Daily Clips
January 8, 2018
LOCAL
How Royals' 2018 starting lineup looks today
Hosmer's decision in free agency to determine KC's outlook
January 7, 2018By Jeffrey Flanagan/MLB.com
NATIONAL
Cain's skills, profile suggest staying power
31-year-old center fielder is type of player likely to age gracefully
January 7, 2018By Mike Petriello/MLB.com
Rangers partnering with Nippon-Ham Fighters
January 5, 2018 By T.R. Sullivan/MLB.com
MLB TRANSACTIONS
January 8, 2018 •.CBSSports.com
LOCAL
How Royals' 2018 starting lineup looks today
Hosmer's decision in free agency to determine KC's outlook
January 7, 2018By Jeffrey Flanagan/MLB.com
There likely are plenty more changes coming to the Royals' roster over the next weeks leading into Spring Training.
Royals general manager Dayton Moore has made it clear his team is in the beginning stages of a rebuild.
How severe will the rebuild be? That is unknown, and it may depend on if they can re-sign first baseman Eric Hosmer. With Hosmer back, the rebuild might not be as dramatic. Without him, Moore may decide to purge almost every player who is desirable to other teams, knowing that the Royals aren't likely to compete for the postseason for several years.
In the midst of all of this uncertainty, if the season started today, this is what the Royals' lineup might look like come March 29 at Kauffman Stadium.
LINEUP IF SEASON STARTED TODAY
Whit Merrifield, 2B
Paulo Orlando, CF
Salvador Perez, C
Brandon Moss, 1B
Jorge Bonifacio, RF
Alex Gordon, LF
Cheslor Cuthbert, 3B
Jorge Soler, DH
Raul Mondesi, SS
STRENGTH
If the Royals don't trade Merrifield, he proved last season to be a proven dynamic hitter at the top of the lineup. He slashed .288/.324/.460 with 19 home runs and 34 steals. Orlando is a speedy No. 2 hitter who can slash to all fields. The Royals are hoping Gordon continues to utilize the opposite field as he did during a 20-game stretch in September when he hit .317 with a .990 OPS. Soler could present some pop at the bottom of the order, and Mondesi has the speed and occasional pop to inflict some damage at the bottom of the order.
QUESTION MARK
Perez and Moss are not reliable run-producers and strike out too much. Bonifacio could be headed toward a sophomore slump. Orlando took a nose dive in 2017 after a quality '16 season. And no one knows if Gordon will return to his 2011-15 form, or if Soler can consistently hit big league pitching, or if Mondesi will turn the corner and realize his potential.
WHAT MIGHT CHANGE
Everything. The Royals could re-sign Hosmer, which would secure the first-base spot and then create a desirable DH platoon of Moss/Soler. Also, Merrifield could be dealt, which would mean the Royals would be looking for a second baseman and leadoff hitter when the season starts. Almost anything could change as Moore looks to rebuild the farm system, meaning any player with value could be dealt. Stay tuned.
NATIONAL
Cain's skills, profile suggest staying power
31-year-old center fielder is type of player likely to age gracefully
January 7, 2018By Mike Petriello/MLB.com
Lorenzo Cain is the best all-around free-agent outfielder available this winter, but for all of his obvious skills, interested teams have to wonder about two important questions before they agree to sign him to a long-term contract.
First, he'll be 32 years old in April, meaning a new club may be signing up for his mid-to-late thirties. Second, as a player best known for elite speed and defense, there's a few recent examples of defensively talented outfielders signing huge deals, and then providing little return on the investment. Jason Heyward's struggles are well-known, but detractors might also point to Carl Crawford, Michael Bourn, Jacoby Ellsbury and Melvin Upton Jr. as some regrettable signings.
Fair questions, to be sure, but those aren't necessarily the same kind of players as Cain. Can we look back through recent history to find better comparables, and see how those players ended up performing? Sure, we can.
First, it's important to remember that while defense may be Cain's calling card, it's not his only skill. Last year, he hit a strong .300/.363/.440, which gave him a 115 wRC+. In other words, he was 15 points better than league average, the same as Mike Moustakas and Christian Yelich. Over the last three seasons, his line is a similar .299/.356/.445; that's 16 points better than average (per wRC+), and about the same as Marcell Ozuna or Francisco Lindor.
He can hit, is the point, as well as field (he finished fifth in Outs Above Average, the Statcast™ range-based outfield metric, with +15) and run (he was in the top 4 percent of speed, according to Statcast™'s Sprint Speed, similar to Trea Turner, which gives him plenty of room to decline). So in order to look back, we need to find players with similar skills at a similar age.
The way we've done this is to look for outfielders who fit each of these criteria in a three-year span comprising either ages 29-31 or 28-30, with a minimum of 1,000 plate appearances in that span, dating back a quarter-century to the first wave of 1990s expansion in 1993.
• Offense between 10 and 20 points above average in a three-year span (per wRC+)
• Defense worth a positive WAR value
• At least 25 percent of playing time coming as a center fielder
This gives us a more appropriate pool of players to look at, unlike Crawford, who had his last good year at 28, and Heyward, who is only entering his age-28 season in 2018. While the 25 percent in center field requirement costs us corner outfielders who would have been capable of playing center, like Ichiro Suzuki and Alex Gordon (plus also interesting names Geoff Jenkins and David DeJesus), ultimately we're left with 10 names to look at:
Garret Anderson
Mike Cameron
Brett Gardner
Curtis Granderson
Torii Hunter
Andruw Jones
Kenny Lofton
Reggie Sanders
Shane Victorino
Randy Winn
It's an interesting group of names, if not a large one, and to that point, it does help illustrate that he's something of a unique player. Plus, we'll have to exclude Gardner, because he's only just completed his age-33 season, so we don't yet know how he'll age.
With our nine remaining names, how did they perform? And for how long? Eight of the nine outfielders played through at least their age-35 season, with Victorino (who last played at 34) the exception. Anderson, Sanders, Hunter, Lofton and Cameron all played through age 38 or older, and Granderson, who will be 37 in March, is a free agent who may yet land another job. Hunter, in particular, is a nice comparison, as he had a nearly identical stat line to Cain through age 31, at which point he signed a five-year, $90 million deal with the Angels.
If we take them as a group (not including Cain), we can look at how this all ended up going.
How did they do from age 28 to 30?
Averages: .276/.345/.470, 22 HR, 142 games, 611 PA,113 wRC+, 4 WAR
How did they do from age 29 to 31?
Averages: .273/.343/.466, 22 HR, 143 games, 608 PA, 113 wRC+, 3.8 WAR
(For reference, a two-WAR season is considered "league average," and a four-WAR season is star-level. Every single one of our players was named an All-Star at least once.)
So that's what they did up to Cain's age. What about after?
At age 32
Averages: .271/.339/.437, 16 HR, 108 games, 456 PA, 103 wRC+, 2.2 WAR
This first year was actually hit-or-miss for our group, although some fluke injuries were to blame. Cameron played just 76 games before seriously hurting himself colliding with Carlos Beltran in the Mets outfield, while Granderson played only 61 games around a pair of broken bones suffered when he was hit by pitches. Winn and Sanders both struggled in the midst of otherwise long runs of success.
All told, this wasn't the group's best year, combining for a 103 wRC+ and 2.2 WAR, making them roughly average, though there were success stories -- Victorino had the best year of his career in his Boston debut, while Lofton and Hunter each had strong seasons. On defense, however, Jones, Sanders, Anderson, Winn, Granderson and Victorino never played center again regularly after 32.
At age 33
Averages: .271/.340/.455, 18 HR, 124 games, 516 PA, 109 wRC+, 2.1 WAR
At the plate, this was a much better year. Six of the eight players stayed healthy enough to play every day, and six (not the same six) were average or better hitters, including Jones, who had a late-career rebound with the White Sox and Yankees. This was the beginning of the end for Victorino, who played just 30 games due to injury and retired after an injury-shortened age-34 season.
The group improved to a 109 wRC+ line, again led by Hunter, who had a strong .299/.366/.508 season for the Angels. Overall, their WAR held steady at 2.1, as Anderson and Granderson took a step back with the glove.
At age 34
Averages: .266/.338/.428, 16 HR, 131 games, 504 PA, 106 wRC+, 2.4 WAR
Even with neither Victorino nor Jones reaching 250 plate appearances, the group still stayed healthy enough to average 131 games played. And while it's easy to forget how effective late-career Jones was, he did hit .247/.356/.495 in part-time play for the Yankees. Hunter and Granderson each had another strong season at the plate (131 wRC+ for Granderson, 126 wRC+ for Hunter), while Winn had the strongest fielding year of his career, although he did it in right field.
At age 35
Averages: .259/.331/.451, 17 HR, 116 games, 468 PA, 95 wRC+, 2.0 WAR
Victorino was finished at this point, but we have to account for that being a possibility for Cain, too, so we can't ignore it. Adding in his zeroes drops the group's average plate appearances from 527 to 468, and from 107 wRC+ to 95 wRC+.
For those who played, this was generally a strong year. Cameron combined 25 homers, 17 steals and strong defense to post a 4-WAR season playing in center for Milwaukee, and Sanders had one of his better seasons, hitting 31 homers with a .285/.345/.567 line for Pittsburgh. Hunter, Lofton, Anderson and Granderson all had above-average hitting years as well, though Winn and Jones lagged behind.
Beyond
Jones and Victorino were done by now, and Winn put up a weak age-36 season before retiring. But Sanders had 56 more homers in him and a .263/.325/.483 line after 35; Lofton, playing until 40, stole 114 more bases and hit .301/.363/.419. Granderson and Cameron remained average hitters after 35, while Hunter hit 72 more homers and remained an above-average offensive player through his age-38 season.
Of the group, only Lofton and Cameron remained regular center fielders, but you can see a similar path for Cain, too. He's already played right field in the past when Jarrod Dyson was in center, and it's easy to see him there regularly after two or three more years in center.
You shouldn't expect Cain to have five star-level seasons in the next five years, as he ages into his mid-thirties, but the point is to show that the outcomes can be good. Sure, he could be like Victorino, with only one more good year in him. He could also be like Hunter, or Cameron, or Sanders. We've seen this work out before.
Rangers partnering with Nippon-Ham Fighters
January 5, 2018 By T.R. Sullivan/MLB.com
The Rangers are going into business with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.
Texas announced a multiyear partnership with the Nippon Professional Baseball club that will encompass both baseball and business operations.
The clubs will exchange scouting reports and other baseball operations information. In addition, the Fighters will have a member of their baseball staff work in the Rangers' system as an instructor. Rangers personnel will also travel to Japan to observe the Fighters' operation.
The two teams will also share information as they both construct new ballparks. The Fighters announced plans to build a new stadium in Sapporo that will be similar to the Rangers' future new ballpark and will also included a mixed-use entertainment district.
"This agreement will allow us to share baseball information and instruction techniques that should be very beneficial to both organizations," Rangers president of baseball operations and general manager Jon Daniels said. "There is also common ground in the fact that both franchises are in the process of building new ballparks. We look forward to working with the Hokkaido group in what will be a very productive partnership."
The Fighters, who play in the Pacific League, won their third Japanese Series championship in 2016. Yu Darvish, Shohei Ohtani and former Rangers reliever Yoshinori Tateyama have all played for the Fighters. The Rangers recently signed reliever Chris Martin after he spent the past two years pitching for the Fighters.
"The Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters are proud to announce the brand new official business partnership with one of the greatest organizations in MLB, Texas Rangers," said Hokkaido general manager Hiroshi Yoshimura. "We are looking forward to being actively involved in a broad range of fields, including sharing scouting information, personnel exchanges, and mutual cooperation in many different business aspects, including our new stadium. We are hoping this new partnership will help make huge strides and further development for both clubs."
MLB TRANSACTIONS
January 8, 2018 •.CBSSports.com
Arizona Diamondbacks / Josh Prince / Signed to a Minor League Contract