Friday, August 30, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, August 30, 2019 -- "What I'm Watching"

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 nearly 25 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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--

"Yesterday’s online cause célèbre was an article in USA Today in which 3% of Nicholas Castellanos’s career was used to make...I really don’t know what the point was. I do know that no analyst I’ve ever taken seriously would use 108 at-bats to draw broad conclusions, and no analyst I’ve ever taken seriously would be surprised that Castellanos, a career .274/.324/.459 hitter with almost exactly those numbers this year for the Tigers, would hit .350 for a month. Nick Ahmed can hit .350 for a month. With a few weeks of training, Nicholas Sparks might hit .350 for a month." 

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, August 28, 2019 -- "Thinking Inside 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 nearly 25 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 $49.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

--

"What I love about last night, and really this whole brief run by the Orioles, is that it highlights a point I’ve made over and over again: If you’re good enough to land in the majors, even for a bad team, you’re good enough to run hot for a month. You’re certainly good enough to toss six shutout innings on any given night. The guys I deride as Quad-A players, or up-and-down guys, or just bad, are still better at baseball than almost anyone who has ever picked up a glove. By the standards we use to talk about these things, Aaron Brooks is terrible. And yet he’s incredible."

Monday, August 26, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, August 26, 2019 -- "Sweeps Weekend"

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 nearly 25 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 Cubs aren’t really doing any of those things. This sweep exposed their pitching staff, which was repeatedly unable to finish off Nationals hitters. The Cubs struck out just 21 men in 29 innings, and walked 15 (plus an intentional pass). In the critical seventh-inning rally on Sunday, Cubs relievers allowed hits on 0-2 and 2-2, and a walk on a 3-2 count. The game-winning rally in the 11th was keyed by a 3-2 double off Tyler Chatwood. Cubs’ relievers have a 22.8% strikeout rate, 12th in the NL and in a group of teams largely known for their bullpen failures this year. They desperately needed to miss bats in big spots yesterday, and couldn’t do it."

Newsletter Preview: "Craig Kimbrel"

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 nearly 25 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 Joe Sheehan Newsletter
Vol. 11, No. 40
June 7, 2019

For the fourth time in a bit less than three years, the Cubs have invested talent or treasure in a one-inning save specialist. In the wake of Aroldis Chapman, Wade Davis, and Brandon Morrow now comes Craig Kimbrel, one of the best one-inning relievers of all time, to pitch the ninth inning and help Joe Maddon better construct his closercentric pen full of three-out guys.

Kimbrel, a free agent in June for reasons well covered, signed a three-year, $43-million contract with the Cubs. Accounting for the missing ten weeks or so, the contract is nearly identical to the three-year, $52-million contract Davis signed with the Rockies preceding the 2018 season. Davis is, in fact, an excellent comp for Kimbrel as a free agent, as a focus on their walk year shows.

Twinsies

          ERA   FIP    IP   SV     K%   K-BB%
Davis    2.30  3.38  58.2   32  32.6%   21.1%
Kimbrel  2.74  3.13  62.1   42  38.9%   26.3%


Kimbrel was a little better across the board, although both pitchers struggled with their command, and neither looked great in their respective postseasons.

If we drag prior seasons into this, it’s not going to help Kimbrel, as Davis posted one of the best three-year stretches, dating to 2014, of any reliever ever. In talking about Kimbrel online, I’ve had a lot of people throw his career numbers at me, his 1.91 career ERA and 333 saves. Those figures are interesting in building a Hall of Fame case, but that Craig Kimbrel was a dominant reliever in 2014 does very little, really nothing, to inform the decision about whether you want him pitching for you in 2019. As I’ve said over and over, you don’t get to sign Kimbrel’s 2013 Strat card, and you don’t get to put his Baseball Reference page on the mound.

This point is brought into relief when you consider where the pitchers closest to Kimbrel, as peers, have gone at a similar age. Kimbrel has already been an exception to the rule that these power relievers burn fast and hot. By signing him at 31, the Cubs are taking on not just financial risk, which they can afford, but performance risk, which they cannot. Through age 30, Kimbrel is the most dominant relief pitcher ever. That guarantees nothing. Here’s what the pitchers closest to him in career performance did at 31.

The Present (age-31 season, for best RPs ever (ERA+) through age 30)

              IP     ERA     FIP
Papelbon      70    2.44    2.90
Chapman     24.2    1.46    1.89
Rivera      80.2    2.34    2.28
Betances             DNP
Jansen      25.2    3.16    3.15
Harvey      10.1    5.23    3.61
Holland     57.1    3.61    3.72


Both Aroldis Chapman and Kenley Jansen are 31 this year, so those are 2019 stats listed. Betances is also 31 and has yet to pitch. Bryan Harvey’s career basically ended at 31. Holland was coming off missing his age-30 season.

Jonathan Papelbon is probably the comp you’re looking most closely at if you’re a Cubs fan. By ERA+, he’s the second-best reliever ever to Kimbrel through age 30. Boston’s closer was converted from starting in 2005 and made his MLB debut that same season. He would go on to close out a World Series and make four All-Star teams before leaving the Red Sox -- this sounds familiar -- at 30 years old. Signing with the Phillies, Papelbon had a 2.36 ERA over the life of his four-year contract, and even his final season, at 35, wasn’t bad: a 4.37 ERA and a 3.69 FIP.

Kimbrel throws harder than Papelbon did, and his secondary is a curveball, as opposed to Papelbon’s slider and splitter. Papelbon hit the market off a better season, and at no time showed the kind of problems throwing strikes that Kimbrel has in recent seasons, save for 2017. Kimbrel had a higher peak and, even in his down seasons, was more dominant with much higher strikeout rates, even relative to the league. I’ve been looking at Kimbrel through the lens of Davis, largely due to that spike in walk rate, but the arc of Papelbon’s career makes me a little more optimistic that Kimbrel can at least sustain his recent performance rather than decline.

Comps aside, Kimbrel does appear to be losing something. In the first four full seasons of his career, he had a 1.51 ERA and a 1.52 FIP, striking out 42% of the batters he faced and walking 8.6%. At the end of that stretch the Braves traded him to the Padres, who then sent him on to Boston. Over those four years, he had a 2.47 ERA and a 2.49 FIP, with a 41% strikeout rate and a 10% walk rate. It’s that last figure that drives my pessimism.

Ball Four. Ball Eight. Ball Twelve.

        UIBB%
2015     8.9%
2016    13.6%
2017     5.5%
2018    12.6%


Last year, Kimbrel lost a full tick off of his four-seam fastball, from 98.6 mph in 2017 to 97.5 mph in 2018. That’s the slowest average fastball he’s had since 2011, and the least effective fastball of his career. Kimbrel threw the fewest pitches in the strike zone he had in his career (43%), and when he threw balls in the zone, batters made contact at well above his career averages (77% last year). When you look at his breaking-ball command in the four years above, you see that 2017 really stands out.

“Curve, Low and Away, Count Goes to 2-1...”

        CB K%
2015    55.5%
2016    58.4%
2017    66.5%
2018    58.4%


So I look at Kimbrel and see a reliever who is losing a little fastball velocity and a little breaking-ball command. He’s throwing fewer strikes and the ones he throws are a bit more hittable. Kimbrel started at such a high level that he’s been able to maintain a reasonable level of effectiveness, but the arrows aren’t pointing in the right direction. I said often this winter that while the focus, with respect to Kimbrel, was on the free-agent market and its issues, there were also perfectly good baseball reasons to avoid signing him for the costs involved. I’ll stand by that today.

Whether the Cubs needed to do this is another question. Their bullpen ERA of 4.14 is fifth in the National League, and their bullpen FIP of 4.34 is seventh. They’re allowing fewer runs in the seventh and eighth innings than the league is, and as many as the league does in the ninth. The absence of Brandon Morrow and the need to rebuild Carl Edwards Jr. created some depth issues over the first two months. This may just be a reaction to a handful of frustrating moments: The Cubs have lost three games in which they led at the start of the ninth inning; all other NL teams have 11 losses, total, in that spot. Overall, though, the bullpen hasn’t been a barrier to success.

Record When Leading or Tied Starting the Inning

      Cubs     NL

7th   .829   .779
8th   .842   .844
9th   .846   .872


The Cubs are 3-3 in extra-inning games, 11-10 in one-run games, just to look at a few more places where the bullpen could have been dragging them down.

The Cubs may be a bit better today, because Kimbrel is surely better than whoever he displaces in the bullpen, probably Brad Brach. Over maybe 40 innings, though, this isn’t a high-impact signing, and it comes with more downside risk than upside.

--

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Sunday, August 25, 2019

Newsletter Preview: "Shohei Ohtani"

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 nearly 25 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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--

[From June 14, 2019]

Last night, Shohei Ohtani became the first Japanese-born player to hit for the cycle, racking up four hits in a 5-3 Angels win over the Rays. The big game pulls Ohtani’s sophomore year numbers to .281/.350/.512. He's done that over about a month since starting his season late as he works his way back from Tommy John surgery.

In 135 career games, a tick more than 500 career plate appearances, Ohtani has shown himself to be one of the best hitters in baseball: .284/.358/.550, a 144 OPS+, with 11 steals in 16 attempts. While he’s yet to play a defensive inning as a position player Stateside, his baserunning has been impressive enough to support the reports we had on his NPB work. Ohtani would almost certainly be a good, perhaps even great, corner outfielder in the majors.

It’s been just over a year now since Ohtani took his last regular turn in the rotation, a four-inning start in Kansas City abbreviated by a blister on his right middle finger. Ohtani would make a seemingly random start in September, going 2 1/3 innings against the Astros. So it’s reasonable to say that for the last year, Ohtani hasn’t been the two-way player of mythology but, rather, a one-way player. In that year, Ohtani has hit .282/.353/.556. Left alone to rake, he’s been one of the 15 best hitters in baseball, with a 146 wRC+. Here are his comps in that time.

Oh! -tani (Hitting since June 14, 2018, min. 250 PA)

                     PA     AVG   OBP   SLG   wRC+

11. Max Muncy       589    .286  .380  .551   149
12. Mookie Betts    711    .307  .416  .524   149
13. Shohei Ohtani   375    .282  .353  .556   146
14. Josh Bell       602    .299  .385  .544   145
15. Pete Alonso     277    .258  .339  .598   145


Mind you, a lot of that production has come with a torn or surgically repaired right ulnar collateral ligament. We’ve yet to see what Shohei Ohtani can do at full health.

I understand the desire to see someone do that which hasn’t been done since Babe Ruth was hitting dingers and committing all seven deadly sins before lunch. Isn’t it clear, though, a year and a half into this, that Ohtani is a potential MVP candidate even if he never takes the mound at all, and that pushing the latter task onto his desk offers more risk than reward?

Ohtani was a good, not great, pitcher last year, a Statcast darling used on a six-day schedule who still didn’t provide volume when he pitched, who walked more than 10% of the batters he faced, who left a hole in the lineup on the days before and after he took the mound. If we pick this up again in 2020, his pitching duties will once again eat into his at-bats, even as the Angels have to manage his innings. Come Opening Day 2020, Ohtani will have thrown just 77 innings in the last 3 1/2 years. It will be 2021, maybe 2022, before he carries a true starter’s workload, if ever, and the effort to put that on him will keep him out of the lineup -- keep a top-20 hitter in MLB out of the lineup -- 40% of the time.

I wrote this on April 9, 2018, and I stand by it today:

“I’m pretty sure Shohei Ohtani is a five-win pitcher, and I can be convinced he’s a five-win outfielder. I just don’t know if we’re taking those players and making them into a four-win P/DH.”

I loved what we saw last night. I want to see more of it. Maybe that should be enough.

--

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Saturday, August 24, 2019

Newsletter Preview: "The King"

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 nearly 25 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 $49.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

--


The Joe Sheehan Newsletter
Vol. 11, No. 71
August 24, 2019

Tonight in Seattle, a weary king will claim his throne, and his subjects will rise as one to honor him.

Felix Hernandez, who at 33 may be nearing the end of a memorable career, will come off the injured list to start for the Mariners. Hernandez hasn’t pitched since May 11, when a lat strain sent him to the IL with a 6.52 ERA. Subsequent problems with his throwing shoulder extended his absence, leaving him to make his return to the majors with just a few weeks left in the season and on his contract. It’s possible that Hernandez doesn’t have much left in his body, making tonight potentially one of his last starts, maybe even his last start, at T-Mobile Park.

It’s been an awful end for Hernandez, who was on a Hall of Fame path throughout his twenties. He won the AL Cy Young Award in 2010, leading the league in ERA and innings pitched, and had a pair of second-place finishes in 2009 and 2014. Hernandez, born in 1986 and making his MLB debut in 2005, will almost certainly be the last young pitcher handled the way he was. Hernandez threw 84 1/3 innings as a teenager, the most of any teen since Dwight Gooden. Teenagers since Hernandez have thrown a total of 116 innings. Draw the line at age 21, and Hernandez stands out even more.

Never Again (IP through age 21, pitchers born after Dwight Gooden)

                               IP
Felix Hernandez   2005-07    465.2
CC Sabathia       2001-02    390.1
Jeremy Bonderman  2003-04    346.0
Rick Porcello     2009-10    333.1
Zack Greinke      2004-05    328.0


Just two pitchers since Hernandez, Rick Porcello and Madison Bumgarner, have thrown even 300 innings through their age-21 seasons. Porcello looks like he’s on Hernandez’s path; Bumgarner carried huge workloads, counting the postseason, but is still effective at 30. In the same way that Roy Halladay was the last horse, with complete-game figures we’ll never see again, Hernandez was the last pony, the last young pitcher we’ll ever see ridden as hard as he was.

The numbers, and they are legion, don’t quite do Hernandez justice. At his best, he was as watchable as Pedro Martinez, a big kid on the mound, as happy to be playing as you were to be watching, never missing a start, never letting down those raucous Safeco Field crowds. Even when the Mariners were just Hernandez and Ichiro and 23 guys named “other,” they were incredibly watchable for having those two.

It was easy for Hernandez at first, the big kid pounding a two-seam fastball low in the zone and generating both big strikeout totals and big groundball totals. When he lost a few ticks off that fastball in the early 2010s, at the young age of 26, he adjusted by using his changeup and curve more, posting the highest swinging-strike rates of his career after the first velocity dip. It was this version of the King, on August 15, 2012, that made history:

“If you were going to design a perfect game, you might not end up exactly with Felix Hernandez on a getaway day at home in Safeco Field against the Rays, but your design would certainly get you to the interview stage. Take one of the best pitchers alive, one whose upside on any given day is matched only by that of Justin Verlander. Give him a start in a park that suppresses offense like the '85 Bears. Throw him out there against a team that is as poor at getting safe hits -- not just this year, but over a period of years -- as any team in baseball. Have that team playing on the road in a day game after a night game with its best hitter for average on the bench.

“When I think about what happened in Seattle yesterday, my takeaway won't be Hernandez's electric stuff and superb command, though. I mean, those are on display every fifth day for the pro-rated price of the MLB.tv package, and if you hadn't appreciated the greatness of Hernandez prior to yesterday, that's on you, not him. It didn't take 27 straight outs to validate what Felix Hernandez can do with a baseball to guys standing across the way with bats in their hands. No, what I'll remember is Hernandez's reaction when that final slider crossed the plate and etched his name in the stone tablets of history. There was no been-there coolness, no professional reserve, no just-doin'-my-job handshakes. Hernandez saw the strike call, pumped his fist and yelled, then raised his arms in triumph as his teammates -- without whom no pitcher has ever found his name on those tablets -- rushed to embrace him.

“Hernandez has never pitched in a postseason game, rarely even pitched in a critical game. He's been on national television terribly infrequently for a pitcher who might be the best one alive. He's spent his career working in a small market for mostly bad teams as guys like me talk about him not as a Mariner, but as a potential Yankee or Red Sox or Phillie. In that moment, though, he wasn't a repertoire or a strikeout rate or a contract; he was a 26-year-old having the best day of his career in the sunshine in front of his fans for his teammates.”

That was, that remains, the greatest moment of his career. As has been well covered, Felix Hernandez has never played in a postseason game, despite playing in an era in which it’s easier to make the playoffs than it’s ever been before. Hernandez was let down by his organization and his teammates for most of his career. In recent seasons, that relationship was reversed. Mariners teams desperate for starting pitching watched Hernandez, fighting the second big loss of velocity of his career, become first an innings guy and then a drag on the team. Since the start of the 2018 season, Hernandez has a 5.74 ERA in 194 1/3 innings, suffering the indignity of a demotion to the bullpen during last summer’s pennant race.

Maybe Hernandez isn’t done. It’s an age of miracles, and in that age I’m loath to write off anyone, especially one of the greatest pitchers I have ever seen. In this moment, though, with a ERA like a shaky credit score and the injuries mounting and the fastball fading, it feels like an end.

I recently watched a clip of Elvis Presley in 1969. The King of Rock ’n’ Roll had lost his crown, too many bad movies, too much bad music, far too little care for himself. He took the stage at the old International hotel in Las Vegas on a hot summer night a fallen monarch, the charts and the jukeboxes and the airwaves given over to artists influenced by him just as he’d been influenced by the black artists of the south.

On this night, though, there was no bad acting, no misbegotten pop songs, no what-might-have-been. Presley ripped through his hits to get to his new songs, including my personal favorite Elvis, “Suspicious Minds,” unknown in July 1969. He brought joy and soul and passion to the stage, taking the performance to a level only the greatest ones have.

Presley reclaimed his crown that night, and if his story would end tragically eight years later, it would not end without him reminding us of just who he was. The King.

I wish for that for our baseball King tonight. Let’s hope for one more moment under Seattle’s skies, roof open to a cool August evening, Cascades in the distance. Let’s hope for a diving sinker and a darting changeup and just enough fastball to make them both work. Let’s give the King’s Court reason after reason to wave their placards and cheer their ruler. Let’s hope this man can rise, one time, to a moment the way he did when he was young.

Tonight, we are all King Felix’s subjects.

--


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Friday, August 23, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, August 23, 2019 -- "The Complicated Mets"

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 nearly 25 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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--

"We talk a lot about what the industry leaders, teams like the Astros and Dodgers, do to put championship-caliber teams on the field. When it comes to player development, though, the Mets are right there with them. The Mets’ top seven players, by bWAR, have been Mets their entire MLB careers. Five were originally drafted or signed by the team, and two others, Noah Syndergaard and Zack Wheeler, were acquired as prospects in 2012 and 2011, respectively. Steven Matz, just outside that group of seven, is a Mets draftee, as is Seth Lugo, the current closer. Nine of the Mets’ 12 one-win players are products, to some extent, of their player-development program."

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, August 21, 2019 -- "TOOTBLAN Talk"

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 nearly 25 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 $49.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

--

"I want to see Cody Bellinger hit bombs and Jacob deGrom steal souls just like the next guy. I also want to see Javier Baez snap tags, and Yasiel Puig cannon throws, and Byron Buxton on a dead sprint anywhere. It’s not because I was 12 in 1983. It’s because I like a lot of baseball in my baseball game. That’s the entire argument: We want more baseball in the baseball game."

Monday, August 19, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, August 19, 2019 -- "Thinking Inside 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 nearly 25 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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--

"Gausman had already become a two-pitch pitcher in Atlanta, emphasizing his fastball and splitter and throwing just a small handful of sliders and changeups all year long. In four games out of the Reds’ bullpen, Gausman has a 2.57 ERA and has struck out 11 of the 27 batters he’s faced. His fastball velocity has jumped just a half a tick, from 94 to 94.5, but his real gain has come in attacking hitters, throwing 70% strikes out of the pen."

Saturday, August 17, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, August 17, 2019 -- "The Cubs' Problem"

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 nearly 25 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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--

"Even conceding that, though, the numbers are horrifying. Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer’s first Cubs draft was in 2012. Just four pitchers they’ve drafted have pitched even an inning for the Cubs, and in total, those pitchers have thrown 56 innings and allowed 30 runs. Rob Zastryzny is the 'success' of that group, with 34 2/3 career innings. The Cubs haven’t drafted a pitcher who has pitched for them in the majors since 2014 (James Norwood, 12 IP). "

Thursday, August 15, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, August 15, 2019 -- "Radio Thoughts"

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 nearly 25 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 $49.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

--

"I’ve been vocal in my defense of the Red Sox, in thrall to their offense and willing to believe that the pitching will be just good enough. That’s in part staying true to my preseason picks, but it’s also just thinking they’re more talented than the Rays and A’s. The A’s not getting their pitching staff bolstered by internal options yet has soured me on their chances, while the Rays’ extensive pitching injuries have been a blow. The Sox are 7 1/2 out of the second wild card, so they have work to do. They have just four games left with the Rays, all on a trip to the Trop in the season’s last ten days. Their goal has to be to make those games relevant. That and three games with the Twins are their only remaining contests against the group of wild-card contenders. The Red Sox strike me as a team that hasn’t had their 11-of-12 moment yet; it’s coming."

Monday, August 12, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, August 12, 2019 -- "The AL Central"

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 nearly 25 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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"Jose Ramirez has gotten a lot of attention given his arc. The other big Indians comeback, less so. I was calling for Jason Kipnis to lose his job back in May, as he seemed to be continuing his three-year decline (.231/.306/.398 in 2017-18). Once one of my favorite players, Kipnis seemed a good example of the new player aging curve, sharply declining at 30 and washing out of the league by 33. From the day of the linked tweet, May 9, Kipnis has hit .276/.332/.451. That’s not setting the world on fire, but combined with Ramirez’s bounceback, it’s given the Indians two additional productive lineup spots they’ve desperately needed.

Saturday, August 10, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, August 10, 2019 -- "Third Third, Pt. 5 (final)"

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 nearly 25 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 $49.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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"There’s a subset of Yankees fans somehow frustrated with Brian Cashman, who signed all of the players mentioned in the first paragraph, because he didn’t do anything at the trade deadline. The Yankees have one of the best records in baseball despite playing half a waiver wire for months at a time, and somehow Cashman comes under fire for not bringing in one of the many #3 starters available at the deadline. Even without Severino and Betances, the Yankees have plenty of pitching depth, and no external starter available in July was a difference-maker. I might prefer three innings of Deivi Garcia in a best-of-five to five innings of Matthew Boyd or Mike Minor, even before you get into future seasons.

"Brian Cashman will go into the Hall of Fame some day, and he’ll go in part because he spent 20 years not making the moves everyone said he 'had' to make. He’ll go in part because he learned from the last shopping spree (just where is Jacoby Ellsbury?) that it wasn’t worth it. He’ll go because he built the internal team to find and develop the likes of Urshela and Voit. None of that changes even if the Yankees lose a short series to one of the next two teams on this list."

Thursday, August 8, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, August 8, 2019 -- "Third Third, Pt. 4"

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 nearly 25 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 $49.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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"The Nationals go to Citi Field this weekend with a chance to step on the Mets’ necks. The Nats could put some distance between themselves, currently two games clear of the second wild-card slot, and the pack, while blunting the 'Mets momentum' stories. Whatever happens this weekend, though, the Nationals have the fourth-best team in the NL, arguably third-best, and should find themselves in no worse than the NL Wild Card Game in October, able to put one of the best pitchers in baseball on the mound in that contest. This is a dangerous team, probably the team not leading its division right now with the best chance to win the World Series."

Tuesday, August 6, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, August 6, 2019 -- "Third Third, Pt. 3"

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 nearly 25 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 $49.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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"The Mets haven’t played a good team since June 17, and they won’t see one until Friday, when the Nationals come to town in one of the biggest series remaining in the season. As fun as it's been picking on the White Sox and Pirates and Marlins, it’s this weekend, and the three weeks that follow, that will give us a sense of whether the Mets, who now have five above-average starting pitchers, can beat out the Nats, Cardinals, and Phillies for a wild-card slot. As soft as the schedule has been, that’s how tough it becomes: But for three games in Kansas City, the Mets play nothing but good teams from Friday until September 15."

Monday, August 5, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, August 2, 2019 -- "Third Third, Pt. 1"

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 nearly 25 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 $49.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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 "The Blue Jays are another large-market team that will be running an extremely low payroll in future seasons. Cot’s pegs them at $50 million next year, and unlike the White Sox, it’s hard to argue that they are ready to add high-end free agents. Rendon would be a pretty good fit, it’s just unlikely the Jays are ready to make Guerrero Jr. a designated hitter at 21. Rogers has written checks in the past -- the Jays invested $450 million in players from 2016-18 -- but you wonder, and Atkins’s words aren’t helping here, if they’d like to sit back and be profitable, even with a bad team, for a few years. This winter will be very interesting."

Thursday, August 1, 2019

Newsletter Excerpt, August 1, 2019 -- "Delayed Deadline Drama"

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.

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"No one acquisition guarantees a successful October. We’re in a stretch in which the eventual champion was helped in the playoffs by a midseason pickup, and fans wanting Felipe Vazquez or Robbie Ray or Mike Minor were quick to cite Verlander and Aroldis Chapman and Johnny Cueto, all with rings earned after deadline deals. Baseball is harder than that, though, and even adding Greinke, even creating the best playoff rotation we’re going to see this year [nods respectfully to Los Angeles], the Astros haven’t guaranteed anything except that they’re better today than they were yesterday. That’s a good day’s work."