It’s small potatoes in the context of what’s going on (or not) in the baseball industry and the rest of the world, but so far as the Hall of Fame goes, the problem in a nutshell is this: Half of the starting pitchers who are in the Hall and were born in the 1950s are named Jack Morris. While there’s no need to relitigate the polarizing battle that forestalled his eventual election — been there, done that — the real issue, to these eyes, is that the gruff ex-Tigers workhorse is the only starter in the Hall born after 1951 and before ’63. When stacked up against other enshrined starters, his credentials are modest at best, and so his presence in the plaque room feels like an indictment of the quality of his peers.

The reality is that Morris won battles of attrition, first against the forces that reshaped the role of the starting pitcher following the introduction of the designated hitter in 1973, and then against the voting bodies that were slow to recognize the strength of those forces. He was a throwback, and in the arguments over his merits he became a symbol for a bygone era. Backed by strong offenses, he piled up innings while having less success preventing runs than his the best of his peers, but more success avoiding injuries or replacement by pinch-hitters and relievers. Plus, he won a few big games in October.

For all of that, I did not have Morris or any specific pitcher in mind when I began exploring ways to modernize JAWS to better account for the changes in starting pitcher workloads that have occurred over the past century and a half. After nearly two decades of using my Hall of Fame fitness metric, I know the contours of the position-by-position rankings reasonably well, and so I had a pretty good idea in advance which ones would be helped by whatever adjustments I settled on — that while knowing that those changes wouldn’t be so radical as to upset the entire system. That said, I suspected that shining a brighter light on some of those players would particularly resonate with fans of a certain age, particularly as I worked my way through history and reached the frame of reference of players I’m old enough to have watched. I don’t cross paths with a lot of fans of Jim McCormick or Wes Ferrell these days, but Luis Tiant is another matter. Read the rest of this entry »

The 2028-29 offseason was downright bananas. In a matter of weeks, the Dodgers shelled out $2.3 billion in guarantees, a spending spree that upended the league. What had been a good class for first basemen turned into a single team cornering the market: Yordan Alvarez, Pete Alonso, and Alec Bohm created a veritable pileup at first in Los Angeles, one that pushed the team’s best holdover player, Michael Lindauer, from first to shortstop. It also pushed Bohm to third, which meant fellow free agent signee Carter Kieboom was getting $75 million to be a backup. The rest of the league was caught flat-footed, playing catch-up or giving up on free agency entirely.

That’s just how things go in Magnus Effect Baseball, an online baseball-industry Out Of The Park league that grew out of 2020’s COVID-19 lockdowns but has turned into a freewheeling, frenetic playground that shows no signs of slowing down. Those mighty Dodgers didn’t break the league; in fact, they’re not even the best team in their division. It’s a wildly competitive league, with even the bad teams trying to trade, sign, and develop their way into contention.

Magnus Effect Baseball started the way most online activities did in early 2020: out of sheer boredom. Smith Brickner, the league’s commissioner, wasn’t the originator. At the time, he was working for the Braves as a minor league video trainee, but his job had been put on hold by COVID. “I had just driven 20-plus hours from the Braves’ spring training complex back to Long Island when my buddy Sam Denomme asked if I had an interest in joining an industry-wide OOTP league run by some guys at Driveline,” Brickner told me. “When it became clear that someone needed to step up and actually run the league, I raised my hand.” Read the rest of this entry »

Connor Joe has had a turbulent couple of years. In the spring of 2019, he made his big league debut as the Opening Day left fielder for the Giants. Just a week prior, San Francisco had acquired him in a trade with the Reds, who had selected him in the Rule 5 draft just three months before that. His time with the Giants would also prove short-lived: after 11 days and a 1-for-15 start to the season, he was designated for assignment. As a Rule 5 pick, he was returned to his original team, the Dodgers, and spent the rest of the 2019 season in Triple-A, where he posted a 132 wRC+ and a 16.1% walk rate but never got the call to return to the big leagues.

The following year, Joe was expected to compete for a roster spot with the Dodgers, but just as spring training was getting underway, team doctors found a tumor that was later diagnosed as testicular cancer. He underwent chemotherapy treatments and was declared cancer-free later in the summer, but the risks posed by the COVID-19 pandemic kept him away from baseball for the whole season. He elected free agency in November 2020 and signed a minor league deal with the Rockies later that month.

The 2021 season finally gave Joe an opportunity to shine at the big league level, but it was not without its ups and downs. He started the season in the minors thanks to his lost 2020 and ended the season on the injured list due to a hamstring injury he suffered in early September. Between those endpoints, he struggled enough to get sent down, got hot enough to become the everyday leadoff hitter, and even celebrated his anniversary of being cancer-free by smashing his first career home run. All told, he had 211 plate appearances with a .285/.379/.469 triple slash, eight homers and a 116 wRC+. Read the rest of this entry »

On the day that commissioner Rob Manfred set as a deadline for the completion of a new collective bargaining agreement that would end the owners’ self-imposed lockout and keep a March 31 Opening Day on schedule, no deal was reached. For the eighth consecutive day of negotiations, representatives for the owners and the players’ union met at Jupiter, Florida’s Roger Dean Stadium, going back and forth so many times over the course of 16 1/2 hours that the calculations of steps traveled strained FanGraphs’ servers, to say nothing of the brains of the handful of reporters staked out outside the gates. Enough progress towards a deal was made before the two sides broke for the night at 2:30 AM ET that Manfred agreed to extend the artificially-imposed deadline to 5 PM ET on Tuesday.

While nothing has been finalized, the reports of where the key components are heading do not paint a particularly pretty picture for the players’ side. After a decade in which they have largely been shut out of massive revenue growth, with new television deals falling into place, they appear to be improving the lot of their rank and file — no small matter in an industry where 47% of all service time went to players making the minimum salary — but while achieving only modest gains in areas where they initially sought more radical change.

Based upon the drips and drabs that have emerged from various reports, the battle to expand the postseason has loomed large, with MLB presenting alternative proposals based on whether it’s 14 teams (their preference) or 12 (the union’s preference).

Sources: Deal not close, but not impossible. CBT thresholds, prearb pool big issues, among others. MLB has proposed two choices:

A: 14-team expanded postseason, minimum of ~$700k, ~40m into prearb pool

B: 12-team expanded postseason, ~$675k minimum, ~$20m into prearb pool

— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) March 1, 2022

The 12-team format appears to be the route this deal will take, though according to the New York Post’s Andrew Marchand, the gap between the two formats amounts to only a $15 million difference in what ESPN is offering ($100 million for a 14-team format, $85 million for a 12-team one). Whether the “ghost win” concept — giving the division-winning team that does not receive a first-round bye a one-game-to-none advantage in a best-of-five series — survives is unclear at this writing. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s difficult to be a major league hitter right now, maybe more than ever. For one, pitchers are filthier than ever, with mere relievers averaging velocities that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. Teams have also become crafty with how they configure not only their infields, but also outfields, to great effect: League-wide BABIP on grounders and line drives has declined steadily over the years. It’s no wonder some hitters are left frustrated.

But that doesn’t mean hitters are without options. “They may take away our base hits, but they’ll never take away our plate discipline!” Joey Gallo might cry, if Braveheart is ever remade as an epic battle between a small nation of sluggers and a tyrannical pitcher-state. That really is motivating, though, because if you think about it, a hitter has complete control over when to swing. He may be influenced by the opposing pitcher’s sequencing, deception, and so on, but the decision itself can be traced back to his synapses firing off commands or staying put, all in a matter of milliseconds. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s February 28, the deadline set by commissioner Rob Manfred to have a new collective bargaining agreement in place that would end the owners’ self-imposed lockout and allow the season to open as scheduled on March 31 following an abbreviated spring training. To the surprise of no one, there’s no deal yet, even after seven straight days of negotiations between representatives for the owners and the players union in Jupiter, Florida, talks that have stretched into Monday. Negotiations have yielded incremental progress regarding some core economic issues and other matters, but the two sides remain far apart nonetheless. While a league official characterized Sunday’s talks as “productive” after both sides voiced considerable acrimony on Saturday, it would take something on the order of a miracle to have a deal in place by the end of the day.

What’s more, if the league intends to treat the February 28 deadline as a hard one, living up to its threat to cancel games without making them up, and not paying players for a full 162-game season, a deal may become even harder to reach. That would create another issue to settle via negotiations, because the length of a season is subject to collective bargaining; the league can’t unilaterally reduce it. One need only to dial back to 2020 to recall what a fiasco that can become once service time and contract incentives come into play. What’s more, the cancellation of games would raise the possibility of the players answering with some hardball of their own by not agreeing to expanded playoffs for the 2022 season. The union indicated that was possible earlier this month, when the specter of cancellations arose. The value of those expanded playoffs is estimated at $100 million. Read the rest of this entry »

As the lockout wears on, team financials have repeatedly been called into question. Are teams making money? What about if you ignore franchise value? Commissioner Rob Manfred recently claimed that owning a baseball team has been a worse investment than investing in the stock market, a claim that was quickly challenged by outside observers. Last week, Liberty Media, the principle owner of the Atlanta Braves, announced their 2021 financial results, shedding some light on the financial state of the league.

The Braves enjoyed a banner year in 2021. Per their filing, they turned a profit of $104 million. That’s full-year OIBDA, or operating income before depreciation and amortization. That brings their four-year operating income, including the pandemic-marred 2020 season, to $193 million.

OIBDA sounds like a great big pile of financial jargon, and it is, so let’s talk about what all of that means. Operating income refers to the money that the team has left over after it takes in all its revenue and pays all of its costs. More specifically, it’s revenue minus the cost of goods sold minus other operating expenses. If a team sells 100 hot dogs for a net $800, that’s $800 in revenue. If they paid $20 to buy those hot dogs in bulk, that’s $20 in cost of goods sold. If they pay the vendor who sells those hot dogs $15, that’s $15 in other operating expenses. Voila – $765 in operating income. Read the rest of this entry »

Don Mattingly had 2,153 hits, 222 home runs, a .361 wOBA, a 124 wRC+, and 40.7 WAR. Statistically, the New York Yankees legend is similar to a Minnesota Twins legend who a few months ago was voted into the Hall of Fame by the Golden Days Committee. Tony Oliva had 1,917 hits, 220 home runs, a .365 wOBA, a 129 wRC+, and 40.7 WAR.

And then there is Brian Giles, who received nary a vote in his lone year on the BBWAA ballot, and quite possibly will never appear on an era-committee ballot. Perennially flying under the radar while playing in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and San Diego, the underrated slugger had 1,897 hits, 287 home runs, a .388 wOBA, a 136 wRC+, and 54.8 WAR.

What about peak, you might be wondering? Giles was better there, too.

Mattingly had a six-year peak before back injuries began eroding his skills. Over that stretch, he logged a .388 wOBA, a 143 wRC+, and 31.7 WAR. Meanwhile, Oliva and Giles had seven-year peaks that produced these numbers: Read the rest of this entry »

On a per-plate-appearance basis, you can probably guess the top five second basemen from last season. Trea Turner leads the pack, at least if you count him as a second baseman. Marcus Semien is close behind. Brandon Lowe, Jose Altuve, and Jake Cronenworth round out the group, and it’s not a surprise to see any of them at the top of a list of excellent players. Number six might surprise you: it’s Tony Kemp, who quietly put together a star-level season in his second year in Oakland.

As Jay Jaffe noted last year, Kemp isn’t doing it with barrels. He didn’t end the year in the zero-barrel club, but it was a near thing; he managed all of three. He didn’t quite finish last in barrels per batted ball, but the company he kept on that list — he’s wedged between Nick Madrigal and Adam Frazier, with Tim Locastro and Nicky Lopez in close proximity — isn’t one known for its power. That’s hardly a surprise given Kemp’s short stature (he’s listed at 5’6” and 160 pounds), but the lack of power didn’t stop him from compiling a juicy 127 wRC+, third-best on a solid Oakland offense.

How did Kemp do it? Without putting the ball in play, mainly. His 13.1% walk rate was 20th among batters with 300 or more plate appearances, and no one who walked more than he did struck out less frequently than his 12.8% mark (Juan Soto was close at 14.2%, but he might be a robot sent from the future to break baseball, so that’s good company to keep). Read the rest of this entry »

Though the owners could end their self-imposed lockout of the players at any time and allow the baseball season to proceed on schedule, the first week of spring training games has been scrubbed. Odds are that more cancellations are to come, and commissioner Rob Manfred’s February 28 deadline to reach an agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement that would preserve Opening Day is fast approaching. With a newfound sense of urgency that stands in marked contrast to Major League Baseball offering one formal proposal in the lockout’s first 10 weeks, representatives for the owners and the players union have been meeting on a daily basis in Jupiter, Florida this week to discuss core economic issues — and those meetings have lasted more than 15 minutes at a time! But even with the more frequent back-and-forth and some minor movement here and there, including a formal proposal from the players on Tuesday, the two sides still appear to be far apart on the most central issues.

If there’s optimism to be had, let us know, because we could sure use some. In the meantime, here’s an attempt to capture where things stand as of Wednesday morning.

Competitive Balance Tax

The lack of optimism regarding an impending resolution to the lockout centers on the players making the tax “the lodestar” of negotiations, to use Jeff Passan’s term, and so far this week, neither side has budged from where things stood as of the owners’ February 12 proposal. I broke down the recent history of the CBT — the threshold for which has not kept pace with the growth of revenue over the past decade — in my previous analysis in the wake of that proposal.

The short version is that the players believe the CBT functions as a salary cap. With teams’ total payrolls down 4.6% from 2017 (from about $4.25 billion to $4.05 billion), and with most of the biggest-spending teams pulling up just short of the threshold in 2021 — the Phillies, Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, and Astros were all within $4 million of the $210 million bar, with only the Dodgers and Padres paying the tax — one can understand their frustration. In Tuesday’s proposal, the players didn’t budge from their previous position from January 24. While generally preserving the previous CBA’s tiered penalties for teams exceeding the thresholds by more than $20 million and more than $40 million, they’ve sought an increase in the base threshold from $210 million to $245 million, growing to $273 million by 2026. That jump in part makes up for the threshold’s meager growth over the life of the last CBA (from $195 million to $210 million over five years, an average of 2.1%), while revenues grew at a quicker rate. The only real difference in that aspect of their proposal is that there’s no draft-related penalty involved, where the previous CBA bumped the draft place for the highest pick of any team with a payroll at least $40 million above the threshold down by 10 spots (unless it was a top-six pick). Read the rest of this entry »