Jay Jaffe: Hello and welcome to the latest edition of my Thursday chat. I think I injured my shoulder patting myself on the back for predicting Bryan Price would get fired back in 2015, and every subsequent year since. But other than that, i’m doing well…
12:01
Wes: Given the expectations for the Reds this season, how bad of a manager do you have to be to get fired after 18 games? What else was going on in the clubhouse?
12:03
Jay Jaffe: As somebody who long ago failed to see the logic of continuing with Price, I’m clearly not the best expert to ask about his continued employment, but to me, any time you fire a manager this early, it’s an indictment of the decision makers above (unless there’s a specific, precipitating incident). Even 3-15 — if you’re a rebuilding team, you have a plan for the year or you don’t. And I’m not clear on what the Reds’ plan was here that necessitates a change now when it didn’t in October.
12:03
Joshua: What is your favorite IPA?
12:05
Jay Jaffe: Pliny the Elder and Heady Topper are the two favorites, but I’m lucky if I get to taste both in the same year given their scarcity around these parts of Brooklyn. My local go-to lately has been Threes Brewing’s Unreliable Narrator, a dank, tropical IPA that they release about every month or so and deliver to me by the case.
12:05
Slapshot: What are your thoughts on NEIPAs? If you like them, do you have any particular favorites?
In an offseason characterized by inactivity and a wariness to trust anybody over 30, the Giants made waves by trading for both Evan Longoria and Andrew McCutchen, adding them to a lineup that last year already ranked as the NL’s oldest and least potent, even after park adjustment. So far, the gambit hasn’t paid off. On the heels of a forgettable 64-98 season, the team scoring a major-league-worst 2.88 runs per game has gone 6-10, scoring exactly one run in six of those games and being shut out three times. On Tuesday night, they were a measly Brandon Beltcheck swing against the shift away from being no-hit by the Diamondbacks’ Patrick Corbin. Though both Longoria and McCutchen have had their moments, neither has come anywhere close to living up to their billing.
Editor’s Note: This piece originally appeared at FanGraphs on April 17, 2018 to mark the 71st anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking major league baseball’s color line.
Sunday was Jackie Robinson Day around the majors, commemorating the anniversary — the 71st, this year — of the fall of baseball’s color line via Robinson’s debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers. But just as Robinson’s immeasurable courage in confronting racism and the immense talent he showed while playing at the highest level deserve more than a single day for paying tribute, so too is it worth remembering the black players who bravely followed in his footsteps and ensured that baseball’s great experiment would not be a one-off. In the two decades following Robinson’s arrival, the influx of talent, first from the Negro Leagues and then the sandlots and high schools whose players previously could not have dreamt of such an opportunity, radically transformed the National League, in particular.
Led by president and general manager Branch Rickey, the Dodgers, of course, got the jump. During Robinson’s major-league career, which lasted from 1947 to 1956, the Dodgers won six pennants as well as their lone Brooklyn-era championship in 1955. In addition to becoming a pioneer of tremendous importance, Jackie himself was the game’s third-most valuable player over that span according to WAR (57.2), behind only Stan Musial and Ted Williams. While the Dodgers had a great supporting cast of white players such as Gil Hodges, Pee Wee Reese, and Duke Snider, those teams also got great work from two Negro Leagues graduates whom Rickey had signed before Robinson even reached the majors — namely Roy Campanella, who debuted in 1948 and went on to win three NL MVP awards, and Don Newcombe, who debuted in 1949, won Rookie of the Year honors that season, and would later win a Cy Young and an MVP award.
Though Rickey lost a power struggle to Walter O’Malley and was forced to sell his share of the team following the 1950 season, the Dodgers furthered their dominance over the NL in part by continuing to sign talented black players. Under Buzzie Bavasi as general manager and Fresco Thompson as director of minor-league operations, the organization added right-hander Joe Black (1952 NL Rookie of the Year), infielder Jim Gilliam (1953 NL Rookie of the Year), outfielder Sandy Amoros, second baseman Charlie Neal, catcher John Roseboro, shortstop Maury Wills (1962 NL MVP), and outfielders Tommy Davis and Willie Davis (no relation), among others.
Amoros, Black, and Gilliam would augment the Dodgers’ Robinson-era core, and the latter remained a vital lineup cog through the transitional phase that included the franchise’s 1957 move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles and their return to powerhouse status behind the one-two pitching punch of Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. Neal, Roseboro, and Wills would each spend at least half a decade in the minors and/or as understudies awaiting their shots before contributing to the team’s 1959 pennant and championship, with the latter two becoming more central alongside the two Davises as the team won championships in 1963 and 1965, and added one more pennant in 1966, Koufax’s final year. Tommy Davis, a left fielder, won back-to-back NL batting titles in 1962 and -63, while Willie Davis, a center fielder, was the position’s best defender this side of Willie Mays (his three errors in Game Two of the 1966 World Series to the contrary).
Joe Mauer’s 2,000th hit doesn’t make his Hall of Fame case, but it removes a possible impediment. (Photo: Keith Allison)
Two thousand hits is not 3,000, and yet there was plenty of reason to celebrate Joe Mauerreaching that milestone on Thursday night at Target Field via a two-run single against the White Sox. If nothing else, it shores up the 35-year-old catcher-turned-first baseman’s case for Cooperstown, because 2,000 hits has functioned as a bright-line test for Hall of Fame voters for the past several decades. Neither the BBWAA nor the various small committees has elected a position player with fewer than 2,000 hits whose career crossed into the post-1960 expansion era, no matter their merits.
Just 34 of the 157 position players in the Hall for their major-league playing careers (including Monte Ward, who made a mid-career conversion from the mound to shortstop) have fewer than 2,000 hits, and only 11 of them even played in the majors past World War II:
Eight of the 11 players on that list had substantial career interruptions that contributed to their falling short of the milestone. Dickey, Gordon, Greenberg, Kiner, and Rizzuto all lost multiple seasons to military service, while Campanella, Doby, and Robinson were prevented from playing in the majors due to the presence of the color line, which fell on April 15, 1947 (71 years ago this Sunday) with Robinson’s debut. Of the other three, Ferrell and Lombardi were constrained by spending their whole careers as catchers; the former, a two-time batting champion, was classified as 4-F by the time the war rolled around, while the latter, one of the Hall’s lightest-hitting catchers (and the lowest-ranked in JAWS), was too old for the draft.
At 10-1, the Mets own the National League’s best record, but the bigger surprise relative to preseason expectations may be the Pirates, who after Thursday’s 6-1 victory over the Cubs are 9-3, are tied with the Diamondbacks for the league’s second-best record. After a 75-win 2017 campaign and then an offseason during which they dealt away Gerrit Cole and Andrew McCutchen and pared their payroll to the majors’ fourth-smallest, the Bucs appeared destined to spend 2018 languishing with the other rebuilding teams. They may do so yet, but for the moment, their hot start is worth a closer look.
The 2017 Pirates were not much fun. They had just one month with a record above .500 (a 14-11 July), never got further than a game above .500, and finished 13th in the NL in scoring, with a lineup featuring just four players to produce a 100 wRC+ or better (McCutchen, Josh Bell, David Freese, and Josh Harrison) — and just two with a WAR of at least 2.0 (McCutchen and Harrison). Starling Marte drew an 80-game PED suspension, Jung Ho Kang missed the entire season after failing to secure a work visa in the wake of his third DUI conviction in South Korea, Francisco Cervelli was limited to 81 games by a variety of injuries, and Gregory Polanco regressed significantly (more on him momentarily).
On the other side of the ball, they were seventh in run prevention, but Cole looked more plow horse than thoroughbred, and while Jameson Taillon made an inspiring in-season return from testicular cancer, top pitching prospect Tyler Glasnow was pummeled for a 7.69 ERA and 6.30 FIP. Travis Sawchik has the gory details of the big picture.
In a game that will be remembered more for a bench-clearing seventh-inning brawl between the beasts of the AL East — we’ll get to that, you blood-lusting rubberneckers — Gary Sanchez scored some points with a few swings of the bat himself on Wednesday night against the Red Sox. While the early struggles of reigning NL MVP and Bronx newcomer Giancarlo Stanton have gotten more attention, it was the Yankees’ 25-year-old catcher who owned the dubious title not just as the team’s coldest hitter, but as the majors’ single worst batting title-qualified player in terms of both wRC+ and WAR. Whether it was the intimate confines of Fenway Park, the struggles of the Red Sox pitching staff, or the inevitability of positive regression, by the fourth inning of the Yankees’ 10-7 victory, Gary got his groove back, at least for one night. Sanchez clubbed two homers and added a double, driving in four runs and more than doubling his season totals in hits, homers, and RBI.
Sanchez, who last year led all major-league catchers with 33 homers and a 130 wRC+ while batting .278/.345/.531, began the 2018 season in a 2-for-36 skid. Through Tuesday, his positive contributions at the plate could be counted on Mordecai Brown’s pitching hand: an RBI double off the Blue Jays’ John Axford on Opening Day, a two-run homer off the Rays’ Blake Snell on April 4, and a hit-by-pitch against the Orioles’ Darren O’Day on April 5. He went 0-for-17 between the first two hits, and 0-for-15 between the latter one and Wednesday’s game. Since he hadn’t drawn a single walk, that hit-by-pitch juiced his batting line all the way to .056/.081/.167. That’s a -42 wRC+, which is something closer to an ASCII approximation of a smashed fly than it is a comprehensible comparison to league average. He entered Wednesday as one of eight qualifiers with a negative wRC+
Sanchez had some good company in this particularly decrepit Small Sample Theater: a guy who hit even more homers last year (Morrison), two of the game’s best defensive center fielders (Kiermaier and Buxton, who is apparently constitutionally incapable of hitting major-league pitching before May 1), a top prospect (Brinson), and so on.
Jay Jaffe: Howdy folks, and welcome to the two-week mark of the 2018 season as well as my usual Thursday Chat, which hasn’t been as usual as intended lately. Apologies on that, and let’s get to it…
12:00
Schoop of Ice Cream: Hanley predicted he’d go 30/30 preseason and everyone laughed. He’s now got 2 HR including the second hardest hit ball of the season, and 3 SB. What’s your updated % he hits those numbers
12:01
Jay Jaffe: He’s looked very good at the plate so far, and obviously is putting up the numbers in the early going. But as it always does, with Ramirez it comes down to health and availability. Color me skeptical, particularly on the steals. I’ll say he’s up to 10% probability now.
12:01
Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: How will the addition of bullpen carts affect my favorite part of baseball, when the ‘pens halfheartedly jogging out to brawls that will be over by the time they get there?
12:02
Jay Jaffe: Relievers who won’t get their usual jogging in will be more compelled to exert extra effort when joining the scrum. We’ll see some Todd Coffey-like sprints, which can only be good for baseball.
Although the Diamondbacks lost to the Giants on Tuesday night, Paul Goldschmidt finally got on the board with his first home run and first multi-hit game of the season. Normally, that would barely be worth mention, but the 30-year-old five-time All-Star first baseman is off to the worst start of his eight-year career, producing a batting line that teammate Zack Greinke wouldn’t sign for — that, at a time when the Diamondbacks have been busy banking wins while the heavily favored Dodgers scuffle. And even then, amid the small samples that reign at this time of year, one typically Goldschmidt-esque night made his start look far less dire.
The Diamondbacks, who a year ago won 93 games as well as the NL Wild Card game, are now 8-3, leading the NL West by 2.5 games. As Jeff Sullivan pointed out, through Monday night, the Snakes, who were projected to finish 80-82 had improved their playoff odds more than any team besides the Mets.
What stands out most about the Diamondbacks’ start thus far is that it has had little to do with the success — or, more to the point, the lack of same — of what are generally viewed as their best players. Through Monday, the team’s 2017 leaders in position player WAR (Goldschmidt and Jake Lamb) and two of their top three in pitching WAR (Greinke and Robbie Ray) had combined to produce just 0.1 WAR. Meanwhile, the bulk of the heavy lifting… Well, let’s just pull back the curtain on Small Sample Theater:
Again, those stats are through Monday, not Tuesday, via which Goldschmidt raised his batting line to .158/.360/.316 for a 101 wRC+, still subpar but much less gawkworthy. Such substantive (positive) regression is the reason it’s dangerous to write about anything this early in the season — prior to his RBI triple on Monday, Goldschmidt’s wRC+ was an even more dismal 61 — and yet we forge ahead.
Xander Bogaerts has been on the major-league scene for so long that it’s easy to forget he’s still just 25 years old, young enough to be considered part of what is perhaps the best crop of young shortstops in the game’s history. He’s had his ups and downs through his four full seasons, with the second half of last year representing a particularly down one.
His recent trip to the disabled list with a non-displaced fracture of the talus bone in his left ankle might seem like a continuation of Bogaerts’ misfortune. But there’s good news: not only is the injury expected to keep Bogaerts sidelined for only 10 to 14 days but the shortstop’s performance to begin the season has rivaled Bryce Harper and Didi Gregorius as one of the young season’s best. What’s more: the underlying indicators suggest that a fundamental change is partially to credit for Bogaerts’ success.
Bogaerts injured the ankle during the seventh inning of Sunday’s 8-7 comeback victory over the Rays. He had mishandled a relay throw from J.D. Martinez, and sped towards the Tampa Bay dugout, on the third-base side of Fenway Park. He stopped the ball before it could roll into the dugout, which would have added another run onto the Rays’ 6-2 lead, but came up limping after sliding into the dugout himself. Adding insult to injury, Joey Wendle, who wound up on third after hitting the Green Monster shot that Martinez relayed, scored on a sacrifice fly anyway once Bogaerts departed, though the Red Sox rallied for six eighth-inning runs to steal the game and climb to 7-1 on the season.
On Friday, Bogaerts had been the hero in the Red Sox’ 10-3 win, driving in six runs with a two-run double and a grand slam, both off Jake Faria. The outburst ran Bogaerts’ league-leading doubles total to seven; throw in his two homers and only Gregorius has more extra-base hits. Through nine games, Bogaerts is hitting .368/.400..711, good for sole ownership or a share of third in the AL in slugging percentage, wRC+ (213), and WAR (0.7).
After losing on a 14th-inning walk-off home run by the Giants’ Andrew McCutchen on Saturday, the Dodgers found themselves one swing of the bat away from falling to 2-7 to start the 2018 season — a pit that few teams escape, even in this age of expanded playoffs — during the 10th inning of Sunday’s game at AT&T Park. Fortunately, Kenley Jansen was finally able to tap into the mojo that’s made him one of the game’s best closers, striking out the Giants’ final two hitters to preserve a 2-1 victory, the Dodgers’ first win in a week. Even so, at 3-6, the defending NL champions are off to the worst start of any of the presumptive preseason favorites. How worried should they be?
The Dodgers entered 2018 just about as heavilyfavored to win their division as any team. But because Major League Baseball insists upon games being played on the field instead of on paper or pixel, things haven’t gone as planned, and they’ve matched the franchise’s worst start of the Wild Card era.
Now, nine games is a small sample size, obviously — just 1/18 of a season, in fact. While such a hiccup wouldn’t raise an eyebrow anywhere else in the schedule — each of last year’s 10 playoff teams went through at least one skid of 3-6 or worse, with the Dodgers themselves (in)famously losing 16 of 17 late in the year — it gets late early out here, as Yogi Berra allegedly said. Since the start of the 1995 season, 114 teams have begun the season 3-6, of which just 18 (including the 1996 Dodgers) made the playoffs. That’s 16%, which sounds high until you consider that, in the period during which two clubs from each league have qualified for the Wild Card, one-third of all teams makes the playoffs. Since 1995, 29% of all teams have done so. With apologies to the post-2001 Mariners, the dance just isn’t that exclusive.
Historically speaking, the real point of inflection through nine games is at 2-7, where just two Wild Card-era teams out of 37 (5.4%) have made the playoffs — namely, the 2001 A’s and 2007 Phillies. It’s four out of 54 (7.4%) if you count the two teams that began 1-8 (the 1995 Reds and 2011 Rays). Prior to the Wild Card era, just seven teams that started 2-7 made the playoffs, including two often referenced in the context of miraculous comebacks, the 1914 Braves and 1951 Giants. But these Dodgers aren’t in such dire straits yet.
