Here’s Who Will Win the Next Five World Series

Pending a healthy return, Corey Seager will resume his role at the heart of the Dodgers’ roster.
(Photo: Arturo Pardavila III)

On a recent podcast episode, Eric Longenhangen and I discussed the premise for this article, which is another way of asking which organizations are healthiest in the short-to-medium term. The factor that goes furthest towards answering that question is present on-field talent, although salary, controlled years, the presence of impact minor leaguers on the horizon, and front-office quality are all relevant — as is payroll ceiling, which serves as a proxy for margin for error. With the World Series starting tonight, it seemed like the right time to look ahead at the favorites for the five World Series beyond this one.

I’ve experimented with some objective ways of measuring organizational health. I think it’s ultimately possible to produce an algorithm that would do a solid job, ranking teams objectively in a number of key categories. It would also require considerable time. Eager to arrive at some kind of answer, I’ve settled for subjective assessment for this version of the post, but I intend to work on something more systematic in the winter.

Here are the criteria I’ve considered to produce these rankings: short-term MLB talent, long-term MLB talent/upper-minors prospects, lower-minors prospects/trade capital, payroll ceiling, MLB coaching/front office, and amateur signings (draft and international). You could quibble and combine or separate a few of those groupings, or argue some of these can’t be quantified properly. You may be right, but we’ll keep tweaking things until they are.

I had originally intended to limit this list to five teams for purposes of symmetry, but the top tier looked like seven teams to me, and the sources by whom I ran this list agreed. In the same way that the I approached the Trade Value Rankings from the point of view of a medium-payroll, medium-term-focused team, I’ve undertook this exercise by asking which team would be most attractive to a prospect GM if his or her only interest is to win the most World Series possible (and not have low state income tax, run a childhood team, or live in a cool city) over the next five seasons.

Without further explanation, here are the organizations most likely to win the 2019-23 World Series.

1. Los Angeles Dodgers

The top-three teams on this list all have some reasonable claim to the top spot, but I ultimately went with the Dodgers, as they have a little more certainty in terms of on-field personnel than the Yankees possess, while both clubs feature similar built-in financial advantages. (Houston lags behind on the second count.)

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The Best World Series Money Can Buy

If the Milwaukee Brewers had managed to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in the seventh game of the NLCS, this post would examine one of biggest payroll disparities in World Series history. The Brewers couldn’t quite get the job done, however. As a result, it’s the Dodgers who advance to the final round of the 2018 postseason, and instead we have the most expensive World Series in history.

The Red Sox are projected to record a final a payroll around $237 million, which is the highest in baseball. The Dodgers — after considerable cost-cutting measures during the offseason — will finish the year with a payroll close to $194 million, per Cot’s Contracts. The Dodgers’ figure will likely be the fourth highest in MLB this season behind the Red Sox, Nationals, and Giants. The $423 million spent on payroll by the two World Series participants this season is the most ever.

The payroll totals somehow don’t do justice to how much these clubs have spent to get here. The Dodgers have spent $1.249 billion over the past five years, for an average payroll of $250 million. That’figure comes before accounting for the $28 million per season the Dodgers have paid in competitive-balance taxes. The Red Sox payroll this season — due to the Dodgers’ and Yankees’ efforts to get under the $197 million tax threshold — is more than $30 million clear of the second-place Nationals. When the club’s $10 million tax bill is considered, the team’s payroll is more than 20% higher than the Nationals. The difference between the Red Sox and Nationals is roughly the same as the difference between the Nationals and the 12th-place Mets. The Red Sox have spent $987.1 million on the team over the past five years, for an average payroll of $197 million — and just a bit over $200 million when factoring in taxes paid. Only the Dodgers and Yankees have spent more during that time.

As for the talent actually featured on the current rosters, the two clubs are very even: both had close to $155 million on the active roster in their respective LCSs. The graph below shows salaries (for competitive-balance tax purposes) for the players expected to play a role in the World Series. Players are shown by the amount of money the Red Sox or Dodgers are paying, not necessarily their full salary for the season. For example, Manny Machado is credited only with the portion of his salary for which the Dodgers are responsible following his acquisition from the Orioles.

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Contract Crowdsourcing 2018-19: Ballot 2 of 7

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent offseasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating this offseason a contract-crowdsourcing project, the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowds to the end of better understanding the 2018-19 free-agent market.

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Effectively Wild Episode 1286: World Serious

EWFI
Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Willians Astudillo, how long it takes to fall asleep, and international signings, then review the end of the NLCS, discuss the worst way to lose, forecast the legacy and future of the Brewers, and preview the Red Sox-Dodgers World Series matchup, including why the series is closer than it looks, the Mookie Betts conundrum, Clayton Kershaw vs. David Price, the status of Craig Kimbrel, the potential for bad blood, the Dodgers’ flexibility, the correlation between payroll and success, what makes an exciting World Series pairing, and much more.

Audio intro: The Roches, "You’re the Two"
Audio outro: Elliott Smith, "Coast to Coast"

Link to Kimbrel pitch-tipping article
Link to Ben’s Dodgers flexibility article

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FanGraphs Audio: Editor Talk with Meg Rowley

Episode 840
Meg Rowley is the managing editor of The Hardball Times. She’s also the guest on this edition of the program, during which she reviews some of the recent work at THT. Also: the discreet charm of Alex Bregman. And: the miracle of Josh James.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 1 hr 0 min play time.)

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The Astros Were Caught Doing… Something

Before the Astros were dispatched from the playoffs by a changed-up David Price, before Jose Altuve was robbed of a home run by Mookie Betts and possibly Joe West, there was a kerfuffle in the Red Sox-Astros League Championship Series — a kerfuffle involving, of all things, a camera, trickery, and a media credential. Per Dan Shaughnessy:

The 2018 American League Championship Series took on a new dimension at Minute Maid Park this week when the Boston Metro first reported that a guy with a camera working for the Astros was kicked out of the photographer’s well by the first base dugout at Fenway Park during Game 1. Turns out the same guy got the heave-ho in Cleveland when the ’Stros were beating up on the Tribe in the Division Series.

MLB investigated, and then explained:

In other words, the Astros were surveilling the Red Sox to make sure that the Red Sox weren’t surveilling the Astros. That has something of the absurd about it, but who knows? Maybe that is, in fact, what happened.

But there are a lot of unanswered questions. The first is why the Astros used Kyle McLaughlin, a friend of Astros’ owner Jim Crane but not an Astros employee, to monitor the BoSox. And second, MLB conspicuously didn’t address that this wasn’t the first time this postseason that McLaughlin had been caught monitoring an opposing team with his cell phone; he was doing the same to the Indians during the Division Series. Jeff Passan had a typically excellent explanation of the questions MLB’s lack of action left in its wake.

The league offering Houston the free pass enraged executives around baseball, who reached out to Yahoo Sports trying to understand the rationale. If the Astros were allowed to monitor another team’s dugout in-game without penalty, one wondered, shouldn’t every team be allowed to do the same? If the Astros were so concerned with opponents’ nefariousness, another said, why did they send a kid in his early 20s whose role with the team is opaque and not simply request MLB send a security professional to examine the dugout from the same spot and ensure everything is above board? Most of all, taking at face value the Astros’ explanation for using McLaughlin, if there is a rule forbidding in-game technology to help steal signs, why is a team allowed to use in-game technology to investigate whether its opponent is illegally stealing signs?

We can answer at least a couple of Passan’s questions here. First, there is no official rule that bars sign-stealing. There’s no such provision in the Major League Rules, and there’s no such rule in the Official Baseball Rules. There’s also no provision in either concerning the use of technology to monitor another team. In short, there isn’t a rule covering this. David Schoenfield summarized the state of the rules in this area last year, after the Red Sox and Yankees famously tangled over the Apple Watch incident.

It is not illegal to steal signs. There is no rule against it, and certain players and coaches excel at the art. There is, however, a directive dating to 2001 that prohibits the use of electronic devices in the dugout or the use of binoculars. The use of the Apple Watch would clearly violate this directive.

That directive, it should be noted, isn’t publicly available, so we don’t know what its scope is. But MLB hasn’t exactly clamped down on the use of binoculars since then — and note that Schoenfield says that the Apple Watch in the dugout violated the directive. That’s because the directive evidently concerns the use of electronic devices in the dugout. McLaughlin, of course, was not in the dugout. So it is entirely possible — and I’d even say probable — that there isn’t technically a rule against what McLaughlin did, which explains MLB’s decision to wave it away.

There are two problems with this resolution, however. First, there’s no clear line regarding what use of electronics is and isn’t permissible — besides, perhaps, inside the dugout walls. That can lead to uncomfortable situations, like this one earlier this year in which the Astros found themselves on the other side of the issue.

An Astros official confronted a Yankees employee operating a high-tech camera during their late-May series at Yankee Stadium, leveling a charge of cheating and threatening that the culprit would be barred from working in the major leagues for life.

The matter was quickly defused when the Yankees proved that the Commissioner’s Office already had given its blessing for use of the camera.

And what about non-electronic means?

This is not the first investigation into the Astros’ attempts to gain competitive advantages this season, three sources told Yahoo Sports. During a late-August game against Oakland, A’s players noticed Astros players clapping in the dugout before pitches and believed they were relaying stolen signs to pitchers in the batter’s box, sources said. The A’s called the league, which said it would investigate the matter. It’s unclear what the result of the investigation was or whether it remains ongoing. Two major league players said they have witnessed the Astros hitting a trash can in the dugout in recent years and believe it is a way to relay signals to hitters. The Los Angeles Dodgers also believed the Astros were stealing signs during the World Series last season, according to two sources.

Remember, however, that there is no rule against sign-stealing generally. And that means that so long as the clapping or trash can signals were non-electronic, the Astros are technically not violating any rules. And that leads us to the second problem with MLB’s ruling: McLaughlin arguably broke the law. That’s because of something called a license. Not the driver’s license kind. It’s something else.

In the British common law (and, again, this oversimplifies things), there are many different types of ways to legally enter real property. Most often, you think of leases (when you rent a property, or essentially “buy” the right to possess that property for a limited period). But there’s a more limited type of access right called a “license.” Essentially, a license is when an owner allows you a short-term access to a property for a limited purpose. When you go to the movie theater and buy a ticket, you’ve purchased a license to be present for the duration of the movie. It’s similar with a baseball game: by buying a ticket, you purchase the right to be present in the stadium for the duration of the baseball game. If you were to get in without the license (i.e., without buying a ticket), you’d be trespassing. If you stay afterwards to build a yurt, you’re also trespassing, because the license doesn’t allow you to build a yurt whilst there. A media credential is similar. With it, a writer or photographer can do their job. What they can’t do is build a yurt.

Now, there are a few things that a license allows. It allows you to watch the game, of course, but it isn’t limited to just that. It allows you to eat, and use the washroom, and walk around the stadium. But there are limitations on what you can do while there, and it’s reasonable to assume that espionage isn’t one of them. In other words, it’s likely a violation of the license agreement to enter the stadium and begin recording the game for the purposes of relaying data to one of the dugouts.

It’s not, of course, that simple. Teams allow advance scouts into games, for instance, and they aren’t exactly there for pleasure (although watching a baseball game is undoubtedly pleasurable). But at the same time, advance scouts aren’t directly impacting the game they are watching. (I am well aware that this is not the case at the quantum level.) Instead, advance scouts are watching the game like you and I are; they are just recording the information differently. McLaughlin, on the other hand, wasn’t there to watch the game, and he wasn’t a team employee. In theory, then, he was just a trespasser.

I highly doubt that the Red Sox or Indians will press charges. But it is something about which teams should be cognizant. There is a line past which surveillance of an opponent may well become illegal, depending on who the spy is and where they are situated. The Astros may have gotten lucky this time.


Job Posting: Seattle Mariners Baseball Analytics Intern

Position: Seattle Mariners Baseball Analytics Intern

Location: Safeco Field, Seattle WA

Description:
The Mariners are seeking an individual with a background in statistical analysis and a passion for baseball. The position will work directly alongside the analytics team on a wide range of projects, providing ample opportunity to directly impact front office decision-making. Start and end dates are flexible, and the team will consider applicants who are available for only the summer of 2019, but the preference is for candidates who can start by Feb 1, 2019.

Responsibilities:

  • Statistical modeling and analysis of a variety of data sources including Statcast, Trackman and proprietary data sets
  • Ad hoc queries and quantitative research
  • Various game-day duties and support for all departments within Baseball Operations

Qualifications:

  • A strong foundation in mathematics, statistics, computer science and/or engineering.
  • Proficient with either R or Python
  • Track record of original baseball research
  • Experience with any of pitch level data, hit vector data, biomechanical data
  • Experience with predictive modeling
  • While many candidates are no doubt capable, the Mariners desire a skill set that can impact, innovate and add value immediately.

Compensation:
This position is compensated.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link


FanGraphs Audio Presents: The Untitled McDongenhagen Project, Ep. 5

UMP: The Untitled McDongenhagen Project, Episode 5
This is the fifth episode of a weekly program co-hosted by Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel about player evaluation in all its forms. The show, which is available through the normal FanGraphs Audio feed, has a working name but barely. The show is not all prospect stuff, but there is plenty of that, as the hosts are Prospect Men. Below are some timestamps to make listening and navigation easier.

0:23 – What games Eric and Kiley have seen lately: Arizona Fall League and the Diamond Club showcase for Florida high school prospects, featuring a Tyler Callihan update.

2:19 – TOPIC ONE: Yahoo’s Jeff Passan joins us to talk about the Astros cheating scandal and its many facets.

7:15 – Eric reviews the Chinese phone the Astros were using, which should be called the fruit calorie counting machine.

14:50 – Jeff inquires about the status of Kiley’s backyard and dog while Eric reveals how revealing he currently is.

23:08 – We lose Jeff due to technology, and he returns via a time jump, feat. flight attendant announcements.

24:30 – Jeff reveals who is more petty than him, but only by a small margin.

25:23 – Jeff’s antisocial plane tips.

26:54 – A mini topic about Manny Machado’s playoff behavior affecting his free agent market.

29:00 – A mini topic about the Luke Heimlich/Dayton Moore connection living on.

32:48 – TOPIC TWO: How we would put together a scouting department in today’s baseball.

33:56 – Options for structuring the pro scouting department.

34:50 – The biggest factor we don’t have access to: minor league TrackMan.

36:25 – Pros and cons of the different pro scouting department structures.

38:12 – How Eric would structure his pro department.

38:58 – Something to keep in mind in terms of allocating scout days on the amateur side.

40:15 – Kiley jumps in to ask about DSL coverage.

41:39 – Introducing the concept of dynamic pro coverage.

44:00 – Kiley jumps in again to clarify the pyramid of scout experience/assignments.

46:05 – What sorts of scouts can beat the TrackMan data at projecting prospects in the upper levels?

49:10 – When are the robots coming for us?

52:20 – The structural question the guys aren’t sure about

55:46 – TOPIC THREE: The saga of Barbecue Yee with Jake Mintz of Cespedes Family BBQ

56:16 – Jake makes the worst pun in the history of the podcast.

1:00:53 – Jake and Kiley laugh uncontrollably for the first time.

1:03:40 – Is varsity baseball a constitutionally protected right? You heard me right.

1:07:50 – Jake’s first great free idea for the Yee family.

1:16:26 – Jake’s second great free idea for the Yee family.

1:20:09 – The best outtakes portion we’ve ever had.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @kileymcd or @longenhagen on Twitter or at prospects@fangraphs.com.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 1 hr 22 min play time.)

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The Ties That Bind the Red Sox and Dodgers

Given that the Dodgers have won 20 pennants and the Red Sox 13, and that the two teams have combined to make 25 trips to the postseason during the Wild Card era, it seems improbable that this World Series will be just their second meeting in the Fall Classic — and more than a century since their first. Both franchises have endured ups and downs over the decades, but in general have been among the majors’ most successful, with the Dodgers owning the third-highest winning percentage since 1901 (.526) and the Red Sox the fifth-highest (.519).

What follows is an exploration of nine shared aspects of the two teams’ rich histories, listed in vaguely chronological order. Not all of them will come to bear directly upon the action, but for a sport and an event where the present is always linked to the past, it’s worth keeping these relationships in mind.

1916: The Original Matchup

The Red Sox were one of the nascent American League’s most successful teams, winning six pennants in the Junior Circuit’s first 18 years and going undefeated in five World Series during that span: 1903 (the inaugural one, against the Pirates), 1912 (against the Giants), 1915 (against the Phillies), 1916 (against the Dodgers), and 1918 (against the Cubs). (John McGraw’s Giants refused to play them in 1904, and so there was no World Series.) As for the Dodgers, they began life as the Brooklyn Atlantics in the American Association in 1884 and were known variously (and unofficially) as the Grays, Bridegrooms, Grooms, Superbas, and Trolley Dodgers. They enjoyed some success in the 19th century, winning the 1889 AA pennant and the 1890, 1899, and 1900 NL ones, but they didn’t win their first of the 20th century until 1916, when they were known as the Robins in honor of manager Wilbert Robinson (a moniker that bore special significance to this scribe and expectant father a century later). Not until 1932 did they officially become the Dodgers, though a program from the 1916 World Series did bill them that way:

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Contract Crowdsourcing 2018-19: Ballot 1 of 7

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent offseasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating this offseason a contract-crowdsourcing project, the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowds to the end of better understanding the 2018-19 free-agent market.

Read the rest of this entry »