The week before Christmas, I conducted an investigation into the Giants’ strange sinker-ballers. Logan Webb and Alex Wood enjoyed spectacular years, and they both did it using sinkers they released from a low starting point, which created a unique look for batters.

You probably didn’t read that article, and that’s okay. It was the peak of the holiday season. You were likely out in the world like me – seeing family, drinking eggnog-flavored coffee beverages, and generally making up for last year. My consumption of baseball media went way down, and I do this for a living.

As a self-interested person, I suggest you go back and read that article. I thought it was pretty good! More importantly, though, I’ve been doing more research into what the heck a “flat sinker” even is. The concept just doesn’t fit into my brain, and when that happens, I like to hit myself over the head with data until something clicks. So today, please enjoy some random things I’ve researched while trying to understand why in the world “flat” (approach angle) and “sinker” (pitch type) coexist. Read the rest of this entry »

When Buster Posey announced his retirement in early November, my first thought was something along the lines of “Fantastic career; he’ll be getting my vote when he becomes Hall of Fame eligible in five years.” Looking back, that initial reaction actually undersold just how dominant Posey was over his 12-year career.

A few days ago, I shared the following on social media:

Best catchers in baseball history: 1. Mickey Cochrane, 2. Johnny Bench, 3. Josh Gibson, 4. Yogi Berra, 5. Gary Carter, 6. Ivan Rodriguez.

Your opinion of that ranking aside, a follower proceeded to ask for my opinion of Posey. That prompted me to compare the 34-year-old’s career to that of Cochrane, who likewise was done at a relatively-early age. Cochrane played his last game shortly after his 34th birthday, an errant Bump Hadley pitch — this in the days before hitters wore helmets — having fractured his skull and rendered him unconscious for 10 days. Coincidentally or not, Cochrane had taken Hadley deep in his previous at bat.

Cochrane played from 1925-1937 — a high-offense era — and finished his career with an eye-popping .320/.419/.478 slash line. Perusing our WAR leaderboard for that baker’s-dozen stretch, you’ll find Cochrane sandwiched between Rogers Hornsby and Tony Lazzeri. In 1947, Cochrane became the first catcher voted into the Hall of Fame by the BBWAA.

Cochrane played in 1,482 games. Posey played in 1,371 games. How do they otherwise compare? Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley continue their “Measuring the Unmeasurable” series about studying difficult-to-quantify aspects of the sport by bringing on Rob Mains of Baseball Prospectus to banter about ESPN’s new Sunday Night Baseball broadcasting plans and discuss Rob’s studies about competitive balance, team mobility and inequality, starter vs. reliever performance, the magnitude and history of the times-through-the-order penalty, the universal DH, injuries, and more. Then (50:25) they bring on the pseudonymous author of research blog Hareeb’s Hangout to talk about the potential pitfalls of baseball analysis, how baseball analysis compares to esports analysis, his history of betting on baseball, his studies on the cause of the TTOP, reliever sequencing, valuing closers, and the difficulty of fielding pulled balls, the proprietary data he wishes he had, and his recent research interests.

Audio intro: Neko Case, “Bracing for Sunday”
Audio interstitial: Math and Physics Club, “All the Mains Are Down”
Audio outro: The Muffs, “Where Did I Go Wrong”

Link to ESPN SNB press release
Link to Rodger Sherman on the Manning broadcast
Link to The Press Box on the Manning broadcast
Link to Jason Benetti Nerdcast tweet
Link to Rob on pitching to contact
Link to Rob on small-market teams
Link to Rob on relievers vs. starters
Link to Craig Edwards on relievers vs. starters
Link to Travis Sawchik on relievers vs. starters
Link to Rob on pitching and payrolls
Link to Rob on the times-through-the-order penalty
Link to Rob on the TTOP again
Link to Rob on 2021 injuries
Link to Rob on the DH and interleague play
Link to Rob on the universal DH
Link to Rob on team mobility and inequality
Link to Rob on 2021 mobility inequality
Link to post on Rocket League and pitcher velocity
Link to post on Rocket League viewership
Link to second post on Rocket League viewership
Link to MTG Arena post
Link to post on regression and linear weights
Link to second post on regression/linear weights
Link to study on the TTOP
Link to other study on the TTOP
Link to study on repertoire and the TTOP
Link to study on reliever sequencing
Link to BP piece on reliever sequencing
Link to study on Wins Above Average Closer
Link to study on pulling the ball
Link to Tango’s response to study
Link to Tango on playing center vs. corners
Link to Eno Sarris on playing outfield corners
Link to Mike Petriello on outfielders and spin

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2:01	Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! Welcome to my first chat of 2022. We’ve got a few inches of snow in Brooklyn from last night but against the odds, the kiddo is in school for the first time since December 17, the last time I chatted.

2:02	Jay Jaffe: Today I’ve got my third entry from among the one-and-done candidates on the Hall of Fame ballot, Ryan Howard https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jaws-and-the-2022-hall-of-fame-ballot-ryan…

2:04

Jay Jaffe: this completes a trilogy of first basemen who won the Home Run Derby and made several All-Star teams before their careers were indelibly altered by injuries. Prince Fielder (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jaws-and-the-2022-hall-of-fame-ballot-prin…) and Justin Morneau (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jaws-and-the-2022-hall-of-fame-ballot-prin…) preceded Howard. The explainer for my actual Hall of Fame ballot, which went into the mail on December 30, is here: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jay-jaffes-2022-hall-of-fame-ballot/

2:05	Jay Jaffe: Anyhoo, there’s not a lot going on besides Hall stuff given the lockout, so that will be the primary focus of this chat

2:07	Jay Jaffe: He’d be a candidate for the Golden Days Era Committee ballot, and the good news is that a whole lot of space just opened up there, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Past HOF ballot results probably play too big an impact in determining who gets first crack at making those ballots.

Read the rest of this entry »

Chin Music enters 2022 with more prospect talk, which means another co-hosting spot from the always entertaining Eric Longenhagen, as we ramble for two hours and don’t even need a guest to do it. We begin by talking about the current state of the pandemic and if professional baseball is even tenable given these circumstances. Then, after a brief chat about news from the world of media, Eric and I get into the weeds on prospects, with an in-depth discussion about the farm systems of the Blue Jays, Brewers and Tigers, whose prospect lists were published at FanGraphs since we last spoke. Then it’s your emails on failed (or not as failed as you think) top draft picks, prospect trades, and kitchen gadgets, followed by some video game and podcast recommendations. As always, we hope you enjoy, and thank you for listening.

Music by Strangelight.

Have a question you’d like answered on the show? Ask us anything at chinmusic@fangraphs.com.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes/Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Warning One: While ostensibly a podcast about baseball, these conversations often veer into other subjects.

Warning Two: There is explicit language.

Run Time: 2:07:31

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The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2022 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.

As the Phillies looked to turn the corner from pretenders to contenders in the new millennium, they signed future Hall of Fame slugger Jim Thome to provide some middle-of-the-lineup thump via a six-year, $85 million contract in December 2002. Outwardly at least, they didn’t appear to expect much from their fifth-round 2001 draft pick, a 6-foot-4, 220-pound first baseman with 80-grade raw power but notable contact issues and questions about his defense. Thome’s presence kept Ryan Howard in the minors long enough for him to hit 46 home runs across two levels in 2004, his age-24 season. But when Thome suffered a season-ending elbow injury the following year, Howard stepped in and flat out stole the first base job.

Howard won the NL Rookie of the Year award in his abbreviated 2005 season, leading the Phillies to trade Thome to the White Sox that winter, then followed up by launching 58 homers and claiming NL MVP honors in ’06. He became a cornerstone of the Phillies’ five straight NL East titles from 2007 to ’11, a run that included a World Series win over the Rays in 2008, and another NL pennant in ’09.

At a time before the lessons of Moneyball had been fully absorbed on a league-wide basis, Howard’s big home run and RBI totals led to massive paydays, while his limitations in the field and on the basepaths — which had already become significant factors as he’d filled out to a listed 250 pounds — were overlooked. Unfortunately, an Achilles tendon rupture, suffered on the final play of the 2011 Division Series agains the Cardinals, turned his biggest contract into an albatross. Midway through that deal, an ugly legal fight within his family over the handling of his finances came to light, a heartbreaking turn of events that couldn’t have made his on-field struggles any easier. 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 Oakland Athletics.

Batters

The departures of Mark Canha and Starling Marte are a real setback for Oakland, but the lineup’s core remains intact. This starts with bullishness on the Matts.

Five-win projections from a first baseman are kind of rare in ZiPS — I started building WAR projections into ZiPS in 2014, and this will be only the sixth time it’s happened — but Matt Olson is at the likely height of his powers. As terrific as he was in 2021, with a .271/.341/.540 line and 5.0 WAR, ZiPS isn’t projecting a dropoff, thanks both to regression and because it thinks he was somewhat unlucky in BABIP the last two years relative to his hit data. Vladito versus Olson for supremacy in the AL should be a fun battle the next few years, though the former is likely to vanquish the latter for good in a few years given their respective ages.

ZiPS isn’t projecting Matt Chapman to set any new personal bests, as his offense has fallen off enough that he’s probably left his 2018–19 MVP-ish peak for good. Getting back to the four-win threshold would still make him All-Star level, though. Chapman seems to come up in trade talks reasonably regularly, but I’m not sure the A’s actually move him this year unless the playoff race is an uphill battle in July.
Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 956

On this edition of FanGraphs Audio, David Laurila welcomes Rob Kaminsky, former first-rounder and St. Louis Cardinal.

The pair first spoke back in 2014, and while Kaminsky has put a lot of baseball under his belt since then, he is still just 27 years old. We hear stories about coming up with Carson Kelly, Alex Reyes, and previous podcast guest Cole Sulser, as well as how special it was for Kaminsky to make his major league debut in a Cardinals clubhouse with veterans like Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright, and Paul Goldschmidt. We also get an anecdote about striking out a protesting Joey Votto, as well as appearing in a COVID-19 vaccine PSA.

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Audio after the jump. (Approximate 25 minute play time.)

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Detroit Tigers. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the second year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the numbered prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »