Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 6/22/20
by Ben Clemens
June 22, 2020
| 2:30 |
: Hey everyone, and welcome to the chat.
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| 2:31 |
: I’m sure we’re going to do our fair share of talking about whether there will be a season or not, but let’s make sure not to neglect talking about food, board games, and weird baseball hypotheticals.
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| 2:31 |
: Obviously starting with the season, though :/
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| 2:31 |
: The players are going to say no during your chat right?
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| 2:32 |
: Definitely could be the case!
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| 2:32 |
: We’re at a pretty interesting place here where I don’t know, the owners are doin some weird second brinksmanship maneuvers
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| 2:33 |
: And who knows if the players are going to say no right away, debate it until they have no other choices, or get some other concessions somehow
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| 2:33 |
: Can you explain why the owners couldn’t counter with a 65 game proposal? Spite? It seems that there is so much animosity now between players and owners that neither side will ever agree on anything.
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| 2:33 |
: I think it was just brinksmanship. They’re saying no hoping the players will cave now that they’re really close on details.
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| 2:33 |
: It’s no longer the case, as it was weeks ago, that the two sides are so far apart that there’s no point in making little moves.
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| 2:34 |
: Now we seem to be at a place where making a small concession might change the outcome.
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| 2:34 |
: For example, let’s say you’re bidding on a $1000 baseball card
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| 2:34 |
: Raising your bid from $550 to $600 is easy
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| 2:35 |
: The seller lowering their ask from $2000 to $1500 is easy
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| 2:35 |
: But when you’re offering $980
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| 2:35 |
: (and let’s say that a 65-game season is kind of near $1000 in this example)
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| 2:35 |
: It might behoove you to just say, you know what, we’re sticking at $980
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| 2:35 |
: If you think the seller might compromise
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| 2:35 |
: Saves you 20 bucks!
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| 2:35 |
: Why do national writers write such ridiculous things about collective bargaining? It’s like they haven’t been paying attention to the last 150 years of baseball…
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| 2:35 |
: Yeah uh
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| 2:36 |
: I want to be clear when I say that I think it’s very difficult to balance the competing asks that you have as a national-level reporter
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| 2:37 |
: You have a lot of sources to protect, and in general both sides accept that you’re going to do a lot of reporting things that are leaked to you
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| 2:37 |
: No players are done with Ken Rosenthal b/c he reported that the league thinks the players are intransigent
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| 2:37 |
: That’s his job
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| 2:38 |
: But I do find that some people, whose names I’ll leave out of it but whose names lightly scrambled are Bbo Ngaleighten, are just not even trying.
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| 2:38 |
: Stub hub won’t refund ticket prices for cancelled games. Ticket master won’t refund either. My mlb tv subscription is worth less than half now with no adjustment in sight. The out of town paper I look at for Indians coverage just put up a pay wall. I can’t watch games on tv for free anymore. And going to a game fro North Carolina to Baltimore is a several hundred dollar proposition. Baseball is not fan friendly. I am no longer a baseball friendly fan
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| 2:38 |
: This is likely cold comfort, but MLB.tv is offering full refunds.
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| 2:38 |
: If you email them about it they are processing them essentially instantly
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| 2:38 |
: And they may even have a form that does it
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| 2:39 |
: I haven’t canceled mine b/c I use it to make a lot of gifs and I think that merits my money, but yeah
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| 2:39 |
: The stubhub and ticketmaster things are ridiculous
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| 2:39 |
: I don’t know how they can even do that, to be honest
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| 2:39 |
: As a journalist myself, I’m honestly not too broken up that a newspaper had to put up a paywall; that is the kind of thing that happens sometimes!
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| 2:40 |
: But the rest, ugh
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| 2:40 |
: That said, the Charlotte minor league stadium is sweet
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| 2:40 |
: I grew up in East Tennessee and watched all the minor league baseball I could handle for cheap
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| 2:40 |
: So there are options. But yeah, it’s bad!
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| 2:41 |
: Once the owners allow baseball again, can FanGraphs go ham on stadium funding?
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| 2:41 |
: What is it about stadium funding that mainstream media ignores it completely?
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| 2:41 |
: I own a copy of The Stadium Game, which I highly recommend
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| 2:41 |
: I don’t know why it’s only intermittently covered. Sometimes people are all over it, but certainly nowhere near always.
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| 2:41 |
: Some of it is that stadium funding is, by its very nature, intermittent.
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| 2:42 |
: It’s not an acute crisis like if a sewer line in town breaks
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| 2:42 |
: But yes, I’d love to see more written about it.
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| 2:42 |
: Do you have a preference for physical board games or online board games? And are there any physical board games that translate particularly well to an online format?
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| 2:42 |
: Oh my goodness physical by far
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| 2:43 |
: My favorite thing about board games is strategizing and the feeling of having made a good plan
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| 2:43 |
: Whether it works or not
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| 2:43 |
: But my second favorite thing is often the components
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| 2:43 |
: My wife and I took a weekend trip to a house out in the country and brought a game we Kickstarted called Vindication
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| 2:44 |
: And the game is pretty fun, area control kinda deal I suppose and plays quickly, but the highlight is that the game just feels luxurious.
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| 2:44 |
: The pieces are cool, there are some metal tokens for important indicators, the cardstock is glossy
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| 2:44 |
: It’s just great
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| 2:44 |
: and really well illustrated
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| 2:44 |
: I’m a sucker for stuff like that
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| 2:44 |
: As for games that play well online, I actually think Seven Wonders translates well online because tooltips make that game flow much better
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| 2:45 |
: It’s otherwise somewhat complex — there are just a lot of options every turn — but seeing them written out is nice.
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| 2:45 |
: Shout out to Six Nimmt, which is a fun game you can play on boardgamearena that plays well in person but a lot better when the computer automates card placement
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| 2:45 |
: In the game you place cards based on a rule, but you have to apply that rule every time and it’s a bit tedious
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| 2:45 |
: Online it’s just like, hey, done
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| 2:46 |
: Btw just to be clear I don’t consider FanGraphs mainstream yet I don’t think….I just think it’s nuts that we are talking billions in taxpayer dollars
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| 2:46 |
: Oh yeah, I think it’s fair to say we aren’t mainstream.
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| 2:46 |
: If we were, I wouldn’t feel a thrill when one of my stories is a link in an espn article, or whatever
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| 2:46 |
: I think that within the baseball community we are mainstream
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| 2:46 |
: If that makes sense
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| 2:47 |
: But definitely not to the world as a whole.
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| 2:47 |
: Does Marcus Simien take a one year prove it deal since he really only had one breakout year before this season?
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| 2:47 |
: I’ve been wondering about this general type of question a lot recently
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| 2:47 |
: Semien is an interesting case, no doubt
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| 2:47 |
: But just generally what will happen to people who are chewing up service time but who are cyphers
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| 2:48 |
: The nature of baseball’s team control structure means you rarely get players who reach free agency as complete blank slates
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| 2:48 |
: But a year of service time with no or few games is going to make evaluation much trickier
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| 2:48 |
: I think there are two options with Semien. One is yeah, he takes a Donaldson style pillow contract
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| 2:50 |
: The second is that some team thinks that they’d prefer to offer him, say, 5/18
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| 2:50 |
: or 5/90, you know what I mean
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| 2:51 |
: Because they have seen enough in the data
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| 2:51 |
: And don’t want him for one year, expecting him to be good and go get more
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| 2:51 |
: Like if Semien is close to his 2019 form he gets way more than that
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| 2:51 |
: But if you’re Semien, would you take that deal? Maybe
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| 2:52 |
: So this offseason will be a very interestin time for teams willing to gamble on their evaluations of players who are a touch data-light
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| 2:52 |
: Is it true that the difference in salaries between NPB, KBO and MLB is due to the fact that we publicly finance stadiums?
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| 2:52 |
: Mm, the math doesn’ really add up
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| 2:52 |
: Though it certainly helps
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| 2:53 |
: For one thing, the KBO is much smaller, and they don’t have similar overall revenues at all.
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| 2:55 |
: NPB drew less than 50% of the live fans that MLB did last year, and ticket prices are lower (from my experience going to exactly one game there, to be fair)
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| 2:55 |
: And while I can’t find exact data on it, it’s reasonable to assume the TV contract situation is much less lucrative for the teams.
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| 2:56 |
: The stadiums help, but MLB generates an absolute ton of revenue. Let’s say you lop off 500 million dollars from every team once every 30 years, that’s 500 million dollars a year that teams would have to procure themselves
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| 2:56 |
: (and that’s a bad assumption, some stadiums are privately financed and some teams don’t change stadiums that frequently)
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| 2:57 |
: So take that 500 million directly out of player salary, mlb would still hvae a big edge
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| 2:57 |
: Where would be your preferred MLB bubble locations, if we went down that road (similar to NBA and NHL)? Phoenix and Florida don’t look too good right now based on infection rates. Same for Cali and WA. Texas was mentioned as a third bubble in previous discussions. Where else has the hotel and field capacity and the low infection rates to try the regular season? IL? NY? MO?
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| 2:57 |
: Cali actually seems okay to me, depending on the exact structure. It’s such a big state that there are several locations where COVID is not out of control
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| 2:58 |
: Additionally, the positive test rate here hasn’t spiked the way it has in AZ and FL, which gives me some confidence that there’s not another flare-up waiting to happen
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| 2:58 |
: I don’ think IL and NY make too much sense, because to get access to the facilities you’d want you would need to go to the big cities
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| 2:58 |
: There aren’t 15 major league fields in Buffalo just hanging around or anything
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| 2:59 |
: I just don’t think a bubble is logistically workable at this late hour.
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| 2:59 |
: I’m honestly a little skeptical of bubbles overall, too
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| 2:59 |
: Too many places where the concept can fail
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| 2:59 |
: But yeah, if I had to pick a place, I’d lean California at this point to be honest
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| 3:00 |
: And I might be willing to consider Florida if someone has an idea for how to deal with the rain
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| 3:00 |
: But in an NBA style deal
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| 3:00 |
: Not in a city, in a place where you can completely restrict access
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| 3:00 |
: That makes the infection rate in the general population a little less worrisome
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| 3:01 |
: But yeah…. I don’t see it happening evither way.
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| 3:01 |
: Since 1970, three players (hitters) have won an MVP award while hitting 10 HR or less. Name them.
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| 3:01 |
: Hm.
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| 3:01 |
: Wow I am not good at this style of trivia.
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| 3:02 |
: Any chat guesses, fire them in. I’m goin to think about it for a few minutes before answering.
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| 3:02 |
: Couldn’t the players have a massive interest in California vs. Florida bubble locations given the state income tax chasm between the two?
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| 3:02 |
: Yeah, this is a really good point!
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| 3:02 |
: I hadn’t thought about that
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| 3:02 |
: Yup, Cali is probably out for that reason
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| 3:03 |
: They’d need to negotiate some kind of carve-out with the state and lol, not happening.
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| 3:03 |
: Your little “Bbo Ngaleighten” word scramble cheap shot is disgraceful. I will not stand by while you besmirch the good name of renowned baseball writer H. Negotiable. The Negotiable family is practically royalty around here, and their philanthropic efforts helped put me through college. I will be writing a letter to Ms. Rowley of FanGraphs dot com.
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| 3:03 |
: DAMMIT that should have been H.B. Negotiable.
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| 3:03 |
: I’ve got your back
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| 3:03 |
: Excellent anagramming
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| 3:03 |
: I’ve been found out!
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| 3:04 |
: Sorry Herbert Bertrand Negotiable
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| 3:04 |
: I take it back
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| 3:04 |
: presumably that’s his name
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| 3:04 |
: Is there a way to legally watch NPB games in the states? Or just the KBO?
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| 3:04 |
: I am not aware of one. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one.
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| 3:04 |
: But yeah, KBO is easy and NPB hard
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| 3:05 |
: Is there a part of baseball that you’d like to research more?
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| 3:05 |
: So much stuff
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| 3:05 |
: So much stuff
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| 3:05 |
: I’d like to do a lot more work on the game theoretical puzzle going on between pitches and hitters between eveyr pitch
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| 3:06 |
: I’d like to learn much more about how we can translate individual talent levels into expected team winning percentage
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| 3:06 |
: Like we’ve gotten 80% of the way there, let’s say, in some really intuitive ways
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| 3:06 |
: And I’d love to know how much of that last 20% I can untangle in less intuitive, or even potentially ridiculous ways
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| 3:07 |
: I have a long-running project that I’ve never been able to crack where I try to isolate the effect of a batter seeing the same pitch twice
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| 3:07 |
: I’d like to know how much of the DH penalty can be explained by players recovering from injury
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| 3:07 |
: It’s weird… during the season I feel like there’s an infinite amount of stuff to write about, and topics smack me in the face essentially
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| 3:08 |
: When there’s no season, it’s hard to fill out enough volume of articles, so you’re constantly pressing for ideas and end up drained
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| 3:08 |
: That was not a great explanation of it, I’m sure, but there are plenty of topics I’d love to research and I feel like not having a season isn’t helping me with that as much as it is pushing them off into the future.
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| 3:08 |
: The answer to the MLB bubble is to play the games in an actual bubble. Toronto Skydome only!
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| 3:09 |
: I mean, some players might feel safer in Canada than the US at the moment!
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| 3:09 |
: But haha Toronto is a pretty big city, and by September/October I imagine people will be spending a lot of time inside there
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| 3:09 |
: When looking at which teams may not want a season, shouldnt we include a look at vesting options that won’t vest (eg yankees with ja happ)? Seems like those numbers may be a negative influence on playing.
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| 3:09 |
: Yeah sure
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| 3:10 |
: It’s not a huge effect, but it is one
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| 3:10 |
: That said, there are countervailing things here too we aren’t counting.
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| 3:10 |
: The Dodgers are just going to get a whopping zero Mookie games if there’s no season
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| 3:11 |
: Etc
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| 3:11 |
: Why aren’t more baseball media mentioning the Black Players roundtable that MLB hosted last week with Harold Reynolds, Josh Bell, Jackie Robinson’s daughter and a couple other young players? Best thing baseball has done in years.
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| 3:11 |
: It was indeed excellent
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| 3:11 |
: I also really enjoyed the one the Athletic held
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| 3:12 |
: I don’t have a good answer for you for why this wasn’t talked about more. For all the things I think the league does that are gross and coldly calculated to get the most money for the least outlay
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| 3:13 |
: I truly enjoyed that discussion and I’m glad they did it
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| 3:13 |
: Baseball has a shameful history with racism (most sports do!), and I find the ‘wrap yourself in a Jackie Robinson banner’ stuff pretty obnoxious, but less propaganda and more letting people share their experiences is a great way to handle things I think
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| 3:14 |
: Pete Rose (1973) Willie McGee (1985), Ichiro Suzuki (2001)
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| 3:14 |
: Well, I got two of them right
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| 3:14 |
: I had no clue Willie McGee had so few dingers when he won MVP, though I know he won MVP b/c my dad wouldn’t stop telling me about it when I was a kid
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| 3:15 |
: I wasn’t sure if Rose won an MVP, but I thought he was the type of player who might, so I guessed him. And then I knew Ichiro
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| 3:15 |
: Any thoughts on the KBO signings of Addison Russell and Brandon Barnes?
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| 3:16 |
: Gonna be totally honest with you, I don’t know much about Brandon Barnes. I’m not sure whether we’re going to write something about Russell or not. I’m not a huge fan of the signing unless Russell is sincerely a changed man, or at the very least has convinced the team that he is.
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| 3:17 |
: I also know that I’m predisposed to give MLB teams zero credit for thoughtfulness and morality
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| 3:17 |
: And I’m not sure where to put KBO teams on that axis
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| 3:17 |
: I just have a lot less experience with the league
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| 3:17 |
: But if some MLB team did this I’d be just a harrrrrd no
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| 3:18 |
: The Heroes doing it? I’m skeptical but I have a lot less history of chicanery to let me know that boy these teams really don’t care about anything but extracting surplus value
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| 3:18 |
: Not sure who’s be the best to ask this to, maybe you know, but why can’t these billionaire owners figure out a way to make additional money with no fans? Like sell VR seating for $50 a game or something? Everyone gets a front row seat! Is it against the tv deals they’ve signed?
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| 3:19 |
: Oh, there’s every chance that they could. I don’t know if your exact idea would work — aside from potential issues with TV deals, TV exists, you know?
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| 3:19 |
: But the owners are going to do SOMETHING to extract whatever money they can
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| 3:20 |
: Try to get partial capacity opened as soon as possible, or something; I’m not sure what the exact details will be but they will flood the zone with monetization ideas
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| 3:21 |
: They just can’t talk about any of them until they’ve locked the players into a deal
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| 3:21 |
: If you mention a monetization idea now, that’s extra revenue to bargain with.
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| 3:21 |
: I am certain that teams are discussing this stuff internally
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| 3:21 |
: The A’s had to be convinced to pay minor league stipends after May and now they might drop $85 million to buy the other half of the Coliseum. Does that look as bad as it looks?
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| 3:21 |
: I mean, it’s not great!
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| 3:22 |
: I don’t really have much more than that to say
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| 3:22 |
: It’s bad, it looks and is bad
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| 3:23 |
: No one is surprised that the A’s are quick to declare poverty and also quick to have whatever money they need if they think they’re profiting off of a deal
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| 3:23 |
: What are the chances teams are selling the biometric data they collect from players?
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| 3:23 |
: I would imagine that the odds are quite low
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| 3:23 |
: Teams think they’re getting a ton of value out of proprietary access to that information
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| 3:23 |
: The yield on selling it would need to be extremely high, I think.
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| 3:24 |
: I guess I don’t know that for certain, but it seems like a combination of ethically dubious, a PR nightmare if it gets out, questionably useful even if it succeeds, and low-yield
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| 3:25 |
: Now maybe I just massively underestimate the going rate for biometric data and it makes sense
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| 3:25 |
: But I’m skeptical
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| 3:25 |
: Way for MLB to generate future revenue when safe: During the offseason, have a short Old-Timers season with retired players in either FL or AZ.
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| 3:25 |
: I mean, I’d watch that… gonna be a while before we talk about getting a bunch of old people together for a party again, though
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| 3:25 |
: But that cost has been paid regardless of whether there are 2020 games or not. Economic impact would be ignore, no?
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| 3:25 |
: I assume this is about Mookie
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| 3:26 |
: In response to my last answer.
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| 3:26 |
: And I mean, not really
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| 3:26 |
: If you have a player with surplus value
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| 3:26 |
: Heck, what about a year at minimum salary for a star
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| 3:26 |
: Jack Flaherty, say, but also Mookie
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| 3:26 |
: Advancing the service time clock by a year without getting any value out of them stings
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| 3:27 |
: Players vote has been pushed back to 5 PM. Looks like a last ditch effort to avoid he Commish setting a 50 game season.
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| 3:28 |
: I’ll be really curious to see the outcome. I’m slightly more optimistic about baseball happening this year now that the two sides are so close
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| 3:28 |
: Like I actually think the players might just vote yes?
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| 3:28 |
: I tihnk they probably shouldn’t, but I could see it happening
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| 3:28 |
: It’s kinda close honestly
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| 3:28 |
: But the league had a clever little week of negotiating to make it look less obvious that they were negotiating in bad faith
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| 3:29 |
: Now all the previous nonsense they said about last and best offer
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| 3:29 |
: When they subsequently improved by hundreds of millions of dollars
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| 3:29 |
: Sure does look preposterous and bad-faith-y
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| 3:29 |
: But now it’s at least close
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| 3:29 |
: Is the deadline for signing UDFAs the same as signing drafted players (August 1st)?
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| 3:29 |
: I am not sure
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| 3:29 |
: Might be a question for Eric
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| 3:30 |
: You say “I mean” way too much. And I mean, it’s not even necessary in the course of the conversation.
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| 3:30 |
: Oh that sounds entirely possible and now I’m going to read up and see it a lot
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| 3:30 |
: I used to be a ‘like’ person though I’ve largely kicked that habit
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| 3:30 |
: And a ‘fair enough’ person too
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| 3:31 |
: If Meg is reading this, I’m truly sorry for all the word repetition you have to edit out of my articles
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| 3:31 |
: I mean is just a filler word, and I am surprised I use it so much in writing, but I’m not at all surprised that I use filler words a lot
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| 3:31 |
: I’d like a couple of Congressfolks to start publicly talking about the anti-trust exemption and see if that changes things…
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| 3:32 |
: I think Congress has bigger fish to fry at the moment.
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| 3:32 |
: Ideally yes, I’d like this too, but there are a ton of things I’d like to see fixed before we get down the chain to changing the anti-trust exemption for baseball
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| 3:32 |
: That’s not so say I don’ think it’s worth bluffing about
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| 3:32 |
: Mention that you’re considering a bill about it or some hearings, etc.
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| 3:33 |
: But that’s 100% not 2020 business
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| 3:33 |
: And probably not 2021 business given that if Democrats win they’ll have a lot of cleaning up to do in 2021 and if Trump wins he’ll have a lot of scores to settle
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| 3:34 |
: I do wish that Congress would do *something* instead of voting on bills to suppress minor league salaries but hey
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| 3:34 |
: Betting on Congress doing the wrong thing has not been a *terrible* bet the past few years
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| 3:34 |
: So I’m going to keep assuming they will do the wrong thing, and hope I’m wrong
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| 3:35 |
: Have you ever played Strat-O-Matic baseball? My friends and I are drafting with the Hall of Fame deck and the question at #1 is take the two-way Babe Ruth or the stud at a weak position in Josh Gibson. Your thoughts?
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| 3:35 |
: I love Strat-O-Matic, and my dad and I used to do similar drafts
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| 3:35 |
: I haven’t drafted the HoF collection before, and I don’t remember how two-way players work in the game
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| 3:36 |
: How many players is the draft?
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| 3:37 |
: 8 teams, 22 players per team
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| 3:37 |
: Our league is allowing you to own both Babe Ruth cards if you draft Babe Ruth
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| 3:37 |
: There are presumably at least 3 or 4 catchers worth rostering
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| 3:37 |
: And I don’t know what the dropoff from Gibson to, say, peak Bench/Berra/Piazza or whatever is
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| 3:38 |
: I’d probably lean Babe Ruth
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| 3:38 |
: But without having seen the set it sounds like both options are really good
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| 3:38 |
: Getting an extra pitcher just seems quite valuable
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| 3:38 |
: Assuming Ruth’s pitcher card is a mid-rotation starter or decent bullpen arm
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| 3:39 |
: Like if you get a 10th round pick out of the back end of his card, and then also the best offensive player with the first overall pick, that’s pretty nice
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| 3:39 |
: OOTP has given me newfound respect for two-way players in baseball sims
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| 3:40 |
: They have capped tournaments there, which aren’t quite like drafts but are a similar thing — you have a constraint to operate under
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| 3:40 |
: And finding extra space on your team through a single player that can perform a few roles is big
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| 3:40 |
: Yeah, I think Ruth’s pitching card is even better than that, to be honest. I think I’d agree with you and lean Ruth
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| 3:40 |
: Ah yeah if he’s a top-10-round pick I’d just snap that up
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| 3:40 |
: (he = the pitcher card by itself here)
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| 3:41 |
: One thing that’s a little weird about Strat-o-Matic, if it still works the way it did when I plyaed, is that the pitcher/batter interaction isn’t really a proportional thing
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| 3:41 |
: You just roll a die and end up either on the pitcher’s card or the hitter’s card
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| 3:42 |
: So some of the concerns I’d normally have (is it useful to have power hitters against a group of pitchers who presumably massively suppress homers)
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| 3:42 |
: Don’ really apply
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| 3:42 |
: THis whole thing sounds incredibly fun though
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| 3:42 |
: Very helpful, thanks! In doing my research about this deck, I’ve realized that I don’t even know who more than 50% of these people are!
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| 3:42 |
: Isn’t it great??
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| 3:43 |
: Every week I learn something new about baseball via opening OOTP packs, and this sounds really similar
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| 3:43 |
: Yesterday my wife opened up a card of a guy named Creepy Crespi
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| 3:43 |
: Just lol
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| 3:44 |
: Yeah, for example these pitchers in the late 1800s NEVER gave up homers because homers just weren’t a thing. So their cards are amazingggg
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| 3:44 |
: Yeah. I guess for that reason you don’t want to have an interactive model… like if a guy has a 0% home run rate, it doesn’t matter whether he’s facing Babe Ruth or Ichiro
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| 3:44 |
: Nick Martini will be inducted to the HoF on the first or second ballot?
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| 3:44 |
: Third ballot, due to whispers of PED use
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| 3:44 |
: never substantiated, though
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| 3:45 |
: With that, friends, I’m going to call it a day.
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| 3:45 |
: I mean, I suppose it’s called a day
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| 3:45 |
: But I’m going to end the chat
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| 3:45 |
: Have a wonderful rest of your day, and I mean, if you get the chance, come catch me on FanGraphs Live tomorrow
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| 3:45 |
: Be safe, everyone!
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Ben is a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Bluesky @benclemens.
A retired players league in Florida was already tried around 1990. It didnt draw enough interest to stick even with some fairly big names.