FanGraphs Baseball

For the first time in four decades, the U.S. Supreme Court will have an opportunity to reconsider baseball’s notorious exemption from antitrust law. On Wednesday, the city of San Jose, California filed an appeal with the nation’s highest court, asking it to overturn professional baseball’s nearly century-old immunity from the Sherman Antitrust Act.

The appeal is the latest step in the litigation surrounding the Oakland A’s proposed move to San Jose. Back in 2013, the city sued Major League Baseball claiming that the league’s failure to approve the A’s relocation violated federal antitrust law. The district court dismissed the lawsuit later that same year, concluding that baseball’s exemption shielded MLB’s relocation decisions from antitrust scrutiny. That decision was upheld earlier this year by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

While these lower courts were constrained by a series of Supreme Court precedents exempting baseball from the Sherman Act, the Supreme Court itself is not bound to follow the prior rulings. So San Jose is asking the Court to seize this opportunity to overturn baseball’s highly controversial antitrust immunity. Like any appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, however, the odds that the Court will agree to take San Jose’s appeal are rather slim.

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Happy Kris Bryant Day!

Kris Bryant is finally free. After spending his obligatory two weeks in the minors, the highly-touted slugger has been summoned to the major leagues. He’ll slot into the Cubs lineup today, and will be playing third base, putting an end to the much-maligned Mike Olt era in Chicago.

By now, you’re probably well familiar with Bryant’s prospect pedigree. After three monster seasons at the University of San Diego, the Cubs took Bryant with the 2nd overall pick in 2013, right behind Mark Appel. Bryant made quick work of the minor leagues, destroying opposing pitchers to the tune of .330/.429/.662 in his year and a half in the minors. Bryant was a highly-touted prospect dating back to his college days, but his prospect status ticked up to elite following his 2014 performance. He hit .325/.438/.661 between Double-A and Triple-A last year, and belted a whopping 43 homers along the way — the most of any player in affiliated baseball.

Unsurprisingly, KATOH’s all over him. My system forecasts the slugger for a remarkable 16 WAR through age-28, which was the 2nd most of any prospect last winter; Only Joc Pederson earned a higher projection. Here are the probabilities my system spits out for Bryant through age-28. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben and Sam talk to Mark Armour and Dan Levitt, the authors of In Pursuit of Pennants, about whether good GMs have to break rules, how long competitive advantages last, and how good teams go bad.

Click to enlarge.

“In Soviet Russia, television watches you,” famous bearded dissident Yakov Smirnoff revealed in his politically charged comedy jokes of the 1980s. In the United States, meanwhile, the arrangement is different. In the United States — or at least the United States of April 16, 2015 — what happens is you watch Red Sox GM Ben Cherington watching draft-eligible Vanderbilt right-hander Carson Fulmer.

As for who is watching you — or, for that matter, whom Carson Fulmer himself is watching — it’s difficult to say. That these and other similar scenarios are depicted in an MC Escher drawing is almost certain, however.

Image courtesy a combination of Kiley McDaniel and Cespedes Family BBQ.

With certain players, you just don’t get the usual questions. Lorenzo Cain is one of them. By our numbers, last year, Cain was just about a five-win center fielder. In large part, this was powered by a Defense rating close to +20. UZR and DRS both absolutely loved him, and frequently that magnitude of statistical affection makes some people uncomfortable, but there wasn’t much questioning Cain’s ability, especially come playoff time. He’s obviously an elite defensive center fielder. Last year, he was an above-average hitter and runner. Put it together and you have a great player. It’s pretty easy to explain Cain’s five wins above replacement.

So coming into this year, Cain looked terrific. He stood to be a weapon for the Royals, if somewhat incomplete. Few can match him in the field. Only a few more could match him on the bases. And Cain has learned to hold his own at the plate, after some struggles earlier in his career. Yet Cain still had some room for offensive development. He was far from a finished product, and through a couple weeks now, there’s a sign that, perhaps, Cain is about to lift that part of his game. Let’s take a look at his Thursday.

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I told Rafael Betancourt that he hadn’t hit a batter with any of his last 10,307 pitches thrown. He laughed, and said nobody had ever told him that before. “I remember it. It was Marcus Thames. Funny thing was? It was an 0-2 count,” the Rockies reliever said. When I asked if it was the last time he ever went inside, he only laughed. He wanted to protest, I could tell, but he also knew he didn’t go inside much.

The rest of the interview didn’t produce much, other than the fact that the deception he shows in his delivery wasn’t crafted. The way Betancourt’s arm comes up behind his head is just the way he throws the ball. “That’s the way I’ve always thrown the ball, even when I was a fielder, even when I played shortstop — but I feel that the ball is always coming from the same spot,” he said of his uncommon release action.

Even though he lives on the outside corner — and admitted as much — he didn’t really want to get into specifics about the adjustments he’d made to combat hitters hanging over the outside corner. You can see that he’s gone to the slider a little more over the years, and has even used the pitchfork changeup some more, but the location hasn’t changed.

Nor has his ability to avoid the free pass… or the hit batter.

Earlier this week, the author published a post claiming to include the top players by (maybe) predictive stats from college baseball’s most competitive conferences.

What follows are the three weekend series likely to feature the greatest number of players whose names appeared within that post. MPS+ and MPS- are index metrics based on those (maybe) predictive stats and designed for batters and pitchers, respectively. In each case, 100 is average, while above 100 is better for batters and below 100 is better for pitchers. Read more about the author’s questionable methodology here.

Arkansas at Texas A&M
Who It Features
One of the best players in all the SEC. Draft-eligible sophomore and Arkansas center fielder Andrew Benintendi (160 PA, 151 MPS+) leads not merely the conference but all of Division 1 with 14 home runs. He’s also recorded a strikeout rate (12.5%) about a standard deviation better than conference average and occupies (one notes) a place on the more challenging end of the defensive spectrum. All five of the following also appear among the conference’s top-20 batters: junior right fielder Tyler Spoon (148 PA, 123 MPS+) and junior third baseman Bobby Wernes (151 PA, 115 MPS+) on Arkansas; plus sophomore right fielder Nick Banks (148 PA, 114 MPS+), sophomore third baseman Ronnie Gideon (107 PA, 118 MPS+), and junior left fielder Logan Taylor (132 PA, 128 MPS+) for Texas A&M. Among pitchers, Arkansas’ Friday night starter Grayson Long (51.0 IP, 86 MPS-) has produced the best numbers. Long features a fastball that sits in the low-90s and peaks at 93 mph, according to Perfect Game.

When It’s On (ET)
Friday at 7:30pm
Saturday at 8:30pm
Sunday at 4:00pm

How to Watch It
SEC Network and Watch ESPN (link).

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You’ve probably seen what Kevin Pillar did on Wednesday. On the off chance you haven’t, we’ll get to that later, at the right time. Let this much be said now: it was absolutely extraordinary. But it also wasn’t the first Pillar highlight of the season. The guy who was supposed to lose time to Michael Saunders has so far played in place of Michael Saunders, and, it’s been a busy several days.

One play alone can’t explain this: in the early going — the very-stupid-early going — Pillar leads baseball in Defensive Runs Saved, with seven. As a matter of fact, if you set a low threshold of 500 innings, then, since 2010, Pillar ranks third among major-league outfielders in DRS per inning, or per 1,000 innings, or per whatever denominator you choose. He hasn’t played enough for that to be super meaningful, but he’s done enough for that to be interesting, and it isn’t lost on me that a pillar is a stationary building support. Grant Balfour has been a pretty good pitcher. Kevin Pillar has been a pretty good defender.

So let’s review Pillar’s week that was. Everything you see below was contained within Pillar’s most recent seven games, through Wednesday, with the first game chosen because that’s when Pillar recorded his first assist. I noted that Pillar has been busy. Ever wondered what 7 DRS looks like? Wednesday’s catch was just the latest feat. And there have been close calls. And there have been misplays. The antonym of “pillar” is “Kevin Pillar”, apparently, because he hasn’t been able to stop moving around. The man’s made himself noticed.

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The Arizona Diamondbacks generated a fair amount of excitement yesterday when they promoted Yasmany Tomas. After the experiment to play Tomas at third base had failed, or at least been tabled for awhile, during Spring Training, Tomas was sent to Triple-A Reno where he had been playing right field. With A.J. Pollock in center field, Mark Trumbo in right field, and Ender Inciarte off to a fast start in left field, there did not appear to be a spot for immediate playing time for Tomas, fueling speculation that perhaps another move was in the offing. Excitement and speculation soon yielded to confusion as Tomas was not in the starting lineup and news that Tomas had been brought up as a bench bat.

The Diamondbacks called up their $68 million investment to sit on the bench, the problem arising due to an unusual roster construction and injuries to two of the three catchers on their 40-man roster with significant experience at the position. When the season started, Arizona put 12 pitchers and 13 position players on the 25-man roster. After Gerald Laird hit the disabled list, the Diamondbacks chose to supplement the bullpen with an additional arm for a few games, calling up A.J. Schugel.

After a few games with the loaded bullpen and shorthanded bench, the Diamondbacks decided to move back to the more traditional setup of having 13 position players and 12 pitchers on their active roster. Due to injuries at catcher, the Diamondbacks were faced with a difficult decision on their roster. Prior to making a move the active roster looked like this (Players on the disabled list in italics):
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It’s not very often you see Andrew McCutchen making a mistake, but it happened yesterday in Pittsburgh’s 1-0 loss to the Tigers. A tip of the hat to Pirates broadcasters Tim Neverett and Bob Walk for pointing out this interesting wrinkle.

It was the Pirates’ half of the fourth inning, with the game tied 0-0 and Alfredo Simon on the mound for the Tigers. With two outs and nobody on, McCutchen hit a single (the Pirates’ first hit of the game) and stood on first with Neil Walker at the plate.

Walker hit a bloop single to right field. It dropped just in front of J.D. Martinez:

What the baserunner on first, in this case McCutchen, has done since the dawn of time in this instance is go to second — and go to third only if the outfielder terribly misplays the ball. Here is McCutchen at second, monitoring Martinez to see if he misplays the ball. (He doesn’t.)

The modern(ish) wrinkle here is that the Tigers were shifting against Walker. Here is their formation before the pitch (click to embiggen):

And here is what their defense looked like the moment McCutchen was rounding second. Martinez is throwing in the ball from right, and arrows are pointing at Tigers, while McCutchen is in the tiny circle:

So here’s McCutchen’s mistake: he should not be looking at Martinez, because it almost doesn’t matter how Martinez plays this ball. What’s important is that Detroit’s shift has left third base vacated. Third basemen Nick Castellanos (underneath top arrow) is near McCutchen at second base, and also facing Martinez. Castellanos is a few steps closer to third, but that doesn’t matter: he would need to turn around, beat McCutchen in a footrace, turn back towards the field (only now can the relay man deliver the throw), see and catch the ball, and finally apply the tag. Simon (underneath second arrow) is a bit closer to third base, but is also faced towards right field, and I’d take McCutchen in the race to apply the tag.

It seems like the only Tiger aware of the danger is catcher James McCann, playing in career game #13, who is moving up the third-base line while facing right field. Despite his gear, he would have been the only Tiger to have a shot at catching McCutchen. Nice.

Keep in mind, McCutchen has a great chance to beat the Tigers to third after he has decelerated to a stop, and then turned around. With a more aggressive pre-pitch strategy, I think third base could easily have been his.

We always wonder what factors could lead to the shift’s natural death — or at least a factor that would start the frequency of the shift trending downward. Perhaps enough baserunners going from first to third on well-played bloop singles would do the trick.