As I’ve written several times in recent weeks, the past seven years have seen a flurry of candidates elected to the Hall of Fame — a record 22 by the BBWAA over that span, with another five by the various Era Committees. Eleven of those 22 were first-ballot selections by the writers, while another three made it in during their final year. Of the five committee selections, three spent a full 15 years on the writers’ ballot while the other two slipped below the 5% mark and fell off.

The mix of quick selections and long-awaited ones has been dizzying, and it’s significantly altered the landscape when it comes to the best players outside the Hall of Fame — the ones who might be considered in the on-deck circle. As it’s been a long time since I took a spin around the diamond in this context, I thought it would be a good way to close the books on this year’s election cycle. What follows here is a JAWS-driven spin in which I’ve identified both the best eligible candidate and the best who’s awaiting eligibility. That’s not to say that they’re all Hallworthy, or that I’d vote for all of them; in some cases, I’m merely pointing out the dearth of strong candidates. For the “eligible” category, the player must have been retired at least five years, even if he wasn’t on a 2020 ballot, and no, he can’t be under a lifetime ban, nor can he be stuck in that awful limbo between falling off the writers’ ballot with less than 5% of the vote and awaiting his 10-year eligibility window to expire. For the “not yet eligible” category, the player may be active, retired too recently to appear on a ballot, or stuck in that post-5% limbo. As I’ve written relatively recently about many of these players — and less recently at other sites about some of them — I’m going lightning-round style, with pointers to where I’ve expounded at greater length. Read the rest of this entry »

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After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for eight years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Batters

This depth chart is a little uglier than a few days ago thanks to the trade of Starling Marte to the Arizona Diamondbacks. (For Marte’s projection, I command thee peruse the scrivenings of my colleague Jay Jaffe.)

The departure of Marte shakes up the outfield a bit, leaving the Pirates with no obvious “good” option in left field and possibly ensuring that Bryan Reynolds plays center, where ZiPS is not at all a fan of his defense. And this may not be the last major change we see from the Pirates, who appear to be entering a full-scale rebuild. The team has little star power to actually build around and while they have a number of solid players in the lineup — Josh Bell, Reynolds, and Gregory Polanco are all good — they lack an impact player who seems likely to be part of the next good Pirates team, as the Braves had with Freddie Freeman when they entered their rebuild. Reynolds will probably stick around due to his limited service time, but I’d be mildly surprised to see the other two still on the roster this time next year. Read the rest of this entry »

Making sense of Mookie Betts trade rumors can be a frustrating task. Betts is one of the best players in baseball, perhaps second-best to only Mike Trout. Every single team in baseball should love to have Mookie Betts on their team. A club competing for a playoff spot is even more ideal, or a team whose playoff odds without Betts are just so-so, but that with him head well north of 50%. It would also be helpful if that team had plentiful financial resources and could easily absorb Betts’ expensive (but still a bargain given the production) $27 million salary next season. The Boston Red Sox are basically the perfect for Mookie Betts, but they might trade him anyway.

Back in November, Ben Clemens made the case for the Red Sox keeping Betts, while I recently did a pro/con list for ESPN weighing the merits of trading four different stars, including Betts. Clemens focused on the baseball logic of the move, which revolves around getting worse now by trading Betts but improving in the future with the addition of prospects. Clemens shot through that argument by showing that Boston’s playoff chances over the next four seasons were actually worse by trading Betts for prospects. As a practical matter, Clemens compared a potential Betts deal to Paul Goldschmidt’s trade to the Cardinals a year ago. There are a few differences that we’ll get to later, but let’s first focus on their similarities using a rumored trade package. Read the rest of this entry »

At times, Fernando Tatis Jr. is an absolutely incredible fielder. Try to imagine someone other than Tatis, Javier Báez, or Andrelton Simmons making this play:

The speed, presence of mind, and arm strength needed to turn that ball into an out are simply breathtaking.

If Tatis can do that, then why does every fielding metric dislike his defense? DRS rated him as two runs below average over 731.1 innings in the field last year, and it was the highest on him. UZR saw him 5.8 runs below average, and Statcast’s new infield OAA pegged him as 13 outs below average. What gives?

If you’re a suspicious type, your mind might immediately go to the fallibility of defensive metrics. After all, they’re far less precise than offensive statistics. They don’t always agree with each other, for one thing, and they take forever to stabilize. Whoever invented the saying “lies, damn lies, and statistics” clearly wasn’t up on modern baseball fielding, or they would have fit UZR and DRS in there somewhere. Read the rest of this entry »

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After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for eight years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Seattle Mariners.

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The 2020 Mariners are a bit like going to a failing mall. There are still some stores you remember scattered about, though the logos appear to be from another era. The fountain’s dry, and the shops mainly sell sunglasses. There’s an ear-piercing kiosk manned by a guy who looks like he missed the carnival employee bus and decided to move into the abandoned Caldor instead. Yes, this will all be hit by a wrecking ball and give way to a new open-air shopping district with a Kelenic’s Grille in a few years, but for now, you wander into the food court and feel your childhood memories being wiped out by the collective reek of old cinnamon, cigarettes, and shame.

OK then!

Mitch Haniger is the best player on the Mariners and one of the few above-average starters who still retains trade value, unlike most of the veterans left behind. Unfortunately, Haniger’s expected to miss the first month of the season with a core-muscle injury, though given that Haniger missed time in 2019 due to a testicle ruptured by his own foul ball, I’m sure he considers it an improvement.

On the positive side, Kyle Seager had enough of a rebound that his career is no longer in imminent danger. While age-32 is probably a bit too late to expect him to get to where he was a few years ago — possibly the most underrated third basemen in baseball — he returned from a wrist injury to have the second-best OPS of his career. With two years and $37 million remaining on his contract, the Mariners could theoretically pay most of the freight in a trade and get an actual prospect, but this is complicated by the fact that Seager’s team option for 2022 becomes a player option if he’s traded. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever been to a September game between two teams out of playoff contention? I have, and while I like a nice afternoon in the sun as much as anyone, the lack of excitement in the stadium is contagious. Empty seats are demoralizing to fans who want to root for the team — there’s no one around to echo their cheers, so the cheers start to feel perfunctory. If you went to the game to get the thrill of baseball rather than for a pleasant afternoon, you’re often in for a disappointment.

Of course, that feeling isn’t exclusive to September. Last June 14th, for example, the Pirates took on the Marlins in a Friday night game. Per our playoff odds, the Pirates stood a 1.4% chance of reaching postseason play. The Marlins’ odds rounded to 0%, and we have a lot of decimal places to round to. It was only June, but the two teams were already playing out the string. The crowd of 8,340 filled the stadium to roughly one-quarter capacity.

When pundits talk about baseball’s competition problem, these games are the ones they mean. There are bound to be meaningless games throughout the course of the season: a 162-game schedule leaves plenty of time to separate the wheat from the chaff, and by September many teams are simply wrapping things up. Even then though, games don’t have to be completely meaningless; even if the home team is out of it, an exciting visiting team can provide some motivation to fans.

When the streaking Mets visited the Pirates on August 2, for example, PNC Park drew an above-average number of fans for the Friday night clash, even though our playoff odds gave them a scant 0.1% chance to make the playoffs. There was at least still a reason to attend the game — the Mets were interesting, and there’s some measure of joy to be gained from seeing your club take on a contender, and a vicarious thrill to beating them.

So if you want to get to the heart of what baseball’s competitive balance problem does for interest in the game, look to the games played with no stakes. What exactly no stakes means depends on your philosophical bent, and I’ll go into several variations, but first consider this definition: a game with no stakes is one where neither team falls in the 5%-95% playoff odds range at the start of the game.
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