UNDER THE RADAR - CARLOS GOMEZ

It took a few years, seven to be exact, one with the New York Mets, two with the Minnesota Twins and four with the Milwaukee Brewers for Carlos Gomez to finally arrive as a bona fide major league player.  Fast as the wind, a great defensive player with a strong and accurate arm, the hit tool with some power caught up to show us one of the most exciting players in MLB in 2013.

Carlos Gomez running the bases 

Gomez, 28, a typical late bloomer put up a 7.6 fWAR ( .284/.338/.506 line with 24 HR and 40 SB).  tying him with Miguel Cabrera for 4th place in MLB only behind Mike Trout (10.4) Andrew McCutchen (8.2) and Josh Donaldson with 7.7 .His 38 DRS (Defensive Runs Saved) were second only to Andrelton Simmons (41) as the best defensive player in baseball.  John Dewan's advanced defensive metrics Fielding Bible named Gomez the best defensive CF in baseball.  He was the only major leaguer with 40 stolen bases and 20+HR in 2013.  86% success rate (77 SB in 90 attempts the last two years) adds to his value.

Carlos Gomez robbing a home run  

Going forward, Carlos Gomez, should surpass his 4-5 WAR projection.  While his O-Swing % has remained around 36% his Z-Swing % jumped from 64 and 67% in 2010 and 2011 to 75-76% the last two years showing he was more aggressive in the strike zone.  His walk rate is low, 6.3% and his K rate is high (24.7%) compared to league average (19.9%).  Lowering his whiff rate could increase his value.  Carlos Gomez signed a team friendly extension (3/24million) that will pay him 7.0 million in 2014, 8.0 million in 2015 and 9.0 million in 2016.  At around 5 WAR/season he is an absolute steal.

MR. PUIG

LA Dodgers fans have taken to some charismatic foreign star players awarding them celebrity status and producing the "Fernandomania" and "Nomomania" phenomenoms.  Yasiel Puig is fanning the flames of "Puigmania".  The rarely seen, high voltage debut of the 23 year old Cuban outfielder was spectacular to watch.
His unsustainable first month was followed by a cooling off period that nevertheless produced a great year with enormous expectations for the future.

Yasiel Puig HR    (feelinkindablue.com)

The unpredictable Yasiel Puig is a mega talent that has cornered the market on "tools" that seem to be at a higher level than most "five tool" players.  Transforming these to effective skills and knowing how and when to use them can take Puig to the doors of greatness as a player, maybe almost unique.  The same qualities that endear him to fans, his all out and reckless style of play might be his achilles heel.  My personal feeling is that Puig won't have a long career, I hope I am wrong.  With all the bounty of talent comes a lot of risk.  His off the field problems, his difficult and abrasive temperament on the field needs to be under control and not drive his manager and teammates nuts.

Yoenis Cespedes and Yasiel Puig

Yasiel has not played a lot of baseball.  Contrary to his Cienfuegos teammate in Cuba, Jose Abreu, who debuts with the Chisox this year and another compatriot who is a Dodger rookie this year, Alexander Guerrero.

NAME                       AGE      SEASONS CUBA   PLATE APP
Yasiel Puig                   23          2  (Cienfuegos)             587
Jose Abreu                   27        10 (Cienfuegos)            3183
Alexander Guerrero       27         8   (Las Tunas)            2262
Yoenis Cespedes          28         8   (Granma)                3123

Puig is a baby compared to these seasoned Cuban League players in regards to seasons and plate appearances.  He is learning on the fly and there must be a lot of patience, but how much?  A lot of his mistakes are due to inexperience.
 

Yasiel Puig on defense   (ibtimes)

The RF's whirlwind 2013 season saw him post great offensive numbers (.319/.391/.534), good defense (10 DRS) and spotty baserunning ( -4.2 BsR) according to Fangraphs (4.0 WAR).  He showed solid splits, .312 vs RHP, .342 vs LHP, .360 at home, .284 away, .315 at night and .333 during the day.  If healthy and logging 600 PA a 5-6 WAR is within his reach and maybe his first All Star game.  Is a talent like Puig immune to the sophomore jinx?  Pull up a chair and let's find out.. 

BASEBALL CATHEDRALS

The MLB landscape has changed a lot during the last 20-25 years.  Most of the changes are positive and enhance the game.  Some of the things I personally dislike are the cream pies and Gatorade dunks during interviews, the chasing, pulling and tearing of uniforms after a walk off hit and to a lesser degree the state of the uniforms.  The old look unis with matching color caps and stockings was pretty neat and had a very professional look.  Somehow today, there seems to be less professionalism in that sense.

An area of vast improvement has been the rolling out of new ballparks and stadiums with natural grass surface replacing the old multipurpose artificial turf cookie cutter stadiums that have become obsolete for baseball.  Only 2 ballparks remain with artificial turf, Rogers Center in Toronto and Tropicana Field in Tampa Bay.  Even the new generation artificial turf seems more palatable than the older versions.  Whenever Tampa Bay gets a new ballpark they will  be using natural grass surface.  The new Atlanta Braves Stadium to open in 2017 will also sport natural grass. 

PNC Park   Pittsburgh

Busch Stadium   Saint Louis

Teams changing from synthetic to natural grass last 20 years:
NAME                  TEAM                NAME/YR
Riverfront             Cincinnati          Great American Ballpark 2003
Three Rivers         Pittsburgh          PNC Park  2001
Busch Stadium      Saint Louis        Busch Stadium   2006
Olympic Stadium  Montreal            Nationals Park   2008
Veterans Stadium  Philadelphia      Citizens Bank Park   2004
Royals Stadium     Kansas  City      Kauffman Stadium   1995
Metrodome           Minnesota          Target Field   2010
Astrodome            Houston              Minute Maid Park   2000
Kingdome             Seattle                 Safeco Field   1999

Chase Field   Phoenix

Marlins Park   Miami

Even the retractable roof stadiums now have natural grass with the exception of Toronto.  These are:  Minute Maid Park (2000),  Safeco Field (1999), Chase Field (1998), Miller Park (2001) and Marlins Park (2012).

AT&T Park   San Francisco

Yankee Stadium   New York

Some of the great new ballparks besides the above mentioned  include:  AT&T Park in San Francisco (2000), Citi Field in New York (2009), Yankee Stadium in New York (2009), Comerica Park in Detroit (2000) and Petco Park in San Diego (2004).

Dodger Stadium   Los Angeles

Wrigley Field   Chicago

The older parks have seen renovations and facelifts that keep them beautiful.  Here is a,list with their inauguration dates:
Kauffman Stadium (1973), Angels Stadium (1966), Oakland Coliseum (1966), Dodger Stadium (1962), Wrigley Field (1914) and Fenway Park (1912).

Consider the excellent spring training facilities that serve the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues and we can see this is a great time for ballparks.  We are fortunate to enjoy the great National Pastime in these green cathedrals of baseball.

SHORTSTOP PIPELINE

Latin American baseball players are flourishing in MLB.  From 8.9% in 1960 to 26.9% in 2012, almost 3 out of every 10 major leaguer comes from south of the border.  Of MLB's top 100 prospects 29% are latinos.  With this bonanza of  foreign talent there is a major supply of big league SS's.  Entering the 2014 season 20 of 30 (67%) MLB SS positions are filled by latin players.  There are 7 Dominicans  (Hanley Ramirez, Jose Reyes, Jean Segura, Jhonny Peralta, Erick Aybar, Starlin Castro and Pedro Florimon),  four Venezuelans (Alcides Escobar, Elvis Andrus, Marwin Gonzalez and Asdrubal Cabrera), four Cubans ( Yunel Escobar, Alexei Ramirez, Jose Iglesias and Adeiny Hechavarria), three Netherland Antilles (Xander Bogaerts, Didi Gregorius and Andrelton Simmons), one Nicaraguan (Everth Cabrera) and one Panamanian (Ruben Tejada).  Every MLB division has at least 3 latino SS and the AL Central is 5 for 5.

The top 5 latino SS's according to fWAR for 2013 were:  1.  Hanley 
Ramirez (5.1 WAR)  2.  Andrelton Simmons (4.7 WAR)  3.  Yunel Escobar (3.9 WAR)  4.  Jhonny Peralta (3.6 WAR)  5.  Jean Segura (3.4 WAR).  According to the same metric the worst MLB SS was Adeiny Hechavarria of the Florida Marlins with a -1.9 WAR, showing negative offensive and defensive numbers. 

Hanley Ramirez  LA Dodgers   (highheatstats.com)

Andrelton Simmons Atlanta Braves   ( gammonsdaily.com)

This predominance is in line with names from the past like Leonardo Cardenas, Zoilo Versalles, Dagoberto Campaneris, Alfonso Carrasquel, Luis Aparicio, David Concepcion, Omar Vizquel, Tony Fernandez, Alfredo Griffin, Rafael Ramirez, among the most recognizable.  Now more than ever there seems to be a direct pipeline from Latinoamerica to the Major Leagues. 

Bert Campaneris  Oakland A's  (spokeo.com)

Tony Fernandez Toronto Blue Jays  (mlbreports.com)

SHORTSTOP CUBANOS

                                                                                                                                                                                          SHORTSTOP CUBANOS

                                                 
Quien es mejor y representa mas valor para su equipo en la MLB, Alexei Ramirez o Yunel Escobar?  Abordemos el tema.  Ramirez acaba de terminar su sexta temporada con los White Sox y Escobar su primero en Tampa Bay y el septimo en las Mayores. 

Numeros de Alexei Ramirez

2013     .693 OPS     86 OPS+  2.3 oWAR   1.1 dWAR   2.6 WAR

2010     .744 OPS     99 OPS+  3.3 oWAR   3.0 dWAR   5.5 WAR

Numeros de Yunel Escobar

2013     .698 OPS     97 OPS+  2.7 oWAR   1.4 dWAR   3.3 WAR

2011     .782 OPS   112 OPS+  4.0 oWAR   1.4 dWAR   4.7 WAR

El 2013 muestra a Escobar ligeramente superior segun el sistema WAR y lo ha sido en 5 de los ultimos 6 excepto en 2010 cuando Alexei fue mejor.  El 2010 de Ramirez y el 2011 de Escobar son los mejores de cada uno y sirven de punto de referencia.  Otro dato importante, Alexei recibio 7.0 millones y Yunel 5.0 millones de dolares en 2013.

Los principales sistemas de pronosticos para el 2014 opinan que ambos torpederos cubanos tendran una baja ligera en su performance.  Mientras Yunel Escobar recibira 5.0 millones, Alexei Ramirez subira a 9.5 millones de dolares en el 2014.  Mejor performance a casi la mitad del costo le da mucho valor a Escobar para Tampa Bay.

Numeritos cortesia de Baseball Reference.

EVERTH CABRERA

Relatively unknown, Everth Cabrera, the 27 year old San Diego SS was having a career year until a 50 game PED suspension ended his season.  The only Nicaraguan position player in MLB made the All Star game and was the team's MVP before his problem.

Featuring small-ball skills, Cabrera is at least an improving  defensive player and his bread and butter is his excellent speed and base running skills that make him a major stolen base threat with 81 SB in 97 attempts the last two years (83.5%).

Everth Cabrera stealing a base  (Cbs sports.com)

               DEF/IN    DEF/CH       ER       FIELD %       LEA F % SS
2009         896             467            23          .951                 .974
2012         915             471            16          .966                 .970
2013         877             447             6           .987                 .975
As his defensive innings and chances have remained constant his error totals and fielding % have improved.  
                    AB      K%       CON%       wOBA         fWAR
2012           449      24.5       79.9           .291              1.5
2013           435      15.9       86.5           .325              3.1

His K rate decreased and his contact rate improved making him an above average offensive player.

If Cabrera can log 600 AB he'll surely steal 50+ bases and be a 3-4 WAR player from the leadoff slot.   The next few years (2014-16) are important to maintain a high level of play entering free agency in 2017.  A very good value player on a small budget team (2.45 million for 2014).

According to Fangraphs, Cabrera is a Top 5 NL SS behind Troy Tulowitzki (5.6), Ian Desmond (5.0), Andrelton Simmons (4.7) and Jean Segura (3.1) and a Top 10 in MLB tied with Alexei Ramirez of the Chisox who made 7.0 million while Everth made 1.275 in 2013 .

An area of improvement can be his number of infield hits.  He had 24 in 2009, 11 in 2012 and 13 in 2013.  Ichiro Suzuki had 40-50 per year during his great years.  Cabrera hit .365 avg from the right side (115 AB) and .248 from the left side in 266 AB last year. 

                            Pull Avg         Center Avg       Opp Avg
Career                  .278                  .351                .361
2013                     .238                  .420                .363 

More infield hits (bunting and ground balls), improving his left-handed split and going up the middle and the opposite field more could really polish his offensive game.

Everth Cabrera turning a double play   (zimbio.com)