Jose Abreu, the Cuban Ichiro

This article was originally posted on Batting Leadoff on May 19, 2014.

They couldn’t be any more different.

Jose Abreu, the Chicago White Sox’s rookie first baseman and reigning AL Player of the Month, is on a power-hitting rampage.  At six-foot-three and 255 pounds, the Cuban sensation looks like a man who was born to hit moonshots; he leads MLB with 15 home runs in only 42 games.

Ichiro is the greatest Japanese-born player in MLB history.  Lithe and trim, the mononymous outfielder is celebrated for his tremendous speed, defense, and volume of hits.  As a rookie in 2001, Ichiro led baseball in hits and stolen bases, and was MVP of the American League.  Three years later, he set the MLB record for most hits in a season.

Not much in common, you might think.  But there are two reasons that Abreu and Ichiro belong in the same sentence. 

First, Abreu, like Ichiro, is having a transcendent rookie season after stardom in a non-American league.  He stands out among a wide range of competitor sets:

• Cuban stars in MLB: Nobody doubts that Yoenis Cespedes and Yasiel Puig can mash, but through their first 42 games, Abreu has outshined them both.

 

• MLB in 2014: Abreu leads all batters in home runs, total bases, and AB/HR.  He leads the American League in slugging percentage and isolated power.

• All historical rookies: Abreu’s torrid bomb-hitting pace puts him among the all-time best starts.  Since MLB expanded in 1961, six players have hit 15 or more home runs in their first 50 games.  Albert Pujols, Ryan Braun, and Mark McGwire are good company to be in.

 

When a rookie is on pace for 58 HR and 158 RBI, one naturally wonders about regression.  It’s a legitimate concern (remember Kevin Maas?), and his nagging ankle injury has landed him on the 15-day DL, and could make him less effective as the season wears on.

But Abreu is unusually well scouted for a Cuban player, belying his reputation as an unknown commodity.  His BABIP of .286 puts him in the bottom half of starting first basemen.  Most importantly, he can hit outside pitches to the opposite field.  As MLB Daily Dish’s Jasper Scherer points out, “[The] ability to go the other way is key for maintaining success as a power hitter, as big-league pitchers inevitably find ways to exploit hitters who can only pull the ball for power – a la Curtis Granderson.”

Source: FanGraphs

Abreu will cool off at some point, but it should be evident by now that the man can rake.  He or Masahiro Tanaka will be the AL Rookie of the Year.

The second similarity between Ichiro and Jose Abreu is somewhat more speculative, but more meaningful for the future of baseball. Ichiro was not the first Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) player to permanently break into MLB, but his 2001 MVP campaign removed all doubt that Japan’s best players could excel on baseball’s highest stage.  Since then, Hideki Matsui, Yu Darvish, and Masahiro Tanaka have made the leap to MLB stardom, and teams have signed more Japanese players, as the chart below indicates.

Cuban-born stars in MLB are nothing new.  El Duque broke into the majors 15 years ago, and even casual baseball fans are aware of Aroldis Chapman, Jose Fernandez, and some kid who likes bat-flipping.  This season, there are 19 MLB players from Cuba; every front office knows that Serie Nacional (the island’s top league) has talent.

But if Jose Abreu’s dominance continues, I think that teams will accelerate their pursuit of Cuban stars, just as front offices looked to Japan for the next Ichiro-caliber star.  The Abreakout coincides with two other developments that make this outcome likely.

First, the Cuban government recently allowed its players to play in foreign professional leagues during the spring and summer, Serie Nacional’s offseason.  As Cuban players migrate to the Mexican League and NPB, they will have more exposure to AAA-level competition (Serie Nacional is considered equivalent to high-A ball), as well as to MLB scouts.  The Cuban government is hoping that letting players earn a salary overseas will discourage them from defecting, but with 30 MLB teams able to scout these players and open their wallets accordingly, this seems like wishful thinking to me.

So far, only three Cuban players have moved to overseas leagues under the new law.  The Mexican League, under pressure from Minor League Baseball to avoid running afoul of the U.S. embargo on Cuba, requires Cuban players to have residency in another country.  But it’s easy to imagine this rule changing; MLB history shows that teams will do anything for a competitive advantage, whether laudable or shady.  The more Cuban players who play overseas, the more who will obtain residency in Mexico or Japan and become eligible for MLB free agency.

Second, the current CBA creates strong incentives for MLB teams to seek out talent abroad.  It awards fewer compensatory draft picks, and imposes severe financial penalties for drafting over slot.  But as Batting Leadoff’s Max Fogle points out, the sanctions for exceeding MLB’s spending limits on international amateurs are comparatively weak.  Consequently, the Cubs, Yankees, and Rangers have spent aggressively on international amateurs in recent years.  Additionally, Cuban players who are 23 or older and have played at least three seasons in Serie Nacional are considered free agents, exempt from all spending caps.  Whether Cuban players enter MLB as free agents or international amateurs, their pursuit remains an area where big-market teams can flex their muscles.

Jose Abreu, like Ichiro, is having a monster rookie season.  If many more Cuban stars, like Alfredo Despaigne, take their talents to MLB, they will be able to say that Jose (and Yasiel, and Yoenis…) led the way.

Modeling Future Contract Extensions

This article was cross-posted on FanGraphs Community on April 22, 2014, and was selected by the site's editors as one of the best posts of the week.

Last month, Dave Cameron published a brilliant yet simple free-agent pricing model. Using only projected 2014 WAR (ZiPS and Steamer projections are averaged) and the assumption that one incremental win is worth $5 million, it accurately projects the contract length and cost of last offseason’s free agents. Cameron also made some minor tweaks to his model to project 2015 free agent contracts. Both articles are absolutely worth checking out in full.

It’d be fun and easy to extend Cameron’s model to predict what David Price (2016), Chris Davis  (2016), and Giancarlo Stanton (2017) would make on the free agent market. (If you’re curious, Price would get 6/$136, Crush would get 6/$112, and Stanton would get 9/$260, assuming that the value of an incremental win increases annually by $500,000.)

But the recent slate of massive contract extensions illustrates the folly of this exercise. Savvy front offices lock up top talent before it hits free agency, usually at a discount relative to the free agent market. Young players often prefer an immediate certain payday rather than rolling the dice in free agency, when their future value will be far more unpredictable. A model that predicts the value of contract extensions would thus be a useful counterpart to the free agent pricing model. You’re in luck, because I just built one.

I kept the basic contours of Cameron’s model in place; as before, the only inputs are projected 2014 WAR and an estimated value of an incremental win. This gives us the contract length (projected 2014 WAR times a multiplier that scales up depending on the WAR projection) and average annual value (projected 2014 WAR times $5 million).

To test the accuracy of this approach, I compared the extension model’s output to 32 contract extensions that have been signed since July 1, 2013. I excluded players projected to produce less than 1 WAR this season. I estimated the value of an incremental win produced by a closer as $10 million, which lines up with what closers earned in free agency last offseason. If a player’s extension kicks in after the 2014 season, I counted the remainder of his current contract as part of the extension.

Free Agent Model vs. Actual Contracts

Player	Team	2014 WAR	Proj Yrs	Proj Amount	Proj AAV	Act Yrs	Act Amount	Act AAV	$/WAR
Mike Trout	Angels	8.6	17	$731	$43	7	$146	$21	$2.4
Miguel Cabrera	Tigers	6.0	12	$357	$30	10	$292	$29	$4.9
Clayton Kershaw	Dodgers	4.7	8	$186	$23	7	$215	$31	$6.6
Dustin Pedroia	Red Sox	4.6	9	$207	$23	8	$110	$14	$3.0
Andrelton Simmons	Braves	4.5	9	$200	$22	7	$58	$8	$1.9
Jason Heyward	Braves	4.1	8	$164	$21	2	$13	$7	$1.6
Matt Carpenter	Cardinals	3.6	7	$126	$18	6	$52	$9	$2.4
Freddie Freeman	Braves	3.5	7	$121	$17	8	$135	$17	$4.9
Jason Kipnis	Indians	3.5	7	$121	$17	6	$53	$9	$2.5
Ian Desmond	Nationals	3.2	6	$95	$16	2	$18	$9	$2.9
Jose Quintana	White Sox	3.1	5	$78	$16	5	$27	$5	$1.7
Starling Marte	Pirates	3.1	6	$92	$15	6	$31	$5	$1.7
Chase Utley	Phillies	3.0	4	$59	$15	2	$25	$13	$4.2
Coco Crisp	A’s	3.0	4	$59	$15	3	$30	$10	$3.4
Yan Gomes	Indians	3.0	4	$59	$15	6	$23	$4	$1.3
Brett Gardner	Yankees	2.8	4	$55	$14	5	$58	$12	$4.2
David Ortiz	Red Sox	2.7	2	$27	$14	2	$31	$16	$5.7
Jordan Zimmermann	Nationals	2.7	4	$54	$14	2	$24	$12	$4.4
Jedd Gyorko	Padres	2.7	4	$54	$14	6	$35	$6	$2.2
Homer Bailey	Reds	2.6	4	$51	$13	6	$105	$18	$6.9
Hunter Pence	Giants	2.4	4	$48	$12	5	$90	$18	$7.5
Julio Teheran	Braves	2.3	3	$34	$11	6	$32	$5	$2.4
Tim Lincecum	Giants	2.0	2	$20	$10	2	$35	$18	$9.0
Will Venable	Padres	1.9	2	$19	$9	2	$9	$4	$2.3
Jose Altuve	Astros	1.9	2	$19	$9	4	$13	$3	$1.7
Craig Kimbrel	Braves	1.8	7	$123	$18	4	$42	$11	$6.0
Ryan Hanigan	Rays	1.6	2	$16	$8	3	$11	$4	$2.3
Michael Brantley	Indians	1.6	2	$16	$8	4	$25	$6	$4.0
Chris Archer	Rays	1.5	2	$15	$8	6	$26	$4	$2.9
Martin Perez	Rangers	1.5	2	$15	$8	4	$13	$3	$2.2
Charlie Morton	Pirates	1.4	1	$7	$7	3	$21	$7	$5.2
Glen Perkins	Twins	1.0	4	$40	$10	4	$22	$6	$5.5

The initial results are mixed. The model comes very close to the actual average extension contract length (prediction of 5.1 years vs. actual of 4.8 years), but badly overshoots the actual AAV. Again, this is because GMs pay more for a win on the free agent market than for a win produced by a player already on their roster. To account for this, I set the value of an incremental win at $3.7 million, the average WAR / $ of the 30 non-closers’ contract extensions. (For closers, I used $7.4 million.)

Extension Model vs. Actual Contracts

Player	Team	2014 WAR	Ext Yrs	Ext Amount	Ext AAV	Act Yrs	Act Amount	Act AAV	$/WAR
Mike Trout	Angels	8.6	17	$541	$32	7	$146	$21	$2.4
Miguel Cabrera	Tigers	6.0	12	$264	$22	10	$292	$29	$4.9
Clayton Kershaw	Dodgers	4.7	8	$138	$17	7	$215	$31	$6.6
Dustin Pedroia	Red Sox	4.6	9	$153	$17	8	$110	$14	$3.0
Andrelton Simmons	Braves	4.5	9	$148	$16	7	$58	$8	$1.9
Jason Heyward	Braves	4.1	8	$121	$15	2	$13	$7	$1.6
Matt Carpenter	Cardinals	3.6	7	$93	$13	6	$52	$9	$2.4
Freddie Freeman	Braves	3.5	7	$89	$13	8	$135	$17	$4.9
Jason Kipnis	Indians	3.5	7	$89	$13	6	$53	$9	$2.5
Ian Desmond	Nationals	3.2	6	$70	$12	2	$18	$9	$2.9
Jose Quintana	White Sox	3.1	5	$57	$11	5	$27	$5	$1.7
Starling Marte	Pirates	3.1	6	$68	$11	6	$31	$5	$1.7
Chase Utley	Phillies	3.0	4	$44	$11	2	$25	$13	$4.2
Coco Crisp	A’s	3.0	4	$44	$11	3	$30	$10	$3.4
Yan Gomes	Indians	3.0	4	$44	$11	6	$23	$4	$1.3
Brett Gardner	Yankees	2.8	4	$41	$10	5	$58	$12	$4.2
David Ortiz	Red Sox	2.7	2	$20	$10	2	$31	$16	$5.7
Jordan Zimmermann	Nationals	2.7	4	$40	$10	2	$24	$12	$4.4
Jedd Gyorko	Padres	2.7	4	$40	$10	6	$35	$6	$2.2
Homer Bailey	Reds	2.6	4	$38	$9	6	$105	$18	$6.9
Hunter Pence	Giants	2.4	4	$36	$9	5	$90	$18	$7.5
Julio Teheran	Braves	2.3	3	$25	$8	6	$32	$5	$2.4
Tim Lincecum	Giants	2.0	2	$14	$7	2	$35	$18	$9.0
Will Venable	Padres	1.9	2	$14	$7	2	$9	$4	$2.3
Jose Altuve	Astros	1.9	2	$14	$7	4	$13	$3	$1.7
Craig Kimbrel	Braves	1.8	7	$91	$13	4	$42	$11	$6.0
Ryan Hanigan	Rays	1.6	2	$12	$6	3	$11	$4	$2.3
Michael Brantley	Indians	1.6	2	$11	$6	4	$25	$6	$4.0
Chris Archer	Rays	1.5	2	$11	$6	6	$26	$4	$2.9
Martin Perez	Rangers	1.5	2	$11	$6	4	$13	$3	$2.2
Charlie Morton	Pirates	1.4	1	$5	$5	3	$21	$7	$5.2
Glen Perkins	Twins	1.0	4	$30	$7	4	$22	$6	$5.5

With the adjustment to $/WAR, the results look much better. The predicted average AAV ($11.3 million) is now only 6% higher than the actual average ($10.6 million.) For the 31 players on the list (excluding Mike Trout, an outlier if there ever was one), the model projects a total of 147 years and $1.87 billion in contracts; the actual sums are 146 years and $1.67 billion. Not perfect, but decent.

The model misses very badly for unusual situations. Jason Heyward and Ian Desmond are projected as 8/$121 and 6/$70 respectively, but they both signed 2 year contracts worth less than $20 million last offseason. Both players were unable to come to terms with their teams on longer deals. This is probably because they are the odd men out on teams that have either just made it rain on prodigious young talent (Kimbrel, Freeman, Simmons) or will do so in the near future (Strasburg, Harper). Instead, Heyward and Desmond opted for shorter contracts in order to avoid arbitration and set themselves up for 2016 free agency.

Mike Trout is a unique case. The fishy outfielder signed a 7 year, $146 million extension last month, which looks like a massive underpay compared to the 17 years, $541 million (!!!) the model says he is worth. Don’t get me wrong: for the Angels, the Trout signing is still the best deal since the Louisiana Purchase. But it’s unrealistic to conclude that the Angels saved $395 million, since nobody would wait until Chelsea Clinton’s second term to test free agency, least of all someone who is currently breaking baseball.

Despite these shortcomings, the model can still evaluate the wisdom of recent extensions. Plotting the 32 players on a 2×2 matrix (the x-axis is the difference between actual and projected AAV, and the y-axis is the difference between actual and projected contract length) shows which front offices overpaid and which got steals.

Scatterplot of Contract Extensions

The extensions fall into four groups: locked-in bargains, short-term bargains, “win now” splurges, and albatrosses.

• Locked-in bargains are the best kind of extension: these contracts are cheap and relatively long. Yan Gomes is a good example; the model thinks he’s worth $11 million a year for 4 years, but the Indians locked him down for $4 million a year for 6 years. Initially, I felt bad that Yan missed out on an extra $20 million, but then I remembered that he’s a millionaire in his mid-20s who probably sleeps well at night, whereas I am a non-millionaire in his mid-20s who does not play a sport for a living.
• Short-term bargains are contracts that are cheap but shorter than projected. According to the model, Andrelton Simmons is worth $16 million a year for 9 years; the Braves signed him for $8 million a year for 7 years. So the Braves paid a below-market AAV for Simmons, but deprived themselves of controlling him for two more years (at least in theory). One caveat here: as explained earlier, Heyward and Desmond fit into this quadrant because their teams were unwilling to pay out for longer contracts, and Trout is simply a freak show.
• Win now splurges are contracts that are expensive but relatively short. Clayton Kershaw fits here because he makes $14 million more per year than the model thinks he deserves, but has a 7 year contract rather than the 8 years the model would give him. One could argue that Kershaw is a potential albatross, but if he leads the Dodgers to a World Series this year, their fans, like the Honey Badger, won’t care.
• Albatrosses are exactly what they sound like: excessively long, pricey contracts that make fan bases cry. Hunter Pence and Homer Bailey are the biggest albatrosses on the list; they were paid an extra $42 million (Pence) and $67 million (Bailey) than the model says they’re worth. Miguel Cabrera really belongs in this quadrant as well. The model considers Miggy a win now splurge, but only because it thinks he deserves 12 years rather than 10. No, Tigers fans, Mike Ilitch did not help me build this model.

Finally, the model can estimate how much your team should pay to extend your favorite young star.

Extension Model for 2015-18 FAs under 30 with WAR > 2

Player	FA Year	Age in 2014	2014 WAR	Ext Years	Ext Amount	Ext AAV
Yu Darvish	2018	27	5.1	9	$168	$19
Giancarlo Stanton	2017	24	4.5	9	$148	$16
Max Scherzer	2015	29	4.6	8	$136	$17
Jason Heyward	2016	24	4.1	8	$121	$15
Carlos Gomez	2017	28	4.0	8	$117	$15
David Price	2016	28	4.2	7	$109	$16
Pablo Sandoval	2015	27	3.7	7	$95	$14
Chase Headley	2015	29	3.6	7	$92	$13
Carlos Gonzalez	2018	28	3.5	7	$91	$13
Chris Davis	2016	28	3.5	7	$89	$13
Brett Lawrie	2018	24	3.4	7	$88	$13
Stephen Strasburg	2017	25	3.5	6	$78	$13
Carlos Santana	2018	27	4.0	5	$73	$15
Jay Bruce	2018	27	3.2	6	$70	$12
Ian Desmond	2016	28	3.2	6	$70	$12
Matt Wieters	2016	27	3.6	5	$67	$13
Justin Masterson	2015	29	3.1	5	$56	$11
George Springer	2019	24	3.0	5	$56	$11
Jason Castro	2017	26	3.2	4	$47	$12
Jonathan Lucroy	2018	27	3.2	4	$47	$12
Brandon Belt	2018	25	2.8	4	$41	$10
Desmond Jennings	2018	27	2.8	4	$41	$10
Jordan Zimmermann	2016	27	2.7	4	$40	$10
Colby Rasmus	2015	27	2.7	4	$40	$10
Yoenis Cespedes	2018	28	2.7	4	$39	$10
Pedro Alvarez	2017	27	2.7	4	$39	$10
Eric Hosmer	2018	24	2.6	4	$38	$10
Johnny Cueto	2016	28	2.2	3	$24	$8
Yovani Gallardo	2016	28	2.1	3	$23	$8
Billy Butler	2016	27	2.1	3	$23	$8
Jed Lowrie	2015	29	2.1	3	$23	$8
Brandon Morrow	2016	29	2.1	3	$23	$8
Asdrubal Cabrera	2015	28	2.1	3	$23	$8

To return to our earlier examples, Chris Davis would get 7 years and $89 million, David Price would get 7 years and $109 million, and Giancarlo Stanton would get 9 years and $148 million if they signed extensions this season. Of course, it’s tough to predict who will sign an extension and who will try their luck in free agency. Build me a model that can do that, and I’ll eat my Mets hat.

Talkin' About Playoffs

This article was cross-posted on FanGraphs Community on March 21, 2014.

While watching the playoffs last October, I realized that I had never seen rookies play such a prominent role in the postseason before. Pitchers like Michael Wacha, Gerrit Cole, Hyun-Jin Ryu, and Sonny Gray propelled their teams into contention during the regular season, and took the hill in multiple elimination games. The inimitable Yasiel Puig had a similar impact on the Dodgers’ fortunes in 2013.

This observation led me to investigate rookie performance during the 2013 regular season. Were rookies contributing to the success of their teams more so than in the past? Were rookie pitchers outperforming rookie hitters? How about rookies on playoff teams versus non-playoff teams?

Using WAR data from Baseball Reference, I measured rookies’ contribution to overall team success in 2000-2013, defined as rookie WAR divided by their team’s WAR. A few definitions before jumping in to the findings:

• Rookies are players who have accumulated less than 130 AB (or 50 IP) and less than 45 days on an active roster prior to their rookie season
• For consistency across time, teams that won the second wild-card slot in 2012 and 2013 are not considered playoff teams (u mad, Reds and Indians fans?)
• Rookie pitcher WAR = amount of WAR created by a team’s rookie pitchers
• Rookie pitcher share of WAR = % of a team’s WAR created by rookie pitchers
• Rookie batter WAR = amount of WAR created by a team’s rookie batters
• Rookie batter share of WAR = % of a team’s WAR created by rookie batters
• Rookie total WAR = Rookie batter WAR + Rookie pitcher WAR
• Rookie share of total WAR = Rookie pitcher share of WAR + Rookie batter share of WAR

In chart 1, rookie share of total WAR for the average team in 2013 (11.3%) is above the long-run average of 8%, and was only exceeded in 2006 (12.7%). But there was no discernible difference in rookie share of total WAR between the average playoff team (10.9%) and non-playoff team (11.4%) last season. So far, it would appear as though I need to adjust my TV.

The data becomes more interesting when the average team’s rookie share of total WAR is decomposed into pitcher and batters’ contributions. There is a rapid rise in rookie pitcher share of WAR between 2010 and 2013, peaking last season at 6.7% of the average team’s WAR. This increase was so strong, it more than made up for a decrease in rookie batter share of WAR during the same timeframe, from 6.5% in 2010 to 4.6% last season.

These trends become starker when the analysis is limited to playoff teams. On the average playoff team in 2013, rookies provided 10.9% of WAR, a step down from the high reached in 2012. But there is still a huge rise in rookie pitcher share of WAR between 2010 and 2013, to 8.7% last season, and a concurrent decrease in rookie batter share of WAR, to 2.2%. In other words, 80% of the average 2013 playoff team’s rookie total WAR was generated by pitchers. If not for a certain Cuban-American hero with a penchant for bat-flipping, that share would have been even higher.

But some evidence, as well as anecdotal observation, suggests that pitchers in general have become more dominant over the past few seasons. Is this trend, observed so far among rookies, true of all pitchers? Over the past fourteen seasons, the average team has generated between 36-44% of WAR from pitchers. This share has been consistent over time, and has edged up only slightly during the past few seasons. This suggests that rookie pitchers, especially those on playoff teams, really did excel in 2013.

Now, let’s look at just how good the rookie pitchers on playoff teams were last season. Together, the 54 rookie pitchers on 2013 playoff teams generated 29.6 WAR, which is slightly higher than last year’s total (29.1 WAR) and much higher than the long-run average (16.0 WAR). What’s even more impressive is that last season, 57% of all 30 teams’ rookie pitcher WAR was generated by the rookie pitchers on playoff teams, a higher share than in any other season since 2000. Cumulatively, 54 rookie pitchers on 8 teams outperformed 151 rookies on 22 teams. Not bad.

But wait…there’s more. By focusing on the best rookies on playoff teams (arbitrarily defined here as those who generated 1+ WAR), we see that there were 20 such players last season. Of that number, 16 were pitchers, like Shelby Miller, Hyun-Jin Ryu, and Julio Teheran. Five of those pitchers were on the Cardinals (Miller, Siegrist, Wacha, Rosenthal, and Maness.) The concentration of top rookie pitchers on playoff teams last year is the highest in at least fourteen seasons.

My initial observation, “Wow, there are lots of rookie pitchers killing it in the 2013 playoffs!” looks to be borne out in the data. This raises two other interesting questions:

1. For any of last year’s playoff teams, did rookie pitchers provide enough value to get their team into the playoffs?

2. Is the rookie pitcher observation a one-time anomaly, or indicative of a larger trend?

The first question is relatively easy to answer. We can compare each playoff team’s rookie pitcher WAR (essentially, how many more games the team won because of rookie pitchers) to the number of additional games each playoff team could have lost and still made the playoffs without tying a second-place team (let’s call this the buffer).

For four out of eight playoff teams (again, I exclude the second wild-cards), rookie pitcher WAR is higher than the buffer. But since Detroit and Tampa made the playoffs by one game, and since Pittsburgh’s rookie pitcher WAR is less than one game higher than the buffer, it’s hard to argue that rookie pitchers definitively moved the needle for them. Andy Dirks or Yunel Escobar could have just as easily gotten their teams over the hump, since they also created more than 1 WAR.

The Cardinals are the one team whose rookie pitchers probably got them into the playoffs. They got 9.7 extra wins from their rookie pitchers (almost 23% of the entire team’s WAR), and made the playoffs by 6 games.

The second question is harder to answer, since the 2014 season hasn’t started yet. There’s no clear reason why rookie pitchers on playoff teams would suddenly start playing extremely well, especially since it doesn’t look like they’re causing their teams to make the playoffs. The likeliest explanation is that the top teams in the league happened to have outstanding rookie pitchers last year. Sometimes, “stuff” happens.

But if you want to prove me wrong, and show that last year’s playoff teams have developed great farm systems capable of producing more top rookie pitchers, pay close attention to what Jameson Taillon (Pirates), Carlos Martinez (Cardinals), Jake Odorizzi (Rays), and Allen Webster (Red Sox) bring to the table in 2014. All four pitchers are on Baseball America’s list of top 100 prospects, are on last year’s playoff teams, and are projected to crack the majors this season. If they get off to a hot start, and if they help their teams return to the playoffs, I might have to revisit my conclusion next winter.