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Longtime outfielder Juan Pierre, who won the World Series in 2003 and twice led MLB in stolen bases, has reportedly retired from baseball.

Clark Spencer of The Miami Herald passed along the news:

Pierre started his career with the Colorado Rockies in 2000. He made stops with the Florida (now Miami) Marlins, Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago White Sox and Philadelphia Phillies before returning to the Marlins in 2013.

He won the World Series with the South Florida organization in 2003. He posted a .378 on-base percentage with 12 runs scored in 17 games during the team’s playoff run.

The speedster finishes his career with 1,994 games played across 14 seasons. He had a .295 batting average with 1,075 runs scored and 614 stolen bases. His career high in steals came five years ago with the White Sox when he swiped 68 bags. He topped 60 three times.

Matthew Pouliot of Rotoworld put some of his success in perspective:

Pierre confirmed after the 2013 season that he was hopeful to continue his career. He went unsigned throughout the 2014 campaign, however, and wasn’t on a roster as spring training got underway over the past few weeks.

So he’s decided to step away from the game at age 37 after a terrific career as a prototypical leadoff hitter.

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The Cleveland Indians are ready to embark on another season, and with this new season come high hopes. The team is relatively solid from top to bottom, and with a large chunk of last year’s team returning, it’s becoming difficult to fly under the radar.

However, the two player’s we’ll look at in this piece are in camp and relatively overlooked. Sometimes, flying under the radar can be a blessing though, as lukewarm expectations bring an opportunity to shine and excel without the pressure associated with being a high-profile player.

These two players—one newcomer and one returnee—have the opportunity to exceed expectations in 2015, so let’s introduce them, and find out why they’re ready to impress.

Gavin Floyd

Gavin Floyd’s status as an offseason signing and sure thing for the No. 4 spot in the Tribe’s rotation makes for a bit of a reach in labeling him an “under-the-radar” player. However, what’s expected of Floyd is relative mediocrity, and there’s reason to believe he could surpass the modest projections for his 2015 season.

Floyd’s Steamer projections, linked just above, have him working to a stat line that looks like this: 19 GS, 6-7 W-L, 4.20 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 7.0 K/9, 2.7 BB/9 and 2.59 K/BB.

Floyd’s projections are not awful, but also not great. Especially when you consider the overall success the starting rotation experienced last season.

Floyd showed flashes last season of being a more effective pitcher than in years past, averaging a 2.65 ERA over 54.1 innings pitched with the Braves last season.

At 32 years old, Floyd showed improved control (2.2 BB/9 down from career average of 3.0 BB/9) and increased strikeout rates (7.5 K/9 up from 7.1 career average).

Floyd, who was working through his rehab progressions in 2014—he suffered a tear in his UCL, which required Tommy John surgery—also showed some improved velocity.

Floyd’s average fastball velocities from 2011-14:

Floyd has never had much in the way of velocity, but his 92.87 mph fastball in 2014 is his highest single-season average since his age-24 season back in 2007.

With a slightly faster average fastball, and improved health, Floyd looks primed to surpass his Steamer projections for the 2015 season.

Jose Ramirez

For as well as he performed last season, a lot of what Jose Ramirez has done, and will be doing, is overshadowed by the presence of Francisco Lindor, who is loudly banging on the door behind him.

Ramirez played in 68 games with the Tribe last season and managed a .262/.300/.346 slash line with 14 extra-base hits, 17 RBI, 27 runs scored and 10 stolen bases. The 22-year-old managed respectable strikeout and walk rates of 13.2 percent and 4.9 percent, respectively.

Aside from his near-80-grade speed, Ramirez isn’t going to blow you away with any of his tools. His bat is average, his power below-average, while his glove plays to a solid average/above-average level.

The question in Ramirez’s game is whether or not he will hit enough to stick at the big league level. Hitting was never an issue for Ramirez in the minors, having logged a career batting average of .305.

However, the young infielder is aggressive at the plate and rarely looks to take a walk (7.2 percent minor league walk rate). This will be important to watch this spring and in the season’s early going.

While it hasn’t proven to be a problem yet (career 84.1 percent contact rate), one has to wonder how long Ramirez can survive when he has very little to speak of in the way of power (.353 career slugging percentage) and limited on-base skills.

This isn’t an indictment on Ramirez, though, as his aggressive approach at the plate has proven incredibly successful to this point.

That said, if he’s fixed, or is currently working on his ability to draw a walk, Ramirez can be a longtime fixture in the Indians organization, and his performance this spring deserves close attention.

All stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and Fangraphs.com unless otherwise noted.

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The focus tends to be on who will make the team in spring training for most teams. For the Chicago Cubs, most of that appears to be set. However, there are a couple of position battles that should be intriguing. Unfortunately for some, losing these battles could mean starting the season in Triple-A or looking for a job this summer.

With spring training games set to get underway soon, many Cubs players, young and old, have plenty to prove. Based on the situation they’re in, here are five players who could be cut or demoted if they don’t really impress this spring.

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With the top 150 fantasy baseball players all ordered and ranked on the initial 2015 Big Board, it’s time to get into the individual position rankings. All told, there will be (count ’em) 300 players ranked.

After providing some sequencing to the outfielders last time out, next up is third base, a position where the talent is rather clumped together, making it difficult to parse these players.

The hot corner arguably is the one fantasy position that lacks a definitive best player. Is it Anthony Rendon or Adrian Beltre or Josh Donaldson? Those three are the top candidates, but a strong case could be made for any one of them. 

And even the tiers seem to bleed into each other without many easy-to-spot cutoffs. Is it so crazy to think that Chris Davis or Carlos Santana could outperform Kyle Seager or Evan Longoria? Not at all.

The point, then, when it comes time to draft a third baseman, is either 1) target one or two that you like in particular, regardless of the general consensus, or 2) aim for value by letting other owners snatch up the initial bunch, knowing there will still be a few very quality options from which to choose.

And while you could look to land two hot cornermen, one of which for your corner infield spot, chances are you’ll go with a first baseman for that, anyway.

Let’s run down the top 25 overall fantasy third basemen and a few others you should watch, including potential impact rookies.

These rankings consider three factors:

First, everything is based on 10- or 12-team mixed leagues with standard 5×5 rotisserie scoring (BA, R, HR, RBI, SB for hitters; W, ERA, WHIP, K, SV for pitchers).

Second, lineup construction accounts for 22 active roster positions consisting of: one each for catcher, first base, second base, third base, shortstop, corner infield, middle infield and utility, along with five outfielders and nine pitchers.

And third, to be eligible at a particular position, players either must have played at least 20 games there in 2014 or be in line to start there in 2015.

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Spring training is now in full swing around the league, and the 2015 MLB season is drawing closer with each day.

Full squad workouts have begun, and the first spring training games are slated to begin next week, as we are now a little over a month from Opening Day.

In the meantime, the prediction and preview articles will continue to flow, as we gear up for what promises to be another exciting season of baseball.

What follows is my take on what will wind up being the best and worst offseason move for each MLB team.

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The San Francisco Giants have won three world championships in five years. In today’s era of free agency, that level of success qualifies as a modern-day dynasty.

So, how have the Giants been able to accomplish this, even though, on paper, their talent level has often been regarded as weaker than their opponent in a given series? 

What is it that sets the Giants apart from all the rest?

The answer can be found in just one word: continuity.

On the field, the Giants’ core group of players has stayed together, and several have been members of all three World Series-winning teams. These players include Buster Posey, Madison Bumgarner, Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, Sergio Romo, Santiago Casilla, Jeremy Affeldt and Javier Lopez. 

To have four key relief pitchers—Casilla, Romo, Affeldt and Lopez—on all three championship teams is unheard of. 

In addition, Pablo Sandoval, who recently departed to Boston in the free-agent market, also played on all three victorious teams.

Even more Giants have played a role in the past two World Series teams in 2012 and 2014. These include Hunter Pence, Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford, Angel Pagan, Gregor Blanco, Joaquin Arias and Ryan Vogelsong.

Travis Ishikawa was also on two of the championship clubs, although not consecutively. He played on the 2010 and 2014 teams.

Outside of Sandoval, 16 players that have at least two World Series rings are still in San Francisco.

This means that 64 percent of the projected 25-man roster is made up of players with at least two World Series rings with the Giants. That continuity and experience is extremely valuable during the high-stress situations that occur in any postseason.

The continuity is even greater on the management end of things. Larry Baer, who is the president and CEO of the Giants, joined the organization in 1992. An interesting bio on Baer and his ascension up the ranks in San Francisco can be found on sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com.

The baseball management, player development staff and coaches have also remained remarkably stable.

General manager Brian Sabean has held the job since 1996 and is the longest-tenured GM in the game. Sabean deserves a lot of the credit for building a roster that fits together well and being able to make critical midseason deals to bolster the team.

Looking back over the Giants’ past three world championship teams, Sabean acquired the likes of Cody Ross, Pat Burrell, Lopez, Chris Ray and Ramon Ramirez in 2010. All of these players helped the Giants make it to the postseason and win it all.

In 2012, it was the acquisition of Marco Scutaro prior to the trade deadline that pushed the Giants over the top. Amazingly, both Ross in 2010 and Scutaro in 2012 were NLCS MVPs.

In 2014, prior to the trade deadline, Sabean acquired Jake Peavy, who stepped in for the injured Cain. Had it not been for Peavy, the Giants never would have even made the playoffs, let alone won the title.

The continuity at the executive level does not end with Sabean. Assistant GM Bobby Evans has been with the Giants for 21 years. Shane Turner, the director of player development, has been with the Giants for 19 years. 

On the field, manager Bruce Bochy is entering his ninth season with the Giants. His coaching staff has also been very stable.

The only departure is third base coach Tim Flannery, who is also a close friend of Bochy. Flannery has retired and will be sorely missed.

Flannery decided he had accomplished everything he wanted in the game of baseball and had other things he still wanted to do. Reddit.com has Tim Flannery‘s complete letter to the Giants and their fans. 

Dave Righetti is the longest-tenured pitching coach in the major leagues, having started his coaching career in San Francisco 15 years ago. 

Mark Gardner, the bullpen coach, acts as a second pitching coach for the Giants. He began his coaching career in San Francisco in 2003. Gardner actually pitched for the Giants from 1996-2001, winning 58 games and losing 45, per baseball-reference.com.

Roberto Kelly will move from first base to third base, replacing Flannery. Kelly also works with the outfielders and coaches base running. He is entering his eighth year as a coach in San Francisco.

Ron Wotus is the bench coach and is also responsible for the defensive alignments. The Giants do a lot of shifting in the infield, and that’s Wotus‘ call. Wotus has been in the Giants organization for 26 years and a coach in San Francisco for the past 16 seasons. More on Wotus can be found on sfgiants.com. 

Giants management has also made a concerted effort to keep their past stars in the fold. Former greats like Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda and Juan Marichal are frequent visitors to AT&T Park.

Barry Bonds, Will Clark and J.T. Snow have also come out to spring training to work with players and have even been seen during the season helping when they can.

From the top down, the Giants organization is a model of continuity. This is different than any organization in baseball and a big reason the for the success of the team. In addition, the continuity enables the fans to connect with the players in a way that helps the players stay motivated and on top of their game.

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Last week, it was time for pitchers and catchers to report to spring training. This week, it was everyone else’s turn.

In other words: It’s on, people.

Mind you, there are still a couple days to go before the exhibition season gets going next Tuesday, March 3, and more than a month to go until Opening Day. It’s going to be a while before the top storylines and questions of spring training are resolved.

But with Week 2 of spring training just about in the bag, we can at least get up to date on the 10 biggest questions in the spring. So let’s get to it.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted/linked.

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It wasn’t long after the end of the 2014 season that general manager John Mozeliak and manager Mike Matheny informed Carlos Martinez that he’d report to spring training as a starter in 2015.

It was the same message Mozeliak had for the 23-year-old right-hander after the 2013 season.

But after losing to Joe Kelly last spring, Martinez seems to have an inside track toward the final spot in the team’s Opening Day rotation this time around, a spot made available through the trades of Kelly and Shelby Miller.

Armed with a triple-digit fastball and a deep arsenal of swing-and-miss offerings, Martinez has emerged as one of the more dominant late-inning relievers in baseball, making 70 appearances out of the Cardinals’ bullpen since arriving on the scene in May 2013.

Yet the organization has never given up on his upside as a starter. It’s probably because the right-hander showed huge potential in the role during his time in the minor leagues, with a 2.61 ERA, .215 opponents’ batting average and 10.3 strikeouts per nine innings in 338 innings over 69 starts (70 appearances overall).

Martinez has started eight games for the Cardinals over the last two seasons, but his inconsistency in the role as well as the organization’s pitching depth have kept him from locking down a spot in the rotation.

This year, however, Martinez is determined to break camp as a starter. He spent part of the offseason playing in the Dominican Winter League, where he pitched to a 2.25 ERA with 26 strikeouts against two walks in 24 innings (five starts), and he’s already received glowing reviews from members of the organization after reporting to spring training ahead of schedule.

“A year ago you’d just see a kid bounding around here. It’s amazing the transformation,” Matheny told The Associated Press (h/t Fox Sports Midwest) earlier in the week. “In general there’s a whole different demeanor to him.”

So will this be the year Martinez finally sticks as a starter?

As a reliever, Martinez throws mostly fastballs, both four-seamers and sinkers, and sliders, and they’re each extraordinary pitches by all measures.

Martinez’s average fastball velocity of 96.7 mph in 2014 was tied for third highest among all pitchers with at least 80 innings pitched, per FanGraphs, while Brooks Baseball says he topped out at 101.97 mph last April.

Unsurprisingly, Martinez also throws his sinker (or two-seam fastball) exceptionally hard, averaging 95.2 mph with the pitch. He can struggle to control the pitch (17.78 percent strike rate) but generally keeps it down in the zone, as only seven percent of the balls put in play last season against his sinker were in the air compared to 65 percent on the ground.

So what makes the 23-year-old’s sinker so good? Beyond throwing it harder than most other pitchers, Martinez’s sinker stands out for its difference in vertical movement relative to his four-seamer. Specifically, the right-hander’s fastball averaged 8.2 inches of vertical movement last season where as his sinker had 3.2 inches, meaning there was more than a five-inch gap between pitches.

And then there’s Martinez’s slider, which was his best swing-and-miss offering last season thanks to a 24.2 percent whiff rate, per Brooks Baseball. In general, his slider generated whiffs on 45.5 percent of all swings. Martinez’s success with the pitch might have something to do with the fact he threw it nearly five miles per hour harder last season (86.5 mph) than he did in 2013 (81.6 mph), as it also allowed him to create more vertical movement.

Martinez’s changeup was widely viewed as his best secondary offering during his rise through the minor leagues, but he’s had to dial back his use of the pitch significantly as a reliever. But while the right-hander threw it only 2.9 percent of the time, he still was able to produce a nearly 21 percent whiff rate.

Improving his changeup has been a focal point for Martinez this offseason, writes Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

It’s a circle changeup and it has depth to it. The changeup is not a new pitch for him. There was a time during his development that a scout told me Martinez could get “changeup happy” when he should just pile-drive the fastball. Played off his fastball, the changeup was viewed was one of his best and most deceptive pitches as he worked his way through the minors.

But for as good as Martinez’s stuff is, the 23-year-old still has plenty of room for improvement in terms of his command, evidenced by his 3.63 walks per nine innings last season.

The bigger issue is Martinez’s career splits, as he’s dominated right-handed batters in the major leagues but struggled mightily against lefties.

More specifically, he has problems throwing strikes and induce whiffs from left-handed hitters like he does righties:

Combine all that with the concerns regarding his long-term durability as a starter, and you begin to see why the Cardinals want Martinez to earn his spot in the rotation this spring. His main competition is left-handers Jaime Garcia and Marco Gonzales, and it’s possible that Carlos Villanueva could also receive consideration should the other hurlers struggle.

However, none of them have as much upside as Martinez.

Few do.

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Here we are, right back where we started.

As March approaches and actual games are on the horizon, the time to break down position battles is upon us. As far as Cactus and Grapefruit League games go, they might not count toward reaching October, but for players involved in these toss-ups, they are ever meaningful. 

But instead of breaking down all the position battles, or the ones for each team, let’s make this more relevant. Which fights matter? Which ones carry the most weight for their team’s eventual success? Where are the battles with the most at stake?

That typically means the battles that are happening within clubs with lofty expectations. While every franchise has some kind of position uncertainty hovering over their spring camp, these are the five most important.

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You wouldn’t expect a team with five straight seasons of at least 87 losses to be all the rage heading into a new season. The Chicago Cubs, however, have worked hard to be an exception.

They’ve recently added an elite manager in Joe Maddon, as well as quality veteran talent in Jon Lester, Jason Hammel, Miguel Montero and Dexter Fowler. These moves were designed to make the Cubs a contender in 2015, and now one gets the sense that most everyone thinks the impending arrival of Kris Bryant will be what officially gives them the green light.

But the Cubs’ chances of living up to the hype in 2015 hinge just as much, if not more, on another young player who’s already embedded in the team’s plans:

Jorge Soler.

Relative to Chicago’s shiny new additions and Bryant’s looming presence, Soler really hasn’t gotten much attention during the buildup to the Cubs’ 2015 season. This is despite how:

1. He’s already slated to be the Cubs’ starting right fielder.
2. He has the kind of talent to be a major difference-maker.

To that second point, Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, MLB.com and ESPN.com’s Keith Law all have the 23-year-old Cuban ranked within baseball’s top 22 prospects. 

It also helps that Soler looked the part of a superprospect in 2014. He tore through the minors before making an impressive MLB debut, which included an insane five-game stretch at the very beginning. In all, his season looked like this:

About the only thing that went wrong in Soler‘s 2014 were a pair of hamstring strains that kept him sidelined for a good chunk of time. Otherwise, he was a menace everywhere he went. 

This is normally where there’s a word of caution about taking what’s on the table with a grain of salt, but the projections for Soler‘s 2015 season are surprisingly optimistic.

The PECOTA projections at Baseball Prospectus and the Steamer projections at FanGraphs expect Soler to flirt with 25 home runs and an OPS in the high .700s. Because these are part of overall projections that have the Cubs contending in the NL Central, the takeaway is that they’re truly going to need Soler to live up to his potential to be relevant in 2015.

That’s a lot to ask of a 23-year-old with only 97 major league plate appearances, to be sure. But the deeper you dive into the book on Soler, the more it sounds like he should be up to the challenge.

The projections for Soler don’t call for him to be an average or OBP merchant. PECOTA and Steamer both have his average pegged for the .260 range, and his OBP pegged for slightly below .320.

Rather, both systems expect power to be his primary strength. And though they’re certainly not, it’s almost as if they’re basing that prediction off the book on Soler.

No matter which scouting report you turn to, you’re going to find praise for Soler‘s immense raw power and what makes it possible. Specifically: insane bat speed packed into an explosive swing that easily generates loud contact. And while that loud contact can go to all fields, Baseball Prospectus‘ remark that he “punishes middle-in” pitches gives him a particularly intriguing pull-power profile.

It’s hard to sum all this up with moving images. But here, these do the trick pretty well:

The hack Soler took there looks awesome enough enough when viewed as a whole sequence. But if you really want to get the gist about how quick a bat is and how easily a hitter can turn on the ball, sometimes it helps to narrow things down to a single image.

For example, this one:

That pitch really wasn’t far off from being chin music. That Soler managed to hit it is impressive enough. That he hit it well over 400 feet is absurd.

But as nice as it would be to geek out over Soler‘s sheer physical talent, that’s only going to get a hitter so far in the majors. A hitter’s approach ultimately determines how good he’s going to be, and that’s more of a gray area with Soler.

It doesn’t look very good that Soler struck out in 24.7 percent of his major league plate appearances last year. That speaks of an overaggressive approach, and his plate discipline figures at FanGraphs don’t exactly dispel the idea. He wasn’t particularly good at keeping his swings confined to the strike zone, and he had issues making contact when he did expand the zone.

Further, Brooks Baseball can show that the bulk of Soler‘s strikeouts came on breaking balls, which corresponds with one of Baseball Prospectus‘ concerns about Soler‘s struggles to “adjust to spin.”

Another concern is his ability to adjust to pitches away from him, and his batting average heat map from 2014 shows that concern to be well founded:

If we can see all this, you can bet that catchers, pitchers and pitching coaches can see it too. The plan of attack against Soler in 2015 could will likely involve a lot of pitches away from him and a lot of breaking balls. If he fails to adjust, he could find himself whiffing his way back to the minors.

But here’s the thing: The aggressive Soler who showed up last year might not be the real Soler.

On the contrary, you can look at what he did in the minors last year and see a more reasonable 20.3 percent strikeout rate. Next to that is a 14.0 percent walk rate, a mark reached by only four major league hitters.

The stats thus make Soler out to be more advanced than he made himself look in his taste of the majors, and it’s not hard to find scouting reports that agree.

This is from MLB.com:

[Soler] recognizes pitches and works counts well, so he should hit for average. He makes more consistent contact than Javy Baez and Kris Bryant, two other prodigious sluggers with whom he rose through the Cubs system.

And this is from Keith Law:

Soler wasn’t patient in the majors, but he had been so in the minors, and I expect that skill to return as he gains experience in the majors and stops trying to recreate what he did in those first five games.

According to Patrick Mooney of CSN Chicago, Soler‘s new skipper also likes what he sees.

“Here’s a big guy with some pop that could make good decisions at the plate,” said Maddon. “He’s just not up there hacking or swinging, which is kind of unusual. A lot of the young Latin kids will come up and plate discipline is not part of the game. You’re not going to walk and get off the rock.

“They come up swinging all the time and this is a guy that’s a little bit more mature in his approach to hitting. I’m really eager to see that.”

To the extent that he may be more advanced than he let on at first, it’s fair to highlight Cuban countryman Yasiel Puig as a potential comp for Soler.

Though Puig has a reputation as a wild swinger that he often lives up to, realistically, he’s gotten a lot better at taking good swings and at adjusting to how pitchers are attacking him. Soler could very well slide into the same mold.

If he does, getting the better of Soler won’t be as simple as pounding him away and feeding him a steady diet of breaking balls. That could at least lead to the kind of consistency he’ll need to live up to the power potential the projections expect of him and might allow him to do even better.

All of this is to say nothing of what Soler could provide on defense in right field. Though he doesn’t have the speed to have plus range, he has more than enough arm strength. It’s possible that he’ll provide above-average defense to go with his above-average offense, making him one of the league’s better right fielders.

So though Soler hasn’t been a particularly big topic of conversation in the buildup to the 2015 season, he should be. The Cubs are already expecting him to play a role in getting them back to respectability, and we have plenty that says he’s not going to let them down.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted/linked.

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