With the trading deadline now one week in the rear-view mirror, it is much too early to truly understand that impact that the players will have on pennant races. The Toronto Blue Jays went from among a crowd of American Wild Card contenders to favorites for the Wild Card with a potential chance to catch the Yankees. Teams like the Houston Astros, New York Mets, and Kansas City Royals all made significant additions to help them in their chase to the playoffs and potential success once October arrives. It is not too early, however, to discuss the impact on payroll that those changes have had on the dealing teams.

The Blue Jays have made the biggest moves of the season, but those moves did not have the biggest impact on payroll. Contenders like the Pittsburgh Pirates, New York Mets, and Houston Astros made multiple moves that had an even greater effect on their payrolls while sellers like the Milwaukee Brewers and Detroit Tigers made moves that cleared significant space on the payroll.

Of the 30 Major League Baseball teams, only the Arizona Diamondbacks refused participate. More than 100 players changed teams at the deadline. Considering only those players making more than close to the major league minimum salary, nearly $100 million in 2015 rest of the season salary was moved at the end of July. The graph below took into account every single move made near the trading deadline where more than a minimum salary was added to the payroll. Focusing first only on additions made to payroll without considering subtractions, the Blue Jays do take the top spot. Data from Cot’s Contracts. Read the rest of this entry »

The Nationals have not played very well in the second half. This isn’t news. Since the break, they have an 8-12 record and have been outscored by 11 runs. This isn’t a soul-crushing stretch by any means, but when your competition is red hot, a stretch where you’re only scoring 3.65 runs per game can certainly seem soul crushing. The interesting question to me is what the Nationals can do about it? Are they content to just wait this out and take the patient approach that eventually their hitters will snap out of it, or is it time for action? Actually, let’s rephrase that — what actions can the Nationals even take?

We know that the Nationals have a great pitching staff. Their bullpen unit is solid. The core unit they’ve relied on the most the past 30 days — Aaron Barrett, Casey Janssen, Felipe Rivero, Tanner Roark and Drew Storen — has done pretty well. The worst xFIP- among those pitchers for the past 30 days is Rivero’s 114. For the season, the highest belongs to Janssen at 108. Perhaps there isn’t enough reliability in that group, especially given Storen’s playoff experience. So to that mix they have added Jonathan Papelbon. Potential problem addressed.
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As he celebrates his 24th birthday, it’s worth asking if there’s anything Mike Trout can’t do. In any case, there apparently is one more thing he can do.

It got lost in the haze of the week of the trade deadline, but I want to take you back to a recent Trout performance against the Rangers. Let’s look at a pitch that Nick Martinez threw. The approximate location:

Clearly low, clearly inside (relative to the middle of the plate). Trout swung, and this is where the ball went:

Home run, right field. Now, for a lot of players, it’s enough to hit one home run. I’ve set up what’s going to follow. A full-count pitch later in the same game, thrown by Spencer Patton:

Another pitch in. Another Trout swing. The result:

That, to the opposite side of center field. Twice in one game, Trout went deep. Twice in one game, Trout went deep to what could technically be referred to as the opposite field. Twice in one game, Mike Trout did that on inside pitches. Intuitively, that seems like a hard thing to do. When you think about it, it follows that inside pitches get pulled, and outside pitches get pushed. That is, generally, the way things go, at least when you’re talking about balls hit with authority. But, see, Trout has learned something.

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In terms of the baseball news cycle, the trade deadline — which passed less than a week ago, you might recall — is officially old news. But, as Wilmer Flores and the New York Mets very accidentally and very effectively reminded us, the trade deadline always has been and always will be a group of real-live human beings subjected to a gauntlet of some of the most mundane and anxiety-producing ordeals of the modern age: pursuit of a new residence, extensive travel, nagging doubts about one’s job performance.

While their trades are old news, more than a few of the players who were moved at the deadline no doubt have their heads still spinning from the unexpectedly grueling calendar that befell them. If their performance has faltered, may they have our sympathy — and if it has not, may they have our further admiration:

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The first inning of a debut is a sweaty time. Just look at Henry Owens as he stepped to the mound for the first time in the big leagues this past week. Your heart strains for him — not only in sympathy, but also because it’s just so obvious that his blood is racing through his veins and his vision is blurry. You can almost feel it just watching him.

You can see plainly that that the major league debut was full of butterflies for Owens. And so it was for Luis Severino. Just in a different way than most.

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Every so often, someone asks where I got my start. My first online conversations about baseball took place on the ESPN message boards, and I’m a Mariners fan, and that was back when the Mariners mattered. Around the turn of the millennium, the Mariners were entering the best era in franchise history. Between 2000 – 2003, the Mariners racked up more regular-season wins than anybody else. They ultimately crashed, and crashed hard, but four strong teams were built. Four competitive teams were built. It was terrific, except for the thing that was missing. In 2003, the Marlins of all teams won that thing. There was much debate over what a fan really wants. Say what you will about the Marlins, but they’ve brought home a couple trophies.

Here, I ask you what some might consider a fundamental question. There’s a poll at the end of this, and I want you to try to answer honestly, as a fan who’s presumably something more than just a casual observer. I’m going to go ahead and update my Mariners and Marlins examples. There are current(ish) teams who can fill the same roles. We’re all more familiar with what’s current!

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Why yes: performance. If you want to argue that Carlos Correa is already baseball’s best shortstop, you can simply point to his performance, and to the performances of the other shortstops. What could be easier? Correa, of course, hasn’t played a full 2015 season, but he has batted a couple hundred times, so let’s look at the numbers and keep them all above a common, 600-plate-appearance denominator. Do that and Correa comes out as a top-10 position player. The closest shortstop, by WAR, is Brandon Crawford, who trails by just about two wins. Whatever you think of the error bars in WAR, two wins per 600 plate appearances is a big margin. The argument, in other words, has decent support.

Why no: projections. Statistics reflect talent, but they can also mislead. It can be better to refer to the projections, as they can be a decent proxy for current estimated true talent. Projections don’t suffer from recency bias. They don’t suffer from hype, and they don’t suffer from any sort of overreactions. Looking at the shortstop depth-chart projections, and putting WAR over 600 plate appearances, Correa is basically tied with Crawford and Jhonny Peralta, a win behind Troy Tulowitzki. Some months ago, Tulowitzki was the unquestioned best shortstop in baseball. How much should we really reconsider, after part of one season?

If you choose to believe Tulowitzki remains the best shortstop, that’s fine. It’s totally justifiable, and Correa still doesn’t have an extended track record. Could have a slump just ahead of him. Could be a bad one. But as absurd as it might sound, Correa really does have an argument of his own. He’s been that good to date, and if you don’t believe he’s better than Tulowitzki yet, it seems only a matter of time until the trend lines intersect. One of them turns 31 in two months. One of them can finally buy his own drink in a month and a half.

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Whenever a pitcher rises to a month’s worth of greatness, there’s always luck involved. And so, Chris Tillman — like most of the other nine in his class — spent July with a batting average on balls in play closer to .250 than .300. But when Tillman spent July dealing, he did so in a way he hadn’t done before in the big leagues. Underneath that luck were some adjustments that might be a big deal for the pitcher going forward.

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With two-thirds of the 2015 season in the books, an innumerable number of indelible on-field moments have been permanently imprinted upon us. An almost unprecedented influx of young talent has taken hold, a second straight trading deadline swap meet has taken place, and the races for playoff berths are heating up. Off the field, however, 2015 will be remembered, at least in part by those who read these pages, as the year of the arrival of StatCast. The utilization of granular data has been infiltrating the mainstream for a few years now with the milestone arrivals of Hit Tracker and Pitch and Hit f(x), but StatCast takes it to another level, with public availability of batted-ball information, implementation of fielder-specific data on national telecasts, and from the clubs’ perspective, the introduction of detailed spin data on batted balls.

All of that said, there are some clear limitations to the usefulness of the publicly available Year I data. Before taking that information as gospel, it is vital that users place such information into the proper context, and be aware of some primary areas of concern. Read the rest of this entry »

With the announcement of its partnership with the National Hockey League, and rumors that a potential spinoff of it’s streaming technology arm might be worth $5 billion, Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM) has moved past being the The Biggest Media Company You’ve Never Heard Of. The base of the deal with the NHL, though relatively small compared to many television rights deals at $100 million per year for six years for control of the NHL’s digital media rights, comes after a whirlwind of activity as well as speculation about MLBAM’s present and its future. MLBAM’s increasing diverse clientele and the partnership with NHL signifies MLB’s digital media arm is prepared to be a player outside of baseball. The move represents part of the slowly changing landscape of consumer consumption, although the potential spin-off could have ramifications the new companies devotion to MLB as well on the next collective bargaining agreement as owners attempt to separate baseball revenue from potentially significant non-baseball revenue.

Close to 15 years ago, MLB owners agreed to invest $1 million each per year for four years to create a digital arm to stay on top of technological advances as the internet. In the years since, the business has created incredible growth for MLB. From mlb.com, online ticketing, MLB AtBat mobile app, and mlb.tv to Pitch f/x and the recent unveiling of Statcast, MLBAM has changed the way fans watch, interact, and appreciate the game. Read the rest of this entry »