Sabersphere 1/24: Projection systems, King Felix, and pFIP

Bill Petti of FanGraphs tells us how Marcel beat him:I Fought Marcel and Marcel won

Like my work last year around pitcher aging and velocity decline, I am always looking for reliable indicators or signals of change in players. One thing I’ve been interested in trying to better understand are changes in performance that might signal or herald a large droop-off in performance in the following year.

Glenn DuPaul of The Hardball Times (and Beyond the Box Score) continues his look at minor leaguers and pFIP:2012 minor league leaders in pFIP (Part 2)

I typically work with major league statistics andtalent evaluation, so I typically consider hit prevention to have more to do with luck than defense or actual skill. However, Fast's argument is that all major league pitchers have some hit prevention skills, which means in the minors (especially in the lower levels) having the ability to suppress hits is important.

Rob Neyer of Baseball Nation looks into how much Felix Hernandez could command: Will King Felix be worth the ransom?

If King Felix does get his $100 million, he would earn roughly $140 million over the next six seasons. Which would be a bit less than Cole Hamels' $144 million and Zack Greinke's $147 million. Which is why I don't think Hernández (or his agent) will settle for $140 million, considering he's probably a little better than those guys and is getting his money a little later.

If you would like to submit an article for Sabersphere, send an email to SpencerSchneier22@gmail.com.

Today's BtB retro involves Erik interviewing current Houston Astro's GM Jeff Luhnow.

Jeff Luhnow interview.