Jonathan Schoop slashed .169/.217/.273 last year in counts that included two strikes, and over his career that line is an equally-squeamish .162/.208/.276. The Detroit Tigers infielder — recently re-signed to a one-year deal worth a reported $4.5M — isn’t alone in scuffling when a possible punch-out looms. Across the two leagues, batters slashed .167/.248/.275 in those situations in 2020

Schoop typically doesn’t get into two-strike counts by taking pitcher’s pitches and patiently waiting for mistakes. Restraint has never been his forte. Since debuting with the Baltimore Orioles in September 2013, Schoop’s walk rate is a lowly 3.8%, while his Swing% and O-Swing% both rank toward the top of our Plate Discipline leaderboard. And while toning down that level of aggression is a goal, it’s not as though a Tiger can simply change his stripes. Schoop isn’t about to morph into Joey Votto — not at age 29 — which means a different two-strike approach might be in order.

I asked Schoop about that during a Zoom call earlier this week.

“I’ve got to do better with two strikes,” admitted Schoop, whose 22% K-rate last year was a shade under his career mark of 22.9%. “I need to put the ball more in play and see what happens. I’m going to change that. I’m going to be better at everything. The things I need to be better in, I’m going to be better in. The things I’m good in, I’m trying to be a tick better on them, too.”

Following up, I asked Schoop if he’s considered shortening his swing with two strikes, maybe even choking up on the bat. While that might mean giving up some power, it would likely help him boost his contact rate. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the de-naming and possible renaming of the minor leagues, the Andrew Benintendi trade and the state of the Royals, and what they would add to SABR’s list of the 50 most noteworthy moments in the evolution of baseball analytics over the past 50 years, then (30:00) bring back NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Systems Engineer (and baseball fan) Shannon Towey to discuss adopting the Dodgers, the Mets’ offseason, the physics of baseball, the upcoming landing of the Perseverance rover on Mars, the purpose of the Mars 2020 mission, her role in communicating with the rover, why Mars has had a busy month, the importance of planetary protection, future Mars missions, and much more.

Audio intro: The Killers, "My List"
Audio interstitial: Styx, "Mission to Mars"
Audio outro: Rainbow Kitten Surprise, "Mission to Mars"

Link to new minor league structure
Link to Dan Szymborski on the Benintendi trade
Link to SABR’s analytics list
Link to story about Pitcher Abuse Points
Link to Victor Wang’s research
Link to Sam on Steve Boros
Link to the history of “three true outcomes”
Link to Ben on AVM Systems
Link to Ben on the Yankees discovering framing
Link to Shannon’s first EW appearance
Link to Shannon’s website
Link to Mars 2020 mission website
Link to Ben on planetary protection
Link to Mars Helicopter page
Link to R.J. Anderson on MLB brain drain

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Addressing a historically bad bullpen was the primary goal of the Mariners this offseason. Going back to 1969 — the year MLB lowered the mound — the 2020 Mariners bullpen posted the second worst league-adjusted FIP and the fourth worst league-adjusted ERA in a single season. They’ve already made a number of moves to strengthen their relief corps, including trading for Rafael Montero and bringing in a ton of relievers on minor-league deals. Yesterday, they capped off their offseason plan by signing a big-name closer to a multi-year deal. They locked up Ken Giles to a two-year deal, though the specific financials have yet to be reported at time of publication. The only problem is that Giles recently underwent Tommy John surgery and likely won’t pitch until 2022. Elbow troubles have plagued Giles over the last two years. He pitched through inflammation in 2019 but all that wear and tear on his arm caught up to him a season later. He threw just 3.2 innings in 2020 and went under the knife on October 1.

He’s the latest player to sign a deal like this. Garrett Richards and Michael Pineda are the two biggest names who have signed multi-year deals soon after undergoing major arm surgery. It’s an interesting move for the Mariners who have had a rather quiet offseason. They’re not quite ready to break out of their rebuild and have avoided opening the purse strings to make a splash this year. By locking up Giles now, they have him committed to their 2022 roster when they’re hoping to be more ready to compete. Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball is starting.

Selfishly, I’m excited. I love the game. And we need it here at FanGraphs. We can get ready for Opening Day with transaction analyses, prospect rankings, and various pre-season activities. But once the snow melts and temperatures warm (at least here in Midwest), we need games so we can talk about individual moments and the broader standings, and keep the content machine grinding away.

Behind that hum of activity, though, there’s still a pandemic. The overall state of COVID-19 is starting to improve in the US if you look at the numbers. Vaccinations are beginning to roll out, albeit not at the rate anyone would like, and important metrics like the positivity rates and total cases are in decline in most places relative to where they were at the end of last year. While those recent trends are likely cold comfort to those grappling with the disease every day, it does feel like there is finally light at the end of the tunnel.

But even with the situation improving, the pandemic is far worse than it was when everything shut down last March. Baseball is still starting up, however, and for scouts, it’s time to go to work. I ran around with a lot of these people during my time with the Astros and in my prior media days. I got to know many of them, and learned so much from talking with them. And because travel comes with the job, their health is in peril, perhaps even more so than that of the players and personnel who accompany a big league team. Due to the nature of their work, they’re not protected by any kind of bubble system, or mandatory testing schedule. It’s hard for it not to feel kind of gross.

The range of plans for dealing with scouting in the midst of what is still very much an active pandemic is wide. For some, it’s business as usual, with their amateur group blanketing the country as it did before we worried about packing masks and hand sanitizer, as if all of this never happened, or more importantly, wasn’t actively happening. Most teams have some sort of restrictions in place, trying their best to keep scouts local, and limiting plane rides only to cross-checkers; others have gone as far as to trying to limit air travel and hotels for all staff as much as possible. But seeing players remains priority one. Read the rest of this entry »

As we near the opening of spring training, two more players have found new homes, as utility players Brad Miller and Marwin Gonzalez signed major league contracts for the 2021 season. Gonzalez’s deal is a one-year contract with the Red Sox worth $3 million; Miller signed with the Phillies for similar compensation.

Utility players have always been a part of baseball, but they got a special showcase in the 2020 World Series, as the Dodgers and Rays are two teams that highly value defensively flexibility. Role players of this type tend to live a fairly anonymous existence, though there have always been special cases such as Tony Phillips. For Los Angeles, Enrique Hernández (now with Boston) and Chris Taylor were both key members of the team in recent years, and even in big seasons, the team’s been willing to have star players like Cody Bellinger and Max Muncy play extensively at multiple positions. Tampa Bay, on a self-imposed shoestring budget, has utilized Joey Wendle, Mike Brosseau, Yandy Díaz, and Yoshi Tsutsugo (among others) at multiple positions. The Padres appear to be showing few qualms about using last year’s NL Rookie of the Year runner-up, Jake Cronenworth, at multiple positions, as well as the recently re-signed Jurickson Profar.

To look at how this has changed historically, I went back to 1950 (when we started getting dependable outfield positional breakdowns every year) and tried to make a definition of a “supersub” season. I used seasons in which a player played at least four positions for at least 10 games apiece, not including DH, with those limits reduced proportionally for seasons with fewer than 162 games. In 2019, 17 players fit this description, more than the entire 1950s combined; as recently as 1990, there were only three supersub seasons total (Lance Blankenship, Casey Candaele, Eric Yelding). Both Miller and Gonzalez are among this group.

There was a bit of a downtick in 2020, but it was also an odd year, and teams had fewer roster constraints that necessitated supersubs. The trend towards teams valuing versatility is real, though, and in some ways, it comes full-circle to early baseball history, when positions were considered more fluid, even for Hall of Famers like Honus Wagner.

Read the rest of this entry »

2:02

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon and welcome to another edition of my Friday chat — this is the third week in a row I’ve been able to do this, my longest streak since August. So there’s that. Housekeeping-wise, today I have a piece dreaming on Greg Bird’s minor league deal with the Rockies, who couldn’t possibly have done worse at finding first basemen over the past half-decade.  https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/greg-bird-takes-flight-to-colorado/

2:03	Jay Jaffe: Yesterday I took a look at Yadier Molina’s new one-year deal as well as his Hall of Fame case https://blogs.fangraphs.com/youll-never-guess-where-yadier-molina-sign…

2:03	Jay Jaffe: And on Tuesday I took a deep dive into the health and safety protocols in the 2021 MLB Operations Manual https://blogs.fangraphs.com/high-tech-contact-tracing-vaccines-and-run…

2:04	Jay Jaffe: Meanwhile, in What Is Jay Irate About Today? Jay Jaffe @jay_jaffe they’ve done away with historic league names as well in favor of this generic bullshit? C. Trent Rosecrans@ctrent MLB announces new minor league structure 12 Feb 2021

2:04	Jay Jaffe: Ok, on with the show

Read the rest of this entry »

Greg Bird hasn’t been right since 2015. The Rockies haven’t gotten acceptable production from their first basemen since 2014. This could be the start of a beautiful relationship — or it could amount to nothing, as most minor league deals do. We’re about to find out, as the Rockies announced on Thursday that they’ve signed Bird to a minor league contract with an invitation to spring training.

Bird, who’s still just 28 years old, is coming off a more miserable 2020 than most of us. Bad luck in the injury department, a constant throughout his major league career, continued to dog him to the point that he didn’t take a single competitive plate appearance for either of the two organizations with whom he signed minor league deals. Cast adrift by the Yankees in November 2019 — we’ll get to the saga that led there — he initially signed with the Rangers last February, and after getting called up from the alternate training site in late July, before he could play a single game, he strained his right calf. After a 10-day stint on the Injured List, he was designated for assignment and elected free agency. Upon signing with the Phillies in mid-September, he came up positive for COVID-19 during his intake testing, and never even made it to the alternate site.

That Bird has landed with the Rockies makes sense given his area ties. He’s a graduate of Grandview High School in Aurora, Colorado, where he caught Kevin Gausman, who was a year ahead of him. Shortly after earning the Gatorade Player of the Year award for Colorado in 2011, Bird was drafted by the Yankees in the fifth round, and soon moved to first base. His major league career, which began on August 13, 2015, started with great promise, for soon after arriving, he became a lineup regular once Mark Teixeira suffered a season-ending fracture after fouling a ball off his right leg. Bird, 22 at the time, proceeded to launch a flurry of home runs — 11 in 178 plate appearances while batting .261/.343/.529 (137 wRC+), making him the clear heir apparent as the 36-year-old Teixeira limped into the final season of his eight-year contract.

Unfortunately, the story unravels from there. Bird missed all of 2016 after undergoing surgery on his right (throwing) shoulder to repair a torn labrum, the recurrence of an injury he’d suffered the previous May. Towards the end of a promising spring in 2017, he fouled a ball off his right ankle and played through it, going on the DL on May 2 after starting the season in a 6-for-60 skid, then undergoing surgery to remove the os trigonum bone in his ankle, which sidelined him until late August. Though his final numbers were dreadful (.190/.288/.422, 87 wRC+), he hit a respectable .253/.316/.575 with eight homers in 98 PA upon returning, and then .244/.426/.512 with three homers in 54 PA during the postseason, highlighted by an upper-deck solo homer off Andrew Miller that provided the only run in Game 3 of the Division Series. Greg Bird was back, baby! Read the rest of this entry »

This story starts, as all good stories do, with me recounting the time one of my coworkers and I discussed something. Okay, fine, very few good stories start that way — almost none, in fact — but bear with me. This (non-baseball) coworker, someone who I consider very bright and very interested in baseball, told me he didn’t really believe in wRC+, even after I’d shown him some articles describing it.

Why, I wondered, didn’t he believe in it? It’s so elegant! The math is right there! How can you not like something that wraps up performance at the plate in a single number? No need to compare apples to oranges — you can juice everything to a pulp and simply count calories. His answer was simple: it doesn’t consider batting order.

“You’re telling me,” he said, “that you’d rather have Mitch Moreland as a leadoff hitter than Xander Bogaerts?” It was 2017, and we were working in the Northeast, which explains why both players were Red Sox and why this question was even close. “His wRC+ is higher, but he’d be worse at leadoff. He doesn’t get on base enough.”

To be honest, it’s a compelling argument. I didn’t really have the intellectual tools or the time to counter it. I went with the old tried and true method: I vaguely mentioned something about context-neutrality in the long run, said I had some bonds to arbitrage or whatnot, and went back to work, ending the conversation without conceding defeat.

Fast forward to today, and I still don’t have a wonderful answer to my former co-worker’s point. I do have a computer program that simulates games, though, so I decided to come up with a quick and dirty check. What if we plugged real hitters with similar one-number batting statistics but who get there in wildly different ways into the lineup? Would we learn anything? Would I be able to write 1,500 words about it and entertain the masses? I guess we’ll find out! Read the rest of this entry »