Prospecting Reds Pitchers with Steamer (2015)

Continuing my look at 2015 Reds prospects, here are Steamer projections for Reds top pitching prospects.  Here is the 2015 hitter prospects post, and here is my 2014 post on Reds pitching prospects.

The Reds are pitcher-heavy in their prospects, with a good number of both top-tier and mid-range prospects who could be ready for promotion in the next 12 to 18 months.

Age-25 Pitchers

Raisel Iglesias was signed last year after defecting from Cuba.  He has always been a relief pitcher, but the Reds think his four pitches can make him an effective starting pitcher.  He pitched as a starter in the Arizona Fall League, which, aside from this year's Spring Training, has been his only professional work in the United States.  Ideally, he will work out as a starter.  But at the same time, he's already 25, his stuff may be MLB ready in a relief role, and if he throws all season as a starter he will likely have a low inning limit.  Therefore, there's a lot of talk that he might pitch out of the Reds' bullpen most of the year.  I'm still hoping that they get him some starting experience later this season, but I'm ok with him being a reliever for some of the year.

Update 45 minutes after posting: news from the Reds today has Iglesias getting the nod as a starter over Tony Cingrani.  I'm surprised, but it is nice to see Iglesias being taken seriously as a potential starting pitcher.  Whether he'll be starting in Cincinnati or Louisville remains to be seen.

Age-24 Pitchers

Anthony DeScalfani was acquired in the Mat Latos trade, and seems very likely to break camp in the Reds' rotation.  While he might not have Tony Cingrani's ceiling, I'm pretty comfortable with DeSclafani as the Reds' #5 pitcher this year, and hope he gets that chance.

Age-23 Pitchers

This is an interesting group.  David Holmberg seemed to take a step back last year, at least early in the season, when he reportedly showed up to spring training out of shape and overweight.  He made a late-season appearance for the Reds, however, and held his own nicely.  He's down the pecking order a bit in terms of rotation jobs, but as a lefty there is always a chance that he might be asked to throw out of the bullpen this year.  Nevertheless, he's young enough, given his accomplishments, that he might still find his way into the rotation.

A few years ago, Daniel Corcino was among the most heralded of the Reds pitching prospects.  Unfortunately, regressed badly since then, and seems to be moving toward a career in the bullpen.  As a strong arm out of the pen, he does still have a shot at being a quality middle reliever, but I don't hold out a lot of hope that he'll ever provide a lot of value in the rotation.

Daniel Wright was a 2013 draftee out of Arkansas State University, and last year was his first season in as a full-time starter in professional baseball, and had a really nice 6.6 k/bb ratio (8.2 k/9, 1.2 bb/9).  He's a bit behind the others in terms of level, but should be in Pensacola at least some time this season.

Age-22 Pitchers

This is a big group, and represents a big chunk of the core of the Reds' pitching talent in the minors.  Jon Moscot is the polished, low ceiling, high-floor guy, who easily could find himself in the big leagues this year.

Michael Lorenzen has been skyrocketing up the depth charts since he converted to a starting pitcher just two years ago, and reports out of spring training have been ridiculous (sitting 97-98 mph in relief, and wowing Bryan Price).  He, also, is being talked about as a potential reliever for the Reds this season.  Unlike Iglesias, Lorenzen has age on his side, and I personally see little reason to start his service time clock early.  If I was confident that the Reds have the organizational will to move a pitcher back into the rotation after having strong success in the bullpen, I might think differently.  But I just don't trust them to do it.

Amir Garrett, a former two-sport player, has quit basketball and is now focusing on baseball full-time.  He's making strides as a result.  Nick Howard and recently-acquired Jonathon Crawford are both 1st-round draft picks with good performances behind them so far.  And for some reason, Steamer didn't make a projection for Wyatt Strahan, but he, along with passed-through-waivers Ismael Guillon, is distantly behind the other guys in this group.

Age-21 Pitchers

Robert Stephenson struggled for the first time last season, showing a big spike in his walk rate as he apparently tried to harness his command and pitch selection.  Most talent evaluators didn't seem particularly worried, however, given the quality of his stuff and his reputation as a smart, hard-working guy.  For what it's worth, neither does Steamer: despite just now entering his age-21 season, and only reaching AA, Stephenson got the best ERA projection among all Reds prospects.  The #2 guy, DeSclafani, is slated to be in the Reds rotation to start the year.  Here's hoping he rebounds well this year and is pitching in Cincinnati by the fall.

Age-20 Pitchers

Here are two pitchers who made huge strides last year.  Nick Travieso was the Reds' 1st-round selection in 2012 out of high school, but it wasn't until last year, when he repeated with Dayton, that he really put together numbers that would justify that selection.  He's still not posting outstanding strikeout numbers, but the scouting reports seem very strong, and I'm seeing reports that his velocity is inching back up.

Sal Romano, who was also in the Dayton rotation last year, took a similar step forward, with even better peripherals than Travieso.  As a result, he shot up the prospect rankings, and is now seen as something of a sleeper.  Both are still very young, and provide some much-needed depth in the lower minors for Reds pitching.

Age-19 Pitchers

Tyler Mahle has appeared at the bottom of this post two years running now.  He's not getting a lot of attention, but he posted great peripherals out of Billings' rotation last year (4.7 k/bb, 8.3 k/9), and might be throwing in the midwest league next year as a 19-year old (like Travieso and Romano did last year).  He'll be one to watch.

Prospecting Reds Hitters with Steamer

As I did last year, tonight I'm reporting on preseason projections for the Reds' Top Prospects.  I find this to be a useful way to follow the progress of Reds prospects, since I do not track most of them closely from season to season.  Since Oliver doesn't seem to be readily available, I've switched to using Steamer this year.  While it does not provide baserunning or fielding projections, it provides deep projections throughout the minor leagues and seems appropriately conservative with prospects.  Reds Prospect rankings are based on this.

Caveat: No matter what the system, projection systems are NOT the ideal method to evaluate minor league players.  Scouting-based approaches work better, period.  But I can't scout.  And blending projections with top prospect lists was something that I took to doing when I was into fantasy baseball a few years ago.  If nothing else, it's place to start when trying learn players.  Keep in mind that all numbers below are projections for what the player would do in the major leagues.  In most cases, that's not relevant to what they'll do in the minors this season.  But it gives you an idea of how well they have developed to this point.

Age-24 Players

Graduating from this cohort last year was Billy Hamilton, and Tucker Barnhart seems just about ready to assume his career as a backup major league catcher.  He will probably never be much of a hitter, but he'll field well enough to be a valuable bench player.

Seth Mejias-Brean had another nice first half in Bakersfield last season, but struggled a bit when promoted to Pensacola.  If he can make the adjustment this year, he could be in Louisville by mid-summer.  I don't know if he will be a starter, but he could be an intriguing utility bat that provides nice on-base skills as early as next season.

Age-23 Players

Kyle Waldrop was the Reds' minor league hitter of the year in 2014, building upon what was already an impressive minor league resume.  He has shown good doubles power, some home run power already, makes contact well enough, and is on pace to reach AAA this year.  If only he were a bit more patient.

Chad Wallach was recently acquired in the Mat Latos trade, and has shown outstanding plate discipline skills so far.  I understand that his defense is well behind his offense, but I would like to see the Reds be fairly aggressive in promoting him this season given the state of his bat.

Age-22 Players

Yorman Rodriguez finally reached the big leagues last year as a 22-year old.  The astonishing thing about him is that since arriving in AA in 2013, he seemingly has learned to take a walk (9.4% BB last season).  His strikeouts were also down a bit (23%).  If he can keep his patience while improving his contact rates even more, or while showing a bit more power, he still can take a legitimate step forward.

2013's first-round draft pick Phil Ervin had a miserable season last year.  Injuries might have played a role, and it's worthwhile to remember how high we were on him this time last season.  I'm sure he'll repeat Dayton; let's all hope he has a big season.  Wouldn't it be strange for the one Reds' first round bust in recent years to be a college position player?

Alex Blandino is interesting to me, because it seems like Reds fan-prospect guys are more down on him than the national prospect guys.  That rarely happens, especially with an offense-oriented middle infielder.  Yeah, he probably won't stick at shortstop.  Nevertheless, he is showing decent power, which was the big concern on him when he was drafted out of Stanford.  I like him a little bit.  And quit it with the Chris Valaika comps, people.

Age-21 Players

Not surprisingly given his performance, level, and age, Jesse Winker has the best hitting projection of any Reds prospect.  That said, Steamer also still seems to think that he could use some more development time in the minor leagues.  I'm hearing that he is likely to start the season in AA, though I think we'd all be surprised if he's not at least in AAA by midseason.  If the Reds tank and they flip Marlon Byrd at the trade deadline, would you bring up Winker if he's mashing?  Or do you try to hide him until May 2016 to keep him longer?

Aristides Aquino is rose quickly in the prospect rankings this year on the back of his strong showing in Billings, but he still has yet to play over rookie ball.  I'm finding myself intrigued by Carlton Daal as the only middle-infielder not named Alex Blandino in the Reds system to make a top-prospect list, although Kiley McDaniel, at least, doesn't seem very impressed by his defense.

Jose Ortiz is a guy I keyed in on last year as being an interesting hitter out on the fringe.  For some reason, however, he didn't get a lot of playing time in 2014.  I haven't seen any reports of injury.  When he played, he didn't hit very well, but he didn't play a lot.

Age-20 Players

Drafted in the fourth round last year out of Carl Albert High School in Midwest City, Oklahoma, Gavin LaValley had a nice year for Goodyear before a short stint in Billings.  He'll be just 20 years old this year, but his performance was enough to vault him onto all but one top-xx Reds prospect list in my sample.

Optimism, Carlos Gomez, and Projections

I surprised myself with a surprisingly upbeat preview of the Brewers vs. Reds series today:

Going into their game against the Mets last night (as I wrote this), the Brewers had a 7.5-game lead on the Reds.  Now, one can't really hope for a sweep.  But can you imagine?  That'd suddenly put the Reds 4.5 games back.  With the Cardinals still hovering around 0.500, the Reds have an opportunity here.  I like the Reds pitching match-ups in all three games.  If the offense can build on what it did the last two games of the Dodger series, this could be an exciting weekend for the Reds.  Here's to optimism! Go Reds!

Somewhere recently, I saw someone write (I think for another team) that it's more fun to be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right.  I'm trying to adopt that view. :)

Carlos Gomez: A lesson on the importance of
patience, scouts, and tools.
Photo Credit: Keith Allison

I also wrote a bit about Carlos Gomez.  He fits into the mold of a former top prospect who had been given up on by nearly everyone, only to discover himself.  Others include Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, although to his credit, Gomez was never DFA'd.

Some of Lucroy's best competition in the MVP race is his center fielder, Carlos Gomez.  I think Gomez is fascinating.  I find it almost impossible to believe that he's only in his age-28 season, because it seems like he's been around forever.  He was the key acquisition in the Twins' deal that sent Johan Santana to the Mets before the 2008 season.  Despite playing in the majors as a 22-year old, he was largely considered a flop in the aftermath of that trade.  He earned a strong reputation as a great defensive center fielder, but he didn't hit a lick.  The Brewers acquired him in exchange for J.J. Hardy, a deal that many (myself probably included) panned.  Hardy was often-injured, but he was a quality offensive shortstop coming off a bad season, while Carlos seemed like the definitive no-hit defensive center fielder.  Then, something happened in the second half of 2012: Gomez started to hit for power.  From July through September, Gomez slugged 15 home runs (previous season high was 8).  He continued to show that power through last all of last season, and FanGraphs estimated his season value at 7.6 fWAR (though that might be a bit inflated by a +24 run fielding rating...though b-ref gave him +38 runs in the field and 8.9 WAR, so....).  He's one of the best players in baseball.

This is the kind of thing that has taken me forever to wrap my head around.  I am a projection guy, and rely on them to guide my evaluations of players to avoid getting overly excited about new changes in performance.    In fact, MGL just wrote a great piece on the importance of this approach, which was then summarized by Dave Cameron.  But there are guys for whom I am bound to miss with this approach, and Carlos Gomez (and Bautista and Encarnacion) are cases in point.  Therefore, while I use projections, I also try to keep an eye out for toolsy guys who seem to finally be figuring it out.  In my view, the lesson is to trust your projection tools, but to still be cautiously conservative in their ability to forecast the future.  I'll always have a blind spot for this kind of player, but hopefully I'm not as blind as I once was.

Brandon Phillips might have been my first lesson in that.  Here's what I wrote when the Reds acquired him:

Previously a highly-touted prospect out of the Montreal farm system, this guy is apparently going to sit on our bench this year. He is out of options, and the Reds seem to have acquired him from the Indians because they didn't want to lose him via waivers and he's not good enough to be on their team. Phillips had a very good half-year as a 21-year old in the then-Expos' AA franchise, hitting 0.327/0.380/0.506/0.886 in 245 at bats in '02. But that's the last time he had a really outstanding, prospect-like season. He was probably rushed a bit to the majors in '03, but was thoroughly ineffective there and hasn't done a whole lot since. His '04 campaign with the Indians' AAA affiliate was decent (0.353 OBP), but he regressed a bit in '05. Krivsky mentioned in his rain delay interview with Marty Brennaman today that Phillips hit 15 homers last year in AAA, which is good. But his slugging percentage was a fairly poor 0.409, particularly given those HR totals. Overall...I wouldn't expect much from this guy's bat this season, and perhaps not ever.

Phillips might be overrated by some of the Cincinnati media, but there's no question that I missed the mark badly on this one.  Phillips has posted five seasons as an above-average hitter during his time with the Reds, has played legitimate gold-glove defense, and has topped 3 WAR five times (and posted 2.9 fWAR a sixth time).  He's been an excellent player for the Reds since almost the first day he donned the Reds' uniform.  The scouts were right.

Prospecting Reds Pitchers with Oliver

Continuing along with what we began with hitters last week, today we turn our attention to Reds pitching prospects through the lens of Oliver!

Age-23 Pitchers

Chad Rogers is the oldest pitcher on the top-40 list at 23 years, and also only one of two who reached AAA last season.  Rogers split the year between Pensacola and Louisville.  After his promotion, his strikeout rate tailed off a bit, though his walk rate actually improved.  Might be a control-first, modest stuff kind of guy, which would fit the projection.  I haven't heard much about him, but given how quickly he was cut in spring training, I don't think he ranks very highly on the Reds' depth chart right now.  If he can perform at something like his prior level, however, he might end up throwing in the big leagues later this season.

Age-22 Pitchers

Daniel Corcino has been advancing at one level per year the last several years.  He was brilliant in 2011, and still posted good overall numbers in 2012, but then seemed to fall apart last season.  I remember hearing reports that his mechanics were all out of whack, to the degree that one can imagine that the only thing that might help could be time away.  There were warning signs in 2012, however: promoted to AA, he saw a huge drop in his k/9 rate (10.1 k/9 to 7.9) and a scary increase in his walk rate (2.2 bb/9 to 4.1 bb/9).  2013 was really just more incremental declines in performance at AAA, with his strikeout rate dropping by almost 2 per nine, and his walk rate increasing all the way to 5 bb/9.  All one can hope is that he figures it out, because the stuff is supposed to be excellent.

Carlos Contreras projects with a line that is quite similar, but he was working at Bakersfield and Pensacola rather than Louisville last season.  A recent convert to the rotation, his strikeout rate took a huge hit when he was promoted mid-season to AA.

Age-21 Pitchers

Lots of solid-looking prospects in this age group, spanning rookie ball through AA last year.

While I've not been blown away by David Holmberg's minor league numbers, and while he might not really be ready for the big leagues just yet, he does project as having the best MLB ERA of any Reds prospect right now.  The reports are that he's a high-floor, low-ceiling kind of guy, and that's something the Reds could most definitely use.

Ben Lively ranks right with him on the prospect charts, but as a 2013 college draftee, he has only pitched 4 innings above rookie ball.  Still, his performance last season was amazing.  If he continues to dominate this year, I'd think that he could be promoted aggressively.

Michael Lorenzen, another 2013 draftee, is interesting because he split time between pitching and the outfield last season.  He converted to starting in the Arizona Fall League last year (with rather terrible results) after impressing as a reliever during the regular season across four(!) different Reds affiliates.  Now no longer working as a position player, we'll see if he can figure out starting this season.  If not, he seems like the kind of guy who could e promoted quickly.

The last I'll mention in this group is Jon Moscot.  He posted really nice strikeout and walk numbers last year in Bakersfield, and didn't show much drop-off in a short stint at Pensacola.  He seems to have been hurt by the long ball thus far, though I do wonder how much of that could be related to throwing in Bakersfield (as I remember, it's a homer-friendly park?).  In any case, this is a big year for him.  With a strong showing in AA this year (where I'm guessing he'll begin the year), he could be in line for a mid-season promotion to Louisville.  Tony Blengino likes him.

Age-20 Pitchers

The only age-20 pitcher in the Reds' top 40 is deserving of his own category.  Ever since being drafted in 2011, Robert Stephenson has done nothing but impress.  He made it all the way to AA last season, posting good strikeout numbers and (usually) good control across three stops as he toured through the minors.  He did get a bit wild in AA, but I'm not going to fret over 16 innings.  Oliver seems concerned about his home run rate, but that figure is way higher than the other systems: Steamer has him at 1.09 hr/9, and ZIPS has him at 1.43 hr/9.  It wouldn't be surprising if he is a fly ball pitcher given his power, and if he can keep his strikeout numbers up I am not worried about the home runs.  He might not be ready for the big leagues just yet, but with a good year, he can certainly be debuting with the Reds this fall, and competing for a rotation gig next spring.  He's easily the guy that I'm most excited about in the Reds' farm right now.

Age-19 Pitchers

As good as Stephenson has been, Nick Travieso (drafted in 2012) has been a pretty big disappointment thus far.  It took a long time for him to make it out of instructional leagues, and thus far he's shown good control but little else.  Marc Hulet still likes him, but reports lost velocity vs. high school and extreme fly ball tendencies.  I'd like to see his strikeout numbers shoot up a fair bit before I get excited about him.

Age-18 Pitchers

Included for completeness.  Tyler Mahle was a 7th round pick last summer, and posted a good season while splitting time between starting and relief.


So, what Reds pitchers in the minors are you most excited about?  Who am I misjudging here, or who have I overlooked?

Prospecting Reds Hitters with Oliver

Update: Pitching prospect profiles are here.

I freely admit that I don't follow the minor leagues as well as I perhaps should.  Here's an initial attempt to rectify that.  Below, and in a subsequent post, I'm reporting Oliver projections for each of the Reds Top-40 prospects.  This post features hitters, and the next post will feature pitchers.

Caveat: No matter what the system, projection systems are NOT the ideal method to evaluate minor league players.  Scouting-based approaches work better, period.  But I can't scout.  And blending Oliver with top prospect lists was something that I took to doing when I was into fantasy baseball a few years ago.  If nothing else, it's place to start when trying learn players.  Keep in mind that all numbers below are projections for what the player would do in the major leagues.  In most cases, that's not relevant to what they'll do in the minors this season.  But it gives you an idea of how well they have developed to this point.

We'll go in descending order of 2014 age:

Age-25 Players

As you'd expect with a prospect list, starting oldest and moving to youngest will not start you with your organization's best prospects; most of the good players have already graduated by the time they are 25.  On the plus side, it makes the projections more useful, because these guys are at an age where they are approaching as good as they will get.  Usually.

Neftali Soto was taken out of his Puerto Rican high school in 2007, the same draft that netted the Reds Devin Mesoraco, Todd Frazier, and Zack Cozart (for a fun example of why I shouldn't express opinions, check out my draft-day thoughts on Zack Cozart in that link!).  He's just never developed any kind of plate discipline, and that probably limits his ability to put his power to good effect.  He might make a good power-hitting reserve, but he's not a starter.

I was surprised that Ryan LaMarre was already this old.  But college picks don't have a lot of time to make adjustments.  He projects as a terrible hitter right now, but his fielding numbers are superb.  The Reds are in a 40-man roster pinch right now, and it wouldn't be surprising to see LaMarre sent through waivers.  I'm sort of hopeful they can hang onto him, because you can do worse things with your 5th outfielder than to have an elite defensive player.

Age-24 Players

H-Rod was recently released, and Chris Buckley's kid, Sean, missed most of last season, and things aren't looking great for him.  Ryan Wright didn't hit for the first time in his career last year in Bakersfield, but he still looks like a great fielder.  He'll need to rediscover himself in AA this year if he's going to contribute to the Reds, because time's running out.

Age-23 Players

Here's an age where we start to see a lot of good players making their big league debuts.  Not coincidentally, Billy Hamilton is set to be the Reds' starting center fielder, and Oliver is quite bullish on him: replacement-level (or maybe even sub-replacement?) hitting, but amazing value on bases and in the field gets him to an average overall player.  Can you imagine how good he could be if he could just get his OBP to league average (~0.315)?  I get giddy just thinking about it.

Tucker Barnhart is also on the cusp.  Given that he's already on the 40-man roster, it sounds like he might get the nod for opening day if Devin Mesoraco's injury sends him to the DL.  I've been following him as a Redleg Nation spotlight player, and it's exciting to see him getting close--and with a quality projection, no less.  Barnhart is an elite defensive catcher.  If he can hit at all, he can be a quality backup in the near future.

I don't know much about the other two guys on this list: Seth Mejias-Brean and Juan Silva.  Marc Hulet had Mejias-Brean as his sleeper pick for 2013, and he delivered:

The Sleeper: Seth Mejias-Brean, 3B: One of my favorite sleeper picks from last off-season, Mejias-Brean hit more than .300 for the second straight season while showing intriguing gap power. He doesn’t possess eye-popping power but he does enough things well that he could eventually find himself starting at the hot corner at the big league level and the Reds’ current third baseman Todd Frazier is by no means irreplaceable.

Both Mejias-Brean and Silva are projected to be solid hitters in the big leagues right now, and offer solid fielding at their positions.  I'm keen to see what they do in AA this year; if nothing else, they seem like good depth and bench fodder.  The prospect guys don't seem tremendously impressed with either.

Age-22 Players

Junior Arias has a good baseball name.  He also plays an elite defensive position well, and had a nice first half of the hear that flashed both speed (40 SB's) and power (10 HR's) while repeating Dayton.  He struggled in Bakersfield, though, and will probably start there again.  Kyle Waldrop showed power last year at Bakersfield (21 HR), but not much else (0.304 OBP).

Age-21 Players

Reds #1 pick last year, Phillip Ervin, was terrific when he was healthy last season.  He's already showing a darn impressive projection that suggests he could hack it in the majors right now.  Now, I don't believe that--seems like a selection bias issue with MLE's to me.  But given the Reds' rather light outfield talent right now, I certainly wouldn't mind if they tried to fast-track him a bit if they feel he can handle it.  A 0.330 wOBA would rank fourth among Oliver's projected Reds players right now.  Frazier is #3.

As for Yorman Rodriguez, I'm surprised that he projects so poorly.  He put together a pretty solid season last year across A+ and AA-ball, despite being young for his level.  Oliver thinks I'm reading too much into that.  Or, he thinks that legitimate prospects should be wOBAing more than 0.330 each level.  I dunno.  The prospect people still like him, so I'm going to remain cautiously optimistic on him.  I'd sure like to see a little better contact rate than the 27% he posted last season, and the negative fielding projection surprises me given his toolsy reputation.

Age-20 Players

Jesse Winker had an outstanding season at Dayton last season, which came on the heels of a spectacular half-year in Billings the year before.  Scouts apparently like the hit tool a lot.  He's showing great walk rates, good contact rates, nice pop...he just looks really good thus far.  His fielding apparently will limit him to LF, but I have no problem with modest power, high on-base outfielders in corner slots as long as they are solid enough in the field.  There's even talk that he could skip Bakersfield and go straight to AA Pensacola this season.  As with Ervin, the Reds need help in the outfield.  If Winker can develop quickly, that'd sure help.  Also, he seems like a good guy.

Jose Ortiz also got an impressive projection.  That's about where Brayan Pena shows up in projections, and Ortiz hasn't played higher than rookie ball yet.  I think that's probably a bit of a ridiculous projection, but Ortiz had a very solid season in Billings last year, with good power and decent on-base skills.  He'll be one I watch in Dayton this year.

Age-19 Players

Neither Thompson or Franklin were ranked highly on any of the lists last season, and neither projects very well in Oliver.  And that's expected, because they're still teenagers!


Methodology discussion (for those who enjoy the esotericals):
I'm using Oliver for two reasons.  First, the translations across levels of the minor leagues were a major emphasis during the development of Oliver, and it therefore has a reputation (at least) as one of the better systems for for looking at how young players will perform as they transition into the major leagues.  Second, and more importantly, it's the only system that publishes projections for just about every player in organized baseball! That makes it about the only choice when you're going deep into an organization's prospects.

Also, I opted to use Chris St. John's consensus Reds prospect list because he already did the work.  His approach did end up giving more collective weight to the Red Reporter lists than any other source, which...  look, I love the guys at Red Reporter.  They're great, and they frankly do great work keeping an eye on the prospects.  But my feeling is that it would have been more appropriate to just give RR one vote, not four. :)  In any case, the point was not so much to worry about whether Dude A is ranked 5th or 7th, but rather to get a general feel for the top prospects in the Reds' system.

2014 Reds Preview: Wrapping Up

2014 Reds Season Preview

• Introduction
• Position Players
• Starting Pitchers
• Bullpen
• Wrap-Up

As a final summary, here are some overall Cincinnati Reds team projections from both FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus.  I haven't been reporting BPro's projections for individual players because I'm not currently a subscriber, but for comparison's sake I think it is interesting to compare their team projections side by side with FanGraphs'.

Cincinnati Reds Team Projections

Both have updated since I started this series, and have seen their numbers shift a bit (in fact, since I made this table, they shifted again.  Sorry!)  But both also seem to be largely in agreement at this point.  The Reds project as an above-average run-prevention team (though not overwhelmingly so...and less so than I anticipated), on the strength of good fielding and good pitching.  But they also project as a below-average hitting team, mostly due to offensive holes at LF, CF, and SS, plus a weak bench.  CF (Hamilton) and SS (Cozart) are projected to make up most of their offensive shortcomings with fielding, but left field is projected to get very poor production.  The overall result is a Reds team that is projected to be skirting right around 0.500.

The disparity in playoff odds are largely driven by what is happening with other teams.  FanGraphs projects the Pirates to win 84 games, and thus introduce a lot of competition with the Reds for the division title.  Baseball Prospectus has the Pirates at just 79 wins, freeing up opportunities for the Reds to take the division if the Cardinals falter.

Here's another look at the FanGraphs team projections to put the Reds into some context:

The Reds are projected by FanGraphs to trail the Cardinals and the Pirates in runs scored.  I'm pretty surprised to see the Pirates' offense projected to be this good, but perhaps I don't give PNC's park factor enough credit (97), or I don't take GABP's park factor (102) into account enough.  Furthermore, despite run prevention being the Reds' strength, they are projected to be well behind the Cardinals in that department, thanks largely to the Cardinals rotation (even with Joe Kelly!)

I do think it's interesting that, after trying to adjust for the park factors, the Reds are projected to more or less be exactly the same team as the Rockies.  There are some similarities in the FanGraphs projections.  Both teams have a lineup that features top-tier stars and massive holes in production.  Both have a rotation that is deep (or, at least projected to be deep), but without a top-tier ace.  And, as a result, both are projected to be 81-81 teams.

My own bias, of course, is that both FanGraphs and BPro are missing low on the Reds.  They just don't feel like a 0.500 team to me.  They do have holes in the lineup, but I'm pretty hopeful that something will work out in left field.  I think both Ludwick and Heisey have large error bars around their projections, and therefore hope that at least one of them will come in a lot higher.  I think that the Billy Hamilton experiment will work out in center field (i.e. he can at least pull 2 WAR).  The rotation seems stacked with solid talent, and at least three some of those have a chance for a Cy Young caliber season.  And the bullpen, if it can get healthy again, should excel.  The good news is that the error bars on team-level projections like this has to be something like + 10 wins, if not more.  I'm still optimistic.  But it's cautious optimism.

What do you think?  How are the Reds going to shape up this season?  What are their biggest weaknesses, biggest strengths, and biggest keys that will swing their season one way or another?

2014 Reds Preview: Bullpen

2014 Reds Season Preview

• Introduction
• Position Players
• Starting Pitchers
• Bullpen
• Wrap-Up

Today, we turn our attention to the Bullpen.

While Aroldis Chapman won't start the season with the Reds, signs are good that he'll be able to return and rejoin the squad mid-season.  Therefore, I'm leaving his brilliant projection.  Time will only tell how quickly he is able to return to his level of dominance--I mostly worry about his control in the short term.

In the meantime, with both Broxton and Marshall likely starting the year on the DL, the names being mentioned for 9th-inning duties include Sam LeCure, J.J. Hoover, Manny Parra, and...Logan Ondrusek?  I'm all for the first three, but I was surprised to hear Ondrusek's name mentioned and immediately thought it was another example of the Reds loving him a bit too much.  But when I pulled up his numbers, I was surprised: Ondrusek arguably posted his best year of his career last season, despite the career high ERA.  His k/9 skyrocketed over 8 per nine for the first time, while his walk rate fell to a career low.  It was a far cry from the horrific 6 k/9 : 5 bb/9 season he posted in 2013.  I don't know if he can replicate last year's peripherals.  The projections sure don't think so.  But if he can, I have a bit more hope than I did.

The other three all project well; Sam LeCure (I heart @mrlecure), Manny Parra, and (to a lesser degree) J.J. Hoover all look really solid.  Parra probably should get a projection bump given that he has so dramatically changed his repertoire; he's not the same pitcher he was in prior seasons.  Things drop off pretty quickly after that, but any GM worth his salt should be able to scrounge up a decent middle reliever in a pinch.

Aside from all the injuries, one of the big concerns will be Jonathan Broxton.  Everything about him indicates decline.  His fastball velocity is down, last year dipping below 94 mph for the first time in his career.  And he's mostly a fastball pitcher, throwing four-seamers, sinkers, cutters at almost equal frequencies (~30% each), with only the occasional slider or curve.  I'm no pitching expert.  But I do know that 94 mph isn't very special in a bullpen arm, and I wonder if he should consider mixing in more off-speed stuff to be effective.

Next up...putting it all together again...

2014 Reds Preview: Starting Pitchers

2014 Reds Season Preview

• Introduction
• Position Players
• Starting Pitchers
• Bullpen
• Wrap-Up

The pitching staff experienced a significant departure when Bronson Arroyo left the Reds.  I plan to do a retrospective on him, but suffice to say, his tenure with the Reds was one filled with great memories and a lot of surprises.  I think I basically underrated him throughout most of his career with Cincinnati.

In his place, the Reds hope to fill the rotation with a healthy Johnny Cueto and a full year of Tony Cingrani.

Let's look at the projections!  Below are projections for the starting rotation.  As with the hitters, I'm reporting projected WAR over a full season, which for starting pitchers I'm defining as 180 innings.  I am in no way accounting for what probably should be somewhat conservative playing time projections for Johnny Cueto and (maybe?) Mat Latos.  I'm also providing some basic scouting info on velocity and pitch types.  I'm doing a lot of lumping here: %Fst = Fast pitches, so four-seamers, two-seamers, sinkers, and cutters; %Brk = breaking balls, so curves and sliders; %Off = Offspeed pitches, so change-ups, splitters, and (for lack of a better place for them) knuckleballs.  Those data are based on 2013 pitch usage, so for David Holmberg we have a whole 3 innings of work to go by.

The strength of the 2014 +Cincinnati Reds is their starting rotation.  All five project to be solid starters, even if none of them can really be said to be an Adam Wainwright-level ace.  Mat Latos projects the best of the bunch, and had the 2013 season by most measures.  But it's close to a toss-up between he, Johnny Cueto, and Homer Bailey for the title of best pitcher on the staff.  I also think it's neat to see that each has a bit of a different style: they all throw their fastballs about the same rate (some favoring four-seam fastballs, others favoring sinkers), but Latos plays off his breaking pitches, Cueto plays off his change-up, and Bailey is somewhere in between (he uses a splitter instead of a change).

At #4 we have Mike Leake, who has long been a favorite of mine.  He mixes six different pitches, focuses on avoiding walks and getting decent ground ball rates, and has become a reliable innings-eater despite not having stuff that induces a lot of strikeouts.

Tony Cingrani is perhaps the most interesting of the bunch.  His approach just seems nonsensicle.  Yes, he's left-handed, but he threw his 92-mph fastball more often than just about anyone in the majors (82% of his pitches last season were fastballs!).  He has three other pitches, but last year, at least, he didn't use them much, preferring instead to focus on his fastball.  It reportedly has very good movement, and that accounts for his outrageous strikeout rates.  But I think it's an open question whether that approach will continue to work in the big leagues.  If he stops fooling people and sees that strikeout rate decline, his walk rate is going to get him into trouble quickly...unless he can simultaneously get that under control.  I listened to Craig Fehrman's interview on Effectively Wild Wednesday night, and he made the comment that he'd believe in Cingrani until it stops working.  That's probably the right attitude to have.

As good as our top-5 look, the Reds' biggest challenge is that they don't have much depth.  The kid they acquired this offseason in exchange for Ryan Hanigan, David Holmberg, doesn't look ready--at least not according to the projections.  Holmberg's strikeout rates have not been impressive in AA thus far, and I'd certainly like to see him pitch in AAA before bringing him up.  The best of the veterans looks to be Jeff Francis.  Francis may have gotten hammered in his time with the Rockies last season, but Coors Field will do that to you in 70 innings.  He also posted 8 k/9 last season, and has posted xFIPs between 3.79 and 4.29 each of the last four seasons when he has had the chance to pitch in the majors.  Yes, his career ERA is 0.7 runs higher than his career xFIP, so maybe he's a guy for whom DIPS theory doesn't work very well (in a bad way).  Still, I see him as the Reds' 6th best starter right now, even though I get the impression that he's about 8th in line.

The final option is Alfredo Simon.  The projection above is for Simon as a reliever.  If we apply generic rules to convert his projection to starting, we would bump up his ERA (and similar stats like FIP) by least a half-run, which puts him in the mid four's.  Simon has thrown a full complement of pitches in his time with the Reds, including a splitter, a fairly slider-like cutter, and a curve ball to go with his fastball.  Therefore, I think he's the kind of pitcher who shouldn't be unusually bad at making this transition.  Over the short term, I think he can be an ok backup.  But if he starts to log substantial innings due to injuries to our starting 5, the Reds will likely be hurting.

2014 Reds Preview: Position Players

2014 Reds Season Preview

• Introduction
• Position Players
• Starting Pitchers
• Bullpen
• Wrap-Up

This week is Reds Preview Week at the 'ole blog.  The Introduction is here.  Time to get down to brass tacks!

Below I'm reporting projections for all Reds position players, including a smattering of potential bench candidates.  The projections are 50:50 averages of Steamer and ZIPS, which I chose because they will be updated throughout the season;  I might use this spreadsheet as a basis for series previews or other kinds of check-ins during the season.  Maybe!  All counting stats (WAR, baserunning, and fielding) are reported as per-year totals, which I set to 550 PA for catchers and 650 PA for everyone else.  This includes bench players.  The idea is to get an idea of player talent, not accurately project playing time.

Starters

The biggest, obvious problem here is Ryan Ludwick.  The projection systems aren't at all buying that he's due for a resurgent season: average offense and poor fielding in an outfield corner mean for near-replacement level production.  They have good reason to be skeptical, too: he'll turn 36 in July, he's coming off a shoulder injury, and his 2012 Reds performance, good as it was, was a 472-PA follow-up to an absolutely dreadful campaign in 2011 with the Pirates and Padres.  Can he rebound?  Sure.  But I'm not putting money on it.  If he doesn't recover, the Reds can go with Chris Heisey out there...but his amazing spring notwithstanding, the projections don't look much better for him.

Otherwise, however, I have to say that the starting lineup looks really solid.  Devin Mesoraco looks to be a solid regular catcher, which would be a big upgrade over what the Reds got last year out of their catchers.  Furthermore, Billy Hamilton is projected to be a tick below average, but also not a complete disaster in center field.  Most of his production is his baserunning and fielding, but he is projected to post a near league-average OBP (with zero power).  Interestingly, he is the starter over whom Steamer and ZIPS differ the most.  ZIPS projects a .302 wOBA and very good baserunning and fielding to net 2.5 WAR, while Steamer is much more reserved (.283 wOBA, good baserunning, avg fielding, 0.8 WAR).

Everyone else looks to be more or less in line with what they did last year, with a bit of regression and a few blips thrown in here and there.  Overall, the Reds project to be a very good fielding team (the silver lining to losing Choo), and will have to find enough offense before they get to the 8-9-1 slots of offensive nothingness that Cozart-Pitcher-Hamilton will bring.  Still, if Zack Cozart and Hamilton can do enough with fielding, and in Hamilton's case, baserunning, they still pass as league-average players because the play elite defensive positions.  If Cozart could figure out how to take a walk now and then, however, it'd sure help the cause.

Bench

Oh, the horrors!

I like that Brayan Pena can bat left-handed, but he looks like a poor offensive player without much defense here.  But he's a catcher, and it doesn't take a lot to be worth bench job.  Hannahan can at least play the field, and looks like a good enough super-sub if he can get healthy enough to play.  Heisey is easily the strongest bat of the bunch, and can contribute fielding as well.  I expect to see him get some starts against lefties to spell Hamilton or Bruce.

But why on earth did they sign Skip Schumaker?  Yes, he's a lefty, and it looks like he can get on base a little bit.  But he has zero power, and his fielding projection is just horrific.  His career UZR/150 is -13 runs at 2B, -2 runs in LF/RF, and -12 runs in CF.  So...I guess if you stick in in a corner outfield slot, his glove is fine.  But despite decent on-base skills, he has zero power, and won't hit enough to offset the position adjustment.  The more I look at it, the more I dislike this signing.  I don't wish an injury on anyone, and I hope he recovers soon from his shoulder injury.  But in terms of performance, I'd much rather have someone like Roger Bernadina as the 5th outfielder/lefty bat (he can field, power makes up for weaker on-base skills) and Cesar Izturis Ramon Santiago as the middle-infielder.

With all of the injuries, guys like Chris Nelson and Neftali Soto might have a legitimate shot at the roster.  Both contribute some pop, but they don't walk and won't contribute defense.  Soto is a bit more interesting to me because of his slight edge on offense, and his ability to "catch," by which I mean he has donned the gear in professional baseball.  I'm not sure that he'd be any better at it than he is at his other fielding jobs, but it's nice to have an emergency catcher, I suppose.

Conclusions

In preparing this piece, I also happened to plug in numbers for the Cardinals.  For the most part, I thought the Reds matched up pretty well.  Except for two things.

1. The Cardinals don't have a gigantic hole like the Reds do in LF.  In fact, pretty much every player in their lineup can hit.  The exception might be 2B, but at least there they have guys who can field.  The Reds really need Ludwick to find himself again, or have Heisey quickly take his job and discover himself.

2. The Cardinals have a really good bench.  They have guys like Jon Jay and Mark Ellis (when he's not platooning) on their bench.  Those two guys can both be at least borderline starters, and that's probably selling them short.  And on top of that, they have Oscar Taveras waiting to make his big league debut, which would push Matt Adams (I guess?) to the bench.  I mean...sheesh.

Those two things put the Reds at somewhere around a 4-6 win deficit compared to the Cardinals, depending on how much the Reds' bench plays.  They will need to somehow get something from left field while keeping healthy enough to minimize the exposure of the rest of their bench to compete.  It won't be easy.

Fortunately...the pitching!  That's coming up next.

2014 Reds Preview: Introductions

2014 Reds Season Preview

• Introduction
• Position Players
• Starting Pitchers
• Bullpen
• Wrap-Up

The Reds are hoping Cueto spends far less time
watching from the sidelines this year.
Photo credit: twistedmoments

The +Cincinnati Reds are entering the 2014 season with largely the same cast of characters from 2013, with two major deductions: Shin-Soo Choo and Bronson Arroyo.  Choo is being replaced by speedster prospect Billy Hamilton, whereas Arroyo is being replaced (hopefully) by full seasons of Johnny Cueto and Tony Cingrani.

I think a lot of Reds fans, myself included, were disappointed after a fairly uneventful offseason.  There were rumors early on that the Reds would trade Brandon Phillips, but they apparently found little interest in him.  My favorite rumor was a Brett Gardner for Phillips swap, but the Yankees seemed uninterested in parting with their player--and justifiably so, given his superior production and cheaper contract.  That would have permitted the Reds to slot in either Hamilton or acquire a lower-cost 2B like Omar Infante (who would sign with the Royals) or Mark Ellis (who would be sign with the Cardinals).  None of that came to pass, and so the Reds will have to make do with what they have.

2013 Overall Team Performance

The chart to the left primarily reports 2013 season totals, but also shows projected winning percentage from FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus.  You can see that both publications project a drop in performance this season from the Reds.  BPro is slightly more optimistic than FanGraphs, projecting 83 wins using PECOTA vs. just 80 wins using a combination of Steamer and ZIPS (note: FanGraphs recently updated their projection and now have the Reds at an even 0.500).

Overall, the 2013 Reds had great pitching and excellent fielding that was let down, to a degree, with a middle of the pack offense.  The hitting wasn't terrible, but played like a fairly extreme stars and scrubs.  On one hand, they got brilliant performances from Votto and Choo, and another solid year from Jay Bruce.  And Frazier, despite his big slump, turned in a league-average year.  But left field, shortstop, and catcher were all offensive black holes, as was second base after Phillips' hand injury.

What saved the season, almost unquestionably, was the starting rotation.  Of particular note was the surprising success of Tony Cingrani, who filled in amazingly well for the oft-injured Johnny Cueto.  Cingrani helped Latos, Bailey, Leake, and Arroyo hold down the fort despite the staff ace only registering 60 innings on the season.

Why the big drop in projected wins?  My first thought was that perhaps the Reds overplayed their Pythagorean record.  But a glance at Baseball Prospectus's 2013 Adjusted Standings page shows this to clearly be wrong:

The 2013 Reds might have come in third place, but their Pythagorean record indicated that they might have played better than they looked.  In fact, their 1st-order winning percentage (just straight PythagenPat) is right there were their second- and third-order wins, which estimate runs scored and allowed based on component inputs.  In most years, you'd expect a team that put up the numbers the Reds did to win about 93 games.

So what gives?  There are two main explanations: loss of talent (free agent departures) and a combination of regression & aging.  Over the next several posts in this series, I'll walk through projections for the position players and pitchers, and try to understand what we can reasonably expect for this team.  I'll say this in preview: I'm seeing a team that, on the surface, looks a lot better than the 0.500 team forecasted by FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus.  The offense looks surprisingly solid, and the pitching looks strong.  But it's also a team that has very little depth, be it on the bench or in the minor leagues.  If injuries come fast, the Reds may have a hard time compensating.

Was Homer Bailey's Contract An Overpay?

The Reds locked up Homer Bailey this offseason,
but was the cost too great?
Photo credit: David Slaughter

The Reds' biggest offseason player move was unquestionably handing Homer Bailey a $105 million/6 year contract extension this offseason.  While this was exciting for most fans (myself included), reaction around the internets tended to lean toward this being a pretty substantial overpay.

I'm sure that people have done nice analyses of Homer's contract.  I didn't really look around at the time, though.  So, I decided to finally take a look myself.  Well, a few looks.  

Approach #1

The first approach I used is close to what I've been doing for years to understand contracts, and is inspired by people like tangotiger.  It works as follows.

1. Make a projection for a player during the contract.  I used 2014 Steamer and ZIPS projections for that (courtesy of FanGraphs), and then did a "standard" 0.5 WAR/year decline.  That might be generous aging for a pitcher given pitchers' inherent tendencies to break, but we'll run with it.
2. Come up with a cost per win translator for each year of the contract.  This is trickier than it used to be, because some of Dave Cameron's recent work has made it clear that the cost per win is not constant anymore; above-average players are getting more dollars per win than below-average players.  Fortunately, in that article he presented a regression line for this relationship, and it showed a really simple relationship: 2 WAR players (i.e. league-average) are getting $6M/win, 3 WAR players are getting $7M/win, 4 WAR players get $8M/win, etc.  I'm assuming that this "bonus" is set in the first year, such that players do not see their $/win decline as their performance declines.
3. Estimate salary inflation.  I'm guessing wildly here, but based on past increases, as well as the amazing amount of money coming into the game right now with all of the TV contracts, I'm estimating a fairly aggressive 10% inflation on the $/win of an average player.  I'm just going to assume that the extra million bonus a 3-WAR player gets per WAR is fixed and not subject to inflation.
4. Multiply the estimated WAR each year by the player-specific $/win numbers.  This gives salary value each year.  Then, you just sum up all of the years to get total contract value.

Here's what I got when I did this for Homer:

On the far left are years, my estimated average $/win with inflation, and Homer's actual salary.  I'm assuming the Reds will not exercise their part of his mutual 2020 option, so they pay the $5 million buyout.  Then you have the Steamer projected WAR, his $/win, and estimated salary.  Similarly, I report ZIPS estimated salaries.  Finally, on the right, I'm presenting a projection that would be required for the contract to make sense using my salary model.  In other words, this is apparently how the Reds are valuing Bailey.  Also, please note that I'm ignoring the fact that 2014 is Bailey's last arbitration year; we should really subtract $3 million from his total 2014 salary in each case to account for the fact that players make about 80% of their free agent value in their 3rd arbitration year.

It doesn't look like a particularly good contract, does it?  Steamer and ZIPS have his contract valued at between $50 and $67 million over six years.  Furthermore, Steamer's projection for 2014 is low enough that it doesn't even make sense to give him a 6th year.  The difference between the Steamer and ZIPS projections is entirely playing time: Steamer projects a 3.62 FIP in 173 innings, while ZIPS projects at 3.62 FIP in 192 innings.  Homer has thrown 200+ innings for two consecutive years, and has been very healthy in those seasons.  But just one trip to the DL would drop him into the 170-territory, and the floor in any given season is 0 innings.

To get the contract to make sense, you have to set his 2014 projection to 3.3 WAR.  That's not outrageous; Bailey was worth 3.7 fWAR last season (and 3.2 bWAR), after all.  But that was easily his best season thus far.  It's pretty hard to project that he'll do that again this season, at least based on standard player behavior.

On the other hand, what we're really dealing with here is a projected difference of 0.6 to 0.9 wins.  Given how large the error bars are on projections, this really isn't that bad.  If the Reds have special scouting information that indicates that Bailey really did take a significant step forward last year, and one that he's very likely to continue in future seasons, you could at least make an argument that this is a reasonable projection...

Approach #2

Dave Cameron recently posted a pair of new models that look at free agent salaries.

The first is a model that just takes total projected WAR in a contract and uses that to estimate a player's salary.  It's a simple regression equation, but it explains 95% of the variation in free agent salaries from the offseason.  Not too shabby!  Let's run it for Homer and our various projections:

This is a bit more encouraging.  Based on the regression equation, and our projection systems, Homer Bailey's contract estimate comes in at between $70 million and $85 million over 5 years (or six years, for that matter; he's projected to be replacement level in 2019).

I adjusted the Apparent Reds projection a bit here, because this regression model tends to result in higher estimated salaries than my first approach. Here, a projection of 3.1 WAR gets him where he should be for the contract to be an even value.  That's an 0.4 to 0.7 WAR difference from projections.

Approach #3

In that same article, Cameron also put together a salary estimation "toy."  It's very simple, not horrifically rigorous, but it works pretty well.  You can go to the article to read about it.  I applied it to Homer:

Cameron's toy suggests that, based on the Steamer and Zips projections, the market length of a salary like Homer's would be about 4 years.  But if we extend it to 6 total years, we get total estimates between $72 million and $81 million.  That's pretty close to the regression equation above.

The closest I could get his contract to the actual value was 3.2 WAR.  Push it to 3.3 WAR, and Cameron's toy extends him another year to 7 WAR, and the total contract value shoots to $115 WAR.  But again, the estimates are indicating that the +Cincinnati Reds are valuing Homer by about a half-win higher than the projection systems.

Conclusions

By the numbers, I think it's pretty easy to see why so many see this as an overpay.  Steamer, which has been the champion of pitcher projections the last few years, estimates his monetary value between 50% and 70% of the actual contract value, depending on which approach one takes.  That's a tough pill to swallow, especially when you consider that the salary models I'm using aren't making any allowances for the fact that pitchers are inherently more risky than hitters, aside from the projections.

That said, the other thing that this exercise impressed upon me was that the systems that I, at least, am using are highly volatile when examining long-term salaries.  For the most part, we're dealing with differences of just a half a win.  That's easily within our margin of error.  Any small difference in projection gets compounded with each year of an extension.  This is further enhanced by the fact that the cost per win changes with player quality.  As a result, a difference of less than a win in a projection can result in a $50 million difference in a contract valuation.  In Homer's case, that's half of his salary!

What do you think?  Is it reasonable to project Homer to have a 3+ WAR season in 2014?  Are these salary approaches so sensitive to small changes in player projection that they are almost useless?  Or was this a big overpay by the Reds?