cuban signees have been all the rage recently with the successes of players such as the Dodgers’ Yasiel Puig. Urrutia was more of an under-the-radar acquisition but he needed less than one year of minor league seasoning to reach The Show. He hit more than .300 with good gap power at both minor league stops (Double-A and Triple-A). Urrutia appeared in the Arizona Fall League after the season and continued his scorching attack against professional pitchers.
The Scouting Report: Urrutia has an impressive left-handed swing that should allow him to hit for a solid big league average and he hangs in well against tough southpaws. He makes good contract and shouldn’t strike out much but he’s also aggressive, which will negatively impact his on-base percentage. The knock against Urrutia is that, despite his solid frame, he’ll likely never hit for much power because his swing is geared more for the line drive. Defensively, he’s not a great fielder but his arm is average; he should be relegated to left field.
The Year Ahead: Baltimore appears set with giving the newly-acquired David Lough, a defensive whiz and fellow left-handed hitter, the first shot at the regular left field gig so that should force Urrutia to Triple-A to begin the year. It’s possible that the Cuba native could win the fourth outfielder role but his lack of ability to play center field hurts him.
The Career Outlook: There are split opinions on Urrutia’s future. Some feel he has the potential to be an impact corner bat due to his strong hitting, while others feel his lack of true raw power will prevent him from being a strong everyday option at the key (traditional) power position. As long as he continues to handle southpaws OK, Urrutia should be a solid regular outfield option for a team that doesn’t mind the lack of pop from the corner — or he could be an above-average option in a platoon role.
The Next Five:
11. Zach Davies, RHP: A former 26th round draft pick, Davies is an example of excellent scouting by the Orioles. Just 20 years old, he’s ready for Double-A and has proven durable to date. He could eventually develop into a No. 3 or, more likely, 4 starter at the big league level.
12. Josh Hart, OF: A 2013 supplemental round draft pick out of a Georgia high school, Hart impressed during his pro debut even though the results were not there statistically speaking. He’s athletic outfielder with speed, a solid eye and developing gap power.
13. Branden Kline, RHP: Kline’s season was all but wiped out by a broken right lower leg. He made just seven regular season starts and got beat around in Low-A ball. Things go even worse for him when he was torched while pitching out of the bullpen in the Arizona Fall League but he was both young and inexperienced for the league. He’s expected to be fully healthy in 2014.
14. Dariel Alvarez, OF: Signed out of Cuba last July, Alvarez hit more than .400 in his first 13 pro games to earn a promotion to Double-A but found the going there more difficult. He recovered his footing a bit in the Arizona Fall League but still posted an OPS below .600. Alvarez, 25, should return to Double-A to open 2014.
15. Francisco Peguero, OF: Peguero was caught in a roster crunch in San Francisco this past off-season and was removed off their 40-man roster. A defensive specialist, his aggressive nature at the plate in the Majors has prevented him matching the success he had in the minors. Despite that he should make a solid fourth outfielder.
Mike Trout: Top-Ten Outfield.
It’s not so much that we’re in the offseason’s dead period — we’re just in its waiting period. There’s a lot of life left, but there likely won’t be any breaths until we get to Masahiro Tanaka’s signing deadline, at which point several dominoes ought to fall. That’s two and a half weeks away, and for the time being there’s not much going on. Dave and Carson talked on the podcast about how the things being written about these days are Tanaka and the Hall of Fame. As a change of pace out of desperation, I’m choosing to turn to the comfortable default FanGraphs fallback, that being Mike Trout, and how very good he is.
This is a question from my own chat earlier Tuesday:
Comment From Eddie
How many MLB outfields post less value than Mike Trout in 2014? Have to think the Cubs are on that list.
I was in love with the idea right away, and below, my subsequent investigation. I’d like to thank Eddie for the prompt, and for giving me another reason to re-visit Mike Trout’s unparalleled player page. Obviously, we can’t know anything yet about how the coming season is going to go. But we do have complicated mathematical guesses, which I’m happy to depend on for these purposes. By WAR, how many outfields does Mike Trout project to out-produce on his own during the 2014 regular season?
Our projection system of choice will be Steamer, because ZiPS hasn’t fully rolled out yet. Also, there aren’t massive differences between Steamer and ZiPS anyway. As you can see on Trout’s player page, Steamer projects Trout for 684 plate appearances over 146 games, and 9.0 WAR. Oliver actually projects more WAR in less time, and Trout reached double digits the last two years, but we’ll stay conservative, where by “conservative” I mean the system that thinks one player will be worth nine wins above replacement. There’s our line.
The harder part is figuring out projected combined outfield WAR, but this, actually, is also simple, and only harder relative to glancing at Trout’s FanGraphs page. Here are position by position and team by team projected WAR totals for 2014. Steamer is the system used, and the depth charts used are created by a small handful of FanGraphs authors. So the only thing to do is, for each team, add up LF WAR and CF WAR and RF WAR. Of course, the depth charts aren’t perfect, because they’re manually generated, but they’re not going to completely miss on a team, so they convey the right ideas. We have all the data we need for Trout. We have all the data we need for team-by-team outfield projections. Here’s the resulting graph, with the Angels eliminated and Trout inserted as a substitute:
The top ten (eleven) projected outfields:
Pirates
Dodgers
Cardinals
Brewers
Athletics
Braves (t)
Blue Jays (t)
Mike Trout
Royals
Rays (t)
Indians (t)
Mike Trout is projected for 9 WAR. Seven outfields are projected for more than that, meaning 22 outfields are projected for less than that. It’s not literally true that Mike Trout would be a top-ten outfield on his own — that would actually be a catastrophe — but a top-ten projected outfield could realistically feature Trout flanked by a pair of replacement-level corners. Say, Delmon Young and Jeff Francoeur. How do you turn Young and Francoeur into a top-ten outfield? Put Mike Trout in between them and you’ve got a better unit than the Nationals. And Giants, and Indians, and so many others. Look at the far right side. The Cubs and White Sox are currently tied for last, at 4.5 projected outfield WAR each. Mike Trout is projected for as much outfield WAR as the city of Chicago.
We all already knew that Trout is amazing, but this might help underscore the sort of advantage he provides. Trout doesn’t just give the Angels the best situation in center field in the league. He automatically makes them a top outfield, just by himself. Let’s say you need, I don’t know, 40-45 WAR to be a real playoff contender. Trout can provide a fourth or a fifth of that in one place, and at least for 2014 he’s projected to do that for practically nothing. Last year Trout was paid a hair over the league minimum. This year he should get a raise, but not much of one, relatively speaking. By making almost no dent on the Angels’ budget, Trout makes up a huge chunk of what the Angels want to build.
Right now the Angels are big-money contenders in the AL West, along with the Rangers and A’s. Take Trout away, and the Angels have basically the same payroll. But take Trout away, and they project for fewer WAR than the Orioles. They project for only a few more WAR than the Twins and Astros. The Angels, in a lot of ways, are a complete mess, but because of the Trout advantage they can realistically think about playing in October anyway. Because of his massive value over his salary, Trout effectively boosts the Angels’ payroll by tens of millions of dollars. That’s what happens when you maximize the productivity you get out of a little contract.
Mike Trout is why the Angels are better than the Mariners. Mike Trout is why the Angels are better than the Mets. Mike Trout is why the Angels still have most of the same people in charge in place. It’s hard to be terrible with a healthy Mike Trout, because the guy is perfect and still hardly costs anything. That won’t continue much longer, but it is what it is for the time being.
This is sort of an extreme example of why teams are beginning to so highly value their own cost-controlled youth. Every team has a budget, and within that budget, they want to get something like 40-50 WAR. Getting a lot of WAR out of cheap players increases the effective available payroll, allowing for flexibility elsewhere. It’s those young guys who allow for bigger investments and overpayments. When you have a cost-controlled core in place, then you can modify the roster by adding free agents and so forth. If you can pay pennies for wins in some areas, then you can pay market price for wins in others. Because just about no one can afford to pay market price for wins everywhere. I mean, a lot of teams could afford it, but they don’t and won’t spend like that. This is why efficiency is always so critical, for almost every single team.
But that’s getting to a larger point, which wasn’t the purpose of this exercise. The purpose of this exercise was to compare 2014 Mike Trout to other outfields around MLB. Turns out Trout is better than most of them, combined. We talk about Trout all the time because there’s pretty much no way we’re appreciating this enough.
This is a question from my own chat earlier Tuesday:
Comment From Eddie
How many MLB outfields post less value than Mike Trout in 2014? Have to think the Cubs are on that list.
I was in love with the idea right away, and below, my subsequent investigation. I’d like to thank Eddie for the prompt, and for giving me another reason to re-visit Mike Trout’s unparalleled player page. Obviously, we can’t know anything yet about how the coming season is going to go. But we do have complicated mathematical guesses, which I’m happy to depend on for these purposes. By WAR, how many outfields does Mike Trout project to out-produce on his own during the 2014 regular season?
Our projection system of choice will be Steamer, because ZiPS hasn’t fully rolled out yet. Also, there aren’t massive differences between Steamer and ZiPS anyway. As you can see on Trout’s player page, Steamer projects Trout for 684 plate appearances over 146 games, and 9.0 WAR. Oliver actually projects more WAR in less time, and Trout reached double digits the last two years, but we’ll stay conservative, where by “conservative” I mean the system that thinks one player will be worth nine wins above replacement. There’s our line.
The harder part is figuring out projected combined outfield WAR, but this, actually, is also simple, and only harder relative to glancing at Trout’s FanGraphs page. Here are position by position and team by team projected WAR totals for 2014. Steamer is the system used, and the depth charts used are created by a small handful of FanGraphs authors. So the only thing to do is, for each team, add up LF WAR and CF WAR and RF WAR. Of course, the depth charts aren’t perfect, because they’re manually generated, but they’re not going to completely miss on a team, so they convey the right ideas. We have all the data we need for Trout. We have all the data we need for team-by-team outfield projections. Here’s the resulting graph, with the Angels eliminated and Trout inserted as a substitute:
The top ten (eleven) projected outfields:
Pirates
Dodgers
Cardinals
Brewers
Athletics
Braves (t)
Blue Jays (t)
Mike Trout
Royals
Rays (t)
Indians (t)
Mike Trout is projected for 9 WAR. Seven outfields are projected for more than that, meaning 22 outfields are projected for less than that. It’s not literally true that Mike Trout would be a top-ten outfield on his own — that would actually be a catastrophe — but a top-ten projected outfield could realistically feature Trout flanked by a pair of replacement-level corners. Say, Delmon Young and Jeff Francoeur. How do you turn Young and Francoeur into a top-ten outfield? Put Mike Trout in between them and you’ve got a better unit than the Nationals. And Giants, and Indians, and so many others. Look at the far right side. The Cubs and White Sox are currently tied for last, at 4.5 projected outfield WAR each. Mike Trout is projected for as much outfield WAR as the city of Chicago.
We all already knew that Trout is amazing, but this might help underscore the sort of advantage he provides. Trout doesn’t just give the Angels the best situation in center field in the league. He automatically makes them a top outfield, just by himself. Let’s say you need, I don’t know, 40-45 WAR to be a real playoff contender. Trout can provide a fourth or a fifth of that in one place, and at least for 2014 he’s projected to do that for practically nothing. Last year Trout was paid a hair over the league minimum. This year he should get a raise, but not much of one, relatively speaking. By making almost no dent on the Angels’ budget, Trout makes up a huge chunk of what the Angels want to build.
Right now the Angels are big-money contenders in the AL West, along with the Rangers and A’s. Take Trout away, and the Angels have basically the same payroll. But take Trout away, and they project for fewer WAR than the Orioles. They project for only a few more WAR than the Twins and Astros. The Angels, in a lot of ways, are a complete mess, but because of the Trout advantage they can realistically think about playing in October anyway. Because of his massive value over his salary, Trout effectively boosts the Angels’ payroll by tens of millions of dollars. That’s what happens when you maximize the productivity you get out of a little contract.
Mike Trout is why the Angels are better than the Mariners. Mike Trout is why the Angels are better than the Mets. Mike Trout is why the Angels still have most of the same people in charge in place. It’s hard to be terrible with a healthy Mike Trout, because the guy is perfect and still hardly costs anything. That won’t continue much longer, but it is what it is for the time being.
This is sort of an extreme example of why teams are beginning to so highly value their own cost-controlled youth. Every team has a budget, and within that budget, they want to get something like 40-50 WAR. Getting a lot of WAR out of cheap players increases the effective available payroll, allowing for flexibility elsewhere. It’s those young guys who allow for bigger investments and overpayments. When you have a cost-controlled core in place, then you can modify the roster by adding free agents and so forth. If you can pay pennies for wins in some areas, then you can pay market price for wins in others. Because just about no one can afford to pay market price for wins everywhere. I mean, a lot of teams could afford it, but they don’t and won’t spend like that. This is why efficiency is always so critical, for almost every single team.
But that’s getting to a larger point, which wasn’t the purpose of this exercise. The purpose of this exercise was to compare 2014 Mike Trout to other outfields around MLB. Turns out Trout is better than most of them, combined. We talk about Trout all the time because there’s pretty much no way we’re appreciating this enough.
The Braves’ Good Problem.
Last week, Grant Brisbee made the very salient point that the Atlanta Braves are essentially akin to a small-market team these days. Since the ballclub has stacked their team with homegrown talent, this has not been a glaring problem in years past, but this offseason we have seen them lose both Brian McCann and Tim Hudson. Which was bad, in a sense — the team has replacements at the ready, even if they might not be as good.
The real problem though — and it is no doubt a good problem — will come two-to-three years down the road. Justin Upton, Jason Heyward and Kris Medlen are set to become free agents following the 2015 season, and the next season, Freddie Freeman and Craig Kimbrel (and Brandon Beachy) are also due to become free agents. It’s pretty unlikely that the ballclub will be able to keep all five (or six, if you count Beachy). So, who should they keep?
Looking at the team’s contract situation, let’s say that they can keep three of the five. That sort of feels right. They will have three $10 million-plus contracts this year: the Upton brothers and Dan Uggla. Uggla’s contract will mercifully end at the same point that that the first trio will be up for free agency. Heading into their respective free agent seasons, this is how old they will be:
Freeman: 2017, Age 27
Heyward: 2016, Age 26
Kimbrel: 2017, Age 29
Medlen: 2016, Age 30
Upton: 2016, Age 28
The first thing that sticks out is that these guys are all very young for possibly hitting free agency. Players that age don’t often hit the free-agent market anymore. If you go back to Keith Law’s top 50 free agents from November, only 12 were under the age of 30. Two of them were Asian international free agents, two others were ranked 47th and 50th, and one was a former Braves player (McCann). It just doesn’t happen that desirable players make it to free agency this young. So, before we start in, kudos to the Braves and their player development system for accruing such talent.
Speaking in absolutes is rarely a good idea when it comes to things that have yet to occur, and that is even more true in a situation where we are years removed from a necessary decision. So we’ll just go with pros and cons for now. And even though they don’t all hit free agency in the same year, we’ll treat them as the same, because realistically the Braves will have to decide who to keep and who not to keep well ahead of them reaching free agency.
Freeman
Pros:
– Durability. Freeman has played in at least 147 games in each of his first three seasons, and 93% overall. That’s always a good thing.
– Hard Contact. The more line drives a player hits, the better off he’ll be, and Freeman excels in this area. In his three full major league seasons, he ranks ninth among qualified players in line drive percentage (25.2%). Over the past two seasons, only Joey Votto and James Loney have roped a greater percentage of line drives than has Freeman.
– Defense. Freeman has always had a good defensive reputation, and last year that reputation finally matched up with the metrics, as he posted his first season with both a positive DRS and UZR.
Cons:
– Swing rate. Freeman has improved his BB/K in each of his full seasons, but last season his swing rate went up. He swung at four percent more pitches out of the strike zone, and 3.6% more overall. That wouldn’t be so bad necessarily, had his contact rate gone up in kind, but it didn’t. Freeman actually lowered his strikeout rate last year. This means one of two things — either Freeman is able to tow the line of swinging and missing more frequently but not actually striking out, or his luck is about to change. Given the fact that he hit .198/.265/.282 with two strikes last season, I’m going to suggest that it’s the latter.
– Power. Freeman’s ISO is still relatively middling for a first baseman. Last season, his .181 ISO was a mere five points above the league average for a first baseman. From 2012-2013, he ranked 12th out of 23 in qualified first baseman ISO. If you lower the qualification to 500 plate appearances, Freeman’s rank drops to 22nd, as players like Brandon Moss, Mike Napoli and Mark Teixeira jump over Freeman on the list.
Heyward
Pros:
– Youth. Seriously, players really don’t hit free agency this young these days. It’s kind of amazing that he could enter the market heading into his age-26 season.
– Defense. Heyward is one of the biggest plus defenders in the majors during his time in the Show. Since 2010, the only two players with a better UZR/150 than Heyward are Manny Machado and Nolan Arenado, and neither of them even have half the innings played that Heyward does (Arenado barely has one-fourth the innings played).
– Strikeout rate. Last season, Heyward cut his strikeout rate by nearly seven percent. Even if he doesn’t retain all of those gains, it wasn’t a total mirage. He swung less and made contact more. That’s a recipe for success, and it was borne out in his higher line drive rate.
Cons:
– Durability. Shoulder, neck, abdomen, foot, knee, thumb. Heyward can have a pass for the appendix, and again for fracturing his jaw on a hit by pitch. He really didn’t have any control over those things. But he still seems to come down with a lot of owwies. He’s failed to reach 130 games played in two of the past three seasons, and his health will remain a question until he strings a couple of full seasons together.
– Speed. Heyward’s speed vanished last year. His Speed Score, as calculated in these internet pages, dropped from 6.2 to 3.2. He followed up his one good season of UBR with one that looked a lot like his first two seasons, and his wSB dropped into the red. His stolen base percentage for his career is a less-than-optimal 68%, and last year he was only successful on two of his six stolen-base attempts.
Kimbrel
Pros:
– Filth. Most pitchers don’t reach pitch values of 10 or higher on one pitch. Kimbrel has come incredibly close to doing so in three straight seasons, and he did do it last season.
– Grounders. Over the past two seasons, Kimbrel has struck out nearly 44 percent of the batters he has faced. Of those who were able to put the ball in play, nearly 50% of them hit ground balls.
– Velocity. Kimbrel has not only not lost juice on his fastball, he’s actually gained a few ticks. That won’t last forever of course, but his decline might be softer as a result of his ability to maintain his velocity these first three seasons.
– Consistency. Kimbrel is the only relief pitcher to post at least 2 WAR in each of the past three seasons.
Cons:
– He’s a reliever. There are a very few relievers who have proved worthy of long-term extensions, so Kimbrel is fighting an uphill battle just by the nature of his role.
– Contact rate. Last year, batters were able to make contact off of Kimbrel much more easily than they had in the past. His contact rate was still one of the 10 lowest among qualifiers, and his strikeout rate was still one of the five highest. But Kimbrel was not head and shoulders above the rest of the game the way he was in previous seasons.
– Zone percentage. In three of his four seasons in the majors, Kimbrel has had a below-average zone percentage. Last year, he threw the fewest pitches in the strike zone yet. He doesn’t have the best control going, and if his K rate keeps declining along with his zone percentage, Kimbrel may just lose his edge.
Medlen
Pros:
– Control. Of the 86 pitchers with at least 300 innings pitched over the past two seasons, Medlen’s 5.2% walk rate is essentially tied for 10th-best.
– Deception. Medlen is able to live in the strike zone and maintain that good control because of his ability to consistently fool hitters. Last season, the only pitchers who were able to generate a higher percentage of whiffs per swing via the changeup than Medlen were Jarrod Parker and Stephen Strasburg. And there was a big gap between Medlen in third and Cole Hamels in fourth. Since the changeup is Medlen’s second-most frequently thrown pitch, that’s an important fact.
Cons:
– Injury concerns. Medlen has now tossed 337.1 innings since returning from Tommy John surgery, which means he is already nearing the end of his honeymoon phase. By the time 2016 rolls around, if Medlen hasn’t succumbed to a second Tommy John surgery, he’ll likely be very close.
– Velocity. Since 2008 (when PITCHf/x began stabilizing), there have been 445 pitchers who have been both 27-years-old or younger and have tossed at least 100 innings in a season. Of them, only 45 have failed to average 89 mph on their four-seam fastballs, and of those, just 21 have been right-handers. Here is that list:
Name Season IP vFA
Carlos Villanueva 2011 107.0 88.9
Kris Medlen 2013 197.0 88.9
A.J. Griffin 2013 200.0 88.8
Jeff Karstens 2009 108.0 88.8
Brian Bannister 2008 182.2 88.8
Jered Weaver 2009 211.0 88.7
Kevin Correia 2008 110.0 88.7
Micah Owings 2009 119.2 88.6
Kyle McClellan 2011 141.2 88.4
Carlos Villanueva 2008 108.1 88.4
Doug Fister 2010 171.0 88.3
Darrell Rasner 2008 113.1 88.1
Mike Fiers 2012 127.2 88.0
Josh Tomlin 2011 165.1 88.0
Dylan Axelrod 2013 128.1 87.9
John Ely 2010 100.0 87.3
Josh Collmenter 2011 154.1 87.2
Andy Sonnanstine 2008 193.1 87.1
Jeremy Bonderman 2010 171.0 87.0
Shaun Marcum 2008 151.1 87.0
Josh Geer 2009 102.2 86.1
A quick scan of this list makes it very apparent that it is not an enviable one. Aside from Medlen, Jered Weaver and Doug Fister are pitchers who one would consider signing to a long-term deal, though Weaver may be somewhat of a cautionary tale. The velocity on his four-seamer dipped under 87 mph last year, according to PITCHf/x, and probably not coincidentally, his ERA and FIP rose for the second-straight season (actually, his FIP rose for the third-straight season). Medlen will be as old when he hits free agency as Weaver was last season, so if that’s what Medlen’s future is, that’s probably not a good sign.
Upton
Pros:
– Lack of holes. Upton is pretty good at everything. He’s got a good batting eye, both his walk rate and swing rates are above average. He has good power as well. Both his isolated power and slugging percentages are above league average for a right fielder. His basestealing isn’t amazing, but he is over the 70% mark for stolen-base success, and over the past three seasons, his 13.1 BsR ranks 10-best in the game. He also hits every pitch well. For his career, he has positive values per 100 pitches on every pitch except the knuckleball, and he probably hasn’t seen enough knuckleballs for that to matter.
– Pain tolerance. While there are plenty of injury issues in his timeline, none of them kept him out of the lineup for very long. He played through a thumb injury in 2012 to the detriment of his statistics, and while the other issues have not been as severe, it seems likely that he has played through things that other players would not have. He has only missed 28 games over the past three seasons.
Cons:
Price. Of the five players on this list, Upton might end up being the most expensive, simply because he is already far more expensive. Upton will earn more than $14 million during each of the next two seasons, so it’s hard to imagine that he would accept an extension that paid him less than that. The Braves can certainly afford to pay him a little more than that, and he should remain that valuable, at least in the short-term, but in comparison to the other five players, it puts him at a disadvantage.
Taking the situation as a whole, it seems that as of right now, Freeman and Heyward are the two you would look to lock up first. You do what you need to in order to get those deals done, particularly with Heyward. From there, things get more murky. Upton probably will be worth keeping around, but the price may not be right for Atlanta. Kimbrel may be a luxury for a team that has consistently churned out quality pitchers for two decades, and Medlen’s velocity needs to be monitored. History tells us it will dip, and when it does, so too may his effectiveness. And finally, there’s Beachy. Thanks to his shoddy health track record, he doesn’t merit much discussion at this time, but if he proves capable of being both healthy and effective over the next two seasons, the Braves will have a difficult decision to make with him entering 2016 as well.
In all, this is a good problem to have. Every team wants to have this kinds of problem, and it’s a credit to the Braves front office that they are in a position where they may be forced to pick which of their young assets they want to lock up. Unfortunately for Atlanta, their now-more-obvious budgetary restrictions leave them less margin for error.
The real problem though — and it is no doubt a good problem — will come two-to-three years down the road. Justin Upton, Jason Heyward and Kris Medlen are set to become free agents following the 2015 season, and the next season, Freddie Freeman and Craig Kimbrel (and Brandon Beachy) are also due to become free agents. It’s pretty unlikely that the ballclub will be able to keep all five (or six, if you count Beachy). So, who should they keep?
Looking at the team’s contract situation, let’s say that they can keep three of the five. That sort of feels right. They will have three $10 million-plus contracts this year: the Upton brothers and Dan Uggla. Uggla’s contract will mercifully end at the same point that that the first trio will be up for free agency. Heading into their respective free agent seasons, this is how old they will be:
Freeman: 2017, Age 27
Heyward: 2016, Age 26
Kimbrel: 2017, Age 29
Medlen: 2016, Age 30
Upton: 2016, Age 28
The first thing that sticks out is that these guys are all very young for possibly hitting free agency. Players that age don’t often hit the free-agent market anymore. If you go back to Keith Law’s top 50 free agents from November, only 12 were under the age of 30. Two of them were Asian international free agents, two others were ranked 47th and 50th, and one was a former Braves player (McCann). It just doesn’t happen that desirable players make it to free agency this young. So, before we start in, kudos to the Braves and their player development system for accruing such talent.
Speaking in absolutes is rarely a good idea when it comes to things that have yet to occur, and that is even more true in a situation where we are years removed from a necessary decision. So we’ll just go with pros and cons for now. And even though they don’t all hit free agency in the same year, we’ll treat them as the same, because realistically the Braves will have to decide who to keep and who not to keep well ahead of them reaching free agency.
Freeman
Pros:
– Durability. Freeman has played in at least 147 games in each of his first three seasons, and 93% overall. That’s always a good thing.
– Hard Contact. The more line drives a player hits, the better off he’ll be, and Freeman excels in this area. In his three full major league seasons, he ranks ninth among qualified players in line drive percentage (25.2%). Over the past two seasons, only Joey Votto and James Loney have roped a greater percentage of line drives than has Freeman.
– Defense. Freeman has always had a good defensive reputation, and last year that reputation finally matched up with the metrics, as he posted his first season with both a positive DRS and UZR.
Cons:
– Swing rate. Freeman has improved his BB/K in each of his full seasons, but last season his swing rate went up. He swung at four percent more pitches out of the strike zone, and 3.6% more overall. That wouldn’t be so bad necessarily, had his contact rate gone up in kind, but it didn’t. Freeman actually lowered his strikeout rate last year. This means one of two things — either Freeman is able to tow the line of swinging and missing more frequently but not actually striking out, or his luck is about to change. Given the fact that he hit .198/.265/.282 with two strikes last season, I’m going to suggest that it’s the latter.
– Power. Freeman’s ISO is still relatively middling for a first baseman. Last season, his .181 ISO was a mere five points above the league average for a first baseman. From 2012-2013, he ranked 12th out of 23 in qualified first baseman ISO. If you lower the qualification to 500 plate appearances, Freeman’s rank drops to 22nd, as players like Brandon Moss, Mike Napoli and Mark Teixeira jump over Freeman on the list.
Heyward
Pros:
– Youth. Seriously, players really don’t hit free agency this young these days. It’s kind of amazing that he could enter the market heading into his age-26 season.
– Defense. Heyward is one of the biggest plus defenders in the majors during his time in the Show. Since 2010, the only two players with a better UZR/150 than Heyward are Manny Machado and Nolan Arenado, and neither of them even have half the innings played that Heyward does (Arenado barely has one-fourth the innings played).
– Strikeout rate. Last season, Heyward cut his strikeout rate by nearly seven percent. Even if he doesn’t retain all of those gains, it wasn’t a total mirage. He swung less and made contact more. That’s a recipe for success, and it was borne out in his higher line drive rate.
Cons:
– Durability. Shoulder, neck, abdomen, foot, knee, thumb. Heyward can have a pass for the appendix, and again for fracturing his jaw on a hit by pitch. He really didn’t have any control over those things. But he still seems to come down with a lot of owwies. He’s failed to reach 130 games played in two of the past three seasons, and his health will remain a question until he strings a couple of full seasons together.
– Speed. Heyward’s speed vanished last year. His Speed Score, as calculated in these internet pages, dropped from 6.2 to 3.2. He followed up his one good season of UBR with one that looked a lot like his first two seasons, and his wSB dropped into the red. His stolen base percentage for his career is a less-than-optimal 68%, and last year he was only successful on two of his six stolen-base attempts.
Kimbrel
Pros:
– Filth. Most pitchers don’t reach pitch values of 10 or higher on one pitch. Kimbrel has come incredibly close to doing so in three straight seasons, and he did do it last season.
– Grounders. Over the past two seasons, Kimbrel has struck out nearly 44 percent of the batters he has faced. Of those who were able to put the ball in play, nearly 50% of them hit ground balls.
– Velocity. Kimbrel has not only not lost juice on his fastball, he’s actually gained a few ticks. That won’t last forever of course, but his decline might be softer as a result of his ability to maintain his velocity these first three seasons.
– Consistency. Kimbrel is the only relief pitcher to post at least 2 WAR in each of the past three seasons.
Cons:
– He’s a reliever. There are a very few relievers who have proved worthy of long-term extensions, so Kimbrel is fighting an uphill battle just by the nature of his role.
– Contact rate. Last year, batters were able to make contact off of Kimbrel much more easily than they had in the past. His contact rate was still one of the 10 lowest among qualifiers, and his strikeout rate was still one of the five highest. But Kimbrel was not head and shoulders above the rest of the game the way he was in previous seasons.
– Zone percentage. In three of his four seasons in the majors, Kimbrel has had a below-average zone percentage. Last year, he threw the fewest pitches in the strike zone yet. He doesn’t have the best control going, and if his K rate keeps declining along with his zone percentage, Kimbrel may just lose his edge.
Medlen
Pros:
– Control. Of the 86 pitchers with at least 300 innings pitched over the past two seasons, Medlen’s 5.2% walk rate is essentially tied for 10th-best.
– Deception. Medlen is able to live in the strike zone and maintain that good control because of his ability to consistently fool hitters. Last season, the only pitchers who were able to generate a higher percentage of whiffs per swing via the changeup than Medlen were Jarrod Parker and Stephen Strasburg. And there was a big gap between Medlen in third and Cole Hamels in fourth. Since the changeup is Medlen’s second-most frequently thrown pitch, that’s an important fact.
Cons:
– Injury concerns. Medlen has now tossed 337.1 innings since returning from Tommy John surgery, which means he is already nearing the end of his honeymoon phase. By the time 2016 rolls around, if Medlen hasn’t succumbed to a second Tommy John surgery, he’ll likely be very close.
– Velocity. Since 2008 (when PITCHf/x began stabilizing), there have been 445 pitchers who have been both 27-years-old or younger and have tossed at least 100 innings in a season. Of them, only 45 have failed to average 89 mph on their four-seam fastballs, and of those, just 21 have been right-handers. Here is that list:
Name Season IP vFA
Carlos Villanueva 2011 107.0 88.9
Kris Medlen 2013 197.0 88.9
A.J. Griffin 2013 200.0 88.8
Jeff Karstens 2009 108.0 88.8
Brian Bannister 2008 182.2 88.8
Jered Weaver 2009 211.0 88.7
Kevin Correia 2008 110.0 88.7
Micah Owings 2009 119.2 88.6
Kyle McClellan 2011 141.2 88.4
Carlos Villanueva 2008 108.1 88.4
Doug Fister 2010 171.0 88.3
Darrell Rasner 2008 113.1 88.1
Mike Fiers 2012 127.2 88.0
Josh Tomlin 2011 165.1 88.0
Dylan Axelrod 2013 128.1 87.9
John Ely 2010 100.0 87.3
Josh Collmenter 2011 154.1 87.2
Andy Sonnanstine 2008 193.1 87.1
Jeremy Bonderman 2010 171.0 87.0
Shaun Marcum 2008 151.1 87.0
Josh Geer 2009 102.2 86.1
A quick scan of this list makes it very apparent that it is not an enviable one. Aside from Medlen, Jered Weaver and Doug Fister are pitchers who one would consider signing to a long-term deal, though Weaver may be somewhat of a cautionary tale. The velocity on his four-seamer dipped under 87 mph last year, according to PITCHf/x, and probably not coincidentally, his ERA and FIP rose for the second-straight season (actually, his FIP rose for the third-straight season). Medlen will be as old when he hits free agency as Weaver was last season, so if that’s what Medlen’s future is, that’s probably not a good sign.
Upton
Pros:
– Lack of holes. Upton is pretty good at everything. He’s got a good batting eye, both his walk rate and swing rates are above average. He has good power as well. Both his isolated power and slugging percentages are above league average for a right fielder. His basestealing isn’t amazing, but he is over the 70% mark for stolen-base success, and over the past three seasons, his 13.1 BsR ranks 10-best in the game. He also hits every pitch well. For his career, he has positive values per 100 pitches on every pitch except the knuckleball, and he probably hasn’t seen enough knuckleballs for that to matter.
– Pain tolerance. While there are plenty of injury issues in his timeline, none of them kept him out of the lineup for very long. He played through a thumb injury in 2012 to the detriment of his statistics, and while the other issues have not been as severe, it seems likely that he has played through things that other players would not have. He has only missed 28 games over the past three seasons.
Cons:
Price. Of the five players on this list, Upton might end up being the most expensive, simply because he is already far more expensive. Upton will earn more than $14 million during each of the next two seasons, so it’s hard to imagine that he would accept an extension that paid him less than that. The Braves can certainly afford to pay him a little more than that, and he should remain that valuable, at least in the short-term, but in comparison to the other five players, it puts him at a disadvantage.
Taking the situation as a whole, it seems that as of right now, Freeman and Heyward are the two you would look to lock up first. You do what you need to in order to get those deals done, particularly with Heyward. From there, things get more murky. Upton probably will be worth keeping around, but the price may not be right for Atlanta. Kimbrel may be a luxury for a team that has consistently churned out quality pitchers for two decades, and Medlen’s velocity needs to be monitored. History tells us it will dip, and when it does, so too may his effectiveness. And finally, there’s Beachy. Thanks to his shoddy health track record, he doesn’t merit much discussion at this time, but if he proves capable of being both healthy and effective over the next two seasons, the Braves will have a difficult decision to make with him entering 2016 as well.
In all, this is a good problem to have. Every team wants to have this kinds of problem, and it’s a credit to the Braves front office that they are in a position where they may be forced to pick which of their young assets they want to lock up. Unfortunately for Atlanta, their now-more-obvious budgetary restrictions leave them less margin for error.
Which Active Players Are Going to Cooperstown?
The Hall of Fame announces its results tomorrow, and the next few days will be filled with voters publishing their ballots online, giving you ample opportunity to shake your head in wonder at the thought process of some voters. But, instead of getting frustrated by decisions made by other people we have no influence over, I’d like to do something else while waiting for Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and maybe even Frank Thomas to be acknowledged as all time greats. So, today, let’s update a post I did a few years ago, and look at which players currently active are going to eventually end up in Cooperstown.
Before I started picking names, though, I was curious as to what the historical precedent was for active Hall of Famers in any given season. I noted a few weeks ago that, historically, between 1-2% of all players have been inducted in the Hall of Fame, but because the best players have long careers and end up crossing over eras, it would make sense that there are more than 8-15 Hall of Famers playing in any given season. So, with assistance from Baseball-Reference’s Play Index, I pulled the number of players in every season of baseball history who were eventually elected to the Hall of Fame.
I won’t reproduce the whole list here, since it covers 134 seasons even after you exclude the nine recent years in which no one has yet to be elected, but I will note that the most Hall of Famers ever in one season is 53, back in 1928-1929-1930. There were 52 in 1926, 1927, and 1932. In fact, there are only 15 seasons in baseball history where there were 40 or more active Hall of Famers in that season, and those 15 years are every season from 1923 to 1937. Here are those 15 seasons, with rank being their position on the all time leaderboard for seasons with most Hall of Famers active.
Rk Year #Matching
15 1923 40
11 1924 47
8 1925 51
6 1926 52
5 1927 52
3 1928 53
2 1929 53
1 1930 53
9 1931 48
4 1932 52
7 1933 51
10 1934 47
12 1935 44
14 1936 41
13 1937 41
I think we can safely say that the era of Babe Ruth has been romanticized more than any other in baseball history, and agree that there are probably some players in the Hall of Fame who were simply the recipients of some fortuitous timing. That kind of representation of an era is not normal.
But, interestingly, the median number for active Hall of Famers in a season doesn’t really change much even if you throw out that entire time period. Including all the years in which there were any active players who have already been inducted into Cooperstown, the median is 30. If you throw out the 1923-1937 era, the median only drops to 28. If you limit the years to just the 20th century, the median is 33. No matter how you slice and dice the data, you’re going to end up with a historical norm around 30 active players. So, let’s set that as our target, and try to identify 30 players who will take the field in 2014 who might have a decent shot at ending up with a plaque in the Hall of Fame.
Already Earned Their Way
1. Albert Pujols, +87 WAR
2. Derek Jeter, +74 WAR
3. Ichiro Suzuki, +55 WAR
Barring a late career PED test failure, the first two are absolute locks, and Ichiro’s close enough to 3,000 hits that, with the bonus he’ll get for not coming to the U.S. until age-27, he’ll meet the Fame threshold for most voters.
Would Be a Lock, Except PEDs
4. Alex Rodriguez, +111 WAR
My guess is, at some point in the not too distant future, the Hall of Fame will adopt rules regarding players who were suspended for PED usage, and those rules will determine whether or not Rodriguez is eventually enshrined in Cooperstown. On performance alone, he obviously belongs.
Almost There, Just Don’t Suck for a Few More Years
5. Miguel Cabrera, +55 WAR
6. Carlos Beltran, +64 WAR
7. CC Sabathia, +62 WAR
Thesse guys have the rate stats to get inducted, and essentially just need to ensure that their counting stats get up near Hall of Fame levels for voters who prefer milestones. They don’t even have to be good for the next few years, as long as they stay healthy and keep playing most everyday. Adding in a decent 1,500 plate appearances or 500 innings would push them over the top for most voters, based on what they’ve already done.
On Track, but Not Quite There Yet
8. Adrian Beltre, +65 WAR
9. David Wright, +50 WAR
10. Joe Mauer, +44 WAR
11. Justin Verlander, +44 WAR
12. Felix Hernandez, +41 WAR
13. Robinson Cano, +37 WAR
14. Evan Longoria, +36 WAR
15. Dustin Pedroia, +34 WAR
16. Joey Votto, +33 WAR
These nine are guys that have played at a Hall of Fame level to this point in their career. You could potentially make a case for Beltre in the tier above this, but because so much of his value is tied to defense, he probably needs to do a bit more offensively to get over the hump. The rest mostly just need to age well.
Could Make it With Strong Finish
17. David Ortiz, +42 WAR
18. Chase Utley, +55 WAR
19. Cliff Lee, +45 WAR
These guys are all going to need to put up more great seasons in their late-30s in order to push themselves into the conversation, but they’ve done enough to at least make it possible.
Off to a Great Start
20. Clayton Kershaw, +29 WAR
21. Andrew McCutchen +27 WAR
22. Mike Trout, +21 WAR
23. Yadier Molina, +29 WAR
24. Zack Greinke, +37 WAR
25. Bryce Harper, +8 WAR
26. Giancarlo Stanton, +14 WAR
27. Buster Posey, +18 WAR
28. Manny Machado, +8 WAR
29. Stephen Strasburg, +11 WAR
The next generation of superstars — and Molina, who has made himself a potential candidate with his last few seasons — as best as we can tell right now. Some of these guys will get hurt or fall apart, but if I was going to pick the cream of the crop for the future candidates, these guys would probably be it.
The Reliever
30. Craig Kimbrel, +9 WAR
Voters have traditionally favored closers with longevity, but Kimbrel’s run of dominance is something we’ve never really seen before. His career ERA- is 37; Mariano Rivera only had three seasons in which he matched that mark. He’s going to have to stay healthy for another decade or so, but his peak was so high that he only really needs to have a couple more dominant years and then hang around as a save gatherer to go down as the best closer of his generation.
That’s my 30, anyway. It might skew too much to the older generation, and perhaps I’d be better off excluding guys like Utley and Lee in favor of super premium prospects who might get a cup of coffee, but this is the definition of an inexact science, so feel free to quibble with my picks and put your own in the comments.
Before I started picking names, though, I was curious as to what the historical precedent was for active Hall of Famers in any given season. I noted a few weeks ago that, historically, between 1-2% of all players have been inducted in the Hall of Fame, but because the best players have long careers and end up crossing over eras, it would make sense that there are more than 8-15 Hall of Famers playing in any given season. So, with assistance from Baseball-Reference’s Play Index, I pulled the number of players in every season of baseball history who were eventually elected to the Hall of Fame.
I won’t reproduce the whole list here, since it covers 134 seasons even after you exclude the nine recent years in which no one has yet to be elected, but I will note that the most Hall of Famers ever in one season is 53, back in 1928-1929-1930. There were 52 in 1926, 1927, and 1932. In fact, there are only 15 seasons in baseball history where there were 40 or more active Hall of Famers in that season, and those 15 years are every season from 1923 to 1937. Here are those 15 seasons, with rank being their position on the all time leaderboard for seasons with most Hall of Famers active.
Rk Year #Matching
15 1923 40
11 1924 47
8 1925 51
6 1926 52
5 1927 52
3 1928 53
2 1929 53
1 1930 53
9 1931 48
4 1932 52
7 1933 51
10 1934 47
12 1935 44
14 1936 41
13 1937 41
I think we can safely say that the era of Babe Ruth has been romanticized more than any other in baseball history, and agree that there are probably some players in the Hall of Fame who were simply the recipients of some fortuitous timing. That kind of representation of an era is not normal.
But, interestingly, the median number for active Hall of Famers in a season doesn’t really change much even if you throw out that entire time period. Including all the years in which there were any active players who have already been inducted into Cooperstown, the median is 30. If you throw out the 1923-1937 era, the median only drops to 28. If you limit the years to just the 20th century, the median is 33. No matter how you slice and dice the data, you’re going to end up with a historical norm around 30 active players. So, let’s set that as our target, and try to identify 30 players who will take the field in 2014 who might have a decent shot at ending up with a plaque in the Hall of Fame.
Already Earned Their Way
1. Albert Pujols, +87 WAR
2. Derek Jeter, +74 WAR
3. Ichiro Suzuki, +55 WAR
Barring a late career PED test failure, the first two are absolute locks, and Ichiro’s close enough to 3,000 hits that, with the bonus he’ll get for not coming to the U.S. until age-27, he’ll meet the Fame threshold for most voters.
Would Be a Lock, Except PEDs
4. Alex Rodriguez, +111 WAR
My guess is, at some point in the not too distant future, the Hall of Fame will adopt rules regarding players who were suspended for PED usage, and those rules will determine whether or not Rodriguez is eventually enshrined in Cooperstown. On performance alone, he obviously belongs.
Almost There, Just Don’t Suck for a Few More Years
5. Miguel Cabrera, +55 WAR
6. Carlos Beltran, +64 WAR
7. CC Sabathia, +62 WAR
Thesse guys have the rate stats to get inducted, and essentially just need to ensure that their counting stats get up near Hall of Fame levels for voters who prefer milestones. They don’t even have to be good for the next few years, as long as they stay healthy and keep playing most everyday. Adding in a decent 1,500 plate appearances or 500 innings would push them over the top for most voters, based on what they’ve already done.
On Track, but Not Quite There Yet
8. Adrian Beltre, +65 WAR
9. David Wright, +50 WAR
10. Joe Mauer, +44 WAR
11. Justin Verlander, +44 WAR
12. Felix Hernandez, +41 WAR
13. Robinson Cano, +37 WAR
14. Evan Longoria, +36 WAR
15. Dustin Pedroia, +34 WAR
16. Joey Votto, +33 WAR
These nine are guys that have played at a Hall of Fame level to this point in their career. You could potentially make a case for Beltre in the tier above this, but because so much of his value is tied to defense, he probably needs to do a bit more offensively to get over the hump. The rest mostly just need to age well.
Could Make it With Strong Finish
17. David Ortiz, +42 WAR
18. Chase Utley, +55 WAR
19. Cliff Lee, +45 WAR
These guys are all going to need to put up more great seasons in their late-30s in order to push themselves into the conversation, but they’ve done enough to at least make it possible.
Off to a Great Start
20. Clayton Kershaw, +29 WAR
21. Andrew McCutchen +27 WAR
22. Mike Trout, +21 WAR
23. Yadier Molina, +29 WAR
24. Zack Greinke, +37 WAR
25. Bryce Harper, +8 WAR
26. Giancarlo Stanton, +14 WAR
27. Buster Posey, +18 WAR
28. Manny Machado, +8 WAR
29. Stephen Strasburg, +11 WAR
The next generation of superstars — and Molina, who has made himself a potential candidate with his last few seasons — as best as we can tell right now. Some of these guys will get hurt or fall apart, but if I was going to pick the cream of the crop for the future candidates, these guys would probably be it.
The Reliever
30. Craig Kimbrel, +9 WAR
Voters have traditionally favored closers with longevity, but Kimbrel’s run of dominance is something we’ve never really seen before. His career ERA- is 37; Mariano Rivera only had three seasons in which he matched that mark. He’s going to have to stay healthy for another decade or so, but his peak was so high that he only really needs to have a couple more dominant years and then hang around as a save gatherer to go down as the best closer of his generation.
That’s my 30, anyway. It might skew too much to the older generation, and perhaps I’d be better off excluding guys like Utley and Lee in favor of super premium prospects who might get a cup of coffee, but this is the definition of an inexact science, so feel free to quibble with my picks and put your own in the comments.
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Nice articles on the Braves. I'd keep Freeman, Heyward & Kimbrel let Medlen, . Upton walk as free agents or trade them. Too bad Braves will probably only keep 1 of them. Kimbrel will surely go to the Yankees 
Maddux, Glavine, Cox into the HOF
Maddux, Glavine, Cox into the HOF
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I liked Frank but I didn't think he would go in today. Good for him. Obviously Maddux was going in.
Here's a few of the percentages I heard on the radio.
Maddux 97.2
Glavine 91.9
Frank 83.7
Biggio 74.8
Piazza 62.2
Jack Morris 61.5
Bonds 34.7
Curt 29.2
Here's a few of the percentages I heard on the radio.
Maddux 97.2
Glavine 91.9
Frank 83.7
Biggio 74.8
Piazza 62.2
Jack Morris 61.5
Bonds 34.7
Curt 29.2
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The Big Hurt!
rell826
Banned
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**** Tom Glavine.
-Mets fans everywhere
-Mets fans everywhere
DeadsetAce
Supporter
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I'm surprised frank thomas got in on this go around
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Glad Bulldog, Glavine and Big Hurt got in but Bulldog is the last person for a while that will get that high of a %age. Big joke. These voters think they have gold in their hand with their votes. Maybe time for some new blood in the voting committee.
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I did not realize how great the big hurt was even though i grew up in chicago
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When are they officially announced?
BTW, I have come to the realization that Bonds will probably never get into the Hall. As much of a joke as the HOF voting has become, I still consider Cooperstown to be my Mecca. Cant wait to go back again.
BTW, I have come to the realization that Bonds will probably never get into the Hall. As much of a joke as the HOF voting has become, I still consider Cooperstown to be my Mecca. Cant wait to go back again.
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rell826
Banned
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The Greatness of Tom Glavine.
Maddux, Glavine, and Thomas Elected to Hall of Fame.
Every career in the history of baseball, every life that’s ever been lived — they all could’ve turned out differently, unrecognizably differently, given one little change along the way. Sometimes, you have to search for what those changes could’ve been. Other times, they flash in blinding neon. Tom Glavine was born in 1966. In June of 1984, he was drafted by the Atlanta Braves. In June of 1984, he was also drafted by the Los Angeles Kings. The Braves chose him 47th, while the Kings chose him 69th, ahead of some future superstars. There was the opportunity for Glavine to play hockey and go to college for free. He chose, with some difficulty, to go where baseball might lead him. On this day, he’s become all but an official Hall-of-Famer.
Frank Thomas is going into the Hall of Fame. The talent of Frank Thomas was obvious from the beginning. Thomas left no doubt in any observer’s mind that he was one of the best hitters there ever was. Greg Maddux is going into the Hall of Fame. Maddux had plenty of talent, and also the dedication to maximize it. Maddux required a bit of a longer look, but it was immediately apparent he could do things with the baseball others just couldn’t. Tom Glavine is going into the Hall of Fame. Glavine didn’t have Thomas’ gilded skillset, and he didn’t have Maddux’s ability to miss bats and hit gnats. Glavine’s greatest strength was getting something extraordinary out of considerably duller parts.
What was the story with Tom Glavine? This place is called FanGraphs, but we only infrequently call upon the graphs that’ve been there from the start. This seems like as good a chance as any. Given: Tom Glavine is getting voted into the Hall of Fame. Now, here’s how Glavine’s strikeouts compared to the league average over his career:
Here’s how Glavine’s walks compared to the league average over his career:
So, here’s how Glavine’s K/BB ratios compared to the league average over his career:
Nothing in there is terrible, but at the same time, nothing in there shrieks and cries “greatness”. Glavine wound up with a more or less average ratio of strikeouts to walks. He threw a slightly below-average rate of strikes, he threw a below-average rate of first-pitch strikes, and he allowed a higher-than-average rate of contact. Look at many of his numbers, and you’d figure that Glavine was a guy who was just good enough to hang around for long enough to stick in people’s memories. He was most certainly durable, and teams have always been suckers for durable lefties.
But there are other numbers. Here’s how Glavine’s homers compared to the league average over his career:
Here’s how Glavine’s stranded runners compared to the league average over his career:
Here’s how Glavine’s BABIPs compared to the league average over his career:
So, here’s how Glavine’s ERAs compared to the league average over his career:
Glavine finished with well over 4,000 innings, all as a starter, and his run prevention was 14% better than average, which is another way of saying he had an 86 ERA-. Between 1991 and 2006, he had two years in which his ERA started with a four. That same span saw him start 530 games, plus extra time in the playoffs. Glavine allowed a good but unremarkable career batting average. He was much better in the area of slugging percentage, particularly when there were runners on base. What Glavine did, basically, was make an entire career out of beating his own peripherals.
Which is how he finished with a WAR of 64, but an RA9-WAR of 88. Leo Mazzone referred to Glavine as a modern-day ****** Ford. Ford finished with a WAR of 55, but an RA9-WAR of 81. Fans today are always looking for pitchers who might be capable of sustainably beating their own indicators. Most of the time, there’s nothing there. Glavine did it for two decades. He did it by genuinely inducing worse contact, and he did it by genuinely changing his game in certain situations.
How did Glavine do it, after a somewhat shaky start to his career? Because he started so long ago, we can’t perform our usual analysis. Based on this picture, and then this one, it seems like Glavine might’ve raised his arm angle as he got older. He discovered his trademark changeup more or less by accident, and then that became his primary offspeed pitch since he never really trusted either of his breaking balls. He was a lefty who threw from the third-base side of the rubber, unlike most lefties, and that gave him a bit of an edge against right-handed bats. And there were the stories about his strike zone. In the long era before PITCHf/x, Glavine was a guy who made us all pine for something like PITCHf/x.
People used to claim that Glavine would get strikes 6-8 inches off the plate outside. And I’m not referring to lefty strikes, either, as we currently understand them, since Glavine faced relatively few left-handed hitters. The glimpses of late-career data we do have suggest that Glavine lived low and away against righties, and low and away against lefties. The thing is that he did that consistently. With his fastballs and his changeup, Glavine routinely attacked the same areas, allowing his catchers to expand the zone. And though Glavine never posted exceptional walk rates, that shouldn’t be confused for mediocre command. What Glavine was able to do was center the baseball in the catcher’s glove. And if that catcher were set up at or beyond the edge of the strike zone, sometimes that would mean balls, but that would also mean called strikes or strikes that hitters would struggle to drive. Glavine lived his career on the edge, in more ways than one, and he was good enough to not waver. He refused to come over the middle, and his results speak for themselves.
Interestingly, with no one on base, Glavine averaged about five strikeouts per two walks, and he allowed a .128 ISO. With runners in scoring position, he averaged barely 1.2 strikeouts per one unintentional walk, and he allowed a .104 ISO. Glavine was even more extreme about the edges when hits could hurt him, conceivably allowing him to strand more runners. Throw in his quality defense and his ability to suppress the running game, and it becomes apparent how Glavine was able to achieve all that he did. In theory, the model works. Few are able to perform up to the theory, but Glavine did it.
In 1999, there was talk that a smaller strike zone league-wide was really hurting Glavine and pitchers of his sort. Nevermind that that was Glavine’s age-33 season. From that point forward, he had seven more years of a sub-100 ERA-, and six of those were sub-90. Two were sub-80. Glavine was bad at the end, when he went on the disabled list for the first time, but he was also 42. Glavine pitched on both sides of the steroid era, and he thrived in between.
It’s worth noting that, if Tom Glavine belongs in the Hall of Fame, the same goes for Mike Mussina and Curt Schilling. Glavine pitched longer, but Mussina and Schilling posted numbers that were more striking, and extra credit shouldn’t be given for a greater number of only half-decent innings. Glavine didn’t struggle for this position, either, going in on the first ballot. Given that precedent, there should be no question regarding the other two. But that’s something for another day.
For this day, it’s about Tom Glavine. A lot of players in the Hall of Fame were able to become Hall of Famers because they possessed Hall of Fame level raw talent. Big giant fastballs or big giant curveballs or big giant arms that swung big giant bats. Tom Glavine’s going in with a fastball that spent the bulk of his career at or below 90 miles per hour. Yet, don’t make the mistake of asserting Glavine wasn’t unusually gifted. He was gifted, in a different way — he was able to work hard enough, long enough, to do what he did with what he had. He’s the kind of player who makes people believe they could be ultra-successful if they just gave more, if they just dedicated themselves completely. But most people can’t do that. Glavine could. That was his gift. And now he’s receiving the honor he earned.
Tom Glavine was one of the best while seldom really looking like it. That’s not an easy thing to be for a year. That’s not an easy thing to be for 20 of them.
Frank Thomas is going into the Hall of Fame. The talent of Frank Thomas was obvious from the beginning. Thomas left no doubt in any observer’s mind that he was one of the best hitters there ever was. Greg Maddux is going into the Hall of Fame. Maddux had plenty of talent, and also the dedication to maximize it. Maddux required a bit of a longer look, but it was immediately apparent he could do things with the baseball others just couldn’t. Tom Glavine is going into the Hall of Fame. Glavine didn’t have Thomas’ gilded skillset, and he didn’t have Maddux’s ability to miss bats and hit gnats. Glavine’s greatest strength was getting something extraordinary out of considerably duller parts.
What was the story with Tom Glavine? This place is called FanGraphs, but we only infrequently call upon the graphs that’ve been there from the start. This seems like as good a chance as any. Given: Tom Glavine is getting voted into the Hall of Fame. Now, here’s how Glavine’s strikeouts compared to the league average over his career:
Here’s how Glavine’s walks compared to the league average over his career:
So, here’s how Glavine’s K/BB ratios compared to the league average over his career:
Nothing in there is terrible, but at the same time, nothing in there shrieks and cries “greatness”. Glavine wound up with a more or less average ratio of strikeouts to walks. He threw a slightly below-average rate of strikes, he threw a below-average rate of first-pitch strikes, and he allowed a higher-than-average rate of contact. Look at many of his numbers, and you’d figure that Glavine was a guy who was just good enough to hang around for long enough to stick in people’s memories. He was most certainly durable, and teams have always been suckers for durable lefties.
But there are other numbers. Here’s how Glavine’s homers compared to the league average over his career:
Here’s how Glavine’s stranded runners compared to the league average over his career:
Here’s how Glavine’s BABIPs compared to the league average over his career:
So, here’s how Glavine’s ERAs compared to the league average over his career:
Glavine finished with well over 4,000 innings, all as a starter, and his run prevention was 14% better than average, which is another way of saying he had an 86 ERA-. Between 1991 and 2006, he had two years in which his ERA started with a four. That same span saw him start 530 games, plus extra time in the playoffs. Glavine allowed a good but unremarkable career batting average. He was much better in the area of slugging percentage, particularly when there were runners on base. What Glavine did, basically, was make an entire career out of beating his own peripherals.
Which is how he finished with a WAR of 64, but an RA9-WAR of 88. Leo Mazzone referred to Glavine as a modern-day ****** Ford. Ford finished with a WAR of 55, but an RA9-WAR of 81. Fans today are always looking for pitchers who might be capable of sustainably beating their own indicators. Most of the time, there’s nothing there. Glavine did it for two decades. He did it by genuinely inducing worse contact, and he did it by genuinely changing his game in certain situations.
How did Glavine do it, after a somewhat shaky start to his career? Because he started so long ago, we can’t perform our usual analysis. Based on this picture, and then this one, it seems like Glavine might’ve raised his arm angle as he got older. He discovered his trademark changeup more or less by accident, and then that became his primary offspeed pitch since he never really trusted either of his breaking balls. He was a lefty who threw from the third-base side of the rubber, unlike most lefties, and that gave him a bit of an edge against right-handed bats. And there were the stories about his strike zone. In the long era before PITCHf/x, Glavine was a guy who made us all pine for something like PITCHf/x.
People used to claim that Glavine would get strikes 6-8 inches off the plate outside. And I’m not referring to lefty strikes, either, as we currently understand them, since Glavine faced relatively few left-handed hitters. The glimpses of late-career data we do have suggest that Glavine lived low and away against righties, and low and away against lefties. The thing is that he did that consistently. With his fastballs and his changeup, Glavine routinely attacked the same areas, allowing his catchers to expand the zone. And though Glavine never posted exceptional walk rates, that shouldn’t be confused for mediocre command. What Glavine was able to do was center the baseball in the catcher’s glove. And if that catcher were set up at or beyond the edge of the strike zone, sometimes that would mean balls, but that would also mean called strikes or strikes that hitters would struggle to drive. Glavine lived his career on the edge, in more ways than one, and he was good enough to not waver. He refused to come over the middle, and his results speak for themselves.
Interestingly, with no one on base, Glavine averaged about five strikeouts per two walks, and he allowed a .128 ISO. With runners in scoring position, he averaged barely 1.2 strikeouts per one unintentional walk, and he allowed a .104 ISO. Glavine was even more extreme about the edges when hits could hurt him, conceivably allowing him to strand more runners. Throw in his quality defense and his ability to suppress the running game, and it becomes apparent how Glavine was able to achieve all that he did. In theory, the model works. Few are able to perform up to the theory, but Glavine did it.
In 1999, there was talk that a smaller strike zone league-wide was really hurting Glavine and pitchers of his sort. Nevermind that that was Glavine’s age-33 season. From that point forward, he had seven more years of a sub-100 ERA-, and six of those were sub-90. Two were sub-80. Glavine was bad at the end, when he went on the disabled list for the first time, but he was also 42. Glavine pitched on both sides of the steroid era, and he thrived in between.
It’s worth noting that, if Tom Glavine belongs in the Hall of Fame, the same goes for Mike Mussina and Curt Schilling. Glavine pitched longer, but Mussina and Schilling posted numbers that were more striking, and extra credit shouldn’t be given for a greater number of only half-decent innings. Glavine didn’t struggle for this position, either, going in on the first ballot. Given that precedent, there should be no question regarding the other two. But that’s something for another day.
For this day, it’s about Tom Glavine. A lot of players in the Hall of Fame were able to become Hall of Famers because they possessed Hall of Fame level raw talent. Big giant fastballs or big giant curveballs or big giant arms that swung big giant bats. Tom Glavine’s going in with a fastball that spent the bulk of his career at or below 90 miles per hour. Yet, don’t make the mistake of asserting Glavine wasn’t unusually gifted. He was gifted, in a different way — he was able to work hard enough, long enough, to do what he did with what he had. He’s the kind of player who makes people believe they could be ultra-successful if they just gave more, if they just dedicated themselves completely. But most people can’t do that. Glavine could. That was his gift. And now he’s receiving the honor he earned.
Tom Glavine was one of the best while seldom really looking like it. That’s not an easy thing to be for a year. That’s not an easy thing to be for 20 of them.
Maddux, Glavine, and Thomas Elected to Hall of Fame.
Because of the release of ballots over the last few weeks, we’ve had a pretty good idea that Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Frank Thomas would get elected into the Hall of Fame on their first attempt. Today, that was made official, as all three cleared the 75% threshold and are now members of the Hall. All three are more than deserving, and raise the level of the Hall of Fame by their enshrinement.
Because today should be about celebrating greatness, here is my homage to Greg Maddux and Jeff’s tribute to Tom Glavine, with a similar piece on Frank Thomas on the way. These players are worth celebrating.
Of course, as is often the case with announcements of this sort, the players who missed can overshadow the players who made it, and the vote total for Craig Biggio is probably going to be the story that gets the most traction. Biggio received 427 votes out of a possible 571, putting him at 74.8%, just two votes shy of election. It is the most narrow miss in HOF voting history, tying him with Nellie Fox and Pie Traynor, both of whom ended up getting elected later. Biggio is basically a mortal lock to get elected next year, but that he missed by two votes this year is going to be the source of a lot of consternation for the next 12 months.
And really, it is perhaps the perfect example of why the 10 player limit on the HOF ballot needs to be removed immediately. There are almost certainly confirmed more than two voters who did not include Craig Biggio on their 10 player ballot because there were 10 players they felt were more qualified on this particular ballot, but would have voted for him had the 10 player limit not been in place.
Craig Biggio missed Hall of Fame by 2 votes. I didn't vote him b/c 10 is max. He was 11 on my ballot. Time for BBWAA to change max rules?
— Rob Maaddi (@RobMaaddi) January 8, 2014
@KeithLaw I voted 10 and took Biggio off at last minute for Walker. Ugh! I would have voted for 14 guys this year.
— Jon Becker (@JonBecker2 January 8, 2014
12.26.13 re: Biggio & 10-vote limit http://t.co/nHByUkUa2A
— Michael Silverman (@MikeSilvermanBB) January 8, 2014
In other words, more than 75% of the voters would vote yes for Craig Biggio if that was the only question that was posed to them, but the limit means that is not the question they were asked, and they had to weigh his candidacy against the many other deserving candidates who made up this historically crowded ballot.
The fact that more than 75% of the voters would vote for Biggio, but could not because of an archaic rule that serves no purpose, but he did not get elected because of that rule, is reason enough to discard it post haste. Craig Biggio is, in the minds of 75% of the HOF voters, a Hall of Famer, but is being kept out by a technicality.
While I do not wish to be morbid, it is possible that Biggio does not live to see the 2015 Hall of Fame class get announced, and the Hall could be forced to posthumously elect a player that has already exceeded the threshold of 75% support among the voters. That would be a travesty, and motivation enough to remove the 10 player limit before we actually have a situation where a player is honored after he passes simply because the BBWAA is clinging to an outdated rule that has no use.
I believe the 10 player limit will be changed before next year’s ballot. Craig Biggio’s two vote miss ensured that this issue will not go unstudied, and once it becomes clear that indeed more than two voters would have voted for him if they could have, change will essentially be forced. In that sense, this is a good result for the Hall of Fame, even if it means another year of frustration for Biggio himself.
Overall, though, this is nearly as good of a result as could be hoped for, given the current rules and electorate. Three deserving players got in, no undeserving players are going to lower the Hall’s standard for future enshrinement, and a bad rule will now be heavily scrutinized. The process still needs improvement, but this is a much better day for both the Hall of Fame and the BBWAA than last year’s announcement.
Because today should be about celebrating greatness, here is my homage to Greg Maddux and Jeff’s tribute to Tom Glavine, with a similar piece on Frank Thomas on the way. These players are worth celebrating.
Of course, as is often the case with announcements of this sort, the players who missed can overshadow the players who made it, and the vote total for Craig Biggio is probably going to be the story that gets the most traction. Biggio received 427 votes out of a possible 571, putting him at 74.8%, just two votes shy of election. It is the most narrow miss in HOF voting history, tying him with Nellie Fox and Pie Traynor, both of whom ended up getting elected later. Biggio is basically a mortal lock to get elected next year, but that he missed by two votes this year is going to be the source of a lot of consternation for the next 12 months.
And really, it is perhaps the perfect example of why the 10 player limit on the HOF ballot needs to be removed immediately. There are almost certainly confirmed more than two voters who did not include Craig Biggio on their 10 player ballot because there were 10 players they felt were more qualified on this particular ballot, but would have voted for him had the 10 player limit not been in place.
Craig Biggio missed Hall of Fame by 2 votes. I didn't vote him b/c 10 is max. He was 11 on my ballot. Time for BBWAA to change max rules?
— Rob Maaddi (@RobMaaddi) January 8, 2014
@KeithLaw I voted 10 and took Biggio off at last minute for Walker. Ugh! I would have voted for 14 guys this year.
— Jon Becker (@JonBecker2
January 8, 201412.26.13 re: Biggio & 10-vote limit http://t.co/nHByUkUa2A
— Michael Silverman (@MikeSilvermanBB) January 8, 2014
In other words, more than 75% of the voters would vote yes for Craig Biggio if that was the only question that was posed to them, but the limit means that is not the question they were asked, and they had to weigh his candidacy against the many other deserving candidates who made up this historically crowded ballot.
The fact that more than 75% of the voters would vote for Biggio, but could not because of an archaic rule that serves no purpose, but he did not get elected because of that rule, is reason enough to discard it post haste. Craig Biggio is, in the minds of 75% of the HOF voters, a Hall of Famer, but is being kept out by a technicality.
While I do not wish to be morbid, it is possible that Biggio does not live to see the 2015 Hall of Fame class get announced, and the Hall could be forced to posthumously elect a player that has already exceeded the threshold of 75% support among the voters. That would be a travesty, and motivation enough to remove the 10 player limit before we actually have a situation where a player is honored after he passes simply because the BBWAA is clinging to an outdated rule that has no use.
I believe the 10 player limit will be changed before next year’s ballot. Craig Biggio’s two vote miss ensured that this issue will not go unstudied, and once it becomes clear that indeed more than two voters would have voted for him if they could have, change will essentially be forced. In that sense, this is a good result for the Hall of Fame, even if it means another year of frustration for Biggio himself.
Overall, though, this is nearly as good of a result as could be hoped for, given the current rules and electorate. Three deserving players got in, no undeserving players are going to lower the Hall’s standard for future enshrinement, and a bad rule will now be heavily scrutinized. The process still needs improvement, but this is a much better day for both the Hall of Fame and the BBWAA than last year’s announcement.
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Lot of players had their percentages drop because of the bloatedness this year dang...
Morris 67.7....to 61.5
Bagwell 59.6....to 54.3
Raines 52.2....to 46.1
Lee Smith 47.8....to 29.9
Schilling 38.8....to 29.2
E Martinez 35.9....to 25.2
Trammell 33.6....to 20.8
L Walker 21.6.....to 10.2
McGriff 20.7....to 11.7
Sosa 12.5.....to 7.2
Palmeiro dropped off the ballot with 4.4%.
....and 16 voters left Greg Maddux off their ballots.
Morris 67.7....to 61.5
Bagwell 59.6....to 54.3
Raines 52.2....to 46.1
Lee Smith 47.8....to 29.9
Schilling 38.8....to 29.2
E Martinez 35.9....to 25.2
Trammell 33.6....to 20.8
L Walker 21.6.....to 10.2
McGriff 20.7....to 11.7
Sosa 12.5.....to 7.2
Palmeiro dropped off the ballot with 4.4%.
....and 16 voters left Greg Maddux off their ballots.
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I guess I am not seeing the problem with some people leaving Maddux off their ballots as you guys all are. I mean, I grew up watching him pitch. I can easily say he is one of the best pitchers I have ever seen in my lifetime. But there has NEVER been a unanimous Hall of Famer. Not one. If Willie Mays, Babe Ruth and Ted Williams did not get 100% of the vote, I have no problem saying Maddux didnt deserve it either.
It's not even about those guys not getting 100% or there never being a guy. I think that's kind of a flawed way to look at it. Just because the past had mistakes doesn't make it right for these voters to have the same mistake. For a guy to leave arguably the best pitcher of a generation off of a ballot is an outrageous problem. I really don't buy the "There's only 10 spaces on a ballot and the others will vote him in" excuse. That worked out very well for Craig Biggio.
It's a travesty that all of those guys were not 100%.
It's a travesty that all of those guys were not 100%.
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So because idiots in the past made dumb decisions, it should be allowed to continue?
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So it was Dan Le Batard that gave his vote to Deadspin.
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The Maddux vote was one I've been waiting for the last couple years (and have stated so on NT) because Greg Maddux was the litmus test. We have not, and will not, have as perfect a candidate in quite some time for each voter to vote yes no questions asked.
To me It's embarrassing for those voters.
Some likely filled out all blank ballots yes.
To me It's embarrassing for those voters.
Some likely filled out all blank ballots yes.
DeadsetAce
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