There are a lot of things going right in Oakland these days. For one thing, there are early indications that a red-hot rental and home-ownership market might finally be cooling off, even if only slightly (and very tentatively), thereby bringing four walls and a roof somewhat closer to reach for hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans in the Bay Area. For another, the unemployment rate continues to drop (although wage growth is persistently and irritatingly slow to rise). And for a third, the Oakland Athletics have been the best team in baseball (west of Jersey Street) for over a month.

For a team to go 22-8 over any stretch, as the A’s have just done since July 10th, when they were last 10 games back of the Astros, requires a lot of things to go right. It requires Tony Sipp to hang a slider to Matt Olson. It requires a sweep of Texas on the road. It requires, in short, a little bit of that fairy dust that seems to have been scattered around the HoHo Coliseum since the days when Scott Hatteberg and Jonah Hill wandered those green fields — and the A’s have had that and all these things. But it also requires a lights-out bullpen, which the A’s have manifestly also had in recent days, and it’s this feature of the club’s recent experience on which I’d like to focus for a moment, because it wasn’t clear at the beginning of the season that this level of bullpen success was something the A’s would achieve or even necessarily aspire to.

The 2017 edition of the Oakland bullpen mostly sucked. By FIP (4.44), it was the ninth-worst in the game, by ERA (4.57) the sixth-worst, and by WPA, which is as close a measure as you can get to answering the question “was this bullpen good when it counted?” it was rock-bottom — the very worst in the game. If all you knew about the 2018 edition of the A’s pen is that it would no longer include Ryan Madson (who recorded a 2.06 ERA last year), you might project that it would take a step backwards this year, even after accounting for the winter additions of xwOBA darlings Ryan Buchter, Chris Hatcher, and Yusmeiro Petit in a busy offseason for Billy Beane.

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Houston, you have a problem. Less than two weeks ago, I suggested that the battle between the A’s and Mariners for the second AL Wild Card spot was “practically the last race standing in the Junior Circuit.” At the time, the A’s — who had won 33 out of their last 44 games — were still 5.5 games behind the Astros, who themselves had rebounded from a five-game losing streak (July 25-30) to win six out of seven against the Mariners, Dodgers, and Giants. A change in the pecking order atop the AL West appeared unlikely; at the time, our playoff odds gave Oakland just a 1.0% chance of winning the division.

Since then, the Astros have lost seven out of nine to the Mariners, Rockies, and A’s, with Saturday’s 7-1 loss to Oakland knocking the two teams into a tie and marking the first time June 13 that the Astros didn’t have sole possession of first. Though they regained it with Sunday’s 9-4 win (Justin Verlander’s 200th, a topic I’ll address in an upcoming post), Houston now owns a 7-8 record in August, an 11-14 since the All-Star break, and 20-19 since July 1. Over all of those stretches, they’ve outscored their opponents (177-148 for the longest one), and they still own the AL’s second-best run differential (+200), but the defending world champions have nonetheless frittered away their advantage. They’re still the overwhelming favorites in the division, but even after Sunday’s loss, the A’s odds are up to 9.6%; in the season-to-date version, based upon this year’s stats instead of our depth-chart projections, they’re up to 25.6%.

Perhaps most disconcertingly, the Astros are 10-15 against teams .500 or better since the start of July. They’ve fattened up by going a combined 8-1 against the White Sox, Tigers, and Giants, but lost three of five to the Rangers. Of their eight other series in that span, they’ve won just three (over the Angels, Dodgers and Mariners), lost three (two to the A’s, one to the Mariners), and split two (both against the Rockies). Overall, they’re just 37-36 against teams with records .500 or better, which is better than the A’s (31-39) but worse than the Mariners (38-35), and miles behind the Red Sox (37-22) and Yankees (36-24). Against those four teams, they’re a combined 19-20 this year; throw in the Indians (4-3) and they’ve played just .500 ball against the collection of teams they’ll have to beat in order to return to the World Series.

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Currently in possession of a 68-56 record and standing just a half-game out of first place in the NL West, the Colorado Rockies are in the midst of an objectively good season. Actually, the 2017 and -18 versions of the club have the best combined two-year winning percentage for any pair of Rockies teams in history, so one could make the argument that this is Colorado’s finest run ever. They’ve had two MVP candidates in the starting lineup both seasons and the starting pitching, long a team bugaboo, ranks ninth in the majors by WAR over that time period. Things in Colorado aren’t bad, per se.

But they could be better, it seems, without much effort. One real problem for the Rockies has been the team’s lack of offensive depth. It’s an issue they’ve shown little interest in addressing. And it’s costing them real wins.

With Nolan Arenado and Charlie Blackmon in 2017 and Arenado and Trevor Story in 2018, Colorado’s top-end offensive talent has been as dangerous as that of any team in baseball. Once you look past the top of the roster, though, things become a bit more frightening. Despite the team’s respectable raw numbers, the club’s offensive line reads like a gothic horror story after you factor in our old friend, Coors Field.

Even with the impressive performances by the brand names — most notably Nolan Arenado, who has been a legitimate MVP contender both seasons — the Rockies rank near the bottom of baseball in offense. At five of the eight main offensive positions — I’m not considering pitcher hitting or the DH for interleague road games — the Rockies have ranked 25th or worse in baseball by wRC+.

Now, DJ LeMahieu is a very ordinary offensive second baseman, outside of his .348/.416/.495 campaign in 2016, but he more than makes up for any bat-related shortfall with his defense. You can’t say that for the other positions ranking near the bottom of baseball.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Clayton Kershaw’s resurgence and opt-out odds, the state of the playoff races, the Mariners’ balk-off weekend win, an unusual aspect of the 2008 CC Sabathia trade, the impending free agency of Nelson Cruz, and Ben’s article about the 1993 Athletics’ platoon-starter experiment, a precursor to the current Rays’ “opener” strategy. Then (25:09) they bring on Death Cab for Cutie singer/songwriter/guitarist (and Effectively Wild listener/composer) Ben Gibbard to talk about his band’s new album, Thank You for Today, as well as the Mariners’ season and the AL West race, how he got into baseball analysis, his favorite storylines of the season, watching the playoffs while on tour, ballparks as concert venues, singing the National Anthem, batting stances vs. singing stances, the aging curve for musicians vs. the aging curve for athletes, meeting casual music fans, being in the best shape of his life, the value of changing musical lineups, and more.

Audio intro: Death Cab for Cutie, "Gold Rush"
Audio interstitial: Death Cab for Cutie, "When We Drive"
Audio outro: Death Cab for Cutie, "60 & Punk"

Link to Mariners’ balk-off win
Link to 2008 trade-deadline retrospective
Link to Ben’s article on the 1993 A’s
Link to Ben Gibbard’s National Anthem performance
Link to Death Cab’s new album
Link to Death Cab’s upcoming concerts

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Last week, I wrote about fiduciary relationships in the context of Scott Boras and Jayson Werth, citing the seminal case of Detroit Lions v. Argovitz as a model to better understand an agent’s responsibilities to his client. (If you didn’t read that piece, you should, because it’s the prerequisite for everything which follows.)

Anyway, a number of commenters asked me to look at a slightly different configuration of the sports-agent fiduciary problem: what happens when an agent potentially has a conflict of interest which results from representing more than one player?

Before we answer, a few caveats. First, we are not analyzing actual situations here. This is not a guide on how to avoid disciplinary action by your state’s bar or your league’s player union. Second, this is a bird’s-eye view from about 50,000 feet, which is to say that we are oversimplifying things greatly. There is a lot more to it than what you see here, but submitting 20,000 words to my editor on conflicts of interest in fiduciary relationships (which is surprisingly possible) would likely draw his ire. Third, this is a broad overview based on American law. This is actually an international issue, which means that Canada and Australia, for example, have different rules. Finally, please don’t start a sports agency based on what you see here.

Now, moving on. There’s a couple of different ways to analyze the question posed above. On the surface, it may seem that having a multiple clients is not, in and of itself, a conflict of interest. And while that’s frequently the case, remember that a fiduciary owes a duty of loyalty to the beneficiary — to the exclusion of everyone else. As attorney Robert Kutcher explains,

Whenever one party places trust and confidence in a second person with that second person’s knowledge, it is possible that a fiduciary relationship is created. Such a relationship imposes on the fiduciary the duty to act in the best interest of the person who has placed his or her trust and confidence in the fiduciary. As a result, the fiduciary may not simply deal with that party at arm’s length, guided only by the morals of the marketplace.

It’s also possible to go to the other extreme. Since sports agents are fiduciaries, you could also argue that taking on more than one client is an inherent conflict of interest, because every minute dedicated to one player’s case is a minute not dedicated to another’s, to whom a fiduciary duty is owed. But that can’t be right either, because Scott Boras, for instance, has lots of clients. Most agents have multiple clients.

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Episode 829
Jay Jaffe is progenitor of the very famous JAWS metric and author of the reasonably famous The Cooperstown Casebook. On this edition of the program, he recounts a harrowing drive from Secaucus to Cooperstown, advises listeners on when not to visit the Hall of Fame’s gift shop, and relates the experience of spending some winter months in the aforementioned New York State hamlet.

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 50 min play time.)

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Clay Buchholz has been rejuvenated in Arizona. Signed off the scrap heap in early May — the Royals had released him — the 34-year-old righty is 6-2 with a 2.47 ERA in 12 starts since joining the Diamondbacks. He twirled a complete-game gem on Thursday, holding the Padres to a lone run.

Health had been holding him back. Buchholz has battled numerous injury bugs over his career, particularly in recent seasons. Cast aside by the Red Sox after a tumultuous 2016 — a 4.78 ERA and a six-week banishment to the bullpen — he made just two appearances for the Phillies last year before landing on the disabled list and staying there for the duration. Frustration was clearly at the fore.

Truth be told, he’d rarely been his old self since a sparkling 2013 that saw him go 12-1 with a 1.74 ERA — and even that season was interrupted by injury. Given his travails, one couldn’t have blamed him had he thrown up his hands and walked away from the game.

That wasn’t in his DNA.

“No, this is what I do,” Buchholz told me earlier this summer. “I wasn’t ready to give it up. And while this offseason I told myself I wasn’t going to go through the whole minor league deal again, I swallowed my pride and did that for a little bit. It was for the best, because it helped me get to where I’m at now. It feels good to be able to go out there and throw without anything going on, mentally or physically.”

Buchholz made five starts in the minors before being called up, and he did so with a glass-is-half-full attitude. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Ben’s introduction to climbing, a Mets-Phillies blowout, Scott Kingery‘s slow pitches, Jacob deGrom‘s run support, Jose Ureña‘s suspension and how to punish hit by pitches, the Rangers’ odd triple play and the 2002 debut of Ron Wright, Matt Kemp‘s slump, and an umpire’s rapid reaction, then answer listener emails about Mike Trout’s value if he couldn’t slide, the ethics of using strategy in Little League, Kevin Gausman and the decline of pitching from the stretch, making rental-trade returns contingent on what happens after the trade, how to trade up from nothing to something (Dwight Schrute-style), and the job security of established GMs like Brian Cashman, plus a Stat Blast about the humidor-equipped Chase Field and teams that hit the ball harder at home or on the road.

Audio intro: Aretha Franklin, "Think"
Audio outro: Aretha Franklin, "Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time)"

Link to Andrew McCutchen’s brawl recap
Link to Scott Kingery’s slow pitch
Link to Andrew Dominijanni’s slowest-possible-pitch trajectories
Link to Mike Fast on the slowest possible pitch
Link to Levi Weaver on the Rangers’ triple play
Link to umpire bat-flip GIF
Link to Jeff on the new Chase Field
Link to Mike Petriello on Minute Maid Park
Link to Jeff on the disappearing windup
Link to Marc Carig on the Yankees’ clubhouse culture
Link to Dan Szymborski on the decline of Kemp

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As baseball analysis has grown, the advanced metrics have begun to find their way into television broadcasts more regularly. Announcers will occasionally mention win probability in terms of game context. Pitcher FIP will be brought up alongside ERA. The slew of batter statistics — wOBA, wRC+, ISO, et al — will be used to shed further light on hitters. Even fielding metrics like UZR and DRS have slowly started creeping their way into viewers’ homes, at least from national television broadcasts.

The one quantifiable area of the game that seems to get a little less sabermetric coverage from broadcasters is baserunning. Stolen bases are of course referenced, and Statcast sprint speeds are a relatable number that does occasionally get mentioned. However, the concept of baserunning runs (BsR) has not made its way to television in the way that its fielding counterparts have.

While the introduction of Statcast sprint speeds to the public is a step forward in understanding how good a baserunner is, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Rather, it tells something more akin to the potential baserunning value that a player can bring. Activating that potential involves no small amount of baserunning instincts for basically anyone who lacks Billy Hamilton’s speed. Looking at one player in particular from 2018 clearly shows us why in explaining runner ability, broadcasts need to go beyond sprint speed.

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