Jeff Samardzija (Photo by Norm Hall)

By Mauricio Rubio | @MRubio52

Jeff Samardzija has transformed himself into a reliable starter for the Chicago Cubs over the years. It has been an interesting journey that looked like it was doomed to fail from the start before “Shark” parlayed his intriguing arsenal into a bullpen job. The former Norte Dame wideout had mixed results at the minor league level and his stuff never matched the end production. Samardzija turned it all around drastically within a span of two years and now the reliever turned starter has a real shot at becoming a rotation stalwart for years with the club that took a chance on him in the draft.

How in the world did this all happen? Let us take a look at Samardzija’s journey to becoming a reliable starter.

Samardzija was a two-way athlete at Norte Dame, he was most famous for his exploits on the football field but he possessed a big fastball and interesting secondary offerings. The Cubs took him in the 5th round of the 2006 draft and offered Samardzija a five-year, $10 million contract to lure him away from football. Samardzija signed and began his baseball career in earnest.

Over Samardzija’s first three years of his minor league career, his end production was mixed and most noticeably his strikeout rates were below average—which didn’t match the stuff. It was not until he hit Triple-A for 37.1 innings in 2008 that his K% rate cracked 20%.

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Joe Panik (Photo by Thomas Patterson)

By Joseph DelGrippo | @JosephDelGrippo

I did see a couple games played by Trenton, when they hosted the Cleveland Indians Double-A affiliate Akron Aeros, and the Richmond Flying Squirrels, a San Francisco Giants affiliate, and will give my early reports. Since I am a Yankee fan, I generally follow the Yankee minor league teams closely and have seen games from every one of their affiliates.

Let me first get the analysis of the Akron team out of the way: I did not see anyone on this roster that will have an impact for the Cleveland Indians major league franchise. No one. Not anyone in their lineup, not even a single reliever. Chien-Hsiu Chen did not play in the game I saw, but has mostly DH’d this season. I saw a bunch of mid-range type players, with some who might become major leaguers, but few which warrant much conversation. One, a very large first baseman named Jesus Aguilar, has shown power in the past but he does not possess a good build and is brutal around first base.

Unless the Indians sign a bunch of quality free agents who perform, they could be bad for quite a while. The handful of garbage they received in trades for CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee didn’t help their system.

The Richmond team had a couple of interesting players, former top picks. Joe Panik, a former 2011 first round pick, is similar to current Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford as he is a quality fielder who will never hit for any type of power. Panik was converted to second base this season and showed an ability to put the bat on the ball with two opposite field singles. He kept his hands tight on both hits, and basically pushed the ball out to left field. These were hits more reminiscent of dead ball era game than the power game of today. While he does have strike zone discipline, he is similar to many of these “work the count” guys who take way too many hittable pitches over the middle of the plate. His second at bat saw Panik take two (very hittable) pitches down the middle, getting behind 0-2 before working the count even then pushing that first base hit.

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Nick Punto (Photo by Stephen Dunn)

By Max Weinstein | @MaxWeinstein21

Back in February for Beyond the Box Score, I embarked on a journey to quantify grit at the MLB level. Needless to say, grit is a trait that is qualitative, one easily perceived by the eye and not as easily captured in a spreadsheet. The methodology is not perfect in our quantifiable GRIT, but it serves us with a good basis to understand which players provide the most “bang for their buck,” day in and day out.

The original methodology is as follows:

1) A player steals his share of bases. (SB)

2) A player that can field his position. (Fld+Pos)

3) A player that makes a lot of contact. (Contact %)

4) A player who has a high walk to strikeout ratio. (BB-K)

5) A player who has a good amount of sacrifice hits and flies. (SH+SF)

6) A player that shows best effort by accumulating infield hits. (IFH)

7) A player that sacrifice bunts + bunts for hits. (BU+BUH)

Later, each component listed above was weighted to its correlation to WAR, as to map which player’s scrappiness provided the most value to his team—the final product being “GRIT SCORE”:

“GRIT” = (0.309)*((SB-lgAVG(SB))+(0.389)*((Fld+Pos)-lgAVG(Fld+Pos))+(0.0319)*((Contact%-lgAVG (Contact%))+(0.5123)*((BB – lgAVG(BB))-(0.2117)*((K -lgAVG(K))+(0.0466)*((SF+SH)-lgAVG(SF+SH))+(0.104)*((IFH+BUH+BU)-lgAVG(IFH+BUH+BU))+(0.283)*((BsR-lgAVG(BsR))+(0.363))

Now there is a fair share of deficiencies with the original method, which I would like to improve upon for this article. Most scrappy players play multiple positions meaning that FLD+POS should instead be POS so to reward those who are versatile on the field. Also looking back on it, I do not think Contact% represents grit the way we want it to, because such a trait puts players in the discussion who are great hitters and not necessarily gritty.

Perhaps the biggest deficiency in “GRIT” was that it represented every trait as being something valuable. However, the matter of the fact is that grit is not an inherently valuable trait for a ball player to have. A player can be gritty, but not a great player in any sense of the word. For that reason, we must remove the WAR weights and adjust by league averages so that we are getting a good look into the grittiest player rather than the value that comes from their grit. In other words, expect to see more Nick Puntos and less Michael Bourns.

Click to read the rest of this column for FREE on page 48 in the latest issue of Big Leagues Magazine

Matt Lipka (Photo by Sam O’Keefe)

By Mike Viso | @MikeViso

The NFL Draft has just passed and as the most popular draft event in sports, it’s been an endless discussion of who is a “bust” and who is a “steal”. Associated with the round the player was selected—and rightfully so—comes different expectations. Matt Barkley gets picked in the third round and becomes a steal as opposed to being picked five slots earlier, in the second round, and putting the weight of a franchise on his already brittle shoulders.

That brings us to today’s subject: Matt Lipka. The former first round pick has had his ups and downs. But at just 21-years-old, it’s safe to say that the future is still very bright for a guy deemed by Baseball America as the Atlanta Braves’ “Best Athlete” three years running.

After adjusting to center field from his drafted position of shortstop, Lipka came alive in both the defensive and offensive categories. Before an injury, in which a complete reconstruction of his right hamstring was needed, Lipka was hitting a solid .271 as a 20-year-old leadoff man in High-A with the Lynchburg Hillcats. Now Lipka is looking to show why being picked at 35^th overall might have been a steal for a prospect that had the opportunity to play as a Wide Receiver under Nick Saban and the powerhouse of Alabama football.

Mike Viso: You’re a former supplemental first round pick, with that there’s a ton of expectations. Last year, you went through a serious hamstring injury; how frustrating was that?

Matt Lipka: The frustration I had was being injured, which was outta my control. I’ve always been one of the youngest players in every league I’ve played in. I made a very good adjustment and I had a good offseason. I think I was making a lot of progression at the plate and in center field.

You know, I felt good…then the injury happened and that was frustrating in itself. You know that’s just something that happens; baseball is a game of adversity. You learn a lot about yourself after those kinds of things. I think I came back from that (injury) better than I’ve ever been.

Viso: What did you learn about yourself?

Lipka: Probably that I’m not only physically tough but I’m mentally tough, as well. Especially for a speed guy to completely tear a hamstring is a pretty big blow…I had to basically go through the steps of really learning how to run again. I thought I took the everyday struggle pretty well. I turned a very negative situation into something positive.

I’ve never had a whole lot of weight to lose and good natural strength, but I went out and tried a new routine. I started eating super healthy. I really just refined my pregame and my routine. There’s a lot of things that can happen and that was probably about the worst, but I’m not gonna let (the injury) affect me and get me down.

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Jameson Taillon (Photo by Mark Olson)

By Chuck Johnson | @prospect_pulse

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s the fact ranking prospects is a really, really difficult thing to do. There are so many factors to consider, some we’re not even aware of, which go into the development of a prospect. Things like organizational philosophies, positional depth, franchise management, that it makes every list, even those put out by the most respected professionals, to be mostly subjective

Personally, I follow the “KISS” principle, and no, it’s not anything said by Gene Simmons or Paul Stanley. KISS, an acronym for “Keep It Simple, Stupid”, is a principle of design brought to the public eye by the US Navy in the early sixties, which preaches simplicity, with any unnecessary complexity removed or avoided altogether.

I’m as big a fan of the various Top 100 lists as anyone, but I find the ranking of pitchers in with position players to be a fruitless tree; they may look nice but you don’t get anything from them. Which is why I only look at players by position, it’s just easier on the gray matter. You still have to realize outside influences matter where guys stack–up, but at least when you look at third baseman, you’re only looking at third baseman.

Pitchers

1) Jameson Taillon, Pirates

2) Taijuan Walker, Mariners

3) Jose Fernanez, Marlins

4) Dylan Bundy, Orioles

5) Kyle Zimmer, Royals

6) Kevin Gausman, Orioles

7) Gerrit Cole, Pirates

8) Archie Bradley, DBacks

9) Shelby Miller, Cardinals

10) Zack Wheeler, Mets

11) Julio Teheran, Braves

12) Aaron Sanchez, Blue Jays

13) Kyle Gibson, Twins

14) Danny Hultzen, Mariners

15) Trevor Bauer, Indians

16) Chris Archer, Rays

17) Andrew Heaney, Marlins

18) Matt Barnes, Red Sox

19) Robert Stephenson, Reds

20) Max Fried, Padres

21) Alex Meyer, Twins

22) Kyle Crick, Giants

23) Michael Wacha, Cardinals

24) Allen Webster, Red Sox

25) Tony Cingrani, Reds

Sleeper: J.O. Berrios, Twins, and Robbie Erlin, Padres

Taillon has the best curveball in all of baseball…including the major leagues. Zimmer’s the top rated college guy on the list and the highest rated from the 2012 draft. I saw Gibson in the AFL and he was impressive as hell, especially coming off Tommy John surgery.

Casey Kelly would be on this list save for his own injury issues. Carlos Martinez and Trevor Rosenthal are highly thought of but have already transitioned to a relief role, and I just don’t like Noah Syndergaard. Depth from the southpaw side is not as deep, I listed four here but easily could have cut it to two.

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Adam Dunn (Photo by Tom Cruze)

By William J. Tasker | @FlagrantFan

Adam Dunn is a pet peeve of mine. I do not mind admitting this because I cannot help it. After he made history in 2011, I was not overwhelmed by his “comeback” in 2012. Yes, he hit 41 homers. And yes, that is a skill set that has become a commodity in the present age of baseball. And, yes, he walked 105 times. The walks, by the way, are part of the pet peeve. If you average out his first two years with the White Sox, you still get a negative valuation. Fangraphs.com has him at -3.0 WAR in 2011 and +1.7 in 2012. He is off to a 2011-like start thus far this year. Why is this deal not talked about along with the other “worst deals in baseball” features?

When the lists of bad deals are bandied about you rarely see Adam Dunn on there. And when you do, he is down below others in that money-sucking category. Alex Rodriguez is always mentioned as well as Alfonso Soriano, Joe Mauer, Vernon Wells, etc. Dunn? Not that much. Here is a brief look at some of those articles:

• Jonah Keri, the great writer for Grantland, put his list of the worst 15 on February 2013. Dunn came in twelfth.
• Steve Henson of Yahoo Sports put his list together in August of 2012 and did not include Dunn in his list.
• Patrick Snow of Athlon Sports put his list together back in October of 2012. No Dunn.
• Dan Wilkins of Bleacher Reports put a list together on November 8, 2012. No Dunn.
• The great Joe Posnanski, writing for SI.com ranked Dunn eighth out of ten.
• Mets Murized Online did not list Dunn in its October 25, 2012 list.

So yes, this is my pet peeve. Let’s get back to that valuation we were talking about. Fangraphs.com also puts a dollar figure next to their WAR figure. By the end of this season, Adam Dunn will be paid $41 million. Before this season even started, Dunn’s valuation was in the red for his first two years (combined) to the tune of $5.8 million.

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Kyle Kendrick was nowhere to be found on fantasy radars in the preseason. The back-end starter on an ultra-talented Phillies staff that includes future Hall of Famers Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee and annual Cy Young contender Cole Hamels simply didn’t have the stuff to sustain success at the big league level, many said. Look at his FIP, others said. The writing’s on the wall. He can’t keep this up.

Don’t look now, but the 28-year old has not only kept this up, he’s gone right past it. In his last 17 starts, Kendrick has allowed two or fewer runs in 14 of them. In those 17, he’s posted 14 quality starts—including six of seven starts this year—with a K:BB ratio of 83:21. He’s arguably been Philadelphia’s best starter this season with a team-leading four wins and 2.45 ERA. Better than Lee. Better than Hamels. And way better than the now-injured Halladay.

Kyle Kendrick (Photo by Rick Schultz)

On Tuesday, Kendrick out dueled two-time Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum in San Francisco—which admittedly isn’t a big deal these days— and needed only 88 pitches to get through seven innings. After allowing a pair of runs early, he settled in nicely and finished with six strikeouts and no walks. He now sports a sparkling 35:10 K:BB ratio in 47 2/3 innings of work. After Tuesday’s start, the San Francisco post-game team even likened Kendrick to Greg Maddux. I’ll chalk that analysis up to a hard night at the plate for the home team, but the praise is noted.

Kendrick is a three-pitch pitcher. He rid himself of the four-seamer for good last year and has since been the pitcher you see today. He throws a heavy sinker, a cutter and a split-fingered changeup. His velocity sits around 90 and his strikeout rate has increased tremendously over the last three years (12.3% in 2011; 17.2% in 2012; 18.1% in 2013). Despite the obvious gains from last year, Baseball Prospectus had this to say about Kendrick heading into 2013:

“Low on pure stuff, Kendrick has survived on a control-first approach paired with a strikeout rate that skyrocketed nicely from 12 to 17 percent last year. His primary flaw is the home-run bug.  Despite a rate of better than one per game, he has survived with sub-4.00 ERAs each of the past two seasons, but pulling off the trifecta with the same skill set would be a real magic trick.”

Baseball Prospectus is spot on (duh). Kendrick doesn’t have overpowering stuff and relies heavily on location, especially to get ahead in the count. That trend has continued nicely this season with a 64.3% first pitch strike rate, up from 63.5% last year. He’s also pounding the plate more with 49.3% of his pitches landing inside of the strike zone. All of this has led to a significant drop in his walk rate, down from 2.77 BB/9 in 2013 to 1.89 BB/9 in 2013.

Baseball Prospectus also noted the home-run bug-a-boo that’s haunted Kendrick throughout his career. Last year, he gave up 20 big flies in 159 1/3 innings last season, good (or not good) for an 11.4% HR/FB rate. Kendrick is just under the 200 total batters faced threshold in 2013, so his line drive/ground ball/fly ball rates are now becoming a reliable predictor going forward. And if we look at those marks, we can see a positive trend developing. So far he’s given up four home runs in 47 2/3 innings (an 8.7% HR/FB rate), while his GB/FB rate is up from 1.30 in 2012 to 1.43 in 2013. His line drive rate is up to 20.4%, but that’s right around the league average of 20.1%.

No, I don’t believe Kendrick won’t post a sub-3.00 ERA this year (he has a 3.56 xFIP and 3.81 SIERA). But a sub-4.00 ERA? I absolutely believe he can pull it off. We’ve seen enough of the new and improved Kendrick who started his ascension from a back-end starter late last season to believe his newfound success is no fluke. So if Kendrick does pull off a sub-4.00 ERA for the third straight year, it’s no magic trick. It’s skill.

The minor league season is in full swing, which means my prospect-watching is in full swing! Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve gotten to see a number of intriguing prospects in both the Carolina and South Atlantic Leagues. Some highly-touted guys have impressed, while others have disappointed, and several sleepers have popped up. Here are my thoughts on no fewer than twenty-one-players—fourteen position players and seven pitchers—across seven different MLB organizations. Videos of all the players listed here—as well as many others—are available on my YouTube channel.

Position Players

Francisco Lindor (Photo by Chuck Crow)rs

Francisco Lindor, SS, Indians (High-A Carolina) I only got to see Lindor for one game, but that was all it took for him to show good potential in all areas of the game. He hits from a slightly open stance and turns toward the pitcher, allowing him an excellent view of the ball as it crosses the plate and letting the ball get deep into the hitting zone before he decides to pull the trigger.

Lindor has a nice swing from the left side (he’s a switch-hitter but I didn’t get a chance to see him hit righty) that gives him solid power to all fields, with 20-homer potential. Add in his feel for hitting, plate discipline, and solid speed, and you have a hitter who could be among the game’s top up-the-middle offensive players, with a chance to put up batting lines around .300/.375/.455.

Defensively, Lindor shows smooth actions and a solid arm and should be at least average at the shortstop position in the majors. Perhaps none of his tools is singularly elite, but he does a whole lot of things very well, and the 19-year-old has a lot of room to refine his good skills into great ones. He deserves all the hype thrown his way and has All-Star potential.

Dante Bichette Jr., 3B, Yankees (Low-A Charleston) Bichette’s .248/.322/.331 line last year wasn’t good enough to get the Yankees to move him up, so he’s repeating the SAL in 2013 at age 20. So far, he’s shown little progress, with strike-zone discipline that’s gone backward (28/6 K/BB) and a .194/.257/.290 batting line. He wasn’t impressive from a scouting perspective, either.

Bichette has a thick build and is not impressive athletically, moving poorly both on the bases and at third base—though he’s had good fielding percentages at the position in his career (compared to other low-minors third basemen), his actions looked very stiff and he may not be able to stay at the hot corner long term.

Bichette hits from a closed stance that leaves him vulnerable on the inner half, where he gets caught looking or gets jammed. The stance does allow him to drive balls up the middle or to right-center when he gets his arms extended, but there’s a fine line between “getting your arms extended” and “lunging,” and Bichette crosses that line fairly regularly, throwing his swing mechanics out of whack and giving away at-bats.

With a limited athletic profile and several offensive weaknesses, Bichette has a lot of work to do in all aspects of the game before he can be taken seriously as a future everyday MLB player. There’s still time for him to improve, since he’s only 20, but it’s easy to see why he’s failed to produce in full-season ball to this point.

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Since its creation in 1974 by mad scientist, Dr. Frank Jobe, Tommy John surgery (TJS) has evolved from a career-ending procedure feared by fans and owners alike into an ordinary and seemingly unavoidable exercise within big-league organizations.

The once revolutionary procedure—in which the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in a pitcher’s throwing elbow is replaced with a tendon from elsewhere in the body—has become commonplace in Major League Baseball. The invasive elbow operation was performed an incredible 49 times on professional pitchers* in 2012, and has been executed an average of 36 times a year since 2006. Seven pitchers (and four position players) have already undergone TJS this season, and another four—Jason Motte, Jonny Venters, Sergio Santos, and Dylan Bundy—may join them soon.

*Position players who underwent TJS, as well as pitchers who had the operation before accumulating 20 professional innings, were not included in the sample. A total of 38 players were omitted from the original data as a result (19 from both camps).

Injury prevention and risk assessment are commonly hyped as the final untapped market for finding a big edge in baseball analytics. Teams are seemingly aware of benefits that being proactive about injuries could provide, but it is unclear whether anyone has made great strides in the department. Oakland A’s general manager, Billy Beane, in 2011 called it “wide-open territory” for “creating a huge advantage.” Dodgers’ director of medical services, Stan Conte, as recently as last August said it was “the final frontier” in a “post-Moneyball world.”

While the success rate for Tommy John (the procedure) has increased greatly over the last 39 years—from 1 in 100 when Tommy John (the person) went under the knife, to about 90 percent today—the recovery time needed to get back on the hill still hovers around a calendar year. With that in mind, Beane’s assessment about “creating a huge advantage” is spot-on. If a team were able to devise a conditioning method that seriously decreased the risk a UCL tear, it would immediately gain a massive leg up over its opponents.

Click to read the rest of this column for FREE on page 11 in the latest issue of Big Leagues Magazine

BJ Upton (Photo by Leon Halip)

By Alex Kantecki | @rotodealer

Let’s take a look at some of the unluckiest hitters in baseball through the month of April according to BABIP (batting average on balls in play). Not every batter you own can start out hot, and sometimes luck plays a big factor in determining who does and who doesn’t. I want to stress that there’s still plenty of ball to play (five more months to be exact), and you shouldn’t automatically give up on a slow starter. That’s when mistakes are made and championships are lost.

B.J. Upton, Braves

Upton has been one of baseball’s unluckiest hitters to start the season with a .172 BABIP. In his seven-year career, the elder Upton owns a .319 BABIP, which is so-so in the world of BABIP. The problem this season is a 32.1 percent strikeout, which represents a career high for Upton. His contact rates are down across the board, especially on pitches inside the strike zone (72.5 percent Z-Contact%).

Something I haven’t heard many people talk about is Upton’s transition from the American League to the National League. Spending his entire career in the AL with Tampa, Upton is facing many hurlers he’s not accustomed to seeing. That could help explain his disastrous start in Atlanta, where he’s hitting .138/.219/.266 with three home runs, six runs, five RBI and three steals. Historically, Upton heats up as the weather heats up, so I’m willing to give him a little longer leash here. But if mid-to-late May rolls around and he still hasn’t figured it out, I’ll be officially worried and jumping ship.

Josh Reddick, Athletics

Reddick made the Red Sox look foolish for trading him to the Athletics last season, as the bearded outfielder smashed 32 home runs with 85 runs and 85 RBI on the west coast. His second year in Oakland hasn’t been so picture perfect, however. Reddick finds himself in a first-month slump, hitting .148/.260/.247 with only one home run. His swinging strike rate is down, but so is his contact rate on pitches outside of the strike zone (67.3 percent O-Contact%). The biggest problem for Reddick has been a major power outage. He set a career high with a .221 ISO last year, but that number has shrunk to .099 in 2013. Reddick has been predominantly a fly ball pitcher in his career, but he’s hitting a lot of weak stuff on the ground right now. His 13.1 percent line drive rate makes me wonder if something is physically wrong with Reddick. He had to sit out a couple of games earlier in the year with swelling in his wrist, so maybe that’s still giving him trouble. I’d set the under on 24.5 homers the rest of the way.

Click to read the rest of this column for FREE on page 58 in the latest issue of Big Leagues Magazine