As many readers have likely deduced from some of the early offseason transactions and the flurry of cuts made to scouting, player development, and other parts of baseball ops, owners are tightening their belts after a gate-less season and the repercussions are diffusing across the industry. If these early moves — like Brad Hand’s $10 million option being declined, and no team picking him up on waivers — are indications of how teams are going to behave this offseason, then this will, among other things, modulate some of the already-changing, pre-COVID shifts in the thinking surrounding payroll allocation and roster construction, which was already cutting deeper into the bottom of rosters.

I’d like to specifically talk about how I think the COVID-19 financial ripples will impact the way teams approach non-tendering players this offseason. It’s logical to assume that teams will be apt to non-tender players more often this year than ever before because of financial fallout from the pandemic, but based on recent trends, the game was perhaps likely to see a record number of non-tenders anyway. Here are the past 12 years of league-wide non-tender totals:

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The first season of South Park debuted in 1997. I was a freshman in high school. An episode came out in December of that year that involved the school putting on a Christmas program, only all the parents wanted it to be either non- or universally-denominational, so the whole thing ended up being performed in unitards and it was all very cold and strange. One of the jokes circled around the fact that the music was composed by Philip Glass. Out of the group with which I was watching, I was the only one who laughed at that joke, because I was the only band nerd in the group who had any idea who Philip Glass was.

The joke fit the narrative. This was a play stripped of all decoration and pomp being accompanied by minimalist music. It was also an easy joke, because jokes about minimalist music are fairly easy to make. There’s no guitar riffs, there’s no hook, there’s no chorus. It starts with an idea. That idea is built upon, added to, modified, deconstructed, rearranged. Then, at the end, it’s right back to where it started. No matter how different or unique things get in the middle, that original idea is just under the surface — always present. It imitates life more than any other style of music. Life throws us all kinds of garbage, but it’s tragically repetitive. Babies, new jobs, weird guys on the bus, movies — they are all tiny differences, tiny theme changes, from the pulsing march of our lives. Baseball, more than any other sport, mimics that as well. There’s a beginning, there’s a bunch of wonderful and heartbreaking stuff in the middle, and then it ends. The day before Opening Day is the day after the last World Series game. Over and over — rinse, repeat. Read the rest of this entry »

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Offseason Notes.

1. Three Notable College Series
2. Projecting: Steamer Projections for Pitchers
3. Video: Kenley Jansen Strikes Everybody Out

Three Notable College Series
College baseball began last weekend, and, in the absence of the professional game, it actually serves as a reasonable proxy — for the present author, at least.

Below are three notable weekend series. For each entry, I’ve provided the broadcast times (ET) for the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday games, respectively. All games are available streaming on CBS Sports ULive unless otherwise noted. (In the event that you’re curious about ULive, I wrote a review earlier this week on it.)

Texas (12) at Stanford (2): 8:30pm, 4:00pm, 4:00pm
Stanford right-hander Mark Appel and third baseman Stephen Piscotty both appeared in Albert Lyu’s recaps of college baseball’s opening weekend (pitchers, hitters). Texas features sophomore third baseman Erich Weiss, whom the OLIVER projection system already basically regards as a major-league hitter.

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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Offseason Notes.

1. Thing You Might Like: Hall of Very Good
2. Projecting: General ZiPS Projection, v. 1
3. Improving Video: Juan Francisco Homers

Thing You Might Like: Hall of Very Good
Noted baseballing analysts and gentle, gentle lovers Sky Kalkman and Marc Normandin have launched a Kickstarter page for to support an e-book project called The Hall of Very Good. The Hall of Very Good, in their words:

[I]s meant to celebrate the careers of those who are not celebrated. It’s not a book meant to reopen arguments about who does and does not deserve Hall of Fame enshrinement; rather, it’s meant to remember those who, failing entrance into Cooperstown, will unfairly be lost to history.

–snip–

This is not a numbers-driven project (although our contributors lean analytical in their views). Our plan isn’t to be overbearing with numbers and spreadsheets to convince you that these players are worth remembering. What we want to do, instead, is accomplish that same task through stories.

Among the writers who have agreed to contribute, one finds Rob Neyer and Joe Posnanski and me. And Old Hoss Radbourn and Will Leitch and me. And Craig Calcaterra and Josh Wilker and me.

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Just consider it.

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Offseason Notes.

1. Assorted Headlines
2. Prospecting: Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospects
3. Video: Nolan Arenado Swinging a Lot

Assorted Headlines
Cleveland Trades De La Cruz to Texas
The Cleveland Indians have traded left-handed pitcher Kelvin De La Cruz to Texas for cash, reports ESPN.com’s Richard Durrett. De La Cruz was recently designated for assignment after Cleveland’s signing of Casey Kotchman. According to Indians Prospect Insider, De La Cruz, 23, has both good velocity (91-93 mph) on his fastball and excellent break and depth on his curve. The problem — and the minor-league walk rates definitely support this notion — is fastball command. In just under 180 Double-A innings, De La Cruz has walked 15% of opposing batters.

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This edition of Offseason Notes is actually a compilation of work from other editions of Offseason Notes.

Since late November, FanGraphs has been asking readers to rate the television broadcast teams for all 30 major-league clubs — with the intention, ultimately, of determining which broadcasts might best reflect the sorts of inquiry and analysis performed here at the site. (Click here for more on this project.)

Now the ballots for all 30 teams (including two for the Dodgers, to honor the contributions of Vin Scully) have been created, and can be accessed by clicking on the relevant links below.

Ballots will be accepted until Friday, February 24th, at 5pm ET, and results will be released next week. If the project is ultimately successful, a similar effort for radio broadcast teams is a possibility.

If you have any questions or note any errors, don’t hesitate to utilize the comment section below.

Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago (AL) / Chicago (NL) / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Colorado / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles (AL) / Los Angeles (NL, Home Games) / Los Angeles (NL, Away Games) / Miami / Milwaukee / Minnesota / New York (AL) / New York (NL) / Oakland / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / St. Louis / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Tampa Bay / Texas / Toronto / Washington.

George Washington famously had a pocket full of horses.

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Offseason Notes.

1. Projecting: ZiPS for Pittsburgh
2. Video: Gerrit Cole in the AFL
3. Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: Kansas City Television

Projecting: ZiPS for Pittsburgh
Dan Szymborski has published his (30th, I think) ZiPS projections of the offseason — this, for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Below are some of the notable ones, accompanied by very rough WAR projections (for hitters per 600 plate appearances and pitchers per 200 innings). All numbers assume major-league competition. OPS+ and ERA+ are park-adjusted.

Starling Marte, CF, 23: .279/.320/.421, 100 OPS+, 2.6 WAR600
Nate McLouth, CF, 30: .243/.340/.391, 98 OPS+, 2.6 WAR600
Alex Presley, LF, 26: .275/.324/.426, 102 OPS+, 1.7 WAR600
Garrett Jones, RF, 31: .252/.317/.432, 101 OPS+, 1.6 WAR600
Again, I think maybe the league-average wOBA I’m using (.320) is lower than the one in the ZiPS universe, so just look at the numbers relative to each other. As of now, Alex Presley is slated to begin the season as the Pirates starting center fielder, but Presley’s hold on the position is probably pretty tenuous — or, certainly more so than Andrew McCutchen and Jose Tabata’s holds on their respective positions. Note that the very rough WAR projections above include only positional adjustments, but not defensive runs, which means that prospect Starling Marte (regarded as a plus defender, even in center) is likely better than Nate McLouth (-12.9 UZR/150 in 4486.0 career innings). Presley’s offensive projection is actually more optimistic than I would’ve expected.

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Scott Kazmir will throw for scouts on Friday.

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Offseason Notes.

1. Assorted Headlines
2. Video: Cuban MVP Jose Abreu, Hitting a Homer
3. Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: Washington Television

Assorted Headlines
College Baseball Season Starts
If I’m not mistaken, today represents the first day of the college baseball season. In any case, it represents the first edition of Baseball American Aaron Fitt’s Weekend Preview series for 2012. It’s a pretty mammoth work, that, but the weekend’s featured series appear to include 10th-ranked Vanderbilt at No. 2 Stanford and Cal State Fullerton (25) at Florida (1). The former series features Stanford right-hander Mark Appel — making the Friday night start for the Cardinal — and can apparently be viewed on the internets via CBS Sports ULIVE.

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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Offseason Notes.

1. Two Headlines: Branyan, Kazmir
2. Projecting: ZiPS for San Diego
3. Video: Vince Belnome, James Darnell, Speed Metal

Two Headlines
Yankees Sign Branyan
The New York Yankees have signed 36-year-old Russell Branyan to a minor-league contract, according to the internet a week ago. Branyan posted his first ISO under .200 last year since a 42-plate appearance run in 1999, with Cleveland. Still, this is a strong signing: the Yankees lost their primary DH when they traded away Jesus Montero to Seattle. While they might still very well sign Johnny Damon or Raul Ibanez or Hideki Matsui, Branyan is low-cost alternative as the left-handed bat in the DH spot.

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There’s no law against enjoying this video.

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Offseason Notes.

1. Four Projections for Yoenis Cespedes
2. A Fifth Projection for Yoenis Cespedes
3. Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: Toronto Television

Four Projections for Yoenis Cespedes
As you are very likely aware, Cuban defector Yoenis Cespedes agreed to a four-year, $36 million contract with Oakland on Monday. Naturally, the next question to ask is, “How well will he play in the majors?”

Below are projections from four different sources — with some serious caveats. Caveat No. 1: from what I can tell, only the the ZiPS slash-line below is adjusted for park. This is a big deal, as the Coliseum depresses wOBA by about 5% for both left- and right-handed batters. Caveat No. 2: the WAR projections are per 600 plate appearances and very rough. Each one is derived merely from the slash line, working under the assumption that Cespedes is an average major-league center fielder. (If Cespedes is merely an average corner outfielder, remove about a win from each of the WAR600 projections.) Also, in terms of run environment, I’ve used league-average wOBA of .320. Caveat No. 3: generally speaking, I have no idea what I’m doing. If you sense any errors here, do not hesitate to inform me of same in the comments section below. The idea here is merely to put some offensive projections on equal footing with each other.

Now here are those projections, from most to least optimistic:

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