Category: General

Season 23 – Batting

Just like the pitching rankings, here is the batter rankings. This is just based on a team’s average hitting ability, with no fielding ratings taken into account because of the effect actual position played has on whether a player is a good fielder or not. It’s one thing to have 80/80/80/80 at SS, but entirely different to have that player at 3b.

Vin Scully Season 23 Batters

 

Minnesota and Washington should fall back to the pack once they fill out their rosters.

I forgot which formula I based the overall number off of, whether it was OBP, SLG, or OPS, but knowing my mindset when I created it last year, it’s probably OPS.

So now we know the relative strengths of each team’s starting rotation, bullpen, and hitters, which leads me into me next blog post…

Vin Scully Season 23 Pitching

Like last year, I’ve got the opening day ratings for both starting rotations and bullpens as way to kind of develop the preseason power rankings, if you will.

The first picture is the starting rotation rankings for season 23. It goes: Team Acronym; Total WAR projection; # of Pitchers; Average WAR Rating for Staff; Average Overall Rating for Staff.

Vin Scully Season 23 Starting Pitchers

The average overall rating is essentially out of 100. I have a fairly reliable rating weight system. I take each rating, multiply it by the weight, and then divide by the maximum score to get a number out of 100. The WAR rating is similar, but made up of aggregate projections for innings pitched, strikeouts, homeruns and walks, and as such isn’t as reliable in my opinion than the straight up overall.

I have five “tiers” of pitchers based on the overall number:

  • 100-78 I would consider an “elite” starter, of which there are 11 in the league right now.
  • 77-75 are solid, borderline elites, of which there are 14. These guys would be #2’s on playoff teams, or aces on non-competing teams.
  • 74-71 are your 2-3 starters. I see 38 total.
  • 71-68 are your 3-4 guys. There are 34.
  • 67 and under are back of the rotation pitchers/AAA guys. Playoff teams won’t have these guys typically. 63 total.

Yes, by my rating scheme there aren’t enough pitchers 65 and higher for every team to fill out a five man rotation. How I came up with these is I dumped something like 2000 starting pitchers from a number of different worlds into a spreadsheet, applied the formula to them and took the four quartiles to what came out (or something like that, it’s been like two years since I did this, so the memory is a little fuzzy. I believe the top two tiers were split up at one point, which is why there are five total tiers).

For what it’s worth, there is one ace at AA, one tier two pitcher at AAA, three tier three pitchers at AAA, and 19 tier three/four pitchers at AAA. As far as free agents go, they are pretty well picked over at this point, but anyone looking to say, I don’t know, not tank, there are three tier four guys out there.

The relief rankings follow pretty much the same formula as the starters.

Vin Scully Season 23 Bullpen

The WAR numbers are going to be a off just because it’s based on the number of innings pitched, and with relievers it’s a crapshoot for how other managers handle their bullpen settings.

So draw your own conclusions from this data. I already know what I’m thinking.

Season 23 – Free Agency Part Two

I see my predictions that Les Buchanan would sign soon were fairly accurate as he signed with Hartford the next cycle. Hartford also signed Lonny Allen and Benji Diaz to one year deals.

Still no Torrealba sighting, but there is no more “bidding” to be done, as multiple teams have max contracts out to him, so it’s all a crapshoot at this point.

Surprisingly New York has yet to make a free agent signing this year as he’s about $8 or $9 million from his cap right now.

After getting called out on the world chat, Chase Fassero signs the next cycle for Colorado.

Julio Sosa will call Baltimore home for the next three years.

I picked up Albert Sojo on a two year deal to cover my long relief role, and provide some extra starting pitcher depth if a guy in my rotation goes down. I probably could’ve waited a couple more cycles and got him cheaper, though I did have him as the 8th best SP this FA cycle.

Former Timberwolf Brant Wulf moves to Little Rock after a very productive season in Richmond.

Outside of Torrealba there aren’t too many “impact” bats left out there. Don’t get me wrong, there are some very productive guys left, but nothing game changing.

As far as pitchers go, Doug Stern, and Sal Veres are probably the best two left.

Also I might start a “Tanking Watch” section to the blog as Kansas City hasn’t signed a player other than to a minor league deal at this point.

Season 23 – Free Agency

I haven’t been as active on updating the blog this season, and for that I apologize.

Here’s a quick run down of the off season acquisitions so far.

Gabby Ducey comes over the the National League to join Little Rock on a 5yr/$73.9 million deal. I was in the bidding on him, but I was only willing to do 5yrs at $12.5 million per with a $8-9 million bonus this year. They also lock up perennial gold glove catcher D'Angelo Alberro for five years.

Both Alex Zhou and Maverick Buss are staying in Austin for the next couple of years. I’ve sang the praises of Zhou before, and I will continue to until he’s a HOF. The guy is far and away the league leader for career WAR.

Armando Melendez stays in the American League, but switches to the southern division as he joins San Juan. He’s probably no longer suited for duty behind the plate, but his bat is still potent.

Another Hartford loss as Alexi Balentien moves over to Scottsdale on a very reasonable 3yr/$15 million deal.

Baltimore, formerly Dover, holds onto Michael Myers.

Somehow Hartford gets Angel Wilfredo on a one year deal.

Jacksonville cuts lose Fritz Purcell allowing Syracuse to pick him up.

I signed Jerry Whitman to replace Benji Diaz at 1B. I also brought in Kazuo Lee to play CF, which his range should make him a good candidate for gold glove, though his arm probably isn’t up to snuff. Oh well, he’ll play a better CF than Jimmie Velazquez would’ve. Though all I want him to do is walk and get on base.

After an off year, Sean Shave moves to Jacksonville. Like Melendez, he’s probably not going to be even an average catcher anymore, but he’ll do in a pinch.

Jackson signed Greg Blake, probably to replace Shave. His bat isn’t as good as Shave’s, but he definitely a better fielder.

Our fearless commish signed Pablo Mateo for four years.

Switching over to starting pitchers real quick before I sign off for the night:

I’m happy that Willie Rooney is out of my division, as he’s playing in Salem now.

After being abused in Los Angeles last season, Melky Serra moves over to Jackson. They also pick up Matty Owen, and Miguel Ayala. If I had to guess who will have the most improved pitching staff without really looking too hard, my guess would have to be on Jackson.

Another Hartford loss, Kevin Lennon is now playing in Syracuse. Lennon looks oddly like Jody DuBose if you ask me.

Another pitcher out of my division, Pedro Mercedes is now playing in Sacramento, who is in the AL West.

Hartford is able to stem the loss of Lennon with Santos Henriquez on a one year deal.

Al Lee signs for New Orleans.

And that’s where I’ll leave it at. I’ll try to post something tomorrow.

Look for Ewell Torrealba, and Les Buchanan in future updates.

Vin Scully – Season 22 – Full Season

I’ve got the final numbers for season 22.

We’ll just get the easy one out of the way as we all know Malcolm McCartin is going to win the NL Cy Young Award. This year he’s been worth four wins more than the next closest pitcher in the league, which is surprising because he’s in frickin Colorado of all places.

In the AL, Mike Lawrie ended up pulling away in the last quarter to take the crown in terms of WAR. We’ll see how the votes fall.

NL MVP should go to Sid O'Keefe at 8.6. The next two closest people in the NL were Richard Flores at 6.4 and Jordy Mitchell at 6.2.

Despite not making it to the playoffs, the AL MVP should go to Max Daniels at 8.1. Ewell Torrealba and Giovanni Boyd were at 7.2 and 7.1 respectively.

AL ROY should go to Phillip Harris with 4.3 while NL ROY is a tie between Al Javier and Rob Watson at 3.6.

I’ll have the LC’s Golden Gloves here in a day or so.

The full spreadsheet for both pitchers and batters can be found here.

Season 22 – Third Quarter – Power Rankings

Rather than write out the power rankings, I figured it’d just be easier to post the screenshot from the spreadsheet.

I’m debating whether or not to separate the rankings into AL and NL. Thoughts? My thinking is because the AL has the DH, they have a distinct advantage when it comes to wRAA numbers. Any DH worth his spot is able to overcome the 19 fielding runs they get penalized for being a DH. On the flip side, a pitcher in the NL gets penalized because they have to bat. I’ve seen some pitchers over the course of a season “cost” their team an entire win because of their hitting.

On the flip side, NL pitchers have it a lot easier, and compared to their AL counterparts, have better numbers because they don’t face a DH.

It shouldn’t be a surprise to see that five of the top six teams in pitching are NL teams, while the top six hitting teams are in the AL.

Anyway, mull it over, let me know what you think. I didn’t separate them this time, though the NL teams are highlighted blue.

Q3 Power

Season 22 – Third Quarter WAR

I’m not going to bother writing up something short on what the third quarter pitching WAR numbers are, as I basically laid it all out in the little chat message. McCartin is the clear favorite in the NL, with Lawrie, Oliva and Bourchard fighting it out in the AL. If I had to bet, I’d bet on Bourchard was his BABIP is near .300, and the other two are well under .300. I’d expect them to fall back a little, but hey, who knows.

As far as batter WAR figures, in the AL it’s a close race between Giovanni Boyd, and Ewell Torrealba. Interesting enough, neither are playing on a team that looks like they’re going to make it to the playoffs.

To find that player, you’d have to go down to Dennis Park with Little Rock, who is definitely overplaying his ratings offensively.

In the NL, clearly Sid O'Keefe is the favorite for NL MVP in my opinion.

The full spreadsheet can be found here.

Season 22 – Quarter Two – Malcolm McCartin Update

As you probably noticed from the spreadsheet I posted with the batter data, McCartin is absolutely dominating National League hitters this year. Even by his own standards what he is doing is absurd this year. The closest pitcher, Pep Zimmerman, is nearly two whole wins behind McCartin at the halfway point. Assuming he keeps up this pace for the rest of the year, and his .259 BABIP suggests a regression back to the mean, he’s on pace for a WAR over 10.

I haven’t gotten around to dumping all the previous season’s pitcher data into my WAR sheet, but I’ve been able to grab all the batter data, and a 10 WAR has only been done three times; Twice in season two, when the engine was a little “tardish’ and once in season 19, when Alex Zhou put up a 10.03 WAR.

Sidenote: Speaking of Zhou, he has the highest career WAR total of any batter in Vin Scully, active or retired, at 103. Who’s second on the list, you ask? Well that would be Luke McFeely at 85.2. I think it’s safe to say both should be in the hall of fame soon.

Back to assessing season 22 pitchers. The American League things are a little closer, with Lawrence Busby, and Olmedo Oliva tied at 3.6. However, there are four pitchers within half a run of those two in the AL: Ossie Borchard, Albert Granados, Mike Lawrie, and Pasqual Elcano. Of those four, I expect Granados to fall back a little, as his .250 BABIP suggests he’s over-performing a little.

I would do worst pitchers so far, but we all know that they consist of a bunch of Los Angeles players. So there really is no need.

To view the complete sheet, the link can be found here.