Ben and Sam banter about Mike Trout and Brian Cashman, then predict and discuss the results of Jerry Crasnick’s annual executive poll.
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Baseball’s hot stove season got off to an uncharacteristically early start this time around, as the Rays and Mariners made a “challenge” type of trade, centering around two young, inexpensive players with plenty of years of control remaining, shortstop Brad Miller and starting pitcher Nate Karns. I agree with most of Dave Cameron’s thoughts in the immediate wake the trade: one’s opinion of this deal largely depends on whether one believes Miller is truly a regular shortstop, and whether ones believe Karns is a long-term rotation fixture.
While there are no absolutes in the projection of either player’s future, and there are other players in the deal who will eventually impact the net result, this trade will likely come down to Miller vs. Karns. What does the weight of the evidence suggest at this point in time regarding those two players?
With Major League Baseball’s 2015 season in the books, focus has shifted to 2016. And one of the story lines that you’ll be hearing a lot about in the next year is the upcoming negotiation of a new collective bargaining agreement between MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association. Indeed, rather than wait for the current agreement to officially expire on December 1, 2016, the league and the players union will likely begin discussing a new agreement sometime in the next few months.
For the uninitiated, the CBA is the contract that governs the relationship between MLB (and its 30 teams) and the players. It dictates the rules governing free agency, players’ salaries, revenue sharing, and the length of the playing season, among a host of other issues.
As in any collective bargaining process, the league and union will discuss a variety of topics during the 2016 negotiations. And while new issues will inevitably emerge between now and next December, based on statements made over the last couple years by MLB and MLBPA officials, we can generate a pretty reliable list of what are likely to be among the most pressing issues the parties will face during the upcoming negotiations.
I’ll be examining these bargaining issues in a two-part preview of the 2016 CBA negotiations. In this initial post, we’ll take a look at: (i) the new leadership dynamic at MLB and the MLBPA, (ii) various economic-related issues that are likely to be discussed during the negotiations (including the players’ declining share of league revenues, the qualifying offer, and service time manipulation), and (iii) possible changes to the league’s Joint Drug Agreement.
Part II will then consider bargaining issues related to the draft (both domestic and, potentially, international) as well as various pace-of-play and scheduling-related issues, before offering a preliminary assessment of the likelihood that a work stoppage will impact the 2017 season.
New Leadership
While not a bargaining issue per se, one story line that is likely to emerge during the 2016 collective bargaining process is the fact that both MLB and the MLBPA will be represented by new leadership during the upcoming negotiations. On MLB’s side, the talks will be the first of Rob Manfred’s commissionership. Manfred is well acquainted with the collective bargaining process himself, having negotiated the 2002, 2006, and 2011 CBAs on behalf of MLB as its Executive Vice President for Labor Relations & Human Resources. However, with Manfred now in the commissioner’s chair, MLB’s chief legal officer, Dan Halem, will likely serve as the league’s lead negotiator.
Michael Brantley hurt his shoulder in late September, diving for a ball in Minnesota. He took four games off, and then played two more times, and then called it quits, planning to spend the early offseason rehabbing the joint. He told MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian that he hoped to avoid surgery and that the team had developed a three-week plan for him.
Unfortunately, three weeks later, his shoulder still hurt. Another four weeks after that, the team decided to have surgery, which found a small labral tear. Team doctor James Quinlan thought that Brantley would be ready to start his hitting progression in four months, rehab would be complete in five months, and that the player would see the major leagues again in six months.
Six months from today is May 9th, so no matter what, Brantley looks set to miss a month next season. The question on many Indians’ fans minds is what he’ll be like when he returns.
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: hello, fine people of the internet!
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: get your questions in and we’ll fire this thing up in about 15 minutes or so
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: let’s have a weekly soundtrack to the chat. this is something I did on Twitter for my daily commutes to the stadium during the season. i enjoy sharing music and having it shared, so what’s the harm
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: today’s chat soundtrack will be Beach House – Devotion
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What they may lack in impact bats, the Diamondbacks make up for with pitching depth. They have a lot of pitchers with high floors in the upper levels of the minors, and a few in the low minors that should move quickly. A few have top of the rotation potential. The addition of Dansby Swanson to the organization this June does a lot to help reinforce the offensive pipeline, but the team will have to do a better job developing hitters over the next few years.
Their quantity of outfield options is solid, and was something of a logjam in the upper minors this season. That four players who started playing for the team in 2015 make the top eight here is a good sign for their talent acquisition going forward. Look for the pitchers to start making their presence felt in the big leagues in 2016 and 2017, while we wait on some of the lower-level hitting prospects to put things together.
Pitching in the major leagues is almost incomprehensibly difficult. It’s easy to pick up on that fact by watching the revolving door of pitchers who simply don’t have the talent, health, or stuff to make it. There is no leeway in pitching, no slack, no grace period to ease into: major league baseball is a wood chipper that pitchers are fed into with the hope that they’ll emerge on the other side with a manageable amount of damage.
This is the main reason why pitchers live and die by velocity. With increased velocity, a pitcher’s margin of error grows, and they can get away with making more mistakes. With lower velocity, a pitcher has to rely on guile, movement, and strategy to be successful. Then, of course, there is the extreme low end of the velocity spectrum, which is what we’ll be look at today: the seldom-seen outlier, heir apparent to Jamie Moyer. These are the rare pitchers who have either figured out a way to get by with diminished stuff, or are simply (and cruelly) not long for starting duties.
The particular pitcher we’re talking about is Jered Weaver, whose fastball velocity dropped five miles per hour between the 2014 and 2015 seasons. With his fastball clocking in at just above 88 mph in September of 2014, Weaver was another veteran pitcher in the midst of a lucrative five-year, $85 million contract; a year later, after a month-long stint on the disabled list for hip inflammation, he was throwing at an average of 83-84 mph and had entered the rare territory of soft-throwing starters who are still offered a full workload. Here’s a good visual from Brooks Baseball that tells the story of what happened to his fastball velocity:
The main question today is this: what does Weaver need to do to be able to survive at this unique velocity level, and what might we learn about it from those who came before him?
Hello friends, and welcome to the National League version of Monday’s American League poll post. This is part of a little project, and after this I’m done gathering information, which means you’re done having to participate. (You don’t have to participate. But please do!) I don’t know exactly where the project is going to go, but I know I’d love to have the data.
I’ll copy and paste. This post is for fans of teams in the National League. If there are multiple teams you hold near and dear, feel free to vote in multiple polls. If you consider yourself more a fan of the game in general, then you can either sit this out, or vote in the poll for the team you feel most strongly about.
All I want to know: how did you feel about the 2015 season? As far as following your favorite team was concerned, how would you rate your overall fan experience? Use whatever criteria you like. How you feel is how you feel — vote according to that feeling. How was the regular season? Did the end spoil the middle? Did your team have a bunch of exciting young players? Did you love going to the ballpark? I understand there’s a lot of input here — there are months of individual days, each day with its own feeling. I just want to know your overall grade, as you reflect on the season that was. There are no wrong answers. Unless you lie to me for no reason.
All the polls are below. Click a team name to go straight to that part and bypass the others.
Episode 608
Dave Cameron is both (a) the managing editor of FanGraphs and (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio, during which edition he considers the free-agent cases of Jason Heyward and Ben Zobrist, speculates wildly on Scott Boras’s work week, and discusses another means by which Major League Baseball appears to be turning billions into even more billions.
This edition of the program is sponsored by Draft, the first truly mobile fantasy sports app. Compete directly against idiot host Carson Cistulli by clicking here.
Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.
You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.
Audio after the jump. (Approximately 42 min play time.)
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