Episode 578
Dave Cameron is both (a) the managing editor of FanGraphs and (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio, during which edition he discusses FanGraphs’ recent live event in Washington, DC; Major League Baseball’s most abominable practices, ranked in order; and, finally, the looming trade deadline.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 42 min play time.)

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A little over a month ago, I asked which player would get a major-league hit first: Jon Lester, or Kyle Schwarber. Lester had just set an all-time record for the longest hitless streak to begin a career. But, it’s not like the Cubs were about to remove Lester from their rotation. Schwarber, meanwhile, was a hell of a hitting prospect, but he was in the minors, so that was a hurdle. By nearly a 3-to-1 margin, the audience voted for Lester. By nearly a 3-to-1 margin, the audience was wrong. Schwarber was briefly promoted, and he registered a hit. Then he registered another seven. Lester continued making outs.

Until Monday! Monday, Lester recorded his first-ever knock, off John Lackey in the second inning of a game in which Lester, for a time, had more hits than his opponent. For Lester, it was career at-bat number 72, and career plate appearance number 79. The hitless-streak record still belongs to Lester, and there’s nothing about that to be done, but now he’s officially no longer an o’fer. And while Lester himself would’ve preferred a win to a single, just because he won’t dwell on it doesn’t mean we can’t. Here’s to dwelling.

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The Tampa Bay Rays are taking a relatively novel approach to divvying up innings between starters and relievers. Injuries have robbed the team of Alex Cobb for the season, Matt Moore and Drew Smyly for much of the year, and Jake Odorizzi for a time as well. Despite those problems, the team climbed to a 41-32 record a few weeks ago thanks to a splendid season from Chris Archer, good seasons from Odorizzi, Nate Karns — and even Erasmo Ramirez has pitched in to help the team form a solid rotation. The team has slid back to the pack in the difficult-to-decipher American League East, but still finds itself just two games back of the Yankees after losing nine of their past 12 games. Rays’ starters have been effective, but have not pitched deep into games, leaving the outcome of many games to a set of inexperienced relievers who have been shuffled between the big-league club and the minors all season long.

The Rays’ strategy appeared to be related to to two potential issues. First, the rotation was so depleted at the beginning of the year, they twice pitched bullpen games, letting Steve Geltz pitch a couple innings until his spot in the batting order. The other problem is that the deeper pitchers tend to pitch into games, the worse they tend to do. Getting a pitcher out of the game after two times through the lineup can limit damage to the starters and it can work so long as the team has a deep and effective bullpen. The Rays’ starters have averaged just 89 pitches per start, the fewest in MLB. Ted Berg noted a few weeks ago that the Rays were on pace for the second-lowest total of plate appearances (to the 2012 Colorado Rockies, who experimented with a four-man rotation) three times through the lineup in the last decade.

The graph below shows innings pitched by every bullpen this season.

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A couple weeks ago, we took a look at the most and least authoritative hitters of all time, utilizing raw contact scores, or production relative to the league on all plate appearances not resulting in a strikeout or walk. One of the reader comments suggested to take a look at the most productive low-authority hitters, and the least productive high-authority hitters. Today, we’ll look at the former, and later this week, the latter.

First of all, a review of the methodology, and some parameters. We calculate raw contact scores by stripping away the strikeouts (Ks) and walks (BBs), and applying run values to all balls in play based on the norms for that era. The results are then scaled to 100. Raw contact scores were calculated for all regulars going back to 1901. Since we don’t have access to granular batted-ball data going that far backward, we’re not going to be able to adjust for context. That context includes the effects of ballparks, individual player’s speed, and of course, luck. In a given year, that those factors might affect an individual player significantly. Over the long haul, however, raw ball-striking ability, or lack thereof, as well as contact quality, the respective frequency of line drives and popups, of weak and hard contact in general, makes the difference.

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MLB’s pay practices have come under considerable scrutiny in recent years. In 2013 and 2014, the U.S. Department of Labor launched a series of investigations examining whether several MLB teams violated the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by failing to pay their clubhouse attendants, administrative workers, and interns in accordance with the FLSA’s minimum wage and overtime requirements.

At the same time, MLB has also been hit with four different lawsuits over the last two years alleging that the league’s pay practices violate the FLSA and/or federal antitrust law. The most notable of these cases were two suits filed last year contending that MLB teams routinely fail to pay their minor-league players either the minimum wage or overtime. Those cases – which assert that minor leaguers often earn as little as $3,300 per year – currently remain pending against 22 MLB teams.

Now, yet another group of MLB employees is coming forward to challenge MLB’s pay practices. In a new class action lawsuit filed last week in New York federal court, former Kansas City Royals scout Jordan Wyckoff contends that MLB teams have unlawfully agreed not to compete with one another for the services of their amateur and professional scouts. As a result, the suit – Wyckoff v. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball – asserts that a number of MLB scouts currently make less than the minimum wage and are not paid overtime, even when working more than 40 hours in a given week.

Wyckoff alleges that these practices not only violate the FLSA, but that they fail to comply with both federal and state antitrust law as well.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Houston at Cleveland | 19:10 ET
Velasquez (25.2 IP, 116 xFIP-) vs. Kluber (118.2 IP, 66 xFIP-)
Talented Cleveland right-hander Corey Kluber faces a group of young men who, after crash-landing on an uninhabited island in the Pacific following a wartime evacuation, instead of descending into murderous anarchy — instead of doing that, proceeded rather to diligently train and practice baseball, eventually forming a club and joining Major League Baseball as the Houston Astros. Today represents an opportunity to experience their inspirational story again, as if for the first time.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cleveland Radio.

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FanGraphs used to run something called the organizational rankings. Sometimes it was funny. Arguably the main reason we stopped was because it seemed just entirely too difficult to objectively grade a team’s front office. That was an important grade for the rankings, and if you couldn’t trust a component grade, there wasn’t much sense in trusting the overall grade. The intent was always good; the outcome was always iffy.

I’ve been thinking a little bit about front offices lately. Monday, I thought about the Mariners’ misfortune in Robinson Cano developing some sort of energy-sapping stomach ailment. And not long back, I was thinking about the Angels, and Jerry Dipoto, and how the Angels might not be in a perfect position, but also how Arte Moreno forced Dipoto’s hand with some major transactions. What I keep coming back to is the idea that front offices are almost impossible to evaluate, in any meaningful way. Everything they do, they do for a reason, but there’s an enormous element of luck, and there are other sometimes hidden factors we might not know a lot about. Sometimes a decision really came from ownership. Sometimes a success or failure was more about player development. It’s almost hopeless out here. For these purposes, there’s little the analyst can do but react.

But then, I’m a big fan of crowdsourcing. Not necessarily because the people always know the answers, but because it can be really interesting just to see how different people think. Who pays more attention than you? Who thinks more critically than you? Why wouldn’t I want to tap into this audience, to see what it believes?

In this post, many polls. I want to know what you think about the front office of the team you follow most closely. I know this is an impossible task, but I want you to think about the front office independent of ownership, and independent of player development. Think about the methods, or about what you perceive to be the methods. Think about how the front office might work with an average payroll. And think about the front office right now. What’s really being asked: relative to the other front offices, how much would you believe in your team’s front office, if it were given an ordinary roster and an ordinary budget? Would it build something successful, or would it end up as a mess?

No part of me believes we’ll get real answers out of this. But it’s not like you’re being graded on how you vote. I’m interested, mostly, in how the 30 front offices are perceived. That’ll be made possible with your feedback. We’ve tried to grade the front offices before. Consider this your turn. And unlike when you’re picking a president, this time your vote could actually count for something. FanGraphs is for the people!

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Chris Coghlan isn’t the same hitter he was when he captured NL Rookie of the Year honors in 2009. His numbers aren’t quite as good, but the Marlin-turned-Cub nonetheless feels he’s better. At age 30, he has a more learned understanding both of his craft and the stats that matter.

Coghlan has put up a .272/.353/.443 slash line since coming to Chicago prior to last season. This year he will easily eclipse his career best in home runs, and his walk rate has never been higher. Coghlan is by no means a star, but he’s been a cog in the Cubs lineup against right-handed pitchers. He has just 27 plate appearances against southpaws, which is his lone complaint.

Coghlan talked hitting prior to a recent game at Wrigley Field.

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Coghlan on his swing: “Pitchers are going to run it and sink it on you. If you’re too flat on your bat path, you’re going to swing right over the top of the ball, or hit it right into the ground. You need to have an entry plane that’s up enough, or steep enough, to get underneath the ball, to lift it. The more rotational you are, the flatter you are, yeah, you’re going to run into some line drives if the ball is elevated, but for the most part it’s going to be tough for you to square it up.

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