This morning, Ben Clemens assessed left field. Now Craig Edwards examines the position the best player in baseball calls home.

Mike Trout is the best player in baseball. Mike Trout plays center field. Ergo, Mike Trout is the best center fielder in baseball. After Trout, we have another genuine star in Cody Bellinger, a very good player in George Springer, and then a whole lot of maybes. There’s a lot of youth and athleticism here, as one might expect from a position that requires covering a lot of ground, but there aren’t a lot of guarantees when it comes to production. Byron Buxton, Ramón Laureano, and Luis Robert are all in the top 10. So are Lorenzo Cain and Aaron Hicks, both coming off down years. While we could see some breakouts, the projections are fairly conservative, only anticipating three teams above 1.5 WAR, which would be a four-win campaign in a full season. Read the rest of this entry »

12:04

Dan Szymborski: Hello friends! And enemies! (We don’t have any kind of wall that would distinguish between the two)

12:05

Dan Szymborski: Gentrification continues. The trendy bars have pushed away a lot of the old historic businesses.

12:05

Dan Szymborski: (Sorry, Austin Meadows always sounds like an obnoxious trendy city neighborhood)

12:06

Dan Szymborski: I haven’t heard much about what was going on with him.

12:07

Dan Szymborski: I wonder if he’d do what I’d do if I was an MLB player? I’d probably use this opportunity to get a vacation right up until opening day by being vaguel absent! Maybe cough a few times

Read the rest of this entry »

When you’re watching a baseball game, there are few things as nerve-wracking as seeing your favorite team’s pitcher consistently fall behind hitters. You know intuitively that the better the count is for the hitter, the better chance there is he’ll see a pitch he can slug. Broadcasters often love to talk about first-pitch strikes and their importance in both “setting the tone” of an at-bat and keeping pitch counts low. These are all valid notions — in 2019, the league-wide wOBA when the pitcher was behind in the count was .432. When the pitcher was ahead or the count was even, that mark was .269. That’s about the same difference as there was between Mike Trout and Orlando Arcia, the worst qualified hitter of last season.

Nearly everyone who threw at least 1,500 pitches in 2019 performed worse when behind in the count, with the exception of Tigers starter Jordan Zimmermann, who was just bad regardless of the situation. But just because someone falls behind in the count doesn’t mean he’s a lost cause. Even when at a disadvantage, some pitchers hold their own just fine. Here were the 10 best pitchers when throwing from behind last season.

By and large, that’s a list of good pitchers. However, there is an outlier here in Gio González. Not because he isn’t a good pitcher, mind you. The veteran lefty, who signed with the White Sox over the winter, held a 3.50 ERA (79 ERA-) and 4.04 FIP (90 FIP-) over 87.1 innings with Milwaukee last season. He doesn’t stand out because of a lack of skill level. He stands out because of how often he’s behind compared to the other pitchers on this list. Read the rest of this entry »

After analyzing the infield positions, our attention shifts to the outfield. First up? Left field.

Ah, left field, the last refuge of scoundrels. Last year, we wondered if teams’ evolving understanding of defensive metrics was changing the kinds of players they stashed in left field. This year, despite Christian Yelich moving over from right, the answer is a resounding “nah.”

That’s not to say there are no Alex Gordon types, plus defenders without the necessary arm to handle right. Even with a universal DH, however, left field is the domain of the Willie Calhouns, Jesse Winkers, and Eloy Jiménezes of the world. Perhaps not coincidentally, it’s the shallowest position in the league; we project only four teams to accrue 1 or more WAR out of left this year, by far the least across all positions.

Is this a fluke of generations and circumstances? Will left field look different when Dylan Carlson establishes himself, or when a future outfield acquisition in Atlanta forces Ronald Acuña Jr. back to left? What if Giancarlo Stanton plays more left and less DH? There are certainly ways for left field to climb the rankings hierarchy. For now, however, it’s a big pile of middlingly athletic misfits who don’t have another clear spot on the diamond. Oh, and then Yelich and Juan Soto, both of whom are playing a completely different game than the rest of the field here. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about 2020 season predictions, picking (and pricing) blueberries, and a cardboard cutout of Meg at T-Mobile Park, then open up the pre-pandemic mailbag and answer old but evergreen listener emails about the best type of game for a first-time baseball viewer to attend, whether the Cubs’ 2016 title came too soon, whether hitters should have to finish plate appearances with broken bats, how managers should handle players who are having good or bad days, which players would benefit most from a third arm, where to place a boost zone on the field, comparing the careers of Carlos Peña and Paul Konerko, whether Mike Trout could make the Hall of Fame twice, a parable about rooting for personal success versus rooting for a rival’s failure, and more.

Audio intro: Louis Prima, "Three-Handed Woman"
Audio outro: The Everly Brothers, "Three-Armed Poker-Playin’ River Rat"

Link to Meg’s blueberries tweet
Link to purchase a cardboard cutout
Link to the game the family from New Zealand saw
Link to article about reducing broken bats
Link to analysis of managers pulling pitchers
Link to analysis of game-to-game spin-rate variability
Link to FiveThirtyEight hot hand analysis
Link to article about Formula E attack mode
Link to video explainer of Formula E attack mode
Link to Formula E attack mode highlights video
Link to listener email archive
Link to stream Stove League

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Brandon Guyer announced his retirement last week, ending a career that was undeniably unique. A platoon outfielder for the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cleveland Indians from 2011-2018, the 34-year-old University of Virginia product has the highest hit by pitch rate in big-league history. All told, Guyer was plunked 85 times in just 1,487 plate appearances.

Getting drilled wasn’t his lone skill. A creditable defender with a reliable right-handed bat, Guyer slashed .274/.376/.449 against lefties, and his consummate-gamer personae made him an asset in the clubhouse. Overall, he logged a .727 OPS with 32 home runs (the first of which his wife heard on the radio in a stadium parking lot). A fifth-round pick by the Chicago Cubs in 2007, Guyer went on to have some especially-memorable moments with Cleveland in the 2016 World Series.

———

David Laurila: How would you describe your career?

Brandon Guyer: “First of all, I feel very fortunate to have played seven seasons in the big leagues. When I was thinking about retirement, that brought me back to where it all started, Little League and then the whole journey. If someone would have told me what would happen with my baseball career, I wouldn’t have believed them. All of the ups and downs, the injuries… obviously, my goal would have been 20 seasons and being an All-Star every year, but I’m proud of the career I had. My main goal all along was to make the absolute most of my potential, and I did everything in my power to do that. I left it all on the field.”

Laurila: How do you think most fans will remember you?

Guyer: “Probably as la piñata. And I don’t know if they will, but I hope fans remember me as a guy that played hard, played the game the right way, and carried himself the right way off the field. Those are all things I prided myself on.”

Laurila: When I asked you about it four years ago, you told me there wasn’t an art to getting hit by pitches. Now that you’re no longer playing, is your answer any different? Read the rest of this entry »

A report Tuesday from MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand indicates that Yasiel Puig will sign a one-year contract with the Atlanta Braves. The 29-year-old Puig hit .267/.327/.458 with 24 home runs for a 101 wRC+ and 1.2 WAR while playing for the Reds and Indians in 2019. The former Rookie of the Year runner-up spent most of last season in Cincinnati before heading to outfield-deficient Cleveland as part of the three-way trade that sent Trevor Bauer to Cincinnati and Taylor Trammell to San Diego. The exact financial terms of the deal are not yet available, but it’s unlikely that Puig’s one-year contract is for an exorbitant amount of cash from the team’s point of view.

From a pure “how good is Puig?” standpoint, completely divorced from context, this signing is an underwhelming one. Puig hit the market unencumbered by the possible loss of a draft pick upon signing (he was ineligible to receive a qualifying offer because of the trade), but even still, his free agency garnered a tepid reception this winter. Now, this offseason’s free agent market featured a lot more action than other recent ones, but that was driven by elite free agents such as Gerrit Cole and Anthony Rendon. Teams were still generally uninterested in first basemen and corner outfielders, with few getting multi-year deals and only José Abreu and Nick Castellanos getting more than $20 million guaranteed. Puig drew some interest, but nobody seemed all-in on bringing him in before spring training or when transactions were recently unfrozen. Read the rest of this entry »

Reynaldo López had a bummer of a 2019. Offense is high around the league, but a 5.38 ERA is still terrible. Pitchers don’t adjust for league offense or batted ball luck in their heads; they pretty much know the way the numbers work. Two is otherworldly, three is good, four is average, and five is “what am I doing wrong?” Honestly, it doesn’t even get that much better if you do get fancy; he had a 5.04 FIP and a 5.27 xFIP, so it’s not as though he was just getting unlucky. Those were 8% and 15% worse than league average, respectively — not great.

But wait — López was worth 2.3 WAR last year. That’s not Jacob deGrom or anything, but it’s a totally acceptable number, not at all in line with the string of fives that comprise his runs allowed statistics. Is this just a sign of how bad replacement level pitchers are? Nope! It’s a sign of a quirk in our WAR calculations and a quirk in López’s game.

When we calculate a starting pitcher’s WAR, we use FIP, with one small modification. Infield fly balls are automatic outs, and in our WAR calculations (but not in the FIP numbers we display) we count them as such by treating them as strikeouts. It’s a true enough outcome — infield fly balls pretty much always turn into outs. Grounders, line drives, and other fly balls are all soup, but a popup’s fate is known the moment it’s launched.

López gets a lot of infield fly balls. In 2019, he led the majors with 36. In 2018, another year where he managed 2.3 WAR with a 108 FIP-, he tied Max Scherzer for the major league lead with 38. Outs don’t get much easier than this:

Read the rest of this entry »

This morning, we considered the catcher position. Now, we turn our attention to the shortstops.

Hello! This isn’t going to be a long intro, because you know what you’re getting into here. What has been called a golden age for the shortstop position continued apace in 2019, with shortstops batting a collective .326/.445/.772 — a 100 wRC+. This was despite several luminaries, such as Francisco Lindor and Carlos Correa, having their playing time limited by injury. There were delightful surprises from longtime players (the ascension of Marcus Semien). There were promising rookie campaigns (the arrival of Bo Bichette). And there were, of course, just plain great seasons from players who are now the usual suspects: Xander Bogaerts, Trevor Story, Javier Báez, et al. Even when plumbing the depths of this list, there are interesting progressions to follow: One can consider the strange season Willy Adames had for the Rays, or the was-it-a-breakout from the Pirates’ Kevin Newman. It’s a fascinating time for the position! Let’s get into it. Read the rest of this entry »

After Dan Szymborski and Craig Edwards surveyed the state of second and third base yesterday, our positional power rankings continue with a look at catcher.

Catcher is a hard position to project even at the best of times — though we are getting better at it — and that difficulty is compounded this year by a short season and the availability of ever-more roster spots at which to stash a backup or two. Taking those complications together, I’d encourage you to take these rankings with a dollop of salt. There’s value in taking a close look at the particular mix of players each team is bringing into this campaign, but it’s probably best understood as an effort to document the catching situation league-wide, bucket teams into tiers, and sketch out the rough outlines of teams’ depth at this position. As such, try not to dwell overly long on the ordinal rankings or the team WAR figures that fuel them; the differences are quite small in some cases.

So what is the league-wide situation at catcher? Given the continued presence of true standouts like Yasmani Grandal and J.T. Realmuto it isn’t all bad, but I think it’s fair to characterize the overall situation as a bit of an ebb tide. As recently as a few years ago, we were treated to career seasons from the likes of Yan Gomes, Rene Rivera, Russell Martin, Buster Posey, and Jonathan Lucroy, with Salvador Perez and Yadier Molina not far off their peaks as well. Now, Martin is unsigned, Posey has opted out, and the rest of the players who were so recently putting up five-win seasons are shadows of their former selves. Catchers as a group generated just 54.3 WAR last year, which, while a five-win improvement over 2018’s figure, was lower than any other season in the last 12. Read the rest of this entry »