Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the latest Shohei Otani news, the contract requests of free agents J.D. Martinez and Jay Bruce, the Tigers’ MLB-worst World Series odds, and changes in catcher-framing stats, then review the results of Jeff’s survey on 2017 fan satisfaction.
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While next offseason’s historic free-agent class will create quite the hot-stove spectacle — maybe the most memorable in the free-agency era — the current class isn’t without intrigue, either. Yu Darvish and Shohei Ohtani are likely to be the top prizes. That said, first base is shaping up to be an interesting position, too.
Yonder Alonso, Lucas Duda, Eric Hosmer, Logan Morrison, and Carlos Santana, are each available to bidders on the market. Hosmer is the top brand name amongst the group and had the best season, recording a 4.1 WAR and 135 wRC+ in 2017, each mark a career best. Hosmer is among the young players in the game who elected not to trade in earning potential for security in the form of a pre-arbitration contract extension, and he’s being rewarded by entering the market in his prime, having just completed his age-27 season.
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: Hello friends
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| 9:06 |
: Welcome to Friday baseball chat
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| 9:06 |
: Does Cozart continue hitting enough to be a realistic 3B option for someone?
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: I imagine he’s going to stay at shortstop, and I imagine he’s going to stay with the Reds
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: I don’t think that’s anything like a guarantee, but it’s my current best guess
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| 9:07 |
: We’re a long way out from the MLB All-Star Game, but should there be a substitution rule where one [1] player can be reentered into the game? It’s an exhibition and we all want to see the best players in the tightest spot anyways, right?
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An early Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah everyone. The Nippon-Ham Fighters are reportedly going to post Shohei Ohtani.
Now there’s still an obstacle to be cleared.
The Fighters want the old posting fee of $20 million to be grandfathered into the arrangement, and Joel Sherman of the New York Post reported there is a “tentative agreement” in place between the MLB and NPB to do just that. Now, the MLBPA simply must sign off. That appears to be the final hurdle.
You probably couldn’t find two more different-looking pitchers than Chris Sale and Bartolo Colon. The former resembles a slingshot made of chopsticks and a rubber band, while the latter is what might happen if a 19th-century howitzer were to assume human properties. Each pitcher throws a bunch of sinkers, sure; otherwise, though, their arsenals are a study in contrast, as well. Colon’s all fastballs, three-quarters release, right side. Sale has bendy stuff coming from a low, left-handed sidearm slot.
There’s one thing, though: they’ve both lasted longer than people thought they might. And there’s a quality they possess in common, something about their approaches, that might be helping in that regard.
The other day, I ran a polling project, asking you to consider the 2017 season overall. I wanted to know about your fan experiences, as followers of particular teams, and this is the same project I ran after last season, and after the season before. The initial post is always fun, for the dialogue that gets started, but the real meat is in the data analysis. So I always most look forward to the data analysis, which I’ll be discussing below. Thanks to the many thousands of you who participated in the voting, since, obviously, without votes, this would be an embarrassing failure. You know those polls you occasionally stumble upon with like three or four responses? That is my nightmare. Thank you for not making me live out my nightmare.
The worst called strike of this season was thrown in the eighth inning of a game between the Astros and the Tigers on the second-to-last day of July. I measure these things by the distance between the location of the pitch and the nearest part of the rule-book strike zone, and, here, we have a called strike on a pitch that missed the zone by 9.8 inches. It’s not a pitch that’s out there on an island — there are always a bunch of called strikes on pitches that miss by six or seven or eight inches — but 9.8 inches is a hell of a distance. I’m holding up two fingers in front of me. Are they separated by 9.8 inches? I don’t know, but they’re separated by what my eyes estimate would be about 9.8 inches. Big miss, considering the umpire is *right there*. We’ve got the season’s worst called strike identified. And maybe the most amazing thing about it: no one cared. You couldn’t even bring yourself to care today. It’s impossible. You’ll see what I mean. But first, a brief statement.
I hate SunTrust Park. I’ve never been there. It’s brand new. I’m sure a lot of thought went into its design, and I’m sure it has its perks. All the new ballparks have their perks. I don’t care about the SunTrust Park design or amenities. I care about the SunTrust Park technology. And the pitch-tracking data from SunTrust Park is garbage. It’s horribly calibrated, and it makes a project like this super annoying. I looked at dozens and dozens of potential worst called strikes. The bulk of the candidates were thrown in Atlanta, and all of them were off. By, like, several inches, in different directions. That’s been aggravating for me, today, but there are also some broader implications.
Pitch locations feed into a lot of the data we like to use. And if you can’t trust the pitch locations, you can’t trust the data. Incorrect locations would affect, say, zone rates. They’d affect chase rates. They’d affect framing metrics. I hope that people smarter than me are aware of this. I hope they’re working to fix this, if they haven’t already. There’s no excuse. In its initial year of existence, SunTrust Park was messed up. Not in a way many people would ever notice, but *I* noticed, and right now I’m the one writing.
Okay, now back to the worst called strike. We’re not going to Atlanta. We’re going to Detroit!
The Dodgers have an unusual surplus: they’re hoarding all the framing runs. Well, many of the framing runs.
Framing and receiving is just another area where the club separated itself from the field in 2017. Even as pitch-framing data went insane this last year, the Dodgers nevertheless extracted considerable value from their catchers, a development illustrated by the following chart.
The Dodgers have on their roster two of the game’s great receivers, Austin Barnes and Yasmani Grandal, each of whom who possess above-average offensive skills for the position.
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: you, me, this chat here, it’s a
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| 12:00 |
: Hate to be that guy who suggests the JBJ trade, but is him (to be replaced by JD), Groome, and Chavis enough to make the Rays consider trading archer
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| 12:01 |
: Is that a great fit? I mean in terms of assets, maybe it’s enough, but it depends on what rankings either team has on the prospects. In terms of fits, though, they have a center fielder and a third baseman…
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| 12:01 |
: Eno, I was just visiting the west coast with the intention of a move soon; however, how do west coasters handle the 9am Fangraphs chats? These chats are a godsend midday here for those on the east coast.
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| 12:02 |
: Gotta show early, do some email responses that cc the whole office and let you know you’re there, close the door, and talk into the phone intermittently like you’re on a conference call. solved.
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| 12:02 |
: With the change in use of mediocre starters (i.e. likely fewer innings and chances at wins and K’s) is it time to focus more on power long relievers for fantasy?
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Aaron Bummer made 30 relief appearances for the Chicago White Sox this season. The first two were especially memorable. The 24-year-old left-hander stepped onto a big-league mound for the first time on July 27 and promptly struck out crosstown rival Anthony Rizzo. Two batters later, he gave up a bomb to Kyle Schwarber.
On July 29, Bummer entered a tie game with two on and two out in the top of the eighth inning, and retired Cleveland’s Michael Brantley. He then came back out for the ninth and took the loss in atypical fashion. Lifted with two on and two out in the ninth, Bummer watched as the pitcher who replaced him plunked consecutive batters (yes, Brandon Guyer was one of them), forcing in the deciding run.
A few days later, I talked to Bummer about those experiences — and about earning his degree from the University of Nebraska while recovering from Tommy John surgery — when the White Sox visited Fenway Park.
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Bummer on reaching the big leagues: “The past week has definitely been surreal. Things started calming down as I got into a routine — it turned more into just baseball — but now that I’m in Fenway Park… I mean, this is as pinnacle as it gets. Coming here kind of brought the surreal back, kind of got those butterflies going again.