New Rays president of baseball operations Matthew Silverman told reporters, including Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times, that he has no plans to hire a GM (Twitter link). Silverman seems poised to head up the baseball ops department by himself, whereas former GM and new Dodgers president of baseball ops Andrew Friedman is reportedly on the hunt for a GM in a setup that will be similar to that of the Cubs (Theo Epstein/Jed Hoyer) and the Marlins (Dan Jennings/Michael Hill). Silverman isn’t expecting further changes to Tampa’s scouting or player development departments, either.
More from the AL East…
- Even after Friedman left for the Dodgers, Maddon voiced his commitment to the Rays to reporters and said he expected to talk about an extension with the club. Roger Mooney of the Tampa Tribune was among the reporters yesterday to speak to Silverman and hear the newly minted head of baseball ops state that he expects his manager to be with the team in 2015 and beyond. However, Silverman stopped short of saying an extension would be done this winter. “We’ve been comfortable with Joe managing in the final year of his contract. It may not be ideal, but it’s always a possibility,” said Silverman. “…I hope we all wake up one day and you see that Joe’s here even longer than he’s signed for today.”
- Following his team’s exit from the postseason, Nelson Cruz repeated to reporters, including MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko (Twitter link), that he wants to return to the Orioles. Cruz said he loves both the organization and the team, but as Kubatko notes, he’s sure to be looking for a sizable free agent deal after leading the Majors in homers this season and having to settle for a one-year, $8MM contract last winter. Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun has a full article with quotes from Cruz on his time in Baltimore.
- Fangraphs’ Jeff Sullivan examined the Orioles’ roster and concluded that GM Dan Duquette has done an excellent job in focusing on raising his team’s floor while many clubs are more focused on raising the ceiling. Duquette has prioritized a deep roster, and Sullivan uses negative WAR as a means of illustrating this fact. Over the past three seasons, the Orioles have received the sixth-lowest cumulative negative WAR total, suggesting that while they may not always have a lot of star power, they don’t stock up on expensive stars while punting roster spots at the bottom of their 25-man group. In this season alone, Baltimore gave just 3.2 percent of its innings to negative-WAR pitchers (league average, excluding Baltimore, was 13.4) and 3.2 percent of its plate appearances to negative-WAR position players (league average, excluding Baltimore, was 19.4). Sullivan also notes that Friedman is a master of this (the Rays have the lowest negative WAR total over the past three seasons), making it one way in which the Dodgers, who had the sixth-most negative WAR, can improve quickly.
- Though the Red Sox are known to be in pursuit of elite starting pitching this offseason, Alex Speier of WEEI.com writes that perhaps they should be placing a more significant emphasis on improving the team’s defense. Speier points out how superior both the Royals and Orioles were to the Red Sox in terms of defense and speculates that Shane Victorino’s tremendous defensive upside is enough that those clamoring to trade him should rethink their stance. He also points out that the third base trio of Will Middlebrooks, Xander Bogaerts and Brock Holt combined to make 24 fewer plays than a league-average third baseman in 2014 before highlighting the strong defensive reputation of free agents Pablo Sandoval and Chase Headley.
That negative WAR assessment is pretty interesting. Never thought of looking at rosters that way before.
It’s just a way of evaluating the “stars and scrubs” method of building a team compared to a balanced roster, in analytical terms. Teams that sign a bunch of expensive free agents and then fill the roster with below-average players don’t usually win anything, even if some of the filler players end up with slightly positive WAR. Building a team with 25 dependable players who can contribute something is always the best way to go, even if it means you can’t sign Mark Teixeira or Josh Hamilton.
It’s a pretty bad way, near as I can tell. What it mostly tells you is how many injuries a team had. Pretty much every team in baseball can put a positive WAR guy at most positions and five SP’s. Maybe a few can’t. But just as an example, even the Rockies had five SP’s who were easily positive WAR in 2013. The O’s only “gave 3.2% of their innings to negative WAR pitchers” primarily because they all stayed healthy all year.
Yea, that’s called depth. Adams said it himself, “Duquette has prioritized a deep roster.” The Orioles managed to compete despite losing Machado, Wieters, & Chris Davis because they had a well rounded team.
I began to take notice of that around June when looking at the WAR of Angels players. I began to see that Jerry Dipoto was sending down and trading players away that were at a negative WAR. At one point in June or July, every position player on the Angels’ roster had at least a 0 WAR or higher. Even their pitching staff only had a few with negative WAR, Frieri being the obvious one. Ever since then I’ve been looking more and more at this, and wondering if GM’s are actually looking at this as a means of maintaining valuable depth, or if it’s just a coincidence. Either way, the fewer the players with negative WAR on one roster, the more likely they’ll be average or better across the board, and will get production from most of or all 25 spots on the roster. Another way if building a winning team year after year.
Bogarets at SS has the ability to destroy any chances of the team having good infield defense. Hopefully his defensive issues get fixed.
He’s at -1.1 UZR/150 in 932 innings of major league play at shortstop. He’s not a glove wizard, but one negative run per 100 games is hardly going to undermine a team’s entire infield defense, especially when the guy is playing next to Dustin Pedroia. Napoli is no slouch with the leather, either. The Red Sox need to find someone who can play third base competently, and they’ll be fine.
His “defensive issues” had to do with his awful play at third base (-31.8 UZR/150 for his career at third). Hopefully, the Red Sox will put a permanent end to that experiment.
That experiment was all Farrell’s or the veterans fault too. Because the FO wanted to keep faith in Bogaerts but the vets or Farrell wanted to bring back Drew.
Those sample sizes are so small they are barely worth mentioning. We have to take into account his age, shuffling back and forth and most of all randomness. It’s like stating his offensive stats from last year and saying he will never be more.
He’s a below average shortstop, given shortstop is way more demanding position than third base I can’t see how it’s not an issue.
He does not have to be great he just has to be ok defensively……..as long as he starts hitting. If he does not hit he won’t be of real value anywhere. I kind of agree with you though. I’ve always seen him as a third baseman. I kind of wish they would shift him to third and bulk him up just a bit because I think power within his decent plate approach is his calling card.
Yeah I mean its tough because he supposedly prefers to play SS but its probably better for the team to have him at 3B and maybe trade for a defensive minded SS.
I hope he can be OK but his struggles at 3B worries me.
Yeah I don’t think his struggles in the infield in general are without worry. I just am willing to wait at least another year before I make anything real out of any of it.
I would love to see Cruz back in Baltimore next year but unless he wants to give us a major discount I would pass. His bat was incredibly valuable this past season but he’s a DH only at this point in his career and if someone is going to overpay for him I’d rather it not be the O’s.
Considering what he produced on an $8m contract, what would you consider a major discount?
Bearing in mind hes certain to be looking for a multi-year deal and deserving of one after this year.
Something similar to the David Ortiz contract. Which is my point, the O’s should take the compensation pick and wish Cruz the best of luck on his next team. Giving a guy who can’t play defense more than 2 years does not really make sense in the game today.
The team that elects to give Mr. Cruz a 4 year contract – a 34 year-old non-athletic baseball player – has to plan on 2 of those years being poor.
He might be worth that to a team that is one big bat short of kicking the door down, and has a number of good young bats in their farm system that are on the cusp of being ready for the major leagues. If he does better, then it’s found money.
I can’t see him getting a 4 year deal. 3yrs/$45M seems realistic given what Beltran got last year.
I wouldn’t mind having Headley but starting pitching is more important. Both could happen but to think defense is more of an issue is not a good review of where the club currently stands.
I believe the seattle mariners will sign Nelson Cruz to a 3/$45m deal. Why? Because I live in Seattle and I can sense these things. It’s in the air dude. I smell it.
I’m not quite sure how Speier/DeWan came up with Middlebrooks/Bogaerts/Holt combined to make 24 fewer plays than a league-average third baseman in 2014 but the three only played 1234.2 innings at that position, handling 361 chances, while the AL average 3B played 1453.0 innings handling 432 chances. So the three only played about 85% of the innings and if you reduce the league average to the same, then its total chances would be 367. From that point of view, 361 to 367 is just noise.
Maybe DeWan has a better explanation but I don’t know what it is and Speier did not explain it.
Gee whiz. Not exactly a vote of confidence from Silverman. Who are you going to hire that’s better than Joe or more liked?