SB Nation - Mitch Moreland

Rangers Were Interested In Kevin Youkilis, But Backed Out

Jeremy Mauss — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 01:12:45 -0000

The Boston Red Sox are looking to trade third baseman Kevin Youkilis at any day now, and at one point during this process the Texas Rangers were reportedly interesting in acquiring Youkilis.

The Red Sox are looking to trade Youkilis because they feel they have a proper replacement in Will Middlebrooks who is more than ready with 31 RBI in 38 games.

The Rangers were interested because they will be without first baseman Mitch Moreland for 6-8 weeks with a strained hamstring.

However, the Rangers are no longer in the hunt according to league sources, because the Rangers were concerned that Youkilis wouldn't have been happy being a role player or possibly coming off the bench for the Rangers.

Teams that are in the Youkilis sweepstakes are the Pittsburgh Pirates who are believed to be the favorites, the Chicago White Sox and possibly the Los Angeles Dodgers.

For more on the Rangers go visit Lone Star Ball.

2012 MLB All-Star Game: Rangers Doing Well In Voting Polls

brandon_k_scott — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 14:03:52 -0000

The Texas Rangers really don't have any weaknesses. They've got Gold Glove candidates at nearly every position, and every got in their batting rotation can be dangerous on a given night.

It really is compelling, and has to be somewhat deflating for teams in the American League that know getting to the World Series is going to have to go through Texas in some fashion.

So next month's MLB All-Star Game is likely to reflect how much talent the Rangers organization has been able to collect over recent years. Check out the voting numbers after the jump.

AMERICAN LEAGUE

FIRST BASE
Prince Fielder, Tigers: 1,027,070
Mark Teixeira, Yankees: 697,602
Paul Konerko, White Sox: 671,430
Mitch Moreland, Rangers: 618,226
Albert Pujols, Angels: 478,020

SECOND BASE
Ian Kinsler, Rangers: 1,447,171
Robinson Cano, Yankees: 1,164,448
Dustin Pedroia, Red Sox: 699,422
Robert Andino, Orioles: 317,434
Chris Getz, Royals: 278,585

THIRD BASE
Adrian Beltre, Rangers: 1,179,864
Miguel Cabrera, Tigers: 886,365
Evan Longoria, Rays: 789,434
Alex Rodriguez, Yankees: 657,315
Mike Moustakas, Royals: 432,379

SHORTSTOP
Derek Jeter, Yankees: 1,698,777
Elvis Andrus, Rangers: 1,033,986
J.J. Hardy, Orioles: 489,941
Alcides Escobar, Royals: 392,195
Asdrubal Cabrera, Indians: 344,065

CATCHER
Mike Napoli, Rangers: 1,224,565
Matt Wieters, Orioles: 713,469
Joe Mauer, Twins: 637,364
Russell Martin, Yankees: 431,435
A.J. Pierzynski, White Sox: 424,646

DESIGNATED HITTER
David Ortiz, Red Sox: 1,204,904
Michael Young, Rangers: 1,049,170
Raul Ibanez, Yankees: 492,183
Billy Butler, Royals: 477,257
Edwin Encarnacion, Blue Jays: 391,131

OUTFIELDERS
Josh Hamilton, Rangers: 2,587,991
Curtis Granderson, Yankees: 1,406,128
Nelson Cruz, Rangers: 992,992
Jose Bautista, Blue Jays: 930,814
Adam Jones, Orioles: 857,543
David Murphy, Rangers: 652,379
Nick Swisher, Yankees: 624,215
Brett Gardner, Yankees: 437,126
Ichiro Suzuki, Mariners: 433,899
Jeff Francoeur, Royals: 422,304
Austin Jackson, Tigers: 389,664
Nick Markakis, Orioles: 384,390
Alex Gordon, Royals: 378,459
Jacoby Ellsbury, Red Sox: 346,774
B.J. Upton, Rays: 277,173

Read more about the Texas Rangers at Lone Star Ball. Head over to Baseball Nation for more around the league.

Texas Rangers Hitting Stats Worth Watching

philkid3 — Mon, 07 May 2012 14:24:11 -0000

We have young-but-not-that young season, with an 18-10 Rangers team, being played in its second month. Many will be tempted to react to the statistics players are putting up, proclaiming players as busts or successes based on the data we've got so far. Many others will be tempted to dismiss the claims of those fans as being irrelevant, since the season is still so young and there's a long way to go.

The truth lies somewhere in between them. The season is still young, but not so young we just dismiss everything we've seen. The question is: when does "small sample size" start being "big enough sample size?"

If you look in the FanGraphs glossary, you'll find a whole lot of spiffy information, including the results of Pizza Cutter's research on when in-season statistics become reliable (no, I do not know PC's real name).

Most Ranger every-day players have hit, or are close to hitting, 100 plate appearances. At 100 PAs, the rate at which players swing at pitches and make contact on those swings can be expected to continue. It is also very close to the point (150 PA) where how often a hitter is striking out or hitting line drives becomes reliable, and is half way to the point that we begin trusting the rate of walks and ground balls we have seen so far.

If we look at the Texas hitters so far through this lens, we actually don't find a whole lot of surprising performances so far, but there are a few signs -- good and bad -- that pop up.

A player's rate of swinging at pitches you'll see is the first thing to stabilize, at around 50 plate appearances. Josh Hamilton is swinging more often than he did a year ago, and Michael Young is swinging less often, but neither is significant.

What could be significant is that both are chasing at pitches out of the strike zone more than they did in 2011. Hamilton has raised his O-Swing% by 6.3 percentage points, while Young has raised his by an incredible 12.6. That is. . . troublesome.

At the same time, Young has taken his ground ball rate up to a (by far) career-high 55.2%. At 116 PAs, he is not yet to the point where that becomes reliable, but he is at the point where this season gets more weight than his career rates. In other words, there is reason for hope, but even more reason for concern. It has been kind of awesome the way Michael Young has avoided aging, but with more hacking and more ground balls, it seems 2012 might be the year he finally does.

The only significant change in swing rate overall has come from Yorvit Torrealba's increased selectivity from a year ago. He has also lowered his strikeout rate, though less significantly, and raised his line drive rate. These improvements have not yet resulted in better overall numbers, but they are a sign that we could be seeing a better season from Torrealba at the plate.

After striking out a career-low 19.7% of the time last season, Mike Napoli has been struck out in a career-high 30.6% of his at bats this year. That alone is not a horrible sign, but coupled with an also-lowered walk rate, it might become an increasingly bad sign over the next month. For whatever reason, Napoli may just not have the eye he had a year ago. He also has dropped his line drive rate by 3.5 percentage points, making it seem like the Rangers may have been smart not to extend Napoli based on a career year.

Also raising his strikeout rate has been David Murphy, going from 13.9% in 2011 to 24.7% in 2012. Murphy is not quite to the 150 plate appearances K% requires to be considered reliable, but at 85 he is past the point where this season gets more consideration than his career. That said, he has also brought his line drive rate up from 16.8 to 26.8%, with a similar drop in ground balls, so he may know what he's doing.

On the topic of line drive rates, Elvis Andrus's rate backs up the perception that he's hitting balls harder, raising an actually-significant 3.6% up to 26.7% this season. We have a way to go to begin trusting his ground ball rate, but that, too, has improved, from a team-leading 55.8% last season to 47.8% this year. He's even improved his walk rate significantly, up to 11.2%, though it is still a tad early to pay much attention to that. Still, this might be the year Andrus makes the jump and we start seeing what he can do in his prime years.

While Andrus's LD% has jumped a bit, and is one of the best rates in baseball, it is nothing compared to the growth of Ian Kinsler. Mr. Pop Up his hitting line drives 28.8% of the time, up from 17.6% last season! You may remember some talk that Kinsler was a good bet to raise his batting average this season thanks to a low Batting Average on Balls In Play last year, but a dramatically improved line drive rate could help him surpass even those lofty expectations. This is by far the best line drive rate in Kinsler's career, and that's a career that has been one of the more valuable baseball players in recent history.

Also improving his rate of line drives has been Mitch Moreland, jumping from 18% to 24.1%. He is at only 74 PAs, but it's a somewhat reliable statistic to back up what has seemed like an improvement in contact from the maligned first baseman.

Three very good signs, two bad signs, one-bad-but-not-surprising sign, and two cautiously good signs. That seems like a net win for Texas so far. Maybe this will help us all get over the current slump a bit.

Stay tuned for pitchers later in the week.

Quick Note On Debating The Rangers' Batting Order

philkid3 — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:00:11 -0000

First thing's first: batting order is not particularly meaningful. The typical lineup that managers spew out and the "ideal" lineup are not very different over a long season.

But, we sports fans love to discuss strategy, and there are few more interesting elements of baseball strategy than batting order. From whether or not your lead-off man should get on base or be able to run (the former), to who deserves the prestige of hitting third, it's a tremendously common debate.

And it's fun, so there's nothing wrong with going ahead and having the conversation, as long as you're not treating it as especially important. The problem is, people stop simply at stuff like "we should flip Elvis Andrus and Michael Young," instead of actually looking how best to optimize the lineup. If we're going to pretend we're manager of the Rangers and mess with the batting order, why are we going to stop at simple moves that change little to nothing at all when we can rearrange the entire lineup in our fantasies?

A few years ago Beyond The Boxscore took a look at how best to optimize your batting order, citing the excellent research of Tom Tango from his book The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball. Let's use this information to go a bit farther when talking about what we'd like to see the Rangers' batting order look like.

In short, the third spot is overrated, the second spot is the most important, the fourth after that, and your lead-off hitter should get on base a lot.

Following the information here, and using the in-season updated ZiPS forecast for the Ranger hitters, our best every-day lineup would look something like this:

Ian Kinsler (.382)
Mike Napoli (.391)
Adrian Beltre (.355)
Josh Hamilton (.390)
Michael Young (.340)
Nelson Cruz (.348)
David Murphy (.341)
Elvis Andrus (.319)
Mitch Moreland (.318)

The number in parenthesis is weighted On Base Average; think of it as an all-encompassing offensive measure scaled to look like OBP.

Kinsler is actually the perfect lead-off man; one of the team's three best hitters, and a brilliant on-base guy. Napoli is almost as perfect a No. 2 hitter, as maybe the team's best hitter and also an OBP machine. Beltre is a great No. 3 hitter, since so much of his value comes from homeruns (Cruz could also fit here). Young is ahead of Cruz due to the value of batting average in the five spot, but that could actually be a mistake.

The biggest problem with the current lineup is hitting Andrus -- maybe the weakest hitter on the team -- in the most important spot in the order. In this lineup, we also get his incredible baserunning in front of a hitter with relative inability to advance runners, a big plus, and more valuable than putting that skill in front of good hitters.

This still does not go quite as far as we can go with this. It ignores platoon splits (Napoli will not hit as well against righties, Moreland will usually sit against lefties), for one thing, and the Rangers will not be playing the same lineup every day. However, it didn't take a lot of work, and we've now gone farther in the discussion of what the Rangers' lineup should look like than we normally would.

Once again, though, it needs to be stressed that batting order really does not make a lot of difference, relative to how much time is spent griping about it. The difference between hitting this lineup every day and the lineup Ron Washington typically runs out -- at least against right-handed pitching -- is only a handful of runs over a full 162 games; seven total projected runs, to be exact (per this fun toy). In total, five runs of difference over a full season. It's pretty easy to believe stuff not accounted for -- like where certain hitters are comfortable, protection, splitting up lefties, etc. -- can more than make up for that difference.

So, the next time you engage in a conversation about batting order, refer to the BtB link above to take in a little bit farther. Tango's excellent book is also a must for anyone even remotely interested in baseball analysis, and he provides a lot of information in his blog as well. Just don't waste too much of your time complaining about it, when you could be spending more time complaining about bunts and reliever usage!

This post prompted by frequent discussion in the excellent community of Lone Star Ball.

Josh Hamilton Really Does Like Christian Music

tjarks — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 17:45:55 -0000

With Opening Day right around the corner, it's time to see what Texas Rangers at-bat songs you will be irritated with by the end of April.

Each player gets to choose their own song, giving fans a rare look into the personal tastes of their baseball heroes.

Unsurprisingly, Neftali Feliz, Alexi Ogando and Adrian Beltre went with Latin music, while Josh Hamilton's song choices honored Jesus.

I guess I'm getting old because I haven't heard of most of the stuff that was chosen. For the full list, courtesy of Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News, click after the jump.

David Murphy: Strong Tower (Kutless); Take My Life (Third Day)

Mitch Moreland : Homeboy (Eric Church)

Mike Napoli: Magic (T.I)

Neftali Feliz: Con Los Pies (Chimbala)

Brandon Snyder: Take it Outside (Brantley Gilbert)

Alexi Ogando: Latinos in Paris (Pitbull)

Michael Young: Heart of the City (Jay Z); Down (311)

Elvis Andrus: Al Se Eu Te Pego (Michel Telo); Lovumba (Daddy Yankee)

Ian Kinsler: Black Betty (Ram Jam); Superstition (Stevie Wonder)

Mark Lowe: Copperhead Road (Steve Earle)

Adrian Beltre: Pa Que Retocen (Tego Calderon)

Craig Gentry: Breakdown (Tantric); Mean To Live (Switchfoot)

Joe Nathan: Stand Up (Steel Dragon)

Josh Hamilton: Trust in Jesus (Third Day); Save Your Life (Newsboys); Blessing and Honor (Phillips, Craig and Dean)

Derek Holland: Paper Cut (Linkin Park)

2012 Texas Rangers Projections: Steamer

philkid3 — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 19:22:23 -0000

The last forecast we are taking an in-depth look at this week is Steamer.

Steamer is operated by a high school statistics professor and two of his former students. They show an intense interest in finding anything other forecast systems do well, things they could do better, and then incorporating them in to their forecast, creating steady improvement.

The result the past two seasons has been the king of forecasting pitching performances. A large part of this is that Steamer uses pitcher handedness and velocity in their projections -- to my knowledge, they are the only system that does this. You can see how that approach worked for them in 2010 and 2011. Steamer is still good on position players, but pitchers are where it shines.

So that is what makes Steamer awesome. You can get the spreadsheets for hitters and pitchers here. You can also find Steamer projections on every player page on FanGraphs.

Now on to what Steamer has to say about the Rangers.

Steamer, like the rest, is down on Mike Napoli continuing his explosive 2011 performance. Their .268/.357/.527 slash line with 29 home runs comes out to a .378 weighted On Base Average. Beyond that, it gives Napoli 100 more plate appearances than he had in 2011, but the result is still around 15 fewer runs created for the Rangers.

Steamer is very high, however, on Josh Hamilton improving in 2012. They give him roughly the same line as Napoli, but from the less advantageous side of the plate in Arlington, his wOBA comes out to .384. There is no increase in health, but Steamer's improvement seen in Hamilton makes up for most of Steamer's projected decline in Napoli. (As a quick note, these wOBA numbers don't quite match up with FanGraphs, because FanGraphs does not do hand-specific park adjustments.)

The rest of that difference is made up by Nelson Cruz also improving to a season more like his 2009 breakout, with improved health. The two corner outfielders alone are enough to make up for Mike Napoli's regression in the Steamer projections.

Steamer is ultra positive on Ian Kinsler repeating his 2011 performance, with the same offense and only slightly less health, it sees him again as one of the best players in baseball. His middle infield partner Elvis Andrus is also given pretty much a repeat of his season before, which is just fine and dandy. There is the typical expected regression of Michael Young and Adrian Beltre, but nothing too bad, and Beltre makes up for most of it with a vast improvement in PAs. Steamer sees massive growth from Mitch Moreland, however. A wOBA over .340 -- which both I and FanGraphs come up with from Steamer -- would make him an adequate every day player, or an excellent platoon option against right handed pitching.

Then there is, of course, the centerfield situation. Steamer believes in Leonys Martin as being a well above-average bat, which would be more than enough given his defensive reputation. That is, again, on such limited information, however, we should cede to the Rangers' best judgement. Steamer thinks Julio Borbon can approach average, but is not so high on Gentry. The platoon of the two would still come out fine here, but less ambitious than in other forecasts. Steamer thinks David Murphy will look more like his first two years in the league, which may not be great, but given how down it is on the other options and how high it is on Hamilton, the best course of action from these numbers might be risking Hamilton's health a bit -- and taking a hit on defense -- to put out the best hitting outfield possible.

Overall, Steamer comes out very, very high on the position players. As I said, though, its strength is on pitchers, and with that in mind, here is the no-nonsense list of how the rotation options fare.

Pitcher	IP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	ERA	FIP
Colby Lewis	182	7.42	2.49	1.3	3.92	4.22
Derek Holland	180	7.42	3.23	1.0	3.99	4.00
Yu Darvish	169.1	7.4	2.9	1.1	4.01	3.84
Alexi Ogando	92	7.23	2.8	1.2	3.92	4.13
Matt Harrison	178	6.18	3.24	1.0	4.38	4.19
Scott Feldman	96	5.25	2.84	1.0	4.53	4.43
Neftali Feliz	136	7.4	4.1	1.3	4.33	4.43

So Steamer is not necessarily that high on the Rangers' rotation, at least not compared to other forecasts. The result is still a good rotation, just not as good as 2011. Holland stays roughly the same to become the best pitcher in the rotation, and Lewis takes a step forward. Both here look somewhat like competent No. 2 starters, while Harrison takes a mighty step backward. It's worth nothing that, while Steamer is down on Darvish from an ERA standpoint, his FIP does not come out too far behind other forecasts, and from that standpoint he would be able to hit TORP territory with more innings.

The Feliz transition may be uninspiring here, but that's still a decent middle of the order starter if he gets a bigger work load. That is the very worst in this rotation, too. This rotation forecast may be a little bit of a buzzkill, but it's not exactly bad, either. It's a good, deep rotation for regular season success, and if just one of these young pitchers were to take a step forward you'd probably be just fine for the postseason, as well.

Unlike some of the other forecasts, Steamer is down on the Joe Nathan signing, thinking him a great closer in a good bullpen.

Given how high Steamer is on the Rangers' position players, this still looks like a very good team overall. There may be some concern raised in the pitching ranks, but that doesn't mean it's worth panicking.

2012 Texas Rangers Projections: Davenport

philkid3 — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 17:00:39 -0000

Fourth on our list of Texas Rangers forecasts is a new-comer: the Davenport Projections. It doesn't have a fancy acronym or anything yet!

It also has no previous results for us to see how accurate it is, so it is to be taken with a rather large grain of salt. Clay Davenport himself, however, had a rather large track record, as a founding member of Baseball Prospectus, perhaps the foremost expert on finding ways to translate minor league stats to the Majors, and having done some work on their popular PECOTA forecast system.

His own system uses a Marcel-like regression with different (hopefully more accurate) weights, and then ages players using comparable players from MLB history. You can find the projected standings as of Monday here, and it includes a link to spreadsheets including every player's individual stats. And you can find his playoff odds forecast here. Again, we don't know a whole lot about how reliable we should treat it, but it can be fun to look at something new.

There's another reason to look at these if you're a Rangers fan, too, and you'll see it the moment you click those links.

Well, that's just a tad exciting, huh?

If you clicked the jump instead of going to the Davenport site, then you missed a projected 100 win season on average for the 2012 Texas Rangers; winning the division by 16 games. SIXTEEN! Can you imagine if the Angels shell out ridiculous money for Albert Pujols, and in most likely his best season of the contract they lose the division by 16 games?!

That forecast is the best record of any team by seven wins (ahead of the Yankees). The Yankees' 93 win forecast is more typical of a projection system for a good team. Teams are pegged to their mean performance, not a high end of an extreme. You don't usually -- or ever -- see teams pegged with a mean of 100 wins. Davenport thinks the Rangers are the best team in baseball by a mile, and that would put their floor somewhere at "merely in contention" and their ceiling at about "historically great."

The playoff odds give them an 85% chance of winning the division, and that's prior to an update that gave them 100 wins. The total playoff odds come out to 93%, the kind of odds you hope to get late in the season, not before a pitch has been thrown. Good heavens I hope he's on to something the rest of the models are not.

This is by far the smallest expected regression seen yet out of Mike Napoli. Davenport has the Rangers only scoring about 10 fewer runs in 2012 on account of Napoli. It does not, however, see Napoli as the team's best hitter. That title, rather, goes to Josh Hamilton.

Davenport is also pretty high on the platoon of Craig Gentry and Julio Borbon, seeing that combination as nearly an all-star player given good defense. Leonys Martin is also seen as a slightly better option than Borbon, though once again that cannot be with much confidence.

Despite the optimistic win total, however, the position players are not particularly great here. There are not any significant bounce back candidates on the list -- not even Mitch Moreland. Like just about everyone else should, Davenport expects the Rangers to take a step back offensively. However, it doesn't expect as large a step back as some of the other forecasts do. The position players seem like a few All-Stars (Hamilton, Adrian Beltre, Ian Kinsler), some good, a lot of solid, and black holes at either catcher or first base/designated hitter, depending on where Napoli is playing that day. That's just fine, it's not as good as 2011, but it's still a good lineup. With some good pitching, that's a very good team.

Davenport thinks "good pitching" is an under sell. With 164 strikeouts, 58 walks, and a 3.56 ERA over 203 innings pitched, Darvish comes out as the third best pitcher in the American League, continuing a trend of forecasts liking the Japanese import a lot. This has been mentioned before, but systems were pretty high on Colby Lewis, too, and he outperformed them; there is an inspiring precedent here.

Lewis, by the way, comes out as the second best pitcher, just barely over Neftali Feliz. Feliz, however, only loses out due to fewer innings (189 to 165). Feliz's 144 strikeouts to 69 walks peg him as a solid No. 2 starter -- very nice for a first-year starter in a projection system -- with a 3.79 ERA.

Like every system, Matt Harrison and Derek Holland are both seen as candidates to take a step back, but they still both come out looking like middle of the order starters. That may not sound fantastic, but when your worst starter is a guy who could be a No. 3 on most teams (Holland is still a top 80 pitcher in baseball by WARP in the forecast), you have a very good rotation. Davenport sees the Rangers as matching up favorably on the mound against the typical team in any five game set, especially after the first two spots.

There's also the matter of the bullpen, where Davenport thinks the Rangers have the two best relievers in the entirety of baseball in 2012, in Mike Adams and Koji Uehara. It's by a negligible amount, but -- like ZiPS -- Davenport actually has Uehara as the better pitcher of the two. Complimenting them, Yoshinori Tateyama comes out as a solid reliever, and Joe Nathan comes out useful. The trend of Nathan looking nowhere close to the best in the bullpen continues, so that may make some early games scary, but we will have to see. Of course, there is also Alexi Ogando, projected to be good enough to make the Rangers' rotation, let alone help their bullpen.

And that is where you get a 100 win forecast. Davenport has the Rangers total pitching performance behind only the vaunted Phillies -- who don't have to face a DH -- and that's more than enough to compliment a good position player group.

Again, we know little about how the Davenport forecasts will look in seven months, but at the very least it's a nice boost of optimism to go with your lunch today.

Poll

Over/Under: 100 wins by the 2012 Texas Rangers.

Over

37 votes

Under

110 votes

Push

19 votes

166 votes | Poll has closed

Updated Davenport Projections: Rangers Still Awesome

philkid3 — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:51:18 -0000

Clay Davenport updated his new forecast system today, with a lengthy explanation I had to read two or three times just to get.

I'll spare you the explanation because you can read it yourself. What's important here is, similar to his previous iterations, the Rangers are the best team in baseball in his 2012 estimate. Texas wins 97 games here, better than anyone else by five games.

I think we'd be fine with that?

He also has nifty links to spreadsheets featuring every batter and pitcher. Yu Darvish comes out looking fantastic with a 3.27 ERA, 183 strikeouts to 57 walks, and an overall elite-level season from a pitcher. Neftali Feliz also checks in with a sub-4 ERA, but fewer strikeouts and innings pitched, for a more mediocre season. It still supports the exact rotation Texas is going to, and projects Texas as the best pitching staff in the American League.

It also has them as the best offense. That's generally a good way to be the best team in baseball. It is somewhat down on Josh Hamilton, Nelson Cruz, and Mike Napoli staying healthy, or Michael Young having another awesome year at the plate, but only Mitch Moreland in the lineup looks particularly below-average, with All-Star caliber years forecasted for Ian Kinsler, Elvis Andrus, and Adrian Beltre. Leonys Martin is given a .742 OPS as a rookie

No real way to know how much confidence to put in to his work, but another bright baseball mind putting himself towards improving baseball forecasting is never a bad thing. It's fun to look through, though, and totally cheap as free.