After nine seasons, three division titles, a pennant and an historic World Series championship, Theo Epstein is saying goodbye to the Cubs. That surprising news came Tuesday afternoon, announced jointly by the team and its outgoing president of baseball operations. “I believe this is the right decision for me even if it’s a difficult one,” Epstein wrote in a statement released to the press. “And now is the right time.” Chicago will now be under the control of Jed Hoyer, the team’s general manager and Epstein’s long-time second in command, but the fate of both the franchise and its departing boss is less clear.

Taking over the Cubs in October 2011 after leaving the Red Sox under a cloud (and disguised as a gorilla), Epstein helped transform Chicago from National League also-ran and frequent cellar dweller into a juggernaut, culminating in the 2016 World Series win that ended a century-long title drought. He and his lieutenants drafted, developed or acquired virtually every important piece of that ‘16 roster, from Kris Bryant to Anthony Rizzo to Kyle Schwarber to Jon Lester to Jake Arrieta, and set the stage for what looked to be a dynasty. But diminishing returns and short postseason stays have left the Cubs in the championship cold over the last four seasons, and now their architect is moving on.

Those recent struggles may be part of Epstein’s decision to leave, though in a letter he sent to team employees and acquired by The Athletic, he claims that a decade at the helm was all he had in mind from the start. “Bill Walsh’s theory that in the sports industry a change in leadership after about a decade can be beneficial for both the organization and the individual has always resonated with me,” Epstein writes. Those of you blessed with the gift of being able to do basic math will note that 2020 minus 2011 equals nine, not 10. But per Epstein’s letter, a number of factors came into cutting his reign short by a year, including the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the team’s finances; the presence of Hoyer, who joined the club as GM when Epstein arrived; and, as Epstein put it, “decisions this winter that carry long-term consequences … best made by someone who will be here for a long period.” Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve heard of home field advantage. It’s simply a part of sports, like gravity or Tom Brady being competent and obnoxious. Here’s a dirty little secret, though: A decent chunk of home field advantage is actually first-inning advantage. Here, take a look at how home and away batters performed in the first inning and thereafter from 2010 to ’19:

The first inning has the biggest gap, with only the fifth coming even close. It’s a consistent effect year-to-year, and it’s a big deal: A 22-point edge in wOBA works out to three-quarters of a run per game, which would work out to roughly a .570 winning percentage, significantly higher than the actual edge. If you could bottle that edge and apply it to every inning, baseball would look very different.

This isn’t some novel effect I’ve just discovered. It’s well-established, though I’ve never seen a completely satisfactory explanation for it. Could it be that the home team’s defensive turn in the top of the first warms them up for their turn at bat? Maybe! One counterpoint here: Home DHs have a 20-point wOBA advantage on away DHs in the first inning, then only a six-point advantage thereafter. Maybe it’s not that, then.

A theory that makes more sense to me is that home pitchers have a unique advantage in the first inning. In that inning, and that inning alone, they can exactly predict when they’ll be needed on the mound. Have a perfect warmup routine? You can finish it just before first pitch, then transition directly to the game. Visiting pitchers are at the mercy of the game. Start too late, and you won’t be ready in time for the bottom of the first. Start too early, and an extended turn at the plate might leave you cold. Read the rest of this entry »

The Padres made an announcement yesterday that Schrödinger would be proud of, releasing news that they had signed Mike Clevinger to a two-year deal covering his arbitration-eligible seasons and also that he would be lost for the 2021 season due to Tommy John surgery. In the short-term, they lose a talented starting pitcher they just traded for a few months ago. Taking a longer look, they’re betting on a solid recovery in 2022 and will be paying just $11.5 million in guaranteed money for that season’s work. (The details of the deal, per MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell: Clevinger gets $2 million in ’21, $6.5 million in ’22, and a $3 million deferred signing bonus.)

The recent trade, the elbow surgery, and Clevinger’s arbitration eligibility make this transaction a little more complicated than it might look at first glance. First, the trade is essentially irrelevant at this point. While the Padres gave up a lot in quantity to acquire Clevinger, any cost is now sunk. San Diego certainly hoped for more than four good regular-season starts and a single postseason inning, but injuries prevented Clevinger from doing more, and the same arm trouble will now prevent him from pitching at all in 2021.

With the trade behind them, the Padres were faced with three options.

Option 1: Tender Clevinger a Contract

Clevinger earned a pro-rated portion of his $4.1 million salary last season, his first year of arbitration eligibility. While arbitration salaries are a bit murky this season, he likely would have been in line for $5 million or so in arbitration for next season and maybe another $6 million or more in 2022 after sitting out the ’21 campaign. That ’22 salary wouldn’t be guaranteed at all until the Padres tendered him a contract next December, and even then, only a small portion would be guaranteed at that time.

Assuming salary arbitration works the same under a new Collective Bargaining Agreement in 2022, if the Padres didn’t like Clevinger’s progress, they could cut him all the way up to Opening Day and still only owe 45 days of termination pay (30 days if on or before the 16th day of Spring Training). This option has San Diego paying money now to retain greater flexibility for the 2022 season. Read the rest of this entry »

2:16	Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to my hastily-assembled chat. With my wife on a conference call and the outdoor weather tolerable, I went out to lunch and sat down for tacos and tostadas, then realized at 1:55 PM that hey, it’s that time of the week. Anyway…

2:17	Jay Jaffe: I launched my Hall of Fame series on Monday to coincide with the BBWAA’s ballot release https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-big-questions-about-the-2021-bbwaa-hal… and posted my updated Scott Rolen profile today https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jaws-and-the-2021-hall-of-fame-ballot-scot…

2:18	Jay Jaffe: and there was also this, which, if you were among those who chimed in with kind words, thanks!   Jay Jaffe @jay_jaffe How it started/How it’s going 16 Nov 2020

2:20	Jay Jaffe: Two come to mind. In November 2004 the Diamondbacks hired Wally Backman to manage before discovering that he had been arrested twice, once for a domestic incident with his wife, and once for a DUI; additionally, he had filed for bankruptcy. https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=1916771

2:21	Jay Jaffe: And then, of course, last fall the Mets hired Carlos Beltrán, but parted ways with him in January, before he could set foot in the dugout due to his central role in the Astros’ illegal sign-stealing scheme https://blogs.fangraphs.com/out-before-reaching-home-carlos-beltran-ex…

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 nine years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Chicago White Sox.

Batters

The White Sox entered 2020 projected slightly behind the Indians and Twins, needing some breakouts to take the next step. And that’s largely what they did. A miserable stretch to end the season that likely cost him the AL Rookie of the Year award aside, Luis Robert met reasonable expectations with his bat and more than exceeded them defensively. B.J. Upton may not blow anyone away for his top comp, but the next one on the list is Bernie Williams, who didn’t divebomb in his late 20s. And while I’m still not wild about his desire to play the field, Eloy Jiménez hit like he needed to this season and he’s just a skosh of offense plus a change of position away from being star-level. He could very easily get there anyway; his 80th percentile projection is 3.8 WAR and a 151 OPS+.

Tim Anderson is a tricky player for a projection system to deal with. The fundamentals say that he should be one of the top BABIP hitters in baseball, but there’s a difference between that threshold and the .395 he put up across 2019 and ’20. That’s a real high-wire act and ZiPS isn’t ready to go 20 points further than Ty Cobb’s all-time mark, the best in baseball since 1901. (Amusingly, if you set the threshold since 1901 at just 1000 PA, Jorge Alfaro is the all-time leader.) Anderson has crept up to a .347 BABIP projection, but he’ll have to keep defying the baseball gods to push any further in ZiPS. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2021 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2018 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. 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.

“A hard-charging third baseman” who “could have played shortstop with more range than Cal Ripken.” “A no-nonsense star.” “The perfect baseball player.” Scott Rolen did not lack for praise, particularly in the pages of Sports Illustrated at the height of his career. A masterful, athletic defender with the physical dimensions of a tight end (listed at 6-foot-4, 245 pounds), Rolen played with an all-out intensity, sacrificing his body in the name of stopping balls from getting through the left side of the infield. Many viewed him as the position’s best for his time, and he more than held his own with the bat as well, routinely accompanying his 25 to 30 homers a year with strong on-base percentages.

There was much to love about Rolen’s game, but particularly in Philadelphia, the city where he began his major league career and the one with a reputation for fraternal fondness, he found no shortage of critics — even in the Phillies organization. Despite winning 1997 NL Rookie of the Year honors and emerging as a foundation-type player, Rolen was blasted publicly by manager Larry Bowa and special assistant to the general manager Dallas Green. While ownership pinched pennies and waited for a new ballpark, fans booed and vilified him. Eventually, Rolen couldn’t wait to skip town, even when offered a deal that could have been worth as much as $140 million. Traded in mid-2002 to the Cardinals, he referred to St. Louis as “baseball heaven,” which only further enraged the Philly faithful.

In St. Louis, Rolen provided the missing piece of the puzzle, helping a team that hadn’t been to the World Series since 1987 make two trips in three years (2004 and ’06), with a championship in the latter year. A private, introverted person who shunned endorsement deals, he didn’t have to shoulder the burden of being a franchise savior, but as the toll of his max-effort play caught up to him in the form of chronic shoulder and back woes, he clashed with manager Tony La Russa and again found himself looking for the exit. After a brief detour to Toronto, he landed in Cincinnati, where again he provided the missing piece, helping the Reds return to the postseason for the first time in 15 years. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday morning, the Atlanta Braves made their first major move of the offseason, signing left-handed pitcher Drew Smyly to a one-year contract worth $11 million. It’s a nice little payday for Smyly, who has a long and ugly injury history and posted an ERA and FIP over six as recently as 2019. Ranked 25th among Craig Edwards’s Top 50 Free Agents, Smyly was estimated to command an AAV of $8.5 million by Edwards and just $5.0 million by the crowd. Those low salary estimates are likely directly tied to Smyly’s spotty history. But the reason why he was able to command such a surprisingly high salary boils down to one chart:

In 2020, Smyly was able to add 2.6 mph to each of his pitches in his arsenal, pushing his average fastball up to 93.8 mph. That added velocity helped him post the highest strikeout rate of his career paired with the lowest FIP of his career, though it came in just 26.1 innings. Read the rest of this entry »

A nice generic platitude is that free agency gives you a chance to completely remake your team. That’s an aspirational vision, but I mean, come on. Free agency gives you a chance to sign a really good player, or a few okay players, or even Daniel Descalso (I kid, Cubs fans, I kid).

In reality, completely remaking your identity mostly doesn’t happen. Teams don’t generally overhaul their image in free agency; they add pieces around an existing core they’ve carefully shaped. If they’re lucky enough to land a superstar, they’re at the mercy of fate as to which superstar is available; if you want to sign a 6 WAR third baseman this year, well, keep looking.

It only mostly doesn’t happen, though. This year, I think there’s a rare chance to actually change the identity of your team in free agency. More specifically, I think teams should look at turning their squad into a defensive powerhouse. That’s mostly not a one-year undertaking, but this time, I think it is.

The first key factor that makes this strategy workable is an accident of personnel. You might have heard of the best defensive shortstop on the market. Indeed, Andrelton Simmons is one of the best defensive shortstops of all time, period. His range, arm, hands, and baseball instincts are all off the charts. Whichever team signs Simmons will immediately have one of the best defenders at the position, a down 2020 notwithstanding.

Simmons is the best infield defender of the past 10 years. The best defensive second baseman over that same span isn’t quite so clear, but Kolten Wong is certainly near the top of the list. He’s been one of the very best defenders at the position in each of the last three years, including a blowout 2018 that, naturally enough, is the only year he didn’t win a Gold Glove despite outstripping his other two seasons by every metric.

With two strokes of a pen, a team could sign Simmons and Wong and have the best up-the-middle defensive infield in the game. I’m exaggerating slightly, of course: most contracts need more than one signature, and most names need more than a single pen stroke to sign. I’m certainly not exaggerating, however, when I say it would be the best defensive combination. Whatever their other shortcomings, Simmons and Wong look better than any other pairing in the game. Read the rest of this entry »

On Friday, the Marlins announced that Kim Ng would be assuming the role of general manager. It was a historic move for a number of reasons: She’s the first woman and first Asian-American to be hired as a GM in the major leagues, and is indeed the first woman in any major American men’s pro sport to hold that role. It was also a move that was long foretold, as many pointed out, linking to various blog posts and lists of years and decades past that included Ng’s name as one to watch in the world of high-ranking baseball executives. She’s been at least an assistant GM for as long as I’ve been alive. “When I got into this business,” her statement posted to the Marlins’ social media read, “it seemed unlikely that a woman would lead a major-league team, but I am dogged in the pursuit of my goals.”

It was a celebratory day for many women in baseball, a sign of how far they have come and how far they could still go, and a testament to Ng’s individual drive and ability, which, given her history, is undeniable. It was also a celebratory day for Asian-Americans in baseball. What once seemed unlikely, and before that unimaginable, is now real, tangible, and true — not only for Ng individually, not only for the other people who have blazed trails in this industry, and not only for all the historically underrepresented people she might inspire to pursue careers in the game, but also for literally everyone, apparently, in the entire sport. All those heavy-hitters and decision-makers who for the decades upon decades prior to this day were fine with maintaining the status quo — this moment was, somehow, their achievement to celebrate as well.

When you’re a kid, you can dream of being all kinds of ridiculous, incredible things. The first person to create a cat-to-human translation system. The first person to walk on Mars. A kajillionaire, a world-peace creator, an undersea explorer — all at the same time, all existing within the same realm of possibility. You get older, of course, and with your increasing ability to understand the world around you, to grasp what is expected of someone like you, the dreams get scaled and hedged accordingly. You absorb information and adjust your ideas of what is possible. Kajillionaire becomes maybe a full-time job and your debt paid off by the time you’re 50. World-peace creator becomes maybe you survive another year of being exploited by your racist boss. The moon becomes a tiny room in a shared house for $900 a month. It’s good, after all, to have goals that are actually possible to reach. That’s what you’re taught in career planning classes and therapy sessions: achievable, real, tangible. The bounds of the imagination shrink. Read the rest of this entry »