On Wednesday, Miguel Rojas and the Miami Marlins agreed on a two-year extension, covering Rojas’s final year of salary arbitration and a year of free agent eligibility. The exact financial terms are undisclosed, but it appears that the contract’s guarantee is roughly in the $10-million range. The Marlins also get an option to get a third year from Rojas in 2022.

Miami currently stands in last place in the National League in WAR for hitters at 2.3. Your offense doesn’t reach those depths of sadness without being able to point your fingers at a lot of players, but Rojas is one of the few in the lineup who doesn’t shoulder a share of the blame. As of Thursday morning, Rojas has hit .285/.335/.383 in 2019, good for 1.9 WAR. He hasn’t been able to leverage the hitter-friendly environment for a boost in home runs — at five homers, he looks an easy bet to miss 2018’s total of 11 — but he has established himself as a top-tier defender this season. Read the rest of this entry »

Another year, another Oakland surprise.

In July, I wrote about how the Athletics deserved your attention, again. After starting the season 29-28 through the end of May, the A’s got hot. The team is 62-33 since, tied with Houston for the best record in the American League in this stretch. As the team racked up wins, their playoff odds grew, increasing from 10% on June 1 to 96% today. This is a trend you like to see if you’re an A’s fan:

Oakland is still not quite a lock to make the playoffs, but with a two-game lead over the Rays for the first Wild Card spot and a two-and-a-half game lead over the Indians for a playoff spot overall, you have to like their chances.

Incredibly, the 2019 A’s are behaving almost exactly like the 2018 A’s. As I mentioned in my July piece, coming into games on June 1, both the 2019 and 2018 squads were 29-28. After a scorching 68-37 finish, the 2018 team ended their campaign with 97 wins, the exact pace the 2019 A’s are on now.

Earlier this week, I wrote about Kolby Allard being the best pitcher traded at the trade deadline by WAR. Today, though, I want to talk about the team that has added the most post-August pitching value via July trades. It’s hard to think that Oakland would be in this position today without the contributions of three July additions.

For most of this season, the A’s needed pitching help, even despite generally positive results from the group of arms they rostered on Opening Day. Frankie Montas was suspended 80 games after testing positive for a PED in June, Sean Manaea spent the majority of the year on the Injured List recovering from shoulder surgery, and top pitching prospects Jesus Luzardo and A.J. Puk weren’t promoted to the majors until fairly recently. (They’re both in bullpen roles, partially out of necessity and partially because the rotation upgrades have been solid.) As a result, the A’s made three trades for pitchers in July: a deal with the Royals for Homer Bailey, another, separate deal with KC for Jake Diekman, and a deal with the Reds for Tanner Roark. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

A Yastrzemski hit a home run in Fenway Park on Tuesday night, and if you’re any kind of student of baseball history, you might have felt some goosebumps. Two hundred miles away in the Yankee Stadium press box, I certainly did, because I’m old enough to remember the final years of the career of Carl Yastrzemski, a former Triple Crown winner and inner-circle Hall of Famer who retired in 1983 while owning the all-time lead in games played (3,308, since surpassed by Pete Rose) and the number eight spot on the all-time hit list (3,419, now ninth). I also recall the flicker of promise that was his son’s professional career in the mid-1980s, and the sad news that he passed away in 2004 at the too-young age of 43. With all that in mind, I can’t help but pull for Mike Yastrzemski, a 29-year-old rookie who on May 25 of this season became the first grandson of a Hall of Famer to play in the majors.

I was hardly alone. By all accounts, the youngest Yaz — who lists at nearly the same size (5-foot-11, 180 pounds) as his grandfather (5-foot-11, 175 pounds) and swings from the left side — was welcomed with open arms for his Fenway debut. He strolled across the outfield grass with “Poppy Yaz” prior to the game, receive a warm ovation upon coming to the plate to lead off the contest, and, in the fourth inning, sent a Nathan Eovaldi fastball 401 feet to center field:

The home run made Yastrzemski the first Giants rookie in 47 years to reach 20 homers (Dave Kingman did it in 1972) and just the second Giant to hit 20 in the past four seasons (Kevin Pillar beat him by 16 days). The blast and the hoopla that surrounded his debut were the highlights of what became a grueling, 15-inning, 24-pitcher September slog; it lasted five hours and 54 minutes, which in single-game terms is about as long as his grandfather’s career. Yastrzemski made a strong effort to bring it to an end earlier by leading off the 14th inning with a ground-rule double, his only other hit in eight trips to the plate. His Giants teammates stranded him, though they did go on to win, 7-6. Read the rest of this entry »

12:02

Dan Szymborski: Peanut butter?

12:03

Dan Szymborski: All I know about gum removal is that episode of the Simpsons where Lisa has gum in her hair and everyone lines up to “help”

12:03

Dan Szymborski: Generally speaking, hitters age, pitchers break.

12:03

Dan Szymborski: You don’t really get into a pitcher aging *curve* (apart from the normal risks for a pitcher) until the late 30s.

Read the rest of this entry »

With just over a week to go in the regular season, Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole are running neck and neck as favorites for the American League Cy Young award. Verlander leads the league in innings (212) and ERA (2.50). Cole has the lead in strikeouts with 302 with Verlander 19 behind. Even after accounting for Verlander’s 34 homers, his 3.28 FIP is still one of the best marks in the league. On Cole’s side are the strikeouts, a league-leading 2.78 FIP and a 6.7 WAR half a win clear of Verlander. Several other pitchers, like Charlie Morton and Lance Lynn, boast strong resumes, and with five slots on voters’ ballots, many pitchers will receive down-ballot consideration worthy of discussion.

While awards voting is a mostly objective process, when trying to differentiate between a group of very good pitchers, personal preferences are likely to play into the selections. When voters rely on particular stats, be it FIP, ERA, or some other metric, they are making decisions about the importance of defense, park, opponent, and how much talent a big league pitcher is expected to exhibit when it comes to contact quality. Before we get to all of those issues, let’s identify the candidates. There’s a fairly clear top seven among AL starting pitchers (Liam Hendriks might deserve some consideration as well) with Eduardo Rodriguez also included due to his rank based on Baseball-Reference’s WAR.

Here are the eight pitchers under consideration, with some traditional and more advanced statistics:

A look above shows Gerrit Cole leading in the more advanced statistics, with Verlander gaining the nod from traditional metrics, and Lance Lynn and Charlie Morton sort of splitting the difference between the two Astros. Shane Bieber and Lucas Giolito are a bit behind, with Giolito unable to add anything to his file after being shut down for the season. Mike Minor’s case is made by his low ERA combined with his difficult park, as his strikeouts and walks lag behind the other candidates. Eduardo Rodriguez is the poor man’s version of Minor.

If we looked at FanGraphs WAR, we’d see Cole as the leader due to his incredible strikeout rate and ability to limit homers, at least somewhat. Though he has a 20-inning deficit compared to Verlander, the strikeouts and homers make enough of a difference for Cole to take the day. Verlander and Lynn are in a dead heat when it comes to WAR, with the huge difference in home runs balancing Verlander’s lead in strikeouts and walks and Lynn’s more difficult park in which to keep balls in the field of play. Comparing Lynn to Morton, we see Morton with the homer advantage, but the innings deficit, combined with Tampa Bay being a hard park to homer in, gives Lynn the edge. Read the rest of this entry »

For the second straight year, the NL Central crown is coming right down to the wire. I won’t belabor the details — Jay Jaffe has you covered with his Team Entropy series. I’m interested in a slightly different angle. There’s one outstanding feature of the current year’s setup — two of the contenders, the Cardinals and Cubs, happen to play each other in seven of their last 10 games.

That seems like an ideal setup for the trailing team — if you take care of business and win your games, you’ll win the league. None of this hoping the other team loses nonsense — emerge victorious, and you guarantee them a loss.

There’s a problem, though — the Cubs have a tenuous hold on the second Wild Card spot, and the Cardinals are pretty good. Perform poorly, as is entirely possible when seven of your last 10 games are against a good team, and you might miss the playoffs altogether.

That’s the schedule as it exists. What this article presupposes is, what if the schedule could play out a different way? I built a lightweight version of our playoff odds model using Depth Charts projections and starter and home field adjustments, using the same rules as my earlier article on Dodgers playoff scenarios. First, let me show you my model’s view of the 2019 NL playoff race, as it varies ever so slightly from the official FanGraphs odds:

With that out of the way, let’s have some fun! Let’s mess with reality and change some odds. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the return of Luis Severino and the Yankees’ prospective playoff roster, how teams will use their pitchers in the playoffs, a Sonny Gray fun fact that sort of checks out, Yu Darvish’s strikeout spree, and an extremely long September game, discuss the arrest of Felipe Vázquez, and answer listener emails about Mookie Betts and Mike Trout, when today’s baseball will start to seem dated, how long it takes bad teams to restore their reputations, and the audacity of promising to hit home runs.

Audio intro: Gregory Alan Isakov, "San Luis"
Audio outro: Sturgill Simpson, "The Promise"

Link to Jay Jaffe on Severino’s return
Link to Aaron Boone on the Yankees’ playoff pitching plans
Link to Sonny Gray story
Link to Darvish story
Link to Ben on the playoffs as a vision of the future
Link to Yaz home runs GIF
Link to Ben on MLB’s quality of play
Link to Seinfeld clip
Link to post on promised home runs
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Last year, Josh Hader headlined an excellent relief corps in Milwaukee, helping the Brewers win their division and make the postseason for the first time since 2011. While Hader drew all the headlines with his ridiculous 46.7% strikeout rate, their bullpen was incredibly deep, making up for a lackluster starting rotation. Corey Knebel, Jeremy Jeffress, and Joakim Soria all excelled in high-leverage situations, and Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff gave them plenty of length to bridge the gap from the starter to the back end of the ‘pen.

Fast forward one year and Hader is the lone reliever left from that group. Soria left via free agency, Knebel underwent Tommy John surgery in early April, and Woodruff has been a full-time starter this season. Jeffress and Burnes have been totally ineffective, with the former dealing with a shoulder issue and eventually getting released in August and the latter demoted after getting rocked as a starter to start the year. Hader, for his part, is still striking out nearly half the batters he’s facing, but he’s developed a bit of a home run problem, pushing his FIP up to 3.07 this season.

Collectively, the Brewers relievers have posted a park- and league-adjusted FIP 3% better than league average, 12th in the majors, but a far cry from their fourth-ranked (87 FIP-) bullpen from a year ago. Outside of Hader, they’ve struggled to find effective replacements for the relievers they lost from last year’s crew. Freddy Peralta has plenty of talent but his lack of control has really held him back. It was no surprise to see the Brewers attached to plenty of trade rumors in July as they looked for relief reinforcements from outside the organization. They ended up acquiring two relievers before the trade deadline, and one of them has been absolutely dominant since moving to Milwaukee. Read the rest of this entry »