It seemed for a time like Scott Kazmir wanted to get himself signed before Christmas. That didn’t happen, but he’ll settle for getting signed before New Year’s — for three years, and $48 million, with the Dodgers being his newest employer. Kazmir joins what could be an all-left-handed starting rotation, not even counting the left-handed Julio Urias. No one would ever suggest you can fill a Zack Greinke-shaped hole with a Scott Kazmir-shaped plug, but there simply wasn’t another Greinke to be had, and Kazmir makes this group better than it could have been.

This is, what, a Tier-2-level transaction? Maybe even Tier 3. I’m not sure because I just invented the scale. But with a move like this, there generally isn’t all that much to be said in terms of player or team analysis. Kazmir is above-average. Occasionally great, occasionally awful. The Dodgers are above-average, too, and should remain that way into the future. Kazmir is getting above-average-player money. All that stuff is obvious, so it’s better to focus on the one most interesting detail. And in this case, I think that detail is that Kazmir can opt out of the contract after this coming season.

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This is a follow-up to my previous post, “Predicting Secondary Market Prices for ALDS/NLDS Tickets”. Now with a complete set of price data from 2011 to 2015, I’ve amended and refined my previous model for ALDS/NLDS ticket prices. I’ve also been able to build additional models to predict prices for ALCS/NLCS and World Series ticket prices in the future.

Before I go further, I’d like to thank Chris from TiqIQ. Chris was nice enough to give me TiqIQ’s complete set of price data from 2011 to 2015 for each year’s playoff teams. Needless to say, without his help, this study could not be completed.

The new set of data is superior to the previous data I collected from TiqIQ’s blog for the following reasons:

• It takes into account all the transaction values, instead of only the transactions at the time the TiqIQ blog posts were written; and
• It only includes playoff games that were actually played, instead of all possible playoff games (which include prices for games that may not be played); and
• We have values for each individual game, instead of only an average value for the whole regular season and the whole ALDS/NLDS.

As before, the statistic that is predicted is the average price of the tickets for each playoff series. Because the final game of each series (Game 5 in the ALDS/NLDS and Game 7 in the ALCS/NLCS and World Series) is guaranteed to be an elimination game for both teams, it commands a premium compared to the other games, so I excluded that data in calculating the average value.

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The week between Christmas and New Year’s is traditionally a quiet one in baseball circles, as most home offices are closed, and many top executives vacation far, far away. This year hasn’t exactly been typical, with one big trade (Aroldis Chapman to the Yanks) and one reasonably significant free agent signing already in the books (Henderson Alvarez to the A’s) and another one pending a physical (Daniel Murphy to the Nationals).

There are still many big name free agents yet to sign on with their new clubs, and most of them are of the position player variety. Outfielders Justin Upton, Yoenis Cespedes and Alex Gordon, to name just three, are still on the board. So is first baseman Chris Davis, whose recent offensive contributions outstrip even those three. The Orioles reportedly offered Davis in the vicinity of $150 million over seven years to remain in the fold, only to be rebuffed. Has that offer clogged up position player free agency? And is an investment of that magnitude in this sort of player a wise one?

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A couple of days ago, news broke that the Yankees had traded for uber-reliever Aroldis Chapman. In exchange for Chapman’s services, the Bombers coughed up four prospects: Starting pitcher Rookie Davis, corner infielder Eric Jagielo, second baseman Tony Renda and reliever Caleb Cotham. Here’s what my fancy computer math says about this quartet.

Rookie Davis, RHP (Profile)
KATOH Projection Through Age 28 (2015 stats): 2.6 WAR
KATOH Projection Through Age 28 (2014 stats): 0.7 WAR

The Yankees took Davis in the 14th round out of high school in 2011, but he soon proved to be a steal at that spot. In 2013, he dominated Short-Season A-Ball with the help of a mid-90s fastball. He continued to establish himself in 2014 by posting a sub-4.00 FIP as a starter in Low-A.

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Out of context, throwing a baseball for a living is not a particularly dangerous job. There are hundreds of other occupations that provide a greater threat to health on a daily basis than standing on a pitcher’s mound. In the context of the game of baseball, however, pitching is a dangerous occupation. Besides the threat of a comebacker or awkward play at first base in which the pitcher has to cover, every pitch thrown during a game is a risk. Every pitcher in baseball is dealing with damage to their elbow in varying levels of severity, and as there’s no telling how healthy a given pitcher’s elbow is, the one pitch that could lead to serious injury is what makes the craft, in a word, totally unpredictable.

The success rate of Tommy John surgery is now so high that many fans take it for granted when an injury does occur, even going so far as to view it as some sort of rite of passage that every young pitcher must go through. But not everyone makes it back to the mound, and those that do are more likely to need another Tommy John at some point. We also know a lot more about how pitchers come back from Tommy John surgery than we used to, and it debunks a lot of previously-held beliefs.

On average, pitchers don’t gain velocity, don’t improve performance compared to their pre-injury numbers, and they’re more likely to go on the disabled list with an injury to their throwing arm than a pitcher that didn’t have surgery. While there is some evidence that TJ surgery might allow pitchers to not suffer as much age-related depreciation as those that have their original ligament, it’s clear that this is a major surgery, and not something to be taken for granted.

With that said, there are a number of All-Star-caliber pitchers who are likely to make their return in 2016 (if all goes well), and they should be included in any analysis of the ongoing offseason transactions around baseball. 2015 was a particularly difficult year in terms of the talent of pitchers requiring Tommy John surgery, as a number of current and potential future aces had to undergo the procedure.

To help visualize the talent of the pitchers who had the procedure last year and could possibly return this coming season, I’ve plotted the average Wins Above Replacement in the year prior to pitchers undergoing surgery (I’ve set the lower cutoff at the year 2000, as it was the first year in which the number of surgeries was in the double digits). In other words, how collectively good were each year’s Tommy John patients the year before they had surgery? Take a look:

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At best, Aroldis Chapman is unstable. A manageable sort of loose cannon. At worst, he’s violent, a danger not only to himself but to others. There’s a lot to try to handle here — more than we want to have to handle when we’re dealing with baseball players and baseball trades. We don’t want to have to consider this stuff, but here we are, and it can’t be avoided. Aroldis Chapman has been traded to the Yankees, for Rookie Davis, Eric Jagielo, Caleb Cotham, and Tony Renda. Chapman would’ve been a Dodger by now, or maybe a member of the Red Sox, but for an off-field incident involving alleged violence and gunfire. Chapman wasn’t arrested, but he might still be suspended under MLB’s new domestic-violence policy. That part of this story is front and center. Were it not for the incident, Chapman wouldn’t be on the Yankees. Were it not for the incident, Chapman would’ve commanded a higher price.

I can’t tell you how you’re supposed to feel. I can’t tell you what Chapman did or didn’t do. At this point I bet even the parties involved couldn’t tell you exactly what Chapman did or didn’t do, given the memory’s tendency to warp. All that’s known is there was something ugly, and Chapman was in the middle of it, and the details caused some teams to back off. If you love the trade for the Yankees, that’s fine. If you don’t want to root for Chapman anymore, that’s fine. If you feel like it’s getting harder and harder to be a sports fan these days, that’s fine. The more we know our athletes, the more we know them as real people, and real people are complex, where sports are supposed to be simple. This isn’t what a lot of us signed up for.

Your job is to figure out how you feel. And how you want to feel, if it’s different. My job is to tell you about the baseball. I’m not qualified to do the other stuff. And here’s the reality of baseball: no team likes off-the-field concerns, or potential pending suspensions. Every team wants its 25 players to be saints. But character is only part of it, and when the talent level is high enough, teams will overlook everything else. Aroldis Chapman is one of the greatest per-inning pitchers on the planet. Of that there is zero question. There are questions about his character, but teams know this stuff blows over. And beyond that, you could say Chapman’s off-field problems created a market inefficiency. Just ask Brian Cashman:

“Given the circumstances that exist, the price point on the acquisition has been modified,”Cashman said. “We felt this was an opportunity to add a big arm to our bullpen.”

There you go. Sometimes executives are reluctant to share the whole truth. Cashman is more of a straight shooter, and that excerpt tells you everything. Chapman’s got some troubles. Those troubles scared off other teams. And that made it appealing for the Yankees to strike. As far as roster management is concerned, Chapman’s incident is practically a good thing. Value value value. Below, I’m going to write more about baseball. After all, there’s a transaction to analyze, and I have a job to do. Read, or don’t. I’m not here to judge you or anybody. I’m here to judge statistics, and Chapman has some awesome statistics.

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One of the many reasons why it’s challenging to evaluate a front office is that it’s hard to know what to do with intent. All the stuff we actually see is results-based observation. This offseason, the Nationals wanted to sign Darren O’Day, but he went somewhere else for similar money. They wanted to sign Jason Heyward, but he went somewhere else for similar money. They wanted to sign Ben Zobrist, but he went somewhere else for similar money. They couldn’t even finish a deal for Brandon Phillips after Phillips wanted too much to waive his no-trade clause. The Nationals have had several plans, but the big thing they’ve actually done is sign Daniel Murphy, pending a physical. According to reports, it’s to be a three-year contract, worth $37.5 million.

You remember Murphy for his whirlwind October. For sure, it was a hell of a story, tracking the rise and fall of an unexpected superstar. If there was a mistake made, it was linking Murphy’s performance to his upcoming free-agent negotiations. When Murphy was white-hot, I remember reading speculation he could land a five-year contract. When he came undone in the World Series, many wondered how much money Murphy had cost himself. The playoffs were never going to be that important, relative to Murphy’s track record. He’s now signing the contract he was pretty much always going to get.

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It’s been a busy year in the courtroom for Major League Baseball. From its minor league pay practices and fan safety rules, to its scout hiring and television broadcasting practices, MLB spent 2015 defending itself from a variety of different lawsuits across the country. While I’ve covered many of these cases throughout the year, I’ll provide a final, year-end status update on three of MLB’s on-going lawsuits: The Payne suit challenging MLB’s fan safety protocol; the MASN broadcast royalty dispute between the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals; and the Wyckoff suit contesting MLB’s scout-hiring and pay practices.

Payne v. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball

The issue of MLB fan safety was front and center in 2015 following a series of incidents in which fans sustained serious injuries after being struck by foul balls or broken bats. In light of these events, MLB announced earlier this month that it was issuing a new set of non-binding safety recommendations to its teams, encouraging the league’s franchises to take steps to install additional netting between the dugouts, while also making it clearer to fans at the time they buy their tickets whether particular seats are shielded from flying objects.

Despite these recommendations, MLB continues to face a lawsuit that seeks to force the league to take even greater steps to protect its fans. As I noted in July, in Payne v. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, a California federal court has been asked to order MLB to mandate that all 30 of its teams install foul-pole-to-foul-pole netting in their stadiums. As I also noted at the time the case was filed, though, the suit faced several substantial legal hurdles — not the least of which was the fact the lead plaintiff in the suit appeared to lack the requisite legal standing-to-sue, since she had never been injured while attending an MLB game.

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On Tuesday, 10 MLB managers shared their thoughts on what has become known as the Third Time Through the Order Penalty. The fact that it exists in one thing. What to do about it is another.

One idea is to develop relievers who are able to work multiple innings on a consistent basis. In other words, go back a few decades to where it wasn’t uncommon. Pitchers like Bob Stanley used to do it all the time, and not just in the middle frames. He earned numerous multi-inning saves.

A while back, I asked Stanley if there’s any reason today’s relievers couldn’t do what he, and several of his contemporaries, did.

“You have to remember, back in the day we only had 10 pitchers on the staff,” said Stanley, who coaches in the Blue Jays system. “We had five relievers and they could all go two or three innings. Now we have seven relievers and most of them can only go one inning. Could they go longer? Sure, although some guys aren’t as tough as they used to be. It’s a different game now.”

Orioles pitching coach Dave Wallace — also in an older conversation — told me much the same. Read the rest of this entry »