This is the latest installment of a daily series in which the FanGraphs staff rounds up the latest developments regarding the COVID-19 virus’ effect on baseball.

Shin-Soo Choo Gives Back

Shin-Soo Choo is donating $1,000 to each Rangers minor leaguer, nearly 200 players in total. For minor leaguers scraping to get by, every dollar counts, and Choo mentioned his time in the minors as a motivating factor for the donation. Choo had already donated nearly $200,000 to Community Chest of Korea to help with pandemic relief in Daegu, one of the hardest-hit cities in South Korea.

Daniel Murphy Does Too

Last week, Adam Wainwright made a $250,000 donation to More Than Baseball, a charity that supports all minor leaguers. Yesterday, Daniel Murphy added $100,000 to that total, making the donation to a joint effort between More Than Baseball and Our Baseball Life, a charity that provides support and resources for baseball playing families. The fund will support minor leaguers with families, a particularly vulnerable group during the work stoppage. Read the rest of this entry »

Major League Baseball is figuratively sheltering in place while the COVID-19 pandemic escalates throughout the U.S., having settled several major issues with regards to the work stoppage, such as salaries and service time, via an agreement reached last Friday. As the league and the union look ahead to when it might be possible to start the 2020 regular season, a report from a Chicago sports radio host, Matt Spiegel of 670 AM The Score, has sketched out one possible outline, in a series of tweets he sent on Tuesday afternoon (one, two, three).

Citing “a well informed source that does business with multiple MLB execs,” Spiegel reported that MLB is discussing the possibility of a 100-game season that would begin July 1; eliminate the All-Star Game, which is currently scheduled for July 14 at Dodger Stadium; eventually pick up the post All-Star Game schedule; and run through October 15. Instead of hosting the All-Star Game, Dodger Stadium would serve as a neutral site for a warm-weather World Series, with Anaheim or San Diego serving as a second site if the Dodgers — whom FanGraphs projected to be the best team in baseball, with 97 wins and a 97.6% chance of making the playoffs over a 162-game season — make the World Series. The scenario assumes that the ALCS and NLCS would still take place at the venues of the qualifying teams, a risk given the possibility that those series could stretch to November 3. Of course, “many questions remain, & talks are fluid,” according to Spiegel.

Leaving aside the possibility that this is some April Fool’s prank — which, under the circumstances, should result in nothing short of a (socially distanced) trial at The Hague — it’s worth noting that this scenario has yet to be confirmed by the league. Nor has it even received a second report via the familiar cast of MLB insiders, the Rosenthals and Starks and Passans and Shermans who make the world of baseball news go ’round. So perhaps this is just cloud talk, a fantasy floating by. Even so, while recognizing that there’s no plan that will satisfy everybody, this scenario — which should be regarded as a best-case one — doesn’t sound so bad. While acknowledging that the decision on whether to start on a given date may well be out of MLB’s hands, this is at least a plausible sequence of events.

We’ve already been conditioned to accept the possibility of a 100-game season based upon the Center for Disease Control’s guidelines calling for the cancellation or postponement of events consisting of 50 or more people through at least May 10, a recommendation to which MLB is adhering. That best-case scenario would allow for a three-week resumption of spring training and the start of the season in early June, but it may now be a pipe dream given the ominous trajectory of the coronavirus’ spread in the U.S. Because of that, it’s somewhat reassuring to think about that 100-game scenario — the rough equivalent of the strike-shortened 1981 season, albeit without the two “halves” — remaining intact even if its start is pushed back by a month relative to previous expectations, and if its postseason takes on an unprecedented form.

As for that postseason, Spiegel’s report doesn’t flesh out what it might look like before the two League Championship Series. Just spitballing here, but even if the format remained the same, it seems possible that MLB might choose to host games at neutral sites in order to minimize the number of travel-induced off days. Then again, even if the Wild Card games were doubled up to be played on a single day, the net gain through the Division Series is just three days. What’s more, it’s those travel days that minimize the number of four-games-per-day pileups during the Division Series; five days in a row of that might be too much for the networks, viewers, and the rest of the baseball industry to withstand, though right now that certainly sounds more appealing than no baseball at all.

As for Dodger Stadium, it has undergone a $100 million offseason renovation in anticipation of hosting the All-Star Game for the first time since 1980. No Dodger Stadium game has been rained out since the 2000 season, and none of the seven World Series games the venue hosted in 2017 and ’18 had a first-pitch temperature below 67 degrees. As warm-weather options go, it’s reasonable bet to be playable in early November. It also has the highest seating capacity (56,000) of any existing venue; among the retractable roof parks besides the Rogers Centre (49,282, but likely ruled out due to the additional logistical complexity international travel would bring), the Diamondbacks’ Chase Field (48,686) and Seattle’s T-Mobile Park (47,929) are the largest, and from there the dropoff is steep, with Miller Park (41,900) the next-largest, and Tropicana Field (25,000) the smallest.

As for the virus’ spread, the projections for the death count in the U.S. are now in the 100,000 to 240,000 range, and the country faces a dearth of the tests and treatments that could accelerate a return to something resembling normalcy. In the face of such unfathomable figures, the resumption of professional sports may seem trivial, and to the individuals directly affected by those deaths, it certainly is. Even so, the opportunity for the games to provide an audience of millions some combination of entertainment, distraction, relief, unity, and above all hope as we emerge from the worst of this crisis should not be underestimated. Major League Baseball can certainly be a part of that combination, and by most indications wants to be part of that. Via USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, here’s what MLB Players Association chief executive Tony Clark said last week upon the hammering out of the aforementioned agreement:

“Players want to play. That’s what we do. Being able to get back on the field and being able to play, even if that means their fans are watching at home. Being able to play for their fans is something they’ve all expressed a desire and an interest to do, and to do so as soon as possible.”

…“We would play as long as we possibly could. Obviously, the weather becomes a challenge the later you get in the calendar year, but we would do our best to play as many as possible regardless of when we start.

“How many games remains to be seen.”

In order for the season to start, certain conditions have to be met. Again via Nightengale:

-Medical experts determine games will not pose a risk to the health of players, staff and spectators.

-There are no travel restrictions.

-Removal of legal restrictions on mass gatherings that would prevent games in front of spectators.

Yet, if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continue to recommend no gathering of more than 50 people, MLB officials and the players would be willing to play in front of empty stadiums and at neutral sites.

There may not be unanimity on that last point. Per Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci, quoting a league source, “MLB has little to no appetite for playing games in empty stadiums or for a postseason that extends into December.” The phrase “not a lot of appetite” similarly turned up in an article by Jayson Stark at The Athletic last week, from “one baseball person who is likely to be involved when these discussions arise,” though the words from Stark’s piece were in reference to playing a whole season without fans.

Such stances aren’t unreasonable. Playing in empty stadiums would at least allow for the fulfillment of television contracts and prevent cable subscription cancellations — which according to Craig Edwards provide more than 90% of revenues for regional sports networks — and might be used as an interim step if CDC guidelines are loosened but not fully lifted by the targeted Opening Day. That said, via Stark, the team-to-team inequities in TV deals may give some teams pause about going this route without an agreement to share additional revenue. Meanwhile, beyond any weather-related concerns for games and travel, a postseason extending into December would be problematic due to the additional competition baseball would face from other major sports, whose seasons will have presumably resumed or started by then.

The quotation from Verducci arrived in the context of his look at the obstacles Nippon Professional Baseball faces in its attempt to resume its season. In Japan, which has far fewer cases on a per-capita basis than the U.S., teams began playing practice games on March 20, and targeting April 24 for Opening Day. Players, staff, and media are been screened as they enter ballparks, but nonetheless, within that first week, three players on the Hanshin Tigers tested positive for COVID-19 infections; players and staff were ordered to self-quarantine, and practices were suspended. NPB may be forced to reconsider the date of its opener in light of a recent spike in infections that has put Prime Minister Shinzo Abe under pressure to declare a state of emergency.

How NPB, or MLB for that matter, would handle the situation if a player tests positive during the regular season is just one question that would have to be answered before play can be restarted — one of several that can’t be answered at this time. That may well be why nobody at the league is stepping forward to float this proposal through more familiar channels, let alone formally announce it yet. Perhaps that 100-game goal will have to be trimmed to 90 or 80 games as the weeks go by. But as we squint into the distance at what baseball might look like later this summer and fall, this plan is something to focus upon. And, given the alternative of no baseball, to root like hell for in hopes that it comes to pass.

The means by which the Mariners offenses that stretched from the early 1990s into the early 2000s were so consistently good are mostly what you’d expect. Ken Griffey Jr. Edgar Martinez. Alex Rodriguez. Ichiro Suzuki. They might not have been there all at once, but at least two of them overlapped in Seattle’s lineup over a span of 15 consecutive seasons (1989-2004). But is that the end of story? No, actually.

There have been plenty of teams with multiple star position players who have found themselves in lineups that weren’t that productive overall. Where Seattle’s run of lineup dominance gets interesting is how the Mariners were able to surround their superstars with enough other talent from year to year to remain one of the top lineups in the game for more than a decade.

Like the Cleveland Indians, whose eight-year run of dominance was highlighted last week, the Mariners were unable to bring home a World Series championship despite a 116-win season in 2001, and advancing to the ALCS three times in seven seasons. Nevertheless, it was a good time to be a Mariners’ fan. Here’s a look at how it began. Read the rest of this entry »

You can now view our in-progress farm system rankings over on The Board. If you recall, we debuted this method for ranking farm systems last year — the original post can be found here — but I’ll provide a quick refresher. Kiley McDaniel and I felt that using Craig Edwards’ research on the monetary value of prospects in the various Future Value tiers — which, if I can digress, underscores just how underpaid many hundreds of prospects are — to derive our rankings skimmed away a layer of subjective preference that would otherwise inform the system rankings.

Here’s an example: I like big-framed, projectable players. As such, I’m more likely to prefer a system that has players like that, and am also more likely to grade those players highly as individuals prospects. In essence, I’d be double counting my personal preferences. Using Craig’s research to value a given FV tier still allows me to express my assessment of and preference for individual players, while also adding some rigor to the system rankings.

Craig’s values tend to favor top-heavy systems rather than those with depth based in the lower FV tiers. The Braves and White Sox are the most helped by this, while the Yankees and Phillies are punished the most. Indeed, if you were to ask me which systems would see the greatest difference between the rankings derived using Craig’s values compared to what they would be if they were based solely on my opinion, it’d probably be those four because of my penchant for depth. Read the rest of this entry »

When Eric Longehagen and Kiley McDaniel blurbed Sam Delaplane last March, they called the Seattle Mariners pitching prospect “an interesting sleeper.” Pointing to his eye-popping strikeout numbers in Low-A, they went on to suggest that Delaplane — unranked despite the platitudes — “might get pushed quickly.”

Delaplane proceeded to prove our scouting duo correct. Following 21 relief outings in Hi-A Modesto, the righty ascended to Arkansas, where he flat out shoved against Texas League hitters. In 37 Double-A innings, Delaplane fanned 58 while allowing just 13 hits. His ERA was a microscopic 0.49.

Flash back six years. In order to compete collegiately, the San Jose native had to travel 2,400 miles — and not to a baseball hotbed. The lone offer Delaplane received coming out of high school was from Eastern Michigan University; the low-profile program was coming off of consecutive losing records in the Mid-American Conference.

Delaplane spent four years at Eastern, earning a degree in marketing. Sold mostly on the promise of his strong senior season — a 3.27 ERA and first-team All-MAC honors — Seattle selected Delaplane in the 23rd round of the 2017 draft.

His most-lethal weapon had yet to evolve and blossom. It wasn’t until after Delaplane got into pro ball that he “flipped the switch” and turned a hook into what Longenhagen described as a “power, Brad Lidge-style slider with late, downward movement.”

Defining Delaplane’s best offering is a matter of semantics. Read the rest of this entry »

After a desultory opener, our Brewers have gone .500; they stand at 2-3 on the season, having split a pair with the Cardinals and Cubs. It’s too early to look at the standings, but here they are anyway:

While that top-line news isn’t so bad, basically everything else has gone poorly. First, the offense has been sputtering. Take a look at a few batting stats for the eight regulars plus the two part-timers:

Arcia is raking, so that promotion has worked out well, even if it’s largely BABIP-fueled. Smoak has a .389 OBP, so I’d trust his wOBA more than his OPS+ (OOTP doesn’t provide wRC+). And Hiura will probably perk up. But the offense has been so desultory that in real life, the team would be contemplating changes, or at least rest days to give veterans a jolt. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the latest installment of a daily series in which the FanGraphs staff rounds up the latest developments regarding the COVID-19 virus’ effect on baseball.

Just a reminder that today is April Fools Day. While any attempt to prank you with false news seems especially cruel in light of the pandemic, be aware. There are tricksters out there. And don’t a doofus. Folks are on edge as it is. The past 24 hours haven’t seen any major news drop, so we’ll keep this list to a bunch of quick hits today.

MLB Aid for Minor Leaguers

Yesterday, Tony Wolfe covered the announcement that minor leaguers would receive $400 per week through the end of May along with medical benefits, with the former commitment amounting to around $400,000 per team. There are some reports that the announcement has come on the heels of many teams releasing minor leaguers. While MLB currently has a freeze on movement, the minors are not covered by the same rules. Read the rest of this entry »

Like his longtime Astros teammate Joe Morgan, Jimmy Wynn packed a lot of punch into a relatively diminutive frame, and did a great many things well on the diamond while thriving in a low-offense environment. Listed at 5-foot-9, the “Toy Cannon” made three All-Star teams during his 15 major league seasons (1963-77), but he likely would have drawn even greater appreciation had his career taken place a few decades later. His combination of tape-measure power, a keen batting eye, a strong throwing arm, speed, and solid work in center field has made him a stathead favorite, one whose career numbers (.250/.366/.436 for a 129 OPS+ with 291 homers, 225 steals, and 55.8 bWAR) tell quite a story. Bill James ranked him 10th among center fielders in The New Bill James Historical Abstract circa 2001, and similarly, it took Wynn until well after his playing career to be fully appreciated by Houston fans, that after he had worked his way back from a dark domestic altercation (in which he was stabbed by his wife in self-defense) to become a community icon whose name graced a baseball facility for urban youth, and whose number 24 hung in the rafters of Minute Maid Park.

“It’s never too late to make things right,” Wynn wrote in Toy Cannon, his 2010 autobiography, a frank account of his career and the mistakes he made along the way. “Even if it does mean that you may have to crawl out of a deeper hole at an older age to get your life turned around. You can still do it, one day at a time, if it’s important to you.”

Wynn died last Thursday in Houston at the age of 78. His cause of death was not announced.

Born in Cincinnati on March 12, 1942, Wynn was the oldest of seven children of Joseph and Maude Wynn, and grew up near the Reds’ ballpark Crosley Field. His father was a sanitation worker, though Wynn “still called him a garbage man because that’s what he was doing and there is no shame in that work at all,” as he wrote in his autobiography. Joseph, who played semipro ball in Cincinnati into his late 40s, coached his son in Little League, and worked with him tirelessly.

“My father made me the kind of hitter I am,” Wynn told Sports illustrated’s Ron Fimrite in 1974:

“I was a shortstop when I was a boy growing up in Cincinnati and my father saw me as an Ernie Banks type—a good fielder who could hit home runs. He threw baseball after baseball at me, and when he got tired he took me out to a place near the airport where they had pitching machines. I developed the timing and the strong hands and wrists you need to hit homers.”

Read the rest of this entry »

This is the latest installment of a daily series in which the FanGraphs staff rounds up the latest developments regarding the COVID-19 virus’ effect on baseball.

Hello everyone, and thank you for continuing to read these daily updates. This is the final day of March (or so I’m told!), the month in which everything plunged from its typical state of unrest into a total global nightmare, and we aren’t yet close to a point when these updates can relay good news. The total number of COVID-19 cases worldwide will eclipse 800,000 today, with the United States housing more than 160,000; more than 3,000 Americans are now dead from the virus. Virginia, Maryland, and Washington D.C. all issued stay-at-home orders on Monday, with some of those expected to last into at least June.

As has been the case for weeks, there remain many more questions than answers with regards to what the coming months will look like, and they are very, very tough questions. We’ll get into a couple of those below, as well as a major news development from the NCAA. But first, if you’re able to and haven’t yet, please consider supporting FanGraphs with a membership today.

NCAA Grants Extra Year of Eligibility to Division I Spring Athletes

On Monday, the NCAA’s Division I Council granted an extra year of eligibility to spring athletes whose seasons were lost due to COVID-19 cancellations. Divisions II and III, as well as NAIA, had already taken similar steps, but because of the financial implications of such an action for Division I, it was previously unclear if this measure would be adopted at the highest level. Read the rest of this entry »

Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Matt Bowman, Chaz Roe, and Justus Sheffield — on how they learned and developed their sliders and cutters.

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Matt Bowman, Cincinnati Reds

“With the unfortunate news of Roy Halladay [in November 2017] came the story of Mariano Rivera teaching him the cutter. I watched the interviews they did about how they threw it, and what their cues are. Halladay had that ball where he drew the outline of where his fingers should be. I literally gripped it the same way.

Read the rest of this entry »