Archive for Daily Graphings

Over the weekend, the Angels renewed Mike Trout’s contract, opting to pay him $510,000 — $20,000 over the league minimum — for the 2013 season. Because of how great Trout was last year, this has caused some backlash, including these comments from Trout’s agent:

“I asked only that the Angels compensate Mike fairly for his historic 2012 season, given his service time,” Landis said in an email to the Times. “In my opinion, this contract falls well short of a ‘fair’ contract, and I have voiced this to the Angels throughout the process.

While Trout’s renewal has gotten some attention, the reality is that the Angels are just following standard operating procedures for MLB teams. Giancarlo Stanton just had his contract renewed for the third time, and he’s going to make just $537,000 this year, the first year he’s cracked $500K in salary. The Dodgers renewed Clayton Kershaw’s contract three times as well, paying him $404,000 in 2009, $440,000 in 2010, and $500,000 in 2011. Jason Heyward was paid just $496,000 for his second big league season and $565,000 for his third year. This isn’t just the Angels being cheap. This is the pay scale that MLB teams operate on. This is the pay scale that the player’s association has collectively bargained.

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Baseball fans, generally, are aware that strikeout rates have been increasing over the period of several years. I wouldn’t say they’re yet “out of control” — it’s not like we’ve got a league of Mark Reynolds against Billy Wagner — but some people have raised some concerns, and, additionally, they’re still trending up. There’s no telling how high the strikeout rate might go. Craig Kimbrel just became the first guy to strike out more than half of the batters he faced in a season. I suspect it won’t be too long before we see another, or at least before we see someone come close.

On Thursday, we discussed evidence that home-plate umpires might be getting better at calling the strike zone. It stands to reason that could be a factor in the rising strikeout rates, since more strikes means fewer balls and you don’t need me to explain this to you, but we covered only the last few years, and also there are presumably a bunch of reasons for the hike we’ve observed. It’s not like it’s all about the umpires, just. Everything in baseball is complicated, and so examining this ought to be complicated.

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The World Baseball Classic — which starts tonight! — tweeted out a fun fact about their extra innings procedure. Your mileage may vary:

DID YOU KNOW: In extra innings, from the 13th on, teams will begin with runners on 1st & 2nd base. More fun facts at atmlb.com/12gQBbf

— 2013 WBC (@WBCBaseball) March 1, 2013

This fact’s fun factor can be debated; in a game as based in tradition as baseball, I think many would prefer as little messing with the rules as possible. But with MLB (and foreign professional leagues, most likely) worried about the health of their players, it’s in the WBC’s best interest to avoid 20-inning marathon games, as much as we may want to see them. Does their policy at least succeed in that respect?

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Can you believe it!? Friday night, tonight!, the World Baseball Classic commences with an 11:30 p.m. ET game between Chinese Taipei and Australia!

For those of us who spent the snowy preceding months watching grainy online feeds of Australian and Latin American winter ball, this day — this meaningful day — is precious. But precious also describes the amount, the scarcity, of WBC enthusiasts in America. Tragic, but true: America and Canada do not share foreign fervor for the WBC.

Well, in an effort to correct that, I have offered studies of some Taiwanese sluggers, and today I will conclude that cultural and statistical foray. For the previous pieces, see:

INF Ngayaw Ake
1B/DH Yi-Chuan Lin

Today, let’s examine Taiwan’s likely starting left fielder, Szu-Chi Chou.
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Once upon a time, Justin Morneau was a very solid player. He was never the player his most-valuable-player status would have seemed to convey, though he was still solid. But that time was more than two seasons ago, and as he enters a contract year in what will be age-32 season, it’s fair to wonder if this is Morneau’s last stand.

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Everything, ultimately, has to come down to runs. Or wins, I suppose, but wins and runs are strongly correlated. By boiling measures and evaluations down to runs, we’re given an understanding of how much they matter at the end of the day. We know how to value a guy who hits a lot of home runs. We know how to value another guy who’s said to be great in the field. Runs and wins are at the core of performance analysis, because runs and wins are what teams are trying to add to get better.

When you talk about catcher pitch-framing, one generally ends up talking about the difference between a ball and a strike. It might seem like a missed call here and there shouldn’t matter — these are just individual pitches! — but each call does matter, and as they pile up, they matter more. Toward the end of last season, Joe Maddon said something to the effect of Jose Molina saving his team 50 runs or so because of his receiving. Catchers are ranked on their framing by runs saved or cost, and this is calculated by using the run-value difference between a ball and a strike. Each season, the best framers seem to be tens of runs better than the worst framers. When you’re talking about tens of runs, you’re talking about a significant effect.

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Players choose the services of Scott Boras for a simple reason. The simplest reason, even: he gets money.

But not even Boras can truly command the invisible hand of the market. See Kyle Lohse. Despite many seeing him as one of the best pitchers available in this year’s free agent class, Lohse remains unsigned into march — a far cry from the four-year, $40 million deal or higher many saw him attaining.

Of course, for all of Boras’s success, Lohse isn’t his first high-profile client whose market has dropped out from under him. The safe play given the age of most of these players (over 30) and MLB’s guaranteed contract system would be to take a multi-year contract at a depressed average annual value. Quite often, however, Boras has eschewed the long term deal for the “pillow contract,” a one-year contract so-called because it lets the player land softly from their bottomed-out market and get up and try again next season.

Let’s take a look at some examples.

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Major League Baseball announced Tuesday that 13 teams will accept mobile tickets this season via Apple’s Passbook app. Passbook is “designed to store membership cards, tickets, coupons and boarding passes — a bit like a digital wallet.”  Fans who purchase tickets via MLB’s AtBat app can send that ticket information directly to Passbook, which stores the ticket bar code for use at the ballpark gate.

Via GigaOM, here’s what it would look like on your iPhone.

The Giants, Mets, Red Sox and Royals participated in an MLB-Apple pilot program at the end of last season. During that two-week trial period, 12% of single-game tickets purchased through AtBat were stored in Passbook. Apple was criticized for Passbook’s lack of usability when the app was first released last September, so the 12% participation rate was encouraging. The app was updated to increase usability with the release of Apple’s new iOS 6.1 software.

MLB identified seven additional teams that will accept tickets via Passbook this season, including the Twins, Orioles, Brewers, A’s, Pirates, Tigers and Cubs. Two more teams are expected to join before the start of the season on March 31.

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Fact: one of the most exciting areas of study right now is catcher defense, and catcher pitch-framing. A little bit of the shine is off, but we’re still making discoveries, and the whole thing is exciting because at last we’re able to put some numbers to something that’s long been suspected or known. Previously, we were left with guesswork and anecdotal evidence. Now we have an understanding of who’s good and who’s not good, and though it’s all still evolving, more and more people are aware of it, and more and more people are talking about it.

Yet conversations about pitch-framing are seldom just about pitch-framing. Practically every time it comes up, the conversation turns to whether or not this ought to be left to skill. Sure, some catchers receive better than others, and it can make a meaningful difference. But why should it be that way? Why can’t umpires just call consistent strike zones for everybody? Why can’t we just have automated, perfect strike zones, to even the playing field? And so on and so forth. It’s exciting that we’ve identified pitch-framing as a talent, but people are split on whether or not they want this talent to keep having an effect.

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When it comes to Joba Chamberlain and the Yankees, the phrase “star-crossed” comes to mind. On Wednesday, Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News quoted Chamberlain saying that he still believed he could be a starting pitcher. Joe Girardi and Brian Cashman responded with snark: Girardi said, “I’d like to catch one more game, too,” and Cashman said, “We’re down an outfield bat… see if he can play center.”

The next day, Joel Sherman of the New York Post slammed Chamberlain, criticizing him for “his look-at-me side” and called him “a 5-year-old,” and “a physical red flag.” “It seems very unlikely Chamberlain will be re-signing with New York after the season,” writes Mike Axisa. “That makes me sad.” How did it come to this?
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