The following article is part of a series concerning the 2025 Classic Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering long-retired players, managers, executives, and umpires whose candidacies will be voted upon on December 8. It is adapted from a chapter in The Cooperstown Casebook, published in 2017 by Thomas Dunne Books. For an introduction to the ballot, see here, and for an introduction to JAWS, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
2025 Classic Baseball Candidate: Dick Allen
Player
Career WAR
Peak WAR
JAWS
Dick Allen
58.7
45.9
52.3
Avg. HOF 3B
69.4
43.3
56.3
H
HR
AVG/OBP/SLG
OPS+
1,848
351
.292/.378/.534
156
SOURCE: Baseball-Reference
“Dick Allen forced Philadelphia baseball and its fans to come to terms with the racism that existed in this city in the ’60s and ’70s. He may not have done it with the self-discipline or tact of Jackie Robinson, but he exemplified the emerging independence of major league baseball players as well as growing black consciousness.” — William Kashatus, The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 2, 1996
At first glance, Dick Allen might be viewed as the Gary Sheffield or Albert Belle of his day, a heavy hitter seemingly engaged in a constant battle with the world around him, generating controversy at every stop of his 15-year career. It’s unfair and reductive to lump Allen in with those two players, however, for they all faced different obstacles and bore different scars from the wounds they suffered early in their careers.
In Allen’s case, those wounds predated his 1963 arrival in the majors with a team that was far behind the integration curve, and a city that was in no better shape. In Philadelphia and beyond, he was a polarizing presence, covered by a media contingent so unable or unwilling to relate to him that writers often refused to call him by the name of his choosing: Dick Allen, not Richie. Read the rest of this entry »
When I talked to him at last year’s GM meetings, J.J. Picollo told me that an offseason priority was to add “guys with experience” to a Kansas City Royals roster that was long on promising young talent but short on veteran presence. Picollo did just that — Seth Lugo, Hunter Renfroe, Will Smith, and Michael Wacha were among those brought on board — and while the additions only told part of the story, the end result was a best seller. One year after winning just 56 games, the 2024 Royals went 86-76 and played October baseball for the first time in a decade.
What does the AL Central club’s Executive Vice President/General Manager see as the top priority going into next season?
“We need to be a little more dynamic offensively, and by that I mean we need to get on base at a higher rate than we did this year,” Picollo told me earlier this week in San Antonio. “We’re trying to target players we can lengthen out our lineup with, whether it’s someone at the top, in the middle, or toward the back end. Our identity is more pitching and defense, base running, and situational hitting, so how can we add some guys that can complement what we already have that will allow us to score more runs?”
The Royals crossed the plate 735 times in 2024, the sixth-highest total in the American League. Their .306 on-base percentage was ninth-highest, while their .403 slugging percentage and their 170 home runs ranked sixth and tenth respectively. As power obviously helps provide more runs, I asked Picollo if OBP is indeed the priority. Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a listener proposal to artificially designate (and trade) a two-way player, then (19:28) conduct the 10th annual free agent contract over/under draft, plus closing banter (1:09:45) about the new Sacramento team’s city designation, a Philly front-office shuffle, and POBO priority.
The following article is part of a series concerning the 2025 Classic Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering long-retired players, managers, executives, and umpires whose candidacies will be voted upon on December 8. First written for FanGraphs in 2019, it has been updated with additional research. For an introduction to the ballot, see here, and for an introduction to JAWS, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
Eric A Longenhagen: Howdy from sunny Tempe, Arizona where last weekend I went people watching up by the college to see some Halloween craziness, and instead the lady sitting next to me at the bar had a seizure or a stroke or something and I got to play paramedic in front of like 24 people. Sometimes things don’t go the way you plan.
12:16
AN1: How are you feeling on Creed Willems? He has smoked some balls out west. Doesn’t K a ton either and is 21 for the first half of 2025. Anything there?
12:18
Eric A Longenhagen: I’ll take the under. He has power but chases a ton for a 1B and I’m not sure how long he’s going to be athletically viable. Some model-driven team would probably take him in a deal, though.
12:18
Dk: Would you trade Tong, Williams and Gilbert for Crochet? Would it be enough?
12:20
Eric A Longenhagen: I’d be trying to do better than that (I’d rather have Sproat than either Tong or Gilbert by kind of a lot, and I’d need to pry away at least one of Baty or Ronny Mo) but I appreciate you including Jett, who I think is gonna be good.
12:20
Scott M.: What do you make of Josue Briceno and Thayron Liranzo’s AFL performances so far? And what’s the likelihood either will stick at catcher?
The Seattle Mariners had the most starter innings in the majors this year and fell short of the playoffs. Conversely, Detroit Tigers had the fewest starter innings and reached the postseason. For their part, the Kansas City Royals, who had the second-most starter innings, did play October baseball, while the San Francisco Giants, who had the second-lowest total, did not. And then there were the Milwaukee Brewers. Much like the Tigers, the Brewers made the postseason despite getting a low number of innings from their starters — they ranked fifth from the bottom — in part because several of their relievers had outstanding seasons.
What does that all mean? Moreover, what might it mean going forward?
In search of answers, I spoke with the general mangers and/or presidents of baseball operations of the five aforementioned teams at this week’s GM Meetings in San Antonio, Texas. For the execs whose clubs had a low number of starter innings, I was interested in how few innings they felt they could get next year and return (or advance) to the postseason. For those whose clubs topped the starter innings rankings, my inquiries were more about their philosophy and preferences in the seasons to come.
———
Justin Hollander, Seattle Mariners
“I don’t think there is such a thing as too many [starter innings],” said Hollander, whose club had 942 2/3 starter innings this season. “We are very cognizant of pitcher health and of making sure we’re putting them in positions to succeed. I think we did about as well as you can with that. In a perfect world, you would never have a stressful inning as a pitcher; that’s not realistic. But surrounding our starters with an impact bullpen, which we’ve done over the years, gives the manager and the pitching coaches the freedom and confidence to let the starter go to the point where they feel like they’ve done everything they can to win the game.
“Our starters take a ton of pride in going deep into the game. We don’t want to artificially limit them, or script out what that’s going to look like. Watching and evaluating the game as it goes on — when is the right time? — is something that our staff has done a great job of.”
The days of a Mickey Lolich going 300-plus innings, like he did multiple times in the 1970s with the Tigers, are long gone and unlikely to be repeated. Even so, are today’s top-end innings standards — Logan Gilbert’s 208 2/3 was this year’s highest total — at all detrimental to a pitcher’s long-term health and effectiveness?
“In the 2024 baseball universe, our starters are pretty optimized,” opined Hollander. “And I think there is a distinction between optimized and maxed out. We’re not looking to max out and get every possible pitch out of our starters, we’re looking to optimize the performance of our team. We don’t ask them to do more than that, because then you might be risking maximizing to the detriment of the team.
Despite “an impact bullpen,” giving more innings to relievers hasn’t been a consideration for the Mariners.
“We’ve never talked about that,” Hollander told me. “Obviously, there is a rest component, and there may be a time when someone hasn’t pitched in a few days so it’s kind of a must-pitch day for them if there is a spot to get them in the game. I think we had a great balance this year between pitcher usage and pitcher rest. But I don’t think we ever factored in the idea of wanting to take a starter out to put someone in from the bullpen if it wasn’t time to take the starter out. Our starters are among the highest-impact starters in baseball. We want to do everything we can to put them in position to succeed for as many innings as they have to give us.”
———
Scott Harris, Detroit Tigers
Citing both his team’s 753 starter innings, a number that owes something to a spate of injuries, as well as the volatility of reliever performances year to year, I asked Harris, “What is the fewest you can get next year and return to the postseason?”
“I think the line between starter and reliever is blurring,” Harris replied. “If you watched the Tigers in the second half, we didn’t have traditional starters that started our games; we had a pitcher come in and replicate a starter’s workload. The philosophy behind that is, we felt like we could get better matchups without putting an extra strain on our bullpen. And we didn’t actually put an extra strain on our bullpen. So, I don’t think it will be hard to replicate what we did last year if we choose to pursue that nontraditional pitching strategy of a reliever starting a game, then a starter-type pitching the bulk innings, and then relievers coming in at the end of a game. Read the rest of this entry »
On Monday, we published this year’s installment of our annual Top 50 Free Agent rankings. Those rankings were compiled by Ben Clemens, with the players listed in the order in which he prefers them, but he’d be the first to tell you that there isn’t a lot of daylight separating many of the guys toward the back of the list. Particularly in a class like this, with a lot of good-but-not-great free agents, there are probably a number of players who fell just outside the Top 50 who you could argue merit inclusion. With that in mind, I asked the writers who provided the player-specific commentary for this year’s rankings a question: Which player who didn’t make the list would you have included on your personal Top 50?
These are their answers, with the players listed in alphabetical order. Enjoy! – Meg Rowley
Scott Barlow, Relief Pitcher
Dependable relievers are especially valuable in today’s game, and that should make Scott Barlow an attractive, relatively low-cost option on the free agent market. Over the last four seasons, the 31-year-old right-hander has averaged 66 appearances with a 3.21 ERA, a 3.38 FIP, and a 27.7% strikeout rate. Sliders and curveballs have been his primary weapons. When I talked to Tim Herrinearlier this summer, Barlow’s then teammate called him “Scotty Spin,” saying that he had “the best breaking stuff” in the Cleveland Guardians bullpen. Read the rest of this entry »
Location: Citi Field – Queens, New York Status: Full time
Summary:
The New York Mets are seeking a Director, Baseball Systems to lead the product engineering team responsible for developing software for Baseball Operations. The Director, Baseball Systems will work closely with stakeholders across Baseball Operations, develop a deep understanding of the needs of a diverse set of stakeholders (e.g., players, scouts, field staff, front office personnel), and oversee the execution of a software development roadmap to enable better decision making, improve workflows, and present video, data, and other information in an intuitive format for users across Baseball Operations. The ideal candidate is an engineering and product leader with extensive experience as a full-stack software engineer with prior experience working in either an elite sports environment or for a technology company serving elite sports clients. Prior experience working in elite sports is preferred, but not required.
Essential Duties & Responsibilities:
Partner with senior leadership to shape the product roadmap for the Baseball Systems Department and own its execution
Lead and manage a product engineering team that possesses capabilities required to deliver best-in-class software applications for Baseball Operations
Understand product needs of a diverse set of end users and drive the Baseball Systems team to nimbly and efficiently execute against priorities
Ensure a maintainable codebase and software applications are both secure and reliable
Partner with Data Engineering and Baseball Technology & Video teams to ensure data and video capture and delivery meets the needs of end users
Partner with Performance Technology team on the development of software to serve sports science, biomechanics, and athlete management use cases
Take on engineering work as bandwidth allows
Manage the department’s budget and make investment recommendations to senior leadership
Build and maintain a department culture that is evidence informed, open and willing to debate, and in seeking continued growth (both from one another and from external sources)
Qualifications:
Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in computer science or a related field
8+ years relevant professional experience, including experience managing a technical team
Strong experience across the technology stack, including cloud (GCS, AWS, etc.), SQL, JavaScript (including Node.js, React), API frameworks (including REST, GraphQL), HTML and CSS (including popular frameworks like Tailwind)
Experience in mobile development (Objective-C, Java) is a plus
Experience working in collaboration with data engineers, analysts, designers, and third-party engineers
Experience working in collaboration with non-technical personnel
Experience with DevOps and Agile methodologies and modern development tools
Experience with UX/UI design preferred
Strong written and verbal communication skills
Ability to work cooperatively with others, and to take control of large-scale projects with limited oversight
Strong working knowledge of baseball including modern baseball performance data preferred
The above information is intended to describe the general nature, type, and level of work to be performed. The information is not intended to be an exhaustive or complete list of all responsibilities, duties, and skills required for this position. Nothing in this job description restricts management’s right to assign or reassign duties and responsibilities to this job at any time. The individual selected may perform other related duties as assigned or requested.
The New York Mets recognize the importance of a diverse workforce and value the unique qualities individuals of various backgrounds and experiences can offer to the Organization. Our continued success depends heavily on the quality of our workforce. The Organization is committed to providing employees with the opportunity to develop to their fullest potential.
Salary Range: $210,000 – $250,000
For technical reasons, we strongly advise to not use an .edu email address when applying. Thank you very much.
Ben Lindbergh and FanGraphs writer Ben Clemens banter about the latest batch of Scott Boras puns, position changes for Willson Contreras and Mookie Betts, surgery for Shohei Ohtani, Skip Schumaker’s move to Texas, and Buster Posey’s front-office philosophy, then (47:21) discuss Other Ben’s top 50 free agents list—focusing on Juan Soto, Blake Snell, Corbin Burnes, Pete Alonso, Gleyber Torres, underrated/overrated options, and market trends—and (1:19:12) MLB’s most interesting offseason storylines.
I’m using a new format for our postseason managerial report cards this year. In the past, I went through every game from every manager, whether they played 22 games en route to winning the World Series or got swept out of the Wild Card round. To be honest, I hated writing those brief blurbs. No one is all that interested in the manager who ran out the same lineup twice, or saw his starters get trounced and used his best relievers anyway because the series is so short. This year, I’m sticking to the highlights, and grading only the managers who survived until at least their League Championship series. I already covered Stephen Vogt, Carlos Mendoza, and Aaron Boone. Today, I’m looking at Dave Roberts.
My goal is to evaluate each manager in terms of process, not results. If you bring in your best pitcher to face their best hitter with the series on the line, that’s a good decision regardless of the outcome. Try a triple steal with the bases loaded only to have the other team make four throwing errors to score three runs? I’m probably going to call that a blunder even though it worked out. Managers do plenty of other things — getting team buy-in behind closed doors for new strategies or unconventional bullpen usage is a skill I find particularly valuable — but as I have no insight into how that’s accomplished or how each manager differs, I can’t exactly assign grades for it.
I’m also purposefully avoiding vague qualitative concerns like “trusting your veterans because they’ve been there before.” Playoff coverage lovingly focuses on clutch plays by proven performers, but Luke Weaver and Brent Honeywell were also important contributors this October. Forget trusting your veterans; the playoffs are about trusting your best players. Mookie Betts is important because he’s great, not because he already had two rings. There’s nothing inherently good about having been around a long time; when I’m evaluating decisions, “but he’s a veteran” just doesn’t enter my thought process. Let’s get to it. Read the rest of this entry »
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