Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community Research.
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HOUSTON — Yu Darvish left the visiting clubhouse at Minute Maid Park in a white T-shirt, a black baseball cap pulled low, and flanked by an interpreter by his side late Friday night. Down one corridor inside the bowels of the stadium was an exit route packed with guests and family of the Dodgers. He glanced at the crowd briefly and then walked in the other, less obstructed, direction.
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 2017-18 free-agent market.
Below are links to ballots for five of this year’s free agents, all of them starting pitchers or probably starting pitchers.
Other Players: Yonder Alonso / Alex Avila / Jose Bautista / Carlos Beltran / Jay Bruce / Melky Cabrera / Welington Castillo / Lorenzo Cain / Zack Cozart / Jarrod Dyson / Lucas Duda / Alcides Escobar / Yunel Escobar / Todd Frazier / Carlos Gomez / Carlos Gonzalez / Curtis Granderson / Matt Holliday / Eric Hosmer / Chris Iannetta / Jon Jay / Howie Kendrick / Jonathan Lucroy / J.D. Martinez / Cameron Maybin / Mitch Moreland / Logan Morrison / Mike Moustakas / Eduardo Nunez / Brandon Phillips / Jose Reyes / Carlos Santana / Justin Upton / Neil Walker / Jayson Werth.
Jake Arrieta (Profile)
Some relevant information regarding Arrieta:
*That is, a roughly average number of innings for a starting pitcher.
**Prorated version of final 2017 depth-chart projections available here.
| 7:36 |
: I’ll be back in a few minutes, but feel free to get the queue going.
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| 7:56 |
: What’s the O/U for innings for Darvish and McCullers? 4.2 for both?
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| 7:57 |
: I think that’s right, but we will see if either manager is a bit more conservative knowing there are three games in three days here in Houston.
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| 7:57 |
:
Who pitches more innings tonight?
Yu Darvish (80.0% | 64 votes)
Lance McCullers, Jr. (20.0% | 16 votes)
Total Votes: 80
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| 7:59 |
: I’m functioning on very little sleep but hey I can catch up in the off-season
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| 7:59 |
: hibernate in january or february. you don’t want to miss any of that hot stove action.
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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the all-time leaders in WAR for two teams, what Yu Darvish has done differently with the Dodgers, and whether Carlos Correa or Corey Seager will have the more valuable career, then answer listener emails about home-field advantage in the playoffs, projecting (and learning from) Charlie Morton’s breakout, why baseball is in a high-BABIP era, whether fielders are getting better or worse, the golden age of interleague play, what we mean when we say “short series,” challengers to Jamie Moyer’s home runs allowed record, and more.
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| 9:06 |
: Hello friends
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| 9:06 |
: Welcome to Friday baseball chat
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| 9:06 |
: Longoria gets 10-5 rights next season. Does he get traded before then?
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| 9:07 |
: I don’t know why he would. This being Tampa Bay, obviously there’s always the chance, but Longoria feels like a forever Ray
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| 9:08 |
: What does Hensley Meulens need to do to get hired as a manager in one of the three current vacancies? I’d love him with the Nationals (though current front-runner Dave Martinez *feels* like a good fit as well).
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| 9:08 |
: This comment expresses a stronger feeling about a possible managerial candidate than I could personally ever imagine possessing
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In terms of significant, game-changing moments, no World Series game in history compares to Wednesday night’s epic between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Houston Astros. In the sixth inning, Corey Seager hit a two-run homer off of Justin Verlander to break a 1-1 tie. In the top of the ninth, Marwin Gonzalez hit a solo shot to tie the game 3-3. In the 10th, Jose Altuve broke the tie with a solo shot. In the bottom half of that same inning, Enrique Hernandez’s RBI single tied the game, and then in the top of the 11th, George Springer hit a two-run homer that would put the Astros up for good. Each of those five plays increased the scoring club’s chances victory by 25% according to Win Probability Added. That’s never happened before in a World Series game.
Since 2002, only one in three games have produced plays with at least one play with a WPA of .25 or greater. To put that in greater context, consider: there have been only 18 plays total this posteason that produced a WPA of .25 or greater. Here they are, in order of impact on win probability:
| GameDate | Inning | Outs | PlayDesc | HomeTeam | AwayTeam | WPA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10/25/2017 | 10 | 2 | Enrique Hernandez singled to right (Grounder). Logan Forsythe scored. Enrique Hernandez advanced to 2B. | Dodgers | Astros | .468 |
| 10/15/2017 | 9 | 2 | Justin Turner homered (Fly). Yasiel Puig scored. Chris Taylor scored. | Dodgers | Cubs | .394 |
| 10/7/2017 | 8 | 1 | Bryce Harper homered (Fly). Victor Robles scored. | Nationals | Cubs | .388 |
| 10/14/2017 | 9 | 1 | Carlos Correa doubled to right (Fliner (Liner)). Jose Altuve scored. | Astros | Yankees | .369 |
| 10/25/2017 | 9 | 0 | Marwin Gonzalez homered (Fliner (Fly)). | Dodgers | Astros | .350 |
| 10/25/2017 | 10 | 0 | Jose Altuve homered (Fliner (Fly)). | Dodgers | Astros | .350 |
| 10/24/2017 | 6 | 2 | Justin Turner homered (Fly). Chris Taylor scored. | Dodgers | Astros | .306 |
| 10/25/2017 | 6 | 2 | Corey Seager homered (Fly). Chris Taylor scored. | Dodgers | Astros | .306 |
| 10/7/2017 | 8 | 1 | Ryan Zimmerman homered (Fly). Anthony Rendon scored. Daniel Murphy scored. | Nationals | Cubs | .300 |
| 10/6/2017 | 8 | 0 | Jay Bruce homered (Fly). | Indians | Yankees | .298 |
| 10/6/2017 | 3 | 2 | Aaron Hicks homered (Fliner (Fly)). Starlin Castro scored. Gregory Bird scored. | Indians | Yankees | .278 |
| 10/12/2017 | 5 | 2 | Addison Russell doubled to left (Grounder). Willson Contreras scored. Ben Zobrist scored. | Nationals | Cubs | .271 |
| 10/25/2017 | 11 | 0 | George Springer homered (Fliner (Fly)). Cameron Maybin scored. | Dodgers | Astros | .261 |
| 10/9/2017 | 8 | 3 | Anthony Rizzo singled to center (Fliner (Fly)). Leonys Martin scored. Anthony Rizzo out. | Cubs | Nationals | .259 |
| 10/16/2017 | 2 | 2 | Todd Frazier homered (Fliner (Fly)). Starlin Castro scored. Aaron Hicks scored. | Yankees | Astros | .258 |
| 10/9/2017 | 8 | 2 | Josh Reddick singled to left (Grounder). Cameron Maybin scored. George Springer advanced to 3B. | Red Sox | Astros | .253 |
| 10/9/2017 | 5 | 1 | Andrew Benintendi homered (Fly). Xander Bogaerts scored. | Red Sox | Astros | .253 |
| 10/6/2017 | 6 | 2 | Francisco Lindor homered (Fliner (Fly)). Carlos Santana scored. Yan Gomes scored. Lonnie Chisenhall scored. | Indians | Yankees | .251 |
Of the eight biggest plays in the postseason this year, four occurred in Game 2. Hernandez’s single in a losing effort produced the highest WPA of any play in this postseason.
A recent Sunday Notes column published here featured the title Charlie Morton Is Different (and Better). While those words referred to his pitching identity, they could just as easily refer to his personality. The 33-year-old right-hander is about as far away from Nuke LaLoosh as you can get. Thoughtful and articulate, he is anything but a cliche-spouting dumb jock.
His career has been a roller coaster. Prior to this year’s breakout with the Houston Astros, Morton had compiled a record of 46-71 and a 4.54 ERA in nine up-and-down seasons with the Braves, Pirates, and Phillies. Injuries played a big role in the inconsistencies. Along the way Morton had multiple surgeries, including Tommy John, and repairs to both hips.
And then there’s his psyche. Morton has been guilty of getting into his own head, which has resulted in frustration and a tendency to get “too finicky about things like my mechanics and my approach.” Admittedly not serious enough in his early years of pro ball, he eventually found himself taking things too seriously for his own good.
An integral part of the Astros’ win over the Yankees in Game 7 of the ALCS, Morton is scheduled to start Game 4 of the World Series on Saturday. He talked about his evolving approach to the game — and to life — at the conclusion of the regular season.
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Charlie Morton: “Between injuries and not pitching well, and getting older… your perspective changes. You try to enjoy your time. You try to enjoy the cities you go to, you try to enjoy your teammates, you try to finish up your last few years on a high note.
The stat wars are over, and the bodies are buried. Some teams still run more numbers than others, and not every organization has made the same analytical investment, but by and large, the baseball industry has embraced the analytical revolution. We don’t need to go into this. I don’t want to go into this. Baseball has leaned so hard into the numbers that, if anything, it’s created an accidental problem of homogeneous thought. Intellectual diversity might currently be at a relative low. Did you hear about the new GM? He’s just like every other GM. That’s a stupid joke that doesn’t refer to anyone, but it could also refer to almost everyone. This entire paragraph is old hat by now.
Every baseball team has numbers coming out of its ears. Every baseball team has employees with ideas of how the team could be better. The new separator is buy-in. Let’s say you’ve got a player. Let’s say the team thinks it could help the player improve. Will the player be responsive? Does the player trust the people delivering the message? We’ve entered an era of middlemen, of organizations concentrating on finding or developing better communicators. Everyone has the data. The best teams get the players to listen.
At the end of July, right up against the deadline, the Dodgers traded for Yu Darvish. The Dodgers had ideas. Yu Darvish listened.
Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the thrills, surprises, and unlikely heroes of World Series Game 2, the ongoing home-run barrage this October, and where the World Series stands, then discuss the Yankees’ decision not to bring back Joe Girardi and whether we’ve learned anything from this month’s managerial moves before returning one more time to a controversial call from NLDS Game 5.
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