The decision to change the closer is one of the most awkward a manager will face. Any other combination of bullpen arms can be shuffled around without most fans taking notice, but the save statistic and the entrance music make a closer highly conspicuous. Screw around with that guy, and it becomes a news story.

The Braves invested heavily in that position this winter, lavishing $16 million on 34-year-old Kenley Jansen. I’ll go to my grave believing this signing was at least partially about poaching a legendary Dodger the day after L.A. inked Freddie Freeman — you don’t want to go stag to prom when your ex has a date — but closers like Jansen don’t come along every day. The man pitched in three All-Star games and three World Series and entered the season with 350 career saves, more than Rollie Fingers, Robb Nen, or Bruce Sutter. Jansen had encountered some turbulence in the late 2010s and wasn’t putting up ERAs in the 1.00s anymore, but armed with a new sinker and slider, he’s still quite an effective closer.

Or, more accurately, he has been. In his past seven appearances dating back to August 27, Jansen has blown three saves in seven attempts, allowing 12 baserunners and three home runs in just 5.2 innings. On Sunday, the Braves launched a stirring five-run rally in the ninth to pull ahead of the Mariners, perhaps the only other team in all of baseball as hot as Atlanta. Jansen promptly surrendered two home runs and the lead. The second came on a 93-mph sinker right where Eugenio Suárez could 3-iron it into the Seattle bullpen. I had to look up what that pitch was, because the TV view bore little evidence of sink or cut.

MARINERS WALK IT OFF!! pic.twitter.com/ou5VYloSdX

— ROOT SPORTS™ | NW (@ROOTSPORTS_NW) September 11, 2022

Not a great way to lose a game, in short. And now Brian Snitker is getting questions about his star closer. So what should he do? Read the rest of this entry »

After more than a century of a deistic laissez-faire attitude toward the sport, Major League Baseball made a remarkable announcement on Friday: Next year, for the first time, baseball will have a clock. The introduction of a pitch clock at the highest level of the game is merely one gourd in a cornucopia of rule changes approved late last week by the league’s competition committee, but it could revolutionize the sport. You can find the full list here, but rather than delve into the minutiae, I want to give a brief précis of the most important highlights and deliver a remarkable conclusion. Read the rest of this entry »

Unionizing a workplace isn’t as simple as buying a bullhorn and stamping out some buttons, though both are obviously essential steps in the process. It requires huge amounts of organizing effort, cajoling, and, unfortunately, paperwork.

Last week, the MLBPA announced that it had sent out authorization cards to thousands of minor league players; if a majority of players give the union consent to negotiate on their behalf, federal labor law will require MLB to negotiate collectively with those players over pay and working conditions. Tuesday, the MLBPA announced that a majority of minor league players had signed and returned those cards, and sent a letter to the league asking for recognition.

The hardest thing to do in sports is hit a baseball, but following the internecine contours of collective bargaining procedure has to be up there on the list. So let’s trace out the next few steps in a process that will likely take months, if not years, to complete. And since minor league ballplayers are merely one of many groups undertaking high-profile unionization efforts these days, knowing how this works might help you impress people the next time, say, the Starbucks union comes up at a party. (I need to start going to cooler parties.) Read the rest of this entry »

Greetings, friends and readers.

My name is Michael Baumann, and I’m the newest full-time member of the FanGraphs staff. If the name rings a bell, it’s probably because you remember the losing pitcher in the first game of Monday’s Orioles-Blue Jays doubleheader. Unfortunately that’s a different, much taller Mike Baumann. (Though I’ve met Big Mike, and he seems like a nice guy. What a fastball he’s got.)

From 2016 until last week, I was a staff writer at The Ringer, where for six years I hosted The Ringer MLB Show. Before that, I worked at D1Baseball, Baseball Prospectus, and Grantland. Over that time I’ve appeared periodically on both FanGraphs Audio and Effectively Wild; if you remember some joker with a Philly accent explaining to Ben how hockey works or ranting at Meg about the lockout, that was probably me. I’m an Aries, and in my free time I enjoy cooking, watching TikToks about seals, and reading nonfiction books about people doing ludicrously dangerous things in the early 20th century. Read the rest of this entry »