The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. 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.

As images of baseball players engaged in off-field celebrations go, it’s tough to top that of Mike Napoli following the Red Sox’s 2013 World Series victory parade. Over the course of several hours, the burly, bearded 31-year-old slugger went on an epic pub crawl that included stops to tend bar at McGreevy’s of Boston and Daisy Buchanan’s. As widely chronicled via social media, Napoli did shots with fans while soaking in the adulation, and along the way shed his shirt for what quickly became an iconic image.

Mike Napoli is walking around Boston drunk and shirtless #DayMade ? pic.twitter.com/fO7yirlego

— Frank ?? (@SenpaiKoala) November 2, 2013

By that point, Napoli had been through a lot. He’d spent the first half-decade of his major league career (2006-10) locked in an existential position battle that resonated throughout the baseball world. Under the harsh glare of Angels manager Mike Scioscia — a two-time All-Star and two-time champion who caught nearly 1,400 games in the majors before winning the 2002 World Series as manager — the heavy-hitting Napoli battled for the starting catcher job with light-hitting but more highly-touted Jeff Mathis, whose superiority behind the plate appealed to the defense-minded skipper and highlighted the reasons why Napoli couldn’t win the job outright. Even as his own injuries and those of teammates allowed Napoli to expand his positional repertoire, he faced public criticism from his manager. “I think he’s a catcher. He thinks he’s a catcher. He needs to go out and catch like a catcher,” Scioscia said in December 2010. “That is the frustrating part with Mike. We’ve seen it when he first came up.” Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. 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 bat-first shortstop with some pop and a first name that some writers interpreted as a typographical error, Jhonny Peralta spent 15 seasons in the majors (2003-17) while helping all three franchises he played for — Cleveland, Detroit and St. Louis — make the playoffs at least once. Though he struggled in his first exposure to the majors, he soon supplanted longtime fan favorite Omar Vizquel, impressing teammates and executives with his poise and establishing himself as part of a contending club’s youthful core.

Peralta made three All-Star teams, all in his late 20s and early 30s, though his career was tarnished due to a 50-game suspension for receiving performance-enhancing drugs from Biogenesis, the Miami-based anti-aging clinic whose most famous baseball client, Alex Rodriguez, received a full-season suspension. That Peralta was able to return to the Tigers in time to participate in their 2013 playoff run, and that he signed the biggest contract of his career shortly afterwards, caused controversy within the game and played a part in increasing PED penalties — which might be the most lasting part of his legacy. Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but here at FanGraphs we enjoy the occasional number. Even our logo has its own bar graph. Today our topic is competitive runs, a statistic that rarely gets the love and appreciation it deserves, due to the fact that it’s mostly made up. Competitive runs is a classification created for Statcast. In order to measure average sprint speed, you need a pool of plays when players will presumably be running their hardest:

Competitive runs are essentially just the sample size. When you go to Baseball Savant’s leaderboard, the players are always sorted from fastest to slowest. However, you can also sort by competitive runs, and I can never resist. All season long, one player was absolutely trouncing the field:

Amed Rosario is the grand champion of competitive runs. The difference between Rosario in first place and Brandon Nimmo in second place is the same as the difference between Nimmo and Jeff McNeil in 34th place. I’m sure Nimmo takes some solace in knowing that he’s the undisputed leader of the non-competitive run. Whether it’s a walk or a hit by pitch, the dude straight up loves scampering to first base for his own particular reasons:

Turning our attention back to Rosario: It’s not as if he’s just racking up competitive runs as a counting stat. He also leads the league on a rate basis, no matter which rate you choose:

I don’t know about you, but I think this is incredibly fun. Competitive runs is an incidental statistic. It’s just scaffolding for another stat, but there’s one person who plays baseball like competitive runs is his own personal pinball machine. The other reason I love it is that even though competitive runs exists only to serve a higher master, it’s still a descriptive stat in its own right. A player’s competitive runs total tells you plenty about the way they play the game. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 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.

Content warning: This piece contains details about alleged domestic violence and sexual harassment. The content may be difficult to read and emotionally upsetting.

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 Jr. (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 his team to six playoff appearances and two pennants.

To some, that has made Vizquel an easy call for the Hall of Fame, but by WAR and JAWS, his case isn’t nearly as strong as it is on the traditional merits. Even before he reached the ballot, his candidacy had become a point of friction between old-school and new-school thinkers, as though he were this generation’s Jack Morris. For the first three years of his candidacy, it appeared as though he was well on his way to Cooperstown nonetheless, with showings of 37.0% in 2018, 42.8% in ’19, and 52.6% in ’20. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2017 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 savant in the batter’s box, Manny Ramirez could be an idiot just about everywhere else — sometimes amusingly, sometimes much less so. The Dominican-born slugger, who grew up in the Washington Heights neighborhood of upper Manhattan, stands as one of the greatest hitters of all time, a power-hitting right-handed slugger who spent the better part of his 19 seasons (1993–2011) terrorizing pitchers. A 12-time All-Star, Ramirez bashed 555 home runs and helped Cleveland and Boston reach two World Series apiece, adding a record 29 postseason homers along the way. He was the World Series MVP for the Red Sox in 2004, when the club won its first championship in 86 years.

For all of his prowess with the bat, Ramirez’s lapses — Manny Being Manny — both on and off the field are legendary. There was the time in 1997 that he “stole” first base, returning to the bag after a successful steal of second because he thought Jim Thome had fouled off a pitch… the time in 2004 that he inexplicably cut off center fielder Johnny Damon’s relay throw from about 30 feet away, leading to an inside-the-park home run… the time in 2005 when he disappeared mid-inning to relieve himself inside Fenway Park’s Green Monster… the time in 2008 that he high-fived a fan mid-play between catching a fly ball and doubling a runner off first… and so much more. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 18th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and today’s team is the Cleveland Guardians.

Batters

José Ramírez can make up for a lot of sins, but he can’t carry an offensive single-handedly. But luckily for the Guardians, he looks to have more help than in recent years, even with the surprising and quick decline and departure of Franmil Reyes. Andrés Giménez had a dynamite season, and the fact that he was 23 minimizes the chances that it was a fluke. He is projected to “merely” be worth around four wins instead of six, but people tend to be too quick in assuming that a breakout season represents a complete change in a player’s baseline; the past still matters for players who have breakout (or breakdown) seasons. I’d really like to see the Guardians swap Giménez and Rosario in the middle infield; I think the former is the better defensive player and is likely to be a bigger part of the team’s future than the latter. It’s not inappropriate at all to use him at the more crucial position, though I understand if Cleveland takes a “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” approach and avoids making a change. I do hope he serves as the backup option at short, even if it’s just to preserve flexibility with him for after 2023.

Steven Kwan also has regression toward the mean in the projection — a slightly more serious one than Giménez’s, given that he didn’t start off as high. I don’t actually think ZiPS is wrong on this on, given that it certainly didn’t hate Kwan going into 2022, projecting him at .287/.343/.426 before the season (and I wager most people would have taken the under on that line). As a left fielder without a lot of power, there’s simply only just so much WAR upside at the position. Like Adam Frazier, he is going to susceptible to a huge dropoff on a poor BABIP season, though I think he’s clearly a superior offensive player. Read the rest of this entry »

What kind of hitter did the Milwaukee Brewers get when they acquired Owen Miller from the Cleveland Guardians on Wednesday in exchange for a player to be named later or cash? Statistically speaking, the answer is someone who put up uninspiring numbers in his first full big-league season. The infielder, who recently turned 26 years old, logged a .287 wOBA and an 85 wRC+ in 472 plate appearances. After starting strong — he had a 1.043 OPS on May 8, and had delivered a number of clutch hits — Miller provided only a modicum of value with the bat.

In terms of his overall development as a hitter, Miller has evolved — intent-wise more than production-wise to this point — from the player who Eric Longenhagen described prior to the 2021 season. Ranking him No. 14 on that year’s Cleveland Top Prospects list, our lead prospect analyst wrote that the former third-round pick out of Illinois State University had a “minimalistic swing [that] enables him to make high rates of contact, while the strength in Miller’s hands generates doubles power.”

Miller stroked 26 doubles this past season, but only six home runs, and he had 93 strikeouts to go with 32 walks. By and large, he remains a work-in-progress — albeit one who can provide value with his versatility while continuing to work on his offensive skills.

The newest Brewer talked hitting in an interview that took place a handful of months into the season, only to be placed on the back burner until now.

———

David Laurila: How would you describe yourself as a hitter?

Owen Miller: “I’ve kind of changed, I would say. When I was younger — coming up in college, and in the minors — I was very contact-oriented, with a very line drive approach. I was handsy, trying to manipulate my barrel. Then, over the quarantine period when we had time to work on things… I understood that there are things that elite hitters do as far as using their bodies more, and I started to make some swing changes off of that. Not really swing changes, per se, but rather adjustments. Read the rest of this entry »

Catching is the most taxing position in baseball. Day in and day out, it grinds on the players who attempt it. Catchers almost never play a full season, because it’s just plain harder to catch two days in a row than play the field on those days. Mathematically, that means fewer stars, because catchers have fewer plate appearances to excel in. That warps the market for free-agent catchers; in a given year, there might be only one or two full-time starters available at the position.

If you’re a team looking for a catcher, that puts you in a bind. This year’s market is a great example; I can name plenty of teams that “needed a catcher” coming into this offseason, but there were only two at the top of the market, and that’s if you count Sean Murphy, whom the A’s traded to Atlanta on Monday. Short of that, Willson Contreras was at the top by himself, and the Cardinals signed him earlier this month. That means the other teams who “needed a catcher” had to look a tier down. Speaking of which: the Twins signed Christian Vázquez to a three-year deal worth $30 million. Not long after, the Guardians signed Mike Zunino to a one-year deal for $6 million. Read the rest of this entry »

Gaylord Perry presented some kind of mathematical paradox to the mind of this young fan. If baseball had outlawed the spitball some 60 years earlier, how could this admittedly gray-haired guy in his early 40s have been grandfathered in? Yet there was Perry, throwing — or at least appearing to throw — wet or otherwise loaded baseballs with impunity, preceding each pitch with a detailed routine in which he’d rub his brow, both sides of the underbill of his cap, then the brim, then the side, then the brim again before delivering. Sometimes it was a decoy for the fact that he was hiding the foreign substance on his wrist, his neck, or somewhere on his uniform.

Master of the “spitball”. Made players angry, including Reggie Jackson was fuming. #RIPGaylordPerry pic.twitter.com/uH9PQAaqxx

— BaseballHistoryNut (@nut_history) December 1, 2022

The math didn’t work, but the wet ones, or at least the belief that he was throwing them, did. In my early years of watching baseball, the rubber-armed, rule-bending rogue brought vivid color (not just the Padres’ infamous brown-and-yellow) to the more black-and-white corners of the game’s history, planting the evocative names of bygone spitballers such as Burleigh Grimes and Urban Shocker in my mind while earning his own spot in the annals. In 1978, the year I began closely following the game, Perry became the first pitcher to win a Cy Young Award in both leagues and just the third pitcher to reach 3,000 strikeouts, after Walter Johnson and Bob Gibson. On May 6, 1982, while a member of the Seattle Mariners, he became the 15th pitcher to reach 300 wins, the first in 19 years and the first of six from his cohort to reach that milestone; that season also brought the only time he was ejected for throwing an illegal pitch. On August 13, 1983, about six weeks from the end of his 22-year major league career, he became the third pitcher of that group, after Tom Seaver and Steve Carlton, to surpass Johnson’s previously unassailable record of 3,508 strikeouts. Read the rest of this entry »

No team hates hitting for power as much as the Cleveland Guardians.

Roughly a league-average offense overall, the Guardians ranked near the bottom — and absolute rock bottom among offenses that were worth a damn — in home runs and ISO. You’d hope that such a team would also be particularly good at putting the ball in play, and you’d be right; Cleveland had the highest team contact rate and lowest strikeout rate in baseball. José Ramírez has been the Guardians’ franchise player for several years, and by 2022 the team had basically been built in his image: short guys with high contact rates.

Three Cleveland hitters — Ramírez, Steven Kwan, and Myles Straw — finished in the top 13 in strikeout rate among qualified hitters and were among the 21 hardest hitters to strike out. The team leader in strikeouts was Andrés Giménez, a 5-foot-11 middle infielder who hit .297 with a strikeout rate of just 20.1%. For comparison, the Braves, who won 101 games and scored the third-most runs in baseball, had nine hitters with 300 or more plate appearances last year; every single one of them had a higher strikeout rate than Giménez did.

This is the last team in baseball you’d expect to sink big money into a 260-pound first baseman with a 37-homer season in his recent past, particularly considering the franchise’s famous frugality. Cleveland ran a payroll of just $69 million last year, after all. But Josh Bell isn’t your garden variety big fella. If he were, the Guardians would not have signed him to a two-year, $33 million contract, as Jon Heyman reported Tuesday afternoon. Read the rest of this entry »