A Unique Set of Skills

On February 23, 2016 By

Relief pitchers are weird. Wait, that’s unfair. I’m sure most of them are normal in so far as professional athletes are concerned. But analyzing them is weird. There are so many variables to account for that it’s really difficult to do them justice. Which part of the lineup are they facing? What’s the leverage of the situations they’re placed in? …

Continue Reading →

If Things Go Wrong

On February 22, 2016 By

After a tour around the 70th percentile projections for D-backs players earlier this week and scaling them back to get them to the right playing time levels, we saw between 13 and 14 wins of “reasonably optimistic” room over and above the PECOTA-based projection of 78 wins this year from Baseball Prospectus. But what about the other direction? Is it …

Continue Reading →

Double Plus: More Chip Hale Looks Like a Good Thing

On February 19, 2016 By

Perhaps you missed the big news. One can easily see why. The internet has been full of amazing pictures of catchers squatting, pitchers tossing, position players working out and everyone stretching. So much stretching. But buried in there was a little announcement that Diamondbacks skipper Chip Hale has been extended through the 2017 season. The team held an option for …

Continue Reading →

If Things Go Right: D-backs Position Players

On February 18, 2016 By

Yesterday, we tried looking to the recently-released PECOTA projections from Baseball Prospectus a different way: using them to come up with a “reasonably optimistic” best case scenario for the D-backs this season. The PECOTA projections we see are a “weighted mean” of a range of outcomes the system can foresee for particular players, with projections in 10 percentile increments, all …

Continue Reading →

If Things Go Right: D-backs Pitchers

On February 17, 2016 By

We have a full magazine of projections, now, with Baseball Prospectus publishing their PECOTA numbers earlier this week. It’s a lot to look at all at once, and it’s far from gospel — the projections all seem to be strangely low on A.J. Pollock, for example. One of the great features of PECOTA, however, is that in addition to …

Continue Reading →

Projections Still Don’t Like A.J. Pollock, and That’s Okay

On February 16, 2016 By

A year ago, I got it. I understood the reasons to slow-play A.J. Pollock. Now I don’t. Or, maybe I do. Let’s see…

Pollock had come up in 2013 and was kind of decent. Make no mistake, he didn’t light the world on fire with his .269/.332/.409 line but it was his first full season in the majors and …

Continue Reading →

Introducing the New Shelby Miller

On February 15, 2016 By

Baseball is a game of adjustments. We often attribute this adage to hitters but it applies to pitchers, too. Get too reliant on one pitch and hitters will sit on it. Can’t locate your fastball? Batters will take until they see a fat one. Can’t locate your secondaries? Batters will let them pass and sit dead-red on fastballs. Any type …

Continue Reading →

Double Plus: On David Peralta, Yasmany Tomas Swapping Positions

On February 12, 2016 By

If you were ever relegated to right field in little league, you might not think of it as a premium skill position. Still, the number of left-handed hitters in the majors neutralizes the difference in fielded balls between right and left. Last year, right fielders made 9,416 plays for outs, and left fielders 8,644. That’s about 9% more plays, and …

Continue Reading →

Double Plus: What To Do With Archie Bradley?

On February 12, 2016 By

While Ryan and I were talking on the latest episode of The Pool Shot, it dawned on me that one of the biggest roster question marks heading into Spring Training was the battle for the 5th starter spot. I’m not the quickest learner, apparently. Considering where we were a year ago as The Grand D-backs Experiment was underway, it’s …

Continue Reading →

Contention Window Exit Strategies

On February 11, 2016 By

Not-breaking news: the D-backs have lined up a Contention Window by leaning into Paul Goldschmidt‘s prime and performance likely to remain above average from A.J. Pollock, David Peralta and Patrick Corbin, among others. The Window probably has an expiration date, as the only players one could still consider prospects who remain in the fold might be Braden …

Continue Reading →

D-backs Relief Pitcher Arsenal Scores

On February 10, 2016 By

On Tuesday I previewed arsenal scores, a metric created by Eno Sarris at RotoGraphs. The idea is simple: evaluate each pitcher’s pitches based on swinging strikes (good) and ground balls (also good). Sarris was kind enough to share his data with Inside the ‘Zona I’ve used it already to showcase D-backs starting pitchers. Now it’s time to highlight the …

Continue Reading →

D-backs Starting Pitcher Arsenal Scores

On February 9, 2016 By

Analytics allow you do some really fun things. You can slice and dice numbers to create new ways of evaluating players that, frankly, weren’t possible just five years ago. One such metric, and one that I’m a big fan of, is the arsenal score. Eno Sarris has been rolling these out over at RotoGraphs for a few seasons now (his …

Continue Reading →

Tyler Clippard Signing Means Higher 2016 Ceiling, Narrower Margin of Error

On February 8, 2016 By

Early this morning, Nick Piecoro wrote at AZCentral.com that the D-backs and bullpen righty Tyler Clippard were making progress on a contract. This afternoon, Clippard and the D-backs ironed out a two-year pact that will pay Clippard a total of $12.25M. The D-backs had long been looking for a bullpen addition, and to that extent, this deal shouldn’t be a …

Continue Reading →

Double Plus: A New Diamondbacks Top 10 Prospects

On February 5, 2016 By

It’s February now and baseball is coming. It seems like a long time ago that we were stuck in the dead zone of baseball past, back when the only thing to do was talk about prospects. Then there were trades. Players have left the organization at a rate that’s frankly shocking. Even with a win-now mentality, no one wants to …

Continue Reading →

Double Plus: The Deferred Money Cycle Begins Again

On February 5, 2016 By

Depending on how you look at it, the D-backs will only pay substantially over the major league minimum for sixteen players in 2016. One of them is Bernard Gilkey — and his is not even the lowest figure. The way things stand, the D-backs payroll is not very top heavy, despite the large commitment to Zack Greinke; the second-highest …

Continue Reading →

What Does a Top of the Order Hitter Look Like?

On February 4, 2016 By

Right off the bat, I should say that this post was clearly spurned by the recent trade that sent five players packing bags and heading to either Arizona or Milwaukee. I’ve never been to Milwaukee, but I get the feeling that I’d rather head to Arizona than Wisconsin in general. Besides, they sell cheese and bad beer everywhere these days. …

Continue Reading →