Evan White was playing in his first full professional season when I interviewed him 24 months ago. I went on to write that White “not only bats right and throws left, he’s a first baseman whose athleticism and offensive skill set are more akin to that of a center fielder.” My esteemed colleague Eric Longenhagen had recently called the University of Kentucky product “perhaps the 2017 draft’s most unique player.”

Two years later, White is No. 4 on our Mariners Top Prospects list, and No. 64 on our 2020 Top 100 Prospects list. Moreover, he’s projected to begin the season — assuming there is a season — in Seattle’s starting lineup. If so, he’ll have leapfrogged Triple-A. White spent last year at Double-A Arkansas where he slashed .293/.350/.488, with 18 home runs in 400 plate appearances.

The introduction to the 2018 interview also included the line, “Last June’s 17th overall pick doesn’t project to hit for much power.” As evidenced by the aforementioned output, that’s now looking to be untrue. White’s swing is proving to be more lethal than expected — this despite his not having retooled it toward that end.

“I’m just continuing to learn, continuing to grow,” White told me prior to spring training’s being shut down. “My approach is the same — it’s to stay middle of the field — but my timing is more consistent. If I’m late, I’ve got to rush, and when I’m rushing I’m not making as good decisions because I’m not seeing the ball as well.”

Seeing the ball has never been much of an issue. Along with possessing solid bat-to-ball skills, the Columbus, Ohio native strives to be a selective hitter. That’s not by chance. As noted in the earlier piece, White has a strong appreciation for what Joey Votto brings to the table in Cincinnati. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about an aggressive umpiring demotion in the KBO, FanGraphs adding KBO stats, and the pleasures of falling asleep with baseball on in the background. Then (16:30) they talk to former lefty pitcher Andy Van Hekken, who pitched professionally for 21 seasons across nine countries, about being one of the most-traveled pro players of all time, his memorable MLB debut with the 2002 Detroit Tigers, pitching in the KBO, CPBL, and NPB, the customs, strike zones, and strategies of Asian baseball, match-fixing in Taiwan, the key to overseas success, the baseball language barrier, the art of the forkball, becoming a star player and local hero in an unexpected place, and more. Finally (56:45), they bring on Leander Schaerlaeckens to discuss his Slate investigation into President Trump’s high school baseball career, how and why he fact-checked claims about Trump being a pro prospect, and Trump as a player and teammate.

Audio intro: Mac DeMarco, "Baby You’re Out"
Audio interstitial 1: Slothrust, "Travel Bug"
Audio interstitial 2: Yo La Tengo, "If it’s True"
Audio outro: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, "Travel Song"

Link to article on umpiring demotions
Link to FanGraphs KBO stats post
Link to MLB.com article on Van Hekken
Link to local Michigan article on Van Hekken
Link to video of Van Hekken’s MLB debut
Link to KBO video of Van Hekken
Link to CPBL video of Van Hekken
Link to list of players who played in MLB/NPB/KBO/CPBL
Link to list of B-Ref’s most-traveled players
Link to article on CPBL match-fixing
Link to article on the CPBL’s resurgence
Link to Leander’s Trump investigation
Link to Kram on the home-court assists advantage
Link to order The MVP Machine

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In this week’s MLB The Show 20 stream, featuring Paul Sporer, Ben Clemens, and Dan Szymborski, the Red Sox head to New York to start a three-game series against the Yankees.

Mookie Betts was a huge real-life loss for Boston, but the PlayStation Sox have surprised and spent most of April at the top of American League East. Boston (22-17) is currently just three games behind the first-place Yankees thanks to the digital good health of Chris Sale (5-1, 2.44 ERA, 2.1 WAR) and Collin McHugh (3-0, 2.97 ERA, 1.0 WAR). Alex Verdugo has struggled at times as the de factor replacement for Betts and currently has a .636 OPS, but Xander Bogaerts and J.D. Martinez rank first and sixth in the American League in WAR, respectively.

The Red Sox have benefitted from a healthy Chris Sale, but the Yankees have also lucked out in this alternate reality, with Luis Severino having avoided Tommy John surgery. The Yankees are cruising on an eight-game winning streak after sweeping the Tigers, Blue Jays, and Pirates. In the rotation, only Jordan Montgomery has an ERA above four and the Yankees offense leads baseball in runs (214), home runs (68), batting average (.296), and slugging percentage (.507). Gio Urshela has continued where he left off in 2019 and is currently tied with Aaron Judge for the team lead in home runs (10).

“I would tell you very quickly it was scaled down to, ‘It’s either July 26 or it’s 2021,” said Tim Mead, president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in discussing the institution’s decision to postpone this year’s Induction Weekend due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. “There’s a standard and the quality associated with that ceremony and the Induction Weekend, and we weren’t going to trim any of it for any reason just to make sure it happens.”

I spoke to Mead on Sunday, May 3, four days after the Hall officially announced that there would be no induction ceremony this year and 370 days after he was announced as the seventh president in the institution’s history. In the days before and since, I also spoke to Cooperstown’s past and present mayors as well as a couple of local small business owners for whom the cancellation is just the latest of several blows suffered amid a shutdown that threatens to wipe out the entire tourist season.

The Hall itself has been closed since March 15, and the streets of the town of around 1,800 are deserted, that despite relatively few residents in the town and its surrounding areas falling ill from the virus. The underlying rural/urban tensions caused by the shutdown are playing out all over the country right now, but there may be no place where the contrast is as stark as this idyllic and storied village, which annually draws half a million visitors from all across the U.S., and even internationally, for its baseball-related attractions.

What Mead conveyed in our conversation is the Hall’s sense of responsibility in announcing its decision just shy of three months ahead of the actual weekend. The handwriting on the wall is clear enough, particularly given the complex logistics that underly the celebration. At a time when public health officials are mandating social distancing measures and strongly advising against gatherings of even a handful of people, the thought of tens of thousands of people traveling long distances, convening, and then returning to their communities — potentially furthering the spread of the coronavirus or fueling the second wave of an outbreak — is a nonstarter. 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.

MLB Explores Revenue-Sharing

One of the trickiest aspects of opening the 2020 season may not be the direct effects of COVID-19 but instead how to divide up what will be a smaller-than-usual pile of cash. MLB and the MLBPA answered one question last month, coming to an agreement on the service time issues. While this decided some things in the event there is no 2020 season and no revenues to divide, the league is arguing this agreement didn’t conclusively answer what would happen if there actually is a season.

Perhaps the biggest unanswered question revolves around player salaries. While the initial agreement involved pro-rating normal salaries for however many games are actually played, there’s a disagreement between MLB and the MLBPA about whether this assumed normal games with fans in attendance rather than fan-free ones. This isn’t just obscure legalese but a serious roadblock.

In my opinion, teams have very real concerns about league revenues without fans in attendance, more real than the general complaints about revenue in normal seasons. The problem is, owners don’t exactly have a long history of good-faith negotiations with players. It’s not unreasonable for players to be suspicious given the games played by team owners over the years despite players seeing a declining share of the revenues while team valuations skyrocket. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

With so much uncertainty surrounding the “when” and “if” of a 2020 MLB season, it’s not surprising to see a constant progression of new plans. What it comes down to is that there’s no obvious one-size-fits-all solution that maximizes player and staff safety, baseball quality, the number of baseball games, and league revenue simultaneously. It’s only in such an odd year that things like playing in spring training parks, Arizona/Florida leagues, neutral playoffs, fanless games, and Thanksgiving baseball actually seem plausible rather than falling in the category of whimsical skylarkings.

While states re-opening for business seems like a dubious decision, often running counter to the advice of public health experts, it appears inevitable that many jurisdictions will resume much of their pre-COVID-19 economic activity, though with additional precautions and wariness of others. We’re far from being able to expect normal game conditions, with fans and hot dog vendors, but increasingly, there’s a push to play a large percentage, if not all of the season, in teams’ home parks.

With travel likely to be both more difficult and more perilous, CBS Sports’ RJ Anderson reported a proposal for a three-division alignment for the 2020 season. This would likely involve teams at least starting in just a few stadiums before an eventual move to their home cities depending on the course of the virus. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in January, before all of this happened, I found myself wondering about baseball players who had simply disappeared. Players often fade from our memory, but thanks to the archival work of organizations like SABR and the Hall of Fame, and websites like Baseball-Reference and Retrosheet, rarely are they ever lost entirely. Baseball is comfortingly recurrent, comfortably concrete — to have a player go missing, their status unknown, struck me as likely to be a uniquely destabilizing and impactful event.

Of course, a lot of things have changed since January. We now find ourselves in a situation wherein Major League Baseball itself is suspended in a state of uncertainty, and many minor league teams are unsure whether they’ll continue to exist next year at all. I abandoned my search for the missing of baseball history in the face of the Astros cheating scandal, which at that point seemed much more pressing; now, when baseball is missing and we are missing baseball, it seems like the right time to pick it back up. 

Many of the stories that I found were comedies; some were tragedies. Some were political, some were trivial, and some were, ostensibly, romantic. All of them, I think, are worth exploring. Without baseball games to attend, now seems as good a time as any to reflect on our relationship with the sport, its stories, and the people who play it.

The story that follows is the earliest that I found, coming from late 1892 in St. Joseph, Missouri, the town that was once the jumping-off point for the Wild West, and that has hosted professional baseball since 1886. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m pleased to announce that FanGraphs now has KBO player stats going back to 2002!

Currently, these stats are available on player pages and include full season stat lines. They will be updated nightly to reflect the previous day’s games.

We’ve integrated a new section into our player search specifically designated for international players. Any player you search for who has played in the KBO will show up in the International section as well as in the Major or Minor League sections if they have MLB-affiliated playing time. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about KBO season excitement and answer listener emails about MLB precedents for Warwick Saupold’s KBO complete game, whether MLB fandom would work if teams didn’t play games in their “home” cities, the ethics of time travel in Tommy John surgery rehab and if and when it makes sense to sacrifice life expectancy for greater achievement, Johnny Sturm and other players who’ve qualified for the batting title in their lone MLB season, how Ben and Sam are continuing to challenge themselves as writers and thinkers now that sabermetrics has gone mainstream, Bryan LaHair and the lowest-career-WAR All-Stars, and whether Joey Votto (or any other player) can foul off pitches until they get one they like, plus a Stat Blast about official scorers and “home cooking.”

Audio intro: Field Music, "Something Familiar"
Audio outro: Ages and Ages, "Divisionary (Do the Right Thing)"

Link to story about Spud Johnson
Link to Slate story on sabermetrics and humility
Link to list of lowest-career-WAR All-Stars
Link to Stat Blast song covers thread
Link to Ben Scruton’s Stat Blast song cover
Link to fouls/swing rate data
Link to order The MVP Machine

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 Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com

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