Archive for February, 2018

The Ninth-Inning Rule Change Would at Least Be Fun

The history of baseball is littered with different proposals designed for making the game more fun, exciting, and accessible. A quick perusal of the careers of Bill Veeck and Charlie Finley will tell you that Major League Baseball used to experiment a lot more than it does today. Letting fans manage a game, using yellow baseballs, printing nicknames on jerseys, and launching fireworks after home runs: this is merely a brief list of the gimmicks that have been tried. Some of them still remain, or at least resurface periodically.

Recently, MLB has turned its focus to pace of play, tinkering with the rules and enforcement of rules to speed up the game. At their heart, these changes have been proposed to make the sport more enjoyable for fans without fundamentally altering it.

A recent suggestion has made the rounds and received some attention. Rich Eisen introduced the idea on his show — apparently as it was related to him by a league executive. This particular proposal? To allow any batter to hit in the ninth inning of a game.

On its face, the idea is ridiculous, representing a massive change in the way we understand and watch the game. On the other hand, it might make the game more a little more exciting, particularly in its latter stages, and might keep fans at the ballpark a little longer. Ultimately, it probably isn’t worth changing the fabric of the sport for a little extra excitement; plus, the end of most contests features a certain amount of excitement already. That said, consider the following graph, which depicts offense by inning relative to average.

In the first inning of games last year, hitters put up a 106 wRC+, or roughly the 2017 equivalent of Kyle Seager. In the ninth inning, batters recorded an 82 wRC+, or more like Freddy Galvis. The reasons for this are relatively simple: in the first inning, teams begin with the first three hitters in their lineup, and the pitcher almost never bats. Managers usually put their best hitters at the top of the lineup. If we removed pitchers, the numbers in innings two through five would all get a decent bump. The 109 wRC+ in innings three to five in that case is actually better than in the first inning.

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Eric Longenhagen Prospects Chat: 2/27

12:02
Eric A Longenhagen: Hi everyone, and welcome back. Gonna keep things to a tight hour this week so I can hustle across the valley to a big league game, but I’ll move as quickly as possible.

12:03
BC: Here are two top tier prospects, Tatis and Bichette. Which one has the biggest upside?

12:03
Eric A Longenhagen: I think Tatis because he might actually stay at SS

12:03
THE Average Sports Fan: Do you think Senzel can be ever decent at SS?

12:04
Eric A Longenhagen: It’s possible. If you assume you can hide what used to be considered subpar range with better positioning then it certainly improves his chances. If I’m skeptical of anything it’s how he’ll look around the bag.

12:04
Eric A Longenhagen: But I guess we’ll see. I don’t like watching Paul DeJong at SS baseball but I guess we’re headed there.

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Let’s Fall in Love with Greg Bird Again

In 2016, catcher Gary Sanchez packed a season’s worth of production into the final two months of the campaign, recording more than three wins during that brief period. Last year, it was Aaron Judge who broke out — to such a degree that he nearly won the AL MVP, in fact. Sanchez wasn’t half-bad himself, building on his rookie season with four more wins.

At this time a year ago, though, neither Sanchez nor Judge was the story of Yankees camp. Rather, it was Greg Bird. In Grapefruit League play last spring, Bird hit eight home runs and posted a 1.654 OPS over 51 at-bats. He appeared poised to build upon 178 promising plate appearances as a rookie when he slashed .261/.343/.529 (137 wRC+) in 2015. But after missing all of 2016 with a labrum tear, the first half of Bird’s 2017 season was again derailed — in this case by a foot injury.

The first baseman’s numbers were ultimately pretty ugly, as he slashed just .190/.288/.422 in 170 PAs.

Upon his return from injury, however, Bird managed to show some life. In 29 second-half games, he recorded a .253/.316/.575 slash line and 126 wRC+. And his underlying batted-ball tendencies are even more encouraging.

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Effectively Wild Episode 1181: Season Preview Series: Red Sox and Reds

EWFI

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the Logan Morrison signing and the Twins’ potent lineup, the Rays’ potentially lucrative new TV deal, and two tidbits from a game played in 1870, then preview the 2018 Red Sox (19:49) with The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier, and the 2018 Reds (55:47) with The Athletic Cincinnati’s C. Trent Rosecrans.

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Fortifying the Dodgers’ Rotation

Clayton Kershaw was the only qualifier on the 2017 edition of the Dodgers.
(Photo: Arturo Pardavila III)

When we last saw the Dodgers’ rotation, Yu Darvish was being lit up like a pinball machine in Game 7 of the World Series due to a pitch-tipping issue that the organization somehow failed to identify. Though the Dodgers made a serious run at retaining the 31-year-old righty, the team was limited by its financial constraints, and Darvish opted to sign a six-year, $126 million deal with the Cubs instead. With exhibition season now underway, the defending NL champions’ rotation still appears as though it could use fortification.

Darvish, a July 31 deadline acquisition from the Rangers, isn’t the only starter gone from the fold. In a mid-December move designed to give them more financial flexibility, the Dodgers dealt the injury-prone Brandon McCarthy (16 starts, 3.98 ERA, 3.28 FIP, 2.4 WAR) and Scott Kazmir (a mere 12 minor-league innings due to hip and arm issues), two other players, and cash to the Braves in exchange for Matt Kemp. The trade has helped them shimmy under the $197 million competitive-balance-tax threshold, but their subsequent failure to offload Kemp and some portion of his remaining $43 million salary for 2018-19 doomed their pursuit of Darvish.

Nobody’s weeping for a wealthy team that’s lost 25 starts while retaining eight of the 10 members from a unit that compiled the majors’ third-best ERA- (82) and FIP- (88). Compared to 2015, when they used an MLB-high 16 starters, and -16, when they tied for second with 15 starters, that counts as stability, and yet in each of the past two years, just one Dodger has reached the 162-inning threshold to qualify for the ERA title. The Andrew Friedman/Farhan Zaidi regime has actively used the team’s depth and financial might to lighten the workloads of all of their starters. Not only did the unit’s 885 innings rank 10th in the NL last year, but only 742 times did a Dodger starter face a batter for the third time in a game, the majors’ lowest total.

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FanGraphs Audio: Travis Sawchik at Home and Office

Episode 803
At one of his previous places of business, guest Travis Sawchik and the rest of his coworkers were accidentally sent a spreadsheet containing the salary of every employee at the company. The information, according to Sawchik, “created some animosity” around the office. This incident is almost certainly relevant — at least in some way — to the very public manner in which ballplayers are compensated. “How?” is the question nearly addressed in 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 56 min play time.)

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Logan Morrison, and the Twins’ Great Advantage

Logan Morrison is signing with the Twins. It’s a one-year guarantee, worth $6.5 million, but there’s also an $8-million vesting option for 2019. Morrison turns 31 years old in August. It’s only natural to compare him to Yonder Alonso. Alonso turns 31 years old in April. He signed a couple months ago with the Indians, for a two-year guarantee, worth $16 million. There’s also a $9-million vesting option for 2020. Within the same market, Alonso did a little better than Morrison did. Maybe that’s not surprising — they’re different players! But then, are they, really?

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The Legal Standing of the Chief Wahoo Logo

Spring training is here. It’s a new beginning! Every team has optimism for the coming season. (Well, almost every team. Sorry, Marlins fans.) But in this time of beginnings, we also have an ending. Specifically, this will be the last spring training — and the last season — with Chief Wahoo. Beginning in 2019, the Indians will no longer use the symbol on their uniforms.

In one sense, the move has seemed inevitable for a while now. Cleveland has been phasing out Chief Wahoo for years in the face of increasing public pressure from people who believe the logo is racist. I don’t intend to comment on that matter in this piece. You’re all intelligent people and can draw your own conclusions.* Instead, I’m going to focus on whether the Indians legally had to remove Wahoo and what the symbol’s removal means for other teams (like the Braves) who use Native American imagery.

*For what it’s worth, research suggests that mascots and logos such as Chief Wahoo are psychologically harmful to Native American youth.

As an initial matter, the traditional use of Chief Wahoo as a logo is generally fully protected by the First Amendment, even if certain individuals regard it as offensive. The Supreme Court has held in cases like R. A. V. v. St. Paul that it’s illegal to ban speech (which includes symbols) simply because it’s offensive. But the Indians are a business, and that makes things a little more complicated.

To take a look at this, we’re going to have to enter into an area of law known as “intellectual property”: trademarks, trade dress, copyrights, and patents. Each protects different things: trademarks protect trade names and logos; trade dress protects a certain product’s label and appearance; copyrights protect creative works; and patents protect ideas like inventions. (There’s a pretty decent overview of the differences here.) For our purposes, let’s oversimplify things and discuss the trademark that applies to both the team name and Chief Wahoo.

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Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 2/26/18

2:04
Dan Szymborski: Hey guys!

2:05
Lee: What are your thoughts on Franchy Cordero’s # of plate appearances in the majors this year?

2:06
Dan Szymborski: It’d be surprised if he got more than 100 honestly.

2:06
ericstephenisgod: is wilmer font the nl cy young favorite at this point?

2:06
Dan Szymborski: Ha

2:06
Lee: Did Thor just peak for the year? 7 of 12 perfect 1st inning pitches at 100 or 101 mph

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A Semi-Complete Taxonomy of Baseball Ejections, Part I

It’s been an angry sort of offseason, which hasn’t been very enjoyable. I find the most reliable cure when I’m angry at baseball is to watch baseball. Baseball is pretty great. So with spring training upon us, I set out to watch some baseball and get back in the spirit of things. But I couldn’t shake that angry feeling. I found myself somehow watching video of ejections, the moments when our guys are at their angriest.

Including spring training and the postseason, there were 197 ejections in Major League Baseball in 2017. Using the meticulously maintained Umpire Ejection Fantasy League, I watched them all. It’s nice when people embrace the things they like, and I wanted to feel like I was a part of something other than being angry. Others have endeavored to unpack ejection data, but that isn’t our purpose today. I was interested in the aesthetics of ejections, the angry walks and grumpy faces. I sought to construct a taxonomy of baseball ejections. This represents the first batch of categories. Another batch will follow.

I Kept Talking
Home-plate umpire Stu Scheurwater ejects Buck Showalter.
Date: April 30
Ejection No.: 21

Ejections of this variety observe predictable stages of how much talking the player or the manager is actually doing.

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