FanGraphs Baseball

Pitching coordinators play an important role. They oversee development throughout their respective club’s minor-league system, roving between affiliates to ensure that organizational philosophies — many of which they’ve had a hand in designing — are being followed. Their responsibilities extend to the individual arms, as well. Each pitcher has a player plan, and the coordinators are expected to optimize his chances of making it to the big leagues.

Ron Roenicke isn’t a pitching coordinator. Nor is Erik Bennett. But both have up-close familiarity with what the position entails. Roenicke — currently on Mike Scioscia’s staff in Anaheim — has coached and managed in both the major and minor leagues since 1992. Bennett has been a pitching coach in the Angels system since 2003, most recently at the Triple-A level. He spent the bulk of the 2016 season in the big leagues, filling in for bullpen coach Scott Radinsky, who was recovering from a medical procedure.

Roenicke and Bennett shared their insight on the roles and responsibilities of pitching coordinators this past summer.

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Ron Roenicke: “The coordinators are obviously important. The pitching coach at the level a player is at is probably even more important. He’s going to be building a relationship with the guy. He’s going to know his head — what he’s thinking about — and what his positives are, on a daily basis. The coordinators — at least the good ones — will go in and take what the coach gives them, and they’ll watch to see the difference between spring training and that specific time.

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After nearly a year’s worth of negotiation sessions, and with little more than three hours remaining before the deadline, Major League Baseball’s owners and players came to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement Wednesday evening. Not only does this agreement avert a possible work stoppage, but it also means that teams will head into next week’s Winter Meetings with a better sense of the economic ground rules under which they’ll be operating in the coming seasons.

It will be at least a few weeks, if not a couple months, before the final written version of the new CBA is released publicly. Indeed, while the owners and players reached a consensus on the core components of the deal last night, many of those verbal agreements must still be reduced to writing, a process that will take some time.

Still, many of the core components of the deal have already been reported in the press. Here’s what we know so far about the new CBA:

Duration of the New CBA

To begin, the new agreement will last for five years, covering the 2017-2021 seasons. This means that by the time the next CBA expires, MLB will have enjoyed an unprecedented 26 years of uninterrupted labor peace. Considering the state of the sport’s labor relations following the 1994-95 players’ strike, that is quite an impressive accomplishment for the game.

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Teams have gotten pretty good about handling trade rumors. The teams themselves don’t operate any differently, but whenever any big name is discussed, you just about always hear the team isn’t shopping him. Rather, the front office will frequently indicate it’s open to anything. “Listening to offers,” as if there’s any other way. Big names still get traded as often as ever, but teams try to reduce anxiety in the meantime. They don’t want people stressing out until or unless there’s something worth stressing over.

The Andrew McCutchen offers have taken on a different feel. At first, it felt like, all right, maybe the Pirates would be open to trading him. But Wednesday, reports emerged that the Pirates are the ones being aggressive. I don’t know if that’s coming from the Pirates organization or somewhere(s) else, but this is pretty unusual. Pair that with the news that Austin Meadows will be playing an outfield corner and you definitely get the sense McCutchen’s days with the Pirates are numbered.

As Ken Rosenthal and others have written, it looks more likely than ever that McCutchen’s going to be dealt. If it happens, it would hardly be a shock to see it happen before the end of next week’s winter meetings. McCutchen is still to be considered a premium outfielder, so any number of teams would love to pick him up. After examining the landscape, though, I don’t see a better fit than the Nationals.

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Last year, the A’s couldn’t play defense. Matt Joyce isn’t really going to help with that. Last year, the A’s couldn’t keep their pitchers healthy. Matt Joyce isn’t really going to help with that. And, last year, the A’s couldn’t hit very much. Matt Joyce is probably going to help with that.

Here’s the deal — around this time of year, we write about a lot of transactions. We don’t write about every transaction, but we cover the majority of multi-year free-agent signings. Not every one of those signings is interesting. It took me forever to find something to say about Edinson Volquez, and I don’t even like the post that I wrote. Joyce has now signed with the A’s for two years and $11 million, meaning he got half of Volquez’s guarantee. Many of you have figured out this is a post about Joyce, and so you want to just leave and read anything else. But this one is interesting. Joyce is interesting. A few times during the season, I wanted to write him up, but I never got around to it. Now I have a reason, as the A’s might’ve found another cleanup hitter.

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With the Winter Meetings on the horizon, our position-by-position look at hitter contact quality continues, using granular exit-speed and launch-angle data as our primary guides. On Monday, it was the AL second-sackers’ turn; today, we turn to their senior-circuit counterparts.

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Have you heard? The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2017 is now available for sale. You can check out the table of contents and read some excerpts from the book here. When you finish that you can purchase it Amazon in either print or Kindle form.
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Position: St. Louis Cardinals Baseball Operations Fellowship

Location: Jupiter, Fla.
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Yesterday, Ken Rosenthal published a piece over on FoxSports arguing that, if a team wants to put themselves in the Chris Sale sweepstakes, they should consider parting with one of their “can’t touch” players.

“Can’t do that.”

That’s the phrase baseball people often use when confronted with the possibility of trading a top young player. Can’t do that. Won’t do that. Don’t even go there.

The availability of White Sox left-hander Chris Sale, however, creates a different landscape — or at least, it should.

Rarely, if ever, have we seen a pitcher obtainable under circumstances like this.

Sale, 27, is not simply one of the game’s top aces. He also is under club control for three more years — and priced well below market value at less than $13 million per season.

The White Sox, then, are justified in setting an exceedingly high bar for Sale, and should not settle for less when they start hearing the proverbial “can’t do that” from one team after another.

Rosenthal goes on to list six players who fit the criteria of a cornerstone player, the kind that Rosenthal believes Sale should bring back in return as the foundation of a deal. Those players? Alex Bregman, Andrew Benintendi, Rougned Odor, Julio Urias, Trea Turner, and Dansby Swanson.

Rosenthal is right that Sale, based on his elite performance and remarkably underpriced contract, is worth this kind of player. It’s why he ranked as the 15th most valuable asset in the game in this summer’s Trade Value series, ahead of all six of those players. But if I’m one of the teams trying to make a deal for Sale, I’d still be inclined to try and say “no thanks” to a deal built around those kinds of players.

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The Los Angeles Dodgers have been incredibly successful on the field under the Guggenheim Group, winning four straight division titles and twice coming within two games of a World Series appearances. Not only does the club possess a massive television contract with Time Warner, but they’ve also drawn more than 3.7 million fans in every season under the current ownership group. The team has also been at the top of Major League Baseball payrolls — and, including competitive-balance tax money, has paid out roughly $1.2 billion in salaries over the past four years. There are rumblings that those payroll figures could come down quite a bit, with a detailed piece from Bill Shaikin in the Los Angeles Times indicating how and why payroll could be reduced.

Shaikin does a good job separating the Dodgers’ debt issues from their payroll concerns. While obviously related at some level — both matters are relevant to the Dodgers’ financial health — the one doesn’t necessarily affect the other. According to the current (and expiring) collective bargaining agreement, teams are forbidden from carrying a franchise debt in an amount greater than eight to 12 times the team’s earnings. (The exact multiplier depends on a few different factors not worth exploring here, and how earnings are calculated and why it matters are explained in this comment.) The rule exists to ensure the financial security of all MLB teams, limit outside influences, and make certain that teams aren’t in danger of going under. The Dodgers’ ownership group has been given five years as a grace period before the rule applies to them, giving them another year to address their debt.

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