Baseball Prospectus 2012

Baseball Prospectus

2012THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO THE 2012 BASEBALL SEASONEDITED BY KING KAUFMAN AND CECILIA M. TAN R.J. Anderson Bradley Ankrom Tommy Bennett Craig Brow n Derek Carty Jason Collette Cliff Corcoran Jeff Euston Ken Funck Rebecca Glass Steven Goldman Kevin Goldstein Gary Huckaby Jay Jaffe Christina Kahrl King Kaufman Ben Lindbergh Sam Miller Rob McQuow n Marc Normandin Jason Parks Cecilia M. Tan Colin W yers Geoff Young

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CONTENTSForew ord, Ken Tremendous Preface, King Kaufman and Cecilia M. Tan Statistical Introduction, Colin W yers

TeamsArizona Diamondbacks Atlanta Braves Baltimore Orioles Boston Red Sox Chicago Cubs Chicago W hite Sox Cincinnati Reds Cleveland Indians Colorado Rockies Detroit Tigers Houston Astros Kansas City Royals Los Angeles Angels Los Angeles Dodgers Miami Marlins Milw aukee Brew ers Minnesota Tw ins New York Mets New York Yankees Oakland Athletics Philadelphia Phillies Pittsburgh Pirates St. Louis Cardinals San Diego Padres San Francisco Giants Seattle Mariners Tampa Bay Rays

Texas Rangers Toronto Blue Jays W ashington Nationals The Baseball Prospectus Top 101 Prospects, Kevin Goldstein Team Name Codes PECOTA Leaderboards Contributors Acknow ledgments Index

ForewordKen TremendousWelcome Address Society for Aphorism and Conjecture Research, Education Division (SACRED) March 14, 2022 Lazy Journalists, Conventional W isdom Spouters, Augurers, and Research-Hating, Clich-Spew ing Hacks: W elcome. SACRED w as founded 10 years ago w ith one mission: to reclaim baseball from the anti-American geeks w ho sought to destroy the game w e love by pointing out that the things w e said about it w ere w rong. And make no mistakeat that time, in early 2012, they w ere w inning. Back then, in 2012, the w orld w as divided into tw o camps. On one side: people w ho relied on their eyes, and their gut instincts, to tell us w ho w as good at baseball and w ho w as bad. We took the perfectly reasonable stance that people should accept the things that they w ere told w hen they w ere children and never doubt their validity. Questioning dogma w as pointless and rude, w e thought, and had no place in baseball journalism. On the other side w ere a bunch of tw erps w ho proved that w e w ere w rong by using so-called numbers that they w rote dow n and casually pointed at w hile explaining w hat they meant. And somehow , back in 2012, those tw erps w ere winning . Batting average w as being replaced by OPS. Poetic musings on Derek Jeters calm eyes and intangible leadership w ere being drow ned out by ad hominem claims about his complete lack of lateral mobility. Everyone stopped w atching Around the Horn. Things w ere spiraling out of control. But today, just a decade later, the w orld is a very different place. Those geeks have gone scuttling back to their caves, and SACRED stands victorious. Our membership has sw elled into the millions. Our influence is felt across all media platforms and in every major-league front office. Today, thanks to our hard w ork, America is free from the tyranny of science and analysis and information. And, most importantly, w e are finally free from nerds. [Hold for applause.] Just to recap some of our most recent accomplishments: *By Federal law, wins is now the only criterion by which the Hall of Fame election committee may judge pitchersand all current members are up for review. Out: Bert Blyleven. In: Jack Morris. (And yes, we know Blyleven had more wins than Morris, but Morris had one that counted.) *Likewise, batters can only be judged by Batting Average, RBIs, Amount of Hustling, Postseason Success, and Overall Leadership Abilities. Lets all say a special welcome to the Hall of Fame Class of 2021: Tommy Herr, Mark Lemke, and Juan Pierre. *Guts is now an official statistic. Congratulations to 2021 Guts champion Darin Erstad, who, though he has been retired for a long time, once punted for the football team at Nebraska, and brought that football mentality to the park every time he played, back when he played, so he wins the Guts Award for the 10th year in a row. Lets go ahead and rename it the Darin Erstad Guts Award. *There must be, by Commissioner Decree, a life-size statue of David Eckstein outside every major league baseball stadium. You twerps never appreciated him enough when he was playing. Now you have to. *As per the wishes of SACRED founding member John Kruk, not hot-dogging is now an official criterion for Hall of Fame consideration. *Teams are now awarded between one and three extra runs per game based on how dirty their

uniforms are. And all sacrifice bunts are worth three Tradition Points. *Dusty Baker is the president of the United States. [Hold for applause. W ave to President Dusty.] The man w ho popularized clogging up the basepaths as a w ay to describe average-speed hitters successfully getting on base, ladies and gentlemen. Sir, its an honor to have you here. This is truly a golden age for our movement. No longer do w e have to suffer the indignity of having our beliefs and discussions dissected and attacked by the w hiny blogger class. Those blogger types are all gone. Do you know w here they are? I have a guess. I bet you anything theyre in [Everyone in unison, probably] their mothers basements! So: How did w e get here? How did w e reclaim the soul of baseball from those Ivy League tw its w ho cared more about numbers and stats than the taste of a good hot dog . . . w ho w ould rather do research than sit in the bleachers at W rigley and drink a cold one w ith their dad, w ho is teaching them w isdom . . . w ho cared more about learning things and understanding them than they did about autographs and stickball and bringing your mitt to the game and SmartBall and hustling? It all began back in the spring of 2012, w ith the eradication of the Baseball Prospectus annual. Baseball Prospectuseven the name is nerdyw as a collective of horrifying egghead tw its w ho actively hated baseball. They sought nothing less than the complete destruction of our w ay of life and the game w e love; they w anted to reduce it to column after column of cold, heartless numbers. Every year, more and more people became aw are of, and w ere brainw ashed by, their mathematicsbased fandom. Just as one example: In 2007 their so-called PECOTA model predicted that the W hite Sox, w hod w on 90 games in 2006, w ould fall all the w ay to 72 w insand many people believed them! I guess they forgot about a little thing called heart. (That the W hite Sox w on exactly 72 games in 2007 is irrelevant. The point is, it w as a ridiculous prediction.) A few years later, w e w itnessed the absurd crow ning of Felix Hernandez as the 2010 AL Cy Young Aw ard W inner despite the fact that he only had 13 w ins, (an indignity that has since been reversed, as the aw ard w as retroactively stripped from Hernandez and properly given to 21 game-w inner C.C. Sabathia). Reeling from these absurd indignities, a group of like-minded heroes formed SACRED, an organization w hose sole purpose w as to protect baseball from absurd, Godless, and un-American activities. SACRED launched a full-on assault against the insidious creep of statistics-based analysis, w hich had continued to insinuate itself into mainstream baseball, unabated. Specifically, w e targeted the tip of the nerd spear: Baseball Prospectus itself. Late one night, several SACRED agents raided a w arehouse and destroyed every extant copy of the Baseball Prospectus 2012 annuala yearly rallying point for their cause. By destroying it, w e denied their loyal soldiers their most dangerous w eapon: analyzed data. And their reign of terror began to w ane. The dominoes fell quickly. Stat-minded GMs w ere run out of tow n and replaced w ith heartier, more traditionally minded folk. Baseball Tonight w as replaced by Thinkin W ith MGut, W ith Ozzie Guillen . Billy Beanes self-serving autobiography, Moneyball, w as banned from public libraries. Fantasy Baseball w as declared illegal and replaced by the far more enjoyable Fantasy W ho W ill Sing God Bless America During the Seventh Inning Stretch? Joe Morgan and Bill Plaschke recorded an album of jazz standards that remains number 1 on the Billboard charts to this day. Rob Neyer and Joe Posnanski w ere locked in a bamboo cage dangling above Citi Field. And baseball began to be fun again. This year, as w e celebrate our accomplishments, let us be mindful of those dark days. Let us alw ays remember how close w e came to a horrifying Age of Enlightenment. And let us be ever vigilantfor someday, and I suspect it w ill be soon, Baseball Prospectus w ill rise again.

PrefaceThe end of the 2011 baseball season w as as magical as they come. A final day for the ages gave w ay to an exciting postseason, w ith four of the seven series going the distance and no sw eeps. Then the w hole thing climaxed w ith one of the greatest World Series games in history, one that gave us the first Fall Classic Game 7 in nine years. The w inter thats follow ed has been just as dramatic, but a lot more traumatic than usual. The 2011 12 baseball offseason has been as eventful as any in recent memory w ith new s other than just big trades and signings. Seattle Mariners outfielder Greg Halman w as stabbed to death in his native Netherlands, his brother charged w ith the crime. Washington Nationals catcher W ilson Ramos w as kidnapped from his family home in Venezuela by gunmen, then rescued, unhurt, in a daring raid tw o days later. Ryan Braun,

the National League MVP, failed a drug test, a result he w as disputing at press time. On the other hand, it w as an offseason during w hich baseball patted itself on the back for continued labor peace, signing a new collective bargaining agreement w ith very little fanfare or media attention. That new CBA w ill do little to affect the game in the season just ahead, but it may cause significant changes in the w ay teams draft and recruit players in the future. How teams adapt to the new financial ecology remains to be seen. W hile first the NFL and then the NBA w ere locked out and protesters w ho w ere fighting for economic fairness pitched tents near Wall Street and in dozens of other cities, baseballs stakeholders decided that they have it pretty good and that it w as in their best interest to keep it that w ay. The talks and their outcome w ere characterized by various involved parties as w in-w in, though there w as grumbling among fans of low -revenue teams that the new restrictions on spending in the draft and international free agency w ould close one of the few avenues their favorite teams have for keeping pace w ith the big, rich teams. Tw o more notable changes w ont be felt right aw ay. The Houston Astros w ill move from the NL Central to the AL West in 2013, meaning that the tw o leagues w ill have the same number of teams, something thats only been the case for five of the last 35 years. And since both leagues w ill have an odd number of teamssomething thats never happenedthe Astros move also means that starting in 2013, there w ill be year-long interleague play. The other big change w ill be a second w ild-card team, w hich w ill be added no later than 2013. The most dramatic baseball move of the offseason happened at the W inter Meetings, w hen the games greatest player, Albert Pujols, shocked the baseball w orld by agreeing to a 10-year, $254 million contract w ith the Los Angeles Angels. So the Astros w ill have that to look forw ard to in the AL West. Almost as shocking w as the emergence of a leading candidate in the bidding for Pujols: the Miami Marlins. The Fish didnt land their Hombre, but they did go on a spending spree that w ill result in Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle, and Heath Bell donning the new ly named teams new uniforms in its new ballpark this spring. Other big names changing pajamas included C.J. W ilson to the Angels, Carlos Beltran to the Cardinals, Jonathan Papelbon to the Phillies, and Aramis Ramirez to the Brew ers. Trades had an unusual number of prominent young pitchers on the move, including Mat Latos, Trevor Cahill, Edinson Volquez, Gio Gonzalez, Travis W ood, and Sean Marshall. As w e put the 17th edition of Baseball Prospectuss annual to bed, there are still tw o months of offseason to go, and the Hot Stove continues to steam. One old chestnut so often roasted on that stove is every team is in first place on Opening Day. If youre reading Baseball Prospectus 2012, how ever, you might not quite share that sentiment. Most trades are not w in-w in. W ho are the w inners and losers this w inter? Our w riters are never hesitant to praise the w inning moves, nor to call out the delusions of the GMs w ho hope theyve built a w inner, or at least that no one notices for a w hile if they havent. We notice. Were not alw ays right, but w ere usually looking in the right place. Baseball Prospectus 2012, like its predecessors, is an attempt to make sense of the chaos, not just the sometimes tragic chaos of these cold months, but also the w onderful bedlam that makes up any baseball season, any summer, and more importantly, w hat it means for the coming season and beyond. The 2011 season certainly had its share of pandemonium, or have you forgotten the last night of the regular season, or Game 6 of the World Series? An entire book could be devoted to either of those nights, and the odds are that it w ont be long until more than one w ill be. But this is not one of those books, because any baseball season is more than even all of its dramatic moments put together. Perhaps the offseason seemed more chaotic than usual to us, though, because w e did make one major change in the w ay Baseball Prospectus 2012 is done. In the past, each player w as listed w ith the team he played for in the previous year. This year, w e have moved players to the team they w ill be playing for come Opening Day . . . at least, for as many players as w e could bring up to date before w e w ent to press. W e can see from the number of unsigned free agents still hanging, and the needs of certain teams, that more moves w ill be made betw een w hen w e had to stop tinkering and w hen you received your copy of the book. At press time, Prince Fielder, Roy Osw alt, and Japanese import Yu Darvish remained unsigned, w ith Darvish in negotiations w ith the Rangers, w ho w on the bidding for the right to talk to him. But w eve made our best attempt to match as many players as possible w ith their 2012 organizations. Speaking of Darvish, since he didnt have a team yet, w e couldnt put him into a chapter. So here is a little scouting report on him: Breathless optimists may perhaps be forgiven for gushing that he w ill be the best thing since Roger Clemens/sushi/sliced bread, but some scouts have a tendency to over-exoticize his stuff. (Remember all the hoopla over Daisuke Matsuzakas gyroball?) Yes, hes half-Iranian/ half-Japanese, but the ball is still round, and he still throw s it much like other human beings w ho are 6-foot-5, 220 pounds. Darvishs stuff isnt exotic, but it is by all accounts varied. He is a drop and drive guy, w ith six pitches: He w ill be all of 25 years old and has a lifetime ERA under 2.00. But he w ill be facing better hitters, more varied w eather, and longer travel, and hell be learning new ballparks. Another potentially exciting import is Yoenis Cespedes. Scouts have been drooling at the prospect of

Another potentially exciting import is Yoenis Cespedes. Scouts have been drooling at the prospect of the 26-year-old outfielder escaping his native Cuba for years, but it w as a series of highly entertaining promotional videos put out by his representative, Edgar Mercedes, that made him a household name. The good new s is hes the real deal, an ultra-athletic tool shed w ith plus-plus pow er, above-average speed and a cannon for an arm. W henever hes able to get his paperw ork in order to come to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic, hell likely command a deal larger than w hat the Reds gave Aroldis Chapman in 2010. Hell need a few months in Triple-A to get acclimated, but his floor is Mike Cameron, and his ceiling is through the roof. W hat else w ill 2012 bring? W ill someone go w orst to first like the Arizona Diamondbacks did last year? W ill there be an epic stumble out of the gate like those of the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays, a mind-boggling end-of-season collapse like those of the very same Red Sox and Atlanta Braves, or a comeback for the ages like those of the very same Rays and the eventual World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals? No, not just like. Its never the same tw ice. There probably w ont be a 19-inning game decided on a blow n call at home plate this year. We w ont see another star player suffer through 496 misery-filled plate appearances exactly like Adam Dunn, but an epic slump w ill probably happen to someone. Ryan Vogelsong cant surprise us again the w ay he did last year, and Matt Kemp and Curtis Granderson cant blow aw ay their pasts in quite the same w ay, but someone w ill surprise us. Someone w ill have a monster year. W ho w ill it be? How it w ill it go? Were happy to say w e dont know . Thats w hy its so exciting. But the talented team of w riters, editors, statistical analysts, and all-around baseball savants w ho w rote this book have some educated thoughts on the matter. Thousands of them, in fact. They say theres a difference betw een the team on the field and the team on paper. One has to w atch the games all season long to see the team on the field, but this book is w here one finds the most definitive paper. W ithin these pages youll read about the outlook for all 30 teams, this year and beyond. Youll find an opinion, guided by both statistical analysis and scouting observation, about every single player likely to have even the slightest impact in the major leagues in 2012 and many w hose presence w ont be felt until future years. We w ere handed stew ardship of Baseball Prospectus 2012 by the annuals longtime editor, Steven Goldman, w ho has guided us in his continuing role as BPs Editor-in-Chief. In last years preface, Steve w rote, This book serves multiple purposes. It can be a fantasy guide or a season preview , but to us, more than anything else, it is a snapshot of state-of-the-art thought on the art of building a w inning baseball team. W hat he said. We hope you enjoy Baseball Prospectus 2012, and that you indeed find it The essential guide to the 2012 baseball season. King Kaufman, San Francisco Cecilia Tan, Boston December 23, 2011

Statistical IntroductionColin WyersThey w ill tell you you had to be there. They lie . I remember being a young boy, and being in aw e of all the greats: Ruth, Mays, Gehrig, W illiams, Cobb, Aaron, Musial, DiMaggio. I didnt see them. I w asnt there. But I knew . Flipping through stacks of cardboard (packaged w ith nearly indistinguishable pieces of gum), through books the consistency of new sprint . . . and then laying ones hands on an actual new spaper to catch up on yesterdays games, to see the successes and failures. Having favorite players, reliving games I had never lived to begin w ith, it w as, in a very real sense, magic. Teleportation. Time travel. Now , to be fair to those w ho say you had to be there, looking at baseball through its numbers is like looking through a telescope not quite in focus. Every year w e turn the knob a little to the left or the right and things get a little clearer. (Of course, sometimes the game is a littleor a lotout of focus for them as w ell. Their picture never gets any clearer, though.) So w e continue to turn that knob, little by little, and each year w e see a little more. Last year w e made a rather large tw ist of the knob; this year w e move the knob much more subtly. We hope you find that w e keep moving it in the right direction.

Offense At the core of everything w e do to measure offense is True Average, w hich attempts to measure everything a player does at the platehitting for pow er, taking w alks, striking out, and even making productive outson the familiar scale of batting average. A player w ith a TAv of .260 is average, .300 is exceptional, .200 is rather aw ful. True Average also accounts for the context a player performs inthe baseline for average is not w hat the typical player has done, but w hat w e expect the typical player w ould have done given similar opportunities. That means w e adjust based on the mix of parks a player plays in. Rather than use a blanket park adjustment for every player on a team, a player w ho plays a disproportionate number of his games at home w ill see that reflected in his stats, for instance. We also adjust based upon league quality; the average player in the AL is better than the average player in the NL, and True Average accounts for this. Because hitting runs isnt the entirety of scoring runs, w e also look at a players Baserunning Runs. BRR accounts for the value of a players ability to steal bases, of course, but it also accounts for his ability to go first to third on a single or advance on a fly ball. Defense Defense is a much thornier issue, and one w eve tried to tackle in recent years. Historically, the fielding stats w eve presented have been improvements upon the concept of range factor, but sharing the same underpinnings: measuring a players plays made in terms of his putouts and assists, and comparing those plays made to his peers at that position (w ith an adjustment for the tendencies of pitchershandedness and ground ball rate primarily among them). The general move in the sabermetric community has been tow ard stats based on zone dataw here human stringers record the type of batted ball (grounder, liner, fly ball) and its presumed landing location, and that data is used to compile expected outs to compare a fielders performance to. Many people abandoned metrics based on adjusted range factor for other metrics that incorporated this zone-based data. The trouble is that this zone dataunlike the sorts of data that w e use in the calculation of the statistics you see in this bookw as never made publicly available; the data w as recorded by commercial data providers w ho kept the raw data privately, only disclosing it to a select few w ho paid large sums for it. But as w eve seen the field of zone-based defensive analysis open upmore data and more metrics based upon that data coming to lightw hat w eve seen is that the conclusions of zone-based defensive metrics dont hold up especially w ell to outside scrutiny. Different data providers can come to very different conclusions about the same eventsbased upon their recording practices and their observational vantage point. And tw o metrics based upon the same data set can come to radically different conclusions based upon their starting assumptionsassumptions that havent been tested, using methods that cant be duplicated or verified by outside analysts. And w eve seen that the quality of the fielder can bias the data. Zone-based fielding metrics w ill tend to attribute more expected outs to good fielders than bad fielders, irrespective of the distribution of batted balls. Scorers w ho w ork in parks w ith high press boxes w ill tend to score more line drives than scorers w ho w ork in parks w ith low press boxes. Because of the secrecy surrounding the underlying data, w eve barely begun to scratch the surface of quantifying these problems and their effects. But because of this, w e have abandoned our efforts to produce our ow n zone-based metric for inclusion in this book. Simply put, there is no evidence to show that the inclusion of zone-based data improves defensive metrics over the short run, and much evidence that incorporating the data causes severe distortions over the long run. Instead, w eve revised FRAA to incorporate play-by-play data, allow ing us to study the issue of defense at a much more granular level, but w ithout resorting to the sorts of subjective data used in some other fielding metrics. We count how many plays a player made, as w ell as expected plays for the average player at that position based upon a pitchers estimated groundball tendencies and the handedness of the batter. There are also adjustments for park and the base-out situations; depending on w hether there are runners on base, as w ell as the number of outs, the shortstop may position himself differently, and w e account for that in the average baselines. Still, measuring individual fielding is a much less precise endeavor than measuring a players hitting. So youll often see player comments discussing a fielders ability or performance in w ays that directly

youll often see player comments discussing a fielders ability or performance in w ays that directly contradict the stat block printed above. This seems to stick in the craw s of many readers. To w hich I can only respond: If everything about a player could be captured by the stat block, w e w ouldnt need the comments at all. And until w eve advanced to a far greater point of certainty in fielding analysis than w here w e are now , I (as a reader myself, as w ell as the man behind the figures in the book) w ould rather have comments that told me information that the metrics dont capture than information the metrics do capture. Sometimes those additional comments w ill be w rong and the metric right, and sometimes itll be the other w ay around, but until w ere sure w hich is w hich I find its much more useful to have both than to behave as though w e have much more certainty than w e really do. Pitching Of course, new findings about fielding influence how w e measure pitching as w ell. Probably the most radical finding about either w as made by Voros McCracken, w ho stated, There is little if any difference among major-league pitchers in their ability to prevent hits on balls hit in the field of play. This w as an extremely controversial finding w hen first published, but later research has by-and-large validated it (if softened the impact of it a bit). McCracken (and others) w ent forth from that finding to come up w ith a variety of defense-independent pitching measures. The trouble is that many efforts to separate pitching from fielding have ended up also in some respects separating pitching from pitchinglooking at only a handful of variables (typically w alks, strikeouts, and home runsthe three true outcomes) in isolation from the situation in w hich they occurred. W hat w eve done w ith our new pitching statistic (the name, Fair RA, may seem familiar, but its an entirely new metric) is to take a pitchers actual resultsnot just w hat happened, but w hen it happened as w elland adjust them for the quality of his defensive support, as measured by FRAA. Now , applying FRAA to pitchers in this sense is easier than applying it to fielders. We dont have to w orry about figuring out w hich fielder is responsible for making an out, only identifying the likelihood of an out being made. So there is far less uncertainty here than there is in fielding analysis. Thats not the same as no uncertainty, of course. And again, w ere right at the beginning of a renew ed effort to study the impact of batted-ball distribution on fielding, and in turn how pitchers can affect batted-ball distribution. W hat w e are finding is that little if any difference does not, in fact, mean no difference, and that there may be pitchers w ho have the ability to prevent hits on balls in play. W hat w e are struggling to do now is improve our ability to figure out w ho those pitchers w ere in short time spansa single season, or even several seasons. The w ay I like to look at it is: any effort to put a single number to a players contributions is a good place to start a discussion, but a poor place to finish it. Sabermetrics provides us w ith a framew ork for talking about baseball, not a w ay to silence debate. Also, Fair RA means exactly that, a number scaled to a pitchers runs allow ed per game, not his earned runs allow ed per game. The concept of an earned run seems less and less expressive as w e come to terms w ith how little errors tell us about a players fielding abilities. And looking only at earned runs tends over time to overrate three kinds of pitchers: 1. Pitchers w ho play in parks w here scorers tend to hand out more errors. Looking at differences in error rates betw een parks tells us that scorers can in fact differ significantly in how likely they are to score any given play as an error (as opposed to an infield hit); 2. Groundball pitchers. A substantial proportion of errors occur on groundballs, ERA w ill tend to overrate groundball pitchers compared to fly-ball pitchers of equal ability; and 3. Pitchers w ho arent very good. Good pitchers tend to allow few er unearned runs than bad pitchers, for the simple fact that good pitchers have more w ays to get out of jams than bad pitchers. Theyre more likely to get a strikeout to end the inning, and less likely to give up a home run. In short, looking at ERA (or metrics scaled to ERA) provides a distorted picture of w hat a pitcher actually accomplished. This is something w eve long preached at Baseball Prospectusand by starting to move aw ay from ERA and tow ard RA in our advanced pitching metrics, w e hope to encourage more people to move in this direction. One frequent reaction to the introduction of Fair RA last year w as the desire for a second pitching stat that does not attempt to measure a pitchers total performance, but only those aspects of pitching that

seem to be strongly repeatable season to season. To that end w ere now also including Fielding Independent Pitching, a metric developed independently by Tom Tango and Clay Dreslough that says w hat a pitchers expected ERA w ould be, given his w alks, strikeouts, and home runs allow ed. FIP is attempting to answ er a different question than Fair RA; instead of saying how w ell a pitcher performed, it tells us how much of a pitchers performance w e think is due to things the pitcher has direct control over. Over time, there are pitchers w ho consistently over and underperform their FIPs through some skill that isnt picked up by the rather limited components; FIP may be useful in identifying pitchers w ho w ere lucky and unlucky but some caution must be exercised, lest w e throw the baby out w ith the bathw ater. Projection Of course, many of you arent turning to this book just for a look at w hat a player has done, but a look at w hat a player is going to dothe deadly accurate PECOTA projections mentioned in bold type on the cover. PECOTA, initially developed by Nate Silver (w ho has moved on to greater fame as a political analyst), consists of three parts: 1. Major-league equivalencies, to allow us to use minorleague stats to project how a player w ill perform in the majors; 2. Baseline forecasts, w hich use w eighted averages and regression to the mean to produce an estimate of a players true talent level; 3. A career-path adjustment, w hich incorporates information on how comparable players stats changed over time. That basic approach is still retained. Weve made a series of refinements, though, to improve upon the process. PECOTA may again someday declare the end of Ichiro, for instance, but it w ont be this year hes projected for another season of more than 200 hits. Now that w eve gone over how the book has changed from previous years, lets go over w hats inside the book. The Team Prospectus The bulk of this book comprises team chapters, w ith one for each of the 30 major-league franchises. On the first page of each chapter, you w ill be greeted by a box laying out some key statistics for each team. 2011 W -L is exactly as it sounds. The straight and unadjusted tally of w ins and losses. Pythag tallies w ins and losses on an adjusted basis by using the runs scored (RS/G) and allow ed (RA/G) by a team in a season, running them through a refined version of Bill James Pythagorean formula developed by David Smyth and Brandon Heipp.

A teams run-scoring ability is represented by True Average. Then w e have several metrics for a team's pitching and defense. TAv-P is opponent's TAv against, FIP presents team Fielding Independent Pitching, and DER rates the team's defensive efficiency Ratio, essentially 1-BABIP. Weve also incorporated several new statistics into this years team summaries. DL refers to how many days a teams players logged on the disabled list over the course of a season. B-Age and P-Age tell us the average age of a teams hitters and pitchers, respectively. Salary, of course, refers to a teams total payroll, in millions of dollars. But w eve supplemented that w ith a teams marginal dollars per marginal w ins, a metric created by Doug Pappas to show how efficiently a team is spending its money. Position Players After an opening essay, each chapter moves on to the player comments. Position players are listed first, in alphabetical order, and each player is listed w ith the major-league team w ith w hich he w as employed as of January 1, 2012, meaning that free agents w ho eventually change teams w ill be listed under their previous employer. The player-specific sections (see Joey Bats listing below ) begin w ith biographical information before moving onto the column headers and actual data. Other than cups of coffee at the various levels trimmed out in the interest of space and in accordance w ith small-sample-size theoryall relevant seasons and partial seasons w ill be listed. The column headers begin w ith more standard information like year, team, level (majors or minors, and w hich level of the minors), and the raw , untranslated tallies found on the back of a baseball card: PA (Plate Appearances), R (Runs), 2B (doubles), 3B (triples), HR (home runs), RBI (runs batted in), BB (w alks), SO (strikeouts), SB (stolen bases), and CS (caught stealing). Follow ing those are the untranslated triple-slash-rate statistics: batting average (BA), on-base percentage (OBP), and slugging percentage (SLG). Their slash nickname is derived from the occasional presentation of slash-delimitation, such as noting that Joey Votto hit .309/.416/.531. Each of the three statistics is flaw ed on its ow n, but put together they describe the shape of a hitters production w hether hes a slap-hitting punch and judy type, or an all-or-nothing pow er hitter, or simply an all-around amazing hitter like Albert Pujols. Its follow ed up by True Average, w hich rolls all those things and more into one easy-to-digest number. BABIP stands for Batting Average on Balls in Play, and is meant to show how w ell a hitter did w hen he put the ball in play. An especially low or high BABIP may mean a hitter w as especially lucky or unluckybut it may not. Line-drive hitters w ill tend to have especially high BABIPs from season to season; so w ill speedy runners w ho beat out more grounders for base hits. Next is Baserunning Runs (BRR), w hich as mentioned earlier covers all sorts of baserunning accomplishments, not just stolen bases. The last column is W ARP, W ins Above Replacement Player, w hich means w eve left out VORP altogether. That doesnt mean w eve discarded the underpinnings of VORPw e simply determined it w asnt necessary to have tw o w ays of measuring the same players contributions relative to replacement. For anyone w ho misses the VORP scale, its simple enough to convert; a player w ith a W ARP of 2.0 w ould have a VORP roughly equal to 20. W ARP combines a players batting runs above average (derived from a players True Average), BRR, FRAA, an adjustment based upon position played, and a credit for plate appearances based upon the difference betw een the replacement level (derived from looking at the quality of players added to a teams roster after the start of the season) and the league average. W hy the replacement-level adjustment? W hy not leave everything relative to average? The answ er is playing timeif you have tw o players w ho are totally average (in terms of hitting, fielding, position, and baserunning) but one plays in a dozen games and one plays in 120 games, the latter of the tw o is clearly more valuable to his team. At the same time, it is easy to envision a player w ho plays so poorly he is less valuable the more he plays: a first baseman w ho bats .200 w ith w alks and pow er to match is easily hurting his team more the more he plays. Replacement level gives us a w ay to see how a players playing time is helpingor hurtinghis team.

Pitchers Now lets look at how pitchers are presented, looking at last years AL Cy Young and MVP w inner Justin Verlander. The first line and the YEAR, TM, LVL, and AGE columns are the same as in the hitters example above. The next set of columnsW (W ins), L (Losses), SV (Saves), G (Games pitched), GS (Games Started), IP (Innings Pitched), H (Hits), HR, BB, SO, BB9, SO9are the actual, unadjusted cumulative stats compiled by the pitcher during each season.

Jose Bautista RFBorn: 10/19/1980 Age: 31 Bats: R Throw s: R Height: 6 1 W eight: 195 Breakout: 1% Improve: 42% Collapse: 2% Attrition: 5% MLB: 95% Comparables: Reggie Smith,Frank Robinson,Roger Maris YEAR TEAM LVL AGE PA R 2B 3B HR 2009 TOR MLB 28 404 54 13 3 13 2010 TOR MLB 29 683 109 35 3 54 2011 TOR MLB 30 655 105 24 2 43 2012 TOR MLB 31 621 87 28 2 31 YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012 TEAM TOR TOR TOR TOR LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB SO 85 116 111 118 SB 4 9 9 7 CS 0 2 5 3

RBI 40 124 103 89

BB 56 100 132 87

AVG_OBP_SLG .235/.349/.408 .260/.378/.617 .302/.447/.608 .259/.370/.501

TAv .268 .341 .370 .304

YEAR TEAM LVL BABIP BRR FRAA WARP 2009 TOR MLB .275 3.9 -2.9 1.4 2010 TOR MLB .233 -1.6 -12.4 6.5 2011 TOR MLB .309 1.4 10.3 10.3 2012 TOR MLB .275 -0.2 RF -2, 3B 2 4.2 Next is GB%, w hich is the percentage of all batted balls that w ere hit on the ground including both outs and hits. The average GB% for a major-league pitcher in 2007 w as about 45 percent; a pitcher w ith a GB% anyw here north of 50 percent can be considered a good groundball pitcher. As mentioned above, this is based upon the observation of human stringers and can be skew ed based upon a number of factors. W eve included the number as a guide, but please approach it skeptically. BABIP is the same statistic as for batters, but often tells you more, since most pitchers have very little control over their batting average on balls in play. A high BABIP is more likely due to a poor defense, or bad luck, than to a pitchers ow n abilities, and may be a good indicator of a potential rebound. A typical league-average BABIP is around .295.300. W HIP and ERA are common to most fans, w ith the former measuring the number of w alks and hits allow ed on a per-inning basis w hile the latter prorates earned runs allow ed on a nine-innings basis. Neither is translated or adjusted in any w ay. Fair RA has been covered in some depth above, and is the basis of W ARP for pitchers. Significantly, incorporating play-by-play data allow s us to set different replacement levels for starting pitchers and relievers. Relief pitchers have several advantages over startersthey can give their best effort on every pitch, and hitters have few er chances to pick up on w hat theyre doing. That means that its significantly easier to find decent replacements for relief pitchers than it is for starting pitchers, and thats reflected in the replacement level for each. We also credit starters for pitching deeper into games and saving the pen. A starting pitcher w hos able to go deep into a game (w hile pitching effectively) allow s a manager to keep his w orst relievers in

the pen and bring his best relievers out to preserve a lead. All of this means that W ARP values for relief pitchers (especially closers) w ill seem low er than w hat w eve seen in the pastand may conflict w ith how w e feel about relief aces coming in and saving the game. But the save, w hile a model of how w e feel about a pitchers performancea successful save means a w in, w hile a failed save typically means a lossdoes not describe how teams w in games. In other w ords, saves give extra credit to the closer for w hat his teammates did to put him in a save spot to begin w ith; W ARP is incapable of feeling excitement over a successful save, and judges them dispassionately. PECOTA Both pitchers and hitters have PECOTA projections for next season, as w ell as a set of biographical details that describe the performance of that players comparable players according to PECOTA. The 2012 line is the PECOTA projection for the player in the upcoming season. Note that the player is projected into the league and park context as indicated by his team abbreviation. All PECOTAs represent a players projected major-league performance. The numbers beneath the players nameBreakout, Improve, Collapse, and Attritionare also a part of PECOTA, and estimate the likelihood of changes in performance relative to a players previously established level of production, based upon the performance of the comparable players: Breakout Rate is the percent chance that a players production w ill improve by at least 20 percent relative to the w eighted average of his performance over his most recent seasons. Improve Rate is the percent chance that a players production w ill improve at all relative to his baseline performance. A player w ho is expected to perform just the same as he has in the recent past w ill have an Improve Rate of 50 percent. Collapse Rate is the percent chance that a position players equivalent runs produced per PA w ill decline by at least 25 percent relative to his baseline performance over his past three seasons. Attrition Rate operates on playing time rather than performance. Specifically, it measures the likelihood that a players playing time w ill decrease by at least 50 percent relative to his established level. Breakout Rate and Collapse Rate can sometimes be counterintuitive for players w ho have already experienced a radical change in their performance levels. Its also w orth noting that the projected decline in a given players rate performances might not be indicative of an expected decline in underlying ability or skill, but rather something of an anticipated correction follow ing a breakout season.

Justin VerlanderBorn: 2/20/1983 Age: 29 Bats: R Throw s: R Height: 6 6 W eight: 200 Breakout: 11% Improve: 35% Collapse: 37% Attrition: 6% MLB: 97% Comparables: Chris Young,Jon Rauch,Jake Peavy YEAR TEAM LVL AGE W L SV G GS IP H 2009 DET MLB 26 19 9 0 35 35 240 219 1 190 2010 DET MLB 27 18 9 0 33 33 224 2011 DET 2012 DET YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012 TEAM DET DET DET DET MLB 28 MLB 29 LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB HR 20 14 24 18 24 5 0 15 7 0 BB 63 71 57 56 SO 269 219 250 191 34 34 251 174 29 29 202 1 181 EqBB9 3.3 3.3 3.2 2.5 EqSO9 2.4 2.8 2.0 8.5 GB% 38% 42% 42% 41%

YEAR TEAM LVL BABIP WHIP ERA FIP FRA WARP

YEAR TEAM LVL BABIP WHIP ERA FIP FRA WARP 2009 DET MLB .323 1.17 3.45 2.85 3.29 6.1 2010 DET MLB .289 1.16 3.37 2.94 3.33 5.2 2011 DET MLB .237 0.92 2.40 3.03 3.18 5.8 2012 DET MLB .292 1.17 3.05 3.30 3.31 4.2 The final piece of information, listed just to the right of the players Attrition Rate, are his three highest scoring comparable players as determined by PECOTA, and a similarity score from 0100 describing how similar a players comps are to him. Occasionally, a players top comparables w ill not be representative of the larger sample that PECOTA uses. Its also important to note that established major leaguers are compared to other major leaguers only, w hile minor-league players may be compared to major-league or minor-league players, w ith PECOTA strongly preferring the latter. All comparables represent a snapshot of how the listed player w as performing at the same age as the current player, so if a 23-year-old hitter is compared to Sammy Sosa, hes actually being compared to a 23-year-old Sammy Sosa, not the decrepit Orioles version of Sosa, nor to Sosas career as a w hole. The Managers Statistics Each team chapter ends w ith a managers comment and data breaking dow n his tactical tendencies. Though it is often difficult to isolate a managers contributions to a team, comparing specific data modeled after w ell-documented plays and styles to the league average helps determine w hat a manager likes to do, even if w e are still precluded from translating that information into actual w ins and losses. Follow ing the year, team, and actual record, Pythag +/- lets us know by how many games the team under- or over-performed its Pythagenpat record. Mike Scioscias Angels exceeded their projected record by four games, and exceeded it in the previous tw o seasons as w ell. That isnt necessarily an endorsement of Sciosciakeep in mind that Pythag +/- is a mathematical expression of team performance, not an interpretation of the managers w ork, even though it has become commonplace to attribute Actual/Pythag discrepancies to the skipper. Pitching staff usage follow s, first w ith Avg PC reporting the average pitch count of his starting pitchers w ith the subsequent 100+P and 120+P offering the number of games in w hich the starters exceeded certain pitch thresholds. QS is the total number of quality startsa start of at least six innings and w ith no more than three runs allow eda manager received from his starting pitchers. BQS is Blow n Quality Starts, a Baseball Prospectus stat that measures games in w hich the starter delivered a quality start through six innings before losing it in the seventh inning or later by allow ing runs to give him four or more. That said, a Blow n Quality Start is not necessarily an indictment of the managers abilities or tactics. A number of factors ranging from excellent offensive support to extremely poor bullpen support can lead a manager to leave his starter in a game after hes throw n six quality innings. Conversely, the decision by a manager to bank quality starts by restricting his starters to only six innings can have dow nsides as w ell as it increases his bullpens w orkload and the opportunity for the pen to blow a game in w hich a starter w as cruising. Speaking of bullpen support, the next stats in the manager table tally how many pitching changes a manager made over the course of the season (REL) and how many times the reliever called upon didnt allow any runners, his ow n or inherited, to score (REL w Zero R). Bequeathed runners also count against REL w Zero R, meaning that relievers w ho exit w ith runners on that subsequently score prevent a manager from padding his tally here. Concluding the pitching section, IBB is quite simply the number of intentional w alks the manager ordered during the given season, w hich can definitely be a mark of managerial strategy so long as outliers like Albert Pujols are accounted for. Managers do more than manage pitchers, how ever; their usage of a bench can lead to added or lost performance. Subs lets us know the number of defensive replacements he employed throughout the regular season, w hile PH, PH Avg, and PH HR report the offensive statistics of pinch-hitters called upon. We then turn to the so-called small ball tactics, starting w ith the running game. The managers aggressiveness on the bases is broken dow n by successful steals of second and third base (SB2, SB3) and times caught (CS2, CS3). We also provide the number of sacrifices a team attempted (SAC Att) and their success rate (SAC %). Be sure to keep in mind the differences betw een leagues as National League sacrifice attempts are greatly inflated by the fact that the pitchers hit. To correct for this, w e list the number of times a manager got a successful sacrifice from a position player (POS SAC), w hich allow s for comparisons betw een the tw o leagues. We finish up w ith Squeeze, w hich counts the number of successful squeeze plays the team executed over the season. Finally, w e have a couple of statistics that

attempt to measure the managers hit-and-run tactics. Sw ing is the number of times a hitter sw ung at a pitch w hile the runners w ere in motion, w hile In Play reflects how many times a managers hitters sw ung and made contact w hile those runners w ere off to the races. Granted, sw ings on steal attempts do not alw ays translate to hit-and-run attempts, but managers w ho greatly deviate from the average can be assumed to be staunch proponents or opponents of the strategy.

MANAGER: MIKE SCIOSCIAYEAR TEAM W-L 2009 ANA 2010 ANA 2011 ANA Pythag Avg +/ PC 100+ 120+ QS BQS REL P P 1 160 11 70 9 108 6 98 8 434 410 386

97-65 1 80-82 0 86-76 1

97.1 83 204.3 162 101.0 98

YEAR TEAM REL w IBB Subs PH PH PH SB2 CS2 SB3 Zero R Avg HR 2009 ANA 2010 ANA 2011 ANA 269 325 313 35 48 66 34 79 .308 2 172 .174 0 75 .154 2 22 14 18 5 10 4 2 0 1

YEAR TEAM CS3 SAC SAC % POS Squeeze Swing In Play Att SAC 2009 ANA 2010 ANA 2011 ANA 1 3 1 64 67.2% 41 4 140 72.9% 100 6 78 80.8% 59 1 180 400 417 134 125 144

Arizona DiamondbacksW hen Kevin Tow ers assumed the position of Diamondbacks general manager in the final days of the 2010 season, the job seemed to promise a fair share of impending punishment. Tow ers mentioned tw o goals: cutting dow n on the teams historically high strikeout rate and rebuilding its historically broken bullpen. If he also aimed to finish first in the NL W est, he w isely left that intention unstated. Before Tow ers took over, the number of teams that had managed to follow a last-place finish w ith a first-place finish in the follow ing season during the six-division era that daw ned in 1994 could have been counted on Antonio Alfonsecas six-fingered hand; a standard complement of fingers could have accommodated them if you excluded the 2006 D-Backs, w ho tied for last in the West before their 2007 turnaround, and Mordecai Brow n could have handled the trio that hadnt finished last in four-team divisions. Only three additional teams pulled off the single-season turnaround during the four-division period of 1969-93, and none of those completed the feat before 1991. Not surprisingly, in light of the rarity of such reversals, the Diamondbacks w erent a popular preseason pick to unseat the reigning World Series champion Giants and claim the NL W est title. W ith such lofty ambitions likely buried deep in the back of his mind, Tow ers set about improving the w eaknesses hed targeted after taking over. The 2010 club hed inherited had struck out more frequently than any team had before, going dow n sw inging or looking in just under a quarter of its plate appearances. To some extent, the situation resolved itself. Chris Snyder had already been shipped to Pittsburgh at the trading deadline, and Tow ers allow ed Adam LaRoche to leave as a free agent, w hich subtracted tw o strikeout-prone bats from the roster. He toyed w ith selling low on Justin Upton but refrained w hen he couldnt secure a suitable package; the right fielder w ould go on to cut his strikeout rate significantly in a resurgent 2011 campaign. But Tow ers did send main offender Mark Reynolds to Baltimore in December.

As a result of those changes in personnel and performance, the Snakes slashed their strikeout rate by 17 percent. To be sure, strikeouts arent the disgrace theyre made out to be in Little Leaguein fact, theyre highly correlated w ith patience and pow er, so one shouldnt read too much into the fact that the tw o teams w ith the few est w hiffs w ent to the World Series last season. Still, as w e observed in our Arizona essay in BP2011 , stacking a lineup w ith strikeout-prone bats has historically been an unsuccessful strategy, producing a compounding effect that contributes to volatile run-scoring. By no means w ere the Diamondbacks adept at making contact in Tow erss first full season at the helmthey still struck out at the fourth-highest rate in the NLbut their tendency tow ard strikeouts w as no longer a serious handicap. Table 1. Extreme Makeover, Baseball Edition: Single-Season Worst-to-First Team Turnarounds

Team Braves Tw ins Phillies Giants Padres Diamondbacks Diamondbacks Cubs Rays Diamondbacks

Year 1 Year 1 Finish 1990 6 1990 7 1992 6 1996 4 1997 4 1998 5 2006 4 2006 6 2007 5 2010 5

Year 2 Year 2 Finish 1991 1 1991 1 1993 1 1997 1 1998 1 1999 1 2007 1 2007 1 2008 1 2011 1

That left one liability lingering on Tow erss offseason to-do list. The Diamondbacks bullpen posted an abysmal 5.99 FRA in 2010, by far the w orst in baseball and .79 runs higher than the next-w orst NL unit. Tow ers, w ho show ed a knack for assembling some of baseballs best and most cost-efficient bullpens w hile in San Diego, seemed like the perfect man to reengineer Arizonas relief corps. The Reynolds trade helped to kill tw o team w eaknesses w ith one transaction, since the D-Backs bounty w as hard-throw ing righthander David Hernandez, w ho became a consistent setup man for the Snakes, earning the second-highest Leverage Index among Arizona relievers. (Fellow righty reliever Kam Mickolio, w ho also came over in the

deal, w as less successful, though he struck out nearly 10 batters per nine innings at Triple-A Reno.) In a slight departure from his usual pattern of low -cost acquisitions, Tow ers gambled on often-injured free-agent reliever J.J. Putz, w hose health mostly held up in his first season as the clubs closer. Tow ers also successfully filled the pens lefty specialist slot w ith Rule 5 find Joe Paterson and made another trade to reinforce his relief corps at the deadline, sending extraneous pieces Brandon Allen and Jordan Norberto to Oakland for Brad Ziegler, one of the most dependable bullpen arms in baseball (albeit one somew hat limited by his susceptibility to southpaw s). The net result of Tow erss tinkering w as an improvement in bullpen FRA of nearly a run and a half, giving the D-Backs a 4.69 mark that ranked 17th in baseball. The teams starters w ere similarly solid-but-unspectacular, ranking 17th overall at 4.41. Since Tow erss bullpen investments paid off, he w ent back to the w ell over the w inter, adding another off-brand former closer w ith injury issues in Takashi Saito and trading for another consistent Oakland reliever in Craig Breslow . Still, despite Reynolds aversion to contact and the bullpen help he brought back, there w as a dow nside to running him out of tow n. In the process of striking out, w alking, or homering in nearly half of his plate appearances for the Orioles, Reynolds recorded a .286 True Average, w hich w ould have been the best mark among non-Upton Diamondbacks w ith at least 150 PA. The Snakes scored the fourth-most runs in the NL, but the hitter-friendly confines of Chase Field helped camouflage some of their offensive inadequacies. Their .256 TAv revealed a slightly below -average offense that ranked in the middle of the NL pack. Reynolds departure left the hot corner in the hands of Ryan Roberts, w hose bat mostly w ent south after an excellent April, as w ell as a host of offensive zeroes like Melvin Mora, Sean Burroughs, Geoff Blum, and Cody Ransom. In addition, w hile retaining LaRoche w ould not have represented a solution, his departure nonetheless left a void at first base that the Diamondbacks spent most of the season trying to fill w ith subpar bats. Paul Goldschmidts promotion in August brought some stability to the cold corner, though its not clear w hether his ceiling is high enough to admit him to the upper echelons of the position. Miguel Montero and Gerardo Parra are coming off excellent seasons, and Chris Young and Stephen Drew can be counted on to contribute if healthy, but aside from Upton, the lineup features very little star pow er, and significant uncertainty remains on the infield corners and at second base, w here the Diamondbacks are desperately hoping to get more of the good Aaron Hill they saw at the end of last season. Instead of shoring up one of their w eaker positions, the Diamondbacks shot themselves in the foot in December by signing free-agent Jason Kubel to a tw o-year deal, w hich relegated the younger, cheaper, and more productive Parra to a fourth-outfielder role. Aside from the erstw hile left fielder, little assistance can be expected from the benchits fair to w onder w hether any team really needs Blum, John McDonald, or W illie Bloomquist, let alone all three of them, but the Diamondbacks acted quickly to corner the market on offensively inept utility men. In short, the Diamondbacks had a mediocre offense and a run-of-the-mill rotation and relief corps, and unlike the 2008 Rays, the last team to leapfrog their divisional opponents in a single season, their defense also placed in the middle of the pack, ranking 11th w ith a 0.714 defensive efficiency. The lone standout aspect of their attack, the third-best baserunning performance in the NL, w as w orth less than a w in. So w hat made them so good? The uncomfortable truth for Arizona fans is that despite their 94 w ins, the Diamondbacks werent particularly goodsurprisingly successful, certainly, especially in light of their shedding a quarter of their payroll and spending less than all but tw o other NL teams, but still something w ell short of the dominant performers that their record suggests they w ere. Arizonas improbable playoff appearance w as in part the product of a w eak division and a large helping of luck. The Diamondbacks outplayed their third-order w inning percentagea metric based on underlying statistics and adjusted for quality of opponentsby 10 1/2 games, the biggest margin in baseball. The DBacks finished w ith an eight-game cushion in the NL West, and thats the only performance that counts in determining w hich teams get tickets to October. But in the third-order standings, they beat out the Giants by only one game and actually finished behind the Dodgers, w hich should temper our expectations for this season. The Diamondbacks w ent 28-16 in one-run games, giving them the best w inning percentage of any team in those contests, w hich often hinge as heavily on luck as they do on skill, though an improved bullpen didnt hurt. They also benefited from another factor largely determined by chance: good health. The Diamondbacks suffered the few est injuries and days lost to injury of any NL team. According to BP injury guru Corey Daw kins, they surrendered only an estimated 2.0 W ARP to the DL and day-to-day ailmentshalf as much as any other team in their divisionw ith Drew s ankle fracture accounting for the majority of the damage. Even if the Diamondbacks medical staff deserves much of the credit, the Snakes can expect more aches and pains to plague them in 2012. Of course, none of that means there isnt plenty of hope on Arizonas horizon, as the teams formerly fallow farm system has been rebuilt by a combination of fruitful trades orchestrated by former interim GM Jerry DiPoto, astute drafting by former scouting director Tom Allison, w ho w as let go after Tow ers came

Jerry DiPoto, astute drafting by former scouting director Tom Allison, w ho w as let go after Tow ers came to tow n, andat least in 2011the same sort of good health in the bush leagues that the Snakes enjoyed in the bigs. The Diamondbacks organization boasts perhaps the best collection of young pitching talent in baseball. In addition to the 27-year-old Ian Kennedy, w ho finished fourth in the Cy Young voting after leading the league in w ins and w inning percentage; the soon-to-be 25-year-old Dan Hudson, w ho hurled over 200 innings w ith a strikeout-to-w alk ratio w ell over 3; and 26-year-old Josh Collmenter, w ho finished fifth in the Rookie of the Year voting but might not have the stuff to sustain his success, the team possesses unparalleled pitching riches in the minor leagues. Even w ith former first-rounder Jarrod Parker shipped off to Oaklandin exchange for Trevor Cahill, a more established pitcher only six months his seniorits easy to make the case that the D-Backs have five or six minor-league arms more promising than their best position player prospect. Trevor Bauer, the thirdoverall pick in last years amateur draft, could contend for a rotation spot as soon as this spring. Tyler Skaggs, w hom the Diamondbacks acquired in the 2010 Dan Haren trade, might be in the big leagues by September. Archie Bradley, yet another 2011 first-rounder, is behind those tw o but possesses the same top-of-the-rotation talent. And a few other arms of varying abilities figure to make strong cases for the middle or end of the rotation in the next few seasons. Given that profusion of young pitching, its not difficult to envision the Snakes best starter last season being their fourth- or fifth-best by 2013, although as alw ays the TNSTAAPP principle applies. It is important to note that the Diamondbacks feature a fly-ball staff; 30.1 percent of their batted balls allow ed w ere hit in the air last season, the highest rate in baseball. Although Cahill keeps the ball on the ground and Wade Miley might do the same, none of Arizonas up-and-coming arms is a budding Brad Ziegler in the grounder department, so that percentage might not see a substantial change. In one sense, that tendency w orks against the Snakes, since fly balls travel farther in Arizonas dry air; Chase Fields home run factor ranks sixth-highest among major-league parks. But the danger is diminished somew hat by an outfield that in 2011 featured three players capable of playing center field in Young, Parra, and Upton. Thanks to that trios efforts in tracking dow n balls that might have found gaps or corners on teams w ith less rangy players in the pastures, the Diamondbacks allow ed the third-low est parkadjusted slugging percentage on balls in play in the NL last season, though theyll have trouble repeating that performance w ith Kubel displacing Parra. The Diamondbacks franchise has been unstable and prone to w ild sw ings in the standings since its inception, perhaps appropriate for one that came of age so quickly and w ith so few grow ing pains. After suffering only a single season of the expansion-team blues, the Snakes spent heavily on free agents such as Randy Johnson, Steve Finley, and Todd Stottlemyre to go along w ith their highly paid veterans already in place, Matt W illiams and Jay Bell, w inning 100 games and pulling off their first w orst-to-first reversal. That all-out veteran effort culminated in a 2001 World Series victory and gave the D-Backs the distinction of being the quickest team to a title, but that aging club soon ran out of steam, sending Arizona back to the cellar (and nearly halving the 99 teams w in total) by 2004. The 2007 team arose from the ashes w ith a new core, but that core has had a bumpy ride, alternating betw een first- and last-place finishes of its ow n. The signings of Tow ers and skipper Kirk Gibson to respective three-year extensions w ith tw o club options give the team one sort of stability. Still, the Diamondbacks are in an unusual spot in that they have few gaping holes in w hich to plug in players for easy improvements, but even few er players capable of producing more than three or four w ins above replacement, a state of affairs that hampers both their upside and their flexibility. The organizations current crop of pitching prospects should produce more stars, but impact position players w ill be harder to come by for the foreseeable future. Although experience suggests that a team can never have too much pitching, a rotation can hold only so many arms; once the Diamondbacks determine w hich ones they think w ill pan out, theyll have to be proactive in selling off the surplus in exchange for offensive talent from other teams, lest an imbalanced roster limit their capacity to keep surprising us w ith success.

HITTERS Henry Blanco CBorn: 8/29/1971 Age: 40 Bats: R Throw s: R Height: 6 0 W eight: 170 Breakout: 3% Improve: 16% Collapse: 8% Attrition: 23% MLB: 48% Comparables:

Carlton Fisk,Greg Myers,Birdie Tebbetts YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012 YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012 YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012 TEAM SDN NYN ARI ARI TEAM SDN NYN ARI ARI TEAM SDN NYN ARI ARI LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB AGE 37 38 39 40 SO 50 26 21 53 PA 232 144 112 250 R 21 10 12 26 2B 12 5 3 10 3B 0 0 1 1 HR 6 2 8 6 RBI 16 8 12 25 BB 26 11 12 19

SB 0 1 0 1

CS 0 0 1 0

AVG_OBP_SLG .235/.320/.382 .215/.271/.300 .250/.330/.540 .229/.290/.359 FRAA -1.3 0.1 -0.6 C -2 WARP 0.7 0.1 0.9 0.8

TAv .251 .217 .290 .232

BABIP .282 .248 .239 .268

BRR -1.1 -1.1 -0.1 0

Blanco hit so w ell last year that he w as almost forced to resign in disgrace from the International Brotherhood of Backup Catchers, but ultimately the first-time offender w as forgiven his delusions of grandeur and allow ed to keep his membership card on the basis of his unimpeachable record of poor hitting. Chase Field may have had something to do w ith his erupting for a home run every 12.5 at-bats after hitting one every 41.1 at-bats over his first 13 seasons. He hit .313/.400/.792 w ith six of his homers at home, w hile on the road he hit like his old self. The D-Backs brought him back for an encore. Even if okay, better make that w henhis bat returns to its old w ays, Arizona can count on his strong arm: he threw out 11 of 24 attempted basestealers (45.8 percent) last season.

Willie Bloomquist SSBorn: 11/27/1977 Age: 34 Bats: R Throw s: R Height: 6 0 W eight: 185 Breakout: 2% Improve: 23% Collapse: 11% Attrition: 30% MLB: 81% Comparables: Adam Everett,Alvin Dark,Edgar Renteria YEAR 2009 2010 2010 2011 2012 YEAR 2009 2010 2010 TEAM KCA CIN KCA ARI ARI TEAM KCA CIN KCA LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB MLB LVL MLB MLB MLB AGE 31 32 32 33 34 SO 73 3 25 PA 468 18 181 381 322 R 52 0 31 44 34 2B 11 0 10 10 10 3B 8 0 1 2 3 HR 4 0 3 4 3 RBI 29 0 17 26 28 BB 27 1 8 23 20

SB 25 0 8

CS 6 0 5

AVG_OBP_SLG .265/.308/.355 .294/.333/.294 .265/.296/.388

TAv .236 .221 .240

2011 ARI 2012 ARI YEAR 2009 2010 2010 2011 2012 TEAM KCA CIN KCA ARI ARI

MLB 51 20 10 .266/.317/.340 .234 MLB 54 17 7 .261/.310/.345 .235 LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB MLB BABIP .309 .357 .294 .300 .304 BRR 2.5 -0.2 -0.3 0.3 -0.8 FRAA 0.4 -0.1 -0.9 -3.3 SS -2, LF 0 WARP 0.4 -0.1 0.1 -0.1 0.2

Sabermetrician Tom Tango has proposed W ins Above W illie as a fitting name for a total-value statistic, and Bloomquist once again show ed w hy last season. His embodiment of a concept that critics say isnt real makes him more valuable as a teaching tool than a playerafter a decade in the majors, hes accumulated just 1.0 W ARP, and as he heads into his age-34 season, there is plenty of time for his decline phase to erase even that modest sum. Bloomquist endeared himself to Arizona fans w ith a scrappy .306 average in April but hit just .257/.315/.323 after returning from a hamstring strain suffered late that month. Aside from his forgettable performance, Bloomquists calling card is his flexibility in the field (w hich boils dow n to an ability to be bad at a multitude of positions), but Stephen Drew s injury limited Bloomquist to just three positions in 2011, including a mere one game at second base, since his dubious services w ere often required at shortstop. One thing Bloomquist has alw ays been able to do is steal at a high rate of success, but even that skill deserted him last season. Nonetheless, he re-signed for tw o seasons, w hich hell spend battling John McDonald for backup at-bats.

Geoff Blum 3BBorn: 4/26/1973 Age: 39 Bats: B Throw s: R Height: 6 4 W eight: 193 Breakout: 0% Improve: 19% Collapse: 12% Attrition: 25% MLB: 53% Comparables: Todd Zeile,Melvin Mora,Cal Ripken Jr. YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012 YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012 YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012 TEAM HOU HOU ARI ARI TEAM HOU HOU ARI ARI TEAM HOU HOU ARI ARI LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB AGE 36 37 38 39 SO 61 33 9 41 PA 427 218 55 250 R 34 22 8 26 2B 14 10 3 11 3B 1 1 0 1 HR 10 2 2 5 RBI 49 22 10 24 BB 33 15 5 17

SB 0 0 0 0

CS 1 0 0 0

AVG_OBP_SLG .247/.314/.367 .267/.321/.356 .224/.309/.408 .236/.293/.356 FRAA -9.3 0.1 0.3 3B 1, SS -1

TAv .241 .243 .226 .232

BABIP .266 .311 .237 .265

BRR -1.1 2.1 0.3 -0.1

WARP -0.8 0.2 0.0 0.4

Blum and Melvin Mora spent the season vying to be Arizonas least productive 38-year-old third baseman. Mora edged out Blum, -0.6 to 0.0 W ARP, but it w asnt a fair fight: Even though Mora w as released in late June, he had more opportunities to make his case. Blum did the team a favor by hurting his knee in spring training, w hich allow ed Ryan Roberts to claim the starting job. The knee eventually required surgery that delayed Blums debut until mid-July, and seven games later, he broke his right pinkie w hile fielding a ground ball and disappeared till September. Blum might have done his best w ork for the Diamondbacks w hile he w as on the DL, but he got the last laugh: Unlike Mora, hell be back for another season of replacement-level play.

Bobby Borchering 3BBorn: 10/25/1990 Age: 21 Bats: B Throw s: R Height: 6 4 W eight: 200 Breakout: 0% Improve: 6% Collapse: 5% Attrition: 12% MLB: 19% Comparables: Chris Marrero,Tony Horton,Alberto Odreman YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012 YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012 YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012 TEAM MSO SBN VIS ARI TEAM MSO SBN VIS ARI TEAM MSO SBN VIS ARI LVL RK A A+ MLB LVL RK A A+ MLB LVL RK A A+ MLB AGE 18 19 20 21 SO 27 128 162 76 PA 93 588 590 250 SB 0 1 4 0 R 10 74 80 24 2B 8 31 29 10 3B 1 2 3 1 HR 2 15 24 7 RBI 11 74 92 26 BB 5 54 49 12

CS 0 1 1 0 BRR -0.8 -3.6 -0.2 0

AVG_OBP_SLG .241/.290/.425 .270/.343/.423 .267/.332/.469 .213/.253/.352 FRAA -6 -16 -6.3 3B -7, 1B -2

TAv .301 .278 .284 .215

BABIP .328 .331 .337 .277

WARP 0.1 0.6 2.3 -0.7

Borchering is still young for his league, but hes old enough to know the truth: Prospects at his position dont often post batting averages in the mid-.200s in the minors and live to tell the tale. Last season, the 2009 first-rounder w ent from being a third baseman w ho w as often referred to as a future first base type to a player w ho actually saw more time at first than at third. That ratio is likely to grow even more lopsided in favor of first in the coming seasons, since Borchering lacks the quickness and strong arm that come in handy at the hot corner. The sw itch-hitter has a sw eet sw ing and plenty of pow er, but unless he can make more contact or start w alking tw ice as often, he w ont unseat Paul Goldschmidt or distinguish himself from the legion of other corner infielders en route to Phoenix.

Sean Burroughs 3BBorn: 9/12/1980 Age: 31 Bats: L Throw s: R Height: 6 3 W eight: 200 Breakout: 2% Improve: 20% Collapse: 11% Attrition: 21% MLB: 69% Comparables: Joe Randa,Frank Malzone,Terry Tiffee

YEAR 2011 2011 2012 YEAR 2011 2011 2012 YEAR 2011 2011 2012

TEAM RNO ARI MIN TEAM RNO ARI MIN TEAM RNO ARI MIN

LVL AAA MLB MLB LVL AAA MLB MLB LVL AAA MLB MLB

AGE 30 30 31 SO 8 15 34

PA 110 115 250

R 19 8 28

2B 11 4 13

3B 2 0 2

HR 2 1 3

RBI 25 8 26

BB 7 3 12

SB 0 1 2

CS 2 0 1

AVG_OBP_SLG .412/.450/.618 .273/.289/.336 .276/.313/.388 FRAA 0.5 0 3B 0 WARP 1.0 -0.3 1.3

TAv .329 .205 .250

BABIP .435 .305 .307

BRR -1 -0.4 -0.2

Research has show n that players tend to perform w orse as pinch-hitters than they do as starters. Burroughs actually hit slightly better in his long-shot return to baseball w hen he w as pinch-hitting than he did w hile playing third, but neither line resembled anything useful or evoked his small-sample tear at TripleA. The lefty w alked less frequently than Yuniesky Betancourt and had as many extra-base hits as Dontrelle W illis delivered in 81 few er plate appearances. The former cant-miss prospect long since w ent w ide of the major-league mark, but at least, after having spent three years aw ay from the game, doing, in his ow n w ords, nothing, really, he got one last hurrah.

Matt Davidson 3BBorn: 3/26/1991 Age: 21 Bats: R Throw s: R Height: 6 4 W eight: 210 Breakout: 0% Improve: 3% Collapse: 3% Attrition: 7% MLB: 11% Comparables: Thomas Neal,Jonathan W altenbury,Jaime Ortiz YEAR 2009 2010 2010 2011 2012 YEAR 2009 2010 2010 2011 2012 TEAM YAK SBN VIS VIS ARI TEAM YAK SBN VIS VIS ARI LVL AA A+ A+ MLB LVL AA A+ A+ MLB AGE 18 19 19 20 21 SO 75 109 25 147 74 PA 299 475 84 606 250 SB 0 0 0 0 0 R 29 58 6 93 23 2B 15 35 1 39 11 3B 0 3 0 1 0 HR 2 16 2 20 5 RBI 28 79 11 106 23 BB 21 43 12 52 14

CS 2 2 0 1 0

AVG_OBP_SLG .241/.311/.319 .289/.374/.504 .169/.298/.268 .277/.348/.465 .206/.261/.329

TAv .227 .304 .204 .291 .211

YEAR TEAM LVL BABIP BRR FRAA 2009 YAK A- .325 0.4 8.1 2010 SBN A .359 -2.4 0.4

WARP 0.6 2.8

2010 2010 2011 2012

SBN VIS VIS ARI

A A+ A+ MLB

.359 .227 .340 .274

-2.4 -1.2 -1.7 0

0.4 0.6 -3.5 3B 1, 1B -1

2.8 -0.4 3.0 -1.0

Davidson, a slightly better, slightly younger version of Bobby Borchering (w ho w as selected 19 picks before him in the 2009 draft), experienced similaralbeit less severestruggles to make contact at High-A last season. After spending 2010 trading off at the hot corner in South Bend, both played 135 games for Visalia split betw een the infield corners and DH. Since they appeared at the same positions for the same team, scouts had ample opportunity to make an informed comparison betw een the tw o, and most came aw ay liking Davidson better, both for his bat and for his better chance of sticking at third thanks to a superior fielding percentage and a stronger arm. How they do at Double-A could be the real decider.

Stephen Drew SSBorn: 3/16/1983 Age: 29 Bats: L Throw s: R Height: 6 2 W eight: 185 Breakout: 3% Improve: 29% Collapse: 7% Attrition: 19% MLB: 94% Comparables: Jimmy Rollins,Brendan Harris,John Valentin YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012 YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012 YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012 TEAM ARI ARI ARI ARI TEAM ARI ARI ARI ARI TEAM ARI ARI ARI ARI LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB AGE 26 27 28 29 SO 87 108 74 67 PA 595 633 354 388 SB 5 10 4 4 R 71 83 44 48 2B 29 33 21 21 3B 12 12 5 6 HR 12 15 5 9 RBI 65 61 45 49 BB 49 62 30 31

CS 1 5 4 2 BRR 1.2 2.5 1.4 -0.3

AVG_OBP_SLG .261/.320/.428 .278/.352/.458 .252/.317/.396 .265/.327/.440 FRAA 5.1 -2.2 -2.6 SS -3 WARP 2.6 4.4 1.2 2.4

TAv .257 .288 .258 .270

BABIP .288 .321 .313 .301

Drew left the D-Backs in the lurch w hen he broke his ankle sliding into home plate on July 20 (to add insult to injury, he w as out), but his season w as already w ell on the w ay to disappointment after an age27 career year. Its time to accept that Drew w ill never put together the monster season forecasted for him by scouts and statheads alike, but even reduced expectations leave room for a passable defender and an above-average hitter for w hom roughly 10 other NL teams w ould gladly sw ap their shortstops. It w ould be a shame if Drew s early promise relegated him to the same land of the perpetually underappreciated w here his big brother J.D. has been for the better part of a decade. October surgery for a sports hernia complicated his rehab from the ankle fracture and could put his status for Opening Day in doubt.

Adam Eaton CFBorn: 12/6/1988 Age: 23 Bats: L Throw s: L Height: 5 10 W eight: 180 Breakout: 2% Improve: 40% Collapse: 9%

Attrition: 22% MLB: 72% Comparables: Ron Fairly,Oscar Gamble,Scott Lusader YEAR 2010 2011 2011 2012 YEAR 2010 2011 2011 2012 YEAR 2010 2011 2011 2012 TEAM MSO VIS MOB ARI TEAM MSO VIS MOB ARI TEAM MSO VIS MOB ARI LVL RK A+ AA MLB LVL RK A+ AA MLB LVL RK A+ AA MLB AGE 21 22 22 23 SO 44 41 35 50 PA 282 301 255 250 R 48 54 31 28 2B 14 15 7 9 3B 4 3 4 2 HR 7 6 4 4 RBI 37 39 28 23 BB 35 42 30 22

SB 20 24 10 9

CS 8 8 6 4

AVG_OBP_SLG .385/.504/.575 .332/.455/.492 .302/.409/.429 .250/.332/.362 FRAA 6.2 2.8 3 CF -1, RF 2

TAv .386 .350 .312 .252

BABIP .457 .379 .345 .302

BRR 0.9 4.4 -3.5 -0.3

WARP 4.8 4.8 2.3 0.7

Eatonnot to be confused w ith the journeyman starter w ho w ent to his major-league grave a few years agohas climbed quite a few prospect lists over the past tw o seasons by virtue of a .340/.456/.500 start to his pro career. As that line and his 59 frame suggest, he doesnt possess a lot of pow er, but he has an excellent eye and enough pop to keep pitchers honest. He w alked more than he struck out at High-A last year, and after going Mobile at midseason, he continued to hit for a high average in the Arizona Fall League. W ith A.J. Pollock entrenched in center, Eaton sw itched to right in the Southern League. Since his glove profiles better in a corner, he has the makings of an excellent fourth outfielder or a scrappy second-division starter; a strong Triple-A season could vault him out of tw eener territory to stay. Not bad for a 19th-round pick.

Paul Goldschmidt 1BBorn: 9/10/1987 Age: 24 Bats: R Throw s: R Height: 6 4 W eight: 245 Breakout: 3% Improve: 25% Collapse: 26% Attrition: 38% MLB: 83% Comparables: Carlos Pena,Hee-Seop Choi,Chris Carter YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2011 2012 TEAM MSO VIS MOB ARI ARI LVL RK A+ AA MLB MLB AGE 21 22 23 23 24 PA 331 599 457 177 268 R 51 102 84 28 34 2B 27 42 21 9 12 3B 3 3 3 1 1 HR 18 35 30 8 13 RBI 62 108 94 26 37 BB 36 57 82 20 27

YEAR TEAM LVL SO SB CS AVG_OBP_SLG TAv 2009 MSO RK 74 4 3 .334/.414/.638 .355

2010 2011 2011 2012 YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2011 2012

VIS MOB ARI ARI TEAM MSO VIS MOB ARI ARI

A+ AA MLB MLB LVL RK A+ AA MLB MLB

161 92 53 78

5 9 4 2

1 3 0 1 BRR -1 -2.5 4.6 1.4 0

.314/.390/.606 .306/.435/.626 .250/.333/.474 .244/.323/.470 FRAA 2.8 -5.4 4 -2.4 1B -12, CF 0

.336 .361 .281 .277

BABIP .400 .395 .331 .323 .300

WARP 3.7 5.0 6.3 0.6 1.4

The Snakes didnt quite strike gold as the calendar turned to August, but they did strike Goldschmidt, w hich w as almost as good given that Chase Field held more Latino voters in favor of SB 1070 than first basemen w ho could hit last season. At the time of his promotion, Goldschmidt led the minors w ith 30 homers and ranked second w ith 82 w alks. Not only w as he on the verge of matching the pow er numbers he put up in a full 2010 season, but his plate discipline had made a marked improvement, as evidenced by a K:BB ratio that had improved to 1.12 after tw o years over 2.00. That performance helped him repeat as the organizations Player of the Year and likely w ould have given w ay to further firew orks had he not bypassed Triple-A, but it didnt fully translate to the major-league level, w here Goldschmidt proved highly susceptible to strikeouts. That w asnt enough to keep him from being the best of a bad first-base bunch, but it didnt ease concerns about his long sw ing. How ever, roughly half of his strikeouts came in the first third of his plate appearances, so he may already have made some adjustments.

Aaron Hill 2BBorn: 3/21/1982 Age: 30 Bats: R Throw s: R Height: 6 0 W eight: 195 Breakout: 1% Improve: 51% Collapse: 5% Attrition: 9% MLB: 87% Comparables: Felix Mantilla,Orlando Hudson,Brandon Phillips YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2011 2012 YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2011 2012 TEAM TOR TOR TOR ARI ARI TEAM TOR TOR TOR ARI ARI LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB MLB LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB MLB AGE 27 28 29 29 30 SO 98 85 53 19 83 PA 734 580 429 142 539 R 103 70 38 23 63 2B 37 22 15 12 29 3B 0 0 1 2 2 HR 36 26 6 2 18 RBI 108 68 45 16 67 BB 42 41 23 12 34

SB 6 2 16 5 15

CS 2 2 3 4 6

AVG_OBP_SLG .286/.330/.499 .205/.271/.394 .225/.270/.313 .315/.386/.492 .255/.307/.427

TAv .288 .241 .217 .298 .260

YEAR TEAM LVL BABIP BRR FRAA WARP 2009 TOR MLB .288 1.5 9.1 5.1

2010 2011 2011 2012

TOR TOR ARI ARI

MLB MLB MLB MLB

.196 .242 .356 .271

-0.2 -1.4 1.5 -0.4

4.2 -5 2.2 2B 1

0.9 -1.5 1.3 1.7

Hill has become something of a cipher after spending 2007-10 alternating seasons of roughly five w ins w ith seasons in w hich he played near replacement level. That hot-and-cold pattern persisted into 2011, w ith a big improvement in 33 games after his August trade from Toronto. In this case, the classic change of scenery trade seemed to pay dividends, but the improvement w as built upon an unsustainable BABIP. After Kevin Tow ers declined the infielders $8 million options for 2012 and 2013, he explained, I dont w ant to get too crazy about six w eeks. Theres a reason [the Blue Jays] moved him. How ever, the upside proved too tantalizing to ignore, and Tow ers eventually inked him to a tw o-year deal for $11 million. Judging by Hills track record, it might not be long before his scenery changes again.

Jason Kubel RFBorn: 5/25/1982 Age: 30 Bats: L Throw s: R Height: 6 0 W eight: 190 Breakout: 3% Improve: 37% Collapse: 3% Attrition: 15% MLB: 90% Comparables: Terrmel Sledge,Johnny Callison,Matt Stairs YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012 YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012 YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012 TEAM MIN MIN MIN ARI TEAM MIN MIN MIN ARI TEAM MIN MIN MIN ARI LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB AGE 27 28 29 30 SO 106 116 86 83 PA 578 582 401 417 SB 1 0 1 1 R 73 68 37 52 2B 35 23 21 21 3B 2 3 1 2 HR 28 21 12 15 RBI 103 92 58 54 BB 56 56 32 37

CS 1 1 1 1 BRR -0.6 -2.9 -2 -0.1

AVG_OBP_SLG .300/.369/.539 .249/.323/.427 .273/.332/.434 .265/.332/.453 FRAA 1.3 -1.8 -2.2 RF -0, LF -0

TAv .311 .263 .273 .277

BABIP .327 .280 .326 .302

WARP 3.9 0.4 0.8 1.5

After an off 2010, Kubel got off to a great start.310/.355/.465 through the end of Maythat seemed like the opening act of another season like his stellar 2009. Unfortunately, a sprained left foot cost him all of June and most of July; he hit just .229/.304/.398 the rest of the w ay and missed the seasons final tw o w eeks after re-aggravating the injury. Kubel w ound up w ith essentially the same rate stats as in 2010, albeit w ith a higher batting average due to a 46-point spike in BABIP and a slight dip in his w alk rate. Youd think the combination of his dow n season and his limitations in the field, on the bases, and against lefties (.239/.313/.365 career, compared to .282/.342/.490 against righties) w ould have conspired to keep his price dow n, but the Diamondbacks gave him a guaranteed $16 million over the next tw o seasons to replace a superior playerGerardo Parrain left.

John McDonald SSBorn: 9/24/1974 Age: 37

Born: 9/24/1974 Age: 37 Bats: R Throw s: R Height: 6 0 W eight: 175 Breakout: 0% Improve: 25% Collapse: 5% Attrition: 30% MLB: 62% Comparables: Royce Clayton,Mike Bordick,Juan Castro YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2011 2012 YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2011 2012 YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2011 2012 TEAM TOR TOR TOR ARI ARI TEAM TOR TOR TOR ARI ARI TEAM TOR TOR TOR ARI ARI LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB MLB LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB MLB LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB MLB AGE 34 35 36 36 37 SO 18 26 18 9 38 PA 156 163 182 63 250 R 18 27 19 2 24 2B 7 9 8 2 12 3B 0 2 1 0 1 HR 4 6 2 0 3 RBI 13 23 20 2 24 BB 1 6 8 4 9

SB 0 2 2 0 4

CS 2 1 4 0 3

AVG_OBP_SLG .258/.271/.384 .250/.273/.454 .250/.285/.345 .169/.222/.203 .239/.271/.344 FRAA 0.4 -0.4 4.6 1.2 SS 0, 3B 4

TAv .236 .256 .236 .196 .217

BABIP .269 .260 .267 .200 .264

BRR -1.4 1.9 0.8 -0.2 -0.9

WARP -0.1 0.7 0.8 0.1 -0.5

W ith Stephen Drew out for the season and Arizona in desperate need of a shortstop, Kevin Tow ers got McDonald throw n into the Aaron Hill deal in late August. Predictably, the archetypical good-field, no-hit infielder both fielded w ell and failed to hit in his 15 starts dow n the stretch. Its not often that a .169 average earns a player a multi-year deal, but the D-Backs like his leather enough to put up w ith his lumber for tw o more seasons. Say w hat you w ill about the imprecision of defensive statistics, but if McDonald w ere the second coming of Ozzie Smith, it w ould show up in the numbers. His 8.5 career FRAAeven after putting up a 4.6 last yearsuggests that the 37-year-old is above-average at best, w hich might not be enough to make up for his absent offense.

Miguel Montero CBorn: 7/9/1983 Age: 28 Bats: L Throw s: R Height: 6 0 W eight: 197 Breakout: 4% Improve: 22% Collapse: 8% Attrition: 34% MLB: 91% Comparables: Dave Sax,Charlie OBrien,Ryan Doumit YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012 TEAM ARI ARI ARI ARI LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB AGE 25 26 27 28 PA 470 331 553 477 R 61 36 65 60 2B 30 20 36 28 3B 0 2 1 2 HR 16 9 18 16 RBI 59 43 86 62 BB 38 29 47 39

YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012 YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012

TEAM ARI ARI ARI ARI TEAM ARI ARI ARI ARI

LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB

SO 78 71 97 89

SB 1 0 1 1

CS 2 1 1 1

AVG_OBP_SLG .294/.355/.478 .266/.332/.438 .282/.351/.469 .269/.335/.455 FRAA -2 0.6 2 C1 WARP 2.8 1.2 3.8 3.1

TAv .283 .256 .279 .278

BABIP .327 .318 .317 .303

BRR -0.4 -2.8 -2 -0.1

The D-Backs made Montero their catcher of the future w hen they traded Chris Snyder to the Pirates in 2010. They might not have gotten the best possible returnD.J. Carrasco, Ryan Church, and Bobby Crosby are all either out of the game already or rapidly approaching retirementbut in light of Snyders injury issues last season, it looks like they backed the right backstop. According to W ARP, Montero w as a top-five catcher in 2011, his first All-Star campaign, and thats w ithout giving him full credit for his defense. Arizonas catcher cupboard is bare behind Montero, w ho w ont turn 29 until July. Its time to start talking extension.

Xavier Nady 1BBorn: 11/14/1978 Age: 33 Bats: R Throw s: R Height: 6 6 W eight: 220 Breakout: 1% Improve: 22% Collapse: 5% Attrition: 19% MLB: 64% Comparables: Jorge Toca,Dmitri Young,Ben Broussard YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012 YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012 YEAR 2009 2010 2011 2012 TEAM NYA CHN ARI ARI TEAM NYA CHN ARI ARI TEAM NYA CHN ARI ARI LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB LVL MLB MLB MLB MLB AGE 30 31 32 33 SO 6 85 46 53 PA 29 347 223 250 R 4 33 26 29 2B 4 13 11 13 3B 0 0 0 0 HR 0 6 4 8 RBI 2 33 35 30 BB 1 17 10 13

SB 0 0 2 1

CS 0 0 0 0

AVG_OBP_SLG .286/.310/.429 .256/.306/.353 .248/.287/.359 .266/.315/.424 FRAA -0.1 -2.7 -1.7 1B -2, RF -1

TAv .229 .230 .239 .262

BABIP .364 .326 .294 .313

BRR 0.6 1.9 -0.3 0

WARP 0.0 -0.9 -0.4 0.9

Diamondbacks first basemen combined for a .264 TAv last season, the 26th-best mark in the majors. A number of subpar first-sackers bore some blame, but none more than Nady, w ho brought up the rear at 2.7 VORP. As has been the case throughout his career, Nady w as at his w orst against righties, but in 2011, his w orst (.248/.282/.307) w as even w orse than usual. His season came to an end on August 12, w hen the Mets Dillon Geew ho throw s just hard enough to hurt someonebroke his left hand w ith a fastball. Nady had already begun to give w ay to Paul Goldschmidt, so the fateful pitch really just put him out of his misery. As a below -average batter w ith a below -average glove, Nadys already had a surprisingly long major-league leash.

Lyle Overbay 1BBorn: 1/28/1977 Age: 35 Bats: L Throw s: L Height: 6 3 W eight: 215 Breakout: 2% Improve: 20% Collapse: 4% Attrition: 29% MLB: 75%