Newsletter Excerpt, February 20, 2024 -- "Catching 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.

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After two weeks of position-player rankings in the Newsletter that didn't lend themselves to excerpts, we're back with a more conventional Newsletter, and excerpt, today.

To get once-a-week free editions of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, email freesheehannewsletter@gmail.com.

 

Today's excerpt:

 

"Rendon’s remarks made him baseball’s main character for the day, which made me think about the conundrum players face when talking to the media. We want them to be honest, but perhaps not too honest. There are 1200 players on 40-man rosters, and I guarantee you Rendon isn’t the only one who sees playing baseball as a job and not much more. Many players, most even, do love the game, but baseball is no different than any other career in that sometimes, you end up doing it because it’s what you’re good at and it’s where you can make the most money."

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, February 6, 2024 -- "Royal Witt Cheddar"

 

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.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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"Even if you just consider it a 7/148 contract, it’s a very good one for the team. They get the meat of Witt’s career, his next seven seasons through age 30, for less than market value. They get to hold a press conference this week and point to Witt and say, 'Royals fans, you can get invested in this guy. Buy the jerseys. Come to the park. Tell your kids. (p.s. Vote to give us money.)' They’ve bought a level of credibility that all the Hunter Renfroes and Adam Fraziers weren’t going to provide. "

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, February 4, 2024 -- "The White Sox"

 

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.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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"In four decades, Reinsdorf has rarely invested in the team. They did run some top-five payrolls in the wake of the 2005 title, but over the last decade, the White Sox have had more bottom-ten payrolls (four) than top-ten (one). Cot’s has them 23rd for 2024, and more than 10% of that money is going to Andrew Benintendi on what is both a) an overpay and 2) the biggest free-agent deal in franchise history. Reinsdorf’s unwillingness to act like the steward of a $2 billion asset that received a large public subsidy, and instead run his team like the Middle-Class Pirates, is the biggest reason the Sox are in this mess."

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, February 2, 2024 -- "Brewers/Orioles Trade"

 

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.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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"The era of big tanking is over, mostly because MLB reduced the benefits of being very bad. What we’re seeing now, though, is something harder to get a grip on, something more insidious. Good teams, teams with reasonable chances to win a division, are valuing future wins more than present wins. The Brewers didn’t have to trade Corbin Burnes. They did anyway."

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, January 31, 2024 -- "Rogers Centre"

 

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.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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"I wonder whether the smaller outfield was a factor here; with the fences in the gaps moved in from seven to 16 feet, outfielders had less ground to cover, and were perhaps better able to steal hits. It’s hard to separate this, however, from the Jays’ personnel improvements; they added Kevin Kiermaier and Daulton Varsho specifically to, well, steal hits. One year of games just isn’t enough to tease out whether it was the park or the players."

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, January 30, 2024 -- "Transactions Catchup"

 

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.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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"There were 11 position players 31 and older, in all of baseball, who were worth at least three bWAR last year. There were 14 in 2022, 21 in 2021, 12 in 2019. The extent to which baseball has become a twentysomethings’ game cannot be exaggerated. All of these contracts I’ve been picking at, Hoskins and Hunter Renfroe and Jeimer Candelario and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Teoscar Hernandez...all of them have in common betting on players in their thirties in a league where above-average players in their thirties are going extinct. It’s why I keep questioning Matt Chapman’s value, too."