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Giants Remove Bobby Evans From GM Role

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7:50pm: Baer said in a conference call tonight that the Giants will search for a new head of baseball operations, meaning Sabean will not be in charge of such decisions moving forward, either (Twitter link via Pavlovic). Baer also stated that the team expects Bochy to return as the manager in 2019 (Twitter link via Schulman).

6:50pm: The Giants announced the move and added that Evans will be “reassigned” to a new role with responsibilities that have yet to be determined. Giants CEO Larry Baer offered the following statement:

“I want to thank Bobby for his tireless work on behalf of the Giants. He played an important role in our team’s success throughout his tenure, which includes three World Series championships, four NL pennants and eight playoff appearances. We look forward to new leadership to continue our historic record of success.”

Sabean will not simply be reprising his role atop the team’s operations hierarchy, it seems, as the press release indicates that he’ll work with Baer to find a replacement for Evans.

“I take great pride in the longstanding continuity of our baseball department,” Sabean said in his own statement. “I want to express my thanks to Bobby for all he has given to the Giants over the past 25 years and for his countless contributions.”

6:15pm: Bobby Evans has been removed from his post as the Giants’ general manager, reports Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle. It’s not clear if Evans will remain with the organization in another capacity or look for an opportunity in a new organization, though Schulman adds that he’s expected to be offered another role within the Giants. Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area writes that the move is likely to be the first of many in a major front-office shakeup, though Schulman notes that executive vice president Brian Sabean and manager Bruce Bochy are likely to be retained.

Evans has spent more than two decades with the Giants and played an instrumental role in helping to construct the three rosters that won the 2010, 2012 and 2014 World Series during San Francisco’s “even-year” dynasty. At the time, Evans was the assistant general manager to then-GM Sabean, but in 2015 the organization promoted Sabean to executive vice president and bumped Evans up the chain of command another peg.

Things haven’t gone well since, as San Francisco has been burned by big-money free agent signings (Jeff Samardzija, Johnny Cueto, Mark Melancon) while struggling through a pair of losing seasons. The Giants won only 64 games last season but loaded up on veteran additions in the offseason with an eye toward contending in 2018. Trade acquisitions Andrew McCutchen and Evan Longoria didn’t help the offense in the manner that Evans & Co. had hoped, however. This year’s club did manage to hang around the periphery of contention longer than the 2017 iteration of the Giants — despite myriad injury issues, it should be noted — but ultimately plummeted out of the division race in catastrophic fashion by losing 11 consecutive games.

While the past couple seasons for the Giants have been miserable, Evans should have no trouble finding another opportunity with a different organization if he decides to move on from the Giants. He’s among the game’s most respected executives and would bring a wealth of experience to a new club. It’s worth noting that there is at least one other GM opening that’ll need to be filled, as the Mets are searching for a new head of baseball operations following Sandy Alderson’s departure from the team earlier this summer.

Astros Activate Lance McCullers Jr.

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The Astros announced that right-hander Lance McCullers Jr. has been reinstated from the disabled list. He’d been sidelined since Aug. 5 due to a right elbow injury, but he’ll be active for the season’s final handful of games and for the postseason. Houston also recalled lefty reliever Reymin Guduan for the final stretch of play.

[Related: Houston Astros depth chart]

McCullers, 24, was cruising to arguably the best season of his big league career but hit a rough patch in mid July that saw him surrender 14 runs on 18 hits and a dozen walks in a span of 17 2/3 innings before landing on the disabled list. He’s currently sporting a 3.93 ERA with 9.9 K/9 against 3.6 BB/9 through 126 innings. That’s the largest regular-season workload McCullers has tallied at the MLB level to this point in his career, though he tossed 137 innings last year when including his postseason work and a brief minor league rehab assignment. He also logged 155 2/3 innings between the Astros and Triple-A back in 2015.

McCullers will be available for the ’Stros in relief for the time being — a role in which he shined while closing out the final game of last season’s American League Championship Series. If McCullers is to remain in the ’pen for the Astros’ postseason endeavors, Houston can still lean on Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole, Dallas Keuchel and Charlie Morton as rotation options.

As for the 26-year-old Guduan, he’ll give manager A.J. Hinch another southpaw option in matchup situations. He’s yet to find much in the way of big league success, but Guduan did notch a 3.74 ERA and average 13.5 strikeouts per nine innings pitched in 55 1/3 Triple-A frames this year — albeit against an unpalatable average of 5.2 walks per nine innings.

Orioles Select John Means

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The Orioles announced Monday that they’ve selected the contract of left-hander John Means from Triple-A Norfolk. In order to open a spot on the 40-man roster, Baltimore recalled outfielder Austin Hays and placed him on the Major League 60-day disabled list. Hays underwent ankle surgery earlier this month.

Means, 25, split the 2018 season between Double-A (46 innings) and Triple-A (111 1/3 innings), working to a combined 3.72 ERA with with 7.4 K/9 against just 1.8 BB/9. He’s not considered to be among the organization’s top prospects, but he’d have been Rule 5 eligible this offseason after a solid season in the upper minors. Given the thin state of the team’s pitching depth, the Orioles likely would’ve added him to the 40-man roster this winter anyhow.

[Related: Baltimore Orioles depth chart]

Means has worked almost exclusively as a starter throughout his career since being selected in the 11th round of the 2014 draft, and he’ll quite likely be in the mix for a spot on the big league roster next spring. At present, Dylan Bundy, Alex Cobb and Andrew Cashner are the three locks for rotation spots in 2018, health permitting, with Means, Josh Rogers, Luis Ortiz, David Hess, Jimmy Yacabonis and Yefry Ramirez among the names who’ll vie for additional opportunities. It’s also possible that Means could eventually be looked at as a potential bullpen piece; he held left-handed opponents to an awful .209/.246/.312 line in 2018 but yielded a .295/.331/.423 slash to opposing righties.

A Layman Attempts To Calculate WAR: Batting Runs

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As I explained in my August introduction post, I’m going to attempt to calculate FanGraphs WAR accurately for Chris Taylor’s 2017 season, in my own spreadsheet.  To do this, I expect to make heavy use of FanGraphs’ documentation.  I also have to give a big thanks to FanGraphs owner Dave Appelman as well as my sabermetric sage Matt Swartz.  Here’s FanGraphs’ overview of WAR For Position Players.  The basic formula is this:

WAR = (Batting Runs + Base Running Runs + Fielding Runs + Positional Adjustment + League Adjustment + Replacement Runs) / (Runs Per Win)

This doesn’t look too daunting.  Add up the three different ways a position player can create value, make adjustments for position and league, and put it on the correct scale.  OK, let’s calculate batting runs!

Show of hands, who knows anything about batting runs?  Offhand, I couldn’t tell you how batting runs are tabulated, or what benchmarks for success are.  So batting runs is a stat unto itself that requires a full exploration.  Here’s the batting runs formula:

Batting Runs = wRAA + (lgR/PA – (PF*lgR/PA))*PA + (lgR/PA – (AL or NL non-pitcher wRC/PA))*PA

Huh.  OK, when I look at that formula, the only acronym I’m familiar with is PA, which is plate appearances.  We can all agree that we know what a plate appearance is.

I do not, however, know what wRAA is.  FanGraphs says it stands for Weighted Runs Above Average.  And, well, it has its own formula:

wRAA = ((wOBA – lgwOBA)/wOBA Scale) * PA

It seems that to calculate wRAA, we first need to calculate wOBA.  Now, before I lose you in this sea of acronyms, wOBA is actually useful and fairly easy to understand.  It stands for weighted on-base average.  According to FanGraphs, wOBA “is a rate statistic that attempts to credit a hitter for the value of each outcome (single, double, etc) rather than treating all hits or times on base equally.”  Intuitively, I find wOBA to be a simple and useful offensive statistic.  At MLBTR, we often cite a batter’s “triple slash” line.  Chris Taylor’s triple slash in 2017 was .288 (batting average)/.354 (on-base percentage)/.496 (slugging percentage).  These days, people worry a lot less about batting average, since OBP counts a player’s hits, walks, and hit-by-pitches.  But OBP fails to give a complete picture, since a walk is valued the same as a home run.  That’s why we have slugging percentage, right?  SLG is just total bases divided by at-bats, but it wrongly suggests a home run is worth four times as much as a single or twice as much as a double.

The purpose of that aside was to illustrate that wOBA is indeed a strong foundation for the batting runs component of WAR.  Here’s the wOBA formula for 2017:

wOBA = (0.693×uBB + 0.723×HBP + 0.877×1B + 1.232×2B + 1.552×3B +
1.980×HR) / (AB + BB – IBB + SF + HBP)

In this formula, there are six things a batter can do to create value: draw an unintentional walk, get hit by a pitch, or hit a single, double, triple, or home run.  As I learned from Appelman, and by just playing around with some example numbers, the batter also gets credit for intentional walks, by virtue of those being subtracted in the denominator.

You can see there is a weight assigned to each possibility, like 0.877 for a single or 1.980 for a home run.  These weights change a little bit each year, and can be found here at FanGraphs.  The concept of linear weights is explained well in this FanGraphs article.  There are 24 different base-out states, such as “runner on second with one out” or “bases loaded, nobody out.”  FanGraphs explains, “In order to calculate the run expectancy for that base-out state, we need to find all instances of that base-out state from the entire season (or set of seasons) and find the total number of runs scored from the time that base-out state occurred until the end of the innings in which they occurred. Then we divide by the total number of instances to get the average.”  So if you know that the bases are loaded with nobody out in the year 2017, you should expect 2.32 runs to score.  50 years prior, you would have expected 2.13 runs to score in that situation.

We have 24 different run expectancy numbers, and each plate appearance moves the team from one box to another.  The difference between the two is the run expectancy for that plate appearance.  With this information, we can get the linear weights for each of the six batting outcomes.  This concept dates back well before FanGraphs and is worth exploring.

One thing to note, from Neil Weinberg of FanGraphs: “the inventors of wOBA decided that it would probably be best to scale it to something familiar to make it easier to understand,” so they made the “aesthetic choice” to scale wOBA to on-base percentage.  As we’ll see later in the wRAA calculation, this scaling choice has to be undone to get us back on a run scale.  That seems needlessly convoluted, but I’m probably the only one trying to do this by hand.

In theory, one could create a version of wOBA that doesn’t just include these six positive batting outcomes, but rather every batting outcome.  To quote Weinberg, “If you wanted to, you could build wOBA with more nuanced stats like fly ball outs, ground outs, strikeouts, etc; it would just get more complicated without much added value.”  Well, hold up.  First off, we shouldn’t care about making wOBA more complicated, since (this exercise aside), no one is computing it by hand.  In fact, in a different FanGraphs wOBA explainer, the author says, “OBP or SLG might be easier to calculate with pencil and paper, but wOBA is extremely easy to find and use on our site, meaning any computational costs of moving to wOBA are minuscule.” I agree with that point, and since WAR is already a very complicated stat, why not incorporate the nuances of all batting events into it by using the most advanced wOBA possible?  For example, take two players who have the exact same number of unintentional walks, HBPs, singles, doubles, triples, and home runs.  Say those players each also made 400 outs in a season, but one player made every out by strikeout and the other made every out by flyball.  Wouldn’t the flyball guy be a more valuable hitter?

In response to that question, Dave Appelman pointed me to this link, a seven-year-old Hardball Times article in which JT Jordan re-calculated wOBA with strikeouts included for batters.  Jordan concluded, “The difference is incredibly small. So really, it’s not a big deal to ignore strikeouts when using a context-neutral method like linear weights and wOBA. But it can be done. When all is said and done, we’re talking about a run or two of difference.”  Swartz remarked, “I have never gotten a beat on when sabermetricians deem it okay to call something ’close enough.'”  Bottom line: wOBA could be made a tiny bit more accurate, but the keepers of the stat must feel that there is little added value in incorporating other batting outcomes.

Ultimately, a batter’s wOBA is a strong foundation for calculating his offensive value.  Let’s calculate that number for Chris Taylor.  If we want to cheat, we can just pull up his FanGraphs page to see that his wOBA was .361 in 2017.  We don’t want to cheat, though.

wOBA = (0.693×50 + 0.723×3 + 0.877×88 + 1.232×34 + 1.552×5 + 1.980×21) / (514 + 50 – 0 + 1 + 3)

wOBA = 0.3613

Now, we need to turn wOBA into wRAA.  wRAA is a counting stat that “measures the number of offensive runs a player contributes to their team compared to the average player.”  Here’s the formula again:

wRAA = ((wOBA – lgwOBA)/wOBA Scale) * PA

I feel pretty good about my understanding of wOBA, which required only the number of unintentional walks, hit-by-pitches, singles, doubles, triples, and home runs Taylor hit, as well as the linear weights of each of those events in 2017.  I can understand the league average wOBA as well, which FanGraphs shows was .321 in 2017.  Keep in mind that lgwOBA does not refer to the National and American Leagues; it refers to all of MLB for that year.

Our next step, wRAA, isn’t that hard to comprehend either.  It uses the aforementioned linear weights but presents its results in a cumulative manner, unlike wOBA.  wRAA is also scaled such that zero is the league average, so it can be compared across different seasons.  Finally, wRAA uses a number called the “wOBA scale” to undo the “scale to OBP” choice that is baked into wOBA.  I know from Taylor’s player page that his wRAA in 2017 was 19.3.

wRAA = ((0.3613 – .321)/1.185) * 568

wRAA = 19.317

So far, we’ve found our way to the correct “weighted runs above average” amount for Chris Taylor.  It’s worth pausing to appreciate that nothing overly complicated or debatable has been done so far: Taylor received the correct amount of credit (linear weights) for each of the positive batting outcomes (single, double, etc.) and that was scaled against the league’s offensive production since the value of a home run was very different in 2017 vs. 1917.  We are most of the way to Batting Runs, which along with fielding and baserunning is one of the three pillars of WAR.  What we need to do next is adjust these batting runs for Taylor’s ballpark and league.  Here’s the batting runs formula again:

Batting Runs = wRAA + (lgR/PA – (PF*lgR/PA))*PA + (lgR/PA – (AL or NL non-pitcher wRC/PA))*PA

I believe the number we’re aiming for, based on Taylor’s FanGraphs player page, is 18.7, which suggests minimal adjustments were needed to his 19.3 wRAA.

  • wRAA = 19.317
  • lgR = all the runs scored in all of baseball in 2017 = 22,582
  • PA = all the plate appearances in all of baseball in 2017 = 185,295
  • lgR/PA = 0.1219

At this point, we need to pause and talk about park factors.  Neil Weinberg wrote an informative beginner’s guide to park factors here.  Intuitively, it’s logical to make an adjustment for the player’s home stadium.  In the case of Taylor, Dodger Stadium suppressed overall run scoring by about 8% from 2013-17, so we apply half of that under the assumption that he played half his games at home.  Taylor actually did play half of his games at home in 2017, but even if he didn’t, the park factor would be applied as if he did.  Additionally, as Weinberg explains in his article, “parks don’t affect every player evenly and our park factors sort of assume that they do.”  If for some reason Dodger Stadium actually improves Taylor’s hitting (due to handedness, batted ball profile, weather, or any number of things) he’d still get a boost in this WAR calculation to account for Dodger Stadium suppressing offense on average.  An assumption is also being made that the player played his road games in “a pretty average setting,” which is not necessarily true.

Weinberg wrote his park factor article in January 2015, noting, “We want to know how parks influence each moment of the game, but we simply don’t have granular enough data to really get there. A ball hit at 15 degrees directly over the shortstop while traveling at 93 miles per hour will travel how far and land where? That’s basically what we want to know for every possible angle and velocity, but we just don’t have the data and we don’t have it for every type of weather in every park.”  In 2018, we do have most of that data, due to Statcast.  I asked Appelman about potential efforts to reboot the park factor component in WAR using Statcast data, and he replied, “I have not personally done much work on park factors. They are in my opinion, very annoying. I just don’t really like dealing with them and they make everything much more complicated. However, they’re obviously good to have.”  Swartz was of the same mind, explaining that park factors are “very noisy” and while you could possibly improve them with Statcast or weather data, the precision gained would be minimal.  Imperfect as park factors are, Swartz told me it would be “disastrous” to leave them out.

  • PF = 2013-17 park factor for Dodgers Stadium = 0.955055 (Good luck finding a park factor this precise.  FanGraphs’ Guts page just gives you .96 for the Dodgers.  Were I not able to speak directly to Appelman, I wouldn’t know how to get the more precise figure, nor would I know that 2013-17 is the current time period used on the listed five-year park factor).

In this example we added a significant amount of batting runs to account for Taylor playing half his games in Dodgers Stadium – about 3, to the 19 we started with.

Now, we need to talk about one more mini-calculation, for which a custom FanGraphs league-level, non-pitcher leaderboard is needed.

  • NL non-pitcher wRC = 11,282
  • NL non-pitcher plate appearances = 87,753

Batting Runs = 19.317 + (.1219 – 11.64)*568 + (.1219 – .1286)*568

Batting Runs = 19.317 + 3.111 + (-3.803) = 18.625

That last part of the formula, where we ended up subtracting 3.8 batting runs?  That comes from this part:

(lgR/PA – (AL or NL non-pitcher wRC/PA))*PA

I asked Swartz exactly what is being adjusted there, and why it exists.  He answered, “What it appears to be doing is some sort of league adjustment (AL vs. NL), but I’m not sure it really makes sense.”  He added, “It’s really a very specific approach, so I have to imagine whoever put that together had something in mind. And it needs to be some sort of league adjustment, even if the adjustment is only about the run environment of the league.”  I’m left without a clear understanding of the purpose of this part of the batting runs formula.

In the end, I didn’t quite arrive at the 18.7 listed under the Batting section on Taylor’s FanGraphs page.  While I used unrounded numbers wherever possible, I believe rounding is the reason I’m slightly off.  Getting this close to the correct batting runs number was arduous.  Perhaps that’s because WAR isn’t meant to be calculated by hand, but attempting to do so increased by understanding of batting runs well beyond just looking at the formula.  It’s easy to read an explanation and think you understand, even when you don’t.  I hope MLBTR readers will learn and ask questions along with me.  We’ll tackle the baserunning component of FanGraphs WAR next time.

AL West Notes: Rangers, Felix, Cruz

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Let’s check in on the latest out of the American League West …

  • As the Rangers prepare to find a new manager, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News explores the case for simply keeping interim skipper Don Wakamatsu. It’ll obviously be hard for Wakamatsu to move the needle on the team’s bottom line over his brief tenure, but he is in some respects in the midst of a live audition for the job. As Grant notes, the former Mariners manager not only “has a long history with the Rangers and, in particular, [GM Jon] Daniels,” but also arguably offers the right blend of “continuity” and change. Wakamatsu certainly has a broad array of experiences in different dugouts, as is well documented in the piece.
  • Longtime Mariners ace Felix Hernandez is slated to return from a hamstring injury to make one last start in the 2018 season, as MLB.com’s Greg Johns reports. The veteran hurler, who has fallen on hard times on the mound of late, says he “just want[s] to finish strong and show them I can still pitch.” From the club’s perspective, skipper Scott Servais says, they hope to send Hernandez “into the offseason with peace of mind” to he can know how best to “get ready for next year.” Of course, there’s also a line of thinking that both player and team could be best served by a clean break at the end of this season — as Bob Dutton recently discussed (but did not specifically advocate).
  • Meanwhile, Dutton tackles the case of veteran Mariners slugger Nelson Cruz in another post on the KLAY 1180 AM blog. Both sides are saying they are hopeful of a reunion, but they have yet to hold contract talks. It’s an interesting dynamic, as Dutton explains, because there’s an argument to be made that Seattle ought to utilize its resources in a different manner — particularly with Robinson Cano on hand as a potential part-time DH. Of course, as Dutton also rightly notes, there is still plenty of time left to chat before Cruz formally returns to the open market — and, of course, he could still return thereafter. It’ll be interesting to see how things pan out.

5 Middle Infielders That Posted Surprisingly Strong 2018 Seasons

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It’s an exceedingly quiet day on the transactional front, which affords an opportunity to look at some higher-level developments around the game as the 2018 season comes to an end. My perusal of the stat pages revealed that there are several interesting middle infielders — by trade, if not always by use this year — who have posted surprisingly strong campaigns.

There are obviously other shortstops and second basemen who have likewise excelled beyond expectations — e.g. Scooter Gennett and Trevor Story — but it feels as if they’ve received proper recognition and examination already. It’s worth taking a closer look at this handful of players:

  • Jurickson Profar, Rangers: Yes, folks, the former top overall prospect in baseball has finally arrived … at the ripe old age of, um, 25. Through 567 plate appearances this season, Profar has produced a .255/.337/.457 slash with 18 home runs and ten steals. He has gone down on strikes just 79 times while drawing 52 walks. While the defensive work hasn’t been valued as highly — whether due to frequent position shifts, Profar’s shoulder issues, short-sample blips, or otherwise — he has made up for that with highly valued work on the bases. All said, it’s the sort of campaign that was once envisioned for a player who debuted at 19 years of age. He’ll remain arbitration eligible for two more campaigns and could step in at third base if Adrian Beltre departs, though Profar’s capabilities in the middle infield still help buttress the Rangers’ options (including in potential trade scenarios).
  • Johan Camargo Braves: While Camargo has been handling third base this year, and doing so with aplomb, he spent most of his time in the minors at short and could still factor there in the future, so he gets a spot on this list. Interesting young infielders abound in Atlanta, but this one has come from way off the radar to turn in a season every bit as impressive (if not moreso) than those of his more celebrated brethren. If his 2017 results suggested some likelihood of regression, Camargo’s 2018 follow-up indicates that he has made serious strides. Through 499 plate appearances, he owns a .273/.353/.457 slash with 18 home runs. He’s drawing free passes in ten percent of his trips to the dish (double his rookie rate) while strikeout out twenty percent of the time. Only a surprisingly poor baserunning grade (-3.4 BsR) has held him to an even 3.0 fWAR on the season.
  • Joey Wendle, Rays: Entering his age-28 season, Wendle had appeared in just 36 MLB contests. Thus far in 2018, he has contributed 521 plate appearances of .301/.356/.439 hitting with seven long balls and 15 steals. Wendle may struggle to sustain those numbers, given that he’s relying upon a hefty .355 BABIP and isn’t quite supported by Statcast (.341 wOBA vs. .320 xwOBA). Still, he offers value in the other facets of the game and at worst seems to be quite a useful, affordable asset for the surprising Rays. It’s all the better for Tampa Bay given that Wendle was acquired out of DFA limbo over the winter.
  • Marcus Semien, Athletics: We can probably stop waiting for Semien to break out at the plate. He’s yet again firmly ensconced between the 90 and 100 wRC+ range — smack dab in the middle, in fact, at 95. He might finish with only about half the dingers he smacked in 2016 (27), but is reaching base at a palatable enough clip. So … his inclusion on this list is almost entirely dependent upon what one thinks of his glovework. Semien is humming along at +8 DRS and +7.8 UZR after mostly posting poor metrics in past seasons. He hasn’t entirely eliminated the errors that once plagued him, though with twenty this year he’s still well shy of the 35 he recorded in 2015. What he is doing is earning big marks for ranging to balls and converting them into outs. The result? 3.6 fWAR and 4.0 rWAR.
  • Jose Peraza, Reds: There isn’t a ton to get excited about with Peraza, who has posted solidly average marks in most regards while providing an extra boost on the bases. Still, that makes him a potential regular player — much more than he seemed capable of after his first full MLB run in 2017. At 24 years of age, he’s youthful and controllable. Peraza has made clear strides in the power department, where he has socked nearly as many dingers (13) as he had at all levels in the prior three seasons combined (14). He’s also converting his frequent contact into a high-enough batting average (.290) to support a reasonable on-base percentage (.328) despite a piddling (albeit still-improving) 4.4% walk rate. Though the defensive metrics aren’t in love with the glove, it’s good enough to hold down the position. The overall package is sufficient to induce the Reds to pencil in Peraza at short for some time, giving top prospect Nick Senzel a look in the corner outfield this fall rather than exploring other potential infield configurations.

Silver Linings: American League East

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In our Silver Linings series, we’re checking in on the most promising developments for non-contending teams during an otherwise disappointing 2018 season. Today, we’re checking in on the American League East. It has been a runaway all year long for the Red Sox and Yankees, but that doesn’t mean the other three organizations in the division haven’t had promising developments of their own.

[Previous “Silver Linings” Posts: AL Central, NL Central, NL East]

Here are the silver linings from the AL East …

Rays: Sustained Winning

There was plenty of hand-wringing over the 2017-18 offseason as the Rays continued to move established-but-controllable major leaguers — and, with them, salary obligations. Perhaps, then, we might have expected a mid-summer trade of Chris Archer to trigger yet more alarm bells over the perpetually tight-fisted Tampa Bay organization.

By that point, however, the Rays were drawing at least some begrudging respect for wrapping up the month of July one game over .500 despite a piddling payroll and exceedingly youthful roster. Since? Well, they’ve won 33 of their past 48 ballgames, giving the Rays the same 87-68 record as the powerhouse Indians.

Unfortunately, owing to the two division pillars and the yet-more-meteoric rise of the Athletics, the Tampa Bay organization hasn’t really been in contention at all despite its startling success. But in this case, at least, winning is its own reward — particularly in a year in which the club announced new plans for a long-anticipated ballpark.

That’s enough to constitute a true silver lining. But this one is particularly sparkly — diamond-studded, even — because of what it means for the future. Virtually all of the improvement has been driven by young, cheap, controllable players. There are too many interesting developments to single out, in fact, making the Rays a fascinating team to watch going forward.

Young lefty Blake Snell is the most obvious standout, but he’s hardly the lone reason for excitement. Breakout performances from Joey Wendle, Mallex Smith, and Daniel Robertson are nearly as exciting. The return of Matt Duffy, arrival of Jake Bauers and Willy Adames, emergence of slugging duo C.J. Cron and Ji-Man Choi, and stable of young hybrid hurlers leave room for plenty of optimism — particularly if relative veterans Kevin Kiermaier and Tommy Pham can play to their established ceilings and the club can put some of its open payroll space to good use.

Blue Jays: Superstars-in-Waiting

For a team with a hefty payroll and a variety of established veterans, there’s no sugarcoating the disappointing course of the 2018 season. And there really haven’t been many bright spots on the MLB roster.

Rather remarkably, in fact, the Jays do not have a single player on their roster that has reached 2.0 fWAR on the season. Lefty J.A. Happ did exceed that tally before being traded. The club’s current leader in pitching fWAR is Ryan Borucki, who’s at 1.9 fWAR. A nice showing, to be sure, though his success has been predicated on home run suppression that may not be sustainable. On the position-player side, the solid efforts of Justin Smoak, Randal Grichuk, Kevin Pillar, and Aledmys Diaz have put them between 1.6 and 1.8 fWAR to this point in 2018.

That’s not to say that there aren’t some areas of interest on the MLB roster. Catcher Danny Jansen, in particular, could be a foundational piece. Billy McKinney, Dwight Smith Jr., and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. have shown promise in their early exposure to the majors. On the pitching staff, Sam Gaviglio has posted better peripherals than results, perhaps leaving some room for optimism. Relievers Ryan Tepera and Tim Mayza have been solid and remain controllable.

But the bottom line remains that, for the Toronto faithful, the true excitement is on the horizon. MLBTR’s recent roundup of the 20 top minor-league performers of 2018 houses the very best developments for the organization this season. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. seems ready to join Ronald Acuna and Juan Soto as immensely productive young big league sluggers. Shortstop Bo Bichette could be an up-the-middle powerhouse for years to come. A third youngster with big league bloodlines, Cavan Biggio, also turned in a big campaign, as did fellow infielder Kevin Smith.

Orioles: Amateur Outlook

This is, simply put, the worst team in baseball. That undesirable title was up for grabs as of the middle of the season, but the O’s are now running away with the race to the bottom. The club sits at present on a 45-110 record, fully 8.5 games back of the next-worst team in baseball.

So … where do you really go for hope? There’s no uber prospect waiting in the wings, as is the case in Toronto. That’s not to say that the O’s lack promising youngsters, but none truly stand out in anything approaching the manner of Guerrero and Bichette. One young hurler, Dean Kremer, did land on our top-20 list. He, along with top Baltimore prospect Yusniel Diaz, came t the organization in the Manny Machado deal. Another mid-season trade brought in Jonathan Villar, who has thus far been in bounceback form in Baltimore.

Truly, though, the chief silver lining of this abysmal campaign is the team’s outlook for acquiring top-quality amateur players. That’s not quite what you’d hope for, and perhaps portends a lengthy rebuilding process, but it’s hard to deny. In particular, the 2019 draft will afford an opportunity to land one or more premium talents, as the O’s will have the top overall pick. Beyond that, too, the organization seems finally to have turned the corner on its philosophy regarding the spending of international money. With plenty of cash to invest, the organization is slated to pursue the top-available talents and ought to come away with some intriguing new talent to bolster the farm.

Forecasting The Qualifying Offer Market

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The first offseason under the newly-adjusted qualifying offer system didn’t seem drastically different from the QO’s first five years of existence.  While only nine free agents were issued qualifying offers last winter, that could have had more to do with that offseason’s particular crop of players (or perhaps the shifting state of the free agent market in general) than it did with the new qualifying offer rules.

Still, as we look ahead to this year’s free agent class, you’ll notice we could have trouble even getting to nine names that stand out as clear QO candidates.  In the six-year history of the qualifying offer, there has never been fewer than nine players issued the one-year deals, so a new record low could very well be set this offseason.

A brief refresher on the qualifying offer: it is a one-year deal worth the average of the league’s top 125 salaries.  (This year’s QO figure will be a bit higher than last offseason’s $17.4MM price tag, but let’s stick with $17.4MM for reference purposes in this post.)  Teams have until five days after the last game of the World Series to issue a QO to a player, who then has ten days to decide whether or not to accept.

If a player accepts the offer, he simply returns to his former team.  If he rejects the offer and signs elsewhere, his former team receives a compensatory draft pick either immediately after the first round of the 2019 draft, immediately before the third round, or immediately after the fourth round, depending on whether or not the team was a luxury tax payer or revenue-sharing recipient, or if the player signed for more or less than $50MM in his new contract.  Those same factors also impact what a team must give up in order to sign a qualifying offer-rejecting free agent, as the signing team will have to surrender at least one draft pick and potentially some international signing bonus pool money.

A free agent is ineligible for the qualifying offer if he has received one in the past (i.e. Nelson Cruz, Daniel Murphy), or if he didn’t spend the entire preceding season with his current team.  That means players dealt during the year (i.e. Manny Machado, J.A. Happ, Cole Hamels) can head into the open market without draft pick compensation attached to them.

Last year’s unusually slow-paced offseason will certainly be weighing on the minds of both players and teams when it comes to weighing and issuing qualifying offers this winter.  Some players may be more apt to take a one-year deal and a big guaranteed salary rather than risk getting shortchanged in free agency, particularly if that player has a notable injury history and/or a limited track record of success.  By that same token, teams may also be more circumspect about issuing qualifying offers, as they obviously won’t want to end up paying over $17.4MM to a player they aren’t absolutely comfortable seeing occupy such a big chunk of payroll space.  Of the 73 qualifying offers issued, however, only five players (Jeremy Hellickson, Neil Walker, Colby Rasmus, Brett Anderson, Matt Wieters) have ever accepted the deals.

Injuries, extensions, postseason performance, or any number of factors could still impact this list before the offseason officially begins.  For now, however, let’s predict who is likeliest to receive a qualifying offer five days after the World Series…

Sticking first with the players who can opt out of their contracts, Andrus has already hinted that he’ll remain in his Rangers contract following his injury-shortened 2018 campaign.  Kershaw has dealt with some injury issues of his own in recent years, though he would certainly land more than two years/$65MM (his remaining Dodgers salary) if he opted to join the open market this winter.  Prior to the season, both Kershaw and Dodgers owner Mark Walter indicated they’d like to continue the relationship between the franchise and the ace left-hander, so it wouldn’t be too surprising if the two sides reach an extension agreement before the qualifying offer even becomes a factor, a la Justin Upton’s extension with the Angels last year.

Even if Kershaw does opt out, that’s still only seven players who look like strong-to-surefire candidates for a qualifying offer.  It would be a surprise if any of the seven accepted the QO, since this group includes a potential $300MM player in Harper, the top closer (Kimbrel) on the market, at least two of the top three starting pitchers available, and maybe the top catcher in Grandal, depending on how one feels about Wilson Ramos.

Admittedly, I gave some thought about Pollock in this category since he suffered another significant injury (missing six weeks with a fractured thumb), giving him just 225 total games played over the 2016-18 seasons.  Over that stretch, Pollock has hit .265/.327/.472 with 33 homers and 35 steals (in 43 chances) over 924 PA, while playing generally above-average defense in center field.  These are more the numbers of a solid regular than a player in line for a top-tier free agent deal, though since Pollock turns 31 in December, I doubt he’d pass up his best chance at a big multi-year contract for a one-year qualifying offer.  Accepting the QO would mean that Pollock would hold off his free agency until his age-32 season, which quite probably limits his earning potential unless he returned to his superstar 2015 form.  Since Pollock is likely to decline a QO, the Diamondbacks can feel safe in floating one without worrying that he’d accept, since Arizona might hesitate at committing another $17.4MM-plus in payroll.  The D’Backs already project to have over $65MM tied up in three players (Zack Greinke, Paul Goldschmidt, Yasmany Tomas) in 2019.

Sale ($15MM club option) and Bumgarner ($12MM club option) would also surely be issued qualifying offers if the Red Sox and Giants respectively declined to exercise their options on the two aces, though both of those options are locks to be picked up.

Smoak makes the “borderline” category since he wouldn’t be an obvious top-tier free agent like Sale or Bumgarner, plus Smoak is entering his age-32 season and the free agent market hasn’t been too kind to first base-only players over the last two offseasons.  Regardless, the Blue Jays will certainly exercise their $8MM club option on Smoak for 2019, so he is just a token option on the list.

Morton discussed the possibility of retiring earlier this year, and while he could explore signing with an East Coast team closer to his wife’s home in Delaware, Morton stressed that his top option would be to continue playing with the Astros.  Morton’s most recent comments seemed to indicate that he was leaning towards a return since he was still pitching so well, which led MLBTR’s Steve Adams to suggest that the qualifying offer could be a fit for both Morton and the Astros.  Morton would only be committing for one more year while still collecting a nice payday, and Houston would certainly want to have Morton back given his 2018 results.  (An x-factor could be the shoulder issues that have bothered Morton in recent weeks, though he is expected to pitch once more before the season ends, and throughout the Astros’ playoff run.)

The Indians already have over $90MM committed to next year’s payroll, and that isn’t counting Carlos Carrasco’s no-brainer club option, big arbitration raises for Francisco Lindor and Trevor Bauer, and a need to rebuild a bullpen that will likely lose Cody Allen and Andrew Miller.  With this in mind, the Tribe may not want to risk adding another $17.4MM to the tally if Brantley accepted a qualifying offer.  Brantley does turn 32 next May, and if his age and injury history makes him worried about what offers are available to him in free agency, he might prefer to stick in Cleveland for another year with a contending team.  On the flip side, however, Brantley may also want to test the market in the wake of his impressive (and healthy) bounce-back season, and the Tribe could at least recoup some value in the form of a draft pick if he departs.  It’s also possible that Brantley accepting the QO wouldn’t be the worst scenario for a Cleveland team that is clearly in “win now” mode and still has a lot of question marks around its outfield.

While he hasn’t returned to the eye-popping offensive levels he carried in 2016, and in fact has been a below-average hitter over the past two seasons, LeMahieu still profiles as a solid all-around performer. LeMahieu’s power is up to personal-high levels in 2018, but his OBP has fallen to a point (.325) not seen since he established himself as a quality regular in 2015. Though he doesn’t earn plaudits for his baserunning, the glovework is a calling card. If you believe DRS more than UZR, you may be a particular believer. The former grades LeMahieu as an outstanding defender at second base, the latter merely a very good one. Regardless, the profile here is of a two-to-three WAR regular. For a Rockies club with other needs and some infield talent waiting in the wings, it seems like it’d be risky to dangle a big single-season payday to a non-star player that might worry about his resulting market situation if he declines the offer. On the other hand, the Colorado organization has been rewarded for being aggressive with the QO in the past (Michael Cuddyer) and may feel that it’d be an acceptable result to keep the 30-year-old LeMahieu for 2019, even at a premium rate.

Most free agents fit into this (or the “absolutely not”) category, though we’ll highlight a few names that at least have some case for a qualifying offer.

David Price has already all but confirmed that he isn’t opting out of the remaining four years and $127MM on his Red Sox contract, so he won’t be a factor in qualifying offer discussions.

The A’s aren’t likely to risk having a $17.4MM player on their payroll, even if the team has little in the way of future salary commitments and may be more willing to spend now that they have a contending team.  Lowrie turns 35 in April and has expressed interest in staying in Oakland, so he could accept a QO if offered rather than test the market as a mid-30’s player with a checkered injury history (though he has been healthy the last two seasons and somewhat quietly posted 8.4 fWAR in that stretch).  The A’s could forego the qualifying offer and look to bring Lowrie back on a contract extension or perhaps a new deal should he reach free agency, which would give Lowrie more security than just a one-year contract.

Markakis is another veteran entering his age-35 season who could opt to take the qualifying offer and remain in a familiar (and now winning) environment rather than face the uncertainty of the mid-30’s free agent market.  I can also see the Braves being open to having Markakis back on a QO contract, as he’d join Freddie Freeman as the only two truly major expenditures on a roster bolstered by lots of pre-arbitration talent.  Given that Markakis’ bat has cooled off considerably in the second half, however, I’d still consider it a surprise if Atlanta extended a qualifying offer.

Recent indications seem to hint that if Beltre returns to play in 2019, it will be for the Rangers.  Much about Beltre’s plans are still up in the air, of course, though it doesn’t seem like Texas would have to use the qualifying offer to retain the future Hall-of-Famer.  Even considering the obvious regard the organization has for Beltre, his injury-shortened and only moderately productive 2018 season doesn’t merit a $17.4MM offer.

As for Ryu, the 31-year-old southpaw caries an exceedingly worrisome injury history. But he warrants mention, as was pointed out in the comments, owing to his incredibly productive work this season when he has been healthy. Ryu has thrown 76 1/3 innings of 2.00 ERA ball, with an impressive combination of 10.1 K/9 and 1.5 BB/9. Statcast thinks he has largely deserved the stingy results, showing a .268 wOBA and .277 xwOBA. The QO amount still feels steep, but a hefty short-term agreement of some kind is likely.

NL Notes: Giants, Fowler, Pirates

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The Giants are exploring the addition of “a high-profile baseball operations executive” to their front office, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney reports (subscription required).  The idea would be that this new hire would allow Brian Sabean to step back from some of the team’s day-to-day operations — Sabean’s resumption of this role last offseason was “regarded as only a temporary adjustment,” and Sabean would seemingly step back into his previous responsibilities as the team’s president of baseball operations.  Olney’s report raises new questions about current Giants GM Bobby Evans, as there has already been speculation about his status for 2019, though obviously San Francisco could add a new voice to the front office mix without a major shakeup of the team’s baseball ops ladder.

Some more from around the NL…

  • Dexter Fowler’s season was ended after he suffered a fractured foot on August 3, though it had already been a trying year for the Cardinals outfielder, as he tells Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.  Fowler hit a career-worst .180/.278/.298 over 334 PA, and while he said physical injuries weren’t to blame for his struggles, “I think it was more mental health” that led to the down year.  Fowler had to deal with public comments from president of baseball operations John Mozeliak about his level of effort (Mozeliak apologized for citing only Fowler as part of a larger issue within the team) and a seeming rift with former St. Louis manager Mike Matheny.  The Cards have thoroughly turned their season around since Mike Shildt took over as manager, and Fowler has been excited about his team’s progress and his future in St. Louis.  “Shoot, I’m watching what’s happened and I’m excited for 2019….I think that’s going to be awesome. I look forward to being a part of that,” Fowler said.
  • Josh Harrison and Jordy Mercer were both removed from today’s game in the middle of an inning, so the two veteran Pirates infielders could receive a round of applause from the home crowd in what is likely to be their final game at PNC Park in the black-and-gold.  Mercer is a free agent, and Pittsburgh is expected to decline its $10.5MM club option on Harrison for 2019, leaving room for Adam Frazier and Kevin Newman expected to take over at second base and shortstop next year.  Harrison told reporters (including Jerry Dipaola of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review) that he hasn’t yet considered leaving the Pirates, while Mercer said is open to re-signing with the team.
  • The Pirates have suffered several late-season injuries that could leave those players (Gregory Polanco, Chad Kuhl, Edgar Santana, Joe Musgrove) sidelined for at least the first part of the 2019 season, which could impact the team’s offseason plans, Rob Biertempfel writes in a subscription-only piece for The Athletic.  The statuses of Musgrove and Santana are still to be exactly determined, while the Bucs already know Kuhl will be out until 2020 due to Tommy John surgery and Polanco will be out until mid-April at the earliest following shoulder surgery.

Blue Jays Notes: Martin, Braves, Kemp, Giles, Bullpen

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The latest from Toronto…

  • Russell Martin reflects on a tough year in an interview with Sportsnet.ca’s Jeff Blair, and needless to say, the veteran catcher is hoping for better things in 2019 for both himself and his team.  Martin hit just .194/.338/.325 over 352 plate appearances this season, an unimpressive slash line that could end up being his final number, as Martin has barely played in September due to the Jays’ desire to give playing time to younger catchers Danny Jansen, Luke Maile, and Reese McGuire.  Martin has seen additional time at third base this year and even performed spot duty as a shortstop and left fielder, though in regards to his future as a catcher, “I’d like it to be a competition and force [the Jays] to make a decision” in 2019, he said.  Martin is owed $20MM next season, his last under contract, though he isn’t likely to receive more than a backup catcher or overall utilityman role since the Blue Jays are in rebuilding mode.
  • Blair’s piece also includes the notable item that the Braves had interest in Martin last offseason while trying to find a trade partner for a Matt Kemp deal.  Atlanta ended up sending Kemp to the Dodgers in a fascinating five-player trade that had major salary ramifications for both teams, and resulted in a big on-field impact as well in 2018, as Kemp enjoyed a comeback season and Charlie Culberson and Brandon McCarthy both contributed to the Braves’ NL East-winning campaign.  Last winter, however, the Braves were simply trying to get Kemp off the books, and it’s interesting to wonder what type of “bad contract swap” could’ve been cooked up between the Braves and Jays, particularly with former Toronto GM Alex Anthopoulos running Atlanta’s front office.  If Martin had ended up a Brave, he likely would’ve seen a lot more third base time this season, as the Braves already had Tyler Flowers and Kurt Suzuki as a very productive tandem behind the plate.
  • “I’m actually enjoying the game more than I did for my entire tenure in Houston,” Ken Giles tells The Toronto Star’s Rosie DiManno about his first eight weeks in a Blue Jays uniform.  Giles came to the Jays as part of the controversial deadline deal that sent Roberto Osuna to the Astros, and continued his season-long trend of excelling in save situations but pitching poorly in non-save appearances.  While his results may not have differed, Giles said his comfort level is much higher in Toronto than in Houston, as “it was like the communication was lost” this year with the Astros.  “I just felt trapped there. I didn’t feel like myself there. Overall, I felt out of place,” Giles said.  The Blue Jays, by contrast, “stayed patient with me. I said, hey, I want to work on this thing till I’m comfortable….Pitching, you can’t just try to fix everything at once.  For me, I had to take baby steps to get my groove back.  The Jays allowed me to do that.“
  • Giles projects to be the Jays’ closer in 2019, though the bullpen as a whole will need some attention this offseason, Sportsnet.ca’s Ben Nicholson-Smith writes.  Toronto is expected to look at adding veteran relievers in trades and free agency to bolster a unit that could face a heavy workload next season, given that the Jays will be planning on a young and inexperienced starting rotation.  As well, veteran additions (as well as incumbent relievers like Giles) could also be turned into trade chips at the next July deadline, such as how the Jays have dealt the likes of Seunghwan Oh, Joe Smith, and John Axford over the last two years.

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