Some weeks, there are major developments in the business of baseball — like a team signing a new local TV contract. Some weeks, there are little developments on the big developments. My posts tend to focus on the big developments, but that leaves you in the dark on the little developments, unless those little developments become big developments down the road.

Dollars & Sense keeps you up to date on the smaller stories that are important but may not justify a separate post. Today, we have news on attendance through the first quarter of the seasons and expanded in replay in 2014.

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With J.J. Putz‘s elbow hurting, the Diamondbacks have turned to Heath Bell in the closer’s role. Tuesday night against Atlanta, Heath Bell converted his fifth save in six last-inning save opportunities in impressive fashion: after the first baserunner reached on an error, Bell struck out Evan Gattis and Dan Uggla swinging before retiring Chris Johnson on a fly ball to center. Wednesday afternoon, Bell added another, as he worked another hitless and walkless inning, including a strikeout of Justin Upton.

Bell’s debut outing with Arizona looked like the beginning to another ugly season, as he allowed three runs on four hits (including two home runs) and managed just one out. Since then, Bell has been brilliant: over 18 appearances (17.2 innings), Bell hasn’t allowed a home run and has recorded 22 strikeouts against just two walks, good for a 3.06 ERA and a stunning 0.87 FIP. These two saves against Atlanta featured the drivers behind Bell’s success: impeccable fastball control, and the willing to go to it whenever he needs a strike.

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Entering the spring, Gerardo Parra was once again a man without a home. After a starting a career-high 124 times in 2011, and doing so handily, Parra shifted back into part-time status in 2012. But with Adam Eaton and Cody Ross both suffering injuries before the season began, and Jason Kubel landing on the disabled list with a strained left quad two weeks into it, Parra has once again been seeing regular action. In the process, he has not only acquitted himself well, but also helped hold down the Dbacks offense in the early going.

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Stryker Trahan, Matt Davidson and Chris Owings each flashed plus power for their respective positions at Salt River Fields in Arizona. For Owings, it was a line drive home run to right-center field in his first at bat of the Triple-A game. Davidson just missed barreling an outside fastball, but was still able to drive it to base of the right field wall. Trahan belted multiple shots to left-center field. One resulted in a double while the other ended in a long out.

These in game displays of power were preceded by powerful batting practice sessions full of laser line drives and towering home runs.

If the game of baseball revolved around the power tool, the Diamondbacks would have three of the best prospects in baseball. Of course, hitting ability, speed, defense and arm strength are also factored into the equation. This is where each loses his luster. Read the rest of this entry »

In Arizona, J.D. Sussman and I hit the back fields together to scout talent from the Mariners, Indians, Rockies, Diamondbacks, Rangers and Cubs. Each of us took notes, collected radar gun readings, worked angles and collected the best information we could.

Back from the warm weather, we decided to rank the 10 best prospects we scouted together to highlight differences in opinion and player preference. Scouting is an inexact science. Prospect followers tend to pit opinions of writers against each other, but of course there’s room for dissent and discussion even among friends and colleagues.

Here’s my top-10 of players I liked the most. J.D.’s list will follow in an hour.

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As we explained yesterday in Part 1 of the series, we’re looking at the financial health of all thirty major league teams. The focus is on attendance, local TV contracts, and estimated 2013 payroll. We’re not ranking the teams one to thirty because we lack the kind of detailed information that would make such a ranking meaningful. We do, however, have enough information to paint with broad strokes, so as part of our attempt to give an overview of where each team stands as 2013 begins, we’ll look at their access to monetary resources for the upcoming season.

We’ve grouped the teams in tiers. Today we look at the ten teams in the middle.

In alphabetical order, by team name:

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Due to an unfortunate data error, the numbers in this story did not include park factors upon publication. We have updated the data to include the park factors, and the data you see below is now correct. We apologize for the mistake.

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What’s all this, then? For an explanation of this series, please read the introductory post. As noted in that introduction, the data is a hybrid projection of the ZIPS and Steamer systems with playing time determined through depth charts created by our team of authors. The rankings are based on aggregate projected WAR for each team at a given position.

Third base is a little deeper than it used to be, and only a handful of teams have little to no hope of being productive at the position. The devil is in the details at the hot corner, as there has been very little turnover among the top 20 teams here. Teams that have quality reserves or prospects coming up the pipeline see a bump here, as we’re looking holistically at the position and not just at the nominal starter. This is an important consideration across the diamond, but particularly so at third given how physically demanding the position is. Only six third basemen suited up in 150 or more games last year. Compare that to 13 at second base and 11 at first base and shortstop, and it becomes clear that depth is important at third base. Unfortunately, most teams don’t have adequate depth, hence the bump for the teams that do.

Let’s get on to the rankings!

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When I originally published my findings around CLIFFORD — my metric for predicting players that are at a higher risk of experiencing a collapse in their wOBA (defined as a drop of at least .30 points of wOBA) — I presented a limited number of players for 2013. The list only included six players that qualified under the criteria. As a reminder, players that experienced a significant decline in three out of four metrics (Z-Contact%, FA%, UBR, Spd) were tagged as CLIFFORD candidates. These players had 3.4 times the odds of collapse (53% versus 25% for non-CLIFFORD players).

The single largest driver of collapse was change in Z-Contact% — the percent of pitches in the strike zone that a batter swings and makes contact with. Hitters who saw their Z-Contact% decline by at least 1.4% had 1.68 times the odds of collapsing than those that did not experience such a decline. Since there were far more players that qualified with their Z-Contact% than the full CLIFFORD criteria I thought it would be helpful to share that data with everyone.

Behold!

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The Arizona Diamondbacks outfield roulette continued today, as they announced they’d shipped a pair of low level minor leaguers to Chicago in exchange for Tony Campana. Yes, the Diamondbacks just traded for another outfielder, despite the fact that their OF is already one of the most crowded in baseball. With Adam Eaton and Gerardo Parra in the fold, it doesn’t seem entirely clear why Kevin Towers felt that the organization needed another speed-and-defense center fielder.

What is clear, though, is that Campana can help a big league team even though he can’t hit. In fact, Campana might be one of the most interesting bench players in baseball.

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The last time Brandon Webb pitched in the major leagues was Opening Day 2009, as the Diamondbacks hosted the Rockies on April 6. Webb lasted four innings, and via Brooks Baseball, here’s what his velocity chart looked like:

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For at least three franchises, this offseason could have taken a very different path. When Justin Upton vetoed a trade to the Mariners, he altered the direction of Seattle, Arizona and Atlanta, at the very least. Such negated transactions make for fascinating what-if’s, and now that we are edging into the time of year when all we will read is “best shape of my career” posts, I thought we could step back and take a look at some of these.

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When the Diamondbacks traded Justin Upton to Atlanta last week, the reaction was mostly negative, and was mostly centered around the idea that Arizona traded three years of a young star for a one year rental and some marginal prospects. However, from Arizona’s perspective, they weren’t acquiring one year of Martin Prado; they were acquiring the rights to sign Martin Prado to a long term contract, and they just announced that they’ve done just that.

The four year deal is worth $40 million, according to Ken Rosenthal, and will cover his final season of arbitration eligibility and three years of free agency. He was already set to make approximately $7 million in 2013 — he had asked for $7.05 million, while Atlanta had countered at $6.65 million — so this can essentially be seen as a three year, $33 million extension that covers 2014 through 2016.

Considering what other similar players got in free agency this winter, 3/33 for Prado has a pretty good chance of working out decently for Arizona.

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Last week, the Diamondbacks traded Justin Upton to the Braves for Martin Prado and a collection of unexciting prospects. The trade was not particularly well received, and the response didn’t get any more positive in the aftermath, as members of the Diamondbacks organization explained that Upton’s personality wasn’t really what they were looking for.

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“Personally, I like contact hitters. I like guys that have good pitch recognition. Strikeouts are part of the game, but if you have four or five or six guys in your lineup, it’s hard to sustain any sort of rally.”

Those were among Kevin Towers’s first official words as Arizona’s general manager. His actions have, more or less, backed up the philosophy espoused therein. He inherited a team that finished with an atrocious 24.7 percent strikeout rate in 2010. His first moves saw Mark Reynolds traded and Adam LaRoche dismissed to free agency. As 2011 progressed, Kelly Johnson and his 27 percent strikeout rate was dealt to the Blue Jays for Aaron Hill and his 13 percent strikeout rate.

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Earlier in the week, I discussed the type of prospect package the Diamondbacks would require from the Atlanta Braves for a deal to make sense for both franchises. Little did I know the Braves would be willing to part with Martin Prado, a lynchpin of the organization who has averaged nearly four-wins per season from 2010-2012.

When a player of Prado’s ilk is included, the prospect haul is bound to shrink. While all four youngsters have Major League possibilities, the group is void of impact potential. Read the rest of this entry »

The Diamondbacks have traded Justin Upton again. This time, he’s actually going away. After he rejected a deal to Seattle, they’ve found a new trade partner in the Atlanta Braves, and have crafted a pretty interesting deal that isn’t at all similar to the one they previously tried to make.

In exchange for Upton and third baseman Chris Johnson, the Diamondbacks reportedly are going to receive Martin Prado, Randall Delgado, Nick Ahmed, Zeke Spruill, and Brandon Drury. While they previously tried to trade him for a high risk/high reward pitching prospect and a middle infielder who is probably a year away from the big leagues, this trade doesn’t really make the Diamondbacks that much worse in 2013, and appears to be more of a win-now kind of trade.

With Prado, the Diamondbacks finally get the third baseman they’ve been looking for, and a pretty good one at that. No, he’s not going to repeat the +6 WAR season he put up last year, which was driven by an outlier UZR, but he’s got a nice base of skills that should allow him to remain an above average player. He makes a ton of contact and has some pull power that should play well in Arizona, and he’s probably at least an average defender at third base. In his career, Prado has averaged +3.4 WAR per 600 PA — exactly the same mark that ZIPS projected for Upton this year, by the way — and at age 29, he shouldn’t be in for a huge drop-off. The D’Backs probably get an equivalent upgrade at third base to the downgrade they’ll receive in the outfield, and then they also get some more pitching depth and three prospects of some value.

From just a 2013 perspective, this deal probably doesn’t move the needle that much. Both teams received one above average player, and no one else in the deal is likely to make a huge impact at the big league level this year. It’s the years after this one that will determine whether this trade was worth it for both sides.

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Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections, which have typically appeared in the pages of Baseball Think Factory, are being released at FanGraphs this year. Below are the projections for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other 2013 Projections: Angels / Astros / Athletics / Blue Jays / Brewers / Cubs / Giants / Mets / Nationals / Phillies / Pirates / Rangers / Reds / Rockies / Royals / White Sox.

Batters
For Bill James, it was basically a mantra: a club’s shortcomings are frequently attributed to that same club’s best player, despite the fact that he is, by definition, least to blame for those shortcomings. The object of constant trade rumors, outfielder Justin Upton likely remains (according to ZiPS, at least) either the first- or second-best (behind Miguel Montero) field player on the Diamondbacks. Upton enters his age-25 season having produced almost precisely 12 wins above replacement over the last three years. Indeed, since 2002, only 10 other players with significant outfield experience have recorded as many as 10 wins between the ages of 22 and 24.

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In this week’s edition of “As the Upton Waits”, the Mets and Braves inquire, while the Rangers continue to lurk in the periphery.

Maybe the Texas Rangers are employing a brilliant strategy of waiting out the Arizona Diamondbacks before swooping in and acquiring 25-year old Justin Upton. Or, maybe the Rangers lucked out when Upton rejected a trade to the Mariners for Taijuan Walker, Nick Franklin and a pair of relievers. Regardless, the Rangers still find themselves in the best position to land the young right-fielder. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 296
Prospect analyst Mike Newman considers, among other matters, the candidates for entering the season as 2013′s “top prospect” — and what significance that designation has, if any. Also: Mike Zunino‘s status in the wake of catcher John Jaso‘s departure from Seattle. Also-also: teams with and without the requisite prospect packages for acquiring Justin Upton from Arizona.

impact a deep minor-league system can have on an organization’s ability to acquire major-league talent — not unlike what happened in the recent trade that saw Toronto acquire Mark Buehrle, John Johnson, and Jose Reyes from Miami.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 45 min play time.)

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Yesterday, the Arizona Diamondbacks got an offer for Justin Upton that they would say yes to, as the Seattle Mariners reportedly agreed to ship Taijuan Walker, Nick Franklin, Charlie Furbush, and Stephen Pryor to the D’Backs in exchange for their young right fielder. Today, Justin Upton is still a Diamondback, because he used his limited no-trade clause to block the deal, as Seattle is one of four teams he can’t be traded to without his consent.

In the aftermath of the news, sentiment seemed to coalesce around the idea that the Mariners were significantly overpaying for Upton. For instance:

Upton rejected deal, and by doing so, one source said, “saved Jack Z’s job.” Package from #Mariners to #DBacks first reported by @scottmcbs.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) January 11, 2013

One executive says #mariners were “clearly overpaying” for Upton and are “fortunate” trade with #dbacks fell through.

— Jerry Crasnick (@jcrasnick) January 11, 2013

A front office friend of mine shared a similar sentiment, suggesting that giving up Walker and Franklin was too much for Upton. Arizona clearly preferred this deal to the other offers that they have received, going forward with this negotiation even though they knew Upton had the right to veto the deal. If the offers were similar from other clubs, then logic suggests that they would have taken the path of least resistance, and simply picked a deal that Upton couldn’t have scuttled. So, were the Mariners overpaying for Upton, or is Arizona now likely to have to settle for a discounted deal from a team that isn’t on Upton’s no-trade list?

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