If you watched any baseball at all this postseason, the topic of using starters as relievers probably came up. The Nationals used the tactic frequently, and the Cardinals, Dodgers, Braves, Yankees, Twins, Astros, and A’s all had at least one pitcher who was primarily a starter appear in relief. And when those pitchers came in, the same concern was always raised. “Hey,” the concern roughly goes, “this team should put the starter in at the beginning of the inning to put him in the best position to succeed.”

Teams mostly stick to this advice. But I’ve never been one to take rules like this for granted. After all, plenty of other baseball aphorisms turned out to be nothing but high-minded nonsense. Bat your best hitter third. Bunt runners into scoring position. Focus on batting average. The list goes on.

Some of those are nonsense. But there’s a kernel of logic to using only starters with a clean start to an inning. Starters are creatures of habit, with complex pre-game routines designed to get them to peak readiness just in time for the start of a game. Take them out of this environment, ask them to get ready on a moment’s notice, and they might not be completely up to speed when they step on the mound.

It’s not that starters can’t handle having runners on base, in other words. After all, starters pitch with runners on base all the time. Instead, the issue is that with runners on base, the first batter a pitcher faces is sure to be important. Could it be that starters simply aren’t throwing at 100% for the first batter they face when they’re coming into the game in relief?

To test this theory out, I looked at every instance of a starter pitching in relief in the playoffs over the last five years. It’s inherently a limited sample, but starters pitch in relief in the regular season in very different circumstances, and I deemed them different enough that the playoff data would be more relevant. I bundled mid-inning appearances and start-of-inning appearances together; after all, my theory is that insufficient warmups cause pitchers to underperform against the first batter, regardless of the base/out state. Read the rest of this entry »

Voting for baseball’s various awards is a small part of BBWAA membership, but it’s an undeniably cool part of it, one of the things you dream of doing when you’re a kid. As a member of one of the BBWAA’s smallest city-chapters, I’ve been fortunate to be asked to vote in most of the years I’ve been in the BBWAA, and it’s a responsibility I take quite seriously. I loved baseball for decades before I was employed in the game’s orbit, so it’s important to me to get my microscopic contribution to its history right.

This year, my vote was for the National League Rookie of the Year award. While you only submit three names on your official ballot and I was reasonably sure of who those names would be, my rough draft contained 10 players. I make ballots that are longer than necessary for the express purpose of making sure I’m exercising proper due diligence. Going into my ballot for the 2017 National League Cy Young award, I did not expect Gio Gonzalez to rank fifth (he was eighth in WAR in the NL), but I felt — and still do — that it should be more than a FIP ranking. There’s a philosophical quandary when it comes to BABIP-type measures, after all, and it’s hard to entirely chuck out success that actually occurred simply because that success isn’t necessarily predictive.

Here’s my final 10-player ballot for National League Rookie of the Year. (Naturally, I only submitted three names, as that’s all the form has space for, and because I didn’t want to leave the BBWAA’s secretary-treasurer, Jack O’Connell, questioning my functional literacy.)

10. Kevin Newman (.308/.353/.446, 110 wRC+, 2.4 WAR)

Several other players could have taken the final spot on my imaginary ballot. Some readers will probably object to me leaving off Sandy Alcantara and his 2.4 WAR, but his worse xFIP (5.17) than FIP (4.55) meshes with something that ZiPS saw in Alcantara’s 2019. The system is exceptionally skeptical of Alcantara’s low HR/9, and while I don’t dismiss performance that isn’t predictive outright, there were a lot of excellent back-ballot candidates, and it was enough for him to miss the ballot. You can even shave another couple of runs off from his -0.2 WAR as a hitter.

Merrill Kelly lost -0.6 WAR as a hitter, enough to demote the reliable-if-unexciting innings-eater. Dakota Hudson‘s FIP-ERA difference was simply too large for me to overlook. Adrian Houser got too much of his value from low-leverage situations. Christian Walker’s numbers weren’t thrilling for a first baseman. Some of these objections are quibbles, but this was a very close decision. In the end, I went with Kevin Newman, who hit as well as Walker did while playing three infield positions. Given how volatile defensive numbers are, I didn’t want to be overly reliant on one year’s worth of data at short, which is what I’d have ended up doing in a straight WAR ranking.

9. Mike Yastrzemski (.272/.334/.518, 121 wRC+, 2.2 WAR)

Of the players on the ballot, Li’l Yaz is the one of whose future performance I’m most skeptical. Teams have been wrong about minor league veterans many times in the past, but I’m still not sure they were completely wrong about Yastrzemski. A .251/.342/.442 career line in Triple-A doesn’t scream starting major league corner outfielder, but I can’t deny that his performance actually happened. He also put up his 2.2 WAR in relatively few plate appearances. And it’s worth noting that ZiPS has always liked his defense in the corners, and there’s a real chance that his true ability may be closer to his DRS (+8) than his UZR (+0.8), adding a few runs of value. Read the rest of this entry »

Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Dylan Bundy, Cory Gearrin, and Dereck Rodriguez — on how they learned and developed their changeups.

———

Dylan Bundy, Baltimore Orioles

“I’d tried a circle change, and throwing with these two fingers [the middle and ring], but I never could do it. First of all, it doesn’t make sense to throw with those two fingers when you don’t throw any other pitches with them. You throw every pitch with the [middle and pointer], and your thumb, right? I kind of got around to, ‘Why try it?’

“I decided to spread my fingers over the two seams — this was in 2016 — and while I don’t know if you’d consider it a split, I call it a split. Some people only consider it a split if you full on choke it. For me it’s not a choke so much as a spread. When you bring your thumb up, really far up to the side of the ball, that way you get the action. If your thumb is underneath the ball, you get more straight drop, if that makes sense. You’re throwing against your thumb.

“I first threw a four-seam [changeup] — same grip, same spread — but then, two years ago… actually, no. Last year was the first time I started doing a two-seam grip instead of a four-seam grip. My thought process had been to try to make it look exactly like my heater, because I thought hitters could read spin, but I was told that hitters can’t make up their minds on spin that quick. I was told, ‘Don’t worry about that; don’t worry about the spin, worry about the action.’ That’s when I went to the two-seam split-change. Read the rest of this entry »

Every year, FanGraphs asks our readers to provide contract predictions for the game’s top free agents and every year, our readers do an admirable job with their winter forecast. The predictions for this offseason’s most notable free agents can be found in our Top 50 Free Agents post; if you prefer a sortable, filterable table where you can easily see all the predictions, plus players’ actual contracts (when signed), we have that option as well. While their predictions are important and valuable to the site, I hope our readers will not take offense when I say that over the last few years, their contract prognostications have not been as good as they were in the past.

Going back to the winter prior to the 2014 season, here is what our readers predicted teams would spend, as well as the actual dollars spent, by year, with some figures coming from this 2018 post and Max Rieper’s prior research:

Over six offseasons, the crowd’s predictions were roughly a billion dollars too high. That total is only about 10% off, which doesn’t seem so bad. Looking at the individual years above, we can see that the billion dollar difference is housed almost entirely in the last three winters. From 2014 through 2016, the crowd fluctuated a bit but with over five billion dollars in predicted salary, the crowd was off the actual mark by just $23 million, less than half a percent off the total amount. Over the last three seasons, major league payrolls have remained static. The lack of upward movement in spending has come almost entirely at the expense of free agents, who make up roughly two-thirds of total payroll. Based on the crowdsourced predictions, it’s fair to say that readers expected payrolls to rise. The lack of a decent increase in 2017 was a surprise, as was the fact that there was no upward correction in 2018. Last year, readers were closer than they had been the previous two offseasons, but still missed the mark by 17% compared to the actual contracts signed. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about the baffling trade rumors swirling around Mookie Betts, Francisco Lindor, and Kris Bryant, try to discern why they would be on the block, discuss how the likelihood of the top-rated team winning the World Series compares to the likelihood of the best team taking the title in other sports, and then conduct their fifth annual free-agent-contract over/under draft.

Audio intro: Ben Kweller, "Free"
Audio outro: The Only Ones, "You’ve Got to Pay"

Link to Rob Arthur on ticket prices and attendance
Link to Neil Paine on “paper champions”
Link to study on how often the best team wins
Link to blog post about how often the best team wins
Link to FanGraphs top 50 free agents
Link to MLB Trade Rumors top 50 free agents
Link to EW competitions and drafts
Link to order The MVP Machine

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MLB front offices often spend a lot of energy trying to make their rosters younger. There are a number of obvious benefits to this — young players are cheap, especially before they reach arbitration status, and as Ben Lindbergh of The Ringer detailed back in August, they are also historically good. Trying to get younger is a strategy that’s easy to sell a fan base on, and yet during last month’s World Series, older players were the ones who often found themselves at the center of the attention. Sure, Washington’s preternaturally gifted Juan Soto took October by storm while turning just 21 years old during the World Series, but mostly it was guys like Howie Kendrick (36), Kurt Suzuki (36), and Ryan Zimmerman (35) catching headlines throughout the postseason. Veteran pitchers like Fernando Rodney (42), Anibal Sanchez (35) and Max Scherzer (35) were playing big roles for the championship-winning Nationals, while Justin Verlander (36) and Zack Greinke (36) each made two World Series starts for the runner-up Astros.

The idea of older players being the driving force behind these title contenders didn’t simply arise from a few random flashes of brilliance in October. According to ESPN, Washington reached the postseason with MLB’s oldest active roster. In fact, each of the five oldest teams in baseball reached the postseason, along with seven of the top eight. Some places show slightly different figures for average team age, but regardless of where you look, the top of the list always features a long list of teams who won a lot of games in 2019.

The easy headline here is that baseball’s best teams were also its oldest. But teams like the Nationals and Astros didn’t just have a bunch of old guys on their team — they had a bunch of very good old guys. The Yankees did too, and so did the Dodgers. After a long offseason that saw the majority of teams seemingly turn their noses up at veteran talent, older players produced as much value this season as they have for years. The difference was, in 2019, it was only a few teams reaping the benefits. Read the rest of this entry »

The Houston Astros, who made it to the World Series thanks at least in part to a bullpen that led the majors in xFIP (4.06) and placed second in ERA (3.75) during the regular season (the unit’s 11th place-FIP was still good, if a bit more pedestrian), saw four of its relief arms enter free agency last month: Will Harris, Collin McHugh (who threw innings as both a starter and reliever this season), Joe Smith, and Héctor Rondón. Here’s how those four stacked up in 2019:

Between them, the Astros’ four free agent relievers threw a little more than 32% of Houston’s 555 relief innings in 2019, and about 35% of their right-handed innings (505). That’s because Houston got an astonishingly small number of relief innings out of lefties in 2019: 49 and a third — the fifth-lowest such total in a decade — 35 of which came from Framber Valdez, who pitched only three times after September 1.

That imbalanced composition made Houston’s 2019 ‘pen unusually reliant on right-handers with a demonstrated history of getting left-handed hitters out. Lefties still aren’t close to the majority of all batters faced league-wide, of course, but they are 40% of the total, and so it behooves teams to have a plan for when they step into the box. The Astros did: Five Houston relievers — Ryan Pressly, Roberto Osuna, Cy Sneed, McHugh, and Harris — were better at retiring lefties than righties in 2019, when the league’s average tendency for relievers was the opposite:

The Astros’ top offseason priority should probably be their starting rotation, with Gerrit Cole seemingly extremely likely to depart (though Jim Crane is making noises about taking a run at him). They’ll also need to replace Robinson Chirinos and Martín Maldonado at catcher, where Yasmani Grandal may make sense. But the chart above suggests that retaining Harris and McHugh, at least, should be a priority for Houston as well. Letting Rondón and Smith walk will leave about 85 innings and Smith’s strong performance to replace, of course, but this year’s relatively strong relief market (10 relievers are projected for at least half a win, including Harris and McHugh) means there’s ample opportunity to do so if Houston is willing to spend a little money.

It’s not clear that the Astros will in fact spend — our RosterResource payroll page for Houston estimates the Astros 2020 payroll at $221 million with their luxury tax payroll estimate higher, and both are in excess of the initial $208 million luxury tax threshold. But if they do choose to spend, and in particular spend on their bullpen, they’ll have a number of intriguing options to choose between. Chris Martin, lately of the Braves, has the height the Astros like in their pitchers (he’s 6-foot-8), was significantly better against lefties than righties last year (allowing a .239 wOBA against them, versus .318 to righties), and has above-average spin on his fastball. Sounds like a Houston reliever to me. Robbie Erlin, Jake Diekman, and Will Smith could also be intriguing for different reasons (fastball spin rate, lefty splits, and overall competence respectively), but if I were Houston I’d feel pretty satisfied with an offseason that included signing Martin and retaining Harris and McHugh.

Despite getting beaten on a good pitch in the World Series, Harris will likely command a hefty premium this offseason as a number of contending teams seek bullpen help and take note of his sterling performance for the Astros over the last half-decade. The median crowd estimate you gave for his services was two years at $7 million a year — Kiley predicted two years at $10 million a year, which I think is somewhat more likely — but at either price, I think the Astros would be silly to let him walk, particularly given Rondón, Smith, and McHugh’s concurrent free agencies.

Like Aroldis Chapman, who just extended his time with the Yankees, Harris is well into his 30s and lost a mile per hour or so on his fastball and curveball in 2019. Those factors will probably keep the offers mostly to two years, as you projected, though I wouldn’t be surprised if the winning team ends up being the one that guarantees a third year. If that is the case, his new team should take comfort in the fact that Harris, like Chapman, adjusted to his declining velocity this season by increasing the rate at which he threw his breaking ball (in Harris’ case, that curve), and found success throwing that pitch out of the zone for strike three, or to steal a strike on the second pitch of a sequence, as we can see in this chart from Baseball Savant (cutters are in brown, curves in blue):

Bullpens aren’t everything, of course, but they’re of outsized importance in the postseason, where the Astros’ poor relief performances played a major part in their loss to the Nationals. As Houston stares down the decisions in front of them this offseason — the pursuit of Cole probably foremost among them — they’d do well to set a little bit of money aside for two of the players who helped carry them as far as they got last year, and perhaps a little bit more for one or two who can help them do more of what they did so well in 2019.

This post is part of a series concerning the 2020 Modern Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering executives and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon at the Winter Meetings in San Diego on December 8. It is adapted from a longer version included in The Cooperstown Casebook, published in 2017 by Thomas Dunne Books. For an introduction to JAWS, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Lou Whitaker made baseball look easy. No less a writer than Roger Angell marveled over his “ball-bearing smoothness afield and remarkable hand-speed at bat.” But to some, the ease with which the game came to the Tigers’ longtime second baseman suggested that he lacked effort, hard work, or passion for the game, and it didn’t help that Whitaker wasn’t one for self-promotion. He let his performance do the talking, and for the better part of his 19 seasons in the majors, that performance spoke volumes. A top-of-the-lineup spark plug and an outstanding defender, he paired with Alan Trammell to form the longest-running double-play combination in history. He earned All-Star honors five times and won three Gold Gloves along the way, solid totals that nonetheless undersell his contributions.

Whitaker retired one year before Trammell did, and thus reached the BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot a year earlier. Shockingly, a player hailed as a potential Hall of Famer during his career received just 2.9% in 2001, which ruled him out from further consideration by the writers and prevented his inclusion on Veterans Committee or Expansion Era Committee ballots during the remaining 14 years that he could have been on the writers’ ballot. Trammell wasn’t elected by the BBWAA either, but after spending 15 years on the ballot, he and longtime Tigers teammate Jack Morris were tabbed by the Modern Baseball Era Committee in 2018, the first living ex-players elected to the Hall by any small-committee process since 2001. Their eligibility raised Whitaker’s profile, and this year, for the first time, he’s on a committee ballot as well. That doesn’t guarantee his election, but based upon the weight of his accomplishments, the honor is long overdue.

Read the rest of this entry »

We’ll learn more about what the 30 teams have in store for the offseason in the coming days. Not in any great detail (and some subterfuge is inevitable), but with varying degrees of forthcomingness, information will indeed be shared. The GM meetings begin tomorrow, in Scottsdale, with media sessions scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Will your favorite team actively pursue a trade for Mookie Betts? Do they have their eyes trained, and checkbooks already open, on free agents such as Gerrit Cole and Anthony Rendon… or perhaps Andrew Cashner or Jordy Mercer? Answers to those kinds of questions are reliably vague at best, but inquiries of a different ilk often elicit thoughtful responses.

I got a head start on the executive-Q&A front during last month’s NLCS. Eschewing anything roster-related — not the right time and place — I asked St. Louis Cardinals Vice President/General Manager Michael Girsch if he and his front office cohorts had anything cooking behind the scenes. His answer reflected just how much the game continues to evolve.

“We’re kind of reorganizing our baseball development group a little bit,” said Girsch. “The amount of data keeps increasing exponentially. It’s gone from your basic back of a baseball card, 10 or 15 years ago, to TrackMan, to StatCast, and beyond. The infrastructure that worked at one point doesn’t work anymore. When I started, everything was in Excel, on my laptop. That became nonviable pretty quickly, and now we’re moving beyond the servers we have, to other issues.”

Is keeping up more a matter of adding staff, or streamlining the process already in place? Girsch’s response reflected the fact that bigger fish — relative to the here and now — still needed to be fried. Read the rest of this entry »