Archive for Daily Graphings

When looking at statistics for the 2020 season, everything should be taken with a grain of salt. The players had to prepare and then play in the middle of a pandemic with adjusted routines and preparation, as well as a lack of fans in the stands. Added to the mix is the 60-game season, which is just over a third of a normal year. All of that is going to lead to some weird-bad stat lines — like, for example, the one Gary Sánchez put up.

Sánchez stepped up to the plate 178 times in 2020 and got just 23 hits for a batting average of .147. Among the 18,273 batters with at least 150 plate appearances since 1969, that figure ranks 18,259th. His rate of hits per plate appearance was 13%, a touch behind Mike Trout’s rate of extra-base hits in his career. Thanks to the walks (18 and a 10.1% rate) and homers (10), Sánchez’s 69 wRC+ is merely awful instead of historically bad, but it’s still a gruesome line.

But as I said, we need to take these numbers with a grain of salt. Unfortunately, the overall picture of Sánchez as a player isn’t a pretty one right now. Over at ESPN, Buster Olney wrote how fixing Sánchez was a top priority this offseason for the Yankees, and what the problems are.

Well, a theory of some rival evaluators is that Sánchez’s confidence is all but shot, with his failures at the plate compounding it. Others note his increasing inability to cope with sliders, a pitch that seems to mystify him and accounts for a lot of his career-high 13.8% swing-and-miss rate in 2020, the worst of his career. At least some evaluators think that Sánchez has a hard time separating his offense from his defense, so that when he makes a mistake behind the plate, that tends to carry over to his hitting, and vice versa. And like many other young players, he seems to struggle to make in-game adjustments.

Some of the mental claims are somewhat dubious. Sánchez was a pretty bad catcher making plenty of mistakes back when he was hitting really well. As for in-game adjustments, he has generally hit the best in the fourth through sixth innings in his career, and since the start of 2019, his numbers in the first three innings match up with the last three innings, while the average player sees a 10-point drop.

The swing-and-miss issues on sliders are pretty indisputable, but they also aren’t new. Sánchez whiffed on 18% of sliders last year, which was right in line with his career averages. The problem for him is that he used to be able to run into a few of them: Last season he posted an .083 ISO on sliders, making him completely ineffective on the pitch. Further compounding things was a more than 50% increase on whiffs against four-seam fastballs: Sánchez went from a 10.7% swing-and-miss rate on four-seamers entering the season to 17% of those fastballs in 2020. That was also the second straight year in which Sánchez saw a big increase in four-seamer whiffs. He’s been swinging through fastballs at roughly the same rate as sliders, and neither number is good.

But wait, it gets worse. I noted Sánchez’s inability to hit the slider for power when he did make contact, and his general inability to get a hit when a ball is put in play ruins his chances of getting on base. Jeff Zimmerman looked at Sánchez’s poor BABIP and found the shift was killing his batting average despite his hard contact. While his high barrel rate makes it seem as though he should hit for a higher average, 10 of his 16 barrels last year were homers; his .281 xwOBA on balls in play is 30 points below league average.

Add that all up, and you get an offensive performance that hit new lows this past season and has been trending downwards for quite some time. Over the last three years, Sánchez has a .200/.296/.453 slash line with a 98 wRC+ in roughly 1,000 plate appearances. Since the middle of June 2019, he’s batting .168/.272/.379 with a 74 wRC+ in close to 400 plate appearances. Some of the blame could go to varying injuries over time, but catching takes a toll on the body, so we can’t exactly wish those away in the future.

While a dip this big in production didn’t seem possible a few years ago, there were always concerns about how Sánchez would profile. In Dave Cameron’s Trade Value Rankings back in 2017, he ranked 12th (which should provide some idea of his star production at the time), but:

That said, there are enough red flags to keep him out of the top tier for now. He’s one of the most extreme pull hitters in baseball, and you’ll note that the guys he’s hanging out with aren’t running BABIPs over .300. Toss in the pop-up problem and a below-average contact rate, and it’s easy to see Sánchez running a .240 batting average one of these years.

As predicted, the extreme pull rate, the popups, and the contact rate combined to make Sánchez a replacement-level player last season.

So what now? If Sánchez could field his position well, the Yankees could justify waiting for the bat to come around. There may be some hope there: He worked on a new catching stance in spring training, and in a very small sample, his framing was pretty close to average, and he still did a solid job with baserunners. If that holds and he is merely a little below-average behind the plate and at least average with the bat, then Sánchez is an average to slightly above-average player. If his catching regresses and the bat is average, then he’s a below-average player and a decent backup. And if he doesn’t get the bat back up to average, he’s the third catcher/26th man on the roster who can pinch-hit and rarely starts.

Unfortunately, the upside is more limited than it has been, too. If Sánchez’s bat really comes back, it might be best to let him make only occasional starts at catcher and take most of his turns at designated hitter —something that isn’t possible if he is just an average hitter. It’s hard to see a reasonable path back to more than anything than a three-win player, and the projections put Sánchez in the one- to two-win range that shouldn’t make him a starter on a contending club.

That leaves the Yankees with a difficult choice. They can hold on to Sánchez and see if he regain the ability to be a star hitter, but that likely entails bringing in another catcher to be the regular starter, as neither he nor Kyle Higashioka can be counted on for full-time (or really half-time) duty. The Yankees are supposedly “open” to trading him, but who is going to give up decent players and pay Sánchez his $5 million salary when he isn’t really projected as a starter-level player? There are a bunch of teams who would likely be willing to take a chance on him — the Rockies, Rangers, Marlins, and Tigers come to mind immediately — but they’re probably unwilling to give up any promising or useful players in exchange. The Yankees could just non-tender Sánchez and move on, but that’s a move that could backfire if he hits well, though signing J.T. Realmuto would likely make any regrets moot.

The Yankees and Sánchez, then, are likely stuck with each other for another season. He’ll get some opportunity to recapture his form, and the Yankees will pay him his relatively modest salary. They can’t trade him for nothing, and they shouldn’t let him go for free. But they also shouldn’t head into 2021 with Sánchez and Higashioka as the starting tandem at catcher. It makes Sánchez something of a potential bonus for the Yankees, and given their history together, it might actually benefit them both to give them one more season to get him back on track.

On Friday, when the Marlins announced they had hired Kim Ng as their new general manager, they set off a tidal wave of celebratory reactions from people both inside and outside baseball. That’s to be expected when a glass ceiling is broken. Her success was a triumph for women who have always had to fight for their place in the sport.

As soon as the news of Ng’s hiring went public, a question quickly gained prominence: How do you pronounce Ng? Media outlets reporting her hiring revealed a checkered understanding of the answer. The worst offender went with the extremely phonetic interpretation of “N-G.” Most got close, and those familiar with her work in baseball got it right. (To be clear, she pronounces it “ang,” which differs from the pronunciation of some Chinese Americans, who might pronounce it “ing.”

The widespread confusion about something as basic as Ng’s name is an extension of a few all too common questions most Asian Americans are familiar with: What are you? Where are you from? These reductive questions flow from the perpetual perception of foreignness that colors the experience of many Asian people in America. And it shows why Ng’s ascent to the top position in the Marlins organization is so important for Asian Americans, too.

Ng is the second Asian person to hold the position of general manager in major league baseball, and the first Asian American as well as the first Chinese American to rise to the top. Farhan Zaidi, who is of Pakistani descent, is Canadian-born and became the first Asian person to hold the title of general manager when he reached that position with the Dodgers in 2014. Ng also became just the second Asian American to become the GM in any of the major men’s North American professional sports — Rich Cho was the first when he was named GM of the Portland Trail Blazers in 2010. This dearth of Asian people in leadership positions extends to the field as well. There have been just two field managers of Asian descent in baseball, and there are just a handful of others across the other major men’s sports. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2021 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2018 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
a
In the eyes of many, Omar Vizquel was the successor to Ozzie Smith when it came to dazzling defense. Thanks to the increased prevalence of highlight footage on the internet and on cable shows such as ESPN’s SportsCenter and Baseball Tonight, the diminutive Venezuelan shortstop’s barehanded grabs, diving stops, and daily acrobatics were seen by far more viewers than Smith’s ever were. Vizquel made up for having a less-than-prototypically-strong arm with incredibly soft hands and a knack for advantageous positioning. Such was the perception of his prowess at the position that he took home 11 Gold Gloves, more than any shortstop this side of Smith, who won 13.

Vizquel’s offense was at least superficially akin to Smith’s: He was a singles-slapping switch-hitter in lineups full of bigger bats and, at his best, a capable table-setter who got on base often enough to score 80, 90, or even 100 runs in some seasons. His ability to move the runner over with a sacrifice bunt or a productive out delighted purists, and he could steal a base, too. While he lacked power, he dealt in volume, piling up more hits (2,877) than all but four players who spent the majority of their careers at shortstop and are now in the Hall of Fame: Derek Jeter (3,465), Honus Wagner (3,420), Cal Ripken (3,184), and Robin Yount (3,142). Vizquel is second only to Jeter using the strict as-shortstop splits, which we don’t have for Wagner (though we do know the Flying Dutchman spent 31% of his defensive innings at other positions). During his 11-year run in Cleveland (1994–2004), Vizquel helped the Indians to six playoff appearances and two pennants.

To some, that makes Vizquel an easy call for the Hall of Fame, and as his candidacy heads into its fourth year, he looks as though he’s on his way. In his 2018 ballot debut, he received 37.0% of the vote, a level of support that doesn’t indicate a fast track to Cooperstown but more often than not suggests eventual enshrinement. In the two cycles since, he’s climbed to 42.8% and then 52.6%, the last of those particularly significant; current candidates aside, every player who’s reached 50% except for Gil Hodges has eventually been elected, either by the writers or by a small committee.

These eyes aren’t so sure Vizquel’s election is merited. By WAR and JAWS, Vizquel’s case isn’t nearly as strong as it is on the traditional merits. His candidacy quickly became a point of friction between old-school and new-school thinkers and only promises to be more of the same, as though he were this generation’s Jack Morris. [Update: As if his case needed another polarizing factor, shortly after this article was published, it came to light that in October, Vizquel’s second wife, Blanca García, accused him of domestic violence via an Instagram live post. Further updates below.]

Read the rest of this entry »

After nine seasons, three division titles, a pennant and an historic World Series championship, Theo Epstein is saying goodbye to the Cubs. That surprising news came Tuesday afternoon, announced jointly by the team and its outgoing president of baseball operations. “I believe this is the right decision for me even if it’s a difficult one,” Epstein wrote in a statement released to the press. “And now is the right time.” Chicago will now be under the control of Jed Hoyer, the team’s general manager and Epstein’s long-time second in command, but the fate of both the franchise and its departing boss is less clear.

Taking over the Cubs in October 2011 after leaving the Red Sox under a cloud (and disguised as a gorilla), Epstein helped transform Chicago from National League also-ran and frequent cellar dweller into a juggernaut, culminating in the 2016 World Series win that ended a century-long title drought. He and his lieutenants drafted, developed or acquired virtually every important piece of that ‘16 roster, from Kris Bryant to Anthony Rizzo to Kyle Schwarber to Jon Lester to Jake Arrieta, and set the stage for what looked to be a dynasty. But diminishing returns and short postseason stays have left the Cubs in the championship cold over the last four seasons, and now their architect is moving on.

Those recent struggles may be part of Epstein’s decision to leave, though in a letter he sent to team employees and acquired by The Athletic, he claims that a decade at the helm was all he had in mind from the start. “Bill Walsh’s theory that in the sports industry a change in leadership after about a decade can be beneficial for both the organization and the individual has always resonated with me,” Epstein writes. Those of you blessed with the gift of being able to do basic math will note that 2020 minus 2011 equals nine, not 10. But per Epstein’s letter, a number of factors came into cutting his reign short by a year, including the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the team’s finances; the presence of Hoyer, who joined the club as GM when Epstein arrived; and, as Epstein put it, “decisions this winter that carry long-term consequences … best made by someone who will be here for a long period.” Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve heard of home field advantage. It’s simply a part of sports, like gravity or Tom Brady being competent and obnoxious. Here’s a dirty little secret, though: A decent chunk of home field advantage is actually first-inning advantage. Here, take a look at how home and away batters performed in the first inning and thereafter from 2010 to ’19:

The first inning has the biggest gap, with only the fifth coming even close. It’s a consistent effect year-to-year, and it’s a big deal: A 22-point edge in wOBA works out to three-quarters of a run per game, which would work out to roughly a .570 winning percentage, significantly higher than the actual edge. If you could bottle that edge and apply it to every inning, baseball would look very different.

This isn’t some novel effect I’ve just discovered. It’s well-established, though I’ve never seen a completely satisfactory explanation for it. Could it be that the home team’s defensive turn in the top of the first warms them up for their turn at bat? Maybe! One counterpoint here: Home DHs have a 20-point wOBA advantage on away DHs in the first inning, then only a six-point advantage thereafter. Maybe it’s not that, then.

A theory that makes more sense to me is that home pitchers have a unique advantage in the first inning. In that inning, and that inning alone, they can exactly predict when they’ll be needed on the mound. Have a perfect warmup routine? You can finish it just before first pitch, then transition directly to the game. Visiting pitchers are at the mercy of the game. Start too late, and you won’t be ready in time for the bottom of the first. Start too early, and an extended turn at the plate might leave you cold. Read the rest of this entry »

The Padres made an announcement yesterday that Schrödinger would be proud of, releasing news that they had signed Mike Clevinger to a two-year deal covering his arbitration-eligible seasons and also that he would be lost for the 2021 season due to Tommy John surgery. In the short-term, they lose a talented starting pitcher they just traded for a few months ago. Taking a longer look, they’re betting on a solid recovery in 2022 and will be paying just $11.5 million in guaranteed money for that season’s work. (The details of the deal, per MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell: Clevinger gets $2 million in ’21, $6.5 million in ’22, and a $3 million deferred signing bonus.)

The recent trade, the elbow surgery, and Clevinger’s arbitration eligibility make this transaction a little more complicated than it might look at first glance. First, the trade is essentially irrelevant at this point. While the Padres gave up a lot in quantity to acquire Clevinger, any cost is now sunk. San Diego certainly hoped for more than four good regular-season starts and a single postseason inning, but injuries prevented Clevinger from doing more, and the same arm trouble will now prevent him from pitching at all in 2021.

With the trade behind them, the Padres were faced with three options.

Option 1: Tender Clevinger a Contract

Clevinger earned a pro-rated portion of his $4.1 million salary last season, his first year of arbitration eligibility. While arbitration salaries are a bit murky this season, he likely would have been in line for $5 million or so in arbitration for next season and maybe another $6 million or more in 2022 after sitting out the ’21 campaign. That ’22 salary wouldn’t be guaranteed at all until the Padres tendered him a contract next December, and even then, only a small portion would be guaranteed at that time.

Assuming salary arbitration works the same under a new Collective Bargaining Agreement in 2022, if the Padres didn’t like Clevinger’s progress, they could cut him all the way up to Opening Day and still only owe 45 days of termination pay (30 days if on or before the 16th day of Spring Training). This option has San Diego paying money now to retain greater flexibility for the 2022 season. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday morning, the Atlanta Braves made their first major move of the offseason, signing left-handed pitcher Drew Smyly to a one-year contract worth $11 million. It’s a nice little payday for Smyly, who has a long and ugly injury history and posted an ERA and FIP over six as recently as 2019. Ranked 25th among Craig Edwards’s Top 50 Free Agents, Smyly was estimated to command an AAV of $8.5 million by Edwards and just $5.0 million by the crowd. Those low salary estimates are likely directly tied to Smyly’s spotty history. But the reason why he was able to command such a surprisingly high salary boils down to one chart:

In 2020, Smyly was able to add 2.6 mph to each of his pitches in his arsenal, pushing his average fastball up to 93.8 mph. That added velocity helped him post the highest strikeout rate of his career paired with the lowest FIP of his career, though it came in just 26.1 innings. Read the rest of this entry »

A nice generic platitude is that free agency gives you a chance to completely remake your team. That’s an aspirational vision, but I mean, come on. Free agency gives you a chance to sign a really good player, or a few okay players, or even Daniel Descalso (I kid, Cubs fans, I kid).

In reality, completely remaking your identity mostly doesn’t happen. Teams don’t generally overhaul their image in free agency; they add pieces around an existing core they’ve carefully shaped. If they’re lucky enough to land a superstar, they’re at the mercy of fate as to which superstar is available; if you want to sign a 6 WAR third baseman this year, well, keep looking.

It only mostly doesn’t happen, though. This year, I think there’s a rare chance to actually change the identity of your team in free agency. More specifically, I think teams should look at turning their squad into a defensive powerhouse. That’s mostly not a one-year undertaking, but this time, I think it is.

The first key factor that makes this strategy workable is an accident of personnel. You might have heard of the best defensive shortstop on the market. Indeed, Andrelton Simmons is one of the best defensive shortstops of all time, period. His range, arm, hands, and baseball instincts are all off the charts. Whichever team signs Simmons will immediately have one of the best defenders at the position, a down 2020 notwithstanding.

Simmons is the best infield defender of the past 10 years. The best defensive second baseman over that same span isn’t quite so clear, but Kolten Wong is certainly near the top of the list. He’s been one of the very best defenders at the position in each of the last three years, including a blowout 2018 that, naturally enough, is the only year he didn’t win a Gold Glove despite outstripping his other two seasons by every metric.

With two strokes of a pen, a team could sign Simmons and Wong and have the best up-the-middle defensive infield in the game. I’m exaggerating slightly, of course: most contracts need more than one signature, and most names need more than a single pen stroke to sign. I’m certainly not exaggerating, however, when I say it would be the best defensive combination. Whatever their other shortcomings, Simmons and Wong look better than any other pairing in the game. Read the rest of this entry »

On Friday, the Marlins announced that Kim Ng would be assuming the role of general manager. It was a historic move for a number of reasons: She’s the first woman and first Asian-American to be hired as a GM in the major leagues, and is indeed the first woman in any major American men’s pro sport to hold that role. It was also a move that was long foretold, as many pointed out, linking to various blog posts and lists of years and decades past that included Ng’s name as one to watch in the world of high-ranking baseball executives. She’s been at least an assistant GM for as long as I’ve been alive. “When I got into this business,” her statement posted to the Marlins’ social media read, “it seemed unlikely that a woman would lead a major-league team, but I am dogged in the pursuit of my goals.”

It was a celebratory day for many women in baseball, a sign of how far they have come and how far they could still go, and a testament to Ng’s individual drive and ability, which, given her history, is undeniable. It was also a celebratory day for Asian-Americans in baseball. What once seemed unlikely, and before that unimaginable, is now real, tangible, and true — not only for Ng individually, not only for the other people who have blazed trails in this industry, and not only for all the historically underrepresented people she might inspire to pursue careers in the game, but also for literally everyone, apparently, in the entire sport. All those heavy-hitters and decision-makers who for the decades upon decades prior to this day were fine with maintaining the status quo — this moment was, somehow, their achievement to celebrate as well.

When you’re a kid, you can dream of being all kinds of ridiculous, incredible things. The first person to create a cat-to-human translation system. The first person to walk on Mars. A kajillionaire, a world-peace creator, an undersea explorer — all at the same time, all existing within the same realm of possibility. You get older, of course, and with your increasing ability to understand the world around you, to grasp what is expected of someone like you, the dreams get scaled and hedged accordingly. You absorb information and adjust your ideas of what is possible. Kajillionaire becomes maybe a full-time job and your debt paid off by the time you’re 50. World-peace creator becomes maybe you survive another year of being exploited by your racist boss. The moon becomes a tiny room in a shared house for $900 a month. It’s good, after all, to have goals that are actually possible to reach. That’s what you’re taught in career planning classes and therapy sessions: achievable, real, tangible. The bounds of the imagination shrink. Read the rest of this entry »

In a welcome sign of normalcy amid the coronavirus pandemic, on Monday the Baseball Writers Association of America released its 2021 Hall of Fame ballot, featuring 25 candidates including 14 holdovers, four of whom received at least 50% last year, joined by a group of 11 newcomers headlined by Mark Buehrle, Tim Hudson, and Torii Hunter. If nobody from that trio jumps out at you as likely to join the recent flood of first-year honorees — 13 of whom have been elected on the first ballot over the past seven cycles, out of a record-setting total of 22 BBWAA-elected players in that span — you’re forgiven. This rather lean slate, the smallest since 2009, is the result of an imperfect storm, in that no obviously legendary player hung up his spikes following the 2015 season, and that after three years out of four featuring the suspense over whether a player in the final year of his eligibility would get to 75%, we don’t have that this time around. Instead, we’ve got a ballot consisting of the weakest class of first-time candidates since 2012 (sorry, guys) and a group of returnees led by three very polarizing figures, namely Curt Schilling, Roger Clemens, and Barry Bonds, all in their ninth year of eligibility.

2020 is just the gift that keeps on giving, isn’t it? I can see some of you already rolling your eyes if not scouting for the nearest exit, but I hope you’ll stick around. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was the Hall of Fame’s plaque gallery. Some very good players in mid-candidacy have real opportunities to gain ground now that the spotlight is on them, even if they won’t get anywhere close to 75% this time around. And the ones with no chance at election? Their stories are worth telling, too.

Over the next seven weeks, I’ll profile all 25 candidates, either at length or in brief, examining their cases in light of my Jaffe WAR Score (JAWS) system, which I’ve used to break down Hall of Fame ballots in an annual tradition that’s now old enough to have a driver’s license. The series debuted at Baseball Prospectus (2004-12), then moved to SI.com (2013-18), which provided me an opportunity to go into greater depth on each candidate; in 2018, I brought the series to FanGraphs. Today I’ll offer a quick look at the biggest questions attached to this year’s election cycle.

First, it’s worth reviewing the basics. To be eligible for election to the Hall of Fame via the BBWAA ballot, a candidate must have played in the majors for parts of 10 years (one game is sufficient to be counted as a year in this context), have been out of the majors for five years (the minors or foreign leagues don’t count), and then have been nominated by two members of the BBWAA’s six-member screening committee. Since the balloting is titled with respect to induction year, not the year of release, that means that the newcomers last appeared in the majors in 2015. Each new candidate has 10 years of eligibility on the ballot, a reduction from the 15-year period that was in effect for several decades. The last candidate grandfathered into getting the full run was Lee Smith, whose eligibility expired in 2017; five current candidates (Bonds, Clemens, Schilling, Jeff Kent and Sammy Sosa) had their tenures reduced mid-candidacy.

To be elected, a candidate must receive at least 75% of the ballots cast, and in this case, they don’t round up; 74.9% won’t cut it. Likewise, candidates who don’t receive at least 5% of the vote fall off the ballot and can then only be considered for election by the Today’s Game Committee, an entirely separate process — but not until what would have been their 10-year run of eligibility expires.

The voters, each of whom has been an active BBWAA member for 10 years and is no more than 10 years removed from active coverage, can list as many as 10 candidates on their ballots, a number that’s become a point of contention in recent years given the high volume of qualified candidates. In 2015, the Hall tabled a BBWAA proposal to expand to 12 slots (I was on the committee that recommended the change). Last year, the fifth since the Hall purged the rolls of voters more than 10 years removed from coverage, 397 ballots were cast, 152 fewer than in 2015, the final cycle before the cutdowns. That’s a reduction of 27.7% over five years, and it represented the first time since 1985 that fewer than 400 writers voted. Read the rest of this entry »