Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the release of FanGraphs’ playoff odds and the biggest differences between the FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus playoff and World Series odds, then continue their 2023 season preview series by discussing the Seattle Mariners (18:28) with Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times and the Chicago White Sox (1:03:48) with The Athletic’s James Fegan, plus a Past Blast (1:49:08) from 1970 and a postscript.

Audio intro: Spiritualized, “Do it All Over Again”
Audio interstitial: Superchunk, “Low F”
Audio outro: The Stooges, “1970”

Link to Ohtani’s FA comments
Link to FG playoff odds announcement
Link to FG playoff odds
Link to Ben C. on the playoff odds
Link to PECOTA-based odds
Link to odds differences spreadsheet
Link to MASN statement
Link to Mariners offseason tracker
Link to Mariners depth chart
Link to Ryan’s spring training preview
Link to Ryan’s author archive
Link to 2023 draft order
Link to Vogt hiring news
Link to White Sox offseason tracker
Link to White Sox depth chart
Link to The Athletic’s offseason grades
Link to James’s spring training preview
Link to James’s author archive
Link to FG’s 2B projections
Link to 1970 article source
Link to 1970 Winter Meetings info
Link to SABR’s source
Link to David Lewis’s Twitter
Link to David Lewis’s Substack
Link to McCarver’s NYT obit
Link to Angell’s McCarver profile
Link to Angell on McCarver again
Link to FG’s Negro Leagues stats
Link to info on racetrack
Link to info on photography
Link to more info on photography
Link to third photography article
Link to fourth photography article
Link to fifth photography article

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Earlier this week, as is tradition, FanGraphs founder David Appelman went into his garage, turned off all the lights except for some candles, and performed a dark and arcane ritual. The words were carefully chosen and spoken precisely, with any variation promising disaster. Then he went back inside, pushed a few buttons on his computer, and now we have playoff odds for 2023!

Okay, fine, that isn’t exactly how it goes down, but it’s close. Our playoff odds bring together pieces of a lot of features you’ve already seen on the website. We start with a blended projection that incorporates ZiPS and Steamer’s rate statistic projections. We add in playing time projections from RosterResource, which incorporate health, skill, and team situation to create a unified guess for how each team will distribute their plate appearances and innings pitched.

With playing time and production in hand, we use BaseRuns to estimate how many runs each team will score and allow per game. That gives us a schedule-neutral win percentage for each team, because you can turn runs scored and runs allowed into a projection via the Pythagorean approximation. From there, we simulate the entire season 20,000 times, with an odds ratio and a random number generator determining the outcome of each game on the schedule, and voila! Our playoff odds. Read the rest of this entry »

12:02

Dan Szymborski: SzymChat is *back* now that I’m firmly in the domain of the living.

12:02

Dan Szymborski: Players tend to be stubborn about dropping pinch-hitting.

12:03

Dan Szymborski: And with Albies, he isn’t *so* bad left-handed that the issue is likely to be forced.

12:04

Dan Szymborski: I mean, he’s still at around a .750 OPS left-handed

Read the rest of this entry »

The FanGraphs 2023 Playoff Odds are now available on the site. As a reminder, here’s what each column represents in the current 12-team playoff structure:

• Win Div: The probability the team wins their division.
• Clinch Bye: The probability that the team wins their division and is one of the top two seeds in their league, thus earning a Wild Card Series bye.
• Clinch Wild Card: The probability the team qualifies for the playoffs through a Wild Card berth.
• Make Playoffs: The sum of Win Div + Clinch Wild Card, indicating the probability that the team qualifies for the playoff in any capacity.
• Make LDS (Postseason section): The probability the team wins the Wild Card Series or earns a bye.

Read the rest of this entry »

They say you should never go to the grocery store hungry. If you do, you could end up like the Padres: A cart full of shortstops, eye-catching extensions for key players like Yu Darvish and Robert Suarez, and even a couple fun veteran DH types from the end caps to snack on during the drive home. Then you get home, unload the car, and realize you forgot something essential like bread, or coffee, or the entire back half of a starting rotation.

So you have to go back to the store and pick up a Michael Wacha before spring training:

Wacha agreement with Padres has complex structure that could earn him more than $24M over four years, sources tell @TheAthletic. Deal includes player and team options that protect both Wacha’s upside and downside while lowering his AAV for luxury-tax purposes. Pending physical.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) February 15, 2023

Read the rest of this entry »

Gary Sanchez finally has a team… sort of. Last week, he was one of two catchers named to Team Dominican Republic’s roster for the 2023 World Baseball Classic, which gets underway next month. Meanwhile, although pitchers and catchers have reported to major league camps this week, Sanchez still doesn’t have a destination, as he remains a free agent.

By our count, Sanchez is one of just four position players who put up at least 1.0 WAR last year but remain on the market, along with shortstop Elvis Andrus (3.5), outfielder Jurickson Profar (2.5) and infielder José Iglesias (1.0). Admittedly, he’s not coming off a great season with the Twins, but Sanchez’s 1.3 WAR was respectable, his 89 wRC+ matched the major league average for catchers, and he had his best defensive season since 2018, reversing a multiyear decline.

Aside from rumors of interest from the Giants in January and the Angels earlier this month, the Sanchez burner of the hot stove has barely flickered this winter, but things heated up a bit in the wee hours of Wednesday after Sanchez and strength and conditioning coach Theo Aasen shared a short Instagram video of the 30-year-old backstop doing some exercises and baseball activities while wearing a shirt with the Yankees’ insignia. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the temperature in Phoenix, writers taking photos of bases, and Meg taking photos of the writers, then discuss Meg’s takeaways from MLB’s presentation to media members about this season’s new rules, MLB.TV adding minor league games, the Padres signing Michael Wacha (and changing their revenue-sharing classification), and early pitcher injuries, followed by (29:32) a Stat Blast about how much major league talent comes from a typical farm system. After that (46:44), they talk to The Athletic’s Evan Drellich about his new book about the Astros, the sign-stealing scandal, and modern front-office culture, Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball’s Brightest Minds Created Sports’ Biggest Mess, plus Past Blasts from 1969 (1:34:25) and a few follow-ups.

Audio intro: The Waterboys, “Bigger Picture”
Audio interstitial: The Rolling Stones, “Winning Ugly”
Audio outro: Dag, “The Bigger Picture”

Link to Levi’s tweet about deGrom
Link to Levi on the Arizona weather
Link to Defector on base photos
Link to Nightengale’s first photo
Link to Meg’s photos
Link to Reddit post of Meg’s photo
Link to Meg’s clock buzzer photo
Link to AP story on new rules
Link to Bleed Cubbie Blue on new rules
Link to Noah Woodward on pickoffs
Link to Russell on throwing over
Link to Russell on the pitch clock
Link to Jeff Passan on balks
Link to Zach Buchanan on balks
Link to Sam Miller on balks
Link to Jon Bois on balks
Link to new MLB.TV features
Link to Manfred on blackouts
Link to MLBTR on Wacha
Link to story on Padres revenue
Link to MLBTR on Strasburg
Link to MLBTR on Montas
Link to Ben on spring pitching injuries
Link to retired-numbers Stat Blast
Link to retired-numbers spreadsheet
Link to Johnson’s comment on Ichiro
Link to Ryan Nelson’s Twitter
Link to Ryan on future All-Stars
Link to future All-Stars spreadsheet
Link to data on future major leaguers
Link to Bill James study
Link to KG on managing expectations
Link to Winning Fixes Everything
Link to Winning Fixes Everything excerpt
Link to Winning Fixes Everything on Cora
Link to Evan on the Astros in 2014
Link to Rob Arthur on the banging scheme
Link to Bagwell comments
Link to Passan on Click and Crane
Link to Fresh Air on Jack Welch
Link to Bando NYT obit
Link to Bando SABR bio
Link to Craig Wright on Bando
Link to Jay Jaffe on Bando
Link to 3B JAWS leaders
Link to TSN on Bando
Link to TSN on Bando, continued
Link to TSN on DiMaggio
Link to “baseball is dying” article
Link to Bryan Curtis on dying baseball
Link to Emma B. on dying baseball
Link to David Lewis’s Twitter
Link to David Lewis’s Substack
Link to Jaffe on PPP rules
Link to EW wiki on Jaso
Link to NYT on Jaso
Link to SABR on the high five
Link to ESPN on the high five

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Last week, I wrote about arm angles, Nestor Cortes, and some appearance-based expectations hitters might have about a pitcher’s craftiness. During my data mining, I also noticed that Rich Hill popped up at or near the top of many arm angle rankings. Specifically, among the 473 hurlers who threw at least 500 pitches in 2022, Hill had the broadest range of arm angles and the second-highest arm angle standard deviation. Below are his release points in colorful dot form (via Baseball Savant) and his arm angle frequencies in histogram configuration:

Hill typically comes at hitters from a three-quarters slot, though he does near a completely overhand slot at times. When he drops down, he provides his foes with anything from a sidearm to a fully submarine look. Cortes, for his part, placed second in range (just 0.4 degrees behind Hill) and fourth in standard deviation (2.5 degrees behind). But as you can see below, Cortes’ more significant drop-downs were not only less frequent than Hill’s but also closer to a more typical Cortes look. Whereas Hill has a very obvious gap between his drop-down and standard release, Cortes runs the gamut of angles between the two:

Read the rest of this entry »

During free agency, baseball fans have a tendency to throw out terms like “upside,” talk about players’ “ceilings” and “floors,” and do their best to evaluate the “risk and reward” of any given move. When teams make offseason additions, it’s impossible not to imagine not only what level of production can be expected, but also what might happen if everything clicks and, as the case may be, what might happen if things don’t. This becomes the basis of endless debate: what kind of heights can the prospect just traded for reach? Should that last spot in the rotation go to the reliable veteran or the young flamethrower who has yet to put it all together?

Teams have to make these evaluations themselves when considering roster construction. Say, for instance, that Player A was expected to contribute 2.0 WAR, but a team’s projection models indicate that he could be as valuable as 4.0 WAR or as unproductive as replacement level. Player B, on the other hand, is also projected for 2.0 WAR, but the models expect him to end up somewhere between 1.3 and 2.7 WAR. It’s not necessarily inherently better to choose one player over the other; it’s ultimately a matter of the club’s priorities at the time. This could depend on all sorts of factors: the size of the investment in the first place, where this player is expected to fit on the roster, how much the team anticipates competing for a title, maybe even player development insights that the front office or coaching staff thinks might help push the player toward the top of his projected spectrum.

As this winter’s free agency was unfolding, I was curious if there were insights to draw from how the disparity of players’ varied outcomes were playing out on the market. A handful of players with relatively uncertain futures (let me stress “relatively”) like Robert Suarez, Zach Eflin, and Masataka Yoshida were commanding larger — and longer — contracts than projected. Meanwhile, some relative knowns — veterans like Jean Segura and Noah Syndergaard — were coming in under their projections, and players like Elvis Andrus and Brad Hand are still out there looking. There are counterexamples, to be sure, but it made me want to explore whether there was particular interest in (and resources being allocated to) players that offered a high ceiling, even if that meant taking on the risk of a lower floor. Read the rest of this entry »

Will Bednar had a disappointing 2022 season. Drafted 14th overall in 2021 by the San Francisco Giants after a breakout campaign at Mississippi State University, the 22-year-old right-hander battled back issues and saw both his velocity and command take a step in the wrong direction. Pitching at Low-A San Jose, he logged a 4.19 ERA and issued 22 free passes in 43 innings. But there were positives, too. Even with the health-related downtick in his power arsenal’s effectiveness, the younger brother of Pittsburgh Pirates closer David Bednar fanned 51 batters and allowed just 25 hits.

One year ago this month, our lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen wrote that “Bednar’s best pitch is a plus low-80s slider with plenty of bite.” The offering remains the righty’s go-to, and I talked to him about it during his stint in the Arizona Fall League.

———

David Laurila: Let’s start with the nuts and bolts. What is your repertoire?

Will Bednar: “Fastball, slider, changeup. I’ve been kind of playing around with a little bit of a two-seam, too.”

Laurila: The slider is your best pitch?

Bednar: “Yeah. The slider is definitely my best pitch. Without a doubt.”

Laurila: What is the story behind it? Read the rest of this entry »