Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 417: Baseball Banter for Opening Day

Episode Date: March 31, 2014

Ben and Sam cover a range of topics, including Mike Trout, Hanley Ramirez, and who’s hitting cleanup for the Marlins.

No, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds has come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. Good morning, and welcome to episode 417 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives presented by the BaseballReference.com Play Index. I am Ben Lindberg, joined as always by Sam Miller. And we are off script. We're free to be effectively wild again. I don't even know what we're talking about today. This is exciting and scary. Yeah. Were you tempted to go back to that old crutch, the email,

and answer that one guy's email that we got? Yes, we did get an email that just asked us to, just asked us what we thought would happen this season. Just, you know, generally what will happen. How do you see 2014 MLB season playing out? Thanks. Yes. Thanks to the team, I assume.

Good question. But I don't think we have time to fully address that today. Follow along with us throughout the season, and we will talk about what we see from day to day. Did you watch baseball tonight? Watched a little baseball. I didn't watch all of it. I DVR'd it and might go back to it,

but now I know what happens and everything. I'm kind of against the opening night game. Why is that? I'm okay with the opening series abroad because it's good for baseball to try to

expand its audience. It's sort of weird to have games over a week before the actual season starts, but it's sort of weird to have games you know over a week before the actual season starts but it's sort of a necessary evil and you got to give the players time to adjust fine that's okay i kind of like just the the onslaught of baseball on opening day without the little lead-in on sunday night i don't want the taste it's. It's like people who exchange gifts on Christmas Eve. They're all monsters. I think that, to me, the first game of the day is the best game.

If you have one game of baseball in a day, you've had a pretty good day. And two games is better, and 15 is best. But one gets you most of the way there. And so to me, having any other day of the year that has a baseball game is pretty good. I will say this, that I really like the, I don't care about the health of the sport at all. So whether it's good for baseball to go abroad does not matter to me one bit. You depend on baseball baseball it's your career

it's not it's not going anywhere though like i don't really i don't really care if there's an australian league in 45 years you know like how does that affect me um but i really like the i actually do really like and i think it's an accident that i like this but i really like the series a week in advance i know a lot of people hate it I think a lot of people hate it because it sort of seems like poorly thought out and weird and like like kind of like bumbling fumbling Bud Sealy doing some weirdo thing again you know yeah like can't can't get his act together like it fits this narrative of Bud Sealy is just being like I of, I don't know, like, not thinking that one all the way through.

But I actually think that it's brilliant because, you know, most of the time that baseball does things new to build their audience, they're at the expense of hardcore fans like you and I. And we sort of, you know, we grind our teeth because we know that, you know, there's nothing, we have no leverage because we're coming back no matter what. And so they just get to basically ignore what we want and, you know, cater to the broader audience that they're going for. And I feel like sort of accidentally this is the opposite. This has, like, no interest whatsoever to the general fan in the United States.

Like, people, like, literally don't know those games happened and it's super duper weird that baseball would open in games at 1 a.m my time 4 a.m your time that nobody knows are happening and yet when we're on when when we're up at 1 a.m and 4 a.m as we were as we were and there's like 37 people watching it. And you get this baseball game that is a total bonus game. You were not mentally, like your countdown was to tomorrow. This thing just popped out of nowhere and gave you a big hug. And so to me, that is like a total gift for the hardcore fan. It made my week last week. It made the last week a lot easier.

for the hardcore fan. It made my week last week. It made the last week a lot easier. I know that Selig was not trying to give me this wonderful experience at 1 a.m., but he has. I like it. I liked it when they were in Japan and we got to see Cespedes a week before

our dads and uncles did. Yeah, I'm okay with it. In this first game, what happened to Blue Cross of California? They blew the game. They're never going to get a nickname at this rate. Not at this rate. But yeah, you're right. It's Blue Shield. Oh, Blue Shield, right. Yes. I kind of felt going into this season that the Dodgers, as good as their rotation is and as good as their lineup is,

their bullpen is really where you look at them and you're just like, you cannot. Like, you have way too much money. Like, my father-in-law, for instance, instance, he has a basement full of fine scotch and various cognacs. He is diabetic and can't have alcohol at all. He doesn't drink at all. He needs to buy something. He wants to buy something. He started buying nice bottles of liquor that he can't drink in a million years. Like he would immediately die if he drank one of those. And I feel like that's the Dodgers bullpen.

Yeah. A basement full of alcohol that you can't even use. So anyway, yeah, I don't know. I didn't see the game. I listened to the game. And so I heard it. That's your preferred method of consuming a game? It is my preferred method, but it's also I don't have any choice when there's a national telecast on a Sunday night.

So I didn't get to see Brian Wilson, but, yeah, I could sort of – I mean, having watched him in Australia, not knowing whether the radar gun was accurate, having watched him in Australia, I could see him being, like, off the team by the end of May. It wouldn't shock me if he had nothing. It wouldn't shock me if he was really super good in his closing games in two years for some team,

but it wouldn't shock me. It would shock me if the bullpen doesn't get a nickname. Did you read what Scott Boris said about Bryce Harper? Nope. I was wondering if you can interpret this quote for me as a scholar of Mike Trout and all Mike Trout matters. Boris, I guess, was, I don't know whether he was asked about Trout's extension or he chose to comment on it, but he was talking about whether it would influence what Bryce Harper would do and whether he would be willing to consider an extension. So Boris said, I have the pleasure

and privilege of watching Mike Trout play every night. I think he's a very special cup of tea for which he is deserving of a completely different brew. While few, I definitely consider Bryce Harper as part of the next generation of elite brand of teas. Certainly as a studied connoisseur, I may hold a differing opinion as to the availability, demand, and value of tea futures. First of all, that's not Scott Boris. That's Jeff Sullivan.

It sounds like Jeff Sullivan, but yeah. Secondly, is he saying that he is a connoisseur of fine teas? Or was he still... It's hard to know where the metaphor... If there was any accuracy in that metaphor. I'm not sure whether any of it really pertains to tea. I tried to make Scott Boris metaphor a a meme and it failed like a twitter a twitter thing and it failed uh-huh this is a good one that is a good one uh so what

did you want me to say uh well i don't know i wanted you to interpret what it means i don't know what it means i guess it means that bryce harper is not going to sign an extension yeah it sounds like he thinks that uh let's see i'm reading this again i have the pleasure and privilege of watching mike trout play every night i think he's a very special cup of tea for which he is deserving of a completely different brew while few i definitely what i think he's saying while next generation of elite brand of teas. There's an S missing from brand, I think. from brand, I think. Certainly, as a studied connoisseur, I may hold a differing opinion as to the availability, demand, and value of tea futures. So what kind of tea is Mike Trout then?

So I think that what he's saying is that he has a different opinion than Mike Trout's agent about the rarity of such teas. And that I think he might, I'm not sure he's saying this, he might be saying that he is a connoisseur, a studied connoisseur, and that maybe Craig Landis, Mike Trout's agent, is not. That perhaps Boris is saying that he is. So you think there's shots here? I'm not saying that for sure, but it could be. Because he's saying...

He's identifying himself as a studied connoisseur. And then saying, immediately saying, because of that, he has a different opinion as to the availability of tea. And so, therefore, you might think that he's saying that a non-studied, non-connoisseur got this one wrong. But yeah, it doesn't sound like, I mean, even if Boris weren't Price Harper's agent, this does not seem like the sort of deal that Harper would,

like Harper feels like the sort of guy who desperately wants to go year to year. Do you think that if Boris were Mike Trout's agent, wants to go year to year. Do you think that if Boris were Mike Trout's agent, that he would have signed any extension, an extension with these precise terms? Do you think that he would have convinced Trout to care more about the money? Well, Ben, we can't say. We don't know that. It's ridiculous to speculate on such a thing. He's a team metaphor. ridiculous to to speculate on such a thing i use a metaphor well boris has uh had plenty of clients uh seeping uh in in hot water and then and then been removed uh put on a uh steeping yes oh gosh that's embarrassing yeah anyway boris has had plenty of clients sign extensions so i wouldn't rule out that that he could have signed an. He's had a bunch of clients sign extensions. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know that – I mean, you're asking me to say that Craig Landis, what, like failed to adequately convey to Mike Trout his true value? I don't know. I mean, I don't have any problem with

Mike Trout accepting any kind of contract he wants to. I guess if I were a players union executive or maybe some other player who stood to make more, if Mike Trout got a bigger deal, I don't know, maybe I'd be a little annoyed or something. but I mean, I can't really fault anyone for taking the security, even if he probably cost himself some money in the long term. I mean, he's still a many millionaire and will be a many more millionaire when he hits free agency at age 28 if he wants to. Yeah, I noticed in your transaction analysis that you mentioned the security thing too. And many people have mentioned the security thing. And I think that the security is, I don't know.

I feel like if there was anything to tell Mike Trout as his agent, it's that he needs to stop thinking about security. He is secure. he was already secure like i'm i i also have no issue with him signing this i i i feel like uh you know as as i wrote about a couple weeks ago when it was clear that this move was happening trout seems like like it is part of trout's persona to me to take less than he's worth to basically not make drama out of things and and not necessarily to be he basically had a quote where he was like the owner put 33 million out there and that's a big number gee yeah exactly uh and like this goes back to when he signed um you know as a draft pick um he signed

for slot even though it seemed that there that he was getting messages that he could definitely hold out for more. And the Angels, when they drafted him, were sort of nervous that he wasn't going to hold to his promise to sign for slot. And he's just like, oh, yeah, absolutely. And he signed for slot like 40 minutes later. I don't know if this is part of his personality or if this is just part of the character that he likes to portray to us, but he's just not a guy who wants to be seen grinding to get every last inch that the world owes him. And for that reason, I feel like people love him and will love him for a lot longer than we would otherwise love a guy of his talent and youth and compensation. I tweeted this a couple of nights ago, but as soon as he gets paid what he's worth, half

of the world will hate him. I don't think he wants to be hated and I don't think it's good for him to be hated. The security in a way is that he just bought six years of being beloved. Very few people make it to the end of their career in one piece. This is a pretty good way for him to get there. He will get paid. As for the security of being fabulously wealthy, I just think he was there already. There was virtually no way. The only thing that keeps him from getting, you know, 12 to 15 million or so as an arbitration guy next year is an injury that actually ends his career immediately. Like, if he's just, like, if he breaks, if he, you know, there's no injury that he rehabs from that keeps him from setting arbitration records next year. He was definitely going to get paid.

He was so close, he was too close to arbitration to start having to worry about not being rich. I don't know if you can still do this, but there have been guys who have taken out insurance policies on themselves. Boris Clients, in fact. Boris's first client. Scherzer apparently has one. Does he? So I read, yeah.

Yeah, so when I wrote about Boris's first client for you a couple years ago, he had an insurance policy taken out. So there are definitely ways that he could have secured his riches forever. So, you know, there are definitely ways for that he could have secured his riches forever. And so I don't I mean, you know, the first million is the most important and and they get less important after that. And and I just it's really hard for me to envision almost any scenario that's got a greater than, say, one in a thousand chance that doesn't see him making at least 40 or 50 million dollars in his career and if he really wanted the security you know what he could have done is he could have just um you know he he could have probably negotiated just his arbitration years with the angels and taken you know maybe a 10 million dollar discount instead of what looks to me to be like probably like a 60 million dollar discount from what i read something about six was the minimum that the angels wanted seven or eight and yes they wanted seven or eight but six was the the minimum they would talk about i don't know whether that's actually the case if he had offered a big enough discount yeah well i mean that's there that's i i assume that by the time that quote got out they were already talking i mean they had they were they were they were already discussing things i mean the the the terms had already kind of been agreed upon,

and now they're just negotiating around the edges. If Trout had gone in and said, you know, you're not getting one year of free agency out of me, now let's talk about saving you some money in my arbitration years, you know, that's a different discussion, and I'm sure they would have gone forward with that. Did you bring a topic today? It feels so good

to banter again. I could banter all day. I have a topic, but not one that I'm sure we can speak for more than six minutes about. So I'm glad you stalled. I'm glad you had so little faith in me. I've got more banter, but we can do what you intended to do. So Chris Singleton mentioned on the radio broadcast tonight that most people aren't even really aware that Hanley Ramirez is a free agent at the end of the year. And he was so good for the Dodgers last year. I mean, on a per-game basis, the 100 or so games or 80 or whatever games he played, he was as good as Trout last year.

He was better than anybody else in baseball besides Trout. whatever games he played, he was as good as Trout last year. He was better than anybody else in baseball besides Trout. And, you know, he's a shortstop who's got a history of being an elite ball player, you know, an MVP runner-up. What is he, 30? So he's not, you know, he's not that old. And he's going to be a, you know, he's going to be a free agent shortstop in six months.

And it is... Quote-unquote shortstop. Okay. Sure. Fine. shortstop in six months and it is it quote unquote shortstop uh okay uh sure fine quote unquote shortstop uh he uh so but anyway the point is uh that he hasn't signed an extension you haven't heard discussions about an extension uh it's not like there was some spring training talk and then the discussions caved in or anything like that. I heard he did say, I think, he made some comment about wanting to be a Dodger for life. And there was like, I think there was maybe some extremely preliminary something or someone said, you know,

we'd be open to talking about it, that kind of thing. I don't think it got serious or at least it wasn't reported that it did. 75 of his 83 starts last year were at shortstop, and he was a plus-three defender by defensive run saved. Hmm. Hmm. Just saying.

No. Can we just agree to say quote-unquote, quote-unquote shortstop? Let's put the quotes in quotes. All right. All right. So anyway, I guess the question is, why do you think his impending free agency isn't a bigger deal? And do you think that he is in line to get something you know crazy and cano like or is he just going to be uh damaged goods for a few more years because of the 2011 and 2012 seasons uh i think maybe it's

not a bigger deal because it's the dodgers and i kind of figure that if they want to keep him they'll just keep him even if he's even if they have to outbid every other team to do it. And maybe with him it makes sense not to do it now. Maybe you want to see what happens this season. If you know that you can be the highest bidder if you need to be. I don't know whether, I mean, if he has a full healthy season but plays just, you know, pretty well. Not at the crazy MVP pace he played at last season.

Does that really increase his price or decrease his price? I don't know. He proves that he's healthy and can stay on the field for a full year. But probably if he does that, he's not going to hit 345, 402 and slug 640 again. And maybe, I don't know, with the shoulder issues that he's had in the past and other health problems, maybe you just kind of wait and see how he does. And I don't know if the Dodgers, well, I was going to say they could just sign someone else, but there are pretty few, there are really no other free agents position players

of that caliber available next winter, I think. It's looking like one of the weakest position player classes of the last several years, as I wrote recently. So if he does have a full healthy season and he makes it and he sticks it shortstop all year and looks okay, then he could get a giant contract, I think, just because of talent scarcity. Yeah, what would he have gotten if he were a free agent this year? track, I think, just because of talent scarcity. Yeah, what would he have gotten if he were a free agent this year? Well, he would have been a qualifying offer guy, but he would have been clearly the best at that position on the market. I don't know, I'm trying to think of the comparables with what Peralta got.

I don't know. I would say he'd have gotten... More or less than Shinsu Chi. That's exactly what I was just thinking. I'll say less. Well, shorter, I think. Shorter terms, maybe. Why do you think he would get less than Jacob Ellsbury? Because there's a very similar... At this point, there's sort of a very similar trajectory for their careers, right? Yeah, there are some similarities there.

Both had very good years last year hanley's was much much better but you know they both had very good years last year and before that both had been badly hurt in you know two previous seasons two of the previous three and uh poor i feel like galsbury's injuries are they seem like they would be less worrisome going forward kind of like they were more more freakish accident sort of things um you know like a collision and maybe maybe he didn't come back very quickly from it maybe that tells you something about his healing powers but um i don't know the the shoulder issues that hanley had seemed more worrisome or more threatening than what happened to Ellsbury. And his most recent injury is more recent than Ellsbury's.

And I don't know, just maybe concerned that he would have to move off the position earlier than Ellsbury would. move off the position earlier than Ellsbury would. He had 336 plate appearances last year and finished 8th in MVV voting. I know, it was a crazy year. So let me ask you this. This is the comment for Hanley Ramirez in the BP annual this year. This is the final sentence of it. He's been hurt in two of the past three seasons and mediocre in two of the past three seasons,

and it's not a stretch to say that he'll double his next contract by being neither in 2014. If he's healthy and very good this year, does he get 160 million? And if he's either hurt or mediocre, well, let's say 150. And if he's hurt or either mediocre, does he get 75 or less? And if he's hurt or either mediocre, does he get 75 or less? I think he definitely gets 150 if he's healthy and on the free agent market. I mean, there's just so few players like that who are going to be free agents. And if he is not healthy or he doesn't play well, then yeah, I guess he would get less. Maybe he'd settle for a shorter deal, higher average value or something like that.

Top comp by Pocota's reckoning, Nomar Garciaparra. Uh-oh. Yeah, not good. But then you get down to Cano cano david wright derrick cheater uh chipper jones all of the yeah so there's i don't know chase utley uh ernie banks uh yeah okay so so what do you think he'll do? Good or bad? I think he'll I think he'll Be Good, very good

Not like he was last year But healthier than last year And if I hadn't told you his age At the beginning of this What would you have guessed his age was? I think I knew just because I come across it and I'm surprised every time. So I actually kind of remember now.

It is sort of surprising. I don't know whether it's because of just how early he arrived or because of his build or what. But it is kind of hard to believe that he is only 30 and recently turned 32. So that was about six minutes. Okay. People should go and check out at BP on the blog side, free for non-subscribers. An Effectively Wild listener named Jeffrey Friedman wrote up the results of the team preview predictions for each podcast.

A lot of you left notes in the Facebook group or emailed us to say that it seemed like a lot of our guests were picking high win totals for their teams. And Jeffrey sort of tracked all of those predictions and ran the numbers and tried to quantify and explain the bias in those predictions. So it's a pretty cool post. We put it up on the site. It's also linked to in the Facebook group, facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. So go check that out. Also, some other good stuff. Harry wrote something about framing projections.

For the first time, we have catcher framing projections, both for players and teams this year. Would you care to guess which team has the highest and lowest framing projection based on the depth charts playing time? I would guess that the highest would be, well, I mean, the obvious answer for the highest would be the Rays. And if it's not the Rays, then the Brewers. Yes, there's one and two and almost tied. Yeah, yeah, okay.

And then the lowest, I can't, Domet's not, is Domet on the depth chart? He is. And, right, there was some question about whether he would actually catch this year. We do have him on the depth chart. Apparently he has been catching some this spring, so maybe he'd get some time. But Gattis, I looked at Gattis the other day and he's around average. I don't know if that's what he projects to, but he's around average. So I don't know if Domit does enough damage. Is it not the Braves?

It is not the Braves. does enough damage. Is it not the Braves? It is not the Braves. Alright, so I would guess that it will be the Rangers. It is the Rockies. Oh, yeah. Okay.

Well, it was REO and Michael McHenry and Jordan Pacheco and all those people. So you can go check that out. That's pretty cool. Oh, Marlins cleanup hitters. Do you think that this represents progress? Last year's opening day Marlins cleanup hitter, as you probably recall,

was Placido Polanco. And this year's is Jeff Baker. Where's Yelich batting? I think he's leading off. Okay. Jeff Baker is better than Placido Polanco I don't know I don't know that he's better in a I don't know that he's better than Greg Dobbs

Well it is Jeff Baker against a lefty Jorge De La Rosa And Baker's actually a pretty good Hitter against lefties So there's that You don't have their whole lineup in front of you or anything I might have it open in a tab And Baker's actually a pretty good hitter against lefties. So there's that. You don't have their whole lineup in front of you or anything now? I might have it open in a tab.

Baker's career line versus lefties is actually really good. 298, 353, 522 in over 800 plate appearances. Yeah, Baker was basically like Jason Wirth in half the time last year. So, sure. I mean, that's considerably better than Polanco. Polanco, I don't know. I mean, legitimately, I'm not sure that there are 10 teams in baseball last year

that would have batted Polanco eighth. Yeah, that's possible. I don't have the whole lineup here. Okay. And then my last bit of banter before we wrap this up, there were two articles I read. You know how there're always these articles about how how teams are trying to get an edge whatever new thing they're doing this year um to try to

try to exploit some inefficiency or you know whatever it is um so there is one i saw about the pirates and one i saw about the phillies um and the phillies, uh, it's kind of about, you know, how they're embracing numbers and everything now, but it's like, it's, uh, the example given of, of their embrace of analysis now is basically that they looked at, um, uh, they looked at Roberto Hernandez's home run per fly ball rate and saw that it was high and they expected to regress so basically what half of the people in your fantasy

league are doing they are doing and that's even one of the slightly less I mean to me that's basically like going with XFIP instead of FIP which is you could be wrong like that might actually be wrong, that's basically like going with XFIP instead of FIP, which is you could be wrong. Like that might actually be wrong. Like that's not settled.

Right. It's not settled yet. Hernandez's was like one of the highest on record. So, you know, probably true, but nothing that, you know, everyone in your fantasy league wasn't doing four years ago. And I don't know whether I'm not trying to pick on the Phillies because I don't know, like I've met Scott Friedman, their new stat guy, and he seems very smart and good. And this could just be, you know, a case where you're not going to tell the newspaper what interesting thing you're actually doing. So you just kind of throw an example out and this is an example. But I feel like maybe they should just have a moratorium on examples for a while

so yeah so in 2012 the year before uh polanco you know batted cleanup uh he was the 14th worst hitter in baseball by ops plus if you if you set the minimum plate appearances at what he is. So the 14th worst hitter in the whole world. He was like 26 was Darwin Barney. So imagine Darwin Barney batting cleanup for the Marlins. So it's a little worse than that. Yeah, that was pretty bad. I was moved to write about it when that happened. Yeah, he's right there between Alexi Kassia and Jamal Weeks.

And apparently Echevarria is batting second. So that's not good either. That's very good though if you're, if you've put your money behind Echavarria as being the new Uniesky-Bentencourt. Yes. And producing negative, negative wins every year for six years in a row. Very good news. That's true. And then the other thing I was going to talk about, the Pirates example. This was from a Travis Sachik article about how velocity seems to be increasing and there's a quote at the end you know under general manager Neil Huntington the Pirates made targeting and acquiring velocity a key part of their strategy adding pitchers such as AJ Burnett and Francisco Liriano and placing a premium on velocity in the et cetera, which to me is something that every team does and has been doing for decades,

except for possibly the twins. So I don't know. It just feels like an attempt to make more of any little snippet that they will divulge about what their strategy is. Okay. So that's enough. Enjoy opening day. Please support our sponsor, Baseball Reference.

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