After a week of waffling that would make Belgium jealous, Rob Manfred threw a curveball yesterday:

Manfred statement… pic.twitter.com/Z2NgD95F9T

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) June 17, 2020

Of course, it couldn’t be that easy, and I don’t just mean avoiding mixed metaphors. The MLBPA agreed that new substantive discussions had occurred, but disagreed that an agreement was in place or that a final deal was imminent. We’ll have to wait for another offer from the players, and likely a final counter from the owners, though the fact that their latest proposal includes full prorated salaries — and please, let’s never use the phrase “full prorated” again, like ever — suggests that the two sides will reach a deal.

Lost in the tick-tock of the negotiation and Manfred’s wild swings towards dealmaking and obstructionism, however, baseball is changing shape. When (and if) the game returns this year, it will look different than it ever has before. I don’t mean the season length, though that will certainly be novel. There are two major changes to the game in the owners’ most recent proposal: a universal DH, which Jay Jaffe will cover in greater detail tomorrow, and an expanded 16-game playoff field in 2020 and 2021.

The length of the season, while not yet final, looks likely to fall between 60 and 70 games. There’s not much difference between those in terms of how “real” the season will feel — it’s going to feel short, and that’s fine. Nothing in 2020 has felt normal so far, and baseball is merely following the trend.

That’s not to say there’s no difference between 60 and 70 games. Each additional game nets players roughly $25 million in extra salary, which explains their steadfast desire for more baseball. Owners may or may not also profit from extra games, but do make the majority of their profit from the playoffs. To them, extra games are simply a lever to pull in negotiations with the players. For our viewing purposes, however, it will feel short and random. Dan Szymborski is sitting in the ZiPS situation room as we speak, projections at the ready, to fire off win total predictions and playoff odds as soon as the exact season structure is announced, but suffice it to say that 60 and 70 game seasons don’t produce significantly different outlooks. Read the rest of this entry »

With 2020’s amateur draft consisting of just five rounds, much of the strategy teams typically use related to shifting bonus pool money around was rendered moot. There were no high schoolers to woo with big bonuses after the 10th round, no saving money on a seventh rounder to sign a better first rounder. This served to decrease the incoming talent pool by quite a bit, with many good players going undrafted or unsigned, but it also makes an immediate analysis of the exercise a little bit easier.

With just 160 picks, we can evaluate a team’s decision to take a lesser player early in the draft in order to use the money saved on picks later and vice versa. With less scouting time and fewer looks, there might have been a bit more variation in terms of the quality of the players taken on draft day. Likewise, determining who might improve and surprise is trickier. As such, we shouldn’t consider this analysis ironclad. However, using Eric Longenhagen’s rankings and the selected players’ actual draft positions, we can compare how well each team did with their picks based on those rankings. To determine the value of each player and each pick, I’ll be using my draft pick valuation research from last year, which examined expected production from every draft slot. Read the rest of this entry »

With talks taking a contentious turn over the last week, as players asked owners to tell them “when and where” to play and Rob Manfred made public statements backing away from his earlier 100% guarantee of baseball in 2020, this season seemed very much in doubt. According to Jon Heyman, the players and owners have an agreement in principle that will give players pro-rated pay while providing expanded playoffs and a waiver of a potential player grievance for failing to live up to the March 26 agreement. Heyman was also the first to report that Rob Manfred and Tony Clark had an in-person meeting yesterday, as Manfred flew to Arizona in an attempt to restart talks.

As Heyman was reporting the deal, multiple reporters confirmed that MLB had made an offer, but indicated a deal had not yet been made. The MLBPA added this:

Reports of an agreement are false.

— MLBPA Communications (@MLBPA_News) June 17, 2020

Read the rest of this entry »

I was hoping the last round of polling would be our last, but here we are. Thanks again for your time. For consistency’s sake, all questions have remained the same since the end of March. Read the rest of this entry »

After taking the 2020 season to the brink of nonexistence on Monday, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred might actually be less popular than the coronavirus pandemic. Five days after “unequivocally” guaranteeing that there would be a season “one hundred percent,” even one of minimal length imposed under the terms of the owners’ March 26 agreement with the players union, he told ESPN he was “not confident” one would happen unless the players waive the right to file a grievance — contending MLB did not make its “best efforts to play as many games as possible” — that could potentially be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. This latest round of inflammatory action follows in the immediate wake of a drastically shortened amateur draft, one that suggests that a proposed contraction of the minor leagues is closer to reality than ever, and all of this comes after a winter dominated by MLB’s investigations into the illegal sign-stealing of the Astros and Red Sox, whose punishments many consider too light — and oh, somewhere in there, Manfred fanned the flames by referring to the World Series trophy as “a piece of metal.”

Manfred’s actions over the past several months may have some pining for the charisma and warmth of Bud Selig — that guy really knew how to call off a season — but it’s important to remember that pleasing all of the people, all of the time isn’t and wasn’t the job of either commissioner, or of their predecessors. Manfred isn’t some mad genius twisting the game to his own nefarious ends, and while he’s supposed to act in the best interests of baseball, the reality is that he works for the owners, who pay his salary and have the power to hire and fire him. When he speaks for the owners, implicit in whatever tack he’s taking is that he’s got the backing of the three-quarters of them (23 out of 30) needed to govern.

Read the rest of this entry »

On Saturday, after rejecting Major League Baseball’s latest offer, the Major League Baseball Players Association agreed to abide by the threat MLB had floated at the beginning of the month and allow the commissioner to set the schedule. In response, MLB sent a letter to the MLBPA indicating it would not set a schedule unless the players agreed not to file a grievance over a shortened season. Before looking at why MLB might be taking this approach, let’s take a look at how we got here. It’s been almost a week since the first day of the amateur draft, when Rob Manfred spoke to Tom Verducci about the start of the season on MLB Network. Early in the interview, Verducci asked about the possibility of imposing a shorter schedule:

Tom Verducci: Obviously, you want an agreement. In the absence of an agreement, according to the March 26 agreement with the players the owners believe that you as commissioner can schedule a season that “uses the best efforts to play as many games as possible”. How close are you to that point, how many games are we talking about.

Rob Manfred: I remain committed to the idea that the best thing for our sport is to reach a negotiated agreement with the MLBPA that plays as many games as possible for our fans. We do have rights under the March 26 agreement and there could become a point in time where we’ll exercise those rights.

Manfred went on to say the two sides were “very, very close” on health and safety protocols. After he also indicated that finishing the season in November was not practical due to a potential second wave of the coronavirus and the difficulty of moving the playoffs around for television partners, Verducci got to the heart of the matter and asked whether there would be baseball this season.

Tom Verducci: Negotiations are complicated. Simple question for you. Can you guarantee we will have major league baseball in 2020?

Rob Manfred: We are going to play baseball in 2020. 100%. If it has to be under the March 26 agreement if we get to that point in the calendar, so be it, but one way or the other we are playing major league baseball.

Two days later, MLB provided the players with its “Final Counterproposal for 72 games,” along with a letter from deputy commissioner Dan Halem to union negotiator Bruce Meyer complaining that players were not entitled to pay to begin with and that MLB could have opted to not have negotiated a deal in March at all. The letter did not mention the owners’ fears of the players suing for full salaries in the event of a partial season, the elimination of the roughly $20 million in minimum postseason bonus pools, the relaxation of debt rules that might otherwise have opened up the CBA completely, or the $400 million in amateur signing bonuses that were deferred or eliminated. The March agreement was not an act of generosity, but rather a pact between two sophisticated parties trying to reach the best deal possible. And as Manfred noted, the March agreement gives the commissioner certain rights, including the right to set the schedule. Read the rest of this entry »

I know what you’re thinking — the most recent World Series won’t have the same wild tactical decisions that were so common in the early 90s. You’re right! That’s true! What am I going to do, though — leave this series unfinished? Not likely. Today, we’re looking to the recent past.

2017

First things first: you can’t bring up this World Series without mentioning the Astros’ sign stealing scandal. I don’t think it had any effect on their tactics, so this is the only time I’ll address it — but yes, before you head down to the comments to let me know about it, I’m aware.

Lineup-wise, both of these teams knew how to set things up. Alex Bregman batted second for the Astros, with Justin Turner filling that role for the Dodgers. They were each arguably the best hitter on their team — modern lineup construction in action.

Both managers used appropriately short leashes on their pitchers. The Astros’ could have been even shorter — they let Dallas Keuchel face the top of the righty-stacked Dodgers lineup a third time in Game 1, and Turner punished him with a two-run homer. Clayton Kershaw went a similar length — one fewer pitch, one more out, and the same number of batters faced — but escaped with only one run allowed. That was the game — Turner’s home run provided the margin of victory.

Both teams went further in Game 2 — Rich Hill faced only 18 batters and Justin Verlander faced 21. Verlander’s last three batters nearly cost the Astros the game — like Keuchel before him, he gave up a two-run shot to the Dodgers’ number two hitter the third time through — Corey Seager this time. With Hill providing only four innings of work, the Dodgers needed a two-inning save from Kenley Jansen — reasonable with an off day to follow. Unfortunately for them, Jansen coughed up two runs, and after two extra innings, the series was tied. Read the rest of this entry »

The top of the seventh, and the Cardinals lead the Marlins7-6. Hard-earned, after getting out ahead early, 3-0, before ceding six runs, unable to muster a response; they were saving it all for the top of the sixth, when they got them all back — and another for insurance. Not enough insurance, though, not when you’re still trying to win — still, even though there is nothing tomorrow. Nothing the day after that, and nothing the day after that, either.

They’ve been holding up the signs: SAVE OUR SPORT. OWNER$ WIN, PLAYER$ WIN, FANS LOSE. The Cards send a pinch-hitter to the plate to lead it off: Gerald Young, in his 16th game with the big-league club. He is 29 years old. This will be the final game of his major league career.

***

Gerald Young — born in Honduras, raised in California — was signed by the Mets the same day as Doc Gooden. Gooden was the fifth pick overall in the 1982 draft; Young was drafted in the fifth round. Both were selected out of high school. Unlike Gooden, though, Young never ended up playing a single game for the Mets. His three-year career in their system was distinguished only by its anonymity. After the 1984 season, the Mets sent him and two Players to be Named Later to the Astros in exchange for Ray Knight, who had requested a trade.

In the Astros’ minor-league system, no longer a teenager, Young improved steadily. Every year, he advanced a level. His OPS climbed. He stole 54 bases in Double-A. His work in the outfield began to draw notice, too.

Young began the 1987 season in Tucson with the Triple-A Toros, the youngest player on the team’s roster, “scared and nervous” to make the jump to Triple-A. He quickly became the PCL’s stolen-base leader while hitting better than he ever had before. He thrived under the mentorship of Eric Bullock, then a veteran of the Houston farm, five years his senior. An “ooh-and-aah” player, the Arizona Daily Star called him: a thrill-seeker who loved the tension of the chase more than anything else, a dazzling young man with a bright smile and a twinkle in his eye. Read the rest of this entry »

Kendall Graveman has lived and died by his sinker since breaking into the big leagues in 2014. (He’s also spent a lot of time in injured-list purgatory, but that’s another story.) The 29-year-old right-hander has thrown his signature pitch nearly 60 percent of the time over 446 career innings, all but a handful of them with the Oakland A’s. Graveman is now with the Seattle Mariners, who inked him to a free agent contract last November.

This past March, I approached the Mississippi State product in Mariners camp for an overdue discussion about his sinker. It had been nearly five years since we’d talked pitching. That back-and-forth focused mostly on his cutter, with a glimpse at his approach and TrackMan usage sprinkled in for good measure. We only briefly touched on the pitch that got him to the big leagues. The time had come to rectify that earlier omission.

———

David Laurila: When did you first learn to throw a sinker?

Kendall Graveman: “There’s a coach back home who used to work at Central Alabama Community College, and he came over and was teaching the pitching aspect at a camp I was attending. This was in the small town of Alexander City, and I was probably 12 years old at the time.

“A two-seamer was kind of a different — it’s something I‘d never seen — but I was able to pick the ball up and make a move. Ever since then, I’ve been able to manipulate it. Going through high school, I was a groundball pitcher — I was the same guy I am now — and didn’t strike out a lot of guys. Over the years I’ve been able to develop that pitch more, and have been able to create early contact, soft contact, and groundballs.”

Laurila: How does one go about manipulating a sinker? Read the rest of this entry »

The OOTP Brewers’ season has reached a classic lull in activity. The early rush of figuring out which parts on the team fit and which needed to be replaced has hit pause; the starting rotation has stabilized, injured hitters are returning, and a few trades shored up the team’s weakest points. The draft, the next big event on the calendar, has passed as well, and all of our draft picks look likely to sign. With more than a month remaining before the trade deadline, we’ve hit a bit of a transaction dead zone.

Games are still being played during this period, of course. On that front, the team is chugging merrily along; after taking two out of three games from the Reds, we stand at 41-30, three games ahead of a surprising Pittsburgh team:

Our run differential continues to creep in the right direction, even after starting in the basement. Christian Yelich and Brock Holt are still mashing; Yelich sits at 4.9 WAR despite missing the last series with a mild shoulder strain (seriously mild — he suffered it while throwing the ball and will be back to full strength by tomorrow). Holt is still crushing, despite legitimate questions about how real his start was; he had a 122 wRC+ in April, peaked at 163 in May, and is sitting at a totally acceptable 112 for June.

Those are the boring facts of the situation: the team’s doing well, and there’s not much reason for us to tinker with it. Honestly, though, that’s boring. We aren’t running the Brewers so that we can clap politely from the GM’s excellent seats while we watch the team motor through the NL Central. We’re here to leave our mark, at least a little bit; we don’t need to finish the year with our five best players gone and Gleyber Torres playing second base, or anything like that, but it would be nice to make a change or two. Read the rest of this entry »