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The bestselling annual baseball preview from the smartest analysts in the business Now in its 19th edition, the Baseball Prospectus annual shows once again how it became the industry leader: The 2014 edition includes key stat categories, more controversial player predictions, and the kind of wise, witty baseball commentary that makes this phone-book-thick tome worth reading cover to cover. Baseball Prospectus 2014 provides fantasy players and insiders alike with prescient PECOTA projections, which Sports Illustrated has called "perhaps the game's most accurate projection model." Still, stats are just numbers if you don't see the larger context, and Baseball Prospectus brings together an elite team of analysts to provide the definitive look at all thirty teams—their players, their prospects, and their managers—to explain away flukes, hot streaks, injury-tainted numbers, and park effects. Victory, after all, could come down to choosing between the supposed sleeper and the overrated prospects who won't be able to fool people in the Show like they have down on the farm. Nearly every major-league team has sought the advice of current or former Prospectus writers, and readers of Baseball Prospectus 2014 will understand what all those fans have been raving about. "If you're a baseball fan and you don't know what BP is, you're working in a mine without one of those helmets with the lights on it."—Keith Olbermann "The first time I saw the PECOTA projections, I realized that someone out there understood." —Jeff Luhnow, General Manager, Houston Astros "For me, every year baseball begins with the big, brilliant, beautiful book you are holding in your hands right now."—Joe Posnanski Baseball Prospectus 2013 correctly predicted: *Disappointing performances by Albert Pujols, Dan Haren, Michael Bourn, Justin Upton, and Tommy Hanson. *Breakouts by Paul Goldschmidt, Freddie Freeman, Kyle Seager, Matt Moore, Shelby Miller, and Jason Kipnis, as well as bounceback seasons from Jayson Werth and Shin-Soo Choo. *That Max Scherzer would be a Cy Young contender and Michael Wacha ace-in-waiting for the Cardinals. *That Wil Myers would be a middle-of-the-order bat for Tampa Bay and Josh Donaldson would finally win the Rich Harden trade for the A's. *That CC Sabathia's velocity drop could be a problem, but Felix Hernandez's would not be. *That Joaquin Benoit, Kenley Jansen, and Koji Uehara were better bullpen bets than pre-season closer picks Bruce Rondon, Brandon League, and Joel Hanrahan.

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Publié par	Turner Publishing Company
Date de parution	25 février 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781118459263
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1250€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Baseball Prospectus
2014

Baseball Prospectus

2014

THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO THE 2014
Edited by Sam Miller and Jason Wojciechowski
R.J. Anderson • Bill Baer • Craig Brown • Ken Funck • Ryan Ghan • Craig Goldstein • Chris Jaffe • Andrew Koo • Ben Lindbergh • Rob McQuown • Ian Miller • Jack Moore • Adam J. Morris • Tommy Rancel • Daniel Rathman • Bret Sayre • Adam Sobsey • Paul Sporer • Matt Sussman • Doug Thorburn • Will Woods • Geoff Young
Wiley General Trade, an imprint of Turner Publishing Company
424 Church Street • Suite 2240 • Nashville, Tennessee 37219
445 Park Avenue • 9th Floor • New York, New York 10022
www.turnerpublishing.com

Copyright © 2014 by Prospectus Entertainment Ventures, LLC. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and the author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

For general information about our other products and services, please contact Ingram Publisher Services at (866) 400-5351.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

ISBN 978-1-118-45923-2 (pbk); 978-1-118-45926-3 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
CONTENTS
Foreword, Gabe Kapler
Preface, Sam Miller & Jason Wojciechowski
Statistical Introduction
Teams
Arizona Diamondbacks
Atlanta Braves
Baltimore Orioles
Boston Red Sox
Chicago White Sox
Chicago Cubs
Cincinnati Reds
Cleveland Indians
Colorado Rockies
Detroit Tigers
Houston Astros
Kansas City Royals
Los Angeles Angels
Los Angeles Dodgers
Miami Marlins
Milwaukee Brewers
Minnesota Twins
New York Mets
New York Yankees
Oakland Athletics
Philadelphia Phillies
Pittsburgh Pirates
San Diego Padres
San Francisco Giants
Seattle Mariners
St. Louis Cardinals
Tampa Bay Rays
Texas Rangers
Toronto Blue Jays
Washington Nationals
The Unwritten Essay, Grant Brisbee
N=1, Russell A. Carleton
The Metagame is Far From Solved, Dan Brooks
The Baseball Prospectus Top 101 Prospects, Jason Parks
Team Name Codes
PECOTA Leaderboards
Contributors
Acknowledgments
Index
Foreword
By Gabe Kapler, retired MLB player, Fox Sports 1 MLB analyst
Every morning when I rise and read the Baseball Prospectus Newsletter over a cup of coffee and a plate full of farm fresh scrambled eggs and mushrooms, I'm reminded how lucky I am. I'm grateful for the culinary experience of course, but just as importantly, for the opportunity to digest content that has encouraged me for quite some time now to think about the sport I love in a deeper, more thorough fashion.
Most baseball fans still get their sports news from the morning newspaper—or, more accurately, some online adaptation of the morning newspaper—with an RBIs-and-Ws type of approach to the game. In doing so, these fans are missing an opportunity to truly connect with what happened in each game, and to understand what’s likely to happen in the next one. Folks who actually make decisions in the sport—the game within the game—are utilizing different, more advanced, and ever-changing metrics. They’re evaluating players, teams and other executives in ways that a box score and a wire report can no longer decode. Baseball Prospectus is not just a slightly smarter newspaper. It’s the window into the world of these executives. In fact, many of the front office minds I’m alluding to use Baseball Prospectus as a resource or as a jumping-off point to formulate ideas.
In 2007, just before I embarked on a season as minor-league manager in the Red Sox’ system, Boston General Manager Ben Cherington gave me a study on the sacrifice bunt and how it was being misused at the major-league level. I laid down 20 sacrifice bunts in my playing career; being able and willing to do the little things contributed to my consistent employment as a player. It would have been very easy for me to discard Cherington’s information. That would have been an ego-driven approach, based on the rigid belief that because I played the game at a high level, I had little left to learn.
Many players have chosen that route. Executives in the game (like Cherington) have moved on from old-school statistics to newer metrics when it comes to player analysis, yet most of the players themselves have not. But that stance would have left me stagnant while more open-minded individuals continued their growth. We shouldn’t want to be left behind, and I’m driven not to be. In my quest, I’m led by the ingenuity and substance of publications like the one you hold.
I am now a sponge dabbing at BP’s content. Because I know that I need assistance, I’m able to learn from Baseball Prospectus why FIP is often a better indicator of a pitcher’s future performance than WHIP; about which Rule 5 draftees (I’m talking about you, Brian Moran) are most likely to stick with their new clubs and make an impact; I can confidently make predictions about the coming season, thanks to BP’s game simulators. But, more importantly, I’ve discovered something bigger about baseball knowledge: I’ve learned that finding good teammates who can inspire intellectual growth is essential. You can only attempt to master baseball by listening intently, by absorbing and by never thinking you've got it licked.
After my eggs and mushrooms over BP’s morning newsletter, I work out to BP’s Effectively Wild podcast, with Sam Miller and Ben Lindbergh. It’s an odd choice—what could be invigorating about these guys’ informative nonsense, right?—but I laugh and sweat along with them, and am moved not just by the content but the deliberate, thoughtful delivery. The information is unique and intricate, as is all of BP's content. My opinion and intelligence as a reader is respected—and not just because I was a mediocre MLB baseball player for a long time. Quite simply, I feel like if I was in the room with these guys, I'd be included in the discussion.
Like the podcast and the web site, the book you hold in your hand makes content king. The writing style is thoughtfully unapologetic, open-mindedly direct.
Most importantly, it’s refreshingly counter to what else is out there.
Preface
J ust before the 1996 season began, just before Mariano Rivera the failed starter with a 5.51 ERA turned into Mariano Rivera the greatest relief pitcher of all time, Baseball Prospectus sent out its first preseason annual, 51 words of which were devoted to Rivera: "Skinny swingman who has good control of the corners of the strike zone. His K rate seemed to jump up a little as of late, and if that's development rather than a fluke, this kid could really be something special. Looks way too skinny to be durable, but you never know."
Considering Rivera’s pedigree—low-bonus signee out of a country that had never produced an All-Star pitcher; 26-year-old already confined to relief work; never appeared on a top-100 prospects list; as yet no fall-to-your-knees-and-weep cut fastball—you have to give that 1996 author an awful lot of credit. The comment nails Rivera’s strength (the ability to avoid the middle of the plate) and his weakness (he wouldn’t hold up as a starter), but what leaps out is the borderline prescient "could really be something special." Naturally, the comment doesn't predict two exceptional, game-changing decades, but who ever can?
This year sees the 19th Baseball Prospectus player comment for Rivera. Each year, his story changed a bit: We called him “quite possibly the most important player in the game” in 1997 but worried that “something very bad is happening” in 1999, were "skeptical" that “a pitcher [can] survive on one pitch [even] if that one pitch is perhaps the best in baseball” in 2000, called it “patently absurd” when folks wanted to save him room in the Hall of Fame in 2001, conceded in 2004 that “Rivera is, without question, the best one-pitch pitcher ever,” regretted that by 2006 there were no longer “any superlatives left with which to garland Rivera,” found one we'd missed by calling him “the closest thing baseball has to Fred Astaire” in 2009, called the “obvious first-ballot Hall of Famer” “beyond encomiums” (which is itself arguably an encomium) in 2011, and, finally, this year, find ourselves getting misty in an uncharacteristically sentimental sendoff.
Of course, this isn't a book about Rivera; we invoke him as synecdoche. All these comments, ever changing, ever adapting, always attempting to learn from themselves, don’t just give us a chronology of one great career. They give us a chronology of the great career of Baseball Prospectus itself.
There's a simplicity to that first Rivera comment. Facts, judgment. In the years that follow, the tone gets more incisive, the judgments more certain. As baseball’s amateur sabermetricians consolidated their findings during an