FanGraphs Baseball

Last night, Brett Lawrie went 0-for-4, making the game’s last out as the potential tying run. Worse, he had four strikeouts. Worse, he saw 12 pitches. It was the perfect golden sombrero, and, seldom am I given a more obvious article topic. Indeed, seldom is the Internet given a more obvious article topic, and this has already shown up everywhere. As such, I want to begin with an anecdote that isn’t showing up everywhere. Phillies fans already know about this, but you probably aren’t a Phillies fan, so this is probably new.

1983. Mike Schmidt is 33, and one of the best players in baseball. He’ll eventually finish third in MVP voting, and he’ll be worth 7 WAR. He’ll lead the league in dingers. On May 28, he starts at third in a game against the Expos. Montreal’s started Charlie Lea. The Phillies counter with John Denny. That part doesn’t matter.

Up in the first with men on the corners, Schmidt strikes out on three pitches. Up in the third with a man on first, Schmidt strikes out on three pitches. Up in the fifth with men on first and second, Schmidt strikes out on three pitches. Up in the seventh with a man on first, Schmidt strikes out on three pitches. Word gets around. Schmidt’s being taunted even by fans of his own team.

Goes to the ninth, 3-3. Montreal turns to Jeff Reardon. Schmidt comes up with two down and the winning run on second. The homer is Schmidt’s eighth of the year. The Phillies move a game north of .500, and go on to win the division and lose the World Series. Schmidt’s game was by no means forgotten — it’s now a minor part of Phillies franchise lore.

What happened to Brett Lawrie happened to someone as outstanding as Mike Schmidt. All Lawrie was missing was the dramatic walk-off dinger.

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The Washington Nationals were hit with a $300,000 federal religious discrimination lawsuit on Tuesday. The complaint – available here – alleges that the team illegally discriminated against three former ushers – all Seventh-day Adventists – due to their religious beliefs. Although the team allowed the men to miss games during the 2013 season in order to observe their sabbath (sundown Friday through sundown Saturday), the Nationals allegedly fired the three in 2014 when their religious beliefs prevented them from working at least 80% of the team’s games.

Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, employers are generally prohibited from discriminating against workers on the basis of their religious beliefs.  In applying the law to cases like the one filed against the Nationals, courts typically require that an employer reasonably accommodate its employee’s religious beliefs whenever possible. This means, for instance, that an employer should generally allow an employee to take a particular day off work for religious observation, so long as this preferential scheduling does not impose an “undue hardship” on the business (such as by significantly increasing the company’s costs, or requiring other employees to work more than their fair share of the hours in a week).

The plaintiffs’ suit alleges that the Nationals were willing to reasonably accommodate their religious beliefs in 2013, setting aside the requirement that ushers work 80% of the team’s games in order to allow the men to observe their sabbath. The men contend that the team changed its policy in 2014, however, and terminated their employment due to their failure to have worked a sufficient number of games the previous season. The suit also asserts that the team could easily allow the plaintiffs to observe their sabbath, as Friday evening and Saturday games are particularly desirable work shifts for ushers, many of whom also maintain other day jobs.

So the new suit would appear to assert a credible case of religious discrimination against the Nationals. That having been said, the team will undoubtedly present another side to the story when it responds to the suit in court. For instance, the team could allege that the three plaintiffs were not retained for the 2014 season for reasons other than their scheduling limitations (such as for poor performance). The team might also argue that allowing the men to miss every Friday evening or Saturday afternoon home game would in fact impose an undue hardship on its business, despite the plaintiffs’ claims that there are plenty of readily available replacements for those shifts.

Although the team could have legitimate defenses to assert on its behalf, it still would not be surprising if the Nationals ultimately decide to settle the case. Being charged with religious discrimination is never a good thing from a public relations perspective. Moreover, despite the plaintiffs’ request for $300,000 in damages, other parts of the suit suggest that they may really just be hoping to be reinstated to their positions for the 2015 season. Time will tell, then, if the team ultimately decides that it’s easier to rehire the men in this case than it is to contest their discrimination claims on their merits.

Boy, this whole Kris Bryant situation sure got heated fast, right?! On the off-chance you haven’t been keeping tabs on the MLB’s most philosophically layered spring training headline, I recommend reading Mike’s proposed rule changes; Nathaniel’s examination of what the Players’ Association could do next; and Jason Wojciechowski’s appeal to ethical business practices over at Beaneball.

Alas, this is not the first time a bright new prospect has been sent to the minors under, ahem, dubious circumstances. At this moment, Bryant’s saga cannot be discussed without heavy reliance on hypotheticals: questions of how his trip/sentence to Iowa will affect the Cubs’ 2015 season, the Cubs’ 2021 season, or Bryant’s lifetime earning potential are all, ultimately, unknowns. But we can learn from history and see how prior service-time-oriented decisions have played out for other teams and their marquee prospects. Up first: the consensus greatest player in the game.
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When I started at FanGraphs eight months ago, I announced our team of prospect writers, with some holdover writers and some new writers I had hired, then I asked for people interested in joining the team to email me. Some of those writers didn’t work out, some have moved on and a lot of you emailed me about coming on board. For those writers from group two that have moved on, I’m 100% happy to see them go on to bigger and better things in the game, because I was also forced to jump form job to job to continue chasing my dream in baseball, so it’s fun to see people I believe in continue their journey.

In that spirit, I wanted to announce some of our prospect writers have moved on to greener pastures. Ron Shah has joined the Houston Astros in a scouting and development role, Zeke Fine has joined the Atlanta Braves as a scout, Eric Longenhagen has joined ESPN to work with Keith Law on the prospect side for Insider and Andrew Krause has joined Perfect Game as their newest full-time employee doing a number of things on the scouting end. These guys have been here for varying tenures: Ron has been with FanGraphs since my first day, Zeke only wrote a handful of articles before Atlanta scooped him up and Andrew was hired away shortly after joining the staff. Andrew’s first article ran today and we have another post that was in process when he left that will appear soon.

The length of their tenure isn’t the important part of this story, as opportunities in baseball come and go at different rates. The takeaway here is the caliber of baseball mind that we’ve been able to have on the scouting end of the things at FanGraphs in the short time I’ve been on board. These four guys were the only four guys I’ve hired while at FanGraphs (at least until I hired Jesse Burkhart two weeks ago) and all came with long track records of writing online and/or multiple recommendations from scouts and executives. For now, I see this role as a platform to prove your talent to a huge audience in the industry, with these four guys proving it can get you a job with a team pretty quickly if things line up just right.

While I’m sad to see this talent walk out the door, I’m also confident that we will expand what we’re doing on the prospect end and that’s one reason why I’ve been soliciting more applications to write for us on twitter. If you missed those, email me (kiley dot mcdaniel at gmail dot com), give me a little background about yourself and some sort of sample of your writing. I’ve already received dozens of submissions that I’m steadily working my way through and I should respond to all of you within the next week (now that I’ve finally finished the team prospect lists). I don’t have a number of people in mind, so it could be one new writer to join Jesse and Nathaniel Stoltz, or a whole bunch of them. We won’t replace these departed writers per se, but we can find people that are just as talented in their own way, play to their strengths and hopefully see you succeed as much as this first group has.

Signing a pitcher to a long-term extension when that pitcher has completed just one season in Major League Baseball and had elbow troubles in that one season is not an ideal scenario for a franchise. For the Royals, who have seen the best young arms of this generation lost to injury and a failure to develop, locking up Yordano Ventura to a five-year deal guaranteeing $23 million covering all of his arbitration seasons with two options potentially covering his first two years of free agency, the move is a necessary risk.

Signed for $28,000 out of the Dominican Republic in 2008, Ventura has a slight frame and an electric fastball leads to two unfortunate conclusions, one unfair and one undetermined. Like fellow countryman Carlos Martinez, Ventura has drawn comparisons to all-time great Pedro Martinez, who pumped a great array of pitches including a fantastic fastball over a long, Hall of Fame career. The other conclusion, that Ventura will eventually have to go to the bullpen, is perhaps a more realistic option given the impossibility of reaching Pedro, but is mostly unfair until he has actually failed as a starter.

Ventura’s contract lines up nicely with the last three extension signed by players with under two years of service time.
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University of North Florida OF Donnie Dewees was a largely unknown quantity coming out of high school in Crystal River, Florida.  Three years after going undrafted, Dewees has put himself in position to be selected within the first 100 picks, and given the crooked numbers he has put up thus far, he has a chance go significantly higher.

Background

For the (many) uninitiated, let me give some background on Dewees. The left-handed hitting outfielder quickly worked his way into the starting lineup as a true freshman during the 2013 season, finished with a .347/.429/.535 line in 248 plate appearances, and garnered numerous conference and national awards.  He continued to hit in summer ball, posting a .321/.393/.526 triple-slash with 12 HR in the competitive Northwoods League.

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The least interesting thing about recovering from a shoulder injury might be trying to figure out how it happened. It happened, and life has to move on. In Sean Doolittle’s case, it might — might! — have happened while he was taking anti-inflammatories for his oblique late last year, meaning the pain was “slightly masked” by the drugs as the pitcher put it. Who knows.

The best you can do is strengthen the muscles around the injury and work your way slowly back to health. You can’t just start throwing. “Your instinct is to open it up as soon as you get a ball in your hand,” said Doolittle before the A’s first game this season. So the team keeps the ball away from you for a bit.

Kyle Boddy, who founded pitching development complex Driveline Baseball, isn’t surprised to hear Doolittle talk about that instinct to throw hard. “Guys literally have no idea how to play catch,” Boddy said. “They line up from 45 feet and start throwing like 65-70 MPH. This is because many pro organizations give you ten minutes to throw before taking the field, which is ultimately pretty injurious and limiting to the arm.”

So before the throwing come the strengthening exercises. These might be familiar to any pitcher, but Doolittle says he’s just been doing them more often, in more variations, with more sets.

Many involve resistance bands and shoulder and arm movements against the resistance created by those bands. Other exercises have him holding the bands in static positions as a trainer pushes in different directions on his arm. Each time his body attempts to bring the hand back to that static position, a different small muscle is activated. Even without a resistance bad at home, you can test the theory by balancing on one foot with your eyes shut — notice all the little muscles in your legs and torso that work hard to keep you upright.

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The Red Sox have played one game this season. Seems like it’s time to check in on Dustin Pedroia. Before you go, assuming the rest of this is going to be stupid, at the very end there is a poll. Internet readers love polls. Please vote in it only after you at least glance over what’s in between. So: Dustin Pedroia has two home runs!

Already, that says something. Pedroia, last year, hit seven home runs. He went deep twice on Monday against the ace to whom the Red Sox have been most frequently linked in trade rumors. Now, Pedroia wasn’t the only Boston player to go deep, so, maybe it was just one of those days. Yet it wasn’t just that Pedroia homered. It was also how Pedroia homered. His homers looked like classic Pedroia homers, and that’s just the thing.

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The Red Sox clearly have a thing for Justin Masterson. They drafted him with their second-round pick in 2006, then developed him into one of their best young pitching prospects before the Indians demanded him as part of the Victor Martinez trade in 2009. This winter, when he was finally a free agent after spending six years in Cleveland, the Red Sox took the opportunity to bring him back to Boston, signing him to a $9.5 million contract for 2015 despite the fact that he posted a 5.88 ERA last season.

The organization’s affinity for Masterson’s skillset is noteworthy, because this week, the Red Sox signed Rick Porcello to a four year, $82.5 million contract extension on the bet that Porcello is essentially a younger version of this same type of pitcher.

First, let’s do a quick comparison. Here are Masterson and Porcello’s numbers from their age-23 through age-25 seasons, which in Porcello’s case covers the last three years.

Both Porcello and Masterson were pitch-to-contact groundball hurlers, with Masterson getting a few more grounders and strikeouts at the expense of a walk rate that was significantly higher than what Porcello has posted. They’re not identical, but they’re cut from the same cloth, and heading into their mid-20s, the results were quite similar. By ERA, both were roughly league average starters, though metrics that attempt to eliminate defensive performance from the picture both thought they were significantly above average, with Porcello being slightly ahead of Masterson at the same point in their careers.

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