Angels - Acquire Brad Mills

Los Angeles Angels: Acquired LHP Brad Mills from Toronto for C Jeff Mathis.

Well. It’s the only way I can think of to keep Mike Scioscia from playing Mathis more than his talents objectively merit. Unless of course the move means that Scioscia (who—fair or not—is often viewed as the de facto GM of the Angels) has reconsidered Mathis’ actual value.

Mathis won’t play much in Toronto. He’s arbitration eligible and I doubt the Blue Jays fear going to arbitration with him. The only problem from ...

Royal - Sign Broxton

Kansas City Royals sign reliever Jonathan Broxton to a 1 year/$4 million contract (with $1 million in bonuses based on appearances—sorry no details)

It’s an interesting signing for a couple of reasons. Not that he had a great deal of choice as to the general nature of the contract, but it’s a sensible choice for Broxton. If he’s back to something approaching the form of 2006-2009 (always possible though I’d bet against it. The history of pure power pitchers in their early 30s coming off major ...

2012 ZiPS Projections - San Francisco Giants

While the inclusion of Carlos Beltran and to a lesser extent, Cody Ross, makes the offense look better than it is, it’s not really quite as bad as finishing last in the NL would have you

believe.  There’s solid front-line talent, mostly under 30 (practically a toddler by Sabean years) and the biggest problem was getting that talent to stay on the field.  Thanks to injuries

to the team’s two best players, one serious (Posey) and one annoying (Sandoval) and the Ghost of Outfielders Past ...

2012 ZiPS Projections - Seattle Mariners

The 2011 season for the Mariners was less disappointing than 2010, though mostly because the expectations were significantly lower going into this year.  The Mariners didn’t have a whole

lot in the way of pleasant surprises as none of the possible bouncebacks really bounced back and most of the legacy prospects (the older prospects that have been hanging onto the second

tier on the prospect lists for a few years) didn’t take any steps forward.  That Vincent Catricala, who’s not really a ...

2012 ZiPS Projections - Los Angeles Angels

Like the last team projected (White Sox), it’s very interesting to see what route the White Sox take this winter.  Despite ZiPS’ favoritest young prospect, Mike Trout, the Angels have a

pretty low upside offense, with Hunter and Abreu starting to show their age and a lot of average-ish players that aren’t problems, but not exactly feared middle-of-the-order guys.  The

Angels think they have surplus outfielders, but they really don’t.  The Angels led the AL in ERA, but that’s also top-heavy ...

2012 ZiPS Projections - Chicago White Sox

That didn’t go too well, did it?  The White Sox find themselves at a crossroads, where they have just enough talent on the team to compete in the AL Central, but not enough depth that they

can really handle nasty surprises.  In 2011, the performances of Adam Dunn and Alex Rios and the continued lack of value from Jake Peavy (the Sox have paid him roughly $34 million for 3.6

bWAR) hit the White Sox hard enough that problems that the team could have overcome in isolation (growing pains from ...

Dodgers - Signed Mark Ellis

Los Angles Dodgers sign 2B Mark Ellis to a 2 year $8.75 million contract (team option for a third year at $5.75 with a $1 million buyout)

I’m never going to love the signing of an aging mid-tier player. Particularly not one with plenty of problems staying in the lineup. Still, it’s a move that makes all kinds of sense. First of all, the best option in the organization seems to have been Ivan DeJesus. He had a good year by his standards in AAA last year and it translates to .246/.314/.322. ...

Phillies - Signed Jonathan Papelbon

Philadelphia Phillies sign DSA Jonathan Papelbon to a four year/ $50 million contract Fifth year vests based on games finished.

Forgive the delay, but I wasn’t sure whether I’d have to substitute Heath Bell. Or Hoyt Wilhelm. The writeup would be slightly different in each case.

It’s an argument that I have no chance of winning, but some windmills need to be tilted at. I’m referring to the DSA. Stands for Designated Save Accumulator. I’ve said many times that you are volunteering to pay a ...

2011 ZiPS Minor League Translations Final

No complaints, so I’m upgrading it to “final” status.  If you’ve already downloaded it, you don’t need to again.

New URL for the CSVs

Pitchers

Hitters

As a reminder, these are translations, not projections and subject to the same pitfalls as any seasonal line is.

Any errors, omissions, or other questions, feel free to ask.

For those that don’t remember, I have two flavors, one with no $H regression and one with mild $H regression.  I post the latter one as people have found it more useful for ...

2012 ZiPS Projections - Detroit Tigers

The Tigers aren’t really a 95-win team - there are a lot more players likely to have worse seasons than better in 2012 - but while the Tigers would have an issue repeating in the AL East,

there aren’t any teams in the AL Central that are all that scary.  The team’s top-heavy and has some depth issues that need to be taken care of prior to the season as they can’t simply

enter another season with Brandon Inge at 3rd and Ryan Raburn is a Plan B or C starter, not a Plan A one.

Another starter ...

Royals - Acquired Sanchez

Kansas City Royals - Acquired P Jonathan Sanchez and P Ryan Verdugo from the San Francisco Giants for OF Melky Cabrera.

I count many Giant fans as friends. I can’t imagine that any of them are happy at the moment. If the name Aaron Rowand doesn’t come up in discussing this trade I’d be shocked.

Strictly on the basis of play in 2011 the Giants get the better of this deal, but that’s a silly basis to make the deal. Cabrera is young enough that his excellent play last year could be a new talent ...

Phillies Sign Thome

Philadelphia Phillies sign 1B/DH/PH/3B (I kid) to a one year/ $1.25 million contract.

I’m slightly surprised that he’s coming back.That last appearance for the Indians at third base seemed like such a nice ending to one heck of a ride.

But the man can still hit and I’d much rather have Thome as Ryan Howard insurance, DH in the AL games (and if all goes according to plan, the World Series) and primary pinch-hitter than Ross Gload for instance.  Yes, Thome comes with issues. Can he still handle ...

Diamondbacks - Signed Blanco

Arizona Diamondbacks - Signed C Henry Blanco to a $1.2 million contract with a 2013 mutual option for $1.24 million.

I’m not sure that the re-signing of a 40 year old backup catcher to a
one year deal merits comment. In general that is.

First of all, Blanco played pretty well last year (.250/.330/.540—
yes, Voros’ Law applies of course. We are talking 112 plate
appearances) and he’s put up an 89 OPS+ over his last 616 plate
appearances—and was very good against the running game (46% caught ...

Dodgers - Re-signed Juan Rivera

Los Angeles Dodgers - Signed OF Juan Rivera to a 1-year, $4.5 million contract with club option for 1-year, $3.5 million.

This is a signing that makes me want to take a paint tutorial (Billy is pretty loyal to the Royals though and might not be available). Words will have to be enough.

Honestly though this isn’t an objectively terrible signing. I can’t readily identify 60 better corner outfielders, so he’s (arguably) playing on merit. He isn’t horrendously overpaid and there’s no long-term ...

2012 ZIPS Projections - New York Mets

Obviously not a great year for the Mets at 77-85, but if you just went by the tenor of the media reports, thanks to the Wilpon/Madoff turmoil, you’d think the Mets played like the 1993

edition that went 59-103.  The team spent most of the year, playing “sort of OK-ish” and while never really in any kind of risk of being relevant, weren’t Astrotastic horrible.

The pitching staff is interesting in that while it was one of the worst in the league (the 89 ERA+ was 15th of 16 teams in the National ...

Yankees - Signed Sabathia

New York Yankees - Signed P C.C. Sabathia to a 6-year, $142 million contract.

Well that was something of a letdown. I think most of us were poised
for a lot of posturing and a lengthy negotiation that in the end would
see CC re-signing with the Yankees.

Did he leave anything on the table either in terms of length of
contract or dollar per year? Could be, but I’m skeptical that he left
a lot. In effect he signed for 5 years at $117 million (but with a
potential $5 million buyout at the end) and ...

Indians - Acquired Lowe

Cleveland Indians - Acquired P Derek Lowe from the Atlanta Braves for P Chris Jones

It’s not exactly news that Lowe was surplus to requirements in
Atlanta. His health record has been exceptional – rarely missing a
turn since becoming a starter a decade ago.

The problem is that he’s 3 years removed from being an impact player.
His upside is probably league average and I’d be more than a little
surprised if he’s that good. 39 year old pitchers in a decline phase
are not what you’d call good ...

2012 ZiPS Projections - Philadelphia Phillies

Not a whole lot of surprises here.  A ton of hitters that played in the organization get projected this year, mostly because the team employed a massive number of semi-familiar names this

year.  Brent Clevlen!  Rich Thompson!  Tagg Bozied!  A lot of the minors looked a bit like the 2004 waiver wire in your fantasy baseball league.

The starting pitching made up for a lot of sins in the form of an overrated offense and should continue to do so, even if they can’t bring Roy Oswalt back at a ...

2012 ZiPS Projections - Chicago Cubs

Epstein!  That’s pretty much the big news in Cubs baseball the last month.  It’s still hard to tell what direction exactly Epstein will take the Cubs, but it’s likely that the list of

players employed by the Cubs in 2012 will look very different than the list of players below.  Epstein wasn’t brought in with giant sacks full of money in order to politely churn Jim

Hendry’s assemblage of awesomeness.

On the plus side, the Cubs aren’t really as decrepit a team to rebuild as the Houston Astros ...

2012 ZiPS Projections - Boston Red Sox

Despite the September collapse, the Red Sox managed to still win 90 games, but the collapse is what will be remembered about this team in the year 2050.  Hopefully, as we listen to baseball

games in our rocket cars or watch with our virtual reality Ballparksperience contraptions.  Still, what it came down didn’t really have much to do with beer drinking in the clubhouse

(drinking beer and playing video games seemed to work just fine for the 5/6th of a season during which the team was one of ...

Frank McCourt Bankruptcy Plan

With so many interest in parties, keeping track of who owes who what is a monumental task.  To make things simple, I’ve made a quick diagram that sums up Frank McCourt’s proposal to the bankruptcy court.

Transaction Oracle, the Future

As most of you probably ought to know by now, I’ve been contributing regularly to ESPN.com for about a year and a half.  As such, a lot of the transaction analysis stuff that went on in this area has gone by the wayside, simply because I’ve done a lot of articles for ESPN that involve player signings and trades.  While I don’t write up every trade for ESPN, I do enough that to oraculate about the rest here would tend to leave this blog unsatisfyingly fragmented.  After all, what good’s a ...

2012 ZiPS Projections - New York Yankees

And heeeeeeeere come the pretzels!

Just a reminder, that I’m going in reverse from last year.  Starting next year, I’m going to randomly draw for order.

ZiPS is rather grumpy again about the Yankee starting pitching.  Banuelos and Betances still have a lot of upside, but ZiPS is suspicious about them immediately making an impact in the rotation, given that they both walked way too many batters in AA.  The good news for Yankees fans, of course, is that the team has an open wallet and is likely ...

2011 ZiPS Minor League Translations 0.9

Archive with files .xlsx and .csv can be found here.  I’m calling this 0.9 for now as there are usually some errors to massage out, sometimes big ones I overlooked.

As a reminder, these are translations, not projections and subject to the same pitfalls as any seasonal line is.

Any errors, omissions, or other questions, feel free to ask.

For those that don’t remember, I have two flavors, one with no $H regression and one with mild $H regression.  I post the latter one as people have found it ...

2011 Minor League Park Multipliers

As usual, the raw data for these would be a complete pain to accumulate without the scripting wizardry of Jeff Sackmann.  Jeff runs College Splits, GMAT Hacks and has a weekly column on college baseball on ESPN Insider during the season.  Jeff also has a tennis sabermetrics blog, Heavy Topspin.  So make sure to support Jeff, or else I’ll have to put the information together myseful, resulting in a gigantic headache and me retaliating on the community with random beatings and pessimistic ...

Saying Goodbye to Flanny

I never got to meet Mike Flanagan.  I have no stories about Flanagan, no interesting anecdotes about him, just the lingering emotional attachment that comes with rooting for a sports team when you’re a little kid.  I was born in 1978, so I was too young to remember Mike Flanagan at his best as a pitcher.  But he was a part of the first sports team I was old enough to follow over the course of an entire season, the 1983 Orioles.  It was a pretty good year to become a fan, this being the last ...

ESPN: Szymborski: Cheap relief key for Bucs and Tribe (INSIDER)

While they’re not among the best teams in baseball, you’ll be hard-pressed to find fans of the Cleveland Indians or Pittsburgh Pirates who are disappointed with how the season has gone so far. Neither club was expected to be serious contenders yet now find themselves in striking distance of a trip to the playoffs.

Other than being rebuilding franchises, one thing both have in common is that they have put together inexpensive, overachieving bullpens that have done a lot of fuel their teams’ ...