Now that we’re clear of Even Year Magic and rapidly approaching the modern day, you might expect there to be fewer strange decisions to take issue with. You’d be right — we’re no longer inundated by a flood of sacrifice bunts. Bad pitchers aren’t heading through lineups a fourth time. Better hitters bat higher in lineups.

But these two World Series, while light on truly baffling decisions, featured a number of interesting ones. A decision that obviously lowers a team’s chances of winning — well, what can you say about that? It’s bad! But a decision that’s a coin flip, a 50/50 proposition with offsetting costs and benefits? That’s a gold mine for analysis, and both 2015 and 2016 were rich with them — particularly 2016.

2015

You know this one. We’re going to end up talking about Matt Harvey talking his way into pitching the ninth inning of Game 5. But let’s go through the motions of the rest of the series first. The Mets brought a powerful lineup with new-age leadoff hitter Curtis Granderson and newly powerful Daniel Murphy keying the top of the order. The Royals countered by batting their worst batter, Alcides Escobar, first. In fairness to Ned Yost, the rest of the lineup looked fine, but Escobar hit .257/.293/.320, and it’s not like it was a down year; his career line is .258/.293/.343.

Naturally, Escobar led off the game with an inside-the-park home run, courtesy of some of the worst outfield routes you’ll ever see from center fielder Yoenis Céspedes and left fielder Michael Conforto. That amusing diversion aside, the game was straightforward; both teams got six innings out of their starters before relying on a parade of bullpen arms, and the Royals eventually prevailed in 14 innings.

Game 2 was all about the struggles of a good, but not yet transcendent, Jacob deGrom. He struggled through the first four innings with only two strikeouts, and the wheels fell off in the fifth; walk, single, single to lead off the inning, two quick outs on a grounder and a line drive, and then three more consecutive singles. The four-run outburst was hardly preventable; pulling your 5-WAR starter in the fifth inning a day after a 14-inning game is a tough decision to make. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Colin McKee has exceeded expectations since being featured in a July 2017 Sunday Notes column. At the time, the Mercyhurst University graduate was not only a year removed from being drafted in the 18th round by the Houston Astros, he was playing short-season ball as a 23-year-old. To say the odds were stacked against him would be an understatement.

To a lesser extent, they still are. While McKee earned Texas League All-Star honors last season, he’s a soon-to-turn-26-year-old right-handed reliever who failed to impress after being promoted to Triple-A. Even so, some of his numbers suggest that he’s more than capable of taking those final steps. In 64 innings between Corpus Christi and Round Rock, McKee punched out 82 batters and allowed just 32 hits. Moreover, he’s studious about his craft. His post-playing career plans no longer include med school, but rather a position within pitching development.

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David Laurila: When we talked three years ago, you were 23 years old and playing short-season ball. I recall you being open about the long odds you were facing.

Colin McKee: “I definitely wasn’t ultra optimistic. I’m lucky that the Astros gave me the leash they did, because over the last couple of years I’ve started to figure some things out. I’m enjoying playing baseball, and hopefully I can continue to build on the progress I’ve made.”

Laurila: What were you thinking when you reported to spring training the following year? I assume your mindset was something along the lines of ‘sink or swim.’

McKee: “I wouldn’t say I was in desperation mode, but I was certainly aware of my age and the fact that I hadn’t played above short-season. Patrick Sandoval, who is with the Angels now, and I went down a week early. All I was thinking was, ‘Do anything to make a full-season roster.’ All I was hoping was to break camp with somebody and see what happens from there. Luckily I broke with Quad Cities, in the Midwest League, and pitched well enough that after three weeks they moved me up to the Carolina League.”

Laurila: What were your biggest development strides that season? Read the rest of this entry »

12:03

Dan Szymborski: And welcome to the chat!

12:03

Dan Szymborski: That’s like asking if it’s more accurate to say that I’m the King of Siam or I’m sexier than George Clooney.

12:03

Dan Szymborski: Or whoever people are into these days.

12:04

Dan Szymborski: On a general level, the mediocre teams that needed help to make serious playoff runs.

Read the rest of this entry »

If the 2020 season does happen — and right now, that’s an open question — it will be without Chris Archer. The Pirates announced on Wednesday that the 31-year-old righty underwent surgery to correct for thoracic outlet syndrome, ruling him out for whatever transpires this season, and perhaps ending his time in Pittsburgh given his contract situation. Given the track record of pitchers who have undergone the procedure, we can only hope that this doesn’t mark the end of the two-time All-Star’s run as an effective pitcher.

As I’ve written before, thoracic outlet syndrome is caused by a compression of the nerves and/or blood vessels somewhere between the neck and the armpit. Symptoms commonly include numbness or tingling in the fingers and hands, or fatigue or weakness that doesn’t go away with physical therapy and rest. Pitchers tend to be particularly vulnerable to TOS because of their repetitive overhand movements and the way their arm muscles build up. The condition is generally remedied by the removal of a cervical rib and two small scalene muscles.

Archer, whom the Pirates acquired from the Rays on July 31, 2018 in exchange for outfielder Austin Meadows and pitchers Tyler Glasnow and Shane Baz (the latter as a player to be named later) — a steal of a deal for Tampa Bay, the way things have gone — endured the worst season of his eight-year career in 2019. Though he struck out a respectable 27.2% of hitters faced, his walk and home run rates jumped significantly from their 2018 levels, the former from 7.7% to 10.5%, the latter from 1.15 per nine to 1.88. Both of those were career highs, as were his 5.19 ERA and 5.02 FIP, which were respectively 20% and 13% worse than league average. Per Pitch Info, his average four-seam fastball velocity fell a full tick from 2018 (95.3 mph to 94.3 mph) and was down 1.5 mph relative to ’17 and 1.9 mph relative to ’15. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier in the week, there seemed to be a growing sense of optimism regarding a potential deal between the players and team owners to get the baseball season started. MLB’s initial proposal may have been met with near-universal criticism, but the MLBPA’s response of a 114-game schedule, while obviously proposing significantly more games, left considerable room for negotiation. Just a day later, Jeff Passan reported that the owners were considering responding with a 50-game schedule played at the pro-rated salaries agreed to in March. The two sides were still far apart, but the players seemed willing to compromise on the playoff structure and deferrals, with the owners giving up a renegotiation of pro-rated pay; everyone seemed well on their way to somewhere in the neighborhood of a half-season’s worth of games.

Sadly, the owners never made such an offer. Indeed, they have since rejected the union’s proposal, reportedly with no intention of countering per Ken Rosenthal, who broke the news. The step back from ownership makes it difficult to determine where the parties stand on a potential 2020 season. While MLB didn’t formally propose a 50-game season, it’s apparently still a consideration for the league, as well as a negotiating tactic to get the player’s to play more games for less money per game. As Rosenthal and Evan Drellich noted in their piece on the subject for The Athletic:

Though the language in the March agreement between the parties is subject to interpretation, [MLB] believes the wording enables commissioner Rob Manfred to determine the length of the season as long as the league pays the players the prorated salaries outlined by the deal.

According to the agreement, it is up to MLB to propose season length:

using best efforts to play as many games as possible, while taking into account player safety and health, rescheduling needs, competitive considerations, stadium availability, and the economic feasibility of various alternatives.

Read the rest of this entry »

It stands as a threat rather than an official proposal — heaven forbid the owners actually engage the players directly instead of attempting to negotiate through the media — but MLB’s latest thought balloon regarding a 2020 season centers around a 50-game schedule. In the wake of the players’ formal proposal that they receive the full prorated share of their salaries for a 114-game season that would begin on June 30 and end on October 31 (with a postseason to follow in November), the owners have let it be known that they’re not enthusiastic about that idea. Per ESPN, The Athletic, and other outlets, they’ve discussed a 50-game slate as a last-resort option.

The wee season would begin in July, and for it, the players would receive the full prorated share of their salaries, though those would amount to just 30.8% of their full-season salaries. Here it’s worth noting that the 50-game schedule is the same distance from the central 82-game proposal as the 114-game one is; if the two sides were to meet exactly in the middle, we’d be back at the number that’s been floating around since the owners voted to propose a 50-50 revenue split on May 11.

As Dan Szymborski illustrated in his latest round of ZiPS projections, a lot of strange stuff can happen in just 50 games, including a 28.1% chance of the Dodgers — projected as the best team in baseball over a full 162 games back in March — missing the playoffs and a 0.6% chance of the Marlins winning the World Series. “At 50 games, the ability to meaningfully differentiate between the great and the good, the mediocre and the bad, starts to fade significantly,” wrote Szymborski. “There’s a one-in-five chance that the winner of the World Series will be a team believed to be .500 or worse.” Read the rest of this entry »

This is the latest installment of a series in which the FanGraphs staff rounds up the latest developments regarding the COVID-19 virus’ effect on baseball.

Big Leaguers Step Up on Minor League Pay

Late last week, the Nationals announced that they would be lowering their minor league stipend from $400 to $300 per week. The move drew immediate criticism from minor leaguers, and from those on the big league club as well. Within hours, Nats major leaguers had pledged to make up the difference to those affected, as Sean Doolittle announced.

The optics, and indeed the factual basis, of these two countervailing reactions were terrible for the club. A $100 cut is necessarily a far bigger deal for a minor leaguer than the major league team as a whole, and the players’ instant support of their minor league teammates led to a public relations backlash against the team. Read the rest of this entry »

Chi Sung Pil was born in Korea around 1900. His mother, Sun Sin So Kim, was a longstanding Presbyterian missionary. Sometime around 1909, Kim’s husband died. Thanks to the efforts of Christian missionaries in Honolulu, who assisted Korean Christian widows and divorcees in relocating to the United States, Kim moved to Hawai’i shortly thereafter, bringing young Chi Sung with her. Kim continued her missionary work with the other devout Korean immigrants she met, and soon remarried within the thriving community, having two more children.

In Roberta Chang and Wayne Patterson’s The Koreans in Hawai’i: A Pictorial History, 1903-2003, a photo from 1920 shows Kim and the family she built in Hawai’i. The photo is taken against an elegant forested backdrop, and both parents and children are dressed to the nines: mother and daughter in light dresses, father and son in suits — the son, Harry Kim, sporting a jaunty polka-dot button-up and bow-tie. Chi Sung, who would then have been around 20, is not pictured.

Only a few years later, Chi Sung’s photograph would be featured in newspapers across the country. There is one in particular that kept cropping up: an action shot, with Chi Sung’s left arm raised high behind his head, his right arm extended outward and down — the classic, instantly recognizable pose of the submariner. In the Los Angeles Times on April 5, 1923, this photo appeared alongside other images of other people making world news that day — Haran Elkuta, leading a revolution in Albania; a group of Hawai’ian legislators; the U.S.S Pennsylvania at sea.

The caption box beside Chi Sung’s picture reads: “Only Korean ball player is demon pitcher! Chi Sung Pil, now attending the University of Oregon, plans to organize a team of Koreans to tour the Orient.” Read the rest of this entry »

There’s been considerable movement from both the players and the owners since our last round of polling. For the first time, May will no longer be an option for the season start date. Thanks again for taking the time to answer these questions, and help us understand your perspective on a potential 2020 season. Read the rest of this entry »