Rob Manfred's Idea to "Fix Baseball" is Dangerous and Willfully Dense

New MLB Commish Rob Manfred enjoying the smell of his hands
Source: Hardball Talk

Today Rob Manfred officially took over as the MLB commissioner, ending the reign of The Lich King Bud Selig, who has ruled the land since 1992. Bud oversaw the players strike, he saw Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa using steroids to save baseball, then he decried their use and wanted the game “cleaned up.” Now he’s 80 and retired, and set to make $6 million a year to sit around and be old.

His replacement is Rob Manfred, and if lazy Wikipedia research tells me anything, it’s that Manfred joined MLB’s circle as an attorney for the owners in the labor strike. It’s not surprising, then, that after he became MLB’s COO, he was going to be Selig’s successor.

And that happened today, there was no last second change of heart from the commish, he’s riding off into the sunset. The problem is with Manfred. In an interview with ESPN’s Karl Ravech, he said the following:

“The second set of changes… [is] related to injecting additional offense into the game. Things like, for example, eliminating shifts.”

Wait, what? Ravech asks him if he’s really planning on eschewing the “forward-thinking, SABRmetric defensive shifts,” and Manfred responds with a head nod.

“That’s what I’m talking about, yes.”

“Let’s eliminate them?” Ravech asks. The new commissioner again nods his head in the affirmative.

The MLB commissioner believes that defense is killing the game, then. He wants massive slugfests and higher scores. This might be one of the more egregious stances a commissioner can take when it comes to admitting that defense is a key part of the game, too. He’s basically stating that it’s unfair for the mean defendermans to play well and stop the valiant hitters from fulfilling their God given right to hit the ball in the exact same spot repeatedly. Let’s not coach hitters to beat the shift… that would be too hard. Let’s just stop the arms race between offense and defense right here.

Manfred is proposing a unilateral SALT Treaty. The defense can no longer build up their armaments and respond to the hitters. Instead they must sit idly by as the batters become better and better. They must impotently stand by as hitters hit the ball to the exact same spot, every time. A spot that’s in their no-fly zone.

What, instead? They add white chalk outlines to the field? What if a defender leaves that box? Does it qualify as a ball? A balk? On a hit, does it become a ground rule double? That is artificial inflation of hitting statistics.

It’s profoundly idiotic, but Commissioner Manfred thinks it’s exactly what the game needs. Except it isn’t. I took a quick look at fangraphs.com, and pulled up the league BABIP (batting average on balls in play) for the last decade. It hasn’t appreciably changed in the last decade, including after the defensive shifts have taken over and ruined the game. It’s stayed comfortably between .295 and .303, with the median and mode both being .297 and the average being .298. That means that it’s been pretty much .297 for the last decade. If defensive shifts were causing the suppressed run-scoring environment that is blooming, then it would bear out in these numbers. It would show that the shift is making outs where there were previously hits. The batting average on balls in play would decline. Oddly enough, it went up in 2014 (just slightly).

What, then, is the problem? Well, batting average is down because a lot of players flail at garbage and pitchers are getting better and better at making sure that they throw enticing-looking garbage. The pitchers are currently winning the offense vs. defense arms duel and instead of, I don’t know, making the hitters better, the new commish wants the pitchers & defense to play with one hand tied behind their collective back.

I hope this is the only bad idea this commish has, he has some good ones (pitch timers, for example), but this is just pant-on-head silly and willfully dense as to what’s actually going on in the game. This could be a dangerous reign for Major League Baseball, which is a scary thought considering the last commissioner almost destroyed the game.

Looking at the Giants' Playoff Odds, Part 2

Pro Tip for Giants fans Wednesday

Maybe I’m cursed? I thought the Giants would be able to continue their moderate success of late as they went down to AT&T Park South in Petco (Giants fans routinely “take over” the park), but instead they were swept without a second thought by the Padres. The Dodgers continued their dominance, winning 3 of 4 in Chicago, averaging 9.25 runs per game over that series.

The Giants square off against the Boys in Blue to begin this week, and with the Dodgers’ number sitting at 3 (combined Dodgers wins and Giants losses), the Giants need to take 2 out of 3 for the Dodgers to not take the division against their traditional rivals.

Jake Peavy (3-0, 0.93 ERA, 15 K last 3 starts) vs. Dan Haren (2-1, 3.00 ERA, 16 K last 3 starts)
On July 26, the Giants sat at 58-47 when they traded a couple of minor league arms for the former Padres ace. He’d been struggling compared to his prior stint in the NL West, and since coming back to the friendly confines of the Best Coast, he has amassed a 2.16 ERA, 1.050 WHIP & 6.9 K/9 over ten games with the Giants. He has provided a much-needed shot in the arm for the Giants’ pitching staff that has seen the demotion of Tim Lincecum, the death of Matt Cain and the implosion of Tim Hudson. He will pitch well in this game, and give the Giants a chance to win this one.

Unfortunately, the Giants face off against a guy who has been as good or better than Haren over the same stint. Since August 1st, Haren’s starts are punctuated by a 6 ER effort to start it, and a 5 ER effort his last time out (at Colorado, so toss that one out). In between those two starts, he hasn’t given up more than 3 ER in any given start and a 1.70 ERA, with a 34/7 K/BB ratio. The Giants are a free-swinging squad and with the high-K rate of Dan Haren, the Giants will struggle to get anything going. This combined with the Dodgers’ offense picking up tells me that this won’t be pretty.

LOSS. 2-4.

Madison Bumgarner (2-0, 2.37 ERA, 15 K last 3 starts) vs. Zack Greinke (2-0, 3.18 ERA, 14 K last 3 starts)
With a loss on Monday, this game will be for the Giants’ lives in the NL West race. Luckily, they have their ace on the mound for the game. Bumgarner is a Dodger murderer in his career. Against the Bums, he has held them to a 0.582 OPS, which is flat bad. He strikes the Dodgers out 24.8% of the time he faces a guy with a white LA on his helmet. As a Giants ace he should, and does, dominate their biggest rival.  He won’t disappoint on Tuesday, and will twirl a gem for what is likely his last start of the regular season (they’ll likely have nothing to play for this weekend).

Up against Bumgarner is Zack Greinke, who has been great in his own right this season. Greinke against the Giants this year has been his usual dominant self, and fewer 5 ER starts all season than Hudson has in September (more on that below). Greinke is also prone to crumbling in the big game, and can easily lose focus. With the Giants playing for more than the Dodgers, they will (hopefully) eke this one out.

WIN. 3-2.

Tim Hudson (0-3, 10.32 ERA, 5 K in last 3 starts vs. Clayton Kershaw (3-0, 2.57 ERA, 26 K last 3 starts)
LOSS. Tears will flow. The Giants’ fans lamentations and gnashing of teeth that follow this game will cause the heavens themselves to shudder. Tim Hudson is rocked for 35 ER in 0.1 IP, and the Giants are forced to play against Kershaw until they don’t strike out, resulting in the first 33 K, 11 inning game. Hunter Pence, frustratedly, throws his bat at the ball as it leaves Kershaw’s hand, resulting (somehow) in a double and the game is mercifully ended. Dodgers win this game and the division.

Okay maybe it won’t go down that way, but I can’t think of a more lopsided way for the Dodgers to win the division than the most frustrating pitcher over the last couple of weeks versus His Grace, Clayton of Houses NL and AL, First of His Name, King of the Mounds and the First Pitch, Lord of the Six Divisions, and Protector of the Strike Zone.

I know I originally said this was going to be a three-part series, but I thought the Giants would hold up their end of the bargain and not stink up the joint in San Diego. This will be the last of my Giants’ regular season series breakdowns for 2014 (barring an unlikely sweep). I’ll take a deep, close look at the Wild Card play-in game later this week, but for now, try to not cry when the Dodgers celebrate on Wednesday.

Looking at the Giants' Playoff Odds, Part 1

Drumroll, please...

With their win yesterday and a Dodgers loss to the Rockies, the Giants currently sit at 84-68, and 2 games behind the NL West-leading LA Dodgers with ten games to play. They’re also the clubhouse leader for one of the two wildcard slots in the NL, up 2.5 games on the Pirates, who are, in turn, 2.5 games up on the Brewers. This makes them 5 games up on missing the playoffs with 10 to play. As I write this, however, the Dodgers are currently losing to the Chicago Cubs. And then I had to go back in and put this sentence in because the Dodgers took the lead back. For the sake of simplicity, I am going to assume everything is as the game started, with the Giants 2 games back of the Dodgers.

As of right now, MLB.com’s Baseball Prospectus-powered playoff probability odds chart has the Giants at a 99% chance of making the playoffs and the Dodgers a 100% chance… Forget the playoffs, can the Giants recover from their June (and July) swoon and actually win the division? Let’s take a look, shall we?

First, the Giants have won 10 of 16 games so far in September, including taking two of three from the Tigers and sweeping the Diamondbacks. Major contributions from youngsters Joe Panik, Andrew Susac and Matt Duffy alongside the bolstering of the pitching corps with the addition of Jake Peavy and Yusmeiro Petit to the rotation have brought the Giants back from the brink of collapse. Up on the docket is likely the most important ten games of the season for the Giants. It’s split, and setup pretty well, for the Giants to control their destiny. Their magic number sits at nine, so if the Giants win out, it will include three Dodgers losses, giving them the division with a couple of games to go.

This will be part one of a three-part series, each outlining the upcoming series and how it will change the Giants’ post-season outlook.

Next up is the Padres, so let’s take a look how this series is likely to shape up!

Game One
Tim Hudson (9-11; 3.41 ERA) vs. Odrisamer Dispaigne (3-7; 3.63 ERA)

Hudson is the second Timmy this year to have a sudden collapse (though Lincecum’s was years in the making), and was bounced hard after giving up 6 earned runs in ONE INNING against the Dodgers on Saturday. Luckily, the Padres aren’t the Dodgers. Hudson’s last three starts have been absolute disasters, but he was walking into buzz saws in all three. At Coors Field and at the Tigers are unenviable starts for anybody to have to make. Hudson has faced the Padres twice this year, once in AT&T and once at Petco Park. In his start at Petco, Huddy managed to hold the Pads to three hits and one run over six innings.

Despaigne started off strong, but like Hudson, he has gotten lit up lately. He has given up 19 earned runs in his last 6 starts for a cool 5.18 ERA. Four of these starts, however, were on the road. Petco Park is a notorious pitchers’ park, and Despaigne benefits greatly. In his 7 home starts, he has only given up only 12 runs; compare this to his 8 starts and 32 runs & things don’t look good for the Giants.

Both pitchers will go solidly late into the game, and the Giants will take advantage of a pedestrian bullpen (now that they have traded Huston Street). The Giants’ relief pitchers carry bloated ERAs over the last couple of weeks, but solely because of the 17-0 shellacking the Dodgers laid on the Giants. Overall, I like the Giants bullpen over the Padres 'pen. This one goes to the Giants.

Prediction: 4-2 win

Game Two
Yusmeiro Petit (3-3; 5.18 ERA as a starter) vs. Andrew Cashner (4-7; 2.20 ERA)

Petit replaced Lincecum in the rotation, and since then, he has feasted on positive matchups and been absolutely destroyed by better competition. It’s very telling that he is the current record holder for most consecutive perfect innings and still has a mid-threes ERA for the season. In his last 4 starts, he has allowed a combined 2 earned runs in his two good matchup starts (vs. Colorado & vs. Arizona) and has a combined 11 runs in his other 2 starts (at Colorado & vs. the Dodgers).  Luckily, the Padres are a positive matchup for opposing pitchers; they’ve managed only 82 runs over the last 30 days, just about half of the #1 team, the Angels (166 runs), good for third worst in the league.

There’s only one problem, the Giants are facing an incredible pitcher in Andrew Cashner. His season has been almost an afterthought as the hurler missed a couple months with injury. He hasn’t given up more than 4 runs all season, and in his 5 starts since his return, he’s given up only 7 earned runs. He’s a pitch-to-contact ace, a 21^st century ace, who uses his stuff to suppress hits and the strikeouts are an afterthought.

Petit will give a valiant effort and Cashner will roll. This one will likely get turned off in the 7^th inning after Sandoval rolls another weak grounder to second base.

Prediction: 3-1 loss

Game Three
Ryan Vogelsong (8-11; 3.98 ERA) vs. Ian Kennedy (11-13; 3.80 ERA)

If you want the platonic ideal of a couple of middle-to-end of rotation starters, you’d end up somewhere between Ryan Vogelsong & Ian Kennedy, depending if you want more middle of the rotation (Kennedy) or 4^th or 5^th starter (Vogelsong). This game was an interesting one for me to try to figure out, but let’s give it a shot. Vogelsong, like Petit, seems to be a boom or bust player for the Giants. He’s given up 4, 0, 8, 2 and 3 runs in his last 5 starts. Before that, he was smooth sailing, allowing 6 runs in his prior 4 starts.

Kennedy is much more consistent, giving up 3, 4 or 5 runs in 6 of his last 7 starts. His strikeouts have still been there, but he has been giving up a good amount of runs to go with those strikeouts. While most of these starts have been on the road, he’s been seemingly immune to the park suppressing tendencies of Petco Park.

The Giants will win this one in the highest-scoring game of the series. The runs will total more than the rest of the series combined.

Prediction: 7-4 win.

Hopefully this has been a good read for you all! After this series, if things go the way I believe, the Giants will be closer to the NL West crown with 7 games to go (provided the Dodgers don't just keep winning...). I will be back after the Padres series to look at the real series for all the marbles: Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday at the Dodgers. If one team sweeps that series, it’s pretty much their division. This is the home stretch. This is why we watch baseball!

Go Giants!

Throwing A Wet Blanket on Brandon Belt

As the second weekend of baseball winds down, Brandon Belt stands tied with Mark Trumbo and Pedro Alvarez for the most home runs in baseball with 5. Now Trumbo, thanks to the Australia series, has done it in more games, but the three of them are the home run leaders right now. By all accounts, Belt is a lock to hit 25 home runs, and maybe even more. People are buzzing about Belt’s power, but maybe they should pump the brakes a little bit on Brandon Belt. There are a few reasons why we should probably temper our expectations for Mr. Belt. His peripherals, the park factor and the nature of his home runs lead me to believe that this early-season surge may add a dinger or two to his year-end total, but people calling for a 30+ home run year may be slightly disappointed. I anticipated a breakout for Belt, but to somewhere in the 22-25 home run range. He just happened to get a big bunch of those out of the way early on.

First, his peripherals. Belt has taken one walk this year in 49 plate appearances. One. Compare that to his 14 strikeouts this year and you can see that Belt is going up there lacking his trademark patience at the plate (he has a career 23.2 walk rate, meaning he gets a walk between every 4 and 5 plate appearances) in favor of trying to hit balls out. This rate is completely unsustainable, and there are only a handful of people in the league with as many strikeouts as belt with one or fewer walks:

Chris Johnson, Khris Davis, Everth Cabrera, BJ Upton, Josh Donaldson & Brad Miller

None of these players really profile out as superb hitters, especially Upton. Miller is just learning the league and Johnson is notoriously bad at taking walks. Krush Davis’s big knock was that he flat out cannot take a walk to save his life. When you look at the K/BB ratio, Belt is not in good company.  I know what you can say to this, and that is “small sample size!” Well my question to you is: what makes this small sample size statistic different than Belt’s ISO that is over 100 points higher than his career average, or the fact that one out of every three of his fly balls went over the wall. While Belt’s output thus far has been impressive, it’s been created by an unsustainable approach at the plate.

Second, Brandon Belt plays in one of the most notoriously spacious ballparks in baseball. Ask Madison Bumgarner and Brandon Crawford, a home run that is a home run in nearly every park isn’t a home run in AT&T Park. Bumgarner hit a shot to the warning track and Crawford hit a massive shot to Triples Alley, neither of which left the yard. Both would have been out in most ballparks, but AT&T isn’t most ballparks. In every year since 2011, AT&T has landed in the bottom five in home runs per game. This will be a problem for Belt going forward, as four of his five home runs were on the road, and at least one, maybe two, would not be a home run at AT&T park, as the following overlay shows:

I guess that last paragraph was sort of a two-fer. AT&T Park won’t sap Belt’s power; I anticipate his power surge causing his doubles to go through the roof. I just wouldn’t expect his hits to land on the other side of the fence as often as they have through the first couple weeks of the season. While I hope I’m wrong, I want to caution Giants fans to not lose their mind when it comes to Brandon Belt’s potential this season.

Five Questions–MLB–Los Angeles Dodgers

Well--looks like my Giants post was saved over. Here's the Dodgers one, with the updated count. I'm trying to recover the Giants one but we'll see...

Taking a break from writing a about a team I love, this one is about a team I must, by contract, hate. The Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers were sold by the reality-tv-worthy and cash-strapped McCourts last year to a group led by NBA legend Magic Johnson. What transpired afterwards appeared to be Magic Johnson playing out a real-life fantasy baseball team (from 2010). They traded for SS Hanley Ramirez, 1B Adrian Gonzalez, OF Carl Crawford & SP Josh Beckett. Then in the off-season they signed SP Zach Greinke to a massive free agent contract.  Johnson certainly loosened the purse strings, adding to OF superstar Matt Kemp and ace Clayton Kershaw.
The Dodgers tooled up because they looked up in the division and saw their rivals leading the way and taking home the title two out of the last three years. The new ownership immediately committed themselves to winning. The only problem is every single one of the players I named, except for Clayton Kershaw, is surrounded by question marks. Their ceiling, with that talent, is going all the way. The only problem is their floor; the question marks surrounding those players could lead them all the way to fourth place in the division (nobody is finishing behind the Rockies in most scenarios).

1. Do Carl Crawford, Zach Greinke and Hanley Ramirez All Bounce Back From Injury?
Holy moly! That’s a lot of money tied up in a lot of injured players. Except for the Yankees, that is probably the most amount of money spent to be hurt or questionably effective due to injury at the beginning of the season.

Crawford is poised to start the season in Left Field, as he is already DHing and made his in-field debut on Saturday in the Cactus League. His season ended last year after getting Tommy John Surgery on his elbow. Prior to that, he posted a ho-hum slash line of .282/.306/.479 in his short stint with the Red Sox. He is known as a lethal speed/power combo but only had 5 stolen bases and 3 homeruns in 31 games. That paces out as roughly 25 stolen bases and 15 homeruns—after posting only 18 and 11 the year before. Crawford was not the same player he was for the Rays after he signed his massive contract. Hopefully for the Dodgers, the time away from the game has cleared Crawford’s head and he can return to form.  The downside to Crawford is he could, potentially, be set now that he’s had his payday. He was struggling mightily in Boston before the injury, but time will tell if he’s over it.

Greinke and Hanley’s injuries are far more recent, and moderately more concerning going into the season for the boys in Chavez Ravine. Greinke felt some pain in his arm but he’s worked through it and by all reports he is doing okay now. We’ve heard that before, the only question is if this becomes a long-term issue that he tries to pitch through before requiring Tommy John, a la 2012 Brian Wilson.  Hanley broke his thumb in the World Baseball Classic but does not have any muscle damage to his hand. The Dodgers hope he can return to form without any issues.

The 2012 Dodgers have a lot of payroll tied up in players who have recently been hurt or are coming off injury. The rest of their team has a few questions, as well.

2. Which Matt Kemp and Adrian Gonzalez Show Up in 2013?
No matter how you slice it, even with Hanley Ramirez, these two are supposed to be the cornerstones of the offense. The only problem is that both these players had big 2011 campaigns that they followed up with disappointing ones in 2012. Gonzalez’s was especially putrid as he fell flat on his face in Boston. Kemp was disappointing after a near 40/40 season but he can hand wave that away with injuries. Gonzalez came alive a bit returning to the NL West after doing poorly for the Red Sox and the buzz saw that is the AL East. He should be more like Gonzalez in San Diego than the one who stunk it up in Boston.

The Dodgers can soar or absolutely plummet in 2012, and so much of their success or failure rides on these two players.

3. What About the Old Arms?
Chris Capuano, Aaron Harang & Ted Lilly make up the theoretical 6th, 7th and 8th starters for the Dodgers—bringing in Josh Beckett and Zach Greinke while having these guys on contract will cause this issue. That’s a lot of old talent to be sitting around twiddling their thumbs, maybe coming in for spot starts or middle relief. This is an interesting problem for the Dodgers to have, because if they’re buyers or sellers at the deadline, one or two of these guys can be traded. They’re all serviceable 4th or 5th starters around the league, and their usage is an interesting problem for the Dodgers to have. How they manage this surplus may determine the fate of their season.

4. League vs. Jansen?
Now, I think the closer role is garbage; you should save your best relief pitchers for high-leverage situations, whether or not it happens in the ninth inning. This is becoming the prevalent thought, thank God.

Brandon League was given a rather large contract in the offseason to be The Guy, which is my preferred nomenclature to The Closer. He was given the big bucks to go into high leverage situations and do the dirty work. The only problem is that the Dodgers had a guy who was already pretty good at that on their roster in Kenley Jansen. Now, Jensen isn’t making nearly as much money as League; the reason this is a question is can they turn away from League after committing $22.5 million to him over the next three seasons and turn to Jansen. Not learning when to cut bait on who is supposed to be your high leverage guy can cost a team a season, a manager a job, and a city a viable team (see Miami Marlins and the Heath Bell Problem).

5. Can They Catch Up?
The Dodgers are starting in a hole with Hanley Ramirez sidelined and Juan Uribe sliding into his place in the starting lineup. Uribe is… not very good. He’s so bad he escaped the Brian Sabean Special. It will be interesting to see if by the time the Ramirez returns if the Dodgers have held themselves together with bubblegum and popsicle sticks long enough that they aren’t in an irreparable hole. The second Wild Card spot will definitely help them here. If they fall apart before Ramirez comes back, they are still talented enough to try to vie for that fifth playoff spot. 

Five questions for the Dodgers for 2013… They are the team that’s most difficult to place. They have immeasurable talent in all facets of their team, but all players come with a huge question mark. Not even addressed is Greinke’s history of mental health issues, alongside all the physical ailments and the players coming off down years. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Dodgers languishing in the bottom 10 of the league, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they hoist the trophy in October. They have the most on their line when addressing their questions.

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