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.

IHME Roadmap

One of the most detailed COVID-19 projections out there is produced by the The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, a research instituted founded in 2007. The IHME model endeavors to project how long until states reach peak resource use, including hospital and ICU beds, as well as ventilators. That the model breaks things down state by state is crucial because given the size of the United States, it seems likely that we’ll face two months of individual hot spots that peak at different times rather than one uniform disaster. It’s important to note that the IHME model assumes both that current social distancing measures will remain in place and that the remaining straggler states will enact similar measures as well.

This kind of modeling isn’t just important for policymakers and citizens, but for businesses like Major League Baseball that are attempting to map out their return to normalcy. If these projections turn out to be accurate, it could provide baseball with a lot of useful information as to which places will be safer to hold games sooner (fanless or otherwise), and which dates to look to for an apex to the virus’ trajectory. If states start missing their projected peaks, it will tell everyone that the road ahead will be harder than previously expected, and plans can be made (or adjusted) accordingly. Again, all of this is predicated on the assumption that we continue to practice social distancing. So for the sake of your family and neighbors (and to hasten baseball’s return), please stay home as much as possible. Read the rest of this entry »

Before the COVID-19 pandemic stopped Major League Baseball in its tracks, the illegal sign-stealing scandal and its aftermath was one of the game’s top stories, not only as the Astros continued their half-assed apology tour around the Grapefruit League, but as commissioner Rob Manfred’s hotly-anticipated report into the Red Sox’s sign-stealing activities hung in the balance. For the past few weeks, more pressing matters have prevailed, but a few details of where things stand regarding the sign-stealing mess have emerged, enough to gather into a single roundup. Mostly, they all serve to remind us just how much we miss baseball, the booing as well as the cheering.

Hinch and Luhnow suspensions won’t extend beyond 2020

If you were lying awake at night wondering how the year-long suspensions of the Astros’ former manager A.J. Hinch and president of baseball operations Jeff Luhnow would be affected by the stoppage, it appears that you now have an answer, though it may keep you tossing and turning. Sources told ESPN’s Buster Olney that in the event no baseball is played in 2020, the pair, who were almost immediately fired by Astros owner Jim Crane when Manfred released his report on January 13, would be considered as having served their suspensions. The specific wording in the report (PDF here) states that both suspensions end “on the day following the completion of the 2020 World Series” rather than mandating a specific number of games missed. The report obviously did not account for the contingency of the cancellation of part or all of the 2020 season due to pandemic, but likely any official declaration that the World Series is indeed scrubbed due to previously unforeseen circumstances would apply, thus ending the suspension.

Presumably, it’s the specificity of the report’s wording that has led to this conclusion. MLB must believe that it’s on thin ice if Manfred revises the punishment now, either on legal grounds or simply as a matter of precedent, and as we’ve seen throughout this saga, precedent is everything when it comes to handing down punishments. What’s more, one need only look at the league’s reluctance to launch investigations into both the Astros and the Red Sox despite the numerous complaints — 10 to 12 teams went to the commissioner’s office about the Astros “cheating their asses off for three or four years,” according to the Washington Post, and Manfred sounded assurances that the scandal was confined to the Astros even as rumors swirled — to draw the inescapable conclusion that the league’s desire for closure far outweighs its zeal to administer punishment. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s now been three weeks since Rudy Gobert’s positive test for COVID-19 shut down the NBA; the rest of the sports world soon followed. That same night, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson announced that they had also tested positive, providing the country with ample evidence that COVID-19’s impact would be real and invade all of our lives. We are all affected by this pandemic, and we’ve all been left asking what we should be doing for ourselves and others. While that private contemplation can be helpful, asking others how they are coping can shape our own thoughts and feelings in useful ways. Sports were the among the first things to go, and without an upcoming season to write about, I thought I’d ask those who talk about sports for a living what their plans were during this unexpected hiatus.

Since that strange Wednesday, I’ve talked to a handful of people in the industry, all of whom were gracious with their time and forthright with their answers. I talked to Mike Ferrin, who hosts a show on MLB Network Radio every morning. He talked about balancing the seriousness of the news with the necessity of still being himself. He discussed the opportunity baseball’s delay gave him to go a little deeper with interviews, with history, and with the numbers, and expressed confidence in the sport’s ability to bounce back.

I talked to Kavitha Davidson, who hosts a daily podcast for The Athletic (her show isn’t behind a paywall). She spoke about covering the news of the day and how on many days, that news was going to be COVID-19 related. Discussing Tom Brady’s free agency and eventual signing was necessary, but it would also be impossible to pretend that the NFL offseason is the only thing going on. She mentioned setting up a podcasting space at home since she couldn’t go into the office, and how she and her friends were setting up a virtual St. Patrick’s Day in place of actually going out and having the usual brand of fun associated with the holiday. Read the rest of this entry »

Dave Rozema had a colorful career. A free-spirited changeup artist, the Grand Rapids, Michigan native debuted with the Detroit Tigers in 1977 — one year after Mark “The Bird” Fidrych took baseball by storm — and while injuries soon took their toll, he started off with a bang. In a whirlwind rookie season, Rozema worked 218.1 innings, and went 15-7 with a 3.09 ERA.

He wasn’t averse to having fun, nor was he immune from trouble. Rozema was involved in multiple fracases, both on and off the field. On one occasion he emerged, in the words of Royals outfielder Willie Wilson, looking a lot like Rocky Raccoon.

This interview — originally intended for a book project that has remained on the back burner — was conducted in 2010, at Tigers fantasy camp in Lakeland, Florida.

———

David Laurila: How did you come to sign with the Tigers [in 1975]?

Dave Rozema: “I was drafted in the fourth round, but it was in the January [secondary phase]. In the summer draft, I hadn’t been drafted until the 27th round [by San Francisco], so I wasn’t really that good. I had been offered a full ride to Eastern Michigan, along with Bob Owchinko and Bob Welch, but I decided to go to Grand Rapids Community College. I wasn’t a big scholar; my grades weren’t that good.

“[Tigers scout] Bob Sullivan asked me, ‘Hey, do you want to play baseball?’ I went, ‘Yeah.’ He went, ‘I’ll get you a few bucks. Detroit. Fourth round.’ My heart said I wanted to play pro ball, so I signed.”

Laurila: Your first professional season was in Clinton, Iowa, with Jim Leyland as your manager. Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball, like the world around it, has been flooded with bad news for the last couple of weeks. Normally, losing one of the game’s most exciting 20-something pitchers to Tommy John would create a splash on the level of Dan-doing-a-cannonball-into-a-kiddie-pool. But in these times, the ripples created by the news of Noah Syndergaard’s surgery (along with Chris Sale’s) were relatively minor. What are UCLs compared to the concerns of COVID-19?

But it is bad news. Bad for the Mets and bad for Syndergaard himself. How bad? For a change of pace, let’s start off with the long-term projection rather than finish with it. The projection is notable in this case as there’s a key difference in the model. With no actual game-related news to distract me, I’ve been able to complete work on one of my ongoing data projects: better long-term playing time projections for players with injuries, especially serious ones that cause entire seasons to be missed.

While ZiPS has had a generalized model for injuries — both specific and, well, general — for some time, the focus was mainly on projecting how well the player would play upon returning and the long-term qualitative impact on their play. So long-term, pitchers with bum shoulders would fare worse than those taking a trip to Dr. Andrews’ Magic Elbow Factory, and speedy infielders with leg problems would see their aging curves accelerate. Less of the focus had been the long-term effect on playing time itself, something I’ve been able to work on a lot recently. 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.

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 »