Last year, faced with the prospect of an undetermined amount of time with no baseball to watch, I started an experiment: with the help of the FanGraphs reader base, I would crowd manage a team in an online Out Of The Park Baseball league. The OOTP Brewers made a series of crowd-determined decisions throughout the season, with plenty of un-voted upon input by me in the bargain. We fell short of the playoffs, but managed to finish above .500.

That league didn’t end when the season did. Since the virtual 2020 season wrapped up, players have been flying around in free agency, and now that spring training has started, I thought I’d check in on the team and work out some 2021 plans.

The team’s biggest move last year was an in-season trade for Kevin Gausman, a pending free agent. He’s a bigger deal in the game universe than in real life, a borderline top-25 starter with elite control. Rather than let him walk, we signed him to a four-year extension at $23 million per year.

Sounds like a lot, right? Well, our league isn’t a perfect reflection of real life, because most teams are trying to win now. Role playing as a rebuilding team is understandably not everyone’s cup of tea. Take a look at some contracts that notable free agent starters signed this offseason, as well as my scouts’ estimation of them on the 20-80 scale:

The starting pitching market was indeed frothy, and half of those contracts had player options included as well, most notably Stroman, who has three separate chances to get out of the deal. I also left out another 55, because he’s now a Brewer. Collin McHugh signed a two year, $16 million deal with a team option for a third year at $6.5 million. His deal is the cheapest, but he’s the worst of the group; he’s more homer-prone than you’d like in our home bandbox. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s another episode, whether you like it or not. This week’s originally scheduled co-host was struck by COVID-19 (wear a mask, folks!), so filling in is Craig Calcaterra. We talk about the alternate sites, spring training games as background noise, Twitter baseball highlights and more. Later, we are joined by musician/recording engineer Steve Albini, who shares how the pandemic has impacted the music industry, and finish up with a discussion of baseball media in 2021 and family secrets. Taste, and enjoy.

Craig’s Substack newsletter, Cup Of Coffee, can be found here.

Music by Ranges.

Have a question you’d like answered on the show? Hit us up 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: 2:00:25

Podcast (chin-music): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Justin Dunn’s offseason overhaul and the value of spring training clichés, the Brewers signing Jackie Bradley Jr., why Jake Odorizzi is still a free agent, where he’ll end up, and why he’ll decide the EW free agent contracts competition, and an abominable baseball scene from the new movie Tom & Jerry. Then (41:25) they bring on Sam Rosenthal and Joel Clarke of video game studio The Game Band, the creators of the viral online simulation league Blaseball, to talk about their baseball backgrounds, how they created Blaseball, how and why it took off, how the game works, its active fan community, its dedicated researchers, how they write the story and simulate games, how they make money, how to get into the game, the impact of the pandemic on the game, the demographics of its fans, player incinerations/resurrections, and more.

Audio intro: The Garages, "Empty Stadiums"
Audio interstitial: Josh Millard, "Let Me into the Blaseball"
Audio outro: The Garages, "Rogue Ump"

Link to Dunn story
Link to Ben’s BSOHL study
Link to Ben’s new pitches study
Link to David Laurila on Bradley
Link to Jay Jaffe on Odorizzi
Link to FA contracts draft stats
Link to Ben Clemens on Houston’s rotation
Link to Tom & Jerry clip
Link to actual Gordon fly ball
Link to Sonic the Hedgehog baseball scene
Link to Blaseball website
Link to the Blaseball wiki
Link to The Game Band intro Twitter thread
Link to Blaseball explainer video
Link to Polygon intro to Blaseball
Link to Polygon on Blaseball fans
Link to Vice on Blaseball
Link to Android Central on Blaseball
Link to Defector on Blaseball
Link to Cat Manning’s Blaseball primer
Link to the Los Angeles Times on Blaseball
Link to The Universal Baseball Association
Link to SIBR
Link to Blaseball Reference
Link to story on The Garages
Link to Blaseball Patreon page

 iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!)
 Sponsor Us on Patreon
 Facebook Group
 Effectively Wild Wiki
 Twitter Account
 Get Our Merch!
 Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com

Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Michael Siani isn’t the sexiest prospect in the Cincinnati Reds system. With an arguably-limited offensive profile, the 21-year-old outfielder projects, in the words of Eric Longenhagen, as “a low-end regular in center field based on the quality of his defense.” In Longenhagen’s opinion, Siani will likely “end up hitting toward the bottom of a lineup” due to a lack of power.

Siani isn’t sold on the idea that he’ll continue to lack sufficient pop. At 6-foot-1 and 195 pounds, the No. 10 prospect in the Cincinnati system will never be a bona fide bopper — plus wheels will remain his calling card — but he’s also not about to sell himself short. Asked about his power potential, the oldest of three baseball-playing brothers pointed to his age, adding that his game is still developing. While striving to be a “consistent, gap-to-gap hitter” is his primary goal, settling for a low ceiling is by no means the plan.

Growing up, the plan was for Siani to attend public school in the Philadelphia area. Instead, he ended up matriculating from Ruben Amaro Jr.’s alma mater. Recruited in the seventh grade to play baseball, Siani spent his formative years at William Penn Charter School — founded in 1689 — before the Reds took him in the fourth round of the 2018 draft. Read the rest of this entry »

Framber Valdez was a revelation in 2020. After a forgettable debut in 2019, he threw 70.2 innings of pure excellence last season, the highest total on the team. His emergence buttressed a rotation that lost Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander from the last time we’d seen them. Even with Lance McCullers Jr. recovered, no Astros starter had a better projected ERA in 2021 than Valdez. Unfortunately, he fractured the ring finger on his pitching hand on Tuesday, and his availability this season is now in doubt after doctors recommended surgery.

The play where he hurt himself was nothing out of the ordinary:

The play where Framber Valdez fractured his left ring finger. pic.twitter.com/69wlrtNQaf

— Tony Adams (@adams_at) March 3, 2021

A comebacker, a reflexive stab, a quick grimace: you see it all the time. With Valdez awaiting further medical guidance, though, it’s worth both considering his rapid ascent and wondering what Houston will do to replace his innings in an already-shaky rotation. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I woke up to a bit of a Chicago-area Twitter kerfuffle based on some things Cubs outfielder Ian Happ said on local sports radio about how RBIs are a skill and not based on luck. Let’s face it: When wins and RBIs are praised, somebody somewhere is going to get worked up about it.

Happ said these things on Dan Bernstein and Leila Rahimi’s morning show on 670 AM The Score, and based on the tweets, it sounded like an argument, which surprised me. Dan is a thoughtful guy who has been in fixture in Chicago sports radio since years began with a 1. Like most sports talk hosts, people love him or hate him, but he’s not your standard run-of-the-mill screamer. He’s smart about baseball, exceptionally clever, and doesn’t suffer fools gladly.

After hearing the conversation, it was clearly overblown on social media (as to be expected when Twitter is involved). The most intriguing part of the argument, though, was probably about the 2012 AL MVP voting. Happ insisted that Miguel Cabrera deserved his award based on winning the Triple Crown, with Rahimi agreeing with him; Bernstein went with Mike Trout, based on overall value. I’m with Dan. Cabrera and Trout were roughly equal players offensively, but the latter easily surpasses the former once you factor in defense and base running.

Still, this wasn’t a mud-slinging battle. Dan was respectful throughout the whole conversation, and Happ is a regular on the radio in Chicago. “You can talk wRC+ with [Happ], and he understands it,” said Bernstein. “I think more players understand these kind of numbers now that they know the correlation between the math and how they get paid. A lot of players are past statistics because they’re into so much more measurement now. They want to know about their Rapsodo data and exit velocities.”

The whole situation left me wondering about a couple things — some more serious — in terms of why anyone cares about how players see statistics. But on a more fun and silly level, I wondered if you could make a case where RBIs would matter.

Read the rest of this entry »

12:02

Dan Szymborski: Welcome to Dan’s first ever chat using a Ryzen CPU!

12:03

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure, in what sense? As in an automatic tool? I don’t really use automatic tools in fantasy.

12:03

Dan Szymborski: Should be next few days.

Read the rest of this entry »

There is no video that I can find of the moment when, during Sunday’s inaugural spring training contest between the Phillies and the Tigers, the fans began to boo. One can imagine well enough what it might have sounded like, even in the absence of evidence: The bases were loaded, and the Phillies, despite using two pitchers who threw a combined 50 pitches, had failed to record a third out. In the interest of playing a complete game without anyone’s arm falling off, the inning was rolled, and the players left the field. And as they left, down came the boos.

What was the root of the booing? Phillies fans exercising their God-given right to boo their own players’ failures? Tigers fans, robbed of the opportunity to see a two-out grand slam in the very first inning of spring? I can’t imagine it was a wall of boos — not on the level of such concerted efforts as, say, when Rob Manfred presented the Commissioner’s Trophy last October, nor even comparable to the sound of a stadium of 22,000 on a pre-pandemic weeknight expressing their unhappiness at a throw to first. Fans, of course, can’t travel in the same way that they did last February, and the seats of the stadium in Lakeland can’t be packed, and there are reasons that one might think twice about loud, collective vocalizations in a public place. But, nonetheless, there they were, making their displeasure known.

The opening hours of last year’s spring training, too, made headlines for their booing. This was the first on-field appearance of the Astros after their cheating scandal broke during the offseason, and, while there were efforts underway to plan an Opening Day booing that would go down in the history books, every opportunity was taken to demonstrate to the Astros that even their pre-season efforts were not in the least appreciated. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 912

On this week’s program, we welcome a major league player who is as eager to see the field as we are before talking about a few of the challenges facing the Philadelphia Phillies.

• At the start of the show, David Laurila sits down with Mitch Haniger to talk about returning to action. The Mariners outfielder is back from injury and shares his thoughts on recovery and the upcoming season. Haniger also discusses playing with Brent Suter in the minors, the talented players in Seattle’s system, and just how automatic reaction time at the plate has to be to succeed. [2:13]
• Following that, Ben Clemens and Eric Longenhagen try to figure out what to do with the Phillies’ defense. The infield’s range is stretched thin, the outfield isn’t doing much better, and the team could really benefit from the designated hitter. Ben and Eric also discuss Philadelphia’s creative bullpen options, the state of their farm, and a position of depth from which they may be able to trade. [18:53]

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Jackie Bradley Jr. may or may not be the best defensive centerfielder in the game. Metrics have never loved him quite as much as the eye test suggests they should — accordingly, he’s never been honored with a Fielding Bible award — but there are those who believe he’s without peer among his contemporaries. At worst, the soon-to-turn-31-year-old “JBJ” is on the short list of top defenders at his position.

Those talents will now be display in Milwaukee. According to The Boston Globe’s Julian McWilliams, Bradley, who ranked as the 18th best free agent this offseason per FanGraphs, has agreed to a two-year, $24 million deal with the Brewers that includes an opt-out after the first year, thus ending an eight-season tenure with the Red Sox that included a Gold Glove, an All-Star berth, and a World Series championship. Along the way, Bradley logged a cumulative 93 wRC+ that comprised both peaks and valleys. Notoriously streaky, the personable left-handed-hitter is anything but a sure bet to match last year’s 120 wRC+, .283/.364/.450 line, which came over 55 games.

The Brewers would likely consider it gravy if he did match that level of production. This acquisition was largely about making an already improved defense better — Kolten Wong at second base being another key acquisition — and it unquestionably will. Bradley will be joining an outfield alignment that includes not just Christian Yelich, but also Lorenzo Cain, who is back after opting out last season due to COVID concerns. Cain, who turns 35 next month, is a two-time Fielding Bible winner as a center fielder, and has rated well by the various defensive metrics both over his career and in 2019, when he posted a 7.0 UZR, 22 DRS, and 16.0 Outs Above Average, with BP’s FRAA of -1.6 the exception. Read the rest of this entry »