Archive for 2017

Read the rest of this entry »

Every spring, MLBPA chief Tony Clark travels around Florida and Arizona, visiting with all 30 major-league teams. He travels to learn of concerns and ideas from major-league players, and to communicate matters of importance. Clark also makes himself available to beat writers following major-league clubs.

In the spring of 2015, as collective bargaining talks loomed, I was in Bradenton, Florida, covering the Pirates. When Clark arrived at Pirates camp, I asked him if what players once considered a nonstarter, a salary cap — one that would guarantee a 50-50 revenue split — had become more palatable.

I asked him if any player that spring had expressed concern regarding the owners’ share of revenues, which has continued to increase over the last two decades. The trend has gained some attention in recent years at multiple media outlets.

“You’re the first person to ask,” Clark said.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.)

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 and blue for Community Research.
Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »