This will sound ridiculous, but I have a hipster-ish choice for my favorite Los Angeles Angel. Trout and Ohtani? They’re fine, I guess, if you like generational superstars. Rendon? Ward? If we’re really reaching, Tyler Anderson? Again, I’m not against them, they’re just not exactly my taste. My favorite Angel? It’s none other than David Fletcher, a man ripped from the Deadball era and placed on the infield dirt in Anaheim.

How could you not love Fletcher? His skill set is delightful and also mind-boggling. In a power-mad era, he has none to speak of; he’s managed nearly as many triples as homers in his career. He hits nearly anything he swings at, particularly when he cuts his already short swing down with two strikes; he has a career strikeout rate in the single digits and comically low swinging strike rates. Fletcher often looks like he’s playing a different sport than the other guys on his team, but he’s so good at what he does that he was able to put together a three-year run of above-average play with first-percentile exit velocity.

Sadly, those three years are now in the past. Fletcher was ineffective in 2021 and then injured in 2022. His high-wire act worked for a long time, but in the end the numbers didn’t quite add up. Pitchers pounded the zone so much that he started swinging more to protect himself from called strikeouts, but that eventually drove his chase rate up and walk rate down, and the rest was history. Read the rest of this entry »

On September 7, 1996, Scott Rolen’s journey to the Hall of Fame took a painful, but perhaps ultimately fortuitous twist. That afternoon, the Phillies played the Cubs at Veterans Stadium. Rolen had recorded his 130th at-bat of the year in the bottom of the first: With the bases loaded and one out, he struck out on four pitches against Steve Trachsel. Two innings later, Rolen came up for what was supposed to be at-bat no. 131. Instead, Trachsel hit him in the forearm with a pitch, breaking the ulna in Rolen’s right forearm.

The 21-year-old Rolen took his base, then tried to gut it out in the field in the top of the fourth. He lasted three batters, then could continue no longer. Jim Fregosi pulled Rolen and replaced him with Kevin Sefcik, one of the dozens of interchangeable Kevins who filled out the rosters of the mid-90s Phillies. Rolen took no further part in the 1996 season.

The following year, Rolen played 156 games, hit .283/.377/.469 with 21 home runs and 16 stolen bases, and cakewalked to a unanimous victory in the NL Rookie of the Year race. It was Rolen’s first piece of individual hardware, and one that would not have been possible had Trachsel not plunked him the previous September. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about players being in the sexiest shape of their lives, Rockies owner Dick Monfort’s comments about the Padres’ spending, and how Diamond Sports Group’s bankruptcy might affect the future of baseball broadcasting, then (28:09) discuss more ways in which baseball stands out from other sports. After that (35:35), they answer listener emails about misspelled Cy Young awards, why timeouts are called timeouts, “offensive environment” vs. “scoring environment” and “run environment,” scoring more runs for hitting a foul pole, rodeo-style “shark cages” in the outfield, how teams can quickly change their vibes, whether anyone will ever throw a 110-mph pitch, players excelling on certain surfaces, a team with unlimited 1.0 WAR players, how bigger bases could affect bang-bang plays, and an every-way Shohei Ohtani. They finish (1:40:29) with Stat Blasts about the newly retired Darren O’Day, the unusual reliever-to-starter conversion of Jeffrey Springs, and a Mike Hampton–Shawn Green matchup from the 2003 movie The Core, plus (2:08:56) a Past Blast from 1962.

Audio intro: Tom Verlaine, “Down on the Farm”
Audio outro: Bettie Serveert, “Sundazed to the Core”

Link to Helfand tweet
Link to Hayes tweet
Link to Pratt tweet
Link to Warne tweet
Link to Ben on BSOHL
Link to Hamels comeback blog
Link to Monfort’s 2020 prediction
Link to latest Monfort comments
Link to Bloomberg on RSNs
Link to BP on RSNs
Link to Travis Sawchik on RSNs
Link to Ben Clemens on RSNs
Link to baseball exceptionalism wiki
Link to sac fly definition
Link to awards photos
Link to Hoch tweet
Link to timeouts story source
Link to EW Episode 1381
Link to rodeo shark cage video
Link to EW Episode 265
Link to 110-mph pitcher video
Link to fastest recorded pitches
Link to Ben on past FB speeds
Link to yearly average pitch speeds
Link to Baumann on artificial turf
Link to Pinstripe Alley on bigger bases
Link to Russell on defensive movers
Link to THT on defensive movers
Link to listener emails database
Link to O’Day retirement tweet
Link to O’Day Stathead query
Link to Dave Brown at B-Ref bullpen
Link to reliever-starter converts
Link to Ben on Wright
Link to the “Rule of 17”
Link to FG on the Springs extension
Link to Rays Pride Night story
Link to Ryan Nelson on Twitter
Link to The Core wiki
Link to story on the real core
Link to The Core baseball scene
Link to Green vs. Hampton H2H
Link to 2004 Green vs. Hampton story
Link to lopsided batter-pitcher matchups
Link to ’99–’02 top position players
Link to Randall Munroe on the shuttle
Link to Higgins vs. Lawson H2H
Link to Kenny Jackelen on Twitter
Link to 1962 story source
Link to B-Ref East-West Game account
Link to David Lewis’s Twitter
Link to David Lewis’s Substack
Link to Kent on Survivor
Link to L.A. Times on Kent
Link to Kent’s salaries

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Back on January 5, Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski told members of the media that he was largely finished making moves. Two days later, he finalized a deal for Tigers closer Gregory Soto. On January 19, Dombrowski made a similar statement, claiming he wasn’t planning to add any more players ahead of spring training. Before the month was up, he flipped the switch again, signing infielder Josh Harrison to a one-year, $2 million contract. This is the latest example of what’s becoming a trend for Dombrowski: surprising the Philadelphia faithful with better players and bigger budgets than they were expecting.

A party pooper might tell you that signing Harrison isn’t on the same level as Dombrowski’s big surprise from last winter, when he inked Nick Castellanos and pushed the Phillies’ payroll over the luxury tax for the very first time. Then again, an even bigger party pooper might respond by pointing out that Harrison was worth 2.1 more WAR than Castellanos last season. The first party pooper could reply by citing Harrison’s mediocre Steamer projections for the upcoming year; the biggest party pooper of all would chime in to remind you that no amount of surprise free-agent signings will cancel student debt or slow down rising sea levels or make Dick Monfort stop talking. But I’m getting off topic now.

Signing Harrison isn’t a season-altering move, but it’s further proof the Phillies are willing to spend the necessary dollars to keep up in the NL East. A more optimistic fan might also see the symbolism of this signing, as Dombrowski continues to right the wrongs of the previous front office regime. The Phillies first signed Harrison to a minor league deal back in November 2019 but ultimately chose Neil Walker as their utility infielder instead. Harrison ended up playing 33 games for the Nationals that season with a 108 wRC+; Walker, on the other hand, played just 18 games in Philadelphia, posting a dismal 43 wRC+, getting DFA’d in September, and retiring not long after. The Phillies missed the postseason by one measly game that year, and it’s hard not to wonder if keeping the proper infielder would have made all the difference. Signing Harrison in 2023 doesn’t get the Phillies to the playoffs in 2020, but it closes the door on a frustrating front office decision from one of the most frustrating seasons in recent memory. But again, I digress. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Back in 2020, MLB implemented a number of rule changes, both planned and forced by the pandemic-shortened season. Among them, none had the potential for dramatic change but with little actual effect on the game as the three-batter minimum rule. It was an inelegant solution to an infrequent problem: Subsequent investigation after its implementation has shown that the rule hasn’t addressed the pace-of-play issues at the heart of its intended effects.

Where the rule has had an outsized effect is in roster construction. Upon implementation, the value of a certain type of reliever — the Lefty One Out Guy (LOOGY) — was extinguished. Not that there were many LOOGYs left anyway, and the impact they had on games was fairly negligible in the grand scheme of things. This side effect of the rule was foreseen but still unfortunate nonetheless.

While the left-handed specialist has all but disappeared from major league rosters, left-handed relievers in general have felt the effects of this rule change as well. In 2022, southpaw relievers pitched around a quarter of all relief innings, which is right in line with the previous decade of usage. Unsurprisingly, more and more of those outings have come against right-handed batters. In 2013, nearly half of the batters left-handed relievers faced were left-handed as well. Last year, that rate fell to just over a third. Read the rest of this entry »

The Rays are infamous for running a tight ship payroll-wise, and because arbitration salaries are usually higher than rookie ones, they tend to trade arbitration-eligible players for younger, more cost-controlled talent. Then those new contributors develop into solid major leaguers, who become arbitration-eligible and therefore trade-eligible… and the cycle continues.

Yet the Rays have been good despite this. A major flaw in the described rinse-and-repeat style of roster management is that it depends on a regular influx of talent; without legitimate prospects in the farm system, you’d simply be making the big league squad worse, one trade at a time. Of course, the Rays are also known for their scouting and player development acumen, churning out viable big leaguers at a rate that, compared to other organizations, seems supersonic. But this too isn’t foolproof: Even if you run a supposedly smart front office, there’s a good chance that you’ll be wrong about a prospect or a trade acquisition more often than you’re right. That’s just how baseball works; you find yourself fighting to minimize risk, not to maximize return.

So really, the best option might be to avoid this conundrum in the first place. A good way to do that is to lock up your fresh-faced stars to contract extensions, à la the Braves of recent years. I don’t know if the Rays are following in Alex Anthopoulous’ footsteps, but they do seem to have become more open to the idea of making multiple multi-year commitments. As our Chris Gilligan covered, they recently signed Jeffrey Springs to a four-year contract extension with a club option for a fifth year. But the Rays weren’t done, as Jeff Passan reported last Friday:

Reliever Pete Fairbanks and the Tampa Bay Rays are in agreement on a three-year, $12 million contract extension, sources tell ESPN. Deal includes a fourth-year club option and comes off a year in which Fairbanks finished with 22 scoreless IP.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) January 27, 2023

Read the rest of this entry »

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. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

For the second year in a row, BBWAA voters elected just one player to the Hall of Fame. While the results may feel underwhelming — at least, beyond the fact that Scott Rolen is a very solid addition to Cooperstown — the advances made by a handful of candidates who didn’t get to 75% this year bolster the likelihood that they will someday, whether it’s via the writers’ ballot or a small committee to be named later. Looking ahead, there’s nothing to suggest that we’re about to see another wave that brings to mind the record-setting 22 candidates the writers elected over the 2014-20 span, but the next few ballots will be more crowded than the last couple, and should make for some lively election cycles.

Underlying this is a change in the dynamics of Hall of Fame candidacies, one that I’ve been noting in this space in recent years. From 1966 to 2005, only three candidates recovered from debuts below 25% and eventually reached 75%, even with 15 years of eligibility: Duke Snider (17.0% in 1970, elected in ’81), Don Drysdale (21.0% in 1975, elected in ’84) and Billy Williams (23.4% in 1982, elected in ’87). Since then, we’ve seen six players elected despite such slow starts, including three from 2017-23. From the 15-year eligibility period came Bruce Sutter (23.9% in 1994, elected in 2006) and Bert Blyleven (17.5% in 1998, elected in 2011), and then once the Hall unilaterally decided to cut eligibility from 15 years to 10 — less to clean up the ballots than to try moving the intractable debate over PED-related candidates out of the spotlight, and give voters less time to soften their attitudes — Tim Raines (24.3% in 2008, elected in ’17), Mike Mussina (20.3% in 2014, elected in ’19), Larry Walker (20.3% in ’11, elected in ’20), and now Rolen, whose 10.2% in 2018 represents the lowest debut share of any modern candidate elected by the writers. Read the rest of this entry »

At this point in the offseason, the micro-level events that will shape the 2023 baseball season have almost all been settled. Aside from the odd trade, teams have largely set their rosters. Injuries, unexpected performances, and trades will start to affect individual fortunes when games begin, but we’re at a local lull.

But there’s big news afoot for the game in a macro sense. Diamond Sports Group, the company that owns Bally Sports Network and thus the rights to 14 teams’ local broadcasts (plus minority stakes in two team-owned broadcasts)*, is careening towards bankruptcy. Per Bloomberg, the actual bankruptcy declaration is merely a formality: the firm will reportedly skip an interest payment due in February, triggering a restructuring that will wipe out the firm’s existing equity and convert all but the most senior debt into equity stakes in the new company, leaving its current creditors in charge.

That’s a shocking turn of events for a media group that sold for more than $10 billion in 2019. Heck, it’s a shocking turn of events for a company that made more than $2 billion in revenues in the first nine months of 2022, and more than $3 billion in 2021. It might also affect long-term cashflows for every team in the league; after all, local broadcast rights are a key piece of the revenue pie, and broadcast rights have exploded along with MLB revenues in the past decade.

How could this have happened? Which teams will be impacted, and what will that impact be? How will the league adapt to the new media landscape brought on by this bankruptcy and any subsequent dominos that fall as a result? I don’t have the answer to all of those questions, but I’ll walk through each in turn before speculating about what might happen next. Read the rest of this entry »

Who was better, Joe Mauer or Chase Utley? I asked that question in a Twitter poll earlier this week and the result was… well, lopsided. The erstwhile Minnesota Twins catcher/first baseman garnered 79.5% of the 1,362 votes cast, while the former Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles Dodgers second baseman received just 20.5%. With both debuting on next year’s Hall of Fame ballot — one that will include numerous notable holdovers — that breakdown could be telling. While it seems unlikely that Utley will join the likes of Bobby Grich and Lou Whitaker as a one-and-done snub, might he poll just as poorly, or even worse, with BBWAA voters as he did in the head-to-head matchup with Mauer?

Utley finished his career with 61.6 fWAR and 64.5 bWAR.
Mauer finished his career with 53.0 fWAR and 55.2 bWAR.

Adrián Beltré, who will also debut on the ballot, is a shoo-in to be elected in his first year of eligibility. It is much for that reason that the Mauer-Utley comparison is meaningful — at least for the segment of voters that includes yours truly. Eight of the 10 candidates I voted for this year will be returning, and Beltré is a no-brainer. That leaves one open slot. Moreover, I’m not alone in this conundrum. A total of 54 voters put checkmarks next to 10 names, with eight ballots being identical to mine. Read the rest of this entry »