After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Seattle Mariners.

Batters

This is one case where just taking a glance at the depth chart graphic could lend the wrong impression. In the below graphic, two of the four most valuable ZiPS-projected hitters have their contributions split among multiple positions, with lesser players bringing down their overall numbers, and a third isn’t even on the depth chart. What’s more, the Mariners have reasonably good depth, especially offensively, and while the ceiling on most of the lineup isn’t exceptionally high, I do think they have a pretty high floor. I also don’t believe that Evan White has anywhere near enough remaining rope to get 300 plate appearances in 2022 if he matches his projection below. Read the rest of this entry »

With last week’s lockout of the players by ownership, the league has frozen all transactions for the foreseeable future. That’s bad news — but it also makes this a good time to take a snapshot of team payrolls, because there are no new deals coming down the pipe to mess up the analysis midway through. As such, the following is an update on each team’s payroll as it stood at the start of the lockout. Here are our team-by-team RosterResource projections:

A few notes, some of which will likely be familiar to you if you followed past versions of this exercise written by former FanGraphs writer Craig Edwards. The above data counts salaries for 2022, not average annual values. It includes estimates for arbitration, as well as estimated minimum salaries paid throughout the season; our payroll pages currently use the 2021 league minimum, but that number could change in the upcoming CBA. The numbers don’t include incentive bonuses, or a few specific CBA wrinkles, such as the approximately $2 million that teams pay to players who aren’t in the majors but are on the 40-man roster or the roughly $16 million per team spent on player benefits. They also don’t include as-yet-unsigned free agents, naturally.

The Mets’ recent signing spree, combined with the Dodgers’ losses in free agency, has seen the two teams change places at the top of the payroll standings (somewhat surprisingly, the Mets finished as the second-highest spenders in 2021). All told, there are three teams (the Mets, Dodgers and Yankees) that are currently projected for more than $200 million in player salaries in 2022, the same number (and the same teams) as last year. Meanwhile, there are two teams (the Pirates and the Guardians) with projected payrolls below $50 million, one more than last year, and neither of those teams is likely to make meaningful free agent signings when transactions resume. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about listener responses to their earlier conversation about the proper pluralization of “hit by pitch,” then (11:41) bring on Bradford William Davis and Dr. Meredith Wills to discuss the reporting and research that revealed that two types of baseballs were used during the 2021 MLB regular season, as well as the differences between balls, players’ and teams’ reactions to the news, whether MLB’s ball problems stem from incompetence or conspiracy, how the league could improve its messaging and production process, the outlook for offense next year, the ball’s impact on gambling and the labor situation, and more.

Audio intro: Sparks, “Balls”
Audio outro: Roy Orbison, “Two of a Kind”

Link to SABR style guide
Link to Bradford’s report
Link to thread about Bradford’s report
Link to SI report about 2020 balls
Link to study about the Yankees
Link to Alonso’s comments
Link to Ben’s first piece about the HR rate
Link to Ben’s first piece about the ball
Link to Manfred’s 2019 comments
Link to Meredith’s 2019 analysis
Link to Ben on 2019 postseason balls
Link to article about Wilson basketballs
Link to Sporting News on three-pointers
Link to NPR on three-pointers
Link to Effectively Wild Secret Santa
Link to Stove League teaser video
Link to Stove League review
Link to stream Stove League via Kocowa
Link to stream Stove League via Viki

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The International Players tab on The Board has once again enjoyed a sweeping update, the second such update since the pandemic shifted the international signing calendar back about six months. Rankings and reports for the current class of amateur players set to sign in January 2022 (though that date could be delayed due to the lockout) have been expanded on The Board with help from Kevin Goldstein, while updates and additions to the notable pro players in other markets have been completed with help from Tess Taruskin and Brendan Gawlowski.

CBA/COVID Complications

There are a few factors that could potentially complicate the upcoming signing period. Remember that fallout from the pandemic has already pushed this signing period back six months. When most of the international amateur players on The Board agreed to their deals with teams, they assumed that they’d have put pen to paper by now and perhaps have spent the fall in Florida or Arizona for instructional league. Instead, they haven’t yet signed, and now a lockout may further delay or complicate their coronation. Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Baltimore Orioles.

Batters

The history of the post-Earl Weaver Orioles has not been a happy one. Over his first stint with Baltimore, from 1968 to ’82, they were the winningest team in baseball, with 1,570 total wins, and averaged four wins per season more than the next-best team, the Reds, during that stretch. At no time during this era did the O’s finish below .500, and that even leaves out their last World Series championship in 1983. Weaver wasn’t just one of the best managers in baseball, but a very modern manager who used what analytics were available at the time.

But the failure of the O’s isn’t just a failure of managing. Weaver was great, but the team’s assembly line of young talent was a pivotal piece to the puzzle. While there are certainly some notable successes, the Orioles simply haven’t produced that much talent over the last 20–30 years. It certainly didn’t help that they placed a low priority on finding talent in Latin America for a long time, depriving them of a source that pretty much everyone else in baseball happily accessed. Read the rest of this entry »

Sunday evening’s announcement of the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s Early Baseball and Golden Days Era Committee voting results brought a mixture of elation and sadness, as well as some measure of closure. Six candidates were elected to the Hall via the two ballots for long-retired players and managers, including three of its most famous omissions (Early Baseball’s Buck O’Neil, and Golden Days’ Gil Hodges and Minnie Miñoso), two of the three living candidates (Golden Days’ Jim Kaat and Tony Oliva), and a pioneer who stands as the first professional Black player in history (Bud Fowler). But as a bracing reminder of near-misses and the collision between baseball and human mortality, Dick Allen — who died on December 7, 2020, one day before his candidacy would have been considered if not for the coronavirus pandemic — fell a single vote short of election for the second time in a row.

The voting by the two 16-member panels took place on Sunday in Orlando, Florida, where the MLB Winter Meetings would have been held this week if not for their cancellation due to MLB’s decision to lock out the players following the expiration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (the MiLB portion is still taking place). Each voter was allowed to include up to four of the 10 candidates on their ballot, and the voting was done in secret.

By far the most popular candidate up for election on either ballot was O’Neil, whose career as a player began in 1937 with the Kansas City Monarchs. O’Neil played alongside Hall of Famers such as Satchel Paige, Willard Brown, Bullet Rogan, and Hilton Smith, then managed the Monarchs, but it was his post-career work that elevated him into the pantheon. He was a pioneering scout who connected Ernie Banks to the Cubs and Elston Howard to the Yankees, signed Lou Brock, and scouted Lee Smith. He was the first Black coach in the AL/NL majors. And finally, he was an ambassador for the Negro Leagues, playing an outsized role in raising awareness of Black baseball and in recognizing its greats. O’Neil spent 21 years on the Veterans Committee, offering eyewitness testimony on his cohorts; served as subject and narrator in Ken Burns’ nine-part documentary series Baseball; co-founded the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City; and crusaded for Negro Leagues players deserving election to the Hall. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of a series concerning the 2022 Early Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering managers and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon on December 5. For an introduction to the ballot, see here, and for an introduction to JAWS, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

John Donaldson

“If [John] Donaldson were a white man or if the unwritten law of baseball didn’t bar Negroes from the major leagues, I would give $50,000 for him and think I was getting a bargain.” — John McGraw, quoted in various newspapers, 1915

The career totals are staggering — 413 wins, 5,091 strikeouts, 14 no-hitters, and two perfect games over a span of 33 years — and they’ve all been documented. But only a fraction of those are on Seamheads, and an even smaller fraction on Baseball Reference, covering his time in the major Negro Leagues. John Donaldson is an enigma. He may have been the greatest Black baseball pitcher of all time.

A 6-foot-1, 180-pound left-hander who had speed, a wide assortment of curveballs, and a good changeup, Donaldson spent the years from 1908-40 carving out a singular career in Black baseball. He barnstormed before the major Negro Leagues were in place, dominating the competition, spent five seasons (1920-24) with the Kansas City Monarchs (whom he’s said to have named) of the first Negro National League, primarily as an outfielder rather than a pitcher, and then spent over a decade and a half continuing his barnstorming odyssey on integrated and Black semiprofessional teams. Read the rest of this entry »