After having typically appeared in the very famous pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past few years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cleveland / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles AL / Los Angeles NL / Milwaukee / Minnesota / New York AL / Miami / St. Louis / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Tampa Bay / Toronto / Washington.

Batters
The projected starting lineup for the 2017 edition of the Pirates bears a strong resemblance to the one with which the club entered last season. The only substantive difference, actually, occurs at first base, where some combination of Josh Bell (612 PA, 1.6 zWAR) and David Freese (469, 1.9) appear likely to receive the bulk of plate appearances. On the whole, the result is an above-average squad. A group of eight average players would produce something like 16 wins; this group, meanwhile, is forecast for about 21.

Despite a poor 2016 campaign, Andrew McCutchen (641, 4.1) receives the club’s top wins projection for this next season. Much of that is due to positive regression on the offensive front, ZiPS calling for a 128 OPS+ after last season’s 103 mark. The defensive prognosis is less enthusiastic: McCutchen is forecast by Dan Szymborski’s computer for -10 runs in center field.

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Currently, more than 75% of major-league teams — 23 out of 30, to be exact — play their home games in stadiums publicly owned by a local government entity. Each of these relationships between the franchise and its host municipality is, in turn, governed by a contract specifying the terms under which the government has leased its stadium to the MLB team.

As one might expect, disagreements between the franchises and their local communities occasionally arise under these lease agreements. Recently, two such disputes — one involving the Atlanta Braves and the other involving the Arizona Diamondbacks — progressed to the point that the team or local municipality opted to file a lawsuit against the other in state court.

S.M.P. Community Fund v. Atlanta Braves

In late December, the Atlanta Braves were sued in local state court by the S.M.P. Community Fund, an entity formed by the City of Atlanta to distribute funds generated by the Braves’ former stadium — Turner Field — throughout the local community. Under the terms of the Braves’ lease agreement, the team was obligated to contribute 8.25% of the parking revenue it generated at Turner Field, along with 25% of the net revenue generated from any special events held at the stadium, to the Fund. The Fund would then use these proceeds to benefit the neighborhoods immediately surrounding Turner Field.

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We’ve acquired 50 more tickets after selling out of our initial allotment. Sales are back open!

On Monday, August 21st, the first total solar eclipse to hit the United States in 26 years will make its way across the country, and the path of totality will take it right through the town of Keizer, Oregon, home to the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes, the Northwest League affiliate of the San Francisco Giants. To celebrate the event, the Volcanoes are hosting EclipseFest, a weekend celebration of astronomy and baseball.

On the actual day of the Eclipse, they have scheduled a morning game (9:35 am first pitch) to allow for what they are calling the Total Eclipse of the Park; the game will halt during the event, and those in attendance will view the eclipse together. Included among those in attendance will be Effectively Wild hosts Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan; I will also be joining the festivities, and we want to invite FanGraphs readers and Effectively Wild listeners to join us for this unique convergence of baseball and astronomy.

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Andy Marte died in a car accident in his native Dominican Republic. He was 33 years old. Yordano Ventura died in a separate car accident in his native Dominican Republic. He was 25 years old. Those are the facts, and those are the ages, but the ages are presented as if they mean anything. Any lost life is a life lost too early, and there exists no formula to calculate a level of sadness. The baseball community is in mourning, as it has been too many times.

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Like many of us, Jackie Bradley, Jr. has been watching and enjoying the NFL playoffs. I asked the Boston outfielder for his thoughts on the contests, as well as some of the primary protagonists.

After acknowledging that there were some exciting games, Bradley made note of Pittsburgh wide receiver Antonio Brown’s surreptitiously live-broadcasting a video as head coach Mike Tomlin addressed the team. He doesn’t condone what happened.

“There’s always been an unwritten rule about that,” Bradley told me. “What goes on in the locker room stays in the locker room. Nobody from outside of the locker room should know what goes on inside the locker room. It’s like a family in there — it’s a tight-knit group — and it should stay that way. You wouldn’t want anything broadcast out of there, no matter what it might be.”

As for the quarterbacks playing later today — Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Ben Roethlisberger, and Matt Ryan — Bradley demurred on which he feels would have been most successful had he pursued a baseball career. He did opine that the foursome wouldn’t necessarily have worked off a mound. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 711
Travis Sawchik is a former beat reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and author of the book Big Data Baseball. He’s recently become a full-time employee of FanGraphs.com. He’s also the guest on this edition of the program.

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

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 58 min play time.)

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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 and blue for Community Research.
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The primary focus this week might be on the Hall of Fame results, but our position-by-position look at hitter contact quality rolls on. Earlier this week, we reviewed American League center fielders; today, we turn to their National League counterparts. As a reminder, we are using granular exit-speed and launch-angle data to determine how 2016 regulars “should have” performed.

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Back in 1947, nine players received at least 50% of the Hall of Fame vote. That’s the last time so many players have appeared on at least half the voters’ ballots. Until this year, that is. Three players were elected this time around (Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines, and Ivan Rodriguez.) Another six received more than 50% of the vote.

Generally speaking, breaking the 50% mark is a pretty good indication that a player is going to make it at some point. Jack Morris didn’t make it, Lee Smith barely got over 50% one year and now he’s been removed from the ballot. Gil Hodges never made it. But they’re in the definite minority.

So how does the future look for the six candidates who crossed the 50% threshold but failed to reach the 75% mark? And what about players who’ll become eligible in the near future? Trying to predict the fate of those holdovers three, four, five years from now presents challenges, but we can see who will have a shot. Below, I’ve attempted to do just that.

Names of candidates through 2021 from Baseball-Reference.

*****

2018

For a more detailed look at next year’s ballot, check out my piece on it here, but the list below contains the notable new players.

First-ballot no-doubters: Chipper Jones.

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Larry Andersen is famous for being traded for Jeff Bagwell. Phillies fans know him for his fine work on the club’s radio broadcasts. In terms of his playing career — he pitched in the big leagues from 1975 to 1994 — Andersen is known for having one of the best sliders in the game.

His best years were with the Astros when he was in his mid- to late 30s. From 1986 to -90, the right-handed setup man appeared in 293 games and fashioned a 2.55 ERA and a 2.53 FIP. His 445 innings over the stretch were sixth-most among relievers.

His signature pitch was elite. As Rob Neyer wrote at ESPN back in 2004, “Larry Andersen perfected his slider to the point where he rarely bothered throwing anything else.” In the Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers, Larry Dierker was quoted as saying his former teammate had the best slider he’d ever seen.

Anderson told me about his slider midway through the 2015 season.

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Andersen on why his slider was so effective: “The way I threw it — this is from talking to guys I faced, and ended up playing with — it looked like a fastball. A number of them told me: ‘I swear it’s a fastball; it looks like a fast one.’ That’s the key. Hitters aren’t committing to hit the ball when it’s three feet in front of the plate, they’re committing to the ball when it’s halfway there. The best hitters obviously pick up the spin, but if they see fastball and commit, and it’s not a fastball, they’re not going to have much luck.

“I basically tried to throw my slider how I would grip a four-seam fastball. I would kind of just rotate my fingers to the side of the ball a little more. That was probably more my cutter. I really had three pitches with one grip. It was essentially more pressure, and where my fingers were placed on the ball.

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