Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about a new nautical analogy by Scott Boras, the resurgent Lucas Giolito, Ronald Acuña (again), and possible destinations for free agents Alex Cobb and Greg Holland, then preview the 2018 Blue Jays (15:00) with Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith, and the 2018 Pirates (46:48) with MLB.com’s Adam Berry.
On Tuesday, the Major League Baseball Players Association filed a grievance against four major-league teams: Miami, Oakland, Pittsburgh, and Tampa Bay. Specifically, the MLBPA contends that these four teams are violating the collective bargaining agreement by misusing their revenue-sharing money.
To understand the implications of the union’s grievance, we have to begin with the language of the CBA itself. Article XXIV(A) of the CBA states that “[a]ny Club seeking a distribution from the Commissioner’s Discretionary Fund [that is, the revenue-sharing money] shall submit a request in writing to the Commissioner. The written request must include, but need not be limited to: (i) the amount requested; (ii) the use(s) to which the Club intends to put the requested distribution; and (iii) an explanation of how, in the Club’s view, the requested distribution should improve the Club’s performance on the field” (emphasis mine).
Later on, the CBA is even more explicit:
[E]ach Club shall use its revenue sharing receipts (including any distributions from the Commissioner’s Discretionary Fund) in an effort to improve its performance on the field. The following uses of revenue sharing receipts are not consistent with a Club’s obligation . . . to improve its performance on the field: payments to service acquisition debt or any other debt that is unrelated to past or future efforts to improve performance on the field; payments to individuals other than on-field personnel or personnel related to player development; payments to entities that do not have a direct role in improving on-field performance; and distributions to ownership that are not intended to offset tax obligations resulting from Club operations.
It’s that language on which the MLBPA is hanging its hat.
Now the MLBPA’s grievance will go before an arbitration panel, not a court. The rules of private arbitrations like this are generally set by the parties themselves. That can lead to some interesting quirks, like the fact that the commissioner himself serves as arbitrator in certain proceedings that are appeals from his own decisions (the interest-of-the-game clause and the like). In this case, the grievance hearing will be conducted in accordance with the Rules of Procedure laid out in Appendix B of the CBA.
Those Rules are pretty lengthy, so here are the pertinent bits: the legal rules of evidence don’t apply, the arbitration panel sets its own standard of proof (in other words, how much evidence one side needs to present to win), and it’s possible to avoid a hearing altogether just by both sides agreeing to submit legal briefs. Also, there are three arbitrators: one selected by the MLBPA, one selected by MLB, and a neutral third party who is usually a lawyer with some experience in conflict resolution and who serves as the panel chair. That means that, as a practical matter, it’s the panel chair who decides these cases.
The Rays’ decision to designate Dickerson for assignment last week shocked many in the baseball community given that Dickerson, an All-Star in 2017, had just authored a 115-wRC+, 27-homer, three-win season. But the Rays wanted to rid themselves of his $5.9 million salary. By designating him, they would, at the very worst, be responsible for just 30 days of termination pay.
Jeff opined earlier this week that the Rays managed to trim payroll without getting any worse — a development that included, essentially, swapping out Dickerson for C.J. Cron. The 28-year-old Dickerson struggled in the second half, is projected to produce a 103 wRC+, and is not much of a defender or baserunner. There are quite a few players like Dickerson still available on the free-agent market for a variety of reasons.
While Dickerson is unlikely to provide All-Star value in 2018, this still seems to very much be a sensible addition and a clear win of a trade for the Pirates since it comes at little cost.
TRADE: Pirates acquire OF Corey Dickerson from the Rays in exchange for pitcher Daniel Hudson, minor league infielder Tristan Gray and cash considerations. pic.twitter.com/evvi5sMQkV
Daniel Hudson is coming off an uninspiring season for the Pirates that included a 4.38 ERA, 4.34 FIP, and 0.1 WAR in just over 60 innings. While the Rays are getting cash back in the deal, Hudson is owed $5.5 million in 2018. The Rays also pick up Tristan Gray, who was not ranked among Pittsburgh’s top-25 organizational prospects by Eric Longenhagen.
Every now and again I’ll forgo my usual spot in the Fenway Park press box and watch a game in the stands, an overpriced adult beverage in hand. Such was the case last September when the visiting Blue Jays made a pitching change and the friend I was with asked what I knew about the left-hander jogging in from the bullpen. My response was something along the lines of, “Not a whole heckuva lot, but maybe I’ll talk to him tomorrow and see what I can learn.”
That’s exactly what I did. I approached Tim Mayza the following day, and as he’d thrown almost exclusively sliders, I began our conversation by inquiring as to why.
“It’s is my out-pitch,” explained Mayza, who’d come into the previous night’s game with 13-and-a-third big-league innings under his belt. “I’ll throw it at any time, in any count, and I faced two lefties. With deception and the different shapes of the slider, it tends to be more effective than a fastball, per se, left on left.” Read the rest of this entry »
Taylor Hearn is the top left-handed pitching prospect in the Pittsburgh Pirates system. Long and lanky, the 23-year-old native of Royse City, Texas possesses a high-octane heater and a changeup that he considers his best pitch. He also has a background unlike that of any other player in professional baseball.
According to the young southpaw, his grandfather was the first African-American to attend Oklahoma State on a rodeo scholarship, and the first professional black cowboy. Dubbed “Mr. Black Rodeo,” Cleo Hearn joined the calf roping circuit in 1959.
The tradition was passed down, both within the family and throughout Texas. Robby Hearn followed in his father’s footsteps, and he went on to teach his own son the tricks of the trade.
“Growing up, it was kind of bred into me to do that,” Taylor Hearn told me. “I did it until I was 17. It’s still a big thing in Texas, including for African Americans. Cory Solomon has been in the national finals the past few years.”
Hearn doesn’t do much calf roping these days —“only now and then, because I don’t have the time” — but he does hope to get back into it down the road. For now, he’ll settle for (ahem) showing his girlfriend the ropes. Read the rest of this entry »
The team that eventually signs Neil Walker will be getting a player who has been consistent and dynamic over the course of his career. Those descriptions come courtesy of the 32-year-old free agent himself — and they’re pretty accurate. In his eight full big-league seasons, Walker has averaged 2.7 WAR annually, with the ebbs and flows remaining within a reasonably narrow range. Ditto his OPS, which has always been higher than league average, but never north of .823.
A first-round pick by his hometown (give or take a few miles) Pirates in 2004, Walker was Pittsburgh property prior to being traded to the Mets in December 2015, and then to the Brewers last August. Along the way, he’s remained steady-as-she-goes productive, as well as a positive influence in the clubhouse.
“I’ve been able to fit into many roles with the teams I’ve been on,” Walker told me at the tail end of last season. “I’ve hit at the top of the order and the middle of the order. I’ve been a run producer and a run scorer. I’ve played pretty decent defense. I feel I’ve been a fairly dynamic and consistent player.”
You might remember Rob Mains from the work he contributed to this site’s Community blog. More recently, he’s been doing great things over at Baseball Prospectus. Just this past month, he was nominated for a SABR award.
Mains wrote a piece over at BP in the middle of January that I found to be of interest. It came shortly after the Pirates shedded Gerrit Cole and Andrew McCutchen, with Pirates owner Bob Nutting claiming he couldn’t afford to keep star players around at market rates.
Asked Bob Nutting what it will take for #Pirates to break cycle of "develop, then sell when gets too costly." Answer: "I think you'd have a fundamental redesign of the economics of baseball, that's not what we're going to have."#Pirates
Mains’ piece is, in part, a meditation on what we ought to expect of a pro sports team’s ownership — and, in particular, if there should be a moral obligation, or civic responsibility, inherent to holding such an asset.
The Mets reportedly continue to look for infield help this winter with a view to improving their team for the 2018 campaign. According to Ken Rosenthal, three of the targets for New York are free agents — specifically, Todd Frazier, Eduardo Nunez, and Neil Walker. Pirates infielder Josh Harrison is a fourth. The cost of acquiring any of the first three is pretty straightforward: about $30-40 million, according to our crowdsourced estimates. As for Harrison, the issue of “cost” is more complicated.
According to Rosenthal, the Pirates want Brandon Nimmo in return for their versatile infielder. Superficially, that seems to make sense for the Mets. Nimmo is probably a fifth outfielder after Michael Conforto gets healthy. As for Harrison, he’d probably start. That’s a good trade-off for New York, right?
In one way, yes. But then there’s also that agonizing question every club is compelled to face when pondering the trade of a young player: what could he become? What’s his upside?
One way of answering that question with regard to Nimmo, specifically, is to focus on his process and look at other players who have a similar one. Nimmo is a player with a good eye, a nearly even batted-ball mix, and a certain degree of power. Also, his outfield defense looks decent. Let’s get exact about those facets of his game and look at other players with similar games.
Episode 797
The White Sox recently invited media to attend a hitting camp at their complex in Glendale, at which camp lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen — himself a well-regarded member of the media — observed Jake Burger, Yoan Moncada, and (in particular) Luis Robert all exhibiting impressive power on contact. Longenhagen waxes poetic on Robert’s talents in this edition of the program while also addressing the interesting case of Angels catching prospect Taylor Ward and the ascent of new Pirates prospect Colin Moran.
Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.
I noticed an underlying theme in both pieces I’ve written since coming back, along with many others written this offseason at FanGraphs. If you are a fan of a small- or medium-market team that will never spend to the luxury-tax line and thus always be at a disadvantage, do you want your team to try to always be .500 or better, or do you want them push all the chips in the middle for a smaller competitive window? In my stats vs. scouting article I referenced a progressive vs. traditional divide, which was broadly defined by design, but there are often noticeable differences in team-building strategies from the two overarching philosophies, which I will again illustrate broadly to show the two contrasting viewpoints.
The traditional clubs tend favor prospects with pedigree (bonus or draft position, mostly), with big tools/upside and the process of team-building is often to not push the chips into the middle (spending in free agency, trading prospects) until the core talents (best prospects and young MLB assets) have arrived in the big leagues and have established themselves. When that window opens, you do whatever you can afford to do within reason to make those 3-5 years the best you can and, in practice, it’s usually 2-3 years of a peak, often followed directly by a tear-down rebuild. The Royals appear to have just passed the peak stage of this plan, the Braves hope their core is established in 2019 and the Padres may be just behind the Braves (you could also argue the old-school Marlins have done this multiple times and are about to try again now).
On the progressive side, you have a more conservative, corporate approach where the club’s goal is to almost always have a 78-92 win team entering Spring Training, with a chance to make the playoffs every year, never with a bottom-ten ranked farm system, so they are flexible and can go where the breaks lead them. The valuation techniques emphasize the analytic more often, which can sometimes seem superior and sometimes seem foolish, depending on the execution. When a rare group of talent and a potential World Series contender emerges, the progressive team will push some chips in depending on how big the payroll is. The Rays have a bottom-five payroll and can only cash in some chips without mortgaging multiple future years, whereas the Indians and Astros are higher up the food chain and can do a little more when the time comes, and have done just that.
What we just saw in Pittsburgh (and may see soon in Tampa Bay) is what happens when a very low-payroll team sees a dip coming (controllable talent becoming uncontrolled soon) and doesn’t think there’s a World Series contender core, so they slide down toward the bottom end of that win range so that in a couple years they can have a sustainable core with a chance to slide near the top of it, rather than just tread water. Ideally, you can slash payroll in the down years, then reinvest it in the competing years (the Rays has done this in the past) to match the competitive cycle and not waste free-agent money on veterans in years when they are less needed. You could argue many teams are in this bucket, with varying payroll/margin for error: the D’Backs, Brewers, Phillies, A’s and Twins, along with the aforementioned Rays, Pirates, Indians and Astros.
Eleven clubs were over $175 million in payroll for the 2017 season (Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Tigers, Giants, Nationals, Rangers, Orioles, Cubs, Angels), so let’s toss those teams out and ask fans of the other 19 clubs: if forced to pick one or the other, which of these overarching philosophies would you prefer to root for?
