Nationals Arm Race

Still waiting. Photo via fanragsports.com

Unbelievably, its now mid February, pitchers and catchers are reporting to Spring Training … and the two best FAs and two of the best players in the game remain unsigned.

If there was ever a sign that baseball’s collective pay system is broken, we’re seeing it.  An amazing combination of tanking, salary cap, poor CBA negotiating and GMs too smart for their own good has the game barrelling towards a large, ugly work stoppage in a few years time.  But we have to get there first.

Here’s my all-still unemployed team.  Every one of these players is unsigned as of the date/time i’m writing this and per mlbtraderumors: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/12/2018-19-mlb-free-agents.html

How many games do you think this team wins?

• Catcher: Matt Wieters starting with A.J. Ellis backing him up (post publishing correction per comments; Ellis has retired so we’ll go with Evan Gattis as the backup/DH).  Poor defense, but halfway decent offense based on 2018 numbers.
• 1B: Logan Morrison: he fell off a cliff in 2018, but had an OPS+ of 133 in 2017.  Bet on a rebound.
• 2B: Josh Harrison.  2 time all star, solid player.
• SS: Manny Machado
• 3B: Mike Moustakas: four straight years of above MLB average production.
• LF: Carlos Gonzalez: would you bet against CarGo with a chip on his shoulder?
• CF: Adam Jones: maybe he can’t really play CF anymore, but he can still play
• RF: Bryce Harper
• Utility: Marwin Gonzalez: can play 6 positions, hits the ball and isn’t 30 yet.  Why is he still a FA?

Lots of power potential here: I’d go Harrison, Machado, Harper, CarGo, Jones, Morrison, Moustakas, Wieters and Pitcher.

My Rotation?

• #1: Dallas Keuchel
• #2 Gio Gonzalez
• #3: Clay Buchholz
• #4: Ervin Santana
• #5: Yovani Gallardo

That rotation is better than 10 teams’ rotations right now.

bullpen?

• Closer: Craig Kimbrel
• Setup: Jim Johnson, Sergio Romo
• RH middle relief: Bud Norris, AJ Ramos
• LH middle relief: Xavier Cedeno, Aaron Loup

————-

Is that a lot of talent still waiting to be signed?  I think so.  I still count at least 15 starters who could impact nearly any team in the league on the bench.  its just crazy.

If Kershaw goes down, my fantasy season is in trouble. Photo via wiki.

Standard disclaimer; I do this post every year.  If you don’t play fantasy, you probably won’t care about the 3,000 words contained herein.

Because of the sheer number of players discussed, i’ll eschew my normal bolding of all names except those picked for my team so this post is more readable.

My annual Fantasy Baseball draft was held this week.  Here’s a re-cap of my team and my drafting strategy.

I had the 4th pick in a 12-team snake draft.  6×6 head-to-head league (the extra categories are OPS on the hitting side and Losses on the pitching side).  I obtained the 4th pick through a new draft order selection wrinkle introduced this year; instead of our typical double blind method of picking the order, we each submitted our choice of which pick we wanted.  I selected the 4th pick, thinking that Kershaw would be available here (or if he wasn’t, then i’d get one of the top 3 hitters who had slipped).  I won a coin-toss and kept the 4th pick.

Strategy: I wanted to be strong in Starting Pitching.  I wanted at least two top-notch closers.  I did not want to over-book OF positions early.  I would wait for 1B and the middle infield positions.

At the end of the day, here was my team, in order of round selected:

1. Clayton Kershaw, LAD
2. Stephen Strasburg, Wsh
3. Michael Brantley, Cle
4. Corey Dickerson, Col
5. Aroldis Chapman, Cin
6. Matt Harvey, NYM
7. Christian Yelich, Mia
8. Brian Dozier, Min
9. Chris Carter, Hou
10. Joaquin Benoit, SD
11. Evan Gattis, Hou
12. Michael Wacha, StL
13. Santiago Casilla, SF
14. Phil Hughes, Min
15. Lucas Duda, NYM
16. Shelby Miller, Atl * (see below)
17. Taijuan Walker, Sea
18. Jhonny Peralta, StL
19. Adam LaRoche, CWS
20. Nick Castellanos, Det
21. Brandon McCarthy, LAD

Round by Round thinking

(the notation will be Xth overall pick in our draft, and then the Yahoo o-rank and 2014 rank, and then blended average ADP of the guy selected.  the Yahoo “o-rank” is Yahoo’s 2015 projected ranking).

• Round 1 (4th overall pick, O-rank of #5, 2014 rank of #1, Blended ADP of #3) I had the 4th pick; the first three picks were Trout, Stanton, McCutchen.  So my choice was either  Kershaw or Goldschmidt?  I had targeted Kershaw by asking for the 4th pick, there’s lots of 1b depth, so going going with my SP.  I targeted Kershaw simply because, despite his ADP and o-ranks, he was the #1 fantasy player last year despite missing a month of starts, and I see no reason why he shouldn’t pick right back up.  I feel like i’m getting great value at #4 by grabbing the #1 overall player.  The pick: Clayton Kershaw.  I’ll say this: I fully believe that Max Scherzer will have a massive year and may very well be a better fantasy player than Kershaw in 2015 … but at the #4 pick, the odds of getting Scherzer to return to me were beyond nil.  I could have gambled on a lower pick in the draft and taken Scherzer later (his blended ADP rank is #16), but there are a couple of “unique” teams in the league who draft home-town heavy.  Sure enough, Scherzer went like 3 picks later, a pretty big overdraft.
• Round 2 (21st, 22nd, 48th in 2014, 23rd ADP): I really wanted Josh Donaldson here, and he went the pick before me.  Which left me with a problem.  Beltre, Freeman, Brantley all avail… don’t like any of them at this spot.  Rendon was best ADP but as we all know he’s looking more and more like he’s missing half the season.  After Rendon in ADP was Bumgarner and Sale; don’t really like either of those guys at this spot.  To heck with it: I picked Stephen Strasburg.  I really, really didn’t want to have two SPs at this point, and I promise I was not emulating some sort of pitcher heavy strategy.  If it hadn’t been for Rendon’s injury, I would have taken him there and been very happy.  From a value perspective, outside of Straburg’s somewhat disappointing 2014 rank this pick was right in line with Yahoo and ADP.
• Round 3 (28th, 20th, 6th in 2014, 26th ADP) I wanted Harper here, badly.  Literally, as I was thinking “Harper” he got picked, 2 spots before me.  My choices then were the likes of Freeman, Posey, Price, Brantley.   I don’t like Freddie Freeman this year; who would bother to pitch to him?  Posey is always hurt, and I just couldn’t take a 3rd pitcher in a row.  So I took Michael Brantley.  Ironically, Brantley was under consideration for my 2nd round pick and was still available 7 picks later.  This is always a good sign.  Why did he drop to 26th in ADP despite being #6 in Yahoo last year?  Maybe it was a career, unrepeatable year, but he’s not going to bottom out.  20/20 guy, great average, great OPS and plays in a hitter’s park.  I think this could be a great pick.
• Round 4: (45th, 40th, 39th in 2014, 42nd in ADP) Needing more hitters, I was looking basically at Dickerson and Marte here.  ADP has Lester, Reyes; I don’t trust Lester going to the bandbox in Wrigley, and I can’t stand Reyes in fantasy (always, always hurt).  So I grabbed Corey Dickerson.  Dickerson had great power numbers in the minors, and had 24 homers in just 436 ABs last year.  Plays in Colorado, his slash line is great.  I feel like he’s going to be a top 25 fantasy producer in 2015.
• Round 5 (52nd overall pick, 55th ranked, 93rd in 2014, 46th in ADP): a strategy play; last year I got my two main closers in the 5th and 6th rounds and rode them all year.  Knowing that i’d not be picking again for 17 picks … and after my hopeful “sleeper” pick Pujols got nabbed right after my 4th round pick, I looked at the board, didn’t like what I saw (Longoria, v-Mart, Hamels, Car-Go; injury, injury, Phillies and injury concern) and grabbed the best closer out there.  Aroldis Chapman.  Yes Kimbrel might be “better,” but Kimbrel is pitching for a team that will struggle to 65 wins.  He’s just not going to get the save opportunities that Chapman will.  Chapman’s 2014 rank took a tumble with his injury; he should continue his ridiculous K/9 rate and get plenty of saves for Cincinnati.
• Round 6: (69th overall pick, 44th ranked, did not play in 2014, 57th ADP).  For the entirety of the 6th round, I was hoping for Harvey.  He lasted, he lasted … and I got him at 69th overall pick.  Matt Harvey.  Perhaps an overdraft based on who he is and what he’s coming back from.  However, at the time of this pick he was top available player on my ADP list.  Debate in the room ensued; is he on an innings limit?  Is he ready to come back?  My answers are this: Harvey, when healthy, was a ridiculous combination of awesome.  Here’s some 2013 stats: in just 26 starts he racked up 6.5 wins on Fangraphs.  His FIP and xFIP numbers showed that he was due for *improvement*.  And perhaps the most amazing stat to me: he was 3rd in the league in K/BB ratio despite leading the league in fastball velocity (for starters).  In other words, he threw the hardest *and* had nearly the best control in the league.  Sign me up.  I think I may have just gotten a top-5 starting pitcher at the end of the 6th round.
• Round 7 (76th overall pick, 77th ranked, 33rd in 2014, 60th ADP).  Ok, at this point I’m in somewhat of a roster pickle.  I have four pitchers and just two batters and face a big gap before picking again.  I targeted best hitters available: I wanted someone like Fielder, Davis (gone, gone).  I targeted Kyle Seager: he went 2 before me.  So I looked at the 2B available (there were a ton at this stage on the board) and Brian Dozier was the pick.  20/20 guy, average not great, but 33rd ranked in 2014 so undervalued here.  I got him basically a round later than he should have gone by ADP.  Good value, and I have a decent 2B (which I struggled with last year).
• Round 8: (93rd pick, 72nd ranked, 76th in 2014, 80 ADP).  Another big gap in the drafting; lots of guys off the board.  Is it too early for Kris Bryant?  I really, really want Bryant.  But … he went 3 picks before me.  d*mn.  I was left with very little to choose from; ended up taking Christian Yelich.  Not the sexiest pick; he was good for me last year.  Lots of steals, not a ton of power.
• Round 9: (100th pick, 108th ranked, 94th in 2014, 118th ADP).  Now what?  another reliever?  Too early for a reliever.  There were good starters on the board (like Arrieta and Teheran).  But I need bats now.  This is the problem with drafting too many starters early; there’s a ton of value these days later on (as we’ll see with some of my later picks).  So I grabbed best hitter on ESPN’s board and the best position player that didn’t duplicate what I already had (OFs): went with Chris Carter.   Huge bat; 37 homers last year.  Awful average.  How does he only score 68 runs when 37 of them were his own homers?  You have to think some of these numbers will improve as Houston improves.  He should have more RBIs with better hitters getting on base ahead of him.
• Round 10: (117th overall, 145 o-rank, 141st in 2014, 164 ADP).  In the 17 picks after I thought about doing a closer … there was a huge run on them.  Literally 8 of the 17 picks between my 9th and 10th round were closers.  I was hoping that some one like Cishek held out but was disappointed?  I took Joaquin Benoit.  I figure that any pitcher in San Diego is 15% better just because of the stadium, and figure that SD will be better this year and Benoit will get saves.
• Round 11: (124th overall, 110 o-rank, 289 2014 rank, 84th ADP).  As with Bryant, I was starting to look at uber-rookie Pederson as a sleeper … and he went way, way early.  I also really liked Pablo Sandoval here .. and he got picked just before me.  Damn.  Evan Gattis is C eligible … best hitter available at this point and he fills my troublesome C slot.  Got him.  Gattis hit 22 homers in just 369 ABs last year, and he’ll be a DH/corner OF in a better hitter’s park.  So he should stay healthy.  Healthier that is.  He should immediately get OF eligibility too.
• Round 12: (141 overall, 138 o-rank, 232 in 2014, 132 ADP) Was looking at Garrett Richards … but he’s hurt and won’t be back til end of april.  No more decent RPs right now.  Can wait for later on.  I went with best starter avail; Michael Wacha.  This isn’t without concern here; a “stress fracture” in his throwing shoulder cost him half of last year.  I don’t forget though just how dominant he was in the 2nd half of 2013; we’ll hope he returns to that form.
• Round 13: (148 overall, 171 o-rank, 149 in 2014, 193 ADP).  I need a hitter; there are still 1Bs available, and plenty of them.  But I  don’t like what’s here at this point for this pick; I can wait.  So I got the best remaining closer on the market: Santiago Casilla.  And by “best” i mean, closer for the best remaining team.  You don’t want to invest in a closer of a last place team, or a team with a bullpen by committee approach.  Casilla might get supplanted by Romo (and in fact someone picked up my closer “handcuff” later on).  We’ll keep an eye out.
• Round 14/15: (From here out, instead of going round by round, I’ll talk about the pairs of picks since they’re so close together). I still need SS and 3B.  I still don’t like what’s out there for either and  and think they can hold on.  So the goal was to get another good hitter plus a good SP.  I ended up with Phil Hughes (165th overall, 122nd o-rank, 102 in 2014, 133rd in ADP) and Lucas Duda (172nd overall, 143 o-rank, 72nd in 2014, 155th ADP).  I like both of these picks for value: Hughes was great in 2014, came out of nowhere pitching in a big park.  By his 2014 numbers he went at least 5 rounds later than value.  Meanwhile I had been looking at Duda for a while; had him last year, he’s a masher.  30 homers in 2014 while being platooned a little bit.  He always scares me when he bats against the Nats.
• Round 16/17: At this point, I *still* don’t have a SS or 3B.  Except that, once again, looking at the board and who is available, I know I could wait on both and still get someone as decent in two rounds from now as if I drafted them now.  So instead, I’m looking at pitchers.  There’s no reason to take an experimental closer at this point, so I’m getting the two best SPs on the market.  I got Shelby Miller (189th overall, 228th o-rank, 323 2014 rank, 243 ADP) and Taijuan Walker (196th overall, 202 o-rank, 417 ranked last year, 223 ADP).  Both are overdrafts by nearly all measures, but both are interesting plays.  All i’ve been reading about Walker this spring is how awesome he’s looked, how un-hittable he’s been.  And he pitches in the pitcher-friendly confines of Seattle.  Miller is more of a riskier pick; he’s moved teams, is now pitching for the woeful Braves … but i’ve always liked him and have had him every year he’s been a pro.  There is a caveat to the Miller pick; apparently the guy who picked right before me asked me about Miller’s availability, and I either neglected to answer or misled him … so he picked Jose Quintana.  When I picked Miller immediately after him, he cried foul.  I promise I wasn’t trying to mis-lead him, and will immediately offer Miller in trade for Quintana as soon as the rosters are available.  So instead of Miller, I may have Quintana.
• Round 18-21: by this point it was past 11:30pm and we were pretty beat.  I had been targeting two specific SS/3B players for several rounds, knowing they probably wouldn’t get picked.  So I grabbed them, the best hitter remaining, plus one last SP to finish off the draft.  My last four picks were:
  • Jhonny Peralta (213 overall pick, 193 o-rank, 150th last  year, 198th ADP): 20 homers last  year, serviceable BA and OPS.  Best SS left.
  • Adam LaRoche (220th pick, 126 o-rank, 79th last year, 153 ADP): I love grabbing guys like LaRoche; because he plays a busy position, and despite his production last year (79th best fantasy player should have put him in the 7th round), he drops to almost waiver-wire levels.  I’ll take that for the 19th round; 79th best player last  year with the 220nd pick.
  • Nick Castellanos (237th pick, 267 o-rank, 303rd last year, 300+ in ADP).  Might be a wasted pick; of the 3B left, he sounded the most intriguing.  But 300+ in ADP, he wasn’t even on my draft list.  I’m pretty sure that the likes of Prado, Headley and even *gasp* Alex Rodriguez are 3B eligible and on waivers; we may make an early waiver wire move.
  • Brandon McCarthy (244th pick, 170 o-rank, 332 last  year, 236 ADP): last pick, and I got what I think will be a pretty serviceable starter.  McCarthy’s numbers were awesome for the Yankees last  year once he escaped the sh*tty situation in Arizona.  Now he goes to LA, where he’s probably the 3rd starter for the 2nd best team in the NL.  This could be a seriously good pick.

So, here’s the team by positions:

• C: Gattis
• 1B: Carter, Duda, LaRoche
• 2B: Dozier
• SS: Peralta
• 3B: Castellanos
• OF: Brantley, Dickerson, Yelich
• SP: Kershaw, Strasburg, Harvey, Wacha, Hughes, Miller/Quintana, McCarthy
• RP: Chapman, Benoit, Casilla

Initial glance: I can’t remember the last time I had starting pitching anywhere near this good.  Incredibly weak at 2B/SS/3B.  Not the greatest set of hitters in general.  Relievers have one great, one good, one crap-shoot; i’ll have to play the waiver wire game to try to grab an extra.

Here’s a breakdown of the 2014 stats for my hitters:

So, nearly every guy was a 20+ homer guy; lots of power on this team.  Three 20+ SB guys; that’s a good sign.  The averages aren’t great; that’s just a blended average of about .270.  My blended OPS is about .808.  By way of comparison, the MLB average last year was .253 for BA and .714 in OPS.  I can’t remember what the fantasy averages were, but i’m guessing these are going to be low.  A surprising number of decent RBI guys here; three that were near 100 RBIs last  year.  Another three guys who were near or over 100 runs.  So maybe this team won’t be that bad on the offensive side.

Let the games begin!

Puig would *make* the home run derby. photo mlb.com

I have to admit it: the home run derby has probably become my favorite part of the all-star game festivities.  That and the futures game of course.  The all-star game itself has devolved into a farce with a slew of issues (I posted a lot of these criticisms in my 2011 Nats all-star piece, and they remain issues today, so no need to go back into them here).  Lets talk about the Home Run derby.

I kind of like the wrinkle of naming “captains,” which for this year occurred on 6/23/14.  But the captains have to pick the right guys.  I hate the format; when a guy like Josh Hamilton is remembered for his epic performance in an early round moreso than the winner, something’s wrong with the format.   But they’re changing it this year.   And the players take *way* too many pitches.  But whatever.  This year’s captains are Troy Tulowitzki and Jose Bautista.  Fans can vote on who they want to see in the competition.

Here’s my ideal home-run derby slate of participants.  In the interest of keeping the competition “small” i’ve limited this to 5 per league:

National League:

• Giancarlo Stanton: owner of 3 of the biggest 11 homers on the year, on pace for 45+ homers, leading the NL in home runs.  And he wants in this year.
• Bryce Harper: last year’s runner-up is one of the few players in the majors scouted with 80 power; despite his injury-plagued season he belongs in this competition.
• Michael Morse: not too many all-or-nothing hitters like Morse, whose name dots the leader board on hittracker.
• Evan Gattis: you don’t just turn on chest-high fastballs from Strasburg if you’re a plain ole hitter.
• Yasiel Puig: just because.  Can he do a bat flip after every homer?

Left out:

• Troy Tulowitzki: He’s in as a captain, but even despite that selection he’s a decent choice: he’s 5th in the majors in ISO and tied for 6th in Homers.
• Paul Goldschmidt: has the power capabilities and the overall game.  But he’s not nearly as explosive as the guys above.
• Ryan Howard: He may not merit inclusion based on his performance, but he’s a classic three-true outcomes hitter.  Lefties get him out with ease; i’m sure batting practice pitchers don’t.
• Todd Frazier: his power numbers spike thanks to playing in Cincinnati, but he’s still got some serious underrated power.
• Justin Upton: Owner of the 3rd longest homer on the year.

American League:

• Yoenis Cespedes: gotta let the man defend his crown.
• Edwin Encarnacion: MLB leader in Homers as of this writing.  Has to be in this competition.
• Jose Abreu: MLB leader in ISO and on a 40 homer pace despite hitting the D/L.
• David Ortiz: Owns the 2nd longest homer hit this season and would make a nice homecoming in Minnesota.
• Mike Trout: He’s such a good hitter, that he could just sit at the plate and hit homer after homer.  And, he just hit a 489 foot homer to take over the longest homer of the year.

Left Out

• Jose Bautista: He’s a captain, so we’ll list him here.   Otherwise he’s a stretch to make this list.
• Victor Martinez: he’s quietly one of the best power hitters in the league right now.
• Mark Trumbo: too bad he’s hurt; he’s a great power hitter to watch.
• Nelson Cruz: his homer totals may be augmented by playing in Baltimore, but he’s still putting numbers on the board.
• Adam Dunn: you know he’d be a favorite to win if he was named to this team, but I could only select 5.  He’d be the 6th man in for the AL.

Are these the best lineups you could possibly ask for in this competition?  Who else would you put on this list of power-crazy players?  Jim Caple posted his own tongue-in-cheek version of this same post, worth a read for a quick giggle.  There’s a handful of other DH-only types in the AL (Billy Butler, Chris Carter, Adam Lind, Juan Francisco, etc) who might make sense.

(I used three resources to name these names: the current major league leaders in Homers, the current major league leaders in Isolated Power, and an eyeballing of the leader board for most astoundingly long homers on the year from Hit Tracker Online.  All stats are as of 6/24/14 and may have changed slightly between then and the publication of this post).

Desmond’s ill-timed steal affects home opener. Photo Drew Kinback/Natsnq.com

I like Matt Williams.  I thought he was the obvious choice for manager of this team, and I thought he made a great change of pace from Davey Johnson‘s laissez-faire approach.

But, man, I’m seeing some warning signs thus far through four games in some of his decisions.   Base running and lineup construction specifically.

The Nats made not one, not two, but THREE critical base-running errors in Friday’s home opener 2-1 loss to Atlanta.  Lets see if we can correctly second-guess these moves:

1. Gee, I wonder what would happen if I sent a guy with 20 speed (Adam LaRoche) home when a guy with an 80 arm (Andrelton Simmons) is getting ready to make the relay?    Oh, you think the 20-runner gets thrown out by 15 feet?  Check.  This isn’t on Williams of course … but if he holds LaRoche the team has 2nd and 3rd with one out (run expectancy: 1.44) versus just Zimmerman on third with two outs (RE: .385).  That’s huge.  If LaRoche stays put the team is almost guaranteed a run and perhaps more (a single scores two).  What happens?  Bryce Harper strikes out to end the inning.

2. One on, one out, and Harper gets thrown out trying to steal second on such an obvious steal attempt that the Braves pitched out and one of the lesser defensive catchers in the game (Evan Gattis) had Harper so dead to rights that he stopped running to second.  He was out by 20 feet.   This wouldn’t have led to much of anything likely .. but come on.  Maybe Harper gets to third on Ian Desmond‘s subsequent single up the middle.

3. The most egregious, the most obvious bone-headed running error though was the one that changed the game most.  After Desmond’s ground rule double (an opinion here: why was this call missed in the first place?  Every frigging little leaguer in the country knows the universal thing to do when a ball gets stuck in the fence; you raise your hands and its an automatic ground rule double.  Have MLB umpires just forgotten this?  Why did we need a 5-minute replay, arguments from both managers and a complete waste of time to determine this??), Desmond INEXPLICABLY tried to steal third and was again thrown out by 15 feet.   Why would you possibly try to steal third there?   You’re on second base with none out; RE of 1.1.  Your hitters have three shots to get a single to drive you in from there.

This steal completely changed the course of the game; instead of having a guy on second with none out, who you could bunt to third with Lobaton and then sac fly with Nate McCloud and voila; game tied.  Nope; instead Lobaton walks, McClouth feebly flies out (also removing the starter Jordan Zimmermann in the process) and opportunity wasted.

Just dumb, all around.

One last thing: why the F is Harper batting 6th??   He’s got the most power on the team, in arguably.  He’s one of the better hitters on the team.  The 6-hole bats approximately 30 times less per season than each subsequent position above it.  It just doesn’t make sense to be batting him behind guys who hit .220 last year.  I just don’t get it, and i’m not the only one out there who’s noticing this as well.  There’s a ton of science behind lineup construction that goes against conventional thinking, and hitting Harper 6th just invites criticism needlessly.  Hit the guy 4th and leave him there.

I won’t bother to comment on Harper taking strike-3 down the frigging middle of the plate in the 8th; that was pretty inexplicable to me too.  And I’ll give Williams a pass for yanking the effective Zimmermann after just 81 pitches; he was sick yesterday and the Desmond CS basically forced the move.

Nats have to play smarter.

Grr.  Great day at the ballpark wasted.

Clayton Kershaw may be the sole unanimous major award winner in 2013. Photo via wiki.

This post is months in the making.  In WordPress I looked up the first revision and it was dated May 4th.  Its on at least its 50th revision.  Its crazy.  But its a fun piece to do, to kind of keep track of these awards throughout the season.  But with yesterday’s release of the top-3 candidates for each BBWAA award, I thought it was finally time to publish.  The top-3 announcement didn’t have too many surprises in it, but was eye opening for some of the also-rans in each category.

I like seeing how well I can predict these awards by reading the tea leaves of the various opinions that flow into my RSS feed (here’s 2012’s version of the same post with links to prior years).  The goal is to go 8-for-8 predicting the major awards, with an even loftier goal of going 12-for-12 adding in the unofficial Sporting News awards.  I succeeded in 8-for-8 in 2010 and 2011, but missed out last year by over-thinking the Manager of the Year award in the AL.   This year is going to be tougher; the NL Rookie award and the AL Manager of the Year award are going to be coin-flips.

Here’s links for the MLB Players of the Month, to include Player, Pitcher and Rookies of the month, though frankly these monthly awards don’t amount to much.  But they’re fun to go see who was hot and how they ended up (think Evan Gattis).

Here’s links to some mid-season award prediction columns from Tom Verducci, Matthew Pouliot and Jayson Stark.  Here’s an 8/27/13 post from Keith Law, a 9/5/13 post from Cliff Corcoran, and a 9/25/13 prediction piece from USA Today’s Frank Nightengale that may be very telling about the Cabrera/Trout debate.   Lastly a few end of season pieces from Stark, Passan, Pouliot NL and AL, Gammons, Keri, Olney, Heyman.

Lastly here’s a great Joe Posnanski piece complaining about the faults the typical BBWAA voter has in their methodology.  He touches on some themes I mention below.  Remember this is a prediction piece, not who I necessarily think should actually win.

Without further ado, here’s my predictions and thoughts on the awards (predicted winners in Blue).

• AL MVP:  Miguel Cabrera (May’s AL player of the month) and was leading the league in nearly every offensive category through a big chunk of the season before injuries cost him a lot of September.  There’s talk of another Cabrera-Mike Trout competition for the MVP in 2013, but I think the same results will hold as in 2012.  It comes down to the simple question; how can you be the “MVP” of a last place team?  That vastly over-simplifies the debate of course, but it is what it is.  I continue to be impatient with holier-than-thou writers who ignore the BBWAA definition of the award and who think this MVP should just be a ranking of the seasonal WAR table.  This award is not (yet) the “Best Player” award, and if it was then Trout would be the easy winner.  Of the also-rans:  Chris Davis tied the AL-record for pre-All Star break homers and finished with 53, but he’s likely #3 in this race.   Rounding out my top 5 would be Josh Donaldson and  Manny Machado.  Names briefly under consideration here earlier in the season (and possible top 10 candidates) include Joe Mauer and Evan Longoria.
  
• AL Cy Young: Max Scherzer started the season 13-0 and finished 21-3.  This will propel him to the award despite not being as quite as good overall as his top competition.  Yu Darvish was on pace for nearly 300 strikeouts for a while before finishing with 277 and is likely finishing #2.   Despite a losing record pitching for one of the worst teams in the league, Chris Sale pitched to a 140 ERA+ for the second season in a row and should be rewarded with a top-5 finish.  Hisashi Iwakuma has fantastic numbers in the anonymity and depression of Seattle and will also get top-5 votes.  Rounding out the top 5 could be one of many:  Clay Buchholz was unhittable in April and weathered  accusations of doctoring the baseball from the Toronto broadcast team (Jack Morris and Dirk Hayhurst specifically), but then got hurt and may fall out of the voting.   Felix Hernandez put up his typical good numbers early despite a ton of kvetching about his velocity loss early in the season, but tailed off badly in August to drop him from the race.  Anibal Sanchez‘s 17-strikeout game has him some buzz, and he led the league in both ERA and ERA+.    Matt Moore became the first young lefty to start 8-0 since Babe Ruth and somewhat quietly finished 17-4 for the game-163 winning Rays.  Lots of contenders here.  Predicted finish: Scherzer, Darvish, Iwakuma, Sale, Sanchez.
• AL Rookie of the Year: Wil Myers may be the winner by default.  Nobody else really stands out, and the biggest off-season narrative involved Myers and the big trade, meaning that nearly every baseball fan and writer knows of Myers’ pre-MLB exploits.  Jose Iglesias put up good numbers in the Boston infield before being flipped to Detroit, and is a great candidate but most of his value resides in his defense, meaning old-school writers won’t vote for him over Myers.   Past that, the candidates are slim.  Justin Grimm‘s fill-in starts for Texas were more than adequate.  Nick Tepesch is also holding his own in Texas’ rotation.  Coner Gillaspie and Yan Gomes are in the mix.  Texas’ Martin Perez put himself in the race with a solid year and got some last-minute exposure pitching in the game-163 tie-breaker.  Leonys Martin is another Texas rookie that has quietly put up good numbers.  Myers’ Tampa Bay teammate Chris Archer could get some votes.  Predicted finish: Myers, Iglesias, Perez, Archer and Martin.
• AL Mgr: John Ferrell in Boston for going worst to first may be the best managerial job, but Terry Franconia in Cleveland deserves a ton of credit for what he’s done with significantly less resources in Cleveland and should win the award.  Its hard to underestimate what Joe Girardi has done in New York with injuries and the media circus this year, but this award usually goes to a playoff bound team.  I’ll go Franconia, Ferrell, Girardi.
• (Unofficial “award”): AL GM: Initially I was thinking Ben Cherington, Boston.  He traded away all those bad contracts, brought in several guys under the radar, leading to a 30 game swing in its W/L record.  Though, I agree with David Schoenfield; with Oakland’s 2nd straight AL West title it’s hard not to give this to Billy Beane.
• (Unofficial “award”): AL Comeback Player of the Year: Nate McLouth has come back from the absolute dead for Baltimore, though technically he was decent last year too.  Josh Donaldson has come out of nowhere for Oakland, but really had nowhere to come “back” from.  John Lackey and Scott Kazmir both rebounded excellently from injury plagued seasons.  I think the winner has to be Kazmir by virtue of his slightly better record over Lackey.  Editor’s update: this award was already given and I got it wrong: Mariano Rivera won for his great 2013 comeback; I completely forgot about him.  We’ll cover the results versus my predictions in a future post.
• (Unofficial “award”): AL Fireman of the Year: Greg Holland, despite some sympathetic desire to give it to Mariano Rivera on his way out.  Joe Nathan is also in the AL discussion.  Jim Johnson is not; despite leading the league in saves for the 2nd year in a row he blew another 9 opportunities.  I hope the voters see past that.

Now for the National League:

• NL MVP:  Andrew McCutchen is the shoe-in to win, both as a sentimental favorite for the Pirates first winning/playoff season in a generation and as the best player on a playoff team.  Clayton Kershaw‘s unbelievable season won’t net him a double, but I’m guessing he comes in 2nd in the MVP voting.  Paul Goldschmidt has become a legitimate stud this year and likely finishes 3rd behind McCutchen and Kershaw.  Rounding out the top 5 probably are two from Yadier Molina, Freddie Freeman and possibly Joey Votto as leaders from their respective playoff teams.  Also-rans who looked great for short bursts this season include the following:  Jayson Werth (who is having a career-year and making some people re-think his albatros contract),  Carlos Gomez (who leads the NL in bWAR, won the Gold glove and led the NL in DRS for centerfielders but isn’t being mentioned at all for the NL MVP: isn’t that odd considering the overwhelming Mike Trout debate??  I’ve made this case in this space to little fanfare in the past; if you are pro-Trout and are not pro-Gomez, then you’re falling victim to the same “MVP Narrative” that you are already arguing against), and maybe even Matt Carpenter (St. Louis’ real offensive leader these days).
• NL Cy Young:  Clayton Kershaw put together his typical dominant season and won’t lose out to any of his darling competitors.  He may be the only unanimous vote of the major awards.  Marlins rookie phenom Jose Fernandez probably finishes #2 behind Kershaw before squeaking out the RoY award.   Matt Harvey was the All-Star game starter and looked like he could have unseated Kershaw, but a later season swoon and a torn UCL in late August ended his season and his chances early.  He still likely finishes #3.   Others who will get votes here and there: Jordan Zimmermann (who nearly got to 20 wins),  Adam Wainwright (who is back to Ace-form after his surgery and is put together a great season), St. Louis teammate Shelby Miller,  Patrick Corbin (Pitcher of the Month in May), Cliff Lee (who has been great for the mediocre Phillies), and perhaps even Zack Greinke (who finished 15-4; did you know he was 15-4?).  Predicted finish: Kershaw, Fernandez, Harvey, Wainwright, Corbin.
• NL Rookie of the Year: Seems like its coming down to one of 5 candidates: Fernandez, Puig, Miller, Ryu and Teheran.  I’d probably vote them in that order.  Shelby Miller has stayed the course filling in St. Louis’ rotation and may also get Cy Young votes and seemed like the leading candidate by mid June.  Evan Gattis, the great feel-good story from the Atlanta Braves, started out white-hot but settled down in to relative mediocracy.  Tony Cingrani continued his amazing K/9 pace from the minors at the MLB level, filling in quite ably for Red’s ace Johnny Cueto but was demoted once Cueto returned and struggled with injuries down the stretch.   Didi Gregorious, more famous for being the “other” guy in the Trevor Bauer trade, has performed well.  Meanwhile don’t forget about Hyun-Jin Ryu, the South Korean sensation that has given Los Angeles a relatively fearsome frontline set of starters.  Yasiel Puig took the league by storm and hit 4 homers his first week on the job.  Jose Fernandez has made the jump from A-Ball to the Marlins rotation and has been excellent.  Julio Teheran has finally figured it out after two call-ups in the last two years and has a full season of excellent work in Atlanta’s rotation.  The question is; will narrative (Puig) win out over real performance (Fernandez)?  Tough call.
• NL Mgr: Clint Hurdle, Pittsburgh.  No real competition here.  Some may say Don Mattingly for going from near firing in May to a 90 win season … but can you really be manager of the year with a 250M payroll?
• (Unofficial award) NL GM: Neal Huntington, Pittsburgh.  It really has to be Huntington for pulling off the low-profile moves that have paid off with Pittsburgh’s first winning season in 20 years.  Ned Colletti‘s moves may have resulted in the best team in the league, but he has the benefit of a ridiculously large checkbook and I hope he doesn’t win as a result.
• (Unofficial “award”): NL Comeback Player of the Year: I’d love to give this to Evan Gattis for his back story but that’s not the point of this award.  I’m thinking Carlos Gomez with Milwaukee for his massive out-of-nowhere season.  But honestly the award has to go to Francisco Liriano.  Editor’s update: this award was already given and I got it right: Liriano indeed won.
• (Unofficial “award”): NL Fireman of the Year: Craig Kimbrel, who looks to finish the year with a sub 1.00 ERA for the second year running.   Edward Mujica and Aroldis Chapman in the discussion but not really close.

What's eating Gilbert Grape? Photo: howtowatchsports.com

Our Ace, and “Best in the League” by many pundits pitcher Stephen Strasburg is now 1-4 on the season with relatively pedestrian (for him) numbers so far (3.16 ERA, 3.32 FIP, 3.65 xFIP).

So what’s the problem?  Or, more importantly, what is NOT the problem?

First off; I think its safe to say we can ignore his inflated FIP and xFIP numbers for now.  As I pointed out in this April 4th post about my issues with fWAR, FIP focuses entirely on the “Three true outcomes” that a pitcher entirely controls and really does a poor job of measuring pitchers who induce a whole slew of weak ground balls (like Strasburg does).   This is easily seen by looking at the two example cases in the 4/4/13 post to see how FIP measures a guy who strikes out 9 but gives up 5 earned runs higher than a guy who strikes out just a few but gives up zero runs in an outing.

I also do not buy the opinions I’ve heard in various forums and podcasts that hitters are “squaring him up” a lot this year.  You heard this a lot after his 4/19/13 loss to the Mets, when he gave up back-to-back homers to Ike Davis and Lucas Duda in the 6th (two of the three homer’s he’s given up this year, the third being an out-of-this-world chest-high fastball just clubbed out by Evan Gattis).    I don’t buy this because observation has shown that he gives up a TON of bloops, dinks, infield nubbers, etc.  He also has a very low Line-Drive percentage right now; just 14.9% of the balls hit off of him so far this year have been classified as “line drives,” or hard-struck balls.

Dave Cameron of Fangraphs had a piece on ESPN talking about Strasburg and the Nats “pitch to contact” strategy that shows essentially that pitch-to-contact guys don’t really throw that fewer a number of pitches than guys who just try to strike you out.   Is Strasburg’s change in style leading to issues for him?  So far it doesn’t seem so: he’s averaging about 6 1/3 innings per start and has been right around 110 pitches each of his last four despite still going deeper into the game.  But his K/9 is absolutely down (from 11.1 last year to 8.0 this year).

No, I think Strasburg’s issues are these three items.

1. Bad first innings.  Tom Boswell had a great piece on this earlier this week, talking about how a lack of a first pitch strike has really cost Strasburg this year.  And he’s right; pretty much the absolute worst thing you can do as a pitcher is to show a hitter your fastball for a ball at 0-0.   Not only does the hitter get the timing down pretty well on your fastball, but he also gets ahead in the count.  Boswell is probably right in saying that hitters are now trying to jump on the first fastball they get, knowing that getting behind in the count against him is near-certain demise; but Strasburg has to make that adjustment too.  He can’t nibble on first pitch fastballs; he has to be smarter than that.

Strasburg has given up 15 total runs in 5 games this year; fully EIGHT of them have come in the first inning.  That just cannot continue.

2. Bad luck; we’ve watched his games, and he’s not exactly getting pounded when he gives up most of these runs.   Check out the game-logs for his losses:

• April 7th; 6 runs given up to Cincinnati: in the first he gave up his runs after two infield singles and a walk turned into a 2-rbi double, the only well-hit ball of the inning.  He gave up 3 more in the 6th on some better hit balls and had one runner score after he departed.
• April 13th: 6 innings pitched, zero earned runs and a loss; Ryan Zimmerman threw away a routine 3rd out and the next guy up clubbed a homer.  Yes, he gave up a homer (it wasn’t as if he made a bad pitch there; Gattis just crushed it) but he never should have been in the position in the first place.
• April 19th: Two more unearned runs in the first when Desmond booted the first ball of the day; a weak dribbler up the middle.  He gave up two more hits in the 1st but only Buck‘s was really a line-drive.   By the 6th inning he gave up two bombed homers; no bad luck there.
• April 24th: the lead-off double was earned, but the rest of the hits in the first were opposite field shorter line drives, with the required Nationals infield error thrown in to ensure unearned runs contributing to his day.

Only four of his 15 runs allowed were deemed to be unearned, but we’ve watched the games.  Zimmerman’s error against the Braves decided that game.  Desmond’s error against the Mets set the tone.  The team went down 3-0 in the first against both Cincy and St. Louis at a time when the offense was struggling.  Just can’t do that.  Speaking of the offense…

3. Lack of Run Support.  In his five starts, Strasburg’s offense has scored this many runs for him: 2,3,1,1, and 2.  That’s 1.8 runs per game!  Maybe Bob Gibson in 1968 could have gotten wins with that little run support, but certainly not Strasburg.  The Nats YESTERDAY gave Gio Gonzalez nearly the same total run support that Strasburg has gotten all year.

Spurred into action by this Dave Cameron SI.com piece, where he postulates that Atlanta isn’t as well constructed as other NL playoff contendors (including Washington) for constant intraleague because they don’t have a natural power hitter on the bench (like we do in Tyler Moore and/or Chad Tracy), I asked myself this question:  Which probable NL playoff contenders are going to be helped or hurt by their intraleague schedules this year?

(Note: I’ll skip the obvious answer to Cameron’s above question: who cares how well constructed you are when you start the season 12-1?  And, had Cameron waited about a week to write this the answer may have very well been Atlanta’s out-of-nowhere find Evan Gattis, who clearly can serve as an interleage DH very ably).

Going down the line, looking just at intraleague opponents you get this list (3 game sets unless denoted):

• Washington: Home to Chicago White Sox, Detroit (2), Baltimore (2), Minnesota.  Away to Cleveland, Baltimore (2), Detroit (2), Kansas City.
• Atlanta: Home to Kansas City (2), Minnesota, Toronto (2), and Cleveland.  Away to Detroit, Toronto (2), Kansas City (2), Chicago White Sox.

Head to head, you have to say that Washington has a slight inter-league advantage over Atlanta; they have to play defending AL champs Detroit 6 times to our 4, they have to play Toronto four times instead of our Baltimore (a slightly tougher matchup).  The games involving Cleveland and Chicago are probably a wash.  Atlanta’s “natural rival” right now is Toronto to our Baltimore, which likely hurts them this season.

• Cincinnati: Home to Los Angeles Angels, Cleveland (2),  Seattle, Oakland (2).   Away to Oakland (2), Texas, Houston, and Cleveland (2).
• St. Louis: Home to Kansas City (2), Texas, Seattle, Houston (2).  Away to Kansas City (2), Houston (2), Oakland, Los Angeles Angels.

St. Louis doesn’t play a single AL team until May 27th, and plays 8 of their 10 away AL games IN A ROW in mid June.  This is a pretty massive scheduling advantage that lets them modify their roster for one big AL road trip and basically not have to worry about the away AL games the rest of the season.  Head to head as compared to Cincinnati, you’d have to give a slight edge to St. Louis again, for getting those two extra games versus Houston.  Otherwise these two slates look pretty even.

Either way they’re both considerably more difficult than what the NL East teams face, thanks to the games against the AL West playoff-calibre teams.   Half their games are against LA, Texas and Oakland while the Nats only have to worry about 4 Detroit games (unless you think that Baltimore is going to be a playoff team again, which I don’t).

• San Francisco: Home to Oakland (2), Toronto (2), Baltimore, Boston.   Away to Toronto (2), Oakland (2), Tampa Bay, New York Yankees.
• Los Angeles: Home to Los Angeles Angels (2), New York Yankees (2), Tampa Bay, Boston.   Away to Baltimore, Los Angeles Angels (2), New York Yankees (2), Toronto.

Ouch; the NL West guys have AL East heavy interleague schedules this year.  I’d say that the Giant’s slate is slightly harder; Tampa Bay and the Yankees and four games against Toronto versus three for the Dodgers.  Oakland vs Angels as a natural rival seems like it will be slightly harder on the Dodgers (but, Oakland is starting right where they left off and may be a playoff team at the Angels’ expense again).

But again, either way you have to think the NL West teams are worse off than the NL East teams this year for interleague looking at their slate.

All of this may be helpful to teams trying to get a wild card spot, which we all hope will be Atlanta and not us.  Because we all now know what can happen if you slip to the one-game wild card play-in.  Just ask Atlanta and Texas what happened last year, when two teams who I thought both had the capability of winning it all were knocked out in a coin-flip game.

By the way, today on April 12th, the NL standings after 9 games basically already mirror the above scenarios in terms of Division leaders and wild card contenders.  The only anomoly would be Arizona being in 2nd place by a game in the NL West.  The cream rise to the top quickly it seems.