| 12:31 |
: Moving Day! I’m very happy to be here for a bit.
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| 12:02 |
: Starbucks Wi-Fi. Moving Day. Let’s do this.
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| 12:02 |
: Zack Godley is a top _____ arm going into 2018.
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| 12:02 |
: SP2 in most leagues. 30-40.
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| 12:02 |
: Do you prefer dynasty or redraft leagues?
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| 12:03 |
: Dynasty. Churn and burn is not super fun to me.
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Frank Herrmann is acclimating well to baseball in Japan. In his first season in NPB, the 33-year-old Harvard alum has a 2.08 ERA, and is averaging better than a strikeout per inning, in 36 relief outings for the Rakuten Golden Eagles.Prior to taking his talents to another continent, Herrmann appeared in 36 games with the Cleveland Indians and Philadelphia Phillies over parts of four MLB seasons.
Herrmann shared his thoughts on several facets of the NPB experience — and compared one of his Rakuten teammates to Masahiro Tanaka — earlier this week.
During this series of articles that have comprised my FanGraphs Residency, I have updated my analysis of the free-agent market that I last researched over three years ago. The vast majority of my new findings have suggested that teams have gotten smarter about spending in line with true player talent, all the while spending roughly the same share of league revenue as they were spending before.
Perhaps my biggest finding is that the OPP Premium has declined. Teams used to receive significantly less WAR for signing other team’s players as they did for re-signing their own players, and this seemed largely related to private information that teams knew about their own players. As teams have become more aware of this phenomenon, the evidence suggests that they have become more careful and have driven up the price of their own players while being more reluctant to sign players on other teams.
This is especially true for pitchers, who used to have the largest OPP Premium. Hitters appear to have actually increased their OPP Premium, which is probably more related to a handful of expensive players who did not pan out rather than teams collectively getting sloppier about signing hitters.
Read the rest of this entry »
The man with a 96 mph fastball and devastating changeup looks more himself these days. Danny Salazar is back up with the Indians, dealing, and was even name-checked by his General Manager as a deadline acquisition that should make their rotation hum this postseason. It could just be two good starts, but his pitching mix is radically changed. And though that change looks drastic, the driver of change might actually be more subtle.
If you read this past Sunday’s notes column, you know that Lars Anderson is playing for an independent league team in Japan. The adventure-seeking former big-leaguer — and his Kochi Fighting Dogs teammate Manny Ramirez —were featured prominently. I concluded the segment by saying that we’d hear more from Anderson about his experiences playing baseball on the other side of the world in the near future.
As promised, here is the first installment of Lars Anderson Discovers Japan.
Is there anyone having a weirder season than Masahiro Tanaka? Dude is in the top fifteen when it comes to strikeouts minus walks, and yet he’s got an ERA over five. He’s been better recently! And he’s done it by… refusing to throw fastballs. Despite this wrinkle, he’s still giving up nearly two home runs per game. We haven’t even gotten to the weird day/night splits, but they’re part of the story, too. Weird.
At 48-57, the Atlanta Braves are nowhere near this year’s playoff race. Braves fans can look forward to a brighter future, however, as Atlanta placed nine prospects on KATOH+’s most recent top-100 list. Ozzie Albies, who is arguably the most promising of those prospects, made his big league debut last night, starting at second base.
Although he’s a 20-year-old who was born in 1997 (!), Albies’ minor-league performance suggests he’s ready for another challenge. He slashed .285/.330/.440 at Triple-A, with an exciting 21 steals. Despite his small stature, Albies popped nine homers in Triple-A, resulting in a respectable .156 ISO. Albies’ offensive performance would be compelling for any infield prospect. And coming from a 20-year-old middle infield prospect, it’s extremely compelling. Read the rest of this entry »
| 12:05 |
: Happy Wednesday, everyone.
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| 12:07 |
: Before we get to the chat, I wanted to note that I unfortunately won’t be able to attend this weekends Saber Seminar or the Pitch Talks event in NYC on Monday as originally planned. My dad had a stroke last week, and I’m in Seattle helping out for a bit. Given the fact that Carson is also on paternity leave learning how to be a Dad and that a good chunk of our staff is traveling to Boston this week, I’ll ask for a little more grace than usual this week if things aren’t running at 100% on FG. We’ll get back to normal soon enough.
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| 12:08 |
: I will really miss being at Saber Seminar, and hopefully if you were planning on saying hi this weekend, we can catch up in the not too distant future.
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| 12:08 |
: With that out of the way, let’s talk some baseball for a little bit.
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| 12:08 |
: Love Eric’s rankings of prospects dealt during the trade deadline season. Based on that write up, looks like Hahn did really good with his returns for all of his deals so far. Would you give him an A so far? What, if anything, would you have done differently?
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| 12:10 |
: I think he got the best deal he probably could have in almost every trade he’s made, maybe save the Frazier/Kahnle/Robertson swap. I do think the prospects he’s acquired are generally more well regarded by fans than is justified by their value within the game, and he’s bought a lot of of very high-risk prospects, so the White Sox failure rate might be higher than you’d expect from a farm system this good. But clearly, they have some pieces with very high upside as well, and if a few of their gambles pay off, they’ll find some stars to build around.
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To make sense of things, to organize, to help create narratives, we, as humans, like to put labels on things. We like to place people and items in specific bins. And at trade deadline time, we typically categorize teams as either buyers or sellers. I am guilty of this and it does serve a practical purpose. Generally by the end of July, teams have a pretty good idea if they are contenders or looking ahead to next season.
But things are more complicated than they once were as the two wild cards — in addition to five-team divisions — have muddied the waters of the deadline market. Read the rest of this entry »
Back in 1906, the Chicago Cubs won 116 games, lost just 36, and put up a .763 win percentage equivalent to 124 wins in a 162-game schedule. Over the next 50 or so years, three other teams won at least 110 games, and another 11 posted at least 105 wins in a season. In 1961, Major League Baseball added eight more games to the schedule, giving us the 162-game schedule that we have today. Over the next 55 years, only two teams won more than 110 games, with more teams equaling greater parity, making it tougher to put up gaudy win totals. The New York Yankees put up a modern-day record 114 wins in 1998 on their way to a World Series title, but they were bested by the 2001 Seattle Mariners, who tied the all-time record by winning 116 games on their way to not winning the World Series. The Los Angeles Dodgers are perhaps the first team since with a shot at topping the 1906 Cubs and 2001 Mariners. The Dodgers have a shot at 117.
After all the moves at the trade deadline, the Dodgers’ record stood at 74-31, a .705 winning percentage, best in all of baseball by a healthy margin over the Houston Astros. If we assume the Dodgers would just win games at the same rate going forward, the team would end up with 114 wins. Here are a few different scenarios for LA going forward:
While outplaying their projections by the seven games necessary to tie the record and eight games better to beat the record isn’t exactly likely, their record thus far, especially since mid-May indicates it is something the team is capable of. Losing Clayton Kershaw for any amount of time is certainly a blow, but picking up Yu Darvish and getting massive reinforcements for the bullpen certainly lessens that loss and could make the team even better. Read the rest of this entry »