Cistulli on the importance of the first-round pick

Carson Cistulli is working through an excellent series looking at the demographics of a "good" player, which he defined as any player who posted at least 3 WAR in any one season from 2010-2014.  Yesterday's edition focused on players who had been drafted, which, based on his prior article, account for about 75% of all good players during that stretch (the others being international or undrafted free agents).  He broke them down by draft round.  Here's what he found for high school draftees:

College players broke down in much the same manner.  There was an interesting difference for junior college draftees, but nevertheless the result is really clear: about half of all players who put up a well above-average season are taken in the first round.  Half!

A lot of fans and people in the media tend to discount importance of draft status in baseball, sometimes equating it to a crapshoot.  We see first-round busts all the time, and we see players who were drafted much later in the draft who put up big numbers.  Nevertheless, every time there's a study done, we see that first round players are far better bets to be productive, and (from other studies) produce far more wins for their teams than later-round selections.

Another small point: the draft is almost entirely the domain of the scout.  Developing baseball players is prone to enormous uncertainty.  Nevertheless, scouts still do a really good job of identifying the best players to take in the early rounds of the draft.

2015 Reds Team Projections

Here's a look at the team projections from BPro and FanGraphs.  We'll go alphabetically:

Baseball Prospectus NL Central Projections

Well, that's ducky.  Baseball Prospectus sees the Cardinals as the clear favorite in the division (a 5-game lead is quite a bit in a team projection), with the Cubs playing second-fiddle, and the rest of the teams more or less equivalent to one another.  The Reds are projected to have the worst offense in the division, by a significant margin, but a fine defense that leads to good run prevention.

Here are PECOTA-projected run scored and runs allowed, after park adjustments, for all NL teams:

In this graph, the best teams are in the bottom-right.  The top-left is a bad place to be, and it's inhabited by four teams that are widely expected to struggle.  The only thing keeping the Reds out of the top-left, as it turns out, is their fielding: the Reds have the second-best fielding projection in the NL, and it pulls their overall defense (pitching + fielding) down into the better-than-average area.

The Dodgers look really good, don't they?  Washington Nationals check in as the best pitching-and-defense by a hair on the strength of their rotation, whereas the Cardinals should have the best offense of any team not called the Dodgers.  I think the Pirates are interesting here: PECOTA likes their offense a lot, but has major concerns about their ability to hold their opponents in check.  After park adjustments, they have the second-worst pitching-and-fielding combination in the league, behind only the Rockies.

The surprise might be the Cubs, who, along with the much-improved Padres, edge their way into the "good" quadrant by projecting as slightly better than average on offense and defense.  With their offseason additions, and with their young players starting to take MLB jobs, they are probably the most interesting team to watch in our division (<-yes a="" bit="" hey="" hurts="" it="" nbsp="" p="" re="" scary.="" that="" to="" write="">

FanGraphs NL Central Projections

Things aren't a lot rosier when it comes to the FanGraphs projections.  Actually, they're worse.  FanGraphs sees the Central a lot closer to a three-team race, with the Pirates getting a five-game jump on this system to be right in the thick of it with the Cardinals and Cubs.  The Brewers and Reds are ranked a distant 4th and 5th, respectively.

Here are the pythags:

Sigh.  Minor note: the projected run environment is a tad lower with FanGraphs, averaging 640 runs per team instead of 653 runs per team.

In any case, FanGraphs is not quite as bullish on the Reds' ability to prevent runs as BPro, while being just as pessimistic on their ability to generate runs.  As with BPro, FanGraphs sees the Reds' fielding as superb, +22 runs above average.  But their pitching isn't rated quite as highly, which means overall they are pegged as a slightly below-average defense coupled with a well below-average offense--and that's even WITH Joey Votto projected to get 550 PA's, which seems darn optimistic to me right now.

Some other interesting things: FanGraphs likes the Cardinals' and Pirates run prevention a LOT more than BPro.  Pittsburgh elevates all the way to average run prevention.  Meanwhile, the Cardinals vault into the exhaulted well-above-average territory, inching toward the Dodgers and Nationals in the "Uber-team" category.  Meanwhile, the Cubs stay right where they were, again looking like a legitimate threat in the Central.

Take-Aways

Team-level projections have huge error bars around them because you more or less compound all of the error on teach player projection to sum it up to the team level.

But they are identifying some important problems for team, even if it's healthy.  They're going to be playing 1-2 position players who are arguably not deserving of starting jobs in Byrd and Cozart.  Their bench is basically a collection of replacement players, and provides little depth outside of Eugenio Suarez (if he even gets to play).  The rotation isn't what it was when the 2012-2013 Mat Latos was here, and again offers little depth after the first few guys.  And the bullpen could be Aroldis Chapman and a bunch of replacement guys.  And these projections assume that everyone is more or less healthy, which is far from certain.

There's a brighter, rosier side to each of those arguments.  The fan in me wants to protest on most of those points.  I want to believe that Jay Bruce is going to bounce back.  I want to buy into a lot of our bullpen arms, and I certainly like Mike Leake a lot more than FanGraphs does.  And I take some heart in that no position is projected to be replacement level, unlike last year's left field situation.

Still, whereas last season I was still pretty optimistic about the Reds despite mediocre projections, this season I'm probably more pessimistic than optimistic.  This feels more like the seasons when I broke in as a Reds blogger, extolling the offensive virtues of Rich Aurilia, than things did during the 2010-2013 seasons.

In a way, it's sort of relaxing.  I'm excited for baseball this season, and I don't feel like I'm setting myself up to have my heart broken by this team.  I'll cheer them on, and watch their progress with interest.  And who knows?  Maybe they'll still surprise.

Reds spend second-least on free agents in baseball

Over at MLB Trade Rumors, Jeff Todd summarized the spending by all 30 MLB teams on free agents this offseason.  The Reds signed exactly one player: Burke Badenhop to a $2.5 million deal.  That ranks second to last in all of baseball:

Full story here!

Belated Transactions: Reds acquire Marlon Byrd

This past December 31st, my kids adopted their first dog.  It was a long time coming, as the dog had to wait until after our trip overseas.  It's been a great experience for the girls, and my youngest (at least) is taking the role of responsible pet owner with tremendous enthusiasm.  Needless it say, it was a major acquisition for the family.

The Reds made not-quite-so-major an acquisition that same day when they traded Ben Lively for Marlon Byrd and $4 million.  This apparently "solved" their left field situation for next season, with a same-cost club option for 2016.

What the Reds traded: RHP Ben Lively

Lively was the Reds' 4th round selection in 2013 out of the University of Central Florida.  His 2014 season, his first full professional season, was one worth talking about.  I tend to be fairly ignorant of what is happening in the minors, and yet it was hard to not be excited by what he did last season.

After mowing through high-A in breathtaking fashion, Lively was promoted mid-season to Pensacola where he continued to be effective.  He continue to pile on the strikeouts, the hallmark of his career thus far, though he showed a surprising spike in his control rate.  Nevertheless, his numbers were solid enough, and he looks ready to jump to AAA in the 2015 season, and maybe even the majors by the end of the season.  Both ZiPS and Steamer think he wouldn't embarrass himself this year in the majors.  With the exception of that AA walk rate, he had everything you might hope for in a minor league pitching line.

So given that the Reds are set to be without a rotation after 2015, why would the Reds trade away what looks like the ace of the future?  Well, here's Kiley McDaniel's prospect profile on Lively following the season:

13. Ben Lively, RHP Lively was a 4th round pick out of UCF in 2013 and has beat expectations so far, with 79 stellar innings in the hitter-friendly Cal League this year before 72 more solid innings in Double-A.  Lively’s performance may overstate his raw ability a bit; he’s a back-end starter that sits 90-93 and hits 95 mph with four average-ish pitches, led by a slider that’s a 55 at times.  There’s deception and about average command; Lively’s delivery isn’t great but he manages to make it work for him and he throws strikes.

Well, that might explain the Reds' thinking.  McDaniel is arguing that Lively is one of those polished college arms that can carve up low-minors hitting, but doesn't have the stuff to play at the higher levels.  Lively is still a legitimate MLB prospect, perhaps it's more like a future Tommy Milone than a future Max Scherzer.

Milone might be a nice comp, because he had a similar contrast between his scouting reports and his performance prior to reaching the major leagues.  Across four seasons, Milone has been a useful starter, but we're seeing the limitations of his skills.  ...  Then again, Milone throws 87 mph, while Lively sits in the low 90's, so maybe the comp doesn't work.

What they got: RHB OF Marlon Byrd

Marlon Byrd was the Phillies' 10th round selection out of Georgia Perimeter College back in 1999.  Despite his lateish-round pedigree, he quickly mashed his way onto prospect lists, peaking at #26 with both speed and prodigious power displays in the minor leagues.  He reached the majors as a 24-year old, and was starting the next season.

After an excellent rookie campaign, Byrd struggled for a while through his late 20's, ultimately was traded to the Nationals, and then signed on with the Rangers as a free agent.  It was in Texas where he seemed to find himself as a 29-year old, and Byrd went on to post four consecutive above-average offensive seasons for the Rangers and Cubs.

His most recent four years have had huge ups and downs.  Some years, he's been completely awful (2012, -1.0 fWAR in just 153 PA's; it's hard to be that bad in so little playing time!).  And yet during other recent years he has had some of the best seasons of his career (4.1 fWAR in 2013 with Mets and Pirates).  Last year, as a 36-year old with the Phillies, he more or less played to his career line, albeit with less on base skill and more power.  He clearly seems to have been trading power for contact the last few years, based on the spike in both his power output and his strikeout rate, though he's not walking more to compensate for this.  I can see those kinds of trends, but how does one tell whether he's likely to crater again like he did in '12?

He'll be 37 next season, and it wouldn't be a surprise to see him drop off a cliff (Steamer projects .246/.294/.403 with 0.3 WAR).  But at the same time, if he can stay healthy, he's only two years removed from a 4 WAR season, so he has upside (ZIPS puts him at .271/.314/.481, 2.6 WAR).  If we split the difference between Steamer and ZiPS, maybe we consider him a 1.5 WAR player.  That would only be a small regression from last season, so it seems reasonable to me.

Given that the Reds are paying only $4 million of the $8 million he is owned next season, they're paying for less than 1 win, and hoping for more.  From that perspective, it's a good contract, and they might just luck into another 3 win season from him.

Summary Opinion

Here's the argument for this trade from the Reds' perspective: if the scouting reports are correct, Ben Lively might never be so valuable as he is right now.  He might still crack a big league rotation in his career, but he's unlikely to be particularly valuable.  And he might find that his stuff simply won't cut it in the upper minors and just flame out.  "There's no such thing as a pitching prospect," the prospect guys hate him anyway, and the Reds already have a good number of these back-end rotation prospects (Jon Moscot, for example).  They swapped Lively at his peak value for a guy in Byrd who has very low salary cost and is two seasons away from producing at an all-star level.  He should (hopefully?) fill the gigantic hole in left field that they dealt with last season, and can be brought back in 2016 if Jesse Winker isn't ready by then.

I get all of that.  I'm just hoping that the Reds' scouts are right about Lively.  Because the Reds could look mighty foolish if he goes on to by a solid mid-rotation starter, and meanwhile Byrd goes on to replicate Ryan Ludwick's 2014 season.

Belated Transactions: Mat Latos swapped for DeSclafani and Wallach

Mat Latos was outstanding for the Reds
Photo Credit: SD Dirk

In my continuing (and intermittent) efforts to catch up the Reds' offseason, here's a discussion of their biggest-profile trade.

The Reds' acquisition of Mat Latos was arguably the biggest move of GM Walt Jocketty's tenure with the Reds.  In exchange for two top-tier prospects, a relief prospect, and a struggling big-league pitcher, the Reds acquired an established, young, big league starter with high upside and many years of control left on his contract.  It was a huge trade, and one that paid immediate dividends for the Reds.  Latos had two excellent seasons for the Reds before last year's injury-limited season, and was a major part of the Reds' 2012 division champion team.

The 2012-2013 Latos is still the guy that I think about when I hear his name.  As a result, it was with a sense of dread when I heard he was traded.  I knew the issue: he had one year left on his contract, and there was little indication that the Reds would be able to re-sign him.  Nevertheless, it seemed like a major blow to the team.  

Here's the thing: Mat Latos might not be the same pitcher that he was in 2012-2013.  As I wrote last year, there was reason to be concerned about his health.  Here is his FanGraphs line:

Lato's strikeout rate took a big hit last year.  So did his ground ball rate.  And Steamer seems to have noticed, projecting him for what would easily be the worst season of his career.  Now, one might be surprised to see a projection system react so strongly to one bad year.  Steamer, however, uses fastball velocity in its projections, and Latos was throwing 2 mph lower last season compared to the previous years of his career.

Steamer is worried, and probably for good reason.  Latos might bounce back, of course, and would be a terrific asset for the Marlins as they try to compete with the uber-rotation Nationals.  He had a number of relatively minor injuries last year that prevented him from having a normal spring training and might have sapped his strength and flexibility in a temporary fashion.  But it could also be that he won't return to form, in which case he is suddenly a back-end starter.

Despite all of that uncertainty, the Reds flipped his last year of control for a pair of players who have some promise.  Let's take a look!

Anthony DeSclafani, 24-year old RHP

DeSclafani (which I am struggling mightily to spell correctly) was a 6th-round selection out of the University of Florida, and Miami acquired him in the Jose Reyes/Mark Buerhle trade prior to the 2013 season.  He has never been a top-tier prospect, but he has steadily advanced through the Marlins' system, and split time between AA, AAA, and MLB last year.  He's shown a decent strikeout rate, (usually) excellent walk rates, and acceptable home run rates throughout his career.  

He only threw 33 innings last year in the majors, but so I'm not at all concerned about the ugly ERA.  I'm actually quite encouraged by the strong walk rate and the effective strikeout rate, though I am arching my eyebrow a bit at his ground ball rate.  The main caveat I have is that a chunk of those innings came in relief, which might inflate those rates.  Still, as a toe-dip in the majors, one can do a lot worse.

We didn't get a write-up on DeSclafini with Kiley McDaniel's prospect work this offseason, but he gave us this quick line in a comment:

That contrasts a bit with the stat line in my view.  His control, based on bb/9, has been superb most of the time, save for his stint in AAA last year.  I'm surprised to see his stuff rated so highly (league-average, maybe a tick above), so that's encouraging.  Here are his Brooks Baseball scattercharts:

We have a clear separation between his four-seam fastball and his sinker, which both sat at the high end of where Kiley had him velocity-wise.  Nothing here was identified as a curve, although it's possible that some of the "sliders" above could be a hard curve ball, while the cutters could be what McDaniel described as a slider.  If the slider is his best breaking pitch, however, that would be surprising, because he threw the "cutter" fewer times than the "slider."  So, we have some inconsistency.  We'll just have to wait and see!

At the minimum, it looks like the Reds acquired a mlb-ready #5 starter.  Hopefully he can be more of a #3 or #4.  Given the risk and short term control inherent in Latos, that strikes me as a pretty nice return.  

But wait, there's more!

Chad Wallach, 23-year old RHB Catcher

Wallach was a 5th-round selection out of California State-Fullerton.  While 5th round is nothing to sneeze at, he hasn't highlighted a lot of top-prospect lists that I've seen. Nevertheless, he had a really nice season last year, largely at the Marlin's low-A affiliate.  I'm particularly excited by the fact that he showed both superb walk rates and superb strikeout rates, walking far more often than he struck out.  That's really good performance.  He didn't show a ton of power, but a catcher with good on-base skills can be mighty valuable if he can field his position well.  As throw-ins go, from a stathead perspective at least, he's a good one.

Summary Opinion

This isn't the clear steal that the Alfredo Simon trade seemed to be.  But given the high risk that Latos presents as he enters the season, I doubt the Reds could have done much better.  Latos suffered a big drop in his apparent stuff last season, and is coming off of injuries to both his throwing arm and his legs.  That, combined with his impending free agency unquestionably hurts his value quite a bit.  With this trade, the Reds cleared up some payroll, replaced Latos in the rotation, and gained years of low-cost control.  If DeSclafani is a serviceable cog at the back of the Reds' rotation for the next few season, the Reds did well in this deal.  

...And that's not even bringing up the argument that they also rid themselves with a problem in the clubhouse in the process (<-fwiw argument="" both="" div="" guessing="" i="" is="" m="" of="" sides="" that="" their="" to="" truth="">

Reds sign Burke Badenhop

Yesterday, the Reds signed their first "big" free agent of the offseason in right-handed reliever Burke Badenhop.  Badenhop, who turned 32 years old today, has been a member of five different organizations since being drafted in the 19th round by the Tigers in 2005.  The signed a 1-year deal with the Reds for a total of $2.5 million guaranteed, with a mutual option for 2016 that can bring the total value of the deal to $5 million.  That's paying for something shy of 1 WAR spread over two years, even assuming the Reds pick up his option.  Seems like a nice deal to me.

Stats:

Badenhop seemed to make an adjustment in approach with the Rays in 2012, decreasing both his strikeout and walk rates substantially.  This trend has continued in the years since, with an even larger drop in strikeout rate last season with the Reds Sox.  In addition to his superb control, however, what has made him successful is his excellent ground ball rates, which climbed all the way to 61% last season with the Red Sox.  Low walks and lots of ground balls should work well with the Reds' strong infield defense, so I like the signing a lot.

When I posted as much on twitter (albeit with a typo in Badenhop's name!), RJ Anderson sent me the following tweet:

@jinazreds Love him. Smart dude, too. Uses Brooks all the time. Does this awkward walk around between pitches.
— R.J. Anderson (@r_j_anderson) February 8, 2015

Cool, right? Since he looks at Brooks Baseball lets do that too!  First, his pitches (2012-2014):

He throws a sinker, change, and slider.  There are a grand total of 7 fourseam fastballs on his record in the past three years, and you can see they do cluster away from his sinkers in spin axis.  Here is his actual pitch usage:

So, we're looking at 75% sinkers, with a small number of sliders and change-ups mixed in.  He seemed to experiment with adding more sliders in 2013, and then seemed to almost abandon it in favor of his change-up last year.  As you'd expect, he throws more change-ups against lefties, and last year almost threw as many change-ups to lefties as his sinker!

Finally, one last thing.  As expected, given the decrease in his walk rates, we're seeing a general increase in his tendency to locate pitches in the strike zone over the past three years compared to the years before:

Summary Opinion 

While it's great when you can have strikeouts, I think ground ball, low walk rate pitchers should be a good match for the Reds' defense and park.  Badenhop looks like a great pitcher to come in against a right-hander with a man on first to induce a double play.  He's immediately in the running for second-best Reds' reliever, and should be a nice setup guy for us this season.  I'd think he's a good bet to be worth ~1 WAR per season in value, which is a lot less than the Reds are paying him.  Even at 32 years old, I like this signing a lot.

Belated Transactions: Reds trade Simon for Much More Than Bag of Balls

Just before I departed France to return to the States, the Reds made two major trades representing (as Scott put it on a recent Red Reporter podcast) 40% of their starting rotation.  Things were too crazy in my life to write about it at the time, but I wanted to comment a little bit on these two moves.  We'll take Simon tonight, and save Latos for another day.

Alfredo Simon was acquired as a last-minute waiver-wire pickup in 2012 just before opening day, forcing Todd Frazier back to the minors for a week or so to make room on the 25-man roster.  While he'd bounced between the rotation and bullpen, with unimpressive results, for the Orioles in prior seasons, the Reds put him squarely into a bullpen role and got surprisingly good results.  Stats:

In this two seasons in the bullpen, Simon was steady and solid.  He didn't put up peripherals that were completely out of character for his history, but it was as if he figured out how to pull together his best strikeout, walk, and ground ball rate numbers together.

In 2014, missing Mat Latos to start the season, the Reds turned to Simon as their #5 starter.  Surprisingly, he put together an extremely good first-half, albeit one that seemed highly unlikely to continue.  Predictably, he started to regress in the second half, and while he still posted solid enough season totals, I saw little reason to think he was likely to be anything like a solid starter in 2015.  Really, just about all of the warning signs are there.  ERA estimators worse than ERA?  Check.  Below-career average BABIP?  Check.  Declining strikeout rate?  Check.  Entering mid-30's?  Check.  Much, much higher inning totals than prior season or ever before?  Check.  Bad second half?  Check.  Awful projections?  Check: Steamer says 4.92 ERA next year.  

I'd hoped the Reds would trade him at the all-star break, and figured that any value he might have built in the first half would have vanished.  On top of all that, there are off-field rape accusations.  While I tried to stay neutral to that while the legal process played out, I honestly got squeamish every time I saw him take the mound last year...and I know I'm not the only one.

And yet, somehow, the Reds managed to trade him to the Detroit Tigers for a pair of players who have both have some legitimate value: Eugenio Suarez and Jonathan Crawford.  Wow.

Eugenio Suarez, 23-year old RHB SS

Suarez got just shy of half of the Tigers' starts at shortstop last year, and acquitted himself pretty well in his rookie season.  The wrap on him coming up was that he was a good defender with some range limitation, and a decent bat except that he was prone to striking out.  That matches up well to his numbers: UZR, DRS, and the Fan Scouting Report all rate him around average or a tad below-average at shortstop.  He didn't hit a lot, but walked at a decent enough clip to get on base at about a league-average rate.  Overall, he earned 0.7 WAR, which extrapolates out to around 1.5 WAR in a full season of work.  His Steamer projection isn't quite so rosy for this season, but if nothing else he looks like a solid utility infielder who can handle all of the infield positions.

As soon as he was acquired, questions started rumbling about whether Zack Cozart was on his way out the door.  After all, he's just reaching arbitration for the first time ($2.35 M in 2015), and wOBA'd a pathetic 0.254 last season thanks, at least in part, to his absolute refusal to walk (4.6 BB% for his career) and evaporating power (0.079 ISO last year).  It sounds like the job is still Cozart's, but I don't have a problem with Suarez giving him some competition in spring training.

Jonathon Crawford, 23-year old RHP

Crawford was the Tigers' 2013 first-round draft pick, so last year was his first full season of play.  It wasn't a great campaign, but wasn't a complete disaster either.  Certainly, his strikeout rates and walk rates both leave a bit to be desired (and see Doug's comments here).  Furthermore, from what I've gathered, the scouting community wasn't particularly impressed with him either.  And yet, he nevertheless held his own in full-season High-A ball.  He's reportedly something of a ground-ball specialist, which makes one hope that there's something to his superb 2014 home run rate.  In 2013, he was throwing 93-96 mph, though Doug reported low-90's.  And he has pedigree: recent first-rounder, and ranked as the #4 Tigers prospect entering last season at FanGraphs.  One thing that I've learned time and time again is to never discount the ability of talented players to make major strides forward when given the opportunity.

Honestly, getting either of these guys for Simon would seem like a good deal to me.  Neither is top-shelf talent (though Crawford arguably was recently), but each has some value.  And I'm honestly not sure that Simon will be much better than replacement this year.  That the Reds were able to turn him into these two prospects seems like a major coup to me.  This was easily the Reds' best deal of the offseason.