The Milwaukee Brewers have had nine winning seasons during David Stearns’ lifetime. Over that span, they’ve won 90 or more games just four times. Their last World Series appearance was in 1982, three years before the 30-year-old Harvard graduate was born. He has his work cut out for him.

Stearns stepped into one of baseball’s most challenging jobs when he took over as Milwaukee’s general manager at season’s end. The Brewers play in MLB’s smallest market, and they compete in its toughest division. On the heels of a competitive 2014 campaign, they went into this past season with high hopes, only to limp to the finish line with a record of 68-94.

A native of New York, Stearns spent the past the three seasons in Houston, where he was the Astros’ assistant general manager.

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Stearns on his influences: “I think I bring a perspective from all of the different teams I’ve worked for. I’ve had the benefit of working for a number of different leaders, a number of different general managers. That started with Dave Littlefield when I was an intern in Pittsburgh and then Omar Minaya with the Mets. I spent time in the commissioner’s office working for Dan Halem and a number of very smart people. From there I went to Cleveland and worked for Mark Shapiro, Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff. And lastly, in Houston I worked for Jeff Luhnow.

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Sometime soon, Aroldis Chapman is going to get traded. But don’t just take my word for it:

#Reds Walt Jocketty said there’s ‘nothing close’ with Aroldis Chapman. Hopes to get something done by the Winter Meetings

— C. Trent Rosecrans (@ctrent) November 19, 2015

I mean, yeah, on the one hand, nothing close. But on the other hand, how often do front offices establish public timelines? The Reds want to trade Chapman, and they want to do it soon, and they want to get a certain type of package back:

@jaysonst Other teams say Reds are targeting big-league ready young players in any package they get back for Frazier or Aroldis Chapman — Jayson Stark (@jaysonst) November 16, 2015

That’s not surprising. Every team wants more big-league-ready young players. Those are some of the game’s most valuable assets. Nick Cafardo, meanwhile, offered something that raises the eyebrows:

The Reds listened to Boston’s pitch for Chapman but required more than the Red Sox offered for Kimbrel, and the Sox weren’t comfortable going the extra mile for a pitcher who can become a free agent after 2016.

That’s too much. It’s unconfirmed, but regardless, that’s too much. Still, it brings to mind the question: what’s the right price? If you’re looking to trade for Aroldis Chapman, how far should you go before things stop being reasonable?

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Last week, Robinson Cano’s name found itself in the news, because someone decided to ask a presumably drunk former coach for his opinions while someone else was recording. The news cycle subsequently spent its weekend worshiping at the altar of football, but now we’re back to Cano again, this time for a different reason. John Harper wrote a piece for the Daily News, and within, former coach Rich Donnelly came to Cano’s defense. That’s not what’s grabbed attention, though; what’s grabbed attention would be this:

But even if Cano has had the best intentions as a Mariner, one long-time friend who spoke to him recently says the second baseman is not happy in Seattle, especially with a new regime in charge there now, and that he’d love to somehow find his way back to New York.

It seems like a powerful sentence. A feeling of regret for a one-time superstar who followed the money away from New York to the other side of the continent? Great for the area media. Great for the area readers. Helps New York feel better about itself, which tends to be the city’s primary interest. And for all I know, this might even be true. There was speculation Cano was “homesick” for New York in June. The Daily News made Cano sound unhappy in March 2014. Granted, Cano might’ve been somewhat unhappy in New York in 2013. He did leave, after all.

The Seattle-area media has never reported having the sense that Cano was unhappy. He happens to be coming off a disappointing year. Not just for himself, but also for the team, which underachieved while Cano’s old Yankees squeaked into the playoffs (for a day). My guess is this is nothing. It’s something to talk about on a Monday morning when there’s nothing else going on. Of course Cano would’ve preferred a stronger 2015, individually and as a group. If he was unhappy in 2014, it didn’t stop him from having a terrific year. If he was unhappy in the middle of 2015, it didn’t stop him from having a terrific second half.

I’m actually more interested in something else from the same article. Forget what one person says about Cano’s emotional state; it’s indirect, and uncorroborated, and not as important as his performance. More to the point of his performance: consider the following excerpt.

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The crowd says that a baseball player who doesn’t occupy either center field or shortstop — and who has never hit 30 homers or stolen 30 bases — is about to get a $184 million contract. Our fearless leader thinks that contract is going to be the best value on the market this year. There are plenty of reasons to agree, not the least of which is that past big contracts have been at their best when given to young, athletic players with defensive value. Of course Jason Heyward checks all those boxes.

On the other hand, it’ll be a departure. Carl Crawford is the only other $100 million man who’s played something else besides an up-the-middle defensive position while also recording an isolated slugging percentage under .200. The sport usually gives nine-figure deals to players who slug or play great defense at a premium spot.

And while Heyward might play center field on his new team, there’s still evidence that we don’t value sluggers as much these days. Look at the crowd’s projection for Chris Davis, coming off a 41-homer season — it’s more than $80 million less than the one for Heyward. Mike Trout, Kyle Seager, Evan Longoria, and Elvis Andrus represent more than half of the $100 million contracts that started in 2015. None is your typical Big Bat.

So. Have we gone too far? Are we undervaluing the slow-footed, no-defense slugger? There’s other evidence we are.

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Have you heard? The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2016 is now available for sale. You can check out the table of contents and read some excerpts from the book. When you finish that you can purchase it from our independent publishing platform, Createspace, in print form, or from Amazon in print form (the Kindle version should be available later this week).

But wait, there’s more! Because we’re giving folk, and since it’s the beginning of the holiday season and all, we want to give you a chance to win yourself a free copy of the book. So today, tomorrow and Wednesday, we’ll be running a trivia contest based on one of the articles in the book. The first person to post the correct answer in the comments will win a free physical copy of the book (sorry, no free Kindle version). It’s just that simple!
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For the third time in four years, Mike Trout finished as a runner-up MVP. Trout had a compelling case, but Josh Donaldson was a deserving winner. Even if you think Trout should have won, you’re probably fine with Donaldson winning. More than one guy can deserve it, after all.

Regardless, the outcome of an award vote doesn’t change what Trout’s achieved through his first four seasons. And what Trout’s done through his first four seasons is unprecedented. Already, he’s arguably accomplished more than any player in history through his age-23 season. Already, he’s had a top-10 all-time four-year peak, and those are the only years we’ve seen him have. The next question, naturally, is a biggie. Don’t lie — you’ve thought about it. Even if you’re a skeptic, it’s a thought that’s crossed your mind, if even for a fleeting moment.

“What if this guy is the best that’s ever done it?”

What if? Never hurts to wonder. Could Trout be the greatest? If he ends up as the greatest, what would that even take? What would that career look like? What could that career look like?

The all-time leader in position player Wins Above Replacement, according to our leaderboards, is Babe Ruth, at 168.4 WAR. Let’s have a little fun.
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A few days ago, the Braves traded Cameron Maybin to the Tigers for a pair of promising-but-unproven pitchers. Predictably, the deal elicited mostly angst from Atlanta fans. Not Andrelton-level angst, but enough that yet a few more foam tomahawks hit the bottoms of wastebaskets. Put another way, the camel hasn’t collapsed, but his back is starting to sag something awful.

Youth movement in full swing, veterans are packing up almost as fast as the bandwagon is emptying. NBC Hardball Talk’s Craig Calcaterra worded the exodus as such: “The last major league position player left in Atlanta, please turn out the lights.”

As for my own take on the Braves’ new world, let’s just say I’m highly intrigued. Regardless of how you define their strategy – retooling, tanking, whatever – these moves aren’t being made frivolously. Financial considerations aside, no small number of scouting and data-driven projections are driving the decisions. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I published a post here examining the year-to-year correlations for a number of ball-in-play (BIP) pitching metrics. The results published there have some use on their own. As a practical application of that information, however, I’d like to take a look here at the nine potential free agent starting pitchers (besides Zack Greinke) whose teams faced a qualifying offer decision this offseason, and see how this analysis might impact their valuation.

Below, you’ll find two tables. The first, for reference, is a collection of all the year-to-year correlations from yesterday’s post. After that is a second table, featuring how each of the nine pitchers fared according to each metric. Comments regarding each pitchers in greater depth appear below that.

First, the correlation coefficients from yesterday’s post:

Correlation Coefficients, 2014-15 ERA Qualifiers

Metric	Coefficient
K%	0.81
BB%	0.66
Pop%	0.53
Fly%	0.76
LD%	0.14
GB%	0.86
FL/LD	0.37
GB AUTH	0.25
BIP AUTH	0.37
ERA	0.45
FIP	0.65
TRU ERA	0.72

Remember: a 100% correlation (1.00 in the above table) is obtained when the two sets of data are totally identical. The closer to 1.00, the higher degree of correlation between the two data sets.

Now what follows are the nine pitchers in question. Stats are presented as an index, where 100 is average, above 100 is above average, and below 100 is below average. Questions about the various metrics? A more thorough explanation can be found in yesterday’s post.

2014-15 QO Candidates – Key Stats Scaled to 100

Name	K%	BB%	POP%	FLY%	LD%	GB%	F/L PRD	GB PRD	BIP PRD	ACT ERA	ACT FIP	TRU ERA
Brett Anderson	77	82	12	60	72	145	127	96	98	95	101	102
Wei-Yin Chen	97	71	153	109	96	92	98	102	100	83	104	89
Marco Estrada	91	104	168	148	74	73	70	89	74	78	110	75
Yovani Gallardo	77	118	65	84	105	111	97	108	96	85	100	102
His. Iwakuma	108	56	59	93	88	114	111	110	100	88	93	82
Ian Kennedy	121	98	104	119	108	84	114	103	121	110	116	101
John Lackey	97	79	133	98	97	100	92	111	96	71	92	91
Jeff Samardzija	90	74	111	115	101	88	90	103	102	124	105	94
J. Zimmermann	98	63	154	106	103	92	122	101	105	94	96	95

*****

Brett Anderson (Profile)
Status: Accepted qualifying offer from Dodgers

Anderson’s key strength is his stratospheric grounder rate, the highest in the majors last year, over two standard deviations higher than league average. His walk rate was also a positive, over one half standard deviation lower than league average. Our correlation coefficients tell us that these are likely true talents, and should recur moving forward. Unfortunately, the same doesn’t apply to his low liner rate, which was over two standard deviations below league average. As much of a ground baller as Anderson is, repeating his 66.3% grounder rate would be quite a feat, and any reduction likely will translate point for point in an increase in liner rate.

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Three winters ago, we got into a lot of arguments about James Shields. He was at the center of a very polarizing trade and people took sides. You remember it, so I won’t rehash things other than to remark on how funny it is that the James Shields-Wil Myers blockbuster has actually become the Wade Davis trade. Wade Davis! The guy who gave up 5.92 runs per nine in the season following the deal.

Life’s little insanities aside, Shields was very good for the Royals during his two seasons in Kansas City. He was worth 4.0 and 3.3 WAR, respectively, and helped push them over the hump and back into relevance. Would they have gotten there without him? It’s entirely possible, but he was a key player on the team during their renaissance and deserves some recognition for it. You will note, however, that Shields signed elsewhere after the Royals lost the 2014 World Series and then the team won the 2015 title without him.

One of Shields’ hallmarks, and one of the main reasons the Royals acquired him, was his consistency. You were pretty much assured more than 200 innings of good, non-elite run prevention and above-average fielding independent numbers. Shields was as predictable as a person could be in baseball. Then he signed with the Padres.

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If you were glancing at baseball news around the internet recently, you might have come across some announcements from MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred. A Forbes‘ article features a headline, for example, that reads “Manfred Announces 3-Year Deal With FOX To Have MLB Games Streamed In-Market“. At MLB’s own website one finds “Streaming deal a huge leap forward for MLB, fans“. Viewing the headlines alone, we might conclude, or at least be hopeful, that this is a really big deal — that MLB is finally getting rid of its blackout policy on MLB.tv, allowing fans to watch their local team without subscribing to an expensive cable television package. Unfortunately, that’s not what’s happening. In-market streaming is a small step towards making baseball more accessible to fans, but does not deal with the principal blackout problems that prevent getting MLB games any way you want them.

In-market streaming, in the iteration announced yesterday, is helpful to fans provided they already pay for a cable service broadcasting their team’s local games. As the Forbes article indicates, the deal is with FOX-owned cable affiliates. Half of the league is broadcast on a cable network owned by FOX, with the other half spread out between other owners like Comcast, Time Warner and DirecTV. While the other networks could reach a deal with MLB, Manfred’s announcement relates exclusively to the FOX-owned properties. In the chart below, the column on the left features the teams whose broadcasts are affected as a result of this agreement, while the column on the right shows teams whose rights are not managed by FOX and are therefore not part of this announcement.

15 Teams With In-Market Streaming for 2016

With In-Market Streaming	Without In-Market Streaming
Atlanta Braves	New York Mets
Cincinnati Reds	Philadelphia Phillies
Cleveland Indians	Chicago Cubs
Texas Rangers	Chicago White Sox
Detroit Tigers	Pittsburgh Pirates
Kansas City Royals	Houston Astros
Los Angeles Angels	Los Angeles Dodgers
Miami Marlins	Seattle Mariners
Milwaukee Brewers	San Francisco Giants
Minnesota Twins	Oaland Athletics
New York Yankees	Washington Nationals
Arizona Diamondbacks	Baltimore Orioles
San Diego Padres	Colorado Rockies
St. Louis Cardinals	Boston Red Sox
Tampa Bay Rays	Toronto Blue Jays

SOURCE: MLB.com

Depending on the cable provider, one might be able to stream games through portable devices if also signed into a home wifi that has also been purchased from the same provider, for example. For the fifteen teams part of this agreement, cable subscribers should have significantly more viewing options. Prior to this agreement, a fan, even if he or she were a cable subscriber and even if he or she paid for MLB.tv, would still be unable to watch games on a cell phone or tablet while located in the home market — nor could could one watch games at the doctor’s office, friend’s home, or while commuting on the train or bus. MLB.tv blacked out the games on own its platform, nor was the local cable provider was providing its own options.

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