Morning Mound Visit: sabermetrics news - 2/15/19

FanGraphs | Jeff Sullivan: Max Kepler agreed to an extension with the Twins for $35 million, and in this case... the player specifically chose not to bet on themselves. He had shown signs of improvement, and his batted ball profile suggested a breakout in 2019, but it wasn’t guaranteed and the hit velocity hasn’t come, so he chose to take the money and run.

Baseball Prospectus | Rob Arthur ($): Catching is changing, and framing is at the root of it. Over the past few years the standard deviation for CSAA has plummeted, largely because every team now has a baseline decent catcher; Ryan Doumit isn’t coming back. At the same time this means their offensive status is changing with it, and I would assume that will swing back in the future.

The Ringer | Ben Lindbergh: We all know TINSTAAPP by know, and now so do all of the prospect writers. The likes of Sixto Sanchez, Hunter Greene, Casey Mize, Michael Kopech, and Dylan Cease all suffer in the rankings because of lingering concerns of injury, which has in turn been reflected in prospect rankings, while in the past writers may have been swayed by ceiling. That doesn’t mean there aren’t good pitchers, and that some of them won’t be big leaguers, but the error bars are bigger than position players, and changing patterns means they will have fewer innings to contribute down the road, as well.