Jump to content

2018 MLB Thread

Netzer

By Netzer
in Baseball

 Share

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 4.1k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Popular Posts

Player
Player

If only statcast had the technology to measure the launch angle and exit velocity of yankee balls that have been hit off of your chin.

Goo Punch
Goo Punch
Hank Chinaski
Hank Chinaski

Good fucking riddance. 

shnsajax

shnsajax 3605

Posted
Posted
959acfd305e0eed0b31d84b22c13adbe.png
 
Cubs: vs. Pirates (Wednesday, Thursday), vs. Cardinals (Friday, Saturday, Sunday)
 
Brewers: at Cardinals (Wednesday), vs. Tigers (Friday, Saturday, Sunday)
 
Cardinals: vs. Brewers (Wednesday), at Cubs (Friday, Saturday, Sunday)
 
Dodgers: at D-backs (Wednesday), at Giants (Friday, Saturday, Sunday)
 
Rockies: vs. Phillies (Wednesday, Thursday), vs. Nationals (
 
Advantage....Braves? (2 games back of Chicago for best record) at Mets (Wednesday, Thursday) at Phillies (Friday, Saturday, Sunday)
 
 So Cubs have the best record in the NL entering play on Wednesday, September 26 and it’s not inconceivable they could be packing their bags for the offseason end of play Wednesday, October 3.


The NL as a whole will get their shit packed by the Red Sox or Astros. Anyone else and they got a shot.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9790

Posted
Posted

Oh Joe.



http://awfulannouncing.com/mlb/joe-west-took-issue-with-camera-placement-at-chase-field-because-of-course-he-did.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

I’d laugh but I’m worried he’s going to be named to the World Series crew.. with my team there....and he’s going to have a 1985 Don Denkinger moment.
  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
WBT

WBT 20889

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, TheFlagship said:

The 8 starters for the Astros/Indians series (assuming Bauer starts) are all in the top 15 in fWAR in the AL. That’s nuts

It looks like right now all 8 are in the top 13 (Morton in 13th).  Over in the Astros thread though, half the geniuses want to leave Keuchel off the playoff roster.  So that would bring it down to 7.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Beau Vine

Beau Vine 55840

Posted
Posted

Stark:

 

Quote

Wait. We’re almost at the finish line. Already? It seems like 10 minutes ago that Ian Happ was mashing the first pitch of the season halfway to South Beach. Doesn’t it?

But apparently, that was 2,000 games ago. And here we are, handing out those end-of-season awards you all enjoy so much. As usual, I couldn’t convince Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Buffett, Jimmy Connors, Jimmy Johnson, Jimmy Rollins or even Jimmy Yacabonis to present these much-coveted awards. So I’ll just have to do it myself. Now here we go!

NL MVP – JAVIER BÁEZ, CUBS

First off, a full disclosure: I’m a National League MVP voter. So I’m not permitted to reveal my full ballot. And, to be honest, I’m still not 100 percent sure how I’m going to vote. I would never cast my official ballot — for anything — before the end of any season.

And that’s especially true in a season like this one, where this race is so close that even the compelling last-week-of-the-season narrative is part of the process. In fact, since I first typed out this section of this column two days ago, Christian Yelich has done nothing but make an even more powerful MVP case for himself.

So if the next few days go anything like the last couple, if the Brewers wind up overtaking the Cubs and finish with the best record in the NL, I’m likely to type in Yelich’s name at the top of my ballot. I’ve spent way too many hours looking at this and thinking about this. And it’s almost impossible to separate Yelich and Javy Báez. I’ve talked myself into and out of both. More than once.

But if I had to send in my vote right now, I’d vote for the best player on the team that has had the best record in the league for weeks — and that’s Báez. But that’s way too simple an explanation. I’d vote for Javy Báez because nobody in the National League has left an imprint on his team that’s as deep and impactful as the imprint Báez has had on the Cubs.

It would be so easy to assume that the Cubs have better players around him than the Brewers have around Yelich. But you know what? That hasn’t been true. Not this year. According to Baseball Reference, the Brewers’ position players have been a lot better this year (an aggregate 10.5 Wins Above Average) than the Cubs’ position players (6.0).

The Brewers have three position players who have been at least four-win players — Yelich, Lorenzo Cain and Travis Shaw. The Cubs have one — Báez. The Cubs may have more been-there/done-that players. But in a season that has challenged them with injuries, suspensions, a late-season schedule debacle and more, this hasn’t reminded anyone of 2016. Not even close.

So everything Báez has given them — bombs, baserunning and huge hits; defense, versatility and a seven-day-a-week energy jolt — they’ve needed. Desperately. Check out the sheer numbers — the homers, the steals, the extra-base hits, the RBIs — and compare them to the seasons of every middle infielder since 1900. Only one other name turns up: 

PLAYER               YEAR                  HR        SB       OPS       XBH    RBI  

Alex Rodriguez      1998                   42         46       .919         82        124  

Javier Báez             2018                   34         21       .894         81        110  

            (Source: Lee Sinins’ Complete Baseball Encyclopedia)

Yes, Yelich has a half-run lead in Wins Above Replacement (6.6-6.1). But ask anyone in baseball if the Wins Above Replacement formula accurately reflects Javy Báez’s true defensive impact at three positions (second, third, short) — in an age of massive shifting and on a team where Joe Maddon often refers to him as the Cubs’ “free safety,” bouncing all over the field to keep him as involved defensively as possible. Anyone would tell you that any list of the NL’s top 10 defenders which doesn’t include his name is a list that needs revising.

Does WAR accurately measure the havoc Báez wreaks on the bases? Fangraphs has already looked at that and decided: Nope. As one NL exec put it, “other teams make mistakes just because he’s out there. It’s amazing.”

So why would I vote for Báez if I had to vote today? I hope that explains it. But I love and admire Christian Yelich. I could still cast my official vote for him. All I can promise you is that I’ve taken this so seriously as I’ve thought it through, it’s been a Tylenol-a-day kind of week.

ALSO IN THE ARGUMENT: Nolan Arenado, Lorenzo Cain, Matt Carpenter, Jacob deGrom, Freddie Freeman, Paul Goldschmidt, Aaron Nola, Max Scherzer, Juan Soto, Trevor Story.

AL MVP – MOOKIE BETTS, RED SOX

Any time Mike Trout doesn’t win this award, the conspiracy theorists grab their megaphones and start to shout. So since Trout isn’t going to win this MVP election, either, can I get this out of the way now?

I’m not looking for reasons not to vote for the best player in baseball. Why would I? I love Mike Trout. Love everything about him. He’s awesome. And this might have been his best year ever. But why does that mean he has to be the MVP?

He would be, actually — if Mookie Betts hadn’t had this season. It’s one of the great seasons of our lifetimes, for one of the great teams of our lifetime. And for eight decades now, that’s been practically the definition of an MVP.

As my good friend Peter Gammons likes to point out, Mookie has put up crazy numbers for a guy who has appeared in just 133 games. Let me take this opportunity to explain just how crazy they are:

83 EXTRA-BASE HITS: The only other man with that many extra-base hits in fewer than 140 games? That would be Joe DiMaggio (84), in 1941.

32 HOMERS, 29 STEALS: File this away, because the only man to join the 30-30 Club in under 140 games is… Mike Trout, in 2012.

32 HOMERS, 46 DOUBLES: Nobody has ever done that in under 140 games. And the only man with 30-plus homers and 40-doubles is (yep) DiMaggio (30-43) in 1941.

125 RUNS SCORED: Who scores that many runs in under 140 games? It’s been done exactly once since 1900 — by Trout (129), in 2012.

10.7 WINS ABOVE REPLACEMENT: How many position players have been worth that many wins in under 140 games, using Baseball Reference’s WAR formula? That would be none. The only two who have been worth 10 wins in a season of under 140 games? Oh, only Trout (10.5, in 2012) and Rogers Hornsby (10.2, in 1925).

Yeah, yeah. I know Trout hasn’t played in 140 games, either. And he has still pounded 38 home runs and done many cool Trout-ian things. I admire his greatness. I just think Mookie Betts has out-MVP’d him. It happens!

MY AL MVP “BALLOT”: 1) Betts, 2) Trout, 3) J.D Martinez, 4) Alex Bregman, 5) José Ramírez, 6) Matt Chapman, 7) Francisco Lindor, 😎 Blake Snell, 9) Khris Davis, 10) Edwin Díaz.

NL LVP (LEAST VALUABLE PLAYER) – ERIC HOSMER, PADRES

It was everyone’s favorite Padres fan, Bruce Springsteen, who once said, “You can’t walk away from the price you pay.” So I think both the Boss and the Padres would understand that there are 144 million reasons Eric Hosmer is going to win his first LVP award.

There is so much to love about this man. You can understand why the Padres were blown away by the presence, the charisma, the leadership skills and the World Series highlight reel that came with him to Petco Park. Only one problem: For 144 million bucks, when the games start, the dude also has to hit a little.

And that, alas, is how he wound up in this LVP conversation. Among all full-time NL first basemen, Hosmer ranks dead last in slugging (.393), OPS (.709), wOBA (.305), wRC+ (92) and a bunch of other categories along those lines. He has hit .183 — and slugged just .224! — against left-handed pitching. With a runner on third and less than two outs, he’s 3-for-22 (.136), with one sacrifice fly — and he just hit his first single of the year in that situation Tuesday night. Not to mention that his 60-percent ground-ball rate (second-highest in the big leagues) tells us he never got the launch-angle memo the Padres were supposed to send him.

No need to pile on beyond that. Eric Hosmer is still a first-class human being. And he has seven more seasons to write a happy ending to this tale. But part of the LVP equation is always going to be production divided by dollars spent. And unfortunately, the LVP awards committee couldn’t ignore that math.

MY NL LVP “BALLOT”: 1) Hosmer, 2) Odúbel Herrera, 3) Dexter Fowler.

AL LVP – CHRIS DAVIS, ORIOLES

Has Chris Davis just had the worst season by an everyday player in the last 100 years? I don’t ask that question as casually as you might think. But there’s an excellent case that he has! Here’s why:

HE’S HITTING .168! And how many qualifying hitters have had a batting average that low in the last 100 seasons? Yessir. That would be none. (Last to hit under .170 in a season of at least 400 plate appearances? How about Charlie Bastian — for the 1885 Phillies!)

HE’S PILED UP 113 MORE WHIFFS THAN HITS! We’re talking 192 strikeouts, just 79 hits. And who else has ever done that? No one else has ever done that. The previous record was 112 more whiffs than hits — shared by (who else?) Adam Dunn (222/110 in 2012) and Mark Reynolds (211/199 in 2010).

HIS K TOTAL IS HIGHER THAN HIS AVERAGE! We covered this in a recent Useless Info column. What’s the cosmic significance of having a higher strikeout total (192) than batting average (.168), as long as you ignore extraneous technicalities like “decimal points?” Well, this has been done (by Reynolds and Dunn, naturally). But nobody ever out-K’d his average by 20! So there’s that.

HIS B-WAR IS MINUS-2.9! In the last 100 years, the American League has seen just three minus-three-win players, according to baseball-reference.com: 1933 Browns shortstop Jim Levey (minus-3.9), the 1973 version of Lou Piniella (minus-3.1, for reasons apparently driven by ultra-messy defense in the outfield) and the 1931 edition of WAR’s least favorite shortstop, Jim Levey (minus-3.1). And then there’s Chris Davis. Who is at minus-2.9. Yikes!

HE MAKES $23 MILLION! Finally, you hate to bring salary into this. But how can you not bring salary into this? I’m not sure how to divide minus-three wins into 23 million. But whatever that computes to, it’s a clear indication that 23 million bucks just don’t buy what they once did. As I observed when I handed Davis the midseason version of this away, they never used to buy an LVP “trophy.”

MY AL LVP “BALLOT”: 1) Davis, 2) Miguel Sanó, 3) Robinson Canó.

NL CY YOUNG – JACOB DEGROM, METS

I know that somewhere out there, there are still people whose brains are stuck in like 1977 who are grumbling about this pick, because “wins.” So this item is for them. There’s a reason that “wins” aren’t what they used to be. But what makes this all so insane is that Jacob deGrom isn’t that reason.

He isn’t one of those guys who averages 5 1/3 innings a start. (He actually averages nearly seven innings a start.) He isn’t one of those guys who can’t be permitted to go through a lineup three times. (In fact, he averages almost 27 hitters faced per start.) So the reasons he has that bizarre 9-9 won-lost record have almost nothing to do with why “wins” have lost so much of their relevance. In his case, you can simply sum up those reasons, basically, as A) “he’s a Met” and B) “baseball is weird.”

But don’t take my word for it. Our mission here today is to prove that to you. So here goes:

—  deGrom’s ERA is 1.77. Since the mound was lowered in 1969, he’s just the sixth pitcher to work this many innings (209), make this many starts (30) and have an ERA that good. The other five averaged 22 wins. Jacob deGrom has nine.

— deGrom has made 18 starts this season in which he went at least five innings and gave up one earned run or none. He has won exactly eight of them. That comes to 44 percent. All pitchers in the big leagues not named Jacob deGrom have won 60 percent of the time when they’ve made a start like that. Of course, most of them aren’t Mets.

— OK, let’s bump up the innings. deGrom has made 13 starts in which he has gone at least seven innings and allowed no more than one earned run. All pitchers not named Jacob deGrom have gone 376-39 in starts like that (with 127 no-decisions). In other words, they win 68 percent of the time. So the actual Jacob deGrom should have won nine of those 13 starts. Instead, he has won exactly five.

— But wait. There’s more, because deGrom has made 11 starts in which he has racked up at least nine strikeouts and given up no more than two earned runs (over at least five innings). Somehow or other, he is only 4-4 on those nights of brilliance. All pitchers not named Jacob deGrom are 224-21 this year when they do that.

— Or finally, how about this: deGrom has a 1.66 ERA in 15 starts at home. It’s hard to believe I’m even typing this sentence, but his record in those 15 starts is an absurd 3-6. Only nine other starters in the last 20 seasons have had a home-field ERA that low over that many starts. Want to guess what their records looked like? If you guessed 83-16 (or thereabouts), you’re correct! Bet you didn’t know that over the last 100 seasons, only one starting pitcher has made that many starts, had a home-field ERA that glittering and somehow come away with a losing record. That one starting pitcher is (right you are) Jacob deGrom.

So are you still asking why we’re ignoring “wins?” It’s obvious, isn’t it? Because there isn’t a single entry on the stat sheet that tells us less about how this man has pitched than the entry that most people used to check first. That’s why.

MY NL CY YOUNG “BALLOT”: 1) deGrom, 2) Max Scherzer, 3) Aaron Nola, 4) Kyle Freeland, 5) Josh Hader.

 AL CY YOUNG – BLAKE SNELL, RAYS

This isn’t your grandfather’s Cy Young debate. Let’s explain why.

Cy Young debate in 1966: Who won the most games?
Cy Young debate in 2018: What should we weight more heavily — WHIP, FIP or BABIP?

OK, we exaggerate. The 2018 AL Cy Young debate might be the most complicated ever. But it has nothing to do with WHIP, FIP or BABIP. And it really doesn’t even have much to do with “wins,” in a deGrom-ian kind of way. But it’s still as classic old-school/new-school as 21st century baseball debates ever get.

This is about an ace (Blake Snell) with a 1.90 ERA, a 21-5 won-lost record and spectacular, Cy Young-worthy numbers across the board. But…he has thrown many fewer innings (175 2/3) than any Cy Young starter has ever thrown in a full season. (Clayton Kershaw’s 198 1/3, in 2014, are the fewest to this point.)

So what’s the value of a season like that — in these less-is-more times we live in? And is that value really as Cy Young-worthy as the season of someone like Justin Verlander — who has thrown 32 1/3 more innings and faced 134 more hitters than Snell has, but still has a better WHIP, FIP and strikeout rate (among other things)?

I admit I’m not sure how to answer that. And there’s no handy-dandy all-revealing metric that tells us definitively which is more valuable. Ultimately, I found it hard not to go with the guy with the third-lowest ERA of any qualifying AL starter in the DH era.

            LOWEST ERA, AL STARTER, DH ERA

            1.74 Pedro Martínez, 2000
            1.74 Ron Guidry, 1978
            1.90 Blake Snell, 2018

Just that list alone tells us that Blake Snell has been a true dominator. He has done what his team has asked him to do. And incredibly, even on a team fabled for its “Openers,” he has won more games (21) than all other Rays “starters” combined (14). But is that the right answer? I’ll be thinking about this for a lonnnggg time.

MY AL CY YOUNG “BALLOT”: 1) Snell, 2) Verlander, 3) Chris Sale, 4) Trevor Bauer, 5) Corey Kluber.

NL CY YUK – HOMER BAILEY, REDS

Homer Bailey started for the Reds on Opening Day. Life was so full of promise then. He threw six innings of one-run baseball against the Nationals. The Reds forgot to score. He took a hard-luck loss. Then, unfortunately for everyone, the season was not permitted to end there.

Since that glorious afternoon, Bailey has gone on to compile what I think is in the argument for Worst Season Ever by an Opening Day Starter. There are really only two other contenders. What do you think?      

                                           W         L      PCT      ERA         WHIP   TEAM

Mike Parrott, 1980     1         16       .059        7.28           1.89       2-14
Mariners

Homer Bailey, 2018   1         14       .067        6.09           1.64       1-19
Reds

Steve Hargan, 1971     1         13       .071        6.21            1.72        2-14
Indians

(Source – Lee Sinins’ Complete Baseball Encyclopedia, baseball-reference.com)

It’s true that Parrott and Hargan had worse ERAs and a worse WHIP. On the other hand, they weren’t making $21 million in Year 5 of a six-year, $105-million contract. Also: Their teams didn’t go 1-19 when they pitched. But Bailey’s team did. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, no team had done that — in any pitcher’s first 20 starts of a season — since the late, not-so-great 1899 Cleveland Spiders went 1-19 behind Creed Napoleon (Frank) Bates on their way to a legendary 20-134 season.

Not to mention: Opposing hitters hit .313/.360/.541/.901 against Homer Bailey this year. That means he basically turned every hitter in baseball into Manny Machado. Which isn’t easy. Oh, and we’re giving extra Cy Yuk credits for Bailey politely declining to pitch out of the bullpen for his 21 million bucks. This is what you call earning your Cy Yuk Award.

NL CYS OF RELIEF FOR: Yu Darvish, Tyler Chatwood, Wei-Yin Chen (road version only).

AL CY YUK – THE ORIOLES’ 20-20-20 CLUB

Not sure if anyone has broken this news to you, but it wasn’t one of the great seasons in the history of the Baltimore Orioles. It was historic. It was memorable. It just wasn’t so great. But you know what’s kind of wild? They may have lost 111 baseball games (so far). But here in The Year of the Tankers, they didn’t know they were tanking.

Remember back in spring training, when the Orioles were doing that thing they’ve always done so well — scarfing up “bargain” free-agent starting pitchers who were still looking for work? They committed $91 million back then for a combined seven seasons of Alex Cobb, Andrew Cashner and Chris Tillman. Let’s just say it wasn’t the most efficient money they’ve ever spent.

Those three combined to go 10-35, with a 5.53 ERA. And that’s not good. We should mention that Cobb, once he got his spring training work in (during the season, unfortunately), had a 2.56 ERA in the second half. So we’re mostly exempting him from this award. Except for one thing: The Orioles, incredibly, have lost 20 games he’s started. And also 20 games that Cashner has started. And also 21 that their homegrown ace, Dylan Bundy, has started.

Well, let’s illustrate how hard it is for any team to lose 20 games started by three different pitchers in the same season. So hard that it hasn’t been done since the 2003 Tigers — who lost 20 started by Jeremy Bonderman, 21 started by Mike Maroth and 24 started by Nate Cornejo, on the way to 119 losses. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the stuff Cy Yuks are made of.

AL CYS OF RELIEF FOR: Sonny Gray, Lucas Giolito, Félix Hernández.

NL ROOKIE OF THE YEAR – RONALD ACUÑA JR., BRAVES

Maybe someday, we’ll look at Ronald Acuña Jr. and Juan Soto as the Trout and Harper of their generation. Or maybe the Mays and Mantle. Possibly even the Bird and Magic. But whatever. Acuña is 20 years old. Soto is 19. Never in history has there been a season in which two players this young had seasons this great, this productive, this historic. That magic word again was never.

Unfortunately for us award-pickers, we can only vote for one of them. So I’m casting this vote for Acuña, because he’s a legit five-tool talent and Soto still has some glitches in the outfield. But every time I watch Soto hit, I think he’s the most gifted teenage hitter I’ve ever seen. So it’s almost painful not to bestow this honor on him.

But now think about the astonishing season Acuña has had, particularly since he came off the D.L. in late June after his early-season knee injury. The eight leadoff home runs. The 19 homers since the break. The home runs he hit in five straight games last month — something no player his age has ever done. And then there’s this eye-popping list:

BEST OPS+, AGE 20 OR YOUNGER  
Mike Trout, 2012 168
Ty Cobb, 1907 167
Mel Ott, 1929 165
Al Kaline, 1955 162
Mickey Mantle, 1952 162
Alex Rodriguez, 1996 161
Ted Williams, 1939 160
Rogers Hornsby, 1916 151
Jimmie Foxx, 1929 148
Ronald Acuña Jr., 2018 145

(min. 100 games)

You know who’s right behind that group, at 141? Juan Soto, of course. And no teenager with this much playing time has ever had a 141 OPS+. Ever. So if we had a Teenager of the Year award, this would be no contest. But in the competition for the award that actually exists, Ronald Acuña Jr. has done just enough to edge out a guy he’ll be compared to forever.

MY NL ROY “BALLOT”: 1) Acuña, 2) Soto, 3) Harrison Bader, 4) Walker Buehler, 5) Jack Flaherty.

AL ROOKIE OF THE YEAR – SHOHEI OHTANI, ANGELS

If Shohei Ohtani and his world-famous ulnar collateral ligament had just made it through the entire season un-torn, he would have made this an easy choice. Because that ligament had other ideas, however, it wasn’t such an easy choice.

Not in a year when the Yankees did something they’d never done — have two rookie position players (Miguel Andújar, Gleyber Torres) hit more than 20 home runs. (There was a time, by the way, when the only two Yankees rookies who had ever hit 20 were Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio. But we digress.)

Nevertheless, here’s why Ohtani-san is still the right choice: Because even though he didn’t get 500 plate appearances as a hitter, as Andújar did, he was on the field for more than 550 plate appearances — 211 of them as a pitcher, the rest as a hitter. And no one in this sport has been part of 200-plus plate appearances as a pitcher and 300-plus as a hitter in the same year since (who else?) George H. (Bambino) Ruth. A mere century ago.

But Shohei Ohtani didn’t just log playing time. He logged star-level playing time. His OPS+ as a hitter is 150. Among AL position players who got to the plate as much as he did, here are the only men who beat him in OPS+: Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, J.D. Martinez, Alex Bregman and José Ramírez. Pretty distinguished group, right?

 And then, in his spare time, in those 10 games the Angels let him take the mound, Ohtani was, basically, Carlos Carrasco in his once-a-week “hobby.”

                                     ERA-Plus       K pct.

            Ohtani            127                  29.9%
            Carrasco        128                  29.5%

So…get the picture? He’s José Ramírez some days. He’s Carlos Carrasco the other days. And he’s a real person! So with all due appreciation for what those Yankees phenoms have done, Shohei Ohtani also deserves to be a real rookie-of-the-year person.

MY AL ROY “BALLOT”: 1) Ohtani, 2) Andújar, 3) Torres, 4) Joey Wendle, 5) Brad Keller.

NL MANAGER OF THE YEAR – BRIAN SNITKER, BRAVES

This is one of the best stories in baseball. You know that, right? This is the feel-good award of 2018, because it goes to a man who never thought he’d win it. Heck, Brian Snitker never thought the day would come that he’d be a big-league manager, let alone the National League manager of the year.

He waited 40 years for his chance, 40 years of playing and managing in towns called Kingsport, Greenwood, Anderson and Greenville. Then the Braves needed an “interim” manager in May of 2016, and Brian Snitker got the call. He was brought in to establish order and restore the culture of an organization that had lost its way. It’s a miracle of baseball that he took that opportunity and turned it into something lasting and special. Then there he was with Ken Rosenthal on national TV Saturday, wiping the tears from his eyes. Awesome.

MY NL MOY “BALLOT”: 1) Snitker, 2) Craig Counsell, 3) Bud Black.

AL MANAGER OF THE YEAR – ALEX CORA, RED SOX

This was a tough one. In Tampa Bay, Kevin Cash has been a magician. In Oakland, Bob Melvin took a team to the postseason that was once 12 games out of first place. But sometimes, the manager of the year isn’t the guy whose team surprises you the most. Sometimes, it’s the guy whose team wins the most. And in this case, the Red Sox would not have had the winningest regular season in their history if Alex Cora hadn’t been the man sitting in their manager’s office.

I like to pick the brains of people around baseball before I hand out these awards. So the other day, I was chatting with a longtime NL executive when he made it a point to bring up this award and this manager, even though we weren’t talking about either. When he started describing Alex Cora’s team, he used terms like “culture change” and “one-ness.” He connected those dots directly to the manager.

“He has that it factor,” the exec said. “He brings people together.”

I’ve known Alex Cora a long time. He does what the great modern managers do. He blends old-school empathy and people skills with new-age data and creativity. He does it selflessly. He does it perfectly. And he has done it so skillfully that he has won more games than any first-time manager in more than half a century. That’s not an accident. That’s a manager of the year.

MY AL MOY “BALLOT”: 1) Cora, 2) Cash, 3) Melvin.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Sbbruin

Sbbruin 22108

Posted
Posted

With a crazy as the NL is, the one game tiebreaker scenarios are below.  And it seems almost a certainty that there will be 2 teams tied for that 2nd WC.

TIEBREAKER SCENARIOS

  • If Chicago ends in a tie with Milwaukee, they would play a one-game tiebreaker in Chicago.

  • If Chicago ends in a tie with St. Louis, it is still TBD where the game would be played. (St. Louis leads season series with Chicago 9-7 with three games remaining)

  • If Chicago ends in a tie with Los Angeles, they would play a one-game tiebreaker in Chicago.

  • If Chicago ends in a tie with Colorado, it is still TBD where the game would be played

  • If Milwaukee ends in a tie with St. Louis, they would play a one-game tiebreaker in Milwaukee.

  • If Milwaukee ends in a tie with Los Angeles, they would play a one-game tiebreaker in Los Angeles.

  • If Milwaukee ends in a tie with Colorado, they would play a one-game tiebreaker in Milwaukee.

  • If St. Louis ends in a tie with Los Angeles, they would play a one-game tiebreaker in St. Louis.

  • If St. Louis ends in a tie with Colorado, they would play a one-game tiebreaker in St. Louis.

  • If Los Angeles ends in a tie with Colorado, they would play a one-game tiebreaker in Los Angeles.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Hank Chinaski

Hank Chinaski 6346

Posted
Posted (edited)
6 hours ago, TheFlagship said:

Imagine declaring that the free agent process is broken because teams wouldn’t back up the truck for Eric Hosmer, only to see him post a .250/.316/.393 as a 1B only player in year 1 of an 8 year deal. Fuck Scott Boras

lol exactly. Was hilarious when agents started suggesting collusion last winter. Clearly teams are just valuing players more or less the same way at this point - it's been heading this way for at least a decade, and that doesn't constitute collusion. Don't expect to see many more of those Pujols/Cabrera/Cano contracts anymore. Sorry, agents.  

Edited by Hank Chinaski
Link to comment
Share on other sites
DanRydell

DanRydell 799

Posted
Posted
16 minutes ago, Hank Chinaski said:

lol exactly. Was hilarious when agents started suggesting collusion last winter. Clearly teams are just valuing players more or less the same way at this point - it's been heading this way for at least a decade, and that doesn't constitute collusion. Don't expect to see many more of those Pujols/Cabrera/Cano contracts anymore. Sorry, agents.  

It fucks the players a hell of a lot more than it fucks the agents. The system of dramatically underpaying players in their 20s was only sustainable when they in turn got overpaid once they finally hit free agency.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Hank Chinaski

Hank Chinaski 6346

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, DanRydell said:

It fucks the players a hell of a lot more than it fucks the agents. The system of dramatically underpaying players in their 20s was only sustainable when they in turn got overpaid once they finally hit free agency.

Yeah, agree with that - it will be interesting to see how this evolves...but the escalating contracts for aging players bubble was bound to burst at some point.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9790

Posted
Posted

Re: the free agency talk, there was a great article in SI this week about how the agents fucked up and lost track of what the owners/GMs value these days... but hey! At least the players got better postgame spreads innthe last CBA!

 

I can’t find a link for the life of me. Anyone else?

 

The real issue is the service time clock, for which Stark had a long article about a couple of weeks ago. Conclusion: there is no easy/ good answer

 

 

 

 

In 2015, it was Kris Bryant. In April, it was Ronald Acuña Jr. And now, in a September in which we just can’t stop talking about who isn’t in the big leagues, it’s Eloy Jiménez and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

 

What do they have in common? They’d done everything they needed to do to reach the major leagues. But it wasn’t enough – because baseball is broken.

 

Oh, not the game itself. Or the players. Or even the front offices that make these decisions which everyone enjoys so much. That isn’t the part of baseball that needs fixing.

 

It’s just the foundation of the sport. That’s all.

 

Is there any other sport that provides such massive incentive for teams not to have their best players on the field – or even on their roster?

 

Of course not. Because that’s crazy. That’s borderline self-destructive.

 

Except not in this sport, apparently. In modern baseball, one long-time executive admits, these choices that teams make, to keep their elite young players from reaching free agency and/or salary arbitration for one extra year, are worth “millions of dollars – millions.”

 

So the way to fix this, he told The Athletic, is simple: To just “not make it so profitable.”

 

OK, cool. There you go. All they have to do is fix that.

 

Just don’t ask how.

 

That, you see, is what we’ve been doing for the past week. We’ve asked people on both sides of baseball’s service-time mess to give us their best ideas for how to solve one of this sport’s most embarrassing problems.

 

You know what we learned? That merely asking the question made their head pound.

 

“It’s not good for the game,” said an official on management’s side of this aisle. “I just don’t know how to fix it.”

 

“What I’ve got for you is zero,” said one prominent agent. “We’ve all struggled with this. Everyone I know. No one can come up with anything better – not within this bargaining agreement and the conventions of baseball as we know them.”

 

So is this an issue worth blowing up baseball over? Or is there an answer out there someplace? Here come five of the best potential solutions we heard. But there’s also this warning: Every “solution” seems to create a whole new set of problems!

 

COUNT “YEARS,” NOT JUST “DAYS”

 

The first thing you should know is, this survey tapped into an anger that we very rarely run across when we explore these sorts of issues.

 

“If this trend continues like this,” said an agent of one young player who wasn’t recalled this month, “where teams continue to put ‘smart and analytical’ ahead of the human side, this is how strikes happen. It’s going to force the union to deal with a lot of anger from these younger players. And they’re going to dig in.”

 

We found quite a few seething agents out there. One who volunteered to speak out publicly was New York-based rep Seth Levinson, who said it’s time for players, agents and the union to fight back.

 

“Clubs cannot be allowed to manipulate service time which results in damaging the player’s career and earning power,” Levinson said in an email to The Athletic. “Given that approximately 10 percent of all major leaguers play after their 35th birthday, STEALING another year of control should be viewed as a capital offense in this game.”

 

His proposal? Don’t merely measure players’ path to arbitration and free-agent rights by counting days in the big leagues. Let them also accumulate service time even if they only play part of a season in the major leagues. So if they spend just one day on the active roster, that should count as a “year” of partial service, he proposed.

 

Then, if a player plays parts of three or four seasons in the big leagues, he would be eligible for arbitration even if he lacks enough “days” of service. The same with free agency, where parts of six or seven seasons would be enough to qualify.

 

WHY COULD IT WORK? What’s the common thread running through every one of these controversies, from Bryant to Vladdy Jr.? It’s counting “days” – because it’s so easy for teams to work around allowing players to accumulate the days they need.

 

So if there is any potential solution that doesn’t fall under just blow it up, it either has to A) do away with counting days entirely or provide players some kind of secondary path to arbitration and free agency. Well, his does that. In fact, Levinson believes, it’s “the only way to prevent a club from intentionally finessing the clock” that leads to arbitration and free agency.

 

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? There’s only one significant downside to this idea that we see: There’s still counting going on. It’s just counting “years” instead of “days.” So this wouldn’t help Vlad Jr., for instance. Think the Blue Jays would call him up in September if even one day counted as part of a year in the big leagues? No. Chance.

 

But this would be the answer to the “Kris Bryant Rule.” No need to send any phenom to the minor leagues for the first two weeks of a season if he’d still get credit for a year of service time as soon as he reached the big leagues. Which means that, in the case of a Vlad or Jiménez, you might not see them in September. But you’d see them next Opening Day.

 

So this is an idea that deserves some serious conversation. Just remember one thing:

 

As long as any service-time rule involves counting, there will always be a way for teams to manipulate their way around it.

 

FREE AGENCY AFTER FOUR YEARS

 

And now a proposal from someone on management’s side. What was the big issue among players last winter? Free agents in their 30s suddenly discovered they had approximately the same bargaining power as the dudes on their grounds crew. So how could baseball fix that – and also solve the service-time brouhaha?

 

How about free agency after four years in the big leagues instead of six – but with one massive tradeoff:

 

Replacing arbitration with a fixed salary scale for all players in their first four seasons.

 

So what’s in this for players? Many more reaching free agency in their 20s instead of their 30s. But the price they’d pay is: No more Bryce Harpers and Josh Donaldsons raking in over 20 million bucks in their final season of arbitration eligibility – unless that fixed four-year salary scale is a lot more generous than we’d expect owners to have in mind.

 

WHY COULD IT WORK? Let’s think about how the NFL and NBA avoid service-time crises in their sports – with standard entry-level contracts. So salaries for all players are set – until those contracts expire and lead them to restricted free agency, then unrestricted free agency.

 

This proposal is about as close as baseball could come – with locked-in salaries in the years leading up to free agency. So of course Bryant and Acuña would be on the Opening Day roster. Why wouldn’t they be? Their salaries for their first four years would have nothing to do with service time. And it would have no effect on when they became free agents.

 

“If arbitration wasn’t a factor,” said the longtime exec who proposed this idea, “why would I care if Kris Bryant made his debut on April 1, April 25 or June 22? There’s no difference. The idea is to try to eliminate all the ways teams manipulate days. So to do it, players would have to give up something and owners would have to give up something.”

 

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? There are small changes, and there are humongous changes. Guess which one this is.

 

In case you’re not an aficionado of modern baseball labor relations, we can sum them up this way: MLB and its players union would have a tough time these days agreeing on what New York deli to meet at for a pastrami on rye.

 

So now ponder the odds of these sides successfully negotiating a whole new system that would wipe out salary arbitration, perhaps the signature imprint of union legend Marvin Miller, after 45 years.

 

“It would take a major change,” said an executive who has played an active role in labor talks for many years. “And the only ways that can happen are either one side finding itself flat on its back after a work stoppage or an agreement on both sides that they want to make a major change. And I’m not sure which of those I could imagine happening right now.”

 

THE SUPER-FIVES

 

This idea comes from another agent who represents a prominent client affected by service-time manipulation. It would allow a group of players to reach free agency early, even though they haven’t quite logged the full six years of service time they need under the current system. So a couple of extra weeks in the minors for someone like Bryant wouldn’t be enough to give his team another year of control.

 

The model here is obviously the “Super Two” arbitration rule – which gives salary-arbitration rights to about 20 extra players every year, even though they fall just short of having three years of service time.

 

“So let’s say that you had a Super Five rule,” the agent proposed. “If a player had, say, five years plus 100 days of service, he’d be part of a certain percentage of the five-year class who would become free agents.”

 

Among the players who would have jumped into that imaginary Super Five free-agent class after this season if 5 years, 100 days were the cutoff: Nolan Arenado, Alex Wood, Yasiel Puig, Khris Davis, Gerrit Cole and Didi Gregorius.

 

WHY COULD IT WORK? This is an idea designed, in theory, to help the super-elite player who is now being routinely sent to the minors on Opening Day, only to return a couple of weeks later to delay his free agency for an extra year. Evan Longoria was once in that group. So were George Springer, Bryant, Acuña, etc.

 

So the thinking is: If the price a team pays to get that extra year of control goes from a couple of lost weeks to a couple of lost months, it could theoretically change everything. If you’re the 2015 Cubs and this is finally The Year, you can live without Kris Bryant for two weeks. But can you live without him until June or July if you’re truly trying to win? Maybe not.

 

“The safety valve behind this whole system,” said one person on the players’ side, “has been that clubs would always want to win, first and foremost. So that would govern most of their decisions in situations like this. But if that’s no longer the case, we’re in a whole different world.”

 

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? When we ran this idea past one official in the management sphere, he had no trouble understanding the logic behind it. But he also said this: “Anything based on service time doesn’t make sense.”

 

Once again, the potential fatal flaw here is that same old snafu: Counting days of service.

 

You would like to believe that teams would think twice if living without an impact player for almost half a season was what it took to delay a star player’s trip to free agency. But the way they’ve handled their potential Super Two players tells a different tale.

Have we mentioned in the last few paragraphs that that extra year of control is worth millions? OK. Then follow the money.

 

COUNT AGE, NOT SERVICE TIME

 

One popular idea we’ve seen tossed around a lot lately would base free agency on a whole different standard:

 

Age.

 

Grant every player free agency at age 27 or 28. That’s the concept. Then, theoretically, you’d remove all incentive to keep players out of the big leagues for pretty much any reason.

 

The NHL uses a version of this principle — NHL players reach free agency at age 27 or upon having seven accrued seasons, whichever comes first. And it has generally worked well within their structure.

 

“The idea behind going to an age-based model,” said one baseball official, “is that you’re not counting days. You’re counting seasons. But everybody becomes a free agent at 27 or 28.”

 

WHY COULD IT WORK? This isn’t particularly complicated – on its surface, anyway. The only number anyone would be counting is years on the planet, not days on the roster. So the incentive for all teams would be to get players to the big leagues sooner, not later – because the later they get there, the less bang you’re getting for your buck before their free-agent age buzzer goes off.

 

“It’s more common in hockey,” said one longtime official with ties to both sports, “for players to become really valuable really young – at 19, or 20, or 21. That doesn’t really happen as frequently in baseball.”

 

And do you see the Edmonton Oilers trying to delay Connor McDavid’s arrival, even for one day, let alone six months? Of course not. So this is an interesting concept. But would it actually translate to baseball?

 

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? For what seems like such a basic concept, you’d be surprised by all the complications this idea would cause when you try to apply it to a sport like baseball, with such a different structure and history. In fact, we encountered almost no support for it on either side.

 

“Everything creates a new set of problems,” said one baseball official who has spent significant time studying this issue. “And an age-based system creates all sorts of problems.”

 

For one thing, think of how this would penalize the Juan Sotos, Mike Trouts and Bryce Harpers of this sport, who arrive at 19 or 20. Would you force them to play eight or nine seasons before allowing them to become free agents? They’d be delighted, we’re sure.

 

“The only way around that,” said one official, “is to do some sort of combination of age and service time. Otherwise, you’re severely penalizing the guys who come up and contribute at 18, 19 or 20.”

 

Then imagine the impact on college players, many of whom aren’t reaching the major leagues until age 24 or 25. Why would any of them ever go in the first round? If you’re handing out $8-million signing bonuses, why would you give one to a guy who might only play for your team for three years – when a high school player might give you seven or eight seasons for the same bonus money?

 

“You have to be really careful with this one,” said one of the officials quoted earlier. “Ideally, you want to have a mix of high school and college players. You don’t want to create too much incentive for kids not to go to college.”

 

Finally, there are major international ramifications – because no player would be more valuable to any team than a kid from the Dominican who signs at 16 and reaches the big leagues at 19. So how could baseball possibly go to age-based free agency without a worldwide draft?

 

“Like all of these,” said the same official, “this might reduce it [the service-time manipulation game]. But it doesn’t 100 percent solve it.”

 

THE WINDS OF WAR?

 

All right. If we’re going to wipe out baseball’s entire arbitration/free-agent structure as we know it, then why not really wipe it out? Here’s a radical idea: Why not base all of this on how players actually perform?

 

Why not tie everything to Wins Above Replacement?

 

Hey, just a thought. It’s not a perfect tool. But it’s the first stat ever devised that truly attempts to measure everything that takes place on a baseball field every day. So why base arbitration and free agency around counting days, when it’s now possible to use advanced metrics to reward the players who actually play the best?

 

WHY COULD IT WORK? Why could it work, you ask? Because it’s the 21st century, we say. So why not create a system where the most talented players, the men who make the biggest impact, earn the most money and earn the most important rights?

 

Pick the metric. We could use Wins Above Replacement. We could use wRC+. We could use Adjusted ERA-Plus for pitchers. We could use any metric – or combination of metrics – that both sides could agree on. Then, one exec proposed, why not use the current Super Two percentage and allow the top 22 percent in that group to qualify for arbitration and free agency?

 

“We’re basically using a model now,” he said, “that started with Marvin Miller and the way he viewed workers in the ’60s and ’70s. Isn’t it fair to ask whether that model is outdated now, all these years later?”

 

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? Obviously, it’s fair to ask that question. Obviously, it’s fair to think way outside baseball’s current box. But the problem, or at least the main problem, is just is obvious.

 

This is an idea so far outside any box that has ever existed in this sport — how could this union and this rendition of baseball management possibly find common ground on a concept this radical when they can’t even agree on issues as basic as how to market their star attractions?

 

“I honestly believe,” said one of the officials quoted earlier, “that this would not be a difficult problem to fix if you had two sides that truly want to fix it. But therein lies the problem – on pretty much every issue you can think of.”

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Fudge Nuggets

Fudge Nuggets 19410

Posted
Posted (edited)
8 hours ago, Hank Chinaski said:

lol exactly. Was hilarious when agents started suggesting collusion last winter. Clearly teams are just valuing players more or less the same way at this point - it's been heading this way for at least a decade, and that doesn't constitute collusion. Don't expect to see many more of those Pujols/Cabrera/Cano contracts anymore. Sorry, agents.  

I feel bad for the youngsters that put up good numbers while earning fuck all and then when they finally become eligible for a pay day the analytics project them to be average or worse.

Kind of like my job (on a much smaller scale obviously).  Company has a great year but says they can't pay out much in bonuses because next year is projected to be a real downer.  Next year comes and can't pay out much in bonus because, well the year was a real downer.

Edited by Fudge Nuggets
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Pato del Muerto

Pato del Muerto 53358

Posted
Posted
11 hours ago, APMP said:

I get the Hosmer discussion re: free agency broken, but JD Martinez also had to settle for a below market deal (at least relative to expectations based on previous seasons) when only one team really pursued him, and he's about to damn near win AL MVP.

Relative is correct. If only one team gave JDM a decent offer, that’s why it was lower than expected. No competition. 

And a job that pays $500,000 a year for 5 years, then may jump up to $15 million or so a year after that, is still very good. Just not as good as it once did. 

NFL reset its pay structure, MLB might be doing the same thing unofficially.  NBA will have to in the future as well. Let’s see what machado and Harper get and how many bidders there are. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing


Football ... Basketball ... Baseball ... Other Sports ... Futbol ... 🤫995🤫 ... Gambling ... Movies & TV ... Music ... Hobbies ... Lulz ... Food & Travel ... Daily Texan ... Business and Markets ... Cloak Room ... Help ... For Sale ... Board Discussion ... Subscribe!... Donate!... Advertise... COOKIE MONSTER!

×
×
  • Create New...