Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Astros re-signing Justin Verlander and MLB’s plan to house minor leaguers, then (19:53) bring on listener and top-tier Patreon supporter John Choe to discuss the single game he played in indy ball, the Moonlight Graham Society he co-founded to recognize minor league cups of coffee, how his love of baseball stats helped guide him to his current career, how he and his kids have spread the gospel of sabermetrics, his daughter’s on-field experience with Baseball For All, and more. After that (42:29), Ben, Meg, and John answer listener emails about why popular pitcher stats don’t mirror popular hitting stats, how different baseball would be if players were removed from games after making outs and if players and teams could copyright tactics, whether umps should intervene in an unforced walk-off, and whether players could opt not to wear caps. Lastly (1:24:17), Ben talks to another listener/Patreon supporter, Michael Mountain, about the most efficient itinerary for a trip to every affiliated ballpark in 2022.

Audio intro: Kelley Stoltz, "You’re Out of This World"
Audio outro: Smash Mouth, "Shoes ‘N’ Hats"

Link to Brendan Gawlowski on Verlander
Link to Baseball America on MiLB housing
Link to MiLB.com on MiLB housing
Link to the Moonlight Graham Society website
Link to John’s page at the MGS site
Link to John’s article about the MGS
Link to NPR story on Evan Katz
Link to Sam Miller on playing in a pro game
Link to list of minor league one-game players
Link to lists of major league one-game players
Link to Baseball For All website
Link to paper on protecting sports secrets
Link to Ben on keeping secrets in MLB
Link to Bryan Grosnick on openers
Link to Sam on the history of bullpenning
Link to story on copyrighting game mechanics
Link to Michael’s previous pod appearance
Link to Reddit thread on 2022 road trip
Link to Michael’s ballpark grand tour
Link to traveling salesperson problem
Link to NoContextEWPod account
Link to Acuña’s quote
Link to Stove League teaser video
Link to stream Stove League via Kocowa
Link to stream Stove League via Viki

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The following article is part of a series concerning the 2022 Golden Days Era Committee ballot, covering managers and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon on December 5. For an introduction to this year’s ballot, see here, and for an introduction to JAWS, see here. Several profiles in this series are adapted from work previously published at SI.com, Baseball Prospectus, and Futility Infielder. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Gil Hodges

“Hodges was the solid anchorman around whom the others revolved. He lent class and dignity and respect to his team and to his profession. As has been written — and rightly so — he had all the attributes of an Eagle Scout. This was quite a man.” — Arthur Daley, New York Times, April 4, 1972

Gil Hodges was a genuinely beloved player in his day and is probably the most popular candidate on the Golden Days ballot. Indeed, he might be the most popular candidate on any ballot. More collective emotion has been spent trying to will Hodges — a 6-foot-2, 210-pound gentle giant — into Cooperstown than any other player. The closest miss, he surpassed 60% three times on the BBWAA ballot, peaking at 63.4% in 1983, his final year of eligibility; outside of currently eligible candidates, he stands as the only one even to cross the 50% threshold without eventually getting elected via the Veterans or Era Committees, an exception of which anyone who’s followed my work for the past two decades is almost certainly aware. What’s more, biographer Danny Peary claims that in 1993, when Ted Williams led the Veterans Committee, he would not allow ailing committee member Roy Campanella to vote by phone; thus, Hodges missed by one vote. He’s never gotten any closer.

Hodges was the Dodgers’ regular first baseman from 1948 through ’61, a span during which he earned All-Star honors eight times and helped his team to six pennants (plus another in 1947, when he was a reserve) and two championships. After returning to New York in 1962 as a reserve on the dismal expansion Mets, he managed the Senators before coming back to Queens and overseeing the ’69 team’s miraculous upset of the Orioles in the World Series. Further managerial success at that level eluded him, as he died of a heart attack on April 2, 1972, two days shy of his 48th birthday. Read the rest of this entry »

The first ZiPS team projections will hit the site this coming Monday, and as I typically do, I’m going to use this space to talk a little bit about my philosophy behind ZiPS, my goals, and the new things I’ve worked on before they go live.

ZiPS is a computer projection system I initially developed in 2002–04 and which officially went live for the ’04 season. The origin of ZiPS is similar to Tom Tango’s Marcel the Monkey, coming from discussions I had with Chris Dial, one of my best friends (my first interaction with Chris involved me being called an expletive!) and a fellow stat nerd, in the late 1990s. ZiPS moved quickly from its original inception as a reasonably simple projection system, and now does a lot more and uses a lot more data than I ever envisioned 20 years ago. At its core, however, it’s still doing two primary tasks: estimating what the baseline expectation for a player is at the moment I hit the button, and then estimating where that player may be going using large cohorts of relatively similar players.

ZiPS uses multi-year statistics, with more recent seasons weighted more heavily; in the beginning, all the statistics received the same yearly weighting, but eventually, this became more varied based on additional research. And research is a big part of ZiPS. Every year, I run hundreds of studies on various aspects of the system to determine their predictive value and better calibrate the player baselines. What started with the data available in 2002 has expanded considerably: Basic hit, velocity, and pitch data began playing a larger role starting in ’13, while data derived from StatCast has been included in recent years as I’ve gotten a handle on the predictive value and impact of those numbers on existing models. I believe in cautious, conservative design, so data is only included once I have confidence in improved accuracy; there are always builds of ZiPS that are still a couple of years away. Additional internal ZiPS tools like zBABIP, zHR, zBB, and zSO are used to better establish baseline expectations for players. These stats work similarly to the various flavors of “x” stats, with the z standing for something I’d wager you’ve already figured out. Read the rest of this entry »

The last time we saw Justin Verlander pitch, he looked like his usual, dominant self. In six innings against Seattle, he allowed only three hits and two runs while striking out seven. As had been the case in his Cy Young season, he was a little dinger-prone, surrendering two blasts to an otherwise overmatched Mariners lineup. But in an Opening Day start played in unusual circumstances, his stuff looked as sharp as ever.

Unfortunately, that last outing was in July of 2020. Within the week, Verlander landed on the injured list with a forearm strain. Two months later, the future Hall of Famer announced that he was undergoing Tommy John surgery. The procedure sidelined him for all of 2021, his last season prior to reaching free agency.

The timing gave the Astros a difficult decision. With no recent performance to evaluate, Houston nonetheless extended their ace a qualifying offer, which forced Verlander to pick between testing a very uncertain free agent market and taking a $10 million pay cut. He ultimately turned down the QO, but not the Astros themselves. In news amusingly broken by his brother Ben, Verlander re-signed with Houston yesterday on a one-year, $25 million deal that includes a $25 million player option for a second year. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, the FanGraphs staff and I previewed the top 50 free agents on this winter’s market. It takes two to tango, though (pending the development of my experimental one-person tango), which means the teams looking for players matter just as much. Over the course of this week, I’ll preview the needs of each team in baseball. Today, it’s time to preview the NL and AL Central. You can find the 10 teams in the East here and the Central here.

As much as possible, I’ve tried to be realistic. Yes, the Orioles could sign Carlos Correa, Marcus Semien, Freddie Freeman, Starling Marte, Max Scherzer, and Marcus Stroman in pursuit of a playoff berth next year. They not going to sign even one of those players, though, and I’ve focused on what a team should do given real-world budgets. You won’t see the Rays listed as a landing spot for free agents in the market for $100 million contracts, or anything of that sort. As much as possible, this list is what teams might actually do. Let’s get to it. Read the rest of this entry »

A busy early offseason continued apace on Tuesday, with the Blue Jays coming to terms with pitcher José Berríos on a seven-year deal worth up to $131 million, pending the usual physical. The new pact buys out the last year of his arbitration eligibility and includes limited trade protection and an opt-out clause that the former Twins ace can exercise after the 2026 season.

It would be hard to characterize this one as a major surprise. The players who went to Minnesota in return for Berríos, Austin Martin and Simeon Woods Richardson, were ranked here as the second- and third-best prospects in Toronto’s system, respectively. To get a richer haul at the deadline, you had to trade literally Max Scherzer and Trea Turner. It’s not the type of move you make if you want the pitcher to walk in 14 months with only a possible draft compensation pick in exchange.

Berríos hasn’t developed into a superstar, but he’s been consistently in that 110–120 ERA+, borderline-ace territory since being promoted to Minnesota for good in early 2017. And he has one thing that many other star pitchers lack: a nearly flawless record of avoiding injury; as a major leaguer, he hasn’t made an appearance on the Injured List or missed a single start due to injury. The most he’s been nicked up was being pulled from a start because of a blister in 2019 and some abdominal tightness this September. It’s not just luck; injury time is a useful predictor of future injury time.

At the time of the trade, Toronto’s rotation ranked 19th in baseball in total WAR, nearly a win behind the Royals at 18. The starting pitching was coming around with the emergence of Alek Manoah in June, but he missed some time with a back contusion stemming from a fall in the dugout, and Nate Pearson’s groin problems were enough to keep him from serving as a reinforcement down the stretch. In a packed wild-card race with the Jays 4 1/2 games back at the trade deadline, Berríos provided an opportunity for a significant upgrade in the rotation, and he was as good as advertised, putting up a 3.58 ERA and a 3.28 FIP over 12 starts and throwing seven consecutive quality starts to finish his 2021 campaign.

Read the rest of this entry »

Unless you’re a diehard fan, you’d be hard pressed to name a single member of the Marlins bullpen. Given that they traded away a bunch of their relievers in July and still look like they’re a few years away from building a true contender, that’s not surprising. Building a lockdown relief corps isn’t the top priority based on where they are in their rebuild. But GM Kim Ng mentioned during last week’s General Manager Meetings that adding depth to the bullpen was part of the offseason to-do list — a bit of surprise given the context above. They started to address that depth right away, too, acquiring right-handed pitcher Louis Head on Sunday from the Rays for a player to be named later or cash considerations.

Miami’s relief corps was pretty solid in 2021, with the third best park- and league-adjusted FIP in the National League, 8% better than league average. But Marlins relievers weren’t exactly flamethrowers; collectively, they posted a 22.0% strikeout rate, the fourth-worst mark in baseball. Instead, the team employed a bunch of pitchers who ran above-average ground-ball rates, helping them successfully manage the contact they did allow. As a group, they had the fifth-highest ground-ball rate and second-lowest barrel rate in baseball.

Bass was signed to a two-year deal last offseason, making him the highest paid member of this group. A surprising number of minor league free agents ended up making a solid contribution in the majors, and the rest were acquired via the same kind of under-the-radar trade that brought Head into the fold. Despite all their success this year, the average age of these relievers is 30.3 years old. It’s a competent collection of relievers assembled from the castoffs of other organizations, and Head fits in perfectly.
Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of a series concerning the 2022 Golden Days Era Committee ballot, covering managers and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon on December 5. For an introduction to this year’s ballot, see here, and for an introduction to JAWS, see here. Several profiles in this series are adapted from work previously published at SI.com, Baseball Prospectus, and Futility Infielder. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Tony Oliva

Cuban emigré Tony Oliva spent his entire 15-year career (1962-76) with the Twins, and for a while, he appeared to be Cooperstown-bound. A flashy five-tool player at the outset of his career, he took home AL Rookie of the Year honors in 1964, made eight All-Star teams, and won a trio of batting titles, including a pair in his first two full seasons (1964 and ’65), making him the first player to do so; in the latter year, the sweet-swinging lefty helped the Twins to their first pennant. Unfortunately, a series of knee injuries diminished Oliva’s effectiveness, cut into his playing time in his 30s, and led to an early departure from the majors.

Oliva’s origin story is a confusing one. He was born Pedro Oliva II in Pinar del Rio, a rural province of Cuba, the third of 10 children. However, like his countryman Minnie Minoso, there’s some ambiguity of the year of his birth. Baseball Reference and Major League Baseball report his birthdate as July 20, 1938, meaning that he was 24 when he debuted, 26 when he won Rookie of the Year honors (at the conclusion of his age-25 season), and 38 when he played his last game. By the player’s own account in his autobiography, he was born on July 20, 1941, and used older brother Antonio’s birth certificate to acquire a passport and leave Cuba in the aftermath of the 1959 Fidel Castro-led revolution, hence his being known as Tony. Read the rest of this entry »

The Angels made their first splash of the offseason on Tuesday by signing Noah Syndergaard to a one-year, $21 million deal, per ESPN’s Jeff Passan. He was no. 15 on our top 50 free agent rankings despite missing all of 2020 because of Tommy John surgery on his right elbow, and though he was expected back early in 2021, a large setback in his recovery cost him just almost the entirety of that season as well. Two innings out of the bullpen in late September is all we’ve seen out of him in the last two years.

A one-year deal this winter makes a lot of sense for Syndergaard, who can rebuild his value in hopes of getting a long-term contract next offseason. It’s less of a no-brainer for the Angels, as there is no opportunity to cash in on future years in case of a bounce-back, and it’s hard to imagine Syndergaard will be in top form in 2022, given the thick layer of rust that surely needs to be knocked off of him. Most teams probably viewed signing him as a two-year project. Look no further than his 2018 season, though, to see the outcome the Angels envision. Coming off a torn lat muscle that cost him most of his 2017 campaign, he proceeded to put up a 3.03 ERA/2.80 FIP over 154.1 innings despite diminished velocity.

Read the rest of this entry »