I'm going to do a similar post to the Blue Jays one, but about the Giants. Those who've been reading this blog since it's beginning (not that long ago), haven't seen much about the Giants, but they are a team that I follow closely. And it's an Even Year*, so they should probably start thinking about the parade route through town for the end of the year.
* If you're new to baseball and not sure what I mean by that, there's been an increasing meme recently of the Giants winning during even years, because they have won the World Series in 2010, 2012, and 2014, while injuries and poorer play kept them out of the playoffs entirely in 2011, 2013, and 2015. Three data points don't make a trend actually worth following... but it's fun, and if they win again it will be awesome and really annoy some other fanbases (Dodgers?). I'll base most of these projections off of Fangraphs, and their 2016 ZiPS projections (which in the case of the Giants were just published 2 days ago, so there have not been many changes since.) C - Buster Posey and Andrew Susac. The Giants heart and soul through all 3 championships (so far), has been Gerald Dempsey Posey III, known and loved as Buster. Last year was the first year where Posey hit over .300 without the Giants making the playoffs (and winning the World Series). He is the best hitting catcher in the game, and one of the best framers. To keep him fresh and keep his bat in the lineup, he will get some playing time at first base, probably especially against left-handed pitchers. Susac is a solid backup catcher overall, and ZiPS sees nearly 8 WAR from this pair over the season (probably including Posey's time at 1B). 1B - Brandon Belt. Starting with 2012, Belt has had kind of the opposite trajectory of the team as a whole, with 4.4 and 4.3 WAR in odd years, and 1.7 and 0.9 WAR in even years. The team no doubt hopes that his numbers last year at 27 will hold at age 28. If so, he's a very valuable hitter, especially in that home park. Projections have him at close to 3 WAR for this year, which kind of splits the difference. 2B - Joe Panik. Panik was a big surprise over the last two seasons, but in just over a full season of play (173 games), he accumulated just under 6 WAR, which is excellent for a second baseman. Fan projections for him (as with Brandon Belt) see him as more of a 4+ WAR player, while Steamer and Zips also see him like Brandon Belt at a little under 3 WAR. Either way, he's a strong contributor on both offense and defense. 3B - Matt Duffy. Another surprise contributor last year. The Giants thought Casey McGehee might help them replace former fan favourite Pablo Sandoval. McGehee played poorly enough that he was released, but ironically his overall performance with two teams at -1.8 fWAR was slightly better than Sandoval at -2.0 fWAR for the Red Sox. Meanwhile, rookie Matt Duffy hit more home runs than he had in his previous two seasons in the minor leagues and was good for just under 5 fWAR. Due to his lack of track record, projections see him regressing, though ZiPS has him close to 4 WAR while Steamer is closer to 3. Either way, this continues a trend of a very strong, homegrown infield. SS - Brandon Crawford. The other half of "The Brandons", and another guy brought up from the Giants minor league system. Are you starting to see why they've been so successful lately? Crawford had his best offensive season last year, and was rewarded for his always strong defense with a Gold Glove. Projections see him regressing a bit, mostly because that 21 HR was so unexpected. But he's still expected to be in the 2.5-3.5 WAR range. This would give them an infield total of around 22 WAR, which is excellent. It's not an accident that the Giants had the second best WAR total from their position players last year, just behind the Blue Jays, and well ahead of third place. LF - Angel Pagan and Gregor Blanco. Pagan had a very bad season last year, which the Giants are hoping was a blip rather than a progression. When healthy, he was a major contributor to their 2012 championship, and the first part of their 2014 championship season. Blanco has been an important contributor for the last 4 seasons, consistently hitting 2-2.5 fWAR. He's projected to have less this year, although part of that is playing time. Still, getting 1-2 WAR out of this position would be fine, given that infield. CF - Denard Span. Their one major addition on offense, who should be a good fit on this offense and in this ballpark. He has been a good to very good player his whole career so far, averaging roughly 4 fWAR per full season. He will be 32 this year, so he's unlikely to improve, but they're paying him $27 million over the next 3 seasons plus an option in the 4th. He's projected at closer to 3 WAR over a full season, but at that price tag, he is an excellent value for them. RF - Hunter Pence. The best, Jerry, the best. Hunter Pence, despite being a challenge to scout has been a pretty excellent player over his career. Last year was the first time that he lost time to injuries, but his rate stats were right in line with the previous two seasons in San Francisco. Projections are seeing him struggle more this year, at something like 2 WAR, but if he is fully healthy, he could be in the 3-4 range again. Offense overall - Remember how they were the second best group of position players in baseball last year? They are projected at 26 or so WAR this year, which would be 3rd or 4th last year, and that doesn't account for any bench players. While their counting stats may not look a good as some other teams, that has a lot to do with how hard that park is to hit in, and the Giants play very well there. SP - Madison Bumgarner, Johnny Cueto, Jeff Samardzija, Jake Peavy, Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum??, Chris Heston... - The Giants made their two biggest moves, dollar-wise, in the starting rotation, bringing in Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija. Projection systems like both guys to the tune of 3-4 WAR each with this team, which would be a huge impact. Staff ace Madison Bumgarner projects around 5 WAR again after his excellent followup to his 2014 World Series domination. The end of the rotation figures to be filled by some combination of Peavy, Cain, maybe Lincecum (who remains unsigned, but as a Giants fan and a Lincecum fan, I really hope he comes back - though his best impact could be in the bullpen as a long reliever, like in the 2012 World Series). Overall, ZiPS already sees at least 13 WAR out of this group. RP - Santiago Casilla, Sergio Romo, Hunter Strickland, Josh Osich, Javier Lopez, George Kontos, Tim Lincecum??... - As I said last time, bullpens are hard to predict, but most of these guys look like net positives, and Casilla, Romo and Lopez in particular have been around for all three title runs so far. Lincecum feels like a good fit in this group to me. Pitching overall - Some Giants fans were hoping to pick up David Price, but getting both Jeff Samardzija and Johnny Cueto for a similar overall price seems like a win, and with this coaching staff, this defense, and this ballpark, they should play well in San Francisco. I think some fans still have an image of San Francisco as a pitching-first team, but the truth is, they haven't really been since 2010. Their runs allowed will always seem a bit low because of their ballpark, but they were pretty neutral in 2012, and in 2014, they were really a good offense and one pitcher who dragged the whole team through the postseason. They look to have a bit more balance back this time. Major Moves - Signed Johnny Cueto, Jeff Samardzija, Denard Span. Lost Yusmeiro Petit, Hector Sanchez, Marlon Byrd, Nori Aoki, Mike Leake, Ryan Vogelsong, Tim Hudson, Jeremy Affeldt, Tim Lincecum (for now) to free agency or retirement. The Giants had a couple of issues to address in free agency and the trade market. An outfielder, and a starting pitcher or two. Check and check. Outlook - The projected standings for this year put the Giants at 86-76 and in the Wild Card game against the Mets. Given their recent history, I think they'd more than take that. Once they get into the playoffs, they become very very dangerous. This is looking like an excellent team, with the only real question marks probably in left field (somewhat), and maybe back of the rotation (which is a question mark for almost every team in the sport). Maybe this will be the Jays-Giants World Series year. We can dream!
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As promised, I wanted to look at the Toronto Blue Jays offseason moves for the upcoming season. They are due to have pitchers and catchers report for spring training in exactly 4 weeks. This might mean that they have another move in them, but they might also be done. For now I'll take the perspective that this might be it. I'll look position by position and whether things have changed (and whether they should).
C - Russell Martin, backed up by Josh Thole, possibly A.J. Jimenez. Martin was one of their better players overall last year, though he wore down a little during the season, as catchers can do. They lost backup Dioner Navarro to free agency, but that shouldn't affect their team performance too much. Fangraphs' ZiPS projections (which happened before some other moves) sees them getting about 4 WAR from the catching position, which is very good. 1B - Justin Smoak and Chris Colabello. Last year this was one of the weaker links overall in the lineup, and that figures to continue at this point. The two combined for about 1.5 WAR (with Colabello playing some time in the outfield), and projections see them combining at around 1 WAR this year. This could have been a spot in the lineup to make a bit of a splash, but their offense is probably not a problem again this year. 2B - Devon Travis and Ryan Goins. Travis is probably the better player overall, but evidently he will be kept out recovering from surgery until at least May. Goins was a nice story last year, but is probably a bench player on a contender. Fortunately the offense overall can afford a weak spot near the bottom. This is projected at close to 0 WAR if Goins plays all season. Travis is projected at around 1.5 WAR for half a season. 3B - Josh Donaldson. The returning MVP is going to arbitration with the Blue Jays again. I'm not quite sure I understand why, but I don't make those decisions. He'll be 30 this year, but he has a very strong 3-year track record at this point, and he's projected for 6-7 WAR, which would be best on the team again. SS - Troy Tulowitzki. A full season of Tulo (if he can get there) would be worth in the 3-5 WAR range, which would be great for this lineup. Getting that much out of the left side of the infield helps make up for the right side a little bit. LF - Michael Saunders, Dalton Pompey, Ezequiel Carrera, somebody as yet unsigned?? - This is now the mystery spot in the lineup after trading Ben Revere. I think the team hopes that Saunders will be healthy and Pompey will be ready. If so, they could be a good combination for 2-3 WAR between them. Carrera is probably one of their main bench guys. CF - Kevin Pillar - Defensive metrics aren't always completely reliable year to year, but Pillar provided a lot of value from that end last year, to where he's projected in the 3 WAR range this year, based mostly on his defense. RF - Jose Bautista - Despite being 35 years old, Bautista has been pretty consistent when healthy over the last 6 years with Toronto. He's projected in the 4 WAR range, pretty close to what he was last year, and the team has to make a decision on his future as he hits free agency after this year. DH - Edwin Encarnacion - Another free agent to be, another prediction of 3-4 WAR, 30+ home runs. Offense overall - This group is projected at nearly 30 WAR, which would have been third best in the majors last year, when they led both leagues with 34.7 fWAR from their hitters. The only real change from the end of last year was to trade away left fielder Ben Revere, and that doesn't figure to affect their bottom line too much. SP - Marcus Stroman, R.A. Dickey, Marco Estrada, J.A. Happ, Drew Hutchison, Jesse Chavez, Aaron Sanchez? - The new face in this group actually isn't that new, as J.A. Happ was with the Jays from 2012-2014, but they're hopeful that his performance last year is closer to his current talent level than the previous 3 years. Stroman is projected at 3-4 WAR, but nobody else in the group is projected above 2 right now. If they bring Sanchez into the rotation, maybe he will surprise, and Roberto Osuna is also a possibility there. Roberto Hernandez and Brad Penny have been invited to spring training, but if they play prominent roles in this season, that will probably not bode well for this team. RP - Drew Storen, Roberto Osuna?, Brett Cecil, Chad Jenkins, Aaron Loup, Bo Schultz... Bullpens are hard to predict, including who will even last in them. Storen was one of their main additions for this year, and if he pitches like he did before the ill-fated Jonathan Papelbon trade in Washington, he may help stabilize the group a little bit. If Osuna and/or Sanchez end up in the rotation that may change things here, and this is a spot where a rookie or non-roster invitee may make a bigger impact than expected. Pitching overall - It would have been nice maybe to keep David Price or pick up a bigger name than Drew Storen, but that's where the Blue Jays are for now. Fortunately, a full season of Marcus Stroman will probably be more valuable than 2 months of David Price and half a month of Stroman that they got last year, so if the rest of the group can hold water, they may improve overall just on that basis. The biggest candidate for regression by most projections is Marco Estrada, but he may be one of those weak-contact fly ball pitchers who consistently outperforms his peripherals, at least a little bit. Major moves - Trading Ben Revere for Drew Storen. Signing J.A. Happ. Losing David Price, Dioner Navarro, Mark Buehrle, Mark Lowe, LaTroy Hawkins to free agency / retirement. Outlook - Fangraphs projected standings sees the Blue Jays as 9 games worse than last year at 84-78, but tied for the second wild card spot with Seattle, and two games behind New York for the first wild card. This includes a 13-game improvement by Boston to win the division, which might be a little hopeful. I think it would have been nice to make an extra move, but for now they're not in a bad place, and maybe a move will come soon or during the season. After all, they didn't start last year with David Price, Troy Tulowitzki, Ben Revere, or parts of their bullpen. Reading these two posts on hitters and pitchers got me thinking. Those are both pretty number heavy, so if you're into that, read them, but if not, I'm going to do some basic summarizing here anyway.
The main thing analytics and sabermetrics have been trying to do for some time is to be able to predict player performance. That really is their aim, in a nutshell. Analyzing what has happened is fine, but it can't be changed now. The question is, what does that mean going forward. It's the point of looking at a guy who has an ERA of 3.00 now, but seems to have been getting a little too lucky, and guessing that over the rest of the season, he's more likely to play to his true skill. He might not, but that's the safe bet. Avoiding the hot hand or cold hand fallacy, and all of that good stuff. A site like Fangraphs includes projections for all players, using a number of different systems, including Steamer, ZiPS, and fan consensus (where readers of the site input their expectations. These often end up pretty close to reality, though that could be that Fangraphs self-selects for analytically minded fans, or it could be (as we'll see) that this isn't necessarily as hard as it seems, on average. The posts I linked to up top compared the performance of 3 fairly complex projection tools and one very simple one with what really happened. They try to focus on what they deem "skill stats" rather than counting stats, as counting stats can be skewed by playing time. For hitters they have BB%, K%, OBP, SLG, and wOBA. For pitchers they have K/9, BB/9, HR/9, and ERA. Before going further, lets digress and give as simple a breakdown as I can on the 3 complex systems, and then on the simple one. First, Steamer, which is a proprietary system that looks mostly at the players last 3 years of stats, weighting each one differently, regressing them in different amount, and mostly ignoring aging. The focus is mostly on rate statistics. Second, Pecota a system developed by Nate Silver for Baseball Prospectus. It compares players to other players in history who had similar profiles to that point in their careers including production metrics, usage metrics, "phenotypic attributes" (things like handedness, height, weight, career length, etc), and fielding position. Third, ZiPS, which again uses about 3 years of player data (4 for hitters who aren't very old or very young) and has specific aging curves for different player types, and again different weights. And fourth, but not at all least, one of the original systems, on which a lot of Steamer and ZiPS and others are kind of based, is Marcel. It is named for Marcel the Monkey, from Friends, and is meant to be "so easy, a monkey could do it". The principle behind it is that it "uses 3 years of MLB data, with the most recent year weighted the most heavily. It regresses to the mean and has an age factor." The amount of regression to the mean depends on how much they have played over the last 3 years (for example, a hitter who has over 600 plate appearances each of the last 3 years should be more predictable based on his own statistics than one who has around 200 each of the last 3 years). For rookies it predicts them to be exactly league average, period. It also does not consider comparable players, park factors, or anything else. Explaining the exact math would probably get a little bit tedious, but you could do it mostly in a pretty simple Excel spreadsheet using no complicated equations. So the complicated ones should be the best, right? Turns out... not necessarily. In the articles at the top, they looked at the projections for 2015, and looked at the average error for the stats I mentioned earlier. Steamer was, by a little bit, the most accurate in every category for both pitchers and hitters. But not by that much. Second best at 8 of the 9 statistics above? Marcel the Monkey. So it turns out that if you look at how a player has played, and assume that it will be pretty close to the last 3 years, especially last year, you'll probably do pretty well, on average. Important note - and this is brought up in most articles about projections. Most projections will not do very well for any individual player. The process is too random, injuries can happen, etc. But if you tried out something like projecting all of the players on a team and looking at the team's totals? You'd probably come out to something pretty reasonable. But if you like to guess at how players will do, check out the monkey system. It might be a fun way to look at some teams... To the readers, because it's been a while. Thanks to anybody who has kept coming and checking, or re-reading things. It's been a slow winter writing-wise, partly because it's the offseason, and other things have been busy. But there have been things going on. I'd like to react to some of them, and will look a little further at what, in particular, the Blue Jays and Giants have done with their respective teams, but I can at least catch you up on some of the other good writing that has gone on over the last couple of months. I may also discuss the hall of fame voting and candidates soon, although many capable writers have already done so. Without too much further ado, here we go.
From Joe Posnanski (with a lot about the Hall of Fame voting, in particular):
And keep checking back here, I'll get back to posting a bit more often. Spring is coming soon! Thanks for the patience if you're back here reading, I realize it's been a little while. I had meant to write another "offseason" post for the Giants, but the truth is, that's not really my expertise. There are people better equipped and better connected. My Coles' Notes version:
Need: outfielder or two, starting pitcher or two. Hope: resign Tim Lincecum (it's a personal attachment, and I don't love the idea of seeing him on another team, unless it's the Blue Jays), bring in a big outfielder, and maybe a mid-tier starting pitcher. Keep the even year magic going. OK, on to the next. I was reading an article from Rob Neyer about the possiblity of a 3-man rotation, which he was reading about on Bill James' site. (by the way, maybe I'll come up with a links column shortly. Now that it's offseason, a weekly one is probably not necessary, but biweekly or monthly might work). In it, they suggest needing at least a 12-man pitching staff, possibly 13 (shudder), and how that might break down. I wanted to look at it a little bit methodically and try to keep it to at most an 11-man pitching staff. How did I see this happening? First of all, limit the starters to 18 batters faced. As Mike Petriello reiterates, the third time through the order penalty is very real. He talks about revolving relief pitchers with minor league options who can come up and down, keeping the bullpen fresh, and limiting most starters except possible aces to 15-18 batters faced. But if you want to make a 3-man rotation work, keep it to a straight 18 batters faced (at most - if your pitcher is struggling, cut it to 15 or something). From there, I did a bit of basic research, and found that the league WHIP this year was just a hair under 1.30, and that the average pitching staff faced 6121 batters this year. (This makes rough sense - if you play 162 9-inning games allowing 1.3 base runners per inning, you get to 6270 batters faced, but the average pitching staff went a little less than 9 innings this year). This equates to about 39 batters faced per game, which again makes reasonable sense - 27 outs plus 12 baserunners and you have a pretty average pitching staff. So I set the baseline at 6270, because if you can get there, then you can cover most outcomes. Only 3 teams faced more batters than that this year, and 2 of them were the Phillies and Rockies, who allowed 4.99 and 5.21 runs per game, respectively. I thought then, if you're going to have an 11-man pitching staff, with 3 starters, then maybe try to have 3 short relievers or specialists, leaving 5 "long-relief" pitchers. After a bit of experimentation, the following model actually works remarkably well. Three starting pitchers - each pitch every 3rd game for the first 18 batters. This would probably be 65-75 pitches Five long relievers - each pitch every 3rd game, that is, in 2 of 3 games, 2 of them will pitch, and in the third, just one of them will. By the way, if you wanted to really make this work, the long men don't necessarily have to pitch right after the starting pitcher if it's a difficult situation, or at least if you're using two of them, they don't necessarily have to pitch consecutively. Three short relievers - each pitch 4 times every 9 games, in roughly this pattern - 6 batters faced, day off, 3 batters faced, day off, 3 batters faced, day off, 6 batters faced, two days off. On the game where only one long reliever goes, you can get two 6-batter outings out of this group, and on the games where two long relievers pitch, you can get one 3-batter outing out of this group (and here it could even be between the two long relievers, if needed). If you had one or two of the long relievers as lefties, and at least one of the short relievers, you would have a pretty versatile staff. So you'd see every configuration every 45 games (if you kept to it strictly, which might not happen due to some changes). In a 45-game stretch, you'd see: Each starting pitcher starts 15 games, faces 270 batters (about 63 innings each). Each long reliever appears in 15 games, faces 135 batters (about 31 innings each). Each short reliever appears in 20 games, faces 90 batters (about 21 innings each). By the way, for a starting pitcher in a 5-man rotation, 63 innings in a 45 game stretch would be 9 starts of 7 innings each. Those innings totals are based on a 1.3 WHIP. Your mileage may vary. How does this look, innings wise for a season? Each starting pitcher would get 54 starts, and at a 1.30 whip, pitches about 226 innings (about 46% of total). Each long reliever would pitch in 54 games, and at a 1.30 whip, pitches about 113 innings (about 45% of total). Each short reliever appears in 72 games, pitches about 75 innings (the remaining 9-10% of the innings). Is it radical? Kind of, though in the playoffs stranger things are done already. Could it work? Maybe, but probably not right now, people would need to buy in slowly. Would I try it if I had that kind of power? Sure, why not? You'd get good performance out of your starters facing just 18 batters. You'd probably get the most out of your "long relievers", guys who would likely be number 4 or 5 (or 6) starters in your average staffs by just getting them through the order once. And you'd have your relief aces at the back end. MLB teams: your move! The Blue Jays are in a position that they haven't found themselves in in quite some time. The last time they were trying to return to the playoffs was after the 1993 season. Now, to be fair to them, they didn't definitely fail that year -- technically nobody made the playoffs, because there were no playoffs. But besides the fact that they were under .500 when the season ended, they also failed to make the playoffs in every season from 1995-2014, a 20-year span. It's been noted (but might be worth a reminder) that the Blue Jays actually had the highest payroll in the league in both 1992 and 1993, but haven't been there since.
The teams ownership has raised payroll to a fairly healthy level recently, as they came into 2015 with the 10th-ranked payroll in the league. If you take out the absurd payrolls of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees, they look pretty competitive with a number of teams in the league. As of the end of the season, they have $71 million guaranteed to 5 players for 2016 (Tulowitzi - $20M, Martin - $15M, Bautista - $14M, Dickey - $12M, Encarnacion - $10M). Three of those (Bautista, Dickey, and Encarnacion) will be free agents at the end of the 2016 season. They do have another 23 players who are arbitration or pre-arbitration eligible, including potential American League MVP Josh Donaldson. They have also given Marco Estrada a qualifying offer (which would pay him just over $15M for 1 year if he accepts, unless he signs an extension - which is apparently in discussion). With expected arbitration and minimum salaries added, their likely 2016 salary commitments so far are at just under $110M (without the Estrada contract included). There are rumours that they might be willing to raise payroll for 2016 up to the $140M range. In short, they may have room to add up to $30M in payroll at the moment. If they resign Marco Estrada to a 2 or 3 year contract for less money (say around $10M per year), then that might leave them with around $20M. These facts say that bringing back David Price is very unlikely (though not impossible. I have no inside information, I'm just reading what's online. He may indeed have loved his time in Toronto). Now, free agency isn't the only way to add players, but they don't have a lot of prospects available for high-profile trades it would seem after bringing on Price and Tulowitzki this year. Both of those, in hindsight, were very good moves. They got the Blue Jays into the playoffs, and into the second round of the playoffs. Flags fly forever, and it would have been nice to have won the World Series, but they should come into 2016 with a good chance to come back to the playoffs and maybe go further this time. In terms of needs, I think for now it will be mostly on the pitching front. They're in pretty good shape on the infield, especially if Devon Travis comes back healthy. While Ryan Goins acquitted himself well this year, he is probably not the answer as a starter, but can be an important part of the team. And the offense, obviously, wasn't the problem this year. It is possible they could try to upgrade themselves at 1B or LF, but for now those may not be at the top of their priority lists. Interesting question - will they keep Encarnacion and Bautista and try to resign them, or will they consider trading one or the other of them (at ages 33 and 35 they may be past their greatest production anyway) to a team a little more desperate for offense? On the pitching side, they can probably use some help, particularly with David Price likely to leave. If Estrada comes back, they can start with a rotation of Stroman, Estrada, Dickey, and... who? Tehy could consider moving Aaron Sanchez or Roberto Osuna back to the rotation, but the way bullpen management has been going lately, that may be less likely. An additional relief pitcher could be helpful as well, though spending too much on one may be unwise. Remember Yovani Gallardo? He's a free agent, and could be brought in at a semi-reasonable price (and is only 29 years old). Scott Kazmir at 31, Brett Anderson at 27 are interesting names in free agency as well. Needs - Starting pitching, relief pitching Upgrades possible - Left Field, First Base I'll come back with more about the San Francisco Giants soon. There have been a number of these pieces written lately, and tweet storms from some of its former writers. I'm coming at this as purely a fan, and as somebody whose writing style and desire to write have been pushed by what was on Grantland. A week ago today, on October 30, ESPN announced suddenly that they were suspending operations of the website effective immediately. The death spiral probably began when ESPN also announced suddenly (and not directly to the person effected - a pattern here) that Bill Simmons, the creator and editor-in-chief of Grantland, would not have his contract renewed. That was also on a Friday. Though he had several months left on his contract he never wrote or produced another word for ESPN.
I don't remember exactly when I started to find Bill Simmons' work on ESPN. I'm relatively certain it was when he was writing for "Page 2", which was supposed to be, I think, the edgy part of their site. I've been following his writing and his podcasts ever since. I believe I loaded up Grantland on or near its first day to see what it was about. A lot of people have tried to deconstruct Simmons and figure out why he was and is so popular. How did a guy who started out as basically a blogger before we had words for that, writing mostly about Boston area sports, come to be probably the biggest name at ESPN, the "Worldwide Leader in Sports"? People have criticized his writing style for different reasons, and I'm not going to call him the greatest writer I've ever read. I like him because he has fun. He writes about sports by connecting it to his experience as a fan, by connecting it to other things that interest him (here's the pop culture part of it). I found his writing as a teenager, so it's hard to talk too much about what came before him (I wasn't paying that much attention). But I think a lot of it would get focused really on the sports, or maybe the athlete themselves. Some of the best writers who still write that way are able to deeply humanize some of the athletes we root for, or the way a team affects the city or region they play in. Bill seems to really focus on what the experiences mean to him as a fan, and to others as fans. He's not a former athlete, he never really had a team beat where he traveled with the players or did interviews in the locker room. He really focuses on what it's like to go to games or watch your favourite teams on TV. Whatever you think of his style, it has been immensely popular (see his 4.7 million Twitter followers, or better than half a million Facebook followers). But if Grantland had just been Bill Simmons-land, it probably wouldn't have been that interesting. Instead, he hired some of the best editors and writers he could get his hands on and let them write about all kinds of things. They went deep on some crazy subjects, they went super in depth on sports minutiae. Their subjects weren't all for me (reality TV, professional wrestling), but that was ok. They managed to go both wide and deep at the same time. Grantland was appointment reading. Every weekday morning around 8 or 9 o'clock I would start checking the site for something new. If something happened in sports or pop culture, I wanted to hear what one of their writers had to say about it more than one from most sites. The only difficulty sometimes was trying to avoid some of their headlines or articles on the day after a big TV show (Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad) when I hadn't had a chance to watch yet. But once I watched, I wanted every word. It is no exaggeration to say that Grantland was my most read and probably most refreshed website over the last 4 years, and got me into reading more about things I would never have expected to. Sometimes even if I didn't have any interest in the subject, just knowing who had written it got me to read it. The quality of the writers made me more interested in things I was already interested in. This is very much true of baseball. They had great fun takes, and great statistical dives into new information, and often combined the two. Without those writers and that quality, I don't know if I'd be writing on this blog, really. They also ignited new interests, taking basketball from a sport I was mildly interested in to probably my second favourite professional sport (this largely thanks to Zach Lowe and Bill Simmons). I read the site even as my interest in hockey and football withered (for some similar and some different reasons). They wrote brilliantly on some amateur sports and the Olympics. And of course, on the pop culture side, it wasn't all things I was interested in (here's my old man on the porch stance: I don't love a lot of current pop music. But here's my non-old man stance: I'm a lot more ok with that than when I was younger). But they wrote brilliantly about a lot of things there too, be it music, movies, TV, and more. Several writers from Grantland (including Jonah Keri) related that when they were hired, they were told that Grantland had just one rule: no a**holes. By every account I've read from former writers, they all liked each other, they all pulled for each other, and they were all pushed to be better by the hard work of their peers and editors. More than a few former writers have said that it was the best experience of their professional careers (until the final days anyway). Grantland pushed long form sports journalism to a place that it didn't usually get to outside of a couple of select magazines (Sports Illustrated when it was really working, for example). Sites like SB Nation which do that now probably followed that lead. Grantland helped podcasting explode as well, giving voices to all kinds of different interests. It's not exactly accurate to say that I'll miss the writers who were there as most of them will continue to work somewhere (even for ESPN in some cases), but it will be hard to find such a collective, and I'll have to go digging to find some of the specific ones as often. Some of my favourites included Jonah Keri, Brian Phillips, Zach Lowe, Wesley Morris, Rembert Browne, Shea Serrano, Andy Greenwald... too many to remember very accurately. If you have the time or inclination, dig around in their archives, which are still around at Grantland.com. But in the meantime, I'd like to leave you with a selection of some of my favourites on a variety of subjects, plus some links to similar articles from other sites around the internet. Be warned, these are not short. But they are all worth reading at some point (or repeatedly). In sports:
In subjects beyond either of those two (and this is where they really shone):
This got longer than I expected, and yet is still by no means exhaustive. Enjoy any and every one you look at, come back to it if you want. If nothing else, it's a nice reference for myself. As you are all now no doubt aware, the Kansas City Royals won the World Series on Sunday, finishing off the New York Mets in 5 games. First, some links to some good stories about it, and then some thoughts.
First, probably the craziest number: From the 7th inning on the the playoffs, the Royals outscored their opponents 51-11. The other 9 playoff teams combined to score 55 runs from the 7th inning on. Or another take on it: the Royals scored 40 runs in the 8th inning or later. No other playoff team scored more than 5. That boggles the mind. Seriously. Using Fangraphs win expectancy, the Royals had 8 different games that at some point they had less than a 35% chance of winning, historically, and won all 8 of them. Drilling down further, in 6 of those games they had less than a 20% chance, and in 4 of them they had less than a 10% chance. That just doesn't happen. Specifically, in the World Series, the Royals won 3 games which they trailed in the 8th inning. Which Jayson Stark says has not happened in the previous 110 World Series. I've read a lot about the Royals lately, and listened to some podcasts discussing them (shout out to Jonah Keri and Mike Schur/Ken Tremendous on a sort of "Grantland goodbye"). There's a lot out there about what to take from the Royals. Professional sports are notorious for copycats. Everybody wants to emulate the kings. Sidebar before going too far into that: Moneyball is now pretty well known to people even who aren't necessarily baseball fans thanks to the Brad Pitt movie. A lot of people over the years have taken the lesson that "Moneyball means walks and OBP" and so a team like the Royals would seem to be anti-Moneyball. That's the wrong lesson. Moneyball was (and is) about taking advantage of market inefficiencies. The Oakland A's of the early 2000's (who baseball writers have noted were blessed with having 3 great young pitchers, which had a lot to do with their success but was sort of passed over in Moneyball) were financially unable to compete with teams like New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, and many others, but still found themselves in or near the playoffs for a good run. The author (Michael Lewis) revealed that they were one of the first teams to really embrace "analytics" and try to find how players could actually contribute to "wins" (basically WAR) and what skills were not valued as highly as they should be. Batting average, RBIs, and home runs were valued. Walks and on base percentage were not as valued at the time, but Oakland realized that they should be, and built a very competent offense on this basis. Walks and on base percentage are very highly valued now. They are no longer an inefficiency. Back to Kansas City. They've done a few things that seemed unorthodox, but maybe now are revealing some truths and some "market inefficiencies" that they had taken advantage of. For one, and you'll find this in many articles, they've really tried to build a culture of good people in the organization and on the team. By all accounts, this is a group of players who like each other, and who love baseball. Alex Anthopoulos of Toronto apparently realized about a year ago that "character" was actually pretty important for the team and the fanbase (and whether that lesson was learned much too late is a discussion for another time. There have been teams in the past that were known for "25 players, 25 cabs", as in, nobody did anything together. If you have enough money to get great players, maybe that works for a bit. But maybe Kansas City's method is a lot more sustainable. The San Francisco Giants are known to be a pretty good clubhouse with a manager that is well loved by the players, and this has been a pretty good decade for them. The 2004 Red Sox famously crowned themselves "the idiots" and seemed to have a lot of fun playing. Fun can't be the only part of playing professional sports, I imagine, but in a long season, it probably helps. And for a team like Kansas City who has now been to the World Series 2 years in a row, that growing success is probably not an accident. To that "culture" as well, take another look at that Eno Sarris piece, or the Joe Posnanski one (or both really). The Royals were mocked over the years for their "5-year plan" which turned into a 6-year, 7-year, 8-year... and eventually, as it turned out, 10-year plan. Dayton Moore, their GM, was mocked many times for his decisions, but as it turns out, his moves over the last 4-5 years have been largely outstanding. And above all, they have been very, very patient. Alex Gordon was a high draft pick who hit poorly and fielded poorly at 3rd base, eventually got sent back down to the minor leagues, learned to play left field, and came back as a strong hitter and a gold glove fielder. Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer were supposed to be great in 2012, but both struggled (Moustakas in particular) before seeming to really settle into what they are. Alcides Escobar was one of the worst hitters in the league THIS YEAR, but he plays a very good shortstop, and seemed to really hit well in the playoffs (and that making contact on fastballs thing really made a difference). Lorenzo Cain didn't start playing baseball until late in high school when he was cut from his basketball team. He was a good fielder with some speed who hit for some average last year, then added power and really turned into a star this year. Salvador Perez was signed as a 16 year old and brought up as their starting catcher as a 22-year-old. A lot of bi9 market teams would not have had the patience to let some or all of these players grow and find their level. Maybe this was an advantage of being unnoticed for years. Frankly as a fan, I'd love to see a team build something out of good young players, even if it hurts at first. Houston may be on the fast track to this particular part of the Royals success, and the Giants have been doing it for the last 5 years. Another thing which has been discussed a lot lately is the value of making contact. The Royals lead the league in not striking out. They also didn't walk a lot, leading to kind of an average offense. But it was a very difficult to stop offense. Strikeouts having been going up for years now, and walks are starting to go down. As starting pitchers pitch less and presumably maximize their effectiveness and more and more guys throw hard in the bullpen, the ability to hit the ball and give yourself a chance probably is very valuable now. Home runs and walks are getting harder to come by, so a good single can be a difference maker. They've also built an exceptional defense with some great athletes around the field (at most positions anyway), and take advantage of their large home field by letting some of their pitchers (the starters at least) put the ball in play and trust that their fielders will take care of it. Chris Young is an extreme contact and fly ball pitcher. That would be a terrible strategy in Yankee Stadium or Coors Field, but in Kauffman Stadium, it can really work. And of course, they have that great bullpen. Now, bullpens are traditionally volatile and guys who were great one year can be decidedly average the year after that (or worse). Kansas City experience some regression (and then a season ending injury) from Greg Holland this year, but Wade Davis and Kelvin Herrera were excellent again, and helped shorten every game they were in. Remember, 51-11. It may be instructive (and I think it is), that Wade Davis and Danny Duffy are both former starting pitchers (Danny Duffy may be a starter again) whose stuff played way up in the bullpen. Even the aforementioned Chris Young struck out a lot of guys out of the bullpen for a guy with a high 80's fastball. If you want to make a greater point out of that, probably the best short reliever of all time (Mariano Rivera) came up as a starter before getting converted. This is something for teams to think about rather than maybe overpaying strict relievers. I may have more thoughts on ideal team building in another post at another time. In any case, I liked the Royals and their story last year (though, as a Giants fan, I was more than happy with how it ended - Bumgarner forever), and was impressed with how they built on it this year (almost no "experts" or predictors even had them back in the playoffs this year), though a little less a fan after the Blue Jays series and the way a couple of their players acted (Ventura in particular). But they earned this. And hey, in a league of 30 teams, every team should have a chance at one championship in 30 years. So we'll see the Royals back in 2045. I've been a bit slow on posting lately. Mostly for reasons of life being busy, but with the baseball season ending, I've been trying to put together a few ideas for the next little while on here. Over the next little while, I'm hoping to write about:
Thanks for reading! I had originally planned on doing something related to this back when I wrote up other awards, but the playoffs sort of took over. And then, a useful thing happened. MLB announced top 3 finalists at all positions, making the heavy lifting research a little bit easier.
There was a conversation on Twitter the other day, and I can't remember the exact participants, but it was brought up that Gold Gloves are a pretty overrated award because of some of the people who have won them (more on that in a minute). This is too bad, somebody said, because as a name, they're a pretty great concept. And somebody else mentioned that it would be a fun way to describe somebody like Adam Everett as a gold glove shortstop who never actually won a Gold Glove. Why are Gold Gloves overrated? The voting for Gold Gloves is done by managers and coaches in each league (who can't vote for players on their own team). As of a few years ago, 25% of the voting/ranking is based on SABR fielding metrics. The problem with coaches and managers voting was that a lot of guys got by on just reputation. For example (a now famous example for baseball fans), Raphael Palmeiro won the Gold Glove for 1st Base in 1999, as he had in 1997 and 1998. Not that controversial. Except for the minor detail that he had played 28 games at 1st Base in 1999, and 128 as a designated hitter. Derek Jeter also famously won 5 Gold Gloves at shortstop despite providing negative value on the field in most of those seasons. Moving on though, lets agree that they're a fun sounding award, but, like most awards, don't always mean much. American League first, then National League. I'll make a lot of reference to the Fielding Bible who does awards for each position, though does not split by leagues. They also add a utility player (Ender Inciarte of the Arizona Diamondbacks). My choice will be highlighted. Also, apologies as this is going to have a lot of stats in it. If that's not your thing, be warned. Feel free to Youtube some of these guys (especially Andrelton Simmons, Kevin Kiermaier, Kevin Pillar, Mike Trout, Nolan Arenado, Brandon Crawford...) American League P - Mark Buehrle (Blue Jays), Sonny Gray (A's), Dallas Keuchel (Astros) According to the Fielding Bible, Dallas Keuchel had the second best total of defensive runs saved by a pitcher since they began measuring the statistic. He added 13 runs of value (remember, 10 runs is roughly 1 win) just with his glove. That makes this an easy choice. C - Jason Castro (Astros), Russell Martin (Blue Jays), Salvador Perez (Royals) I went to Fangraphs and StatCorner's catcher report for this one. I looked at runs saved by framing and defensive runs saved (DRS - used by the Fielding Bible). When they were added up, Martin saved 1.7 runs, Perez was 4.1 runs below average (-4.1), but both were way behind Jason Castro at 16.9 runs. By StatCorner's measurements, he was the 7th best pitch framing catcher for total work on the year. He was above average in all 4 of those categories too, which neither Martin nor Perez could say. 1B - Eric Hosmer (Royals), Mike Napoli (Rangers), Mark Teixeira (Yankees) Though Napoli played in only 899 innings at 1B, that was actually only about 15 innings fewer than Teixeira played (and 455 fewer than Hosmer). However, he had 3 DRS (vs 5 for Teixeira and just 1 for Hosmer) and a 4.4 Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR - Fangraphs preferred defensive metric) vs 1.0 for Hosmer and 0.4 for Teixeira. Interestingly, by DRS, the top 6 defensive first basemen all played in the National League this year. 2B - Jose Altuve (Astros), Brian Dozier (Twins), Ian Kinsler (Tigers) Kinsler was the Fielding Bible award winner for best overall 2B in the majors. At 19 DRS, which was 6 more than second place (and 11 more than second best in the AL), it's easy to see why. He also paced the AL in UZR and UZR/150 games (a common way of equalizing playing time). 3B - Adrian Beltre (Rangers), Evan Longoria (Rays), Manny Machado (Orioles) A long time fielding legend, Beltre can still pick it at age 36. He led the AL in DRS by 4 over Manny Machado (who will probably win a lot of these in his career) and had the best UZR in baseball. SS - Xander Bogaerts (Red Sox), Alcides Escobar (Royals), Didi Gregorious (Yankees) Francisco Lindor actually led the AL in DRS this year as a shortstop, but because of the rule made when Raphael Palmeiro won (must play at least 100 games), he was not eligbile. He also led in UZR (and by UZR/150 was the best SS in all of baseball). But again, not eligible. The best of the eligible players by both measures was Gregorious. LF - Yoenis Cespedes (Tigers - partial), Brett Gardner (Yankees), Alex Gordon (Royals) By DRS, Cespedes was actually the second best LF in baseball this year (and by far the best by UZR). The problem is that he split his season between two leagues. Alex Gordon has won 4 in a row in LF, and he outdid Gardner in both UZR and DRS by a pretty good margin. CF - Kevin Kiermaier (Rays), Kevin Pillar (Blue Jays), Mike Trout (Angels) Jays fans who watched Pillar play great defense all year won't like this choice, but here's the thing. Pillar had a very good season, with 14 DRS (actually 4th in the AL, but hold on), and 14.0 UZR (3rd in the AL). What's surprising is that Mike Trout was nominated despite Lorenzo Cain having much better stats than him, but he is pretty good. Kiermaier, on the other hand, had 42 DRS (the highest ever measured), and a UZR 0f 30.0. He more than doubled every other CF in the major leagues with those totals, and was worth (by Fangraphs) 32 runs for his defense alone. He also apparently saved 65 bases on cutting down potential doubles and triples, per Fielding Bible research. Sorry, I can't argue with that. He was also the unanimous recipient of the Fielding Bible Award for CF. This is a prime argument for returning to the system of 3 outfielders (given that, as many have argued, left and right fielders are often guys who aren't fast enough for center field). RF - Kole Calhoun (Angels), J.D. Martinez (Tigers), Josh Reddick (A's) By DRS, the 4 best right fielders in baseball are in the NL. By UZR, Calhoun is the second best right fielder in baseball, and easily led the American League, as well as being the slight leader in DRS. National League P - Jake Arrieta (Cubs), Gerrit Cole (Pirates), Zack Greinke (Dodgers) Greinke led in DRS by being the only one of the three to have positive value in preventing stolen bases vs the average pitcher (Arrieta was 3 runs below average, Cole was 2 runs below average, while Greinke was 2 runs above average). This swung the totals in his favour. C - Yadier Molina (Cardinals), Buster Posey (Giants), Wilson Ramos (Nationals) Posey was also the Fielding Bible Award winner this year, as he tied with Ramos in DRS, but was ahead of him in framing runs by over 18 runs (+15.2 for Posey, -2.1 for Ramos). At 28 (and already with an MVP award, a batting title, and 3 World Series rings), this kid might have a future in the big leagues. Molina had 7 DRS and 5.7 framing runs, yet another strong season for him. 1B - Brandon Belt (Giants), Paul Goldschmidt (Diamondbacks), Adrian Gonzalez (Dodgers) Goldschmidt won the Fielding Bible award as he almost doubled the second place finishers in DRS (18 to 10 for both Gonzalez and Belt). By UZR, Belt was a bit better, but maybe not enough to make up that advantage. 2B - Dee Gordon (Marlins), DJ LeMahieu (Rockies), Brandon Phillips (Reds) Gordon easily led the National League in DRS, though trailed two men who played in far fewer innings in UZR (Danny Espinosa and Addison Russell). He graded out significantly higher than LeMahieu and Phillips in both metrics. 3B - Nolan Arenado (Rockies), Matt Duffy (Giants), Todd Frazier (Reds) Though the Giants fan in me wants to pick Matt Duffy (and UZR says that would be a valid choice), a big lead in DRS and a Fielding Bible award suggest that Arenado is probably dezerving of this. He also made 74 out of zone plays vs 56 for Duffy. Frazier actually beat Arenado in UZR as well, but trailed both by quite a bit in DRS. SS - Brandon Crawford (Giants), Adeiny Hechavarria (Marlins), Andrelton Simmons (Braves) Simmons is now a 3-time unanimous Fielding Bible award winner at shortstop. He led the league comfortably in DRS and UZR, and made tons of highlight reel plays. He is being talked about at age 26 as being potentially one of the greatest fielding shortstops of all time if he keeps this up. LF - Starling Marte (Pirates), Justin Upton (Padres), Christian Yelich (Marlins) Marte was tied for 3rd among all outfielders in DRS behind Kiermaier and Ender Inciarte (mentioned above), and was worth 9 runs for his arm in particular. He trailed Yoenis Cespedes in UZR, but doesn't have to compete with him in this league. CF - Billy Hamilton (Reds), Andrew McCutchen (Pirates), A.J. Pollock (Diamondbacks) Pollock led the National League in DRS, 6 ahead of Hamilton, and made 104 out of zone plays, trailing only Lorenzo Cain and Kevin Pillar. He cost himself runs with his arm, but made up for it with all around play otherwise. Hamilton had a big UZR lead, so he might be a good argument here too. RF - Curtis Granderson (Mets), Bryce Harper (Nationals), Jason Heyward (Cardinals) The Fielding Bible award for RF for the third time, and now with 6 straight years of double digit DRS, he nearly doubled second place, and scored a huge 20.2 UZR. He made more out of zone plays than any other right fielder (with 100). Another pretty easy choice. Summary P - Dallas Keuchel (Houston - AL), Zack Greinke (Los Angeles - NL) C - Jason Castro (Houston - AL), Buster Posey (San Francisco - NL) 1B - Mike Napoli (Boston, Texas - AL), Paul Goldschmidt (Arizona - NL) 2B - Ian Kinsler (Detroit - AL), Dee Gordon (Miami - NL) 3B - Adrian Beltre (Texas - AL), Nolan Arenado (Colorado - NL) SS - Didi Gregorious (New York - AL), Andrelton Simmons (Atlanta - NL) LF - Alex Gordon (Kansas City - AL), Starling Marte (Pittsburgh - NL) CF - Kevin Kiermaier (Tampa Bay - AL), A.J. Pollock (Arizona - NL) RF - Kole Calhoun (Anaheim - AL), Jason Heyward (St. Louis - NL) I'll be back maybe tomorrow with some thoughts on the end of Grantland and some favourite stories. Thanks for reading. |
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Greg JacksonA baseball fan in general. Interested in statistics and analytics. Usually follow the Giants and Blue Jays, fan of all MLB in general. |