Over the past few weeks, we’ve looked at Mike Trout‘s dominance and how his first eight years stack up compared to the best 10-year periods in history, both by WAR and by offense alone. We’ve done the same on the pitching side, emphasizing Clayton Kershaw’s great run over the last decade-plus. Now, we’ll take the opportunity to do the same at individual positions, starting at first base. The position is known as a power-hitting position, though the reigning leader over the past 10 years has merely good thump. Joey Votto has hit over 30 homers in a season just twice in his career and his 284 long balls aren’t very high up on the all-time leaderboard. Rather, it’s Votto’s high batting average and ability to get on base with a great walk rate that have separated him from his peers and caused him to put up a 151 wRC+ since he started in Cincinnati back in 2007.

Votto’s 48.1 WAR over the last 10 years is the best in the majors among first baseman, though it isn’t his best 10-year period. Here’s how the top-three in 10-year WAR at first base has looked over the last decade:

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As I’ve found in my recent attempts to write about the Korea Baseball Organization, gathering statistics often requires a cross-site scramble, and historical information and context isn’t easy to come by. With that in mind, and particularly with the wide year-to-year fluctuation in that league’s home run rate occurring at the same time that balls have been soaring out of the park at record rates here in the States, I thought it would be worthwhile to pull together some quick comparisons to the trends we’ve seen in MLB.

First, let’s take a look at the two leagues’ run scoring since the KBO’s inception in 1982:

Perhaps understandably given its comparatively recent arrival, the KBO has been the more volatile of the two leagues in terms of scoring rates, with the higher peak (5.62 runs per game in 2014, to MLB’s max of 5.14 in 2000), the lower valley (3.67 runs per game in 1986, to MLB’s low of 4.07 runs per game in 2014), and the wider standard deviation (0.53 to 0.29). Note that the KBO’s peak and MLB’s nadir coincide with that aforementioned 2014 season, and that the two leagues are usually significantly far apart; the annual average, in terms of absolute value, is 0.49 runs. Read the rest of this entry »

12:00

Dan Szymborski: And the chat has begun, sayeth the clock.

12:01

Dan Szymborski: And as powerful as I like to imagine I am — though I am not — I cannot stop time.

12:01

Dan Szymborski: And it’s really hard to even break a watch!

12:01

Dan Szymborski: I don’t have the context, but before divisions, contenders and non-contenders were widely called first division and second division in the vernacular

12:02

Dan Szymborski: so a second division regular, if Eric is using it as I would expect him to, is a starter on a bad team who wouldn’t really push a contender towards the playoffs.

Read the rest of this entry »

This spring, one of the stickiest issues in the negotiations between the owners and the MLBPA was that of service time credit, a subject that has long caused labor friction. If the 2020 season occurs, the issue of service time credit will largely take care of itself. But what if there is no 2020 season? The lost salaries are hard enough, but the lost service time would have made those losses even greater. Using ZiPS to consider just 15 prominent free agents-to-be after the 2020 and 2021 seasons, I estimated that those players alone would lose roughly $316 million on their next contracts.

In return for $170 million in guaranteed money — an advance if play happened to recommence this year — and agreeing not to sue for their lost salaries, the players struck a deal. If 2020 is not played, the free agents-to-be in 2021 will still hit the market this winter, as players will be credited for the same amount of service they accrued in 2019.

MLB’s system of arbitration and free agency is based on bright lines; five years and 171 days and you have to go through salary arbitration, while one more day lets you hit free agency. The agreement between players and owners benefits them collectively, but inevitably, some individuals will find themselves on the wrong side of one of those new bright lines. And in this case, a few dozen young players, many of whom are among the brightest young talents in baseball, would still be under an additional year of team control if 2020 is lost. Read the rest of this entry »

Gio González has a very particular set of skills. No, it’s not rescuing his kidnapped daughter — it’s something far more useful for baseball. Or, it was — until 2020. González, and Steven Matz as well, are simply otherworldly when it comes out to striking out opposing pitchers.

That probably seems weird to you, because those guys aren’t exactly prolific strikeout artists. Take a look at the top 10 pitchers in pitcher strikeout rate (since 2015, minimum 100 PA):

That’s eight pitchers with high-octane, face-melting stuff…and González and Matz hanging out in rarefied air. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about the reliability of betting on baseball using the Grays Sports Almanac from Back to the Future Part II, then answer listener emails about a baseball broadcaster reality show, awarding bonuses for success in specific batter-pitcher matchups, and whether there’s any way to make pitchers into less terrible hitters, plus Stat Blasts about how a bandbox ballpark with a ton of foul territory would play and the least valuable World Series MVPs.

Audio intro: Ten Years After, "I’d Love to Change the World"
Audio outro: Sharon Van Etten, "Nothing Will Change"

Link to video of ESPN’s Dream Job
Link to Stat Blast song covers thread
Link to Garrett Krohn’s Stat Blast song cover
Link to World Series MVPs data
Link to Sam on Bumgarner
Link to post on pitchers pitching to Bumgarner
Link to article on Bucky Harris and pitcher hitting
Link to Ben on the DH
Link to Russell Carleton on the DH
Link to Glavine on the player PR problem
Link to order The MVP Machine

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How do you think one might counter the general sentiment that baseballers are greedy and make too much? It's annoying to hear my coworkers side with ownership.

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Two weeks have passed since the last round of questions, so I am once again asking you to weigh in on the shape and size of the potential 2020 baseball season. Thanks in advance for your help in providing these responses. 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.

The Rent-is-Too-Damn-High Team

The Oakland A’s and the county stadium authority are in a dispute over ballpark rent. This isn’t the first time there’s been such a dispute at the stadium sometimes known as the Oakland Coliseum. In 2014, the lease-extension negotiations between the A’s and the county stadium authority broke down over a dispute over withheld payments. The Oakland Raiders also withheld rent payments in 2015, part of an ongoing dispute that ended with the Raiders leaving for Las Vegas thanks to a sweetheart deal in their new city.

What’s new this time, of course, is the effect of pandemic economics. Citing the force majeure clause in the contract between the Athletics and the stadium authority, A’s general counsel D’Lorna Ellis referenced the unavailability of the stadium for play to justify the team deferring payment “until [they] have a better understanding of when the Coliseum will be available for use.”

The Coliseum Authority Executive Director made the issue a bit more confusing with contradictory statements, first saying that “because they haven’t used it, they were not able to generate revenue and they have no ability to pay,” before assuring the San Francisco Chronicle that the A’s never suggested revenue was an issue.

Coliseum Authority board member Ignacio De La Fuente, a former president of Oakland’s City Council, was less conciliatory than Gardner. Read the rest of this entry »

Through the first two weeks of the Korea Baseball Organization season, the NC Dinos have dominated the rest of the league, jumping out to an 11-2 start. On Tuesday’s ESPN-televised game, they beat the defending champion Doosan Bears, who have come back to the pack with a record of 8-5, that after handing the Dinos just their second loss of the season on Wednesday. The Dinos’ success thus far is worth a closer look, even from 7,000 miles and a language barrier away.

In Tuesday’s game at the Bears’ Jamsil Stadium in Seoul — the venue they share with the LG Twins, but like all KBO games thus far this year one devoid of fans due to the pandemic — the Dinos pounced on 23-year-old righty Young-ha Lee 이영하, the Bears’ third-best starter last year, for three first-inning runs, sending all nine hitters to the plate (Do KBO fans argue over the definition of “batting around” the way MLB fans do? I’m not here to create an international incident). Second baseman Min-woo Park 박민우 led off with a double and scored two batters later when designated hitter Sung-bum Na 나성범 singled.

The Dinos are underway early at Jamsil!#KBO | #NCDinos pic.twitter.com/iTCYYxkXry

— taewoongi (??) (@taewoongii) May 19, 2020

Na took second on a balk, then scored on a single by catcher Euiji Yang 양의지, who himself came around to score thanks in part to a wild pitch and an infield single off a deflection. The Dinos ran the score to 4-0 in the second as Park drew a walk, took second on a very long single by center fielder Aaron Altherr 알테어 off the base of the outfield wall, advanced to third when Yang was hit by pitch to load the bases, and scored on a sacrifice fly by third baseman Sok Min Park 박석민.

(A note to users: in case you’re wondering how to get your fix of play-by-play action after the fact, MyKBOstats offers English-language box scores. When possible, each box score page also offers links to highlights and the full replay on YouTube, all the more reason to drop by.) Read the rest of this entry »