Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a Blue Jays fan who’s unfazed by foul balls, a possible comeback for defunct Fox show Pitch, the Mariners (specifically Tim Beckham and Dylan Moore) committing errors in bunches, the offensive futility of Chris Davis, how Nationals fans treated Bryce Harper in his return to DC, Ramon Laureano’s amazing throwing arm, a change in the baseball and the increase in strikeout rate and Three True Outcomes percentage, the inspirational Willians Astudillo, Chris Sale’s worrisome start and the worst outings ever in Cy Young seasons, Mike Trout and the Angels offense, and more.

Audio intro: Butch Walker, "Summer Scarves"
Audio outro: Oh Land, "Human Error"

Link to videos of unfazed Jays fan
Link to Rob’s research about the baseball
Link to videos of Laureano throws
Link to Pitch farewell interview
Link to Ben on Harper’s defense
Link to Astudillo’s Instagram post
Link to data on worst outings by Cy Young winners
Link to preorder The MVP Machine

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Park Jong-Hoon is unique. If you need a quick introduction, look no further:

He is as true a submarine pitcher as one could be, which is quite rare in the current baseball landscape. Not only is he fun to watch, but he is also one of the top Korean-born pitchers in the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO). In 2018, he had his finest season yet, going 14-8, with a 4.18 ERA (125.8 ERA+) in 30 starts, striking out 133 in 159.1 IP. He also made the Korean national team for the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games and played a part in the Wyverns’ 2018 Korean Series championship. All in all, it was a big year. However, it seems that he has set his sights on an even bigger future.

This week, I sat down with Jong-Hoon at the Munhak Baseball Stadium, the Incheon home of the SK Wyverns, to talk about his development, his delivery, his pitches, and his desire to go to the major leagues. Originally, I intended to focus on his development as a submariner, but once he mentioned his big league ambitions, our conversation changed a bit.

On his development:

No one really starts out as a submarine pitcher. Neither did Park. When he was attending Gunsan Middle, his school’s baseball team needed a sidearm pitcher. The team’s manager asked his players to find the most flexible student they knew who was willing to throw a baseball. They recommended Park to him. “The team only had pitchers who threw with overhand or three-quarter slots,” Park said.

Once he got into the team, one of the drills he had to do required him to play catch while wearing a car tire on his back. “The training method in Korean amateur baseball is a bit old-school,” Park said. “At first, it was a small tire, but as the time went on, they gradually switched to bigger ones.” Because the tires got too heavy for his original posture, he lowered his posture while doing the drill. At some point, something clicked. “As I kept lowering my body, I felt that the arm slot started to fit me better,” he said. “We didn’t really have a pitching coach in our team, so I had to figure that all by myself.”

Unlike most other pitchers in the league, Park rose through the amateur system without any guidance of a pitching coach, which stunted his development until he went pro. In the second part of the KBO draft in 2009, Park was the ninth overall pick by the SK Wyverns. Despite his high draft slot, Park was far from feeling confident that he belonged there. “Once I got to the Wyverns, I felt that there were a lot of things I lacked,” Park said, “I soon learned that there were flaws here and there. In high school, I didn’t get to learn stuff like how to use my back leg, position my pelvis, consistently slot my arm, approach hitters mentally, etc.”

“I keep saying this over and over,” Park reiterates, “but it took so long for me to get to where I am. I wish I could get all that time back so I could have developed faster.”

Park’s rawness showed immediately. From 2011 to 2012, he appeared in just 15 games and gave up 17 walks, four hit by pitches, and 18 runs in 24.2 IP. After the 2012 season, Park opted to serve his mandatory military service and was admitted to play for the army baseball team. He returned to the Wyverns in September 2014 and started to see more action in 2015. That season, by the way, happened to be current Diamondbacks right-handed pitcher Merrill Kelly’s first year with the Wyverns. Kelly pitched for the Wyverns from 2015 to 2018, and earned a two-year major league contract with Arizona this past offseason. Park is appreciative of the four seasons he spent as Kelly’s teammate.

“I’m thankful for Kelly,” Park said, “he’s the reason why I came to appreciate and learn baseball deeper.” Through Kelly, Park learned new throwing routines, weightlifting methods, and mental approaches to hitters. He was also introduced to American baseball coaching books, which he read and studied by translating.

He has also tweaked his delivery over the years – it’s still a work in progress. When he got to the pros, he became aware of Chad Bradford and noticed a lot of similarities between them. Just like Bradford, Park threw from a very low arm angle, but Park also had a fast delivery tempo, again just like Bradford. In 2017, however, when the SK Wyverns had the former Arkansas Razorbacks coach Dave Jorn as their pitching coach, Park got a new homework assignment from him. “He told me to hold the motion momentarily before I go out to stride,” Park recalled, “once I made the adjustment, I was able to throw more accurately towards the target.” Park also mentioned that he still strives to make tweaks “here and there.”

However, Park credits something else for his improved command and overall performance. “What’s been more important is the mental side of pitching,” he said, “I’ve been really practicing my mentality: listening to good things, reading good things, if there’s a mental coaching lesson, I go out of my way to take it and I sometimes call sports psychologists for consultations. I’ve gradually improved after taking these steps.”

His efforts have shown. Here is how Park’s number progressed in the previous three years:

His strikeout and walk numbers have noticeably improved. One could say that he traded some of his groundball tendencies for being able to throw strikes. Even so, Park has managed to keep the batted balls in the yard- his 0.90 HR/9 IP rate is the ninth best among all KBO starting pitchers last year, which is no easy feat in the league and especially at the Munhak Baseball Stadium. Munhak is known to be an extreme hitter’s ballpark with 311.7/393.7/ 311.7 foot outfield dimensions, meaning the left and right field fences are closer to home plate than the Yankee Stadium short porch. It will be interesting to see how his numbers trend in the 2019 season, but the recent history is promising.

On being a rarity:

Park has, indeed, thought about how things would’ve been had he thrown with a conventional overhand or three-quarter slot. “I think my development would have been easier if I were one. I’m confident that I would survive among other KBO pitchers with traditional deliveries – right now I can throw around 90, 91 mph with an overhand delivery,” he said, “but I still would have had to go through the same process.” He adds that being a submarine pitcher helped pave his way more easily than others. “I’ve been more about finding my own uniqueness instead of going with the cookie-cutter approach.”

Back when Park was learning to pitch, there wasn’t as much baseball content readily available online. He turned to watching a copious amount of television to find inspirations. Through that, he discovered other submariners around the world, like Bradford and Shunsuke Watanabe. “But to be honest, when I tried to research on more, they were all pitchers from a long, long time ago,” Park noted, “I learned a bit from them for sure, but I used to worry whether my style of pitching would work in modern baseball.”

As for the role model, he doesn’t necessarily have one, but seeing how Bradford and Watanabe had turned in nice careers in their own respective leagues, Park gained confidence. “It was like ‘Ah, they can survive in that high-level of a league,'” he said, “That was the point where I gained more confidence and dreamed bigger in succeeding in professional baseball.”

On his wunder curve:

Park’s main strength is his curveball. According to Statiz, a KBO sabermetrics website, his curveball led the entire league in its pitch value for both 2017 and 2018 (18.8 and 12.6 runs saved, respectively). Some may see it as a slider, but Park says that it’s a curveball. Here’s the grip:

Here’s how he releases it:

Here’s how he simulates the release and spin:

And here are the results:

Park said he practiced the curveball release by throwing it as far as possible on an open field. “I did it to make it ‘float,’” he said, “I’ve been practicing it since I was younger. I think a lot of it was about having a pride in being different than everyone else. So I just kept going like ‘Let me try again, again, again, again…’ and it has ended up how it looks now.”

Park also says that he makes it move differently for different-handed hitters. “I have better stats against left-handed hitters than right-handed hitters,” he notes, and he’s not really wrong. In 2018, he allowed a .714 OPS against lefties as opposed to .723 OPS against righties. From 2015 to 2019, he’s allowed .724 OPS against LHH and .775 OPS against RHH.

“I think a lot has to do with my curveball trajectory. Against the lefties, I like to float the ball straight up [think reverse 12-6 curveball] and against the righties, I throw with a tilt [reverse 11-5] tilt to it. I’m really curious how it would work out in different leagues, like the majors.”

Here’s a Park curve against a lefty:

…and a righty (admittedly, this looks similar to how he’d throw against a lefty):

Not only he can locate it high to induce whiffs, but also he can locate the pitch low. It can be effective because the pitch, which seems like it would end up lower than the zone, “rises” towards the end to nick the edge. Here’s one from this past postseason:

And here’s a three-pitch strikeout in which he used the curveball in similar locations to get a called strike, a weak foulball, and a swinging strike.

In 2018, he used the curveball 42.6% of the time, which is a significant amount. The pitch averaged at 119.1 kmph (74.0 mph). Park also has a fastball (41.1% usage), which averaged 131.6 kmph (81.8 mph), a two-seam fastball (12.2%) that averaged 128.5 kmph (79.9 mph) and a changeup that he used very sparingly (3.7%) that averaged 123.8 kmph (76.9 mph).

On his major league dreama:

Park doesn’t keep his desire to play in the majors a secret. He has been eager to prove that his style of pitching will work at the highest level of baseball. “I don’t know when it will happen,” Park said, “but if I do go to the majors, I want people to think ‘There’s a pitcher like this and he can really pitch in the majors.’ I hope I can help bring more attention to sidearm and submarine pitchers.”

Park says he also wants to join other Korean big leaguers. “If you’re a baseball player, MLB is the final frontier,” he said, “I’d love to join Korean guys like Hyun-Jin Ryu, Ji-Man Choi and Shin-Soo Choo. And I want my name, Park Jong-Hoon, to be known to the major league fans.”

According to a person familiar to the situation, several major league scouts have periodically come to Munhak Baseball Stadium to watch his starts. If the Wyverns were to post him as soon as he is eligible, the timing could be tricky. Depends on how long he is on the active roster and avoids injuries, he would be eligible as soon as after the 2020 season. If he is not as lucky with how his service time stacks up, it would be after 2021. Because Park will turn 30 in August 2021, one would assume that he wants to head stateside as soon as possible.

At this moment, it is a bit early to speculate on his major league chances. What helps Park is that he may not have completed developing due to his unusual amateur background, which could project well by the time he’s eligible to be posted. He also has brings the benefit of giving a very, very different look to hitters, not to mention that his approach has worked well in the offense-friendly environment of the KBO. There are, of course, many question marks. Heck, there are question marks for players who are deemed to be top-notch major league prospects. His command is still work in progress, we don’t know how well his stuff would translate in the majors, and we don’t know yet how interested the teams are. 

Park wanted to be different, he learned to use his uniqueness in the KBO, and he became one of the best Korean-born starting pitchers in the league. That in itself is pretty significant.

*All KBO stats from Statiz unless specified.

There’s a saying in my profession that “the law is what the court says it is.” That’s a paraphrase of a famous line from Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison that “[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” The point is that the law is open to interpretation, even if the words on the page are unchanging. Your interpretation, my interpretation, even Meg Rowley’s interpretation – none of that matters. The only interpretation that matters at the end of the day is that of the person wearing the robe.

When it comes to baseball, the judges are the umpires – as the recent Rangers-Astros series shows. Our saga begins in a rather ordinary fashion – with a questionable strike call. Per Chandler Rome at the Houston Chronicle:

In the next half-inning, [umpire Ron] Kulpa called a borderline first pitch strike against Tyler White. The entire Astros dugout charged toward the railing and erupted with vitriol toward Kulpa. Kulpa removed his mask and yelled back. [Astros Manager A.J.] Hinch came out to diffuse the situation and, at that point, no one was ejected.

[Houston coach Alex] Cintron did not cease his criticism. Kulpa tossed him as Hinch returned to the dugout. A pitch later, while Kulpa still stared into the Astros’ dugout, Hinch began to bark back. Kulpa ejected him.

Here’s video if you’d rather see for yourself:

But there’s more to this story. Evidently, Kulpa subscribes to the Marbury v. Madison school of umpiring power.

What happens when an umpire has a full blown meltdown? Just watch Kulpa. After Hinch returned to the dugout the second time, Kulpa kept looking over there, most likely waiting for a player or coach to make another comment. Hinch gave him what he wanted. He yelled “You can’t keep doing this!” at Kulpa, who immediately ejected Hinch, leading to an on-field screaming match and Kulpa shouting in Hinch’s face “I can do anything I want!”

Notably, Hinch wasn’t arguing balls and strikes when Kulpa ejected him.

Before even one more pitch was thrown, the umpire leered into the Houston dugout, essentially daring the players to say something. Hinch had to once again take the field to kindly ask the neutral game official to stop staring down his players. The mics picked up Hinch’s words to Kulpa: “There’s nothing to see. There’s nothing for you to see. Look out there. Look right there.”

And just to prove the point that he really, truly, could do anything he wanted, Kulpa proceeded to make himself the center of the spectacle, including initiating physical contact with catcher Max Stassi.

There’s a lot to unpack here, most notably, Kulpa’s assertion that, as an umpire, he can do anything he wants. But before we get there, we have to explain something.

By far the most common question I get from clients in my day job is “can s/he do that?” And my answer is always the same. The law isn’t a magic force that uses midichlorians to prevent a person from killing or stealing. A person can – in the sense of physical capability – do whatever they want. The only laws that can stop them are the laws of biology and physics.

What the law can do is punish people for doing those things. In essence, the law is a gigantic set of incentives and disincentives. The same applies to the rules of baseball and Ron Kulpa. Gandalf won’t appear to stop Kulpa from transgressing some rule on umpire conduct. So what we’re looking at here is not whether Kulpa is right in the literal sense, but rather whether there are limits in place that, were Kulpa to transgress them, provide for some kind of consequence.

The kind of power Kulpa is claiming is called plenary power, and we discussed it earlier this year in the context of commissioner Rob Manfred. Plenary power is “[p]ower that is wide-ranging, broadly construed, and often limitless for all practical purposes.”

But while the terms of the Major League Constitution grant the commissioner that kind of unlimited authority, there’s no such similar grant for umpires. Umpire duties are covered by Rule 4.01 of the Official Major League Rules, which includes things like ensuring alternate regulation baseballs are available, inspecting baseballs, and ensuring compliance with equipment specifications. In fact, to the extent the umpire’s power is delineated by a list of duties, essentially the entire baseball rulebook is a list of what the umpire can and should do. Nearly every rule tells the umpire what to do, because it’s the umpires who enforce the rules. If case law and statutes are an instruction manual for judges, then the Major League Baseball rulebook is an instruction manual for umpires.

But this is a non-exhaustive list, and it doesn’t say what an umpire can’t do. For that, we need Article 8.00, conveniently entitled “The Umpire.” In Rule 8.01, we learn what the umpire’s authority is.

8.01 Umpire Qualifications and Authority (a) The League President shall appoint one or more umpires to officiate at each league championship game. The umpires shall be responsible for the conduct of the game in accordance with these official rules and for maintaining discipline and order on the playing field during the game.
(b) Each umpire is the representative of the league and of professional baseball, and is authorized and required to enforce all of these rules. Each umpire has authority to order a player, coach, manager or club officer or employee to do or refrain from doing anything which affects the administering of these rules, and to enforce the prescribed penalties.
(c) Each umpire has authority to rule on any point not specifically covered in these rules.
(d) Each umpire has authority to disqualify any player, coach, manager or substitute for objecting to decisions or for unsportsmanlike conduct or language, and to eject such disqualified person from the playing field. If an umpire disqualifies a player while a play is in progress, the disqualification shall not take effect until no further action is possible in that play.
(e) Each umpire has authority at his discretion to eject from the playing field (1) any person whose duties permit his presence on the field, such as ground crew members, ushers, photographers, newsmen, broadcasting crew members, etc., and (2) any spectator or other person not authorized to be on the playing field.

Based on this, Ron Kulpa is partly right. As the personification of Major League Baseball on the field, the umpire does indeed have vast authority for “maintaining discipline and order.” And note that the umpire has authority to eject a person merely for objecting to a decision, and not only for unsportsmanlike conduct. The umpire can even eject a player in the middle of a play! This is, frankly, a poorly written rule; as written, the umpire can theoretically eject a manager who asks for a replay review; by asking for that review, the manager is, by definition, objecting to a ruling. And, most notably, Rule 8.01(c) basically says that where the Rules don’t cover something, the umpire has discretion to make up a rule.

This is obviously really broad authority, and, for the most part, the rest of Article 8.00 doesn’t get any less so. Rule 8.02, which governs appeals of umpire decisions, allows those appeals only to the umpire who made the decision in the first place. Under Rule 8.03, the umpire-in-chief (as in, the home plate umpire; this is not the same as the crew chief) has even more authority; he can “[a]nnounce any special ground rules, at his discretion.” (In this context, a “ground rule” is one that the umpire “thinks are made necessary by ground conditions, which shall not conflict with the official playing rules.”) In other words, if Ron Kulpa wanted to announce a Rule that any ball that hit the roof of Tropicana Field was a home run, he could do that. The umpires do have a lot of power.

If this were all there was in Article 8.00, Kulpa would probably be right. But there’s one more part of Article 8.00, entitled “General Instructions to Umpires.” They are, essentially, the rules that umpires are supposed to follow. Here are some excerpts.

• Be courteous, always, to club officials; avoid visiting in club offices and thoughtless familiarity with officers or employees of contesting clubs.
• When you enter a ball park your sole duty is to umpire a ball game as the representative of baseball. Do not allow criticism to keep you from studying out bad situations that may lead to protested games.  Carry your rule book.  It is better to consult the rules and hold up the game ten minutes to decide a knotty problem than to have a game thrown out on protest and replayed.
• Keep the game moving.  A ball game is often helped by energetic and earnest work of the umpires.
• You are the only official representative of baseball on the ball field. It is often a trying position which requires the exercise of much patience and good judgment, but do not forget that the first essential in working out of a bad situation is to keep your own temper and self-control.
• Each umpire team should work out a simple set of signals, so the proper umpire can always right a manifestly wrong decision when convinced he has made an error. If sure you got the play correctly, do not be stampeded by players’ appeals to “ask the other man.” If not sure, ask one of your associates. Do not carry this to extremes, be alert and get your own plays.  But remember!  The first requisite is to get decisions correctly.  If in doubt don’t hesitate to consult your associate.  Umpire dignity is important but never as important as “being right.”
• Most important rule for umpires is always “BE IN POSITION TO SEE EVERY PLAY.”  Even though your decision may be 100% right, players still question it if they feel you were not in a spot to see the play clearly and definitely.
• Finally, be courteous, impartial and firm, and so compel respect from all.

Based on these instructions, there are things that Ron Kulpa can’t do. For one thing, he can’t be discourteous; he must be courteous “always.” He is supposed to keep a game moving. He is supposed to maintain his temper and self-control. And he is supposed to elevate being right above his own dignity.

And believe it or not, Major League Baseball really does enforce these rules. That is, the commissioner – who, remember, really does have plenary power – enforces these rules. Some umpires have been suspended or fined for misapplying rules or allowing teams to engage in rule violations. In fact, umpires get disciplined all the time.

Now, it’s true that the commissioner’s office has considerable latitude when it comes to disciplining umpires. In fact, the men with the chest protectors are chastened “frequently,” according to one source.

Some umpires are forced to sit because of poor performance. Just like a slumping slugger.

The difference is that, under the collective bargaining agreement between the umpires’ union and Major League Baseball, and unlike the players’ CBA, most discipline and disputes between the league and union are confidential. That’s why it was a big ruckus when umpires staged a brief protest, wearing white armbands to signify opposition to comments made by Ian Kinsler regarding Angel Hernandez. MLB immediately stated that the protest violated the umpires’ Collective Bargaining Agreement.

So Ron Kulpa can do whatever he wants; that’s true. And players and managers can’t do anything about it. But Major League Baseball can, and, often, does. Being an umpire is a difficult job. But omnipotence, it seems, doesn’t actually come with the territory.

Read the rest of this entry »

In my short time so far at FanGraphs, there have been a couple of underlying similarities between the player profile-style pieces that I have written. All three of them have been about under-the-radar pitchers, whether it be about Chase Anderson or Dan Straily or Jimmy Yacabonis, and all three articles have focused on their individual pitches or repertoires.

Today, I will take a different tact. First, it’s about a hitter, and second, this hitter is not, by any means, “under-the-radar.” José Ramírez slashed .270/.387/.552 in 698 plate appearances last year, producing a total of 8.0 WAR, a figure that ranked third in all of baseball. Ramírez even had a solid case at the American League MVP award, finishing third behind Mookie Betts and Mike Trout. That’s really good! That’s better than really good; it’s elite. Ramírez has truly been one of the best players in baseball over the last three years now, and we should all appreciate that.

The problem is, though, José Ramírez actually hasn’t been good lately. And I’m not just talking about his slow start to the 2019 season (11 wRC+ in his first 20 PA); Ramírez’s slump has actually been quite long. Over his last 40 games, dating back to August 21 of last season, Ramírez has slashed .170/.298/.279 across 178 plate appearances. His 60 wRC+ during this stretch was the 17th-lowest in the major leagues, among 228 players with at least 100 plate appearances. That puts him in the undoubtedly-not-elite 7th percentile. Just to add insult to injury, this excludes the 2018 postseason, in which Ramírez did not record a single hit and managed just one walk across 12 plate appearances, good for a .000/.083/.000 line. Read the rest of this entry »

In November, I published the results of my research attempting to put a value on minor league prospects. It seems only natural that a similar study on draft picks should follow.

As with prospect valuations, considerable work has preceded mine in the area of valuing draft picks. Sky Andrechuk, Victor Wang, Matthew Murphy, Jeff Zimmerman, and Anthony Rescan and Martin Alonso have all done similar studies.

The work below is less a replacement of the work already done and is more of a continuation of, and addition to, the study of the subject matter. As to why we might want to know this information, creating an expected value for a draft pick helps us to understand and manage our expectations of draftees’ performance. More practically, teams regularly give up draft picks to sign free agents, receive extra draft picks when they lose free agents or reside in a smaller media market, and drop slots when they exceed the highest competitive balance tax payroll threshold, not to mention that some picks can be traded. Determining a value for these picks helps us better understand the decisions teams make regarding those picks.

In some ways, determining draft pick value is a little more complicated than figuring out prospect value. When determining prospect value, players are placed within the constraints of the current CBA, which provides for a minimum salary for roughly three seasons and suppressed arbitration salaries for another three years after that before a player reaches free agency. Draft picks are confined to the same system, but there is also a signing bonus to consider, not to mention slotting rules that are often manipulated in order to move money around to different picks.

Due to signing bonuses and bonus slots, to arrive at an appropriate value for a draft pick, it isn’t enough to determine the present value of players’ WAR in the majors without getting to a dollar figure. We also have to account for the present value in dollars and then subtract the expected bonus.

Before explaining the methodology for draft picks, we can look at the very similar framework used to get to the present value of minor league prospects. From my “Update to Prospect Valuation”:

To determine surplus value for players, I used WAR produced over the first nine seasons of a career, including the season in which a prospect was ranked. Why nine years? In today’s game, most players don’t hit free agency until after their seventh major-league season. By examining nine seasons, it’s possible to account for prospects who were still a couple years away from the majors when they appeared on a top-100 list — as well as late-bloomers who might have bounced up and down between the majors and minors for a full season.

Of course, not all prospects continue to develop in the minor leagues after appearing on a top-100 list. Some debut in the majors right away. Due to the methodology outlined above, such players might be in a position to receive greater credit for their first nine seasons simply because they were closer to the majors when they were ranked. To accommodate this issue, I’ve spread out a player’s WAR over the final seven seasons of the period in question, distributing 10% of it to years three and four before slightly gradually increasing that figure up to 20% by year nine. To calculate surplus value, I’ve discounted WAR by 3% in years No. 3 through 5 (to approximate the impact of the league-minimum salary) and then 15% in year six, 32% in year seven, 48% in year eight, and 72% in year nine. Spreading out the WAR in this way not only mimics a sort of generic “development curve” but also ensures that arbitration discounts aren’t too heavy.

After that, I applied an 8% discount rate for present value. For players immediately ready to play, the extra value they get from the eighth and ninth year is minimized by removing value they actually provided from the first two years and spreading into later seasons. This similarly ensures that the controllable years of players who take longer to develop or reach the majors aren’t treated the same way as those produced by players who contribute right away. A two-win season in 2019 is more valuable than a two-win season in 2021; and this method helps to strike that balance.

Draft picks aren’t as close to the majors as most minor league prospects are. To combat this problem, I used 10 years for college draftees and 11 years for those drafted out of high school, but kept the rest the same as above.

The other difficult issue for draft picks is one of sample size. When I looked at 15 years of prospect lists, it meant we were looking at hundreds of prospects at nearly every single prospect grade. If we did the same for draft picks over 15 years, we only have 15 players at every pick, which isn’t much of a sample. To compensate for this issue, I took a large percentage of the pick in question, and then a smaller percentage on a sliding scale of the next 12 picks. After all, having the third pick in the draft isn’t just an opportunity to take the third-best player; it is the opportunity to choose between a whole host of players. The Astros taking Mark Appel ahead of Kris Bryant doesn’t make the second pick in the draft better than the first. The Astros could have had Kris Bryant, and factoring in the picks that follow helps represent that challenge.

Smoothing things out a bit helps make sure a small sample doesn’t create a bias around a pick. For example, in the years I studied (1993-2007), the third overall pick often performed poorly, but Eric Hosmer, Manny Machado, and Trevor Bauer were taken with the third pick in the three of the four drafts that followed. It wasn’t bad to have the third pick from 1993-2007. It just happened that those picks didn’t work out well.

First round picks were then adjusted upwards slightly so that the actual WAR of the picks and the adjusted value using the method above matched. The values were then smoothed out to ensure the value of the picks moved downward. The smoothing stopped mattering after the second round. After finding the present-value WAR for each pick (I used $9M/WAR), I then subtracted the slot amount for each pick to come up with a current value.

This is what the first 70 picks look like:

The values at the very top of the draft are going to be context heavy. Sometimes, the top pick is a solid 55, like Casey Mize was a season ago. Other years, it might be Bryce Harper. For context, here is how the first round played out last season in terms of bonuses and slots for the pick.

The draft reveals just how important it is for teams to receive a compensation pick the following season when they fail to sign a pick in the current year. While there is certainly lost developmental time and opportunity in losing a pick for one year, losing that pick permanently would be a major loss, and provide considerably more leverage to the players when negotiating contracts.

Moving down, this is what the picks in the third round and below are worth. For the 11th round and below, the median value is used instead of the average given the potential for a few really good picks out of thousands to distort the value beyond what would be a reasonable expectation for that pick.

In practical terms, that means that for the picks in round 20 or later, you might come up with one average player every three years. For picks in rounds 11-20, a team can expect an average player every two or three seasons. The same is true for rounds three and four combined. It’s hard to find good players in the draft after the first round. There’s as much value in the first 100 picks as in the entire rest of the draft. Teams might opt to pay a third round pick a $3,000 bonus to save money and use it elsewhere. That doesn’t mean that we should expect the same performance from that pick as we would a typical third rounder, but we should expect that the slot money the team uses elsewhere will have a value somewhere close to $4 million.

When considering how teams sometimes shift money around from the second or third round to the sixth and seventh round (and vice versa) or use money to sign players above $125,000 after the 10th round, it helps to know how to properly value every dollar spent. For the first 100 picks, where the bonuses are the highest, every dollar spent generally yields five dollars in value. In rounds 4-5, every dollar should yield about six dollars in value, and in rounds 6-10, every dollar spent should yield 10 dollars in value due to the talent available and the small signing bonuses. Given this information, it appears teams might be better off paying slightly less money in the first few rounds while still getting good talent, and shifting some of that money elsewhere in the first 10 rounds. If teams are shifting money from the first 10 rounds to the back of the draft, they need to feel pretty confident in that player’s ability.

In terms of comp picks in this year’s draft, the Arizona Diamondbacks will receive a pick at the end of the first round for losing Patrick Corbin to the Nationals. That pick is worth something close to $10 million. The six small-market teams will receive picks between rounds one and two that are worth $8 million to $9 million each. The other eight small-market picks after the second round are worth around $4 million each, and the same is true for the free agent compensation picks like the one the Dodgers will receive for losing Yasmani Grandal.

Teams signing free agents who have received a qualifying offer generally lose their second pick, and that pick is worth somewhere between $4 million and $10 million depending on where in the draft the team is picking. The Red Sox’s top pick drops down 10 spots this year because they were more than $40 million over the competitive balance tax. That penalty is only worth around $2 million.

There’s further analysis to be done based on whether a player is coming out of high school or college, as well as whether he is a position player or pitcher, but that work will be left to a later date. For now, I hope this is a useful starting point for further study, and for gaining a greater understanding of draftees’ expected production and teams’ decision making.

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about Christian Yelich vs. Eugenio Suarez and Yelich vs. regression, an inscrutable ad, Jose Alvarado and the apparent increase in aesthetically pleasing pitches, visual differences between 1998 and now, and the significance of the latest contract extensions, then answer listener emails about the Twins and what makes a team fun, the Indians’ slow start, an intentional walk to Chris Davis, batting practice and bunting against the shift, Justin Verlander’s shot at 300 wins, and more, plus Stat Blasts about “True Wins” and Trevor Rosenthal and consecutive out-less outings to start a season.

Audio intro: Sloan, "Reach Out"
Audio outro: The Who, "I Can’t Reach You"

Link to Ben on Yelich
Link to McSweeney’s list of email addresses
Link to Alvarado highlight
Link to Sam on extensions
Link to preorder The MVP Machine

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Last month, in the wake of Bryce Harper’s signing with the Phillies, I took stock of the Nationals and raised an eyebrow at the limited fixes administered to a bullpen that has required annual midseason makeovers, and that last year tied for 25th in the majors in WAR (0.6). General manager Mike Rizzo’s big offseason moves regarding the unit were to sign Trevor Rosenthal, who missed all of 2018 due to Tommy John surgery, and Kyle Barraclough, who pitched to a 4.20 ERA and 4.98 FIP with the Marlins. So far, it hasn’t gone well, to say the least. The unit as a whole has an 11.02 ERA through five games.

Barraclough has only been charged with one run allowed in 3.1 innings, but he’s also allowed five out of five inherited runners to score. That’s no good, but it’s nothing compared to the travails of Rosenthal, a 28-year-old righty who, during his Cardinals tenure, pitched to a 2.99 ERA and 2.60 FIP while saving 121 games from 2012-17.

On March 30 against the Mets, Rosenthal entered a tied game in the eighth inning and proceeded to allow back-to-back singles to Wilson Ramos and Jeff McNeil, then walked Amed Rosario (a tough thing to do given the kid’s 4.9% walk rate last year) and served up a two-run single to J.D. Davis. Manager Davey Martinez gave him the hook in favor of Barraclough, who immediately balked in a run, and two outs later, allowed a two-run double by Pete Alonso. Thus, four runs were charged to Rosenthal, who didn’t retire a batter.

Undeterred, Martinez called on Rosenthal again the next day with the Nationals trailing the Mets 5-2 and runners on the corners courtesy of mid-March signing Tony Sipp. Facing Rosario again, Rosenthal threw just one pitch, which the 23-year-old shortstop lined for an RBI single. Sean Doolittle relieved Rosenthal and allowed back-to-back singles, the second of which scored Rosario. Another day, another outing with a run allowed but no out for Rosenthal. Read the rest of this entry »

The first week of baseball is a wondrous time to be a baseball fan. It’s also a weird time to be a baseball writer. On one hand, baseball is happening, and that’s a relief after the long dark night of the offseason. On the other hand, not that much baseball has happened, and most of the seemingly noteworthy stories are small-sample noise. Give me an early-season take (Tim Beckham is great! Sandy Alcantara is a top-10 pitcher!), and I’ll likely dismiss it as a fluke. One performance this week, however, made me sit up and take notice. Corbin Burnes struck out 12 batters on Sunday, and the way he did it should have Brewers fans, and baseball fans in general, salivating.

At first glance, Burnes’ start against the Cardinals is a textbook case of not reading too much into a single start. He struck out 12 batters and walked only one, which is obviously incredible. On the other hand, he gave up three home runs and only lasted five innings, producing a what’s-going-on split of a 6.53 FIP and 0.00 xFIP. If I were a betting man, though, I’d wager that the strikeouts are more predictive than the home runs. Why? Corbin Burnes’ fastball was absolutely ludicrous, and in a way that you can’t fake.

Most of the things that happen in a baseball game are contextual. Did a pitcher strike a lot of hitters out? Well, consider who was batting. If it’s a bunch of high schoolers or the 2019 Giants outfield, that’s an extenuating circumstance. Did he give up a lot of home runs? A ton of factors go into that. One thing that isn’t contextual is a pitch’s spin rate. The batter doesn’t influence it. Pitch selection doesn’t influence it. It doesn’t take long to stabilize. It’s basically as clean as it gets in baseball statistics — you throw the ball, and you get your results.

When Burnes threw the ball on Sunday, the results were off the charts. Burnes fired 61 four-seam fastballs on Sunday. His velocity was down a tick or so from last year, when he worked out of the bullpen — nothing unusual about that. His spin, on the other hand, was wholly new. Burnes averaged 2912 rpm, and it’s hard to explain how crazy that is. It was nearly 150 rpm higher than last year’s league leader in average spin rate, Luke Bard. The fastball that Burnes spun most slowly, at 2660 rpm, would have been good for the second-highest fastball spin rate in baseball last year.

Burnes has always been a high-spin pitcher (11th in baseball among pitchers who threw at least 100 fastballs in 2018), but this is an entirely different level. Spin rates vary from start to start, but not like this. In fact, Burnes made thirty appearances last year, and the gap between the highest spin rate he recorded and the lowest was 270 rpm. Sunday’s start was 200 rpm faster than last year’s highest rate. Graphically, that looks pretty absurd, like so:

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »