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n inch more rise than the average four seamer meaning it falls an inch less than batters expect it to due to backspin mostly that movement plus where he puts it elicits pop ups look at where chen throws his fastball to right handed hitters that s a lot of high and tight for a fastball joey votto once told me about the pitch that creates the pop up it s got to be the perfect sliver of the strike zone up and in ish and i have to take the wrong swing and i have to swing at it and so we get to chen s best spot on any leaderboard he s fifth in baseball in pop up percentage since 2013 right behind marco estrada hector santiago max scherzer and trevor bauer at 5 6 he s almost two standard deviations above the mean 3 2 so he s good at what he does the pop up is an automatic out if you add it to the other automatic out the strikeout and subtract the only other automatic play that a pitcher can influence all by himself the walk you get a good measure of a pitcher s quality here then are the top 30 pitchers since 2013 in strikeouts plus pop ups minus walks strikeouts and pop ups minus walks leaders name k bb pu kpu bb max scherzer 30 7 3 8 5 9 32 8 clayton kershaw 33 8 4 7 2 7 31 8 chris sale 32 1 4 9 3 5 30 7 madison bumgarner 26 9 4 5 4 3 26 7 carlos carrasco 29 6 5 9 2 0 25 7 corey kluber 27 7 5 1 2 8 25 4 jacob degrom 27 3 5 1 3 1 25 3 chris archer 29 0 7 6 2 6 24 0 david price 25 3 5 3 4 0 24 0 jake arrieta 27 1 5 5 2 1 23 7 matt harvey 24 9 4 9 3 5 23 5 zack greinke 23 7 4 7 3 1 22 1 jon lester 25 0 5 7 2 5 21 8 cole hamels 24 4 7 1 3 8 21 1 danny salazar 25 8 7 0 2 2 21 0 gerrit cole 24 3 5 3 1 8 20 8 mike fiers 23 7 8 4 5 3 20 6 dallas keuchel 23 7 5 6 2 4 20 5 taijuan walker 22 2 5 7 3 9 20 4 ian kennedy 24 4 7 3 3 0 20 1 jason hammel 24 2 5 6 1 5 20 1 francisco liriano 26 5 9 1 2 5 19 9 wei yin chen 19 3 5 2 5 5 19 6 jordan zimmerman n 19 7 4 7 4 5 19 5 johnny cueto 20 3 5 3 4 3 19 3 pu iffb fb pu has a 67 year to year correlation suddenly wei yin chen is a top 25 starter he doesn t have the velocity or strikeout rates of an ace and he s not an upper tier ace even on this final leaderboard but there he is a rank above jordan zimmerman n a pitcher who just this season cost millions more given that more of chen s long fly balls will die in the park this season in miami and he s demonstrated the ability to limit the walks coax the pop up and strike out just enough guys to be a force in a tougher park and a tougher league maybe the marlins actually got a steal with their big signing why the cubs shouldn t trade jorge soler by eno sarris january 8 2016 if the playoffs had never happened you might scoff at the idea that jorge soler is a foundational piece for the chicago cubs soler the guy that was one of the thirty worst players in baseball last year the guy that couldn t make contact couldn t take a walk didn t show the power he was supposed to show and then ran circles in the outfield that guy yes that guy he s one of next year s best break out candidates because of his age and demonstrated skills to date soler is in a group that does well and his biggest hurdle he s jumped it before he s young baseball keeps getting younger but at 23 soler was still young for a young league only 21 players managed 400 plate appearances last year and the list reads like a who s who of young stars just the fact that he s played so much at a young age and hasn t been worse than replacement means that he s got a great chance at a future of the 221 players that came to the plate at least 400 times before they turned 24 and were above replacement 181 managed to average a win per season over the rest of their career that means soler has an 82 chance of being a regular two wins per year makes you an average major leaguer and 60 of those 221 young players were average major leaguers for their careers four wins makes you an all star on average 18 of that group ended up averaging four wins a season so soler just by doing what he s done so far is very likely to be a regular better than a coin flip to be an average major leaguer and still has a one in five chance of being a star those rates compare favorably to a top ten prospect who has been unsullied by major league time recent research suggests that top ten position player prospects have a 53 chance of being regulars and a 35 chance of being superior maybe the shine has come off of soler s upside major league regulars on cheap deals are still worth something and then there s the particular way soler has played so far he has an up the middle approach in a long conversation i had with joey votto about aging he said that he concentrated on having an up the middle approach one that concentrated on hitting balls to the middle part of the field because that would put him in the best position to have a long productive career the aging curve we created to try and show how up the middle players aged compared to pull happy players didn t show what votto thought it might it looks like pull happy players might even age a little better than the alternative but there was an unexpected quirk young up the middle players surged forward and improved mightily until they hit 25 years old it s an old school truth that going up the middle is the best approach and now it pairs with numbers that prove that it s really great for young players last year 40 of soler s balls in play went up the middle compared to 35 of the league s average and his contact wasn t soft in fact if you look at a list of guys younger than 25 that showed an up the middle approach but not as much power as they showed in the minor leagues soler hit the ball almost as hard as anyone isolated slugging percentage is slugging percentage minus batting average or a ratio that shows how many extra base hits a player hits hard up the middle contact from young batters name age center hard milb mlb iso jorge soler 23 39 5 35 6 0 209 marcell ozuna 24 35 0 35 7 0 113 yasiel puig 24 37 8 31 9 0 102 kris bryant 23 34 5 36 5 0 101 jake lamb 24 34 8 36 8 0 099 marcus semien 24 33 3 27 5 0 097 addison russell 21 32 8 27 5 0 089 yasmany tomas 24 39 4 31 2 0 063 kris bryant may have already finished breaking out but the rest of the list is still exciting despite some hiccups along the way they re all young players that hit the ball hard up the middle and have showed better results in the past and soler checks those boxes harder than any of them he s fixed his plate discipline before speaking of soler s minor league numbers there s another gem hidden within that should give the cubs hope about his future as a cuban teenager soler was forced to wait for his playing time then he had to get to america to get into organized baseball at twenty years old he was thrown into rookie ball and he d never really seen pitchers throw breaking balls with that kind of velocity and command before the team was content to let him get acclimated to the american culture and game before asking him to do much those first two years then they asked him to be more patient in 2014 he went from walking 8 of the time in his first two years to walking 14 of the time combined in 2014 which included his first looks at double and triple a at 22 years old he almost doubled his walk rate from year to year and did so at harder levels that s an impressive feat jorge soler had the seventh worst strikeout rate in baseball last year it just seemed like he couldn t make contact he didn t walk much either or show power as his isolated slugging percentage was below the league average but he did hit the ball hard up the middle at a young age and with a minor league track record that showed the capacity to make adjustments and hit for power all of these things say that he s likely to much better in the future oh yeah that and the fact that he hit 474 600 1 105 with three homers in 25 postseason plate appearances and showed us what it can look like when he puts it all together scary good 2016 s biggest bust by eno sarris december 28 2015 normally we spend this time of the year thinking about good things the baby new year brings with it a fresh outlook we look excitedly upon our team s signings and dream of the upcoming season we hope and yet this is also the time of year when projections come out dark foreboding things those projections rooted only in the harsh reality of numbers they are a sobering dash of cold water those projections have a particularly tough message of yoenis cespedes and his fans the flashy powerful outfielder has the biggest gap between last year s production and next year s projections he s supposed to fall off nearly four wins in production next year by fangraphs wins above replacement statistic as projected by steamer as a free agent that s rough thing to be known for but the harder you look at this fact the more it tells you about what cespedes does well what he doesn t do well and how those strengths line up with how projections work read the rest of this entry why the a s rebuild can t work like houston s or chicago s by eno sarris december 17 2015 the houston astros seem to have struck gold with a great young shortstop in carlos correa who was a perfect midseason addition to the astros young talented lineup as the team rode its power and 2015 al cy young award winner to a playoff berth the chicago cubs have great young position players popping up left and right and have spent good money in the past 12 or so months to add some reliable veterans to that core both teams appear to have very bright futures the oakland athletics meanwhile just signed a reliever with a lengthy injury history to a three year deal ryan madson and traded away their 25 year old third baseman brett lawrie for two mid level pitching prospects it s fair to question those moves it s fair to wonder why they seem to be moving in two directions at once in fact it s fair to ask where the team is headed to ask what in the world a s executive vp of baseball operations billy beane is up to now so i did at last week s baseball winter meetings i asked beane he of the moneyball fame book and movie why he wouldn t do a tear it down sell all assets rebuild like the cubs and astros did like the braves and brewers appear to be doing now and maybe what the reds are in the early stages of doing doesn t that approach help you get higher draft picks and collect talent for your next run doesn t that help you find those young cost controlled players that drive winning teams beane saw things differently and uniquely of course read the rest of this entry jordan zimmermann a value at 100 million by eno sarris december 7 2015 it took five years and 110 million for the detroit tigers to bring right handed starter jordan zimmermann into the fold that s hardly a small token though these days that still qualifies as a second tier contract among starting pitchers if you look at traditional rate stats strikeouts and walks for example zimmermann clearly belongs in that second tier he s not the pitcher guys like cole hamels and jon lester have been over the past five years he also doesn t have their stuff at least not when judged by the strikeout what zimmermann does have is much harder to get a handle on the basic term would probably be his unique command but it s not an easy thing to put your finger on when it comes to stats a pitcher with great command might intentionally throw a ball outside the zone even at the risk of walking a hitter on purpose so we can t just use walk rate to determine command but pitchers with great command also have a tendency to get to two strikes quickly without being damaged as hitters sit back and look for better pitches to hit elite pitchers also can do this but more because hitters can t hit their pitches and the elite guys can also finish off hitters with that stuff but in many cases what makes a second tier pitcher just that is they don t have that put away stuff that definitely describes zimmermann whose 7 32 k 9 rate ranked 50th of 78 qualifying pitchers but here s the thing about the wisconsin native when it comes to getting to two strikes zimmermann is among the elite and though the swinging or called strike three is a lot more glorious as it s the surest way to get the out zimmermann has proven just as effective as getting hitters out once he gets two strikes the relative lack of k s the second tier label these are reasons zimmermann still in the prime of his career at age 29 could be had for 22 million per year versus the bigger dollar figures we ve seen in recent years but here s the thing he s a better value than many of those making more money including the aforementioned hamels and lester and here s why read the rest of this entry finding the next cy young winner by eno sarris november 19 2015 as we approached the 2015 season who could have foreseen chicago cubs 29 year old right hander jake arrieta and his 34 32 career record and 4 48 career era being even in sniffing distance of a cy young award few people if anyone can honestly claim to have felt that would be the case however sabermetrically speaking there were at least indications as far back as june 2014 that arrieta would have a breakthrough season in 2015 he did magic was made he was nearly unhittable the last two months of the season which leads me to ponder this question on the day the 2015 cy young award winners are announced who is next year s arrieta i m talking about a pitcher who is nowhere near cy young consideration this year but has at least offered indications that a giant step forward is possible the first thing that s necessary in an exercise like this is to learn from history so i looked at steamer projections for past cy young winners headed into their award winning seasons then compared their actual results to their projected numbers that juxtaposition gives us some facts about past winners and those facts might give us a road map to find future winners first let s look at what past award winners have taught us read the rest of this entry making the 100m player by eno sarris november 17 2015 someone is going to win the nine figure lottery this offseason every offseason for the past 10 years at least one mlb player has signed a contract for at 100 million plus some of those players have actually proved to be worth the lofty dollar figure others haven t thus the focus for every team is determining which guys to pay big money to we know at least generally that giving a pitcher nine figures usually doesn t work out well both barry svrluga at the washington post and ted berg at usatoday have looked at those contracts and didn t like what they found but position players are a slightly better bet of the 12 100 million contracts that have been handed out to position players either via free agency or as extensions and have run their course by now six of them actually turned out to be bargains compared to the open market another couple were relatively decent deals and only three of them were absolute disasters quick aside to judge t...