Adam LaRoche’s unexpected retirement announcement on Tuesday – along with the many twists and turns that followed – dominated the baseball headlines last week. To recap, on Wednesday we learned that rather than walking away from the game voluntarily due to a perceived diminution in talent or lack of desire, LaRoche instead elected to retire after being informed by Chicago White Sox Vice President Ken Williams that LaRoche’s son Drake was no longer welcome in the team’s clubhouse (or, at least, was not welcome to accompany LaRoche quite as frequently as he had in 2015). Then on Thursday, reports emerged that the Major League Baseball Players Association was considering whether to file a grievance against the White Sox on LaRoche’s behalf.

It’s currently difficult to determine exactly how strong a legal case LaRoche might have against the White Sox because there is still a lot we don’t know about what agreement, if any, LaRoche reached with Chicago regarding the extent to which his son could accompany him to games. For instance, on Friday, White Sox union representative Adam Eaton told the media that LaRoche’s contract with the team did in fact include a provision regarding his son’s access to the clubhouse. Meanwhile, other reports have suggested that any agreement between LaRoche and the team regarding his son was limited to a verbal understanding, and was not embodied in his written contract.

Ultimately, this distinction between a written and verbal agreement is likely to determine whether LaRoche has any real hope of prevailing in a grievance against the White Sox, should he choose to pursue one.

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Email newsletters are a burgeoning communications tool, and FanGraphs is getting in on the act. This is something we’ve actually had our eye on for quite some time — as far back as 2013, actually — and we’re excited to finally be bringing it to you. Today, actually: the newsletter’s inaugural edition will drop this afternoon. Let’s talk details.

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Ben and Sam preview the Nationals’ season with Washington Post Nationals beat writer Chelsea Janes, and Jeff talks to Chelsea’s Washington Post colleague, James Wagner (at 23:56).

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Dick Egan has had a long and successful career. Currently a special assistant to the general manager in Detroit, the 78-year-old Egan has been in the game for over five decades. A few months ago he received a Legends in Scouting award.

His coaching and scouting acumen have exceeded his ability to retire big-league hitters. Pitching out of the bullpen for the Tigers, Angels and Dodgers from 1963-1967, Egan put up a 5.15 ERA.

The first of his 74 career appearances came on opening day, at Tiger Stadium. Egan recalls it being cold — “I think it was about 20 degrees when we arrived in Detroit” — but he got off to a hot start. The left-hander replaced Jim Bunning in the eighth inning and fanned the only batter he faced.

“They got me up, brought me in, and I struck out Nellie Fox with three straight sliders,” said Egan. “Bob Scheffing, our manager, told me he’s never seen Fox look that bad. Unfortunately, it didn’t carry over to the rest of my career.”

The following year, Egan threw a pitch that carried a long way. Read the rest of this entry »

Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.
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Ben and FiveThirtyEight author Rob Arthur talk to Pittsburgh Pirates multi-position player Cole Figueroa about his use of statistics, why athletes should keep a close eye on what teams are tracking, and how his future depends on a small sample.

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Adam LaRoche may or may not be retiring. It certainly seems as though he is, and it seems as though his decision was made abruptly. While that may not be 100 percent certain, now seems like a good time to look back on his career. On one hand, LaRoche was sort of a letdown, in that he never really took off the way it seemed like he might. On the other hand, LaRoche was a huge success, and should be celebrated as such.
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Previous editions: Arizona / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cincinnati  / Cleveland / Colorado / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles (AL) / Los Angeles (NL) / Miami / Minnesota / Milwaukee / New York (NL) / New York (AL).

Yesterday, lead prospect analyst Dan Farnsworth published his excellently in-depth prospect list for the Oakland Athletics. In this companion piece, I look at that same Oakland farm system through the lens of my recently refined KATOH projection system. The A’s have the 19th-best farm system in baseball according to KATOH.

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We’re about two weeks away from Opening Day, and with teams starting to get a sense for what they have — and more importantly, what they don’t have — we’re likely to see some trade talk pick up soon. Mostly, spring trades revolve around out-of-options guys or bench players who played their way out of an organization, but occasionally, teams find common ground on a major trade that reshapes their roster right before the season starts. Last year, the Padres were involved in just such a deal, acquiring Craig Kimbrel and Melvin Upton from the Braves right before the season started. And I think they should make another big trade before the season starts this year.

Over the last few days, talk has picked up that the Rangers have interest in acquiring Derek Norris, the Padres starting catcher. The Rangers don’t really have much catching depth, while the Padres have three catchers after their off-season of Christian Bethancourt, so a deal between the two teams makes a decent amount of sense. But rather than making a small deal in which the Rangers pick up Norris for some mid-level prospect or two, there’s a case to be made that the two sides should expand the talk and make a legitimate blockbuster.

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If you were to examine the spectrum of defensive positions, going from easiest to most difficult, it would probably look something like this: Designated Hitter-First Baseman-Left Field-Right Field-Center Field-Third Base-Second Base-Shortstop-Catcher. Right field and left field are very similar and center field, second base, and third base are also bunched together under the typical spectrum. However, when looking for the positions that pay the most money, the positions that are the easiest to play make the most money. A similar point, in a similar fashion, was made last year at this time, and it remains true. A combination of the free agent system, aging, and the decline that puts the spectrum to use mean first basemen and designated hitters make the most money while shortstops tend to make the least when taking all starters into account.

I took every position player and designated hitter starter from our FanGraphs Depth Charts and put that alongside the salary information from Cot’s Contracts to find an average salary for the 30 starters at every position with the 15 starters at designated hitter. As was the case last year, first base and designated hitter make the most money, although this season, with Albert Pujols moving to designated hitter, first base lost its crown.

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