Craig Edwards FanGraphs Chat – 6/18/2020

Craig Edwards: Welcome all. Let’s get rolling.

Craig Edwards: First, a little news as Jeff Passan and Jesse Rogers are reporting the players responded to the union proposal of 60 games with around 70 games. It seems we are pretty close.

Craig Edwards: In non-negotiating posts, I wrote something evaluating every team’s draft strategy based on Eric’s rankings. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/by-the-numbers-evaluating-the-2020-amateur…

Sir Nerdlington: Could the Oakland city council demand the A’s pay all their minor leaguers a living wage as terms of approving the land deal?  Seems like a good political move.

Craig Edwards: They could, but I’m not sure why that Oakland would give up anything the city might get to make a larger statement. I think they would probably be better off getting as much as they can for the city and its residents.

Trent Hauser: Am I the only person on the planet not into the Dodgers’ draft? Three pitches including a pre-surgeried pop up guy? I get they have good stuff but so does f’n everyone these days

Craig Edwards: If one turns into Walker Buehler, that’s a great draft. There’s certainly some risk to their draft, but when you pick where they do, it isn’t easy to get a star.

Craig Edwards: a few more details.

Craig Edwards: So now, they just work with somewhere between 60 and 70 games and the amount of playoff money to the players.

Chris: How many games would it take for you to give up your right to grieve bad faith negotiations?

Craig Edwards: Depends on the playoff money, but if we get to 66 games, the difference between 66 and 82 is about $400 million. You could ask for more, but if you are getting a chunk of postseason money, too, that probably makes up for the loss of a potential grievance, which you aren’t guaranteed to win.

Chris: With expanded playoffs, why aren’t both sides fighting to make sure higher seeds have an advantage? Something like all games being played at the higher seeds venue makes so much sense in helping make sure all 60 (or 162) games matter

Craig Edwards: I’m not sure exactly what the format is going to be, but I’d say 60 games is random enough that it will be hard to know which teams are actually better than each other. That’s why expanded playoffs makes sense for this year.

Sam: How excited are you to seemingly coming close to having real baseball and not just labor issues to write about?

Craig Edwards: I would really love to write about a major league baseball game or player that I had just watched. I have missed it greatly.

Numpty: With the DH seemingly coming to the NL, will people want to go back and put asterisks next to every HOF pitcher who faced pitcher/batters every ninth AB?

Craig Edwards: there’s already a league adjustment to WAR. I don’t see that as being necessary.

The Stranger: Manfred overstating the facts to put public pressure on the players? The union trying to walk back a tentative agreement and squeeze the owners for more games? A last little bit of posturing on both sides before they meet in the middle? Or both sides heard what they wanted to hear at the meeting?

Craig Edwards: It seemed like it was more of a public misinterpretation of what happened at the meeting. A framework is a foundation for a deal, and based on the player proposal, it certainly seems like the sides do have the foundation for a deal.

Trent Hauser: Buehler was a beast, they wouldnt have had a shot at him without the TJ….I don’t really really see that level of talent in anyone of those arms even Miller

Craig Edwards: Eric really loves Beeter’s stuff. He could be a reclamation type. Miller he had as a number four, so I do get your point, but they had to go with what was available to them at their pick..

The Stranger: Who benefits from this last little bit of back-and-forth? I mean, MLB and the union could have just talked through this 60-70 game difference yesterday and announced the final number, right? Why argue it out in public instead of making a joint announcement and earning back a little bit of goodwill?

Craig Edwards: I think both sides (HA!) benefit. Manfred gets to look like the mediator who got things done and can then go back to the owners, say this is the best we can do. The players’ get to have their move to stop talks and call the owners’ bluff work with Manfred coming out to talk. Then, the players and owners come together on an agreement and everybody wins. There’s also the issue of making sure everybody involved is on board. It wasn’t realistic to think one face to face meeting was going to solve everything. They still need to take all this issues back to their sides and review the details.

Sir Nerdlington: FGs had a real life internet comment section on one of your latest articles. Cutting through the emotional nonsense, the consideration of non-linear financial models was raised. I don’t know how that’d change the thinking since this feels like a one-plus year anomaly and not a new world of highly variable returns. Can you comment?

Craig Edwards: I think the tv deals with FOX and Turner and the likely upcoming deals with ESPN should prevent that over the long term with most local tv deals locked in as well. Unless, there’s something that flares up from year to year that prevents large groups from gathering, this should just be a one or maybe two year blip.

Trent Hauser: Is that media rights deal $1 biillion a year? I missed anything on it

Craig Edwards: Turner’s is nearly $500 million per year. Fox’s is around $700 million. ESPN hasn’t come official yet

Craig Edwards: they run through 2028

Sir Nerdlington: (Asked of Dan last hour, but no offense to him, I’m more curious of your opinion.) 

MLBPA needs an ownership stake in teams (i.e. receive some revenue upon sales, expansion) and ancillary business dealing (e.g. gambling, MLBAM, etc.) in order to tie the owners/players together. 

Baseline the valuation of all teams and business lines as of the date the CBA expiration and the MLBPA sees a X% stake above and beyond. I know there’s complexity but think it solves more issue than it causes. Workable?

Craig Edwards: I can’t see the owners and players coming anything close to the sort of agreement that lets players know exactly what owners are making and I don’t see the players trusting the owners to provide completely accurate figures, plus there would be considerable disagreements about what counts and what doesn’t. Owners would probably just take massively higher salaries to run their teams or something like that. They don’t like giving money to players.

See! You! Later!: Are we going to see updates to the fWAR methodology? Such as updated positional adjustments and using a UZR/DRS (or maybe even OAA) aggregated fielding component?

Craig Edwards: I’m not sure anything in particular is in the works right now. One issue is that OAA and now, I believe DRS, account for positioning. That means there are unaccounted for positioning runs. Who gets credit/blame for those? The difficult part of making changes like positional ones is it can be difficult to tell what’s a short change over a couple of seasons or something that’s here to stay. The talent level in baseball isn’t static and better scouting development and players can move things one direction while expansion can go the opposite way.

Trent Hauser: I know stadium funding gets alot of play in academia but why does not the mainstream media attack it? T’s a big deal!

Craig Edwards: It’s intermittent and regional. The studies say it is bad compared to other uses, but shiny new stadiums are exciting and don’t happen that often.

ironcurtin: With the expanded playoffs, the Mariners make the playoffs  in 2021 for the first time in 20 years.  You heard it here first.

Craig Edwards: This winter, if the Mariners wanted to make a splash, they will certainly have every opportunity as a ton of teams seem likely to sit things out. Their current payroll and next year’s commitments are incredibly low. They are doing very well compared to most teams right now financially because of it.

Pat: Hey Craig, any input on employment opportunities or resources going forward? Is it as simple as just doing something else, maybe going back to school and waiting for 2-3 years when baseball teams, baseball websites, anything relevant even consider hiring again?

Craig Edwards: In this environment, I’m not sure what the best options are. I’d say just try to find work that matches your skillset and what you like to do, whether it is in baseball or not. You’ll be happier that way and if you keep improving your skills, you are more likely to be ready for some opportunity in baseball, should it arise in the future.

The Stranger: The size of the asterisk on this year’s championship depends who wins, right? Yankees or Dodgers, no asterisk at all. Marlins or Orioles, giant asterisk. Cleveland, the debate about whether it counts lasts until they win a normal one.

Craig Edwards: I’m not so sure. If 16 teams make the playoffs, that measn that whatever team wins will have beaten four decent to good to great teams to take the trophy. I’d prefer longer series if possible, if we are going to emulate the NHL, but if you beat all those other teams, I think you are deserving champion, no asterisk necessary.

Sir Nerdlington: Really appreciate all the articles you’ve written recently. Hard to find new words for the same proposals, but they are no less interesting.

Craig Edwards: Thanks. I appreciate that.

Craig Edwards: Speaking of, going to end things right here today and go ahead and get started writing on the latest proposal from the players.