Last January, inspired by Cedric Mullins’s 2021 decision to stop switch-hitting, I tried to identify other switch-hitters who might benefit from swinging from one side or the other. Going beyond simply calculating the largest platoon splits, I relied on handedness splits for some of the players’ key underlying batted ball and plate discipline metrics. The idea was that there could be a path to improvement if these switch-hitters eliminated their severe underperformance from one side of the plate. Of course, the other option is simply to work on their weaker swing and become a better overall switch-hitter.

One of the batters I identified as a candidate to hit left-handed full-time was Ian Happ. Through 2021, Happ had posted a 55 point platoon split, the second-highest among the 25 switch-hitters in the sample. Happ crushes right-handed pitching from the left side, but all of his batted ball peripherals are significantly weaker when swinging from the right. Instead of taking my advice (thank goodness), Happ posted the best season of his career against left-handed pitching in 2022:

Read the rest of this entry »

For the 18th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the New York Mets.

Batters

Closing a deal with Carlos Correa would obviously improve the team’s outlook, but the situation at third base — Correa’s likely position — is hardly dire. Eduardo Escobar is a league-average if quite unexciting player, and if his thumb is better, Brett Baty ought to provide additional depth as the season goes on. Even if I’m not quite as optimistic about Brandon Nimmo’s attendance record as the depth charts are, he has a long history of providing a lot of value even while missing a lot of games. Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor are elite players at their respective positions, and Jeff McNeil isn’t that far off that status. Mark Canha and Starling Marte make up a solid supporting cast. Read the rest of this entry »

Along with Johnny Evers and Joe Tinker — they of Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance fame — Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker are the most-storied double-play combination in baseball history. As well they should be. The Detroit Tigers duo played more games together (1,918) than any middle-infield duo in history. Moreover, they combined for 11 All-Star appearances, seven Gold Gloves, seven Silver Sluggers, and they won a World Series together. Both are icons for a franchise that has played in the American League since 1901.

Tinker and Evans, who played together with the Chicago Cubs from 1902-1912, are both in the Hall of Fame. So is Trammell. Meanwhile — this for reasons best explained as inexplicable — Whitaker is not. His exclusion stands as one of Cooperstown’s most glaring omissions.

Whitaker has more WAR and a higher JAWS score than a number of Hall of Fame second basemen, but that can be a debate for another day. For now, let’s focus on how he compares to Evers.

Whitaker: 2,369 hits, 244 home runs, 118 wRC+, 68.1 WAR.
Evers: 1,659 hits, 12 home runs, 109 wRC+, 49.0 WAR.

While Evers’s numbers are anything but great, it should be noted that he won an MVP award and played for three World Series-winning teams (the Cubs twice and the Boston Braves once). That said, it’s highly unlikely that he would be in the Hall of Fame were he not part of a legendary double-play combination (he and Tinker were Old-Timers-Committee selections in the same year). How they became legendary is, of course, a big part of the story. The poem penned in 1910 by sportswriter Franklin Pierce Adams reads: Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley, and longtime listener and Patreon supporter Jacob Barak banter about Jacob’s baseball-fan background, EW origin story, and much-discussed post about a Shohei Ohtani conundrum in the podcast’s Facebook group, then (10:35) answer listener emails about why we use dashes instead of slashes in displaying hitter’s hits and at-bats, unorthodox infield designs, where the money from competitive balance tax penalties goes, an Aaron Boone quote about “a championship and then some,” playing baseball with balls from other sports, teams tailoring the baseball to their pitchers’ strengths, the fewest games in a -1.0 WAR season and demanding a trade in the minors, the best teams from other leagues beating the worst teams from MLB, whether baseball is bad or good for the world, and the prospect of an MLB player coming out as trans or non-binary, plus Carlos Correa banter, a Stat Blast (1:21:41) about the late Nate Colbert and Padres home run hitters, a Past Blast (1:42:53) from 1952, and a few postscript updates.

Audio intro: Wire, “Dot Dash”
Audio outro: Jethro Tull, “Jacob’s Tales”

Link to Jacob’s Facebook post
Link to latest on Correa
Link to Ben C. on FA movement
Link to history of fraction slashes
Link to Stark on second base
Link to Stark on infield dirt
Link to EW Pesäpallo episode
Link to Evan’s first tweet
Link to Evan’s second tweet
Link to Boone video
Link to Yankees captains
Link to fewest G, -1 WAR hitters
Link to fewest G, -1 WAR pitchers
Link to Clay’s league strengths
Link to Rays Pride Night story
Link to Canha interview
Link to EW Brennaman episode
Link to EW emails database
Link to previous Colbert banter
Link to Padres HR leaderboard
Link to Stat Blast data
Link to Ryan Nelson on Twitter
Link to players w/164+ HR since ’75
Link to Padres ’69-’74 WAR leaders
Link to ’69-’74 team wins
Link to Colbert’s SABR bio
Link to Colbert’s RBI record
Link to more on the record
Link to ’69-’73 HR leaders
Link to Ben on Padres stars
Link to first Padres cycle
Link to first Padres no-hitter
Link to 1952 story source
Link to SABR on the ’52 Meetings
Link to Jacob Pomrenke’s website
Link to Jacob Pomrenke on Twitter
Link to MLBTR on Bauer
Link to Twins “DFA” tweet
Link to Hill hype video
Link to SABR on 3-team DHs
Link to Turner’s Vassegh tweet

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The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

It would be an overstatement to call the Dodgers’ acquisition of Andre Ethier a turning point in the franchise’s history, but when the team snagged him from the A’s in December 2005 in exchange for infielder Antonio Perez and outfielder Milton Bradley, it had made just three postseason appearances and won a grand total of one playoff game in the first 11 years of the Wild Card era — one playoff game since winning the World Series in 1988, even. During the course of Ethier’s 12-year career, the Dodgers reached the playoffs eight times, and while injuries limited his role at the end, he signed off with a pinch-hit RBI single in Game 7 of the 2017 World Series, and retired as the franchise leader in postseason games played (51).

As a Dodgers regular from 2006-15 — usually in right field, but with years spent mainly in left or center as well — Ethier combined good on-base skills and middle-of-the-lineup pop, meshing with a handful of homegrown players while helping the team win five NL West titles and add a Wild Card appearance in that span. During that time, Ethier made two All-Star teams, won Gold Glove and Silver Slugger awards, became a fan favorite, and earned a five-year, $85 million extension that unfortunately didn’t go as hoped. Indeed, the Dodgers sometimes seemed blind to his limitations, overexposing him to left-handed pitching (note his career 73 wRC+ against southpaws, 139 against righties) and overestimating his defensive abilities. Still, he spent his entire major league career in one place, making him one of two single-team candidates on this year’s ballot (Matt Cain is the other). Read the rest of this entry »

2:00	Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to my first chat of 2023!

2:00	Jay Jaffe: Happy New Year to you all

2:02	Jay Jaffe: I’m in the midst of the one-and-dones on this year’s Hall of Fame ballot, players who won’t get the 5% needed to stick around for another year but whose careers merit a proper sendoff. Today it was Andre Ethier https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jaws-and-the-2023-hall-of-fame-ballot-andr…

2:03	Jay Jaffe: Yesterday it was Jacoby Ellsbury https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jaws-and-the-2023-hall-of-fame-ballot-jaco…, and on Wednesday it was R.A. Dickey, a piece that was particularly fun to write https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jaws-and-the-2023-hall-of-fame-ballot-r-a-…

2:04	Jay Jaffe: Of course, it wouldn’t be a First Chat of the Year if there weren’t some technical glitch that needs my attention for a minute…

2:05	Jay Jaffe: OK, finally got the banner to show up atop the home page, something I tend to forget to check

Read the rest of this entry »

When the ball dropped at midnight and 2022 turned into 2023, 29 of the 30 major league teams had signed at least one free agent, from the Mariners spending $1.2 million on Trevor Gott to the Mets agreeing to terms with seemingly every star player on the market. Even the penny-pinching Marlins brought in Jean Segura, and the A’s committed a respectable $34 million to four solid role players. Now, a few days into the new year, team no. 30 has joined the fray: the Brewers are bringing back left-handed pitcher Wade Miley on a one-year contract that will pay him $3.5 million with a $10 million mutual option for ’24 (with a $1 million buyout) and another $1.5 million in playing time incentives. In total, that guarantees him $4.5 million this season.

Formerly an innings eater who completed at least 190 frames every year from 2012 to ’15 with a 98 ERA-, Miley has battled injuries in each of 2018, ’20, and ’22. Last season, he was limited to just nine appearances with the Cubs as he dealt with elbow and shoulder issues. With that in mind, I’ll be looking at his performance in a limited 2022 campaign in conjunction with his full ’21 season, where he barely qualified for the leaderboards with 163 innings pitched. His stats were very similar in those two samples; he ran an ERA in the low-threes with far less inspiring peripherals and near equal numbers in the walk and strikeout departments. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 18th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Baltimore Orioles.

Batters

The building of Baltimore’s offense is coming along quite nicely; graduating two arguable no. 1 prospects to the majors in a single season has a curious way of doing that! The O’s should at least be locking up Adley Rutschman as soon as possible and ideally Gunnar Henderson as well. There’s no need to stay on both too long; everyone knows about Rutschman’s awesomeness, and I’ve written near-panegyrics about Henderson already. Similar to Mike Devereaux three (!) decades ago, Cedric Mullins is a borderline star.

The O’s aren’t amazing anywhere else in the lineup, but they are at least adequate, with a couple of exceptions. ZiPS does think the team could use an outfield upgrade, but one can at least understand why the Orioles are waiting to see which of their young outfield prospects takes a big step up, if any. I’m crossing my fingers, because Nomar Mazara was signed to a minor league contract and is lurking in the wings, like a replacement-level Sauron after the fall of Númenor.

Just in case you have only seen the graphic and not the tables below, ZiPS does project Ryan Mountcastle to be an above-average first baseman. What it isn’t crazy about is the backup situation with Mountcastle expected to spend some time at DH. Lewin Díaz is far from a ZiPS fave, but it sees him as quite a bit superior to Ryan O’Hearn, whose acquisition never made much sense to me given his poor track record.

I’m not going to grump about the O’s being quiet here, nor am I a particular fan of the Adam Frazier signing, since I’m going to complain elsewhere in a minute. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 1006

In the first show of 2023, we welcome back a beat writer friend to talk Cardinals before introducing a new series on the podcast.

• At the top of the program, David Laurila is joined by Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (and The Best Podcast in Baseball), who last appeared on episode 903. The duo discuss whether Nolan Arenado deserves the title of the best all-around player in the National League, while contemplating if Paul Goldschmidt may have claim as the best hitter in the circuit. David and Derrick also talk about players on this year’s Hall of Fame ballot like Bobby Abreu and Gary Sheffield, and how Derrick has been listening to FanGraphs Audio in recent weeks for insight while preparing his own ballot. [4:34]
• In the second half, Ben Clemens debuts his new series FanGraphs Backstories. Ben will be interviewing FanGraphs staff to discuss how they came to the site and what their favorite baseball memories are, and senior writer Jay Jaffe is first up. Jay shares how he never would have imagined he’d end up at FanGraphs after his early days at Baseball Prospectus, what his time at Sports Illustrated was like, and how truly unforgettable Nolan Ryan was to a young fan. [43:32]

To purchase a FanGraphs membership for yourself or as a gift, click here.

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Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @dhhiggins on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximate 1 hour 9 minute play time.)

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If you’re anything like me, you care what your friends think of you. I’m not talking about the middle school I’ll-do-whatever-they-do kind of caring; I like to think I’ve outgrown that. But I certainly still want to fit in. I think these feelings are fairly universal among adults, whether the in-group in question is composed of friends, co-workers, or just a collection of peers with whom you happen to share something.

My credence stems from a classical psychological study conducted by Solomon Asch, which spawned an entire category of literature under the “conformity” umbrella. The word has a negative connotation, but as long as it isn’t taken to extremes, conformity is a natural and adaptable human behavior. It’s likely even seen in baseball players (and not just in how they wear the same outfit to all of their games).

In Asch’s study, a subject was placed among a group of confederates, or research assistants posing as subjects themselves. The group was shown a series of “target” lines, each alongside another group of lines, and instructed to find the line in the group most similar to the target. There was always an obvious answer, and the confederates were instructed to never choose it. The majority of subjects agreed with the confederates at least once. Read the rest of this entry »