Thursday, May 30, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, May 30, 2019 -- "A Blind Alley"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

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--

"Add it all up. Games are still nine innings long, the season still 162 games. Less is being asked of starters, though, so relievers have to pick up the burden. Less is being asked of relievers, too, so you need more of them. On a daily basis, relievers are being handled more carefully, never pitching on four straight days and rarely on three, so on some days managers have big Xs through two or three of their better guys.

"What if we’re just running out of pitchers? What if -- with pitchers making up 55% of Major League Baseball on most days, except when they make up more -- we have finally run out of arms?"

Monday, May 27, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, May 27, 2019 -- "Ryne Stanek"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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--

"It’s also going to screw with our statistics. Stanek’s 14 starts put him on pace to make more than 40, which is a number no one reaches any more. No one has made 40 starts in a season since knuckleballer Charlie Hough did it in 1987. No one has made more than 40 starts since another knuckleballer, Phil Niekro, made 42 in 1979. (Pitching stats from the 1970s are a sight to see.) The last non-knuckleballer to make more than 40 starts in a season was Jim Kaat in 1975, who made 41. Since the pitching rubber was moved to 60 feet, six inches in 1893, there have been 130 seasons of at least 41 starts. Eighty-seven of them happened from 1893 through 1917, and 38 happened from 1962 through 1979."

Thursday, May 23, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, May 23, 2019 -- "Twins!"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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--

"Ah, the catchers. The best season any single catcher has ever had at the plate was by Mike Piazza in 1997. Piazza, riding the crest of a hitters’ era, hit .362/.431/.638 with 40 homers, for a 185 OPS+. Twins catchers -- Astudillo, Garver, and Jason Castro -- are hitting .307/.389/.699 with 17 homers already, a 198 OPS+. Garver and Castro are both way out over their skis, but a surprise team usually has a performance or two like this in it. If the Twins do win the division, 'randomly assembling peak Mike Piazza' will be a big reason why."

Tuesday, May 21, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, May 21, 2019 -- "No IBB"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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--

"The Astros, a year after setting the record for fewest intentional walks granted with four (and none in their seven postseason games), have yet to issue a single free pass this season. They are the only team in baseball to have called for no intentional walks. We don’t necessarily need a new reason to praise the Astros, the best team in baseball, one of the best organizations in baseball, and the favorite to win their second World Series in three years, but here we are."

Monday, May 20, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, May 20, 2019 -- "#lolmets"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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--

"If we just restrict this analysis to the current GM, you have the Cano/Diaz trade, which was supposed to be a short-term improvement. It’s added less than a win to the team in 2019, and all the costs are paid in future seasons, in increased payroll and the absence of Kelenic and Dunn. You have the signings of Lowrie, Ramos, Familia, Justin Wilson, and Luis Avilan: a combined one win below replacement level for $20 million. Throw Keon Broxton in there at sub-replacement work for near the minimum. Brodie van Wagenen has done a better job of getting players money for nothing as a GM than he ever did as an agent."

Friday, May 17, 2019

Turning Nine


On May 17, 2010, I sent an email to fewer than 100 people, the first edition of the second run of The Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter. In those nine years, we’ve seen the Giants win three World Series, and the Yankees not win any. We’ve seen the game’s highest salary go from $33 million (Alex Rodriguez) to $42 million (Max Scherzer). We’ve had no strikes or lockouts, but plenty of labor unrest. We’ve seen Albert Pujols go from legend to laggard, and Mike Trout go from unknown to unbelievable.

We’ve seen the Newsletter go from 100 people to nearly 2,000, and growing.

In those nine years, the state of baseball, and baseball writing, has changed. The baseball world accelerated the trend of picking off writers from the stathead world, granting legitimacy to a field of study that had been scorned for much of the first 15 years of the nominal “Prospectus Era.” A once-unimaginable stream of data was invented that we’re still only barely tapping into today, one that has helped teach us things about players and the game itself that, a decade ago, we could have imagined knowing. With nods to everyone who came before, my colleagues at BP included, we’ve learned more about baseball in the last decade than in any ten-year period ever.

The data has changed the way the game has played, and it’s changed the way we analyze the game. Career paths are, if not a myth, a fragile idea when players can use data to re-invent themselves. Facile explanations for league-wide trends are dismissed when we can measure the spin, the exit velocity, the drag on baseballs. It’s harder to criticize some micro-level decisions, ones that could very well be based on data that’s simply unavailable to the public. Is that pitching change actually daft, or designed to exploit a specific skills matchup between the batter and new pitcher?

Next year, the 25th edition of the Baseball Prospectus annual will be published. I’ve already lived the first line of my obituary, and I couldn’t be more proud of having helped build a company that continues to cover the game today. The hundreds of people who have worked under the Prospectus banner, from the original five through today, have built something wonderful.

That this Newsletter carries just my name, however, doesn’t make it a solo venture. Scott Simon has been making my copy better for half the life of the Newsletter. (His value will be illustrated by the condition of the pre-Simon era piece below.) Bil Burke has pushed me to have a stronger Web presence and helped build that presence. I’ve been able to lean on friends and colleagues like Will Carroll, Rany Jazayerli, Jeff Erickson, David Donovan, Cee Angi, Chris Stone, and Stephen Cannella for advice, for support, for the occasional guest piece. I appreciate every single reader, but some have made their presence known in greater volume, making me smarter, holding me to first principles, making the Newsletter better in their own way.

I was a new father nine years ago. The Newsletter is exactly 46 days younger than Marina is, and much of what drives me every day is wanting to leave a legacy of success that she can some day understand and appreciate. We think about our kids making us proud as parents, but I want to make her proud of me as well. Nothing, not money, not fame, not truth, not craft, not baseball itself drives me the way she does. Guys, have a daughter. She’ll change everything.

Nine years ago, I sent out the following. Today, it goes to 20 times as many people. That’s a pretty good run. Thanks for being here for it. Thanks for being the best group of readers I could have hoped to have.

Joe Sheehan
May 17, 2019

Thursday, May 16, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, May 16, 2019 -- "Taking a Challenge"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $39.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

--

"I was out last night with baseball friends, some excellent company over dinner, and amid conversations about children new and old, the new sports books in New Jersey, documentaries, passing around 1990 baseball cards, and everything else, there was baseball chatter. At one point, two of us were going through the NL East when I was challenged: You can’t make one good bullpen from all the rosters in the NL East."

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Fun With Numbers: Triple Trouble [Updated]

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $39.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

--

[Updated on May 15]

In yesterday’s piece on the Marlins, I mentioned in passing that they had yet to hit a triple. They’re not the only ones. The Indians haven’t hit a three-bagger yet. In a related story, the Indians and Marlins have the lowest slugging percentages and lowest wRC+ marks in baseball.

It is uncommon for any team to have no triples at this late date. Prior to 2019, in fact, just four teams since 1908 (the Play Index era, and for all intents and purposes, all-time) had reached May 14 without having hit a triple.

Stopping At Second (Latest Date Hitting First Triple)

Expos    1973   5/28
Giants   1982   5/23

Indians  2019    ???
Marlins  2019    ???
Braves   2016   5/14
Braves   1957   5/14


Two more teams, the ’72 Orioles and the ’35 Phillies, hit their first triples on May 13. The Marlins and Indians are now in a tie for third on this list, two weeks from holding the record. No team in baseball history has entered June without hitting at least one triple.

The date of a team’s first triple is interesting, but a bit of a moving target. The baseball season now starts earlier than ever before, three weeks earlier than it did for most of the game’s history. (Three weeks earlier than it should, but that’s a subject for a different day.) The more salient measure here might be games. Viewed through that lens, the Indians are on the brink of history, the Marlins right behind them.

Stopping At Second Every Time (Most Games w/o a Triple to Start Season)

Giants   1982   41
Indians  2019   41
Marlins  2019   40

Expos    1974   38
Braves   2016   36


The Cardinals made a run at this record last year, getting 31 games into the season before poking their first triple on May 6. This year, we’re getting a rematch of the 1997 World Series, as the Indians and Marlins try to out-do each other.

Triples were once more common than home runs, and they remain one of the game’s most exciting plays. They’re also increasingly rare, with the rate of triples per PA, per contact, per game, at or near all-time lows. The Indians and Marlins have taken triple avoidance to an extreme this year, so much so that they’re set to wipe a 40-year-old record from the books.

Monday, May 13, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, May 13, 2019 -- "The MarLLLLLins"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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--

"The 2019 Miami Marlins have a 65 wRC+, two percent worse than those Philly A’s, even worse than the gold standard for bad baseball, those ’99 Spiders. The Marlins can’t hit. They’re last in the NL in everything: doubles, triples (they haven’t hit one yet), homers, walks, average, OBP, and SLG.

"The 2019 Marlins have a chance to be the worst offense in baseball history."

Friday, May 10, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, May 10, 2019 -- "O-H-I-O!"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $39.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

--

"If the Indians want to defend themselves, they can stay in-state to do so. The Reds’ Opening Day payroll has moved from $95 million two years ago to $127 million, and the team is in last place, despite playing better ball than the Indians have. Prospectus’s Adjusted Standings pegs the Reds as a 20-18 team to date, accounting for their underlying performance and schedule. The Indians have, by comparison, been a 15-21 squad. I’m not saying we should award playoff berths based on these numbers, but there’s a real case that for the first time in a while, the Reds are the best team in Ohio."

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, May 8, 2019 -- "Mike Fiers"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $39.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

--

"I understand the extreme stathead position on no-hitters, that they’re not such a big deal relative to, say, a one-hitter with a lot of strikeouts. I simply don’t agree with it. We’ve been tracking these games for close to 150 years. There have been 300, give or take around various rules changes, or about two a year. They’re a part of the game’s fabric, the history, and that they don’t always map to a great career or even great pitching just makes them that much more notable."

Monday, May 6, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, May 6, 2019 -- "Cubs and Cardinals Swap Places"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $39.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

--

"Willson Contreras, Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, and Javier Baez are all getting the ball up more than they did a year ago. All four of them have their highest expected slugging of the last three years, with big jumps over last season. Yes, Baez broke out last year, and Bryant was hurt in 2018, but those four are collectively on their way to being 75 runs better in 2019. (Jay Jaffe had some good stuff on Bryant over at Fangraphs.)"

Saturday, May 4, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, May 4, 2019 -- "Something's Up"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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--

"           AVG   OBP   SLG    HR%   ISO   HR/FB
4/6-4/19   .248  .324  .433   4.1%   185   15.3%
4/20-4/26  .253  .328  .434   4.0%   181   15.6%
4/27-5/3   .234  .304  .381   3.1%   147   12.2%


"Is this what a change in the composition of the baseball would look like in the stats? I don’t know. I do know that there’s precedent for things changing on a dime within a season. This “era” started in the middle of 2015, when a league that had been slugging under .400 for 2 1/2 seasons suddenly jumped to .403 in July, .417 in August, and .415 in September."

Friday, May 3, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, May 3, 2019 -- "Orioles and Homers"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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--

"That’s the thing about records, though. They’re set when the underlying conditions raise the baselines, and then an individual or team has an outlier year on top of that. Bob Gibson had a 1.12 ERA in 1968 because he was Bob Gibson, and because the league ERA dropped under 3.00. That spate of 60+ homer seasons at the turn of the century doesn’t happen if the overall environment -- and what I wouldn’t give to X-ray or deconstruct the baseballs from that era -- doesn’t allow for it. No one is going to win 30 games when the best starting pitchers make just 32 starts.

"The 2019 Orioles have an execrable pitching staff, and it’s pitching at a time when the penalty for throwing bad pitches is as high as it’s ever been."

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, May 1, 2019, "Thinking Outside the Box"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $39.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

--

"What Gallo is doing this year is taking that skill set and pairing it with a bit more contact, a bit more patience. He’s swinging less than he ever had before, a tick more than 40% of the time. He’s swinging and missing less than he ever has before, continuing a career-long trend. Pair those two, and you have a player with the highest walk rate and lowest strikeout rate of his career. Gallo never had to be Jeff McNeil; he just needed to get the bat to the ball a little more often to become one of the scariest monsters in the game. He’s doing that now. Aaron Judge’s 2017 season -- 52 homers, 171 OPS+, second in the MVP race -- is absolutely in play here."