Possibly the most infamous pitch from a single player in the history of the league is a cutter. Possibly the most infamous pitch from an active single player is a cutter. You can probably guess who those two players are, but, if not, they’re Mariano Rivera and Kenley Jansen. This is not a suggestion that these are the two best pitches of all time, as that is impossible to award. The combination of their extreme effectiveness and extreme usage has garnered the notoriety of the pitches. We are talking about inarguably the best closer of all time and arguably the best closer currently in the MLB, aside from maybe Craig Kimbrel.

Jansen’s and Rivera’s success derives almost wholly off one pitch. The pair rank 1st and 3rd in cutter usage in league history, respectively, although we only have pitch data on the latter half of Rivera’s career. Jansen has thrown it 81.3% of the time and Rivera 72.6% of the time, with Bryan Shaw sandwiched between the two at 73.5%. Of relievers who have thrown the pitch at least 20% of the time of their career, Rivera ranks 3rd and Jansen ranks 4th in standardized pitch value. Again, this does not include Rivera numbers until post-2006. When players as good as these two both thrive off the same singular pitch, it may suggest something about the pitch. In 2017, relief pitchers decided to embrace the cutter.

Now, not everyone went full Jansen and Rivera. But here are some cutter usage numbers from the five years prior to 2017, with the number of relievers who threw at least 100 cutters and the rate of cutters per fastball:

This past season, those numbers exploded to 47 relievers and an 8.58% rate of cutters for every fastball. Where is this cutter revolution coming from?

First, the uniqueness of cutters needs to be established. They are classified as “cut fastballs,” but they are not necessarily always fastballs. They can be fastballs, but they can also be a sort of harder half-slider, and most pitchers have a few ticks off their cutter in comparison to their four-seam. Here is a fastball cutter, thrown by Jansen:

And here is the half-slider cutter, thrown by Wade Davis:

It can be difficult to compare cutters because there are so many variations of the pitch, but cut fastball or half-slider, there are some clear advantages to the pitch.

Sinkers are dying in the fly-ball-revolution climate. It’s a low-spin-rate pitch sinking right into the upward barrels of hitters, and the pitch is suffering. Cutters have the highest spin rate of any fastball, rivaling the rate of breaking balls. Spin causes the ball to stay up and resist its natural movement. You can see it in Jansen’s cutter. There is no exaggerated movement, but the ball seems to have an unnatural path. The pitch appears to “cut” through the air, as the name suggests, staying on one path from release to the plate. It’s difficult to judge the pitch, as it moves unlike a fastball but does not break, all while maintaining the velocity of a fastball. The unique path of the cut fastball allows it to be thrown in the strike zone while also generating whiffs.

The advantages of the half-slider cutter are more obvious. The cutter we see with Davis holds near typical fastball velocity, but also has tight and late movement. With lesser break than the typical slider, the pitch can be established in the strike zone, but the combination of velocity and break makes it difficult to contact. The velocity and subtle movement make it harder to recognize than a slider.

The nature of the cutter’s movement combats the upswinging of the current MLB. The pitch has such a unique combination of in-between velocity and movement that makes it difficult to read and just as hard to contact. It dominates other fastball types in spin, whiffs, and damage on contact, but still can be thrown in the strike zone just the same. Hitters cannot lay off the pitch but also cannot make consistent contact because of its uniqueness.

There was not the same explosion in usage with starting pitchers, though. I’m not sure of the reasoning, but possibly because relievers are generally more whiff-seeking and we are living in a whiffing environment. Whatever explanations there are, it’s obvious that relievers loved the cutter in 2017.

The Nationals again failed to win a round in the playoffs this year. Now, playoff success is pretty random and the Nats lost some series in Game 5, and they outscored the opponent in some of those series. However, we are in an era of super-teams in the NL with the Cubs, Dodgers and Nats all being loaded.

Also, the Nats’ window might be closing soon with Harper heading to free agency and several key players getting old. However, for next year they definitely should push all in since the division is ready for the taking, with the Phillies and Braves nearing the end of their rebuild but not winning yet in 2018, the Mets having lots of question marks regarding health (pitchers and also Conforto), and the Marlins tearing it down once again.

The Nats do have a really good team, but it is rather top-heavy. I wouldn’t call it stars and scrubs, because that would imply they have only 3-4 really good players when they have like 10 really good players, but the bottom of their roster is still weaker than the Cubs or Dodgers, who are using the more modern way of trying to bolster the bottom roster spots with 1 to 1.5 win players instead of zero or negative WAR players.

Here are the 10 players with the most PAs per team:

The Nats are right up there in wRC+ and WAR with the other big guys, and that was actually including the bad luck of losing Eaton for the year. The Nats clearly dominated the other two in top-six WAR and wRC+, but were quite bad with the bottom four. Now they will get Eaton back, which makes it a little better, but the top six actually included a 105 wRC+ for Michael Taylor, who is projected for just an 84 RC+ and was sporting some BABIP luck (.363 BABIP and .345 wOBA vs .294 xwOBA).

So the Nats could use some help with their lineup. However, their payroll is already pretty high, and the owners were not willing to spend much above that.

One solution would be getting Zack Cozart. Surprisingly, he was neither traded nor giving a QO by the Reds (I don’t understand why; the front office of the Reds at least should have tried to get a marginal return for him when they didn’t give him the QO), so he probably won’t be too expensive. Now Cozart was overperforming a lot himself and isn’t expected to get anywhere near his 5 wins of 2017 (.399 wOBA vs .332 xwOBA), and he also is 32 and had some injuries in the past, but he still is projected for 2.8 wins and a 98 wRC+, which is pretty good for a shortstop — where he is also good defensively.

That would allow the Nats to put Trea Turner back in center, where he can probably use his speed even better than at short (although he isn’t bad there), and more importantly it moves Eaton to a corner, where he is elite. So getting Cozart would improve the team both defensively and offensively and makes their lineup a little deeper with one fewer almost automatic out.

You don’t want to give him a long-term contract, but if you get him for two or even three years and around $15M per year, that wouldn’t be a bad value. Using the minus 0.5 WAR per year formula for aging past 30, you get 2.8 WAR in 2018, 2.2 in 2019 and 1.7 in 2020. That would be 6.7 WAR in three years, which is worth roughly $60M at $9M per win. I do think that he can be had cheaper, and even if the Nats decide to rebuild after 2019, having him on the hook for one more year won’t cripple them.

The Nats need to do everything to win in 2018; they can worry about the future later. And getting Cozart is a good little short-term upgrade who won’t demand a long-term commitment that might interfere with a potential rebuild in the post-Harper era.

Last week, before the awards, Bill James argued on Twitter that Altuve should be the MVP because Judge had the highest run value, but Altuve had the highest win value, because Judge had lost a couple wins by being un-clutch. Tom Tango supported him some in that argument.

We know that clutch exists and it does affect real-world wins. Stats like WPA try to cover that; however, we also know that the year-to-year correlation of clutch is pretty weak, at least with hitters, so it could be considered pretty random. For that reason many people in the Twitter discussion rejected Bill’s argument and said we should go with run-based values.

I thought like that too, but then again, we do often use results-based metrics.

For example, in pitching, many still use ERA or ERA+ to judge pitchers even though that is heavily affected by factors like luck and defense. Because of that, people have started to use context-independent stats like FIP with pitchers, although the writers are still split on this (although it starts to lean more the FIP way as evidenced by the Scherzer vs. Kershaw vote). We know a small part of FIP under- or over-performance is skill, but most is pretty random.

With hitters that is very different. While people see batting average as a stat that might be affected by luck, the more advanced hitting stats like OBP or wRC+ are usually seen as a hard skill, even though they are affected by randomness. Of course one factor is actual over-performing that is not sustainable (we know that a guy hitting 27% liners likely won’t repeat even if he really did it and thus his BABIP was earned), but there is also random BABIP luck, as well as HR/FB luck. But still, unlike pitching, the existing consistent independent stats like xwOBA are not used yet. Of course there are some good reasons for that, as ERA is also affected by team defense while hitters face a mix of defenses, so that hitting is a little less random, but still randomness can make a big difference. For example, Marwin Gonzalez and Chris Taylor were only expected to be a bit above league average by xwOBA, but their actual results were great. This not only affects their wRC+, but also their supposedly objective WAR.

I feel we don’t have a consistent stance here. In some cases we use context-dependent stats (like WAR for hitters or RA9 WAR for pitchers) and in other cases we use context-independent stats like FIP (although even that isn’t true as FIP is dependent on HR/FB luck to some degree – which could be corrected by using xStats-based HR rates). And if we want to base our awards based on results, then Bill James is correct and we probably should use context in our value metrics (WPA for example), but if we want to go by skill we need to ignore that. But we probably also need to change how we evaluate WAR, wRC+, and other supposedly objective stats.

Of course there is also a third way: we can accept that there is no one objective way to judge awards, and everyone has their own set of criteria. To me, that is a very valid solution, although it is not really appealing to me personally because if we argue like that, why not go with triple slash again? (That was a rhetorical question — I would hate that.)

When it comes to the offseason before their franchise player becomes a free agent, teams face a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario. Trade a player, and you risk alienating a fan base that has fallen in love with said player and wanted you to give him the $200MM contract he was probably demanding. Keep him, and unless you win a World Series to appease your fans, he will likely be snapped up in free agency and you are left with an emptier stadium and nothing else.

The 2018-2019 free agency windfall is one short year away, but five teams are already starting to sweat. Let’s look at their situations and play the game of “which rabbit hole should you go down?”

Washington Nationals (Bryce Harper): Harper’s WAR over the last five seasons has been a (disappointing) 23.1. STEAMER projects him to post a WAR of 5.8 this upcoming season, bringing his six-year production to 28.9. Granted, if you value a win at $6MM that would mean he will have been worth $28.9MM per year over the last six seasons. There have been talks that Harper will set the record for largest contract in MLB history and that he will get “at least” 10 years and at least $400MM. Some have said he may get over $500MM. Assuming it’s 12/$400MM, Harper will need to produce a 5.6 WAR PER YEAR over the next dozen years. He’s only produced a WAR above that once (in his absurd MVP season). Am I the only one who thinks this is a monster overpay? I don’t put much stock in the managerial switch this offseason, because even if Harper loved Dusty Baker, he won’t be taking a hometown discount.

In any case, this point is moot. The Nats are going for it. They may try to get a contract done this offseason, but that probably will not happen. Verdict: Hold and watch Harper become a Yankee.

Baltimore Orioles (Manny Machado): Dan Duquette and Buck “Smiles” Showalter are entering the final year of their contracts and possess possibly the best all-around player in the game not named Mike Trout. Problem is, the O’s are more than a few pitchers away from having a starting rotation. Even though Machado had the worst season of his career with a 2.8 WAR, that was caused by a poor offensive season, one that looked worse due to a .265 BABIP which will likely not repeat itself. STEAMER thinks Machado will return to being a 6 WAR player next year, which he has done three of his other four years in the majors (the lone exception being his injury-shorted 2014 season). His stock will not be affected by this down year. Considering Machado is worth over $36MM per season right now, and will command that much on the open market, I don’t think Baltimore is going to be able to sign him next season. The O’s are stuck in purgatory right now. If Duquette can’t get something done at the winter meetings to nab some starting pitching and go on one last glory run, I wouldn’t be surprised if Machado gets moved. They won’t get equal value, but they can accelerate the rebuild. The Cardinals are looking for a bat and they have some mighty good pitching prospects, like Alex Reyes and Luke Weaver. Verdict: Sell.

Toronto Blue Jays (Josh Donaldson): Quick. Name the player with the highest WAR from 2013 to 2017. OK fine it’s Mike Trout by a landslide. Name the second-highest WAR. If you guessed Josh Donaldson, you win! He has put together a WAR of 35.6. That’s 7.1 wins per season. Now I’m not saying JD is worth $42MM right now on the open market due to his age, but the guy is definitely looking at a contract next offseason in the $30MM+ range, for 5-7 years. That’s something I think the team will pay, based on the salary that is going to be shed once Jose Bautista and Russell Martin are off the books (Bautista is gone, Martin will be at the end of 2019). The Jays are going younger with guys like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette on their way up and they won’t need to get paid until JD is long gone. Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins are going to re-sign Donaldson, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a deal gets done this offseason. Verdict: Re-sign.

Colorado Rockies (Charlie Blackmon): Projection systems don’t seem to like Charlie Blackmon. They say his WAR next year will be 2-3. Here’s probably why:

2017:

Home: .391/.466/.773, 24 HR, 60 RBI
Road: .276/.337/.447, 13 HR, 44 RBI

COORS!

2016:

Home: .335/.399/.540, 12 HR, 47 RBI
Road: .313/.363/.563, 17 HR, 35 RBI

Wait, what?

2015:

Home: .331/.390/.500, 7 HR, 35 RBI
Road: .238/.300/.395, 10 HR, 23 RBI

That’s better.

Based on his age, average defense, and the fact that he has played half his games at Coors Field, Blackmon may not get even $20MM annually because in any other park, he’s a 2-3 WAR player. However, if he has a good 2018 away from Coors and puts up home/road splits similar to what he did in 2016, Charlie Blackmon will get a five-year/$125MM contract easily. Even after his “monster” 2017 season built on a breakout 2016, 2018 is a show-me year for Blackmon. If he struggles away from home again, the Rockies will be able retain him on the cheap. But if he’s a 162-game terror, Blackmon is gone.

Verdict: Hold and see.

Los Angeles Dodgers (Clayton Kershaw): I debated writing this piece, because the thought of Kershaw not being a career Dodger is silly. Whether he gets a new contract now or next year is the only real debate here. But let’s try to guess how much money the greatest pitcher of this era is going to get.

More than the $31MM annually that David Price got. Price signed his seven-year/$217MM contract before the 2016 season when he was in his age-31 season. Kershaw will be going into his age-31 season in 2019. Even though Price did not have the injury concerns Kershaw has now with his back, a dinged-up Kershaw has been the best pitcher in baseball over the last five seasons and will undoubtedly command more than what Price got.

More than the $34.4MM annually that Zack Greinke got. Greinke was going into his age-33 season when he signed his deal. Even though Greinke was coming off his ridiculous 2015 season with the Dodgers, he had not in his career proven able to replicate seasons like that consistently. Even after his Cy Young 2009 season in KC, Greinke posted an ERA a full two runs higher. Kershaw has not posted an ERA over 2.91 since his rookie season.

So how much will Kershaw get? The Dodgers may understandably try to keep the deal in the 5-7 year range due to his injury history. But Kershaw will want the record for the largest salary given to a pitcher in history. I say seven years/$250MM.

Verdict: Dodgers hand Kershaw a blank cheque.

Lance McCullers Jr. threw 24 straight curveballs in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series. Through his major-league seasons, McCullers has thrown that pitch a mind-numbing 47.4% of the time, a distant first among starters. In that period, Rich Hill is second. But the difference between McCullers’ curveball rate and Hill’s rate is the same as the difference between Hill and Scott Feldman, who has thrown it at the 14th-highest clip. Everybody is aware of McCullers’ crazy curve-balling. However, I think his statistical absurdity is still understated. And under-examined. There are outliers and in every category, but it’d be difficult to find someone who matches his ridiculousness in any stat.

McCullers has been at the forefront of a breaking-ball movement taking place the past few years; 2017 had the lowest rate of fastballs thrown in the Pitch Info era. This past season also had the highest slider rate and second-highest curveball rate in the era. As the run-scoring environment has shifted offensively the last few seasons, pitchers have combated that with off-speed pitches and fewer fastballs, specifically two-seamers/sinkers. That pitch has been increasingly unsuccessful and its usage has declined of late. It seems unnatural to move away from a fastball, but, when healthy, McCullers has thrived off his extreme curveball tendencies.

I would challenge some pitchers to follow in the footsteps of McCullers. I searched for starters who already heavily feature a great breaking ball, but have poor fastballs. I used run value as my evaluator for pitch quality. Not the best statistic, but I set my search to guys who have accumulated 250+ innings in the past three seasons. That should be enough sample to get a good sense of the pitch effectiveness.

Five starters fit the criteria most: Aaron Nola, Jerad Eickhoff, Charlie Morton, Trevor Bauer, and Patrick Corbin. The first four throw curves as their primary breaking ball, and Corbin throws a slider. Excuse the GIF heaviness of the next part, but here are some clips just to give you an idea of each individuals pitch.

Let’s start with Nola.

Now to another Phillie – Eickhoff

To Morton, the World Series Game 7 star:

And Bauer…

Just two more…Corbin:

(sorry for the GIF exhaustion)

All these pitchers possess devastating breaking balls. It may seem ridiculous to ask these guys to increase their breaking-ball tendencies even more, considering they ranked seventh, sixth, tenth, and ninth in curveball usage this season, respectively. Corbin was third in slider usage. Interestingly, every pitcher except Morton has already dramatically increased the usage of their respective pitch, and all had significantly better results, except for Eickhoff. However, Eickhoff’s drop-off did not come from the curveball, but rather from horrendous fastballs and sliders.

They are all already league extremes with their breaking-ball usage, but I would challenge them to continue moving towards McCullers-esque extremes. Now, going full McCullers is probably too far for most; I would still press them to further increase their breaking-ball usage. They have proven they can locate the pitches, and hitters are yet to prove they can hit it. Additionally, they have not demonstrated consistently effective fastballs.

Besides McCullers and Hill, no starting pitcher has quite tested the boundaries of pitch distribution. It’s always started with the fastball. A balanced approach with three or four effective pitches is expected. Obviously, there is plenty of truth to that. No one will make it six innings with just two pitch types, regardless of each one’s effectiveness. But McCullers and Hill have proven that a breaking-ball-centric repertoire can be quite successful, given that pitch is exceptional. Nola, Eickhoff, Morton, Bauer, and Corbin all have those exceptional breaking balls. I would encourage them to build their pitching around those breaking balls.

There is some evidence that young players are getting more and more productive and the aging curve is shifted to the left, but salary distribution has not changed. In fact, the average salary since 2005 increased 1.5 times, but the minimum salary increased only 1.3 times, which means the young guys earn less despite producing more. Young guys are getting exploited by the owners. Of course there are extreme examples like Trout in 2012, who earned a little more than $500K but was worth roughly $65M using $6.5M per win, but it is pretty clear that on average the young players are getting underpaid.

Now it is pretty easy to blame the owners for that, but in reality that was by design. The union agreed to all that and they did it on purpose. The veterans have the power in the union and they were selling the young players to keep their own earnings up. Veterans in baseball are in a pretty privileged position. Baseball is pretty much the only major US sport without a salary cap, and there is also no maximum salary, and contracts are guaranteed. Basically, owners and the union had an agreement (you could almost say a collusion) in which they both exploited the young players to keep their revenue up.

That system wasn’t really fair toward the young players, but it did work. The baseball union was always criticized for being weak, but they always got what they wanted; it basically was a teamwork between owners and veterans which kept labor peace preserved for almost 20 years now.

However, now that system is put in danger. GMs are getting smarter, and they try to increase their value for the dollar. Top veterans are still getting paid, and actually better than ever. There are rumors that Bryce Harper will be the the first $500M player; however, it seems like the role of the mediocre veteran is diminishing. Older non-great players seem to struggle getting contracts, especially if they are of the slower slugging variety. 30 homers used to sound good, but if by WAR the guy is only worth 1.5 wins, the GMs prefer to not give him $10M, but instead get a guy to play for the minimum who might produce only 1.2 WAR but for a tenth of the salary. That is a very smart practice by the GMs because it increases the value/$ a lot.

GMs were criticized for giving $100+M contracts to declining veterans and at times those contracts do look terrible, like in the case of Albert Pujols, who will get paid $30+million a year for a couple more years for basically replacement-level or below value. Now, those contracts are very bad (even though often they are not as bad as you think considering the current $/WAR price), but still, overall, the owners are saving a lot of money. Salaries do still go up, and faster than inflation, but since the mid-2000s the players’ share of overall revenue went down drastically. Now teams probably do invest more into analytics, staff, and player development, but still that is only a small piece compared to the huge jump in overall baseball revenue, and most of the money is pocketed by the owners.

The media and fans did help the owners a lot by painting the picture of the overpaid MLB player, but in reality that applies to only a small percentage of players. Last year 133 players made more than $10M per year, but there were well over 800 players playing, and more than half of them make less than $1.5M. You would guess that compensates the owners for paying Pujols $30M for nothing, and A-Rod for not playing at all! Basically, that slight overpaying of veterans was the fee the owners had to pay to the union for them agreeing to the system.

I’m not blaming the owners, as they invested billions, and they should make some profit out of that (as long they are not running the team on the cheap and basically make their profit just based on revenue sharing…) and I’m also not blaming the union for prioritizing the veterans, but that system might have outlived itself now. If the GMs continue to squeeze the lower-end veterans hard without giving something else back, they might force the union into another strike that nobody wants. There used to be a very delicate balance between union and owners, making sure that labor peace has now been kept for almost 20 years, making both sides very happy and rich, but that balance is in danger now. The union doesn’t want a strike, but if the players’ share continues to go down, they might be forced to do that if the owners don’t give something else back.

Of course the union is to blame for that problem too. They were thinking short0sighted by just focusing on veteran salaries, and thus making young player labor so cheap, which incentivized the GMs to target the young players so much. Short-term, the veterans made more money that way, but just like a fisherman fishing too many fish, they were hurting themselves by pricing themselves out of the market.

Now there are two possibilities for how this could end:

1. The owners could force their GMs to be market inefficient and overpay veterans more, and give more of them a job to keep the veterans happy. Of course that could only happen if all owners agree so that no single teams get a disadvantage by doing that. You could do that by agreeing to have a certain minimum number of veterans on the team, for example, or you could increase the salaries at the top end. Of course that has implications too, as that might have a negative effect on league quality (bad veterans just kept around to fulfill a quota), and it also might hurt the intra-union peace as the young guys would get squeezed even more, and that might cause them to riot.

2. The young guys could take over more power in the union, causing the earnings of the younger guys to go up. Raising the minimum salary would be a possibility, although even at like $1.5M they probably still would be underpaid. You could also increase arbitration salaries, and finally you could shorten service time requirements. A good thing probably would be to stop service time manipulation to prevent teams from getting a seventh control year. For example, instead of days of service time, you could say every year the player played in MLB is a service year (maybe except September call-ups from that). Of course that could delay some prospects that actually have the talent to play in MLB, but it would give more veterans a job, and also make things like exploiting the DL and shuttling between minors and majors more costly. Of course there are also disadvantages to that. As I mentioned, talented players would be held back for sometimes up to like 3/4 of a season (although it could also accelerate other very good prospects that are clearly ready by half a season), and shorter control also could hurt competitive balance because small-market teams can’t keep their core around as long as they used to.

Overall, this is a very serious problem that is not going away, and eventually probably will lead to a big clash. There are possible solutions, but each of them also has some negative implications, so this is not an easy to solve problem.

Does anyone else have a random question just enter into their head that just can’t get out until it’s fully answered? To give an example, I had trouble sleeping last night, trying to figure out how Helen Keller learned to talk. It frustrated me so much that I caved and looked it up at like 12:30 AM. Turns out a teacher would physically move Helen’s lips and tongue to demonstrate how different sounds are made. That question has nothing to do with baseball, though. The following question, however, does.

How many teams have averaged exactly 9 innings pitched per game over a season? Not 8.999, not 9.001, exactly 9.

As you all know, it is possible for a team to pitch exactly 9 innings (this will occur in most of the team’s wins), fewer than 9 (either in a road loss or a rain-shortened game), or more than 9 (#freebaseball). All those possibilities combined over the course of an entire season will inevitably make any exact number of innings pitched per game quite a demanding task. But at some point, some teams had to have accomplished the miraculous feat of having their total innings pitched divided by the amount of games played to equal nine. I cannot emphasize enough how useless this information is, but you made it this far, so you might as well keep going.

Twenty-nine teams have done it. Awesome. When? Well, eight did it in the 1870s, the longest drought happened between 1890 and 1917, and the most recent team was the inaugural 2005 Nationals. The average winning percentage among the teams is 46.59%, which means I haven’t found the secret to winning in baseball. Here’s a table.

These are some funky names here, particularly at the bottom. I didn’t know another team called the Nationals existed. Neat. Some of those same teams don’t have a ton of games played. Who are the Marylands and why did they only play six games in a season? Well, not only did they play just six games that year, but that’s the total amount of games they played as a franchise. They went 0-6 and then folded.

On the flip side, the 1963 Yankees were quite good. They won the AL by 10.5 games and won 104 games total before getting swept in blowout fashion by Sandy Koufax and the Dodgers. They scored four runs over four games in that series and never led. But at least they have the consolation of averaging exactly 9 innings pitched per game. Step aside, Stan Musial, your retirement was not the most memorable part of this season.

The 1971 Cardinals went 90-72, finishing second to the world-champion Pirates. Joe Torre won the MVP that year. They all shared a name with the St. Louis Cardinals football team, which is something I presume people thought was a good idea. Most importantly, they averaged exactly 9 innings pitched per game. Bob Gibson celebrated this after the season by melting a car with his bare hands.

You know what? We’re meant to live while we’re alive; let’s look at a couple more benchmarks in this useless stat. You might be able to guess who averaged the least amount of innings pitched per game. It was the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, famous for going 20-134 over the whole season. Going 11-101 on the road means you’re not pitching many ninth innings. They averaged 8.21 IP/G.

To finish off, we’ll do the most. It was the 1969 Minnesota Twins. You wouldn’t have guessed that, unless you fondly remember the Billy Martin-coached team that went to the first-ever version of the two-round playoffs, only to get swept by the Orioles. Just at a glance, you wouldn’t expect it. They went below .500 on the road and played only 19 extra-inning games. But looking closely, you’ll find four games featuring 16 or more innings, including two 18ers. They ended up at 9.24 IP/G.

What does this mean? Nothing. I wanted to answer this dumb question and it really wouldn’t be socially acceptable to go through this analysis at a party. Actually, the first person to send me proof of this being mentioned at a party gets a prize. Good luck.

Back in 2014, the Padres had a really good farm system. It featured Austin Hedges, Matt Wisler, Trea Turner, and a few other good prospects, and Baseball America had them ranked sixth.

However, then came 2015, and A.J. Preller made an ill-advised attempt to go all-in. We don’t know whether the owners demanded him to do that, but we can for sure say it didn’t work. The Padres did improve to 74 wins, but came nowhere close to a wild-card slot, and they sent away Yasmani Grandal, Max Fried, Mallex Smith, Trea Turner, and others.

Suddenly, BA then had their farm system ranked only 24th, and the talent in the majors wasn’t great either.

Those actions really were bad for the organization.

But then came 2016, and Preller made a complete 180-degree turn. Most notably, he traded Craig Kimbrel for Javier Guerra, Manuel Margot and Logan Allen. He also selected Dan Straily and Brad Hand from waivers, and he made a lot of rule 5 picks.

Later, he traded James Shields for eventual top prospect Fernando Tatis, and swung the infamous Drew Pomeranz for Anderson Espinoza trade where Preller rightfully got criticized for not being honest about the health of his player. Preller got punished and was despised by the league and fans, but that didn’t stop him in his quest. He drafted Jacob Nix in 2015, Cal Quantrill in 2016, and MacKenzie Gore in 2017. He also signed a lot of guys on the international market, most notably Cuban Adrian Morejon.

The bottom line is that he built up a farm system in little more than two years that contains some risk but has some high upside and a lot of depth. MLB.com has seven of their guys in their top-100, and ranked their farm third midseason.

You can rightfully criticize Preller’s actions as a human being and professional, but there is little doubt about the results he got for his organization in the last two years.

Harry Leroy Halladay III was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays with the 17th overall selection in the 1995 MLB First-Year Player Draft.  He was barely 18 years old at the time.  Throughout his time in the minor leagues, the pitcher, who now went simply by Roy Halladay, was a coveted prospect, reaching as high as #12 on the Baseball America Top 100 prior to the 1999 season.  Halladay surpassed rookie limits during the 1999 season, but the following year is generally more remembered as the anecdotal beginning of an eventual Hall-of-Fame-caliber career.  Among all pitching seasons with at least 50 IP, Halladay’s 10.64 ERA (48 ERA+) in 2000 was, and still is, the worst of all time.

The next season was much kinder to Halladay, as he posted a 145 ERA+; in 2002 he made his first AL All-Star team.  The first of two Cy Young awards “Doc” would receive came in 2003, when he pitched 266 innings and had a 3.23 FIP, along with an rWAR of 7.55.  The next two seasons were injury-plagued for Halladay, and he pitched a mere — by his standards — 274.2 innings in them combined, while running a 142 ERA+.  Fully healthy over the next four years, Halladay averaged 233 IP, never contributing fewer than 220 in a season.  In that stretch, only CC Sabathia produced a higher fWAR than Halladay, who was also first in IP, sixth in ERA, and eighth in FIP among all qualified pitchers in that span.  Halladay was performing at an elite level over a huge volume of work.  Doc Halladay was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies after the 2009 season.

This is where everything becomes more personal to me.  As a Phillies fan, I can clearly remember my middle-school self watching Halladay start many games for my favorite team.  The fondest of these memories is from the 2010 season, May 29 to be exact.  On that night Halladay took the mound opposing then Florida Marlins ace Josh Johnson.  Johnson was excellent that season, leading the NL in ERA and the MLB in FIP.  My 10-year-old self knew the game would be something spectacular.  Indeed, the game was spectacular.  The Phillies won 1-0 behind a complete game with 11 Ks from Halladay.  He had pitched a perfect game.  Later that season came an even more famous performance from Halladay.  He tossed a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds in Game 1 of the NLDS, only the second postseason no-hitter in history.  Sure, the Phillies would later fall in the NLCS, but the magic of Halladay’s season never was forgotten.  He won his second Cy Young that year.

However great 2010 was, my clearest memory of Roy Halladay pitching comes from 2011.  United with Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, and Roy Oswalt, Halladay led the Phillies to 102 wins that season.  Unfortunately, what I remember best is Game 5 of the NLDS.  With the series tied at 2 games apiece, the Phillies handed the ball to Halladay for the deciding Game 5.  The Cardinals countered with one of Doc’s best friends, Chris Carpenter.  In total, just one run was scored in that game.  Rafael Furcal led off the game with a triple, and scored when the next batter, Skip Schumaker, doubled.  No more runners would cross the plate.  All told, both pitchers had incredible games.  Halladay had a game score of 72, 44% better than a league-average start.  The bitter portions of the memory are linked not to Halladay, but to the futility of the Phillies offense.  Roy Halladay could transcend even the bitterest of memories.

Time and age eventually caught up to Doc, and he did not pitch well in 2012 or 2013, seasons that were riddled with DL stints.  He retired following the 2013 season, and consensus in the industry was that he would be standing in Cooperstown giving a speech five years following this.  Additionally, some predicted that he would return to the game in some manner, as a pitching coach or something of the like.  First, however, he would take a few years to himself to pursue other interests.  Unfortunately, one of those interests was piloting, and, as fate would have it, he will never give a Hall of Fame speech.  Halladay loved flying planes, often tweeting about it.  Hauntingly following the advice of a quote attributed to several people, what he loved killed him.

In a 16-year MLB career, Roy Halladay compiled 2749.1 IP, 2117 K, a 65.4 rWAR, a 3.38 ERA, and a 3.39 FIP.  But does that really matter?  What matters is how Doc touched the lives of people around him.  It is cliché to say someone was a better person than they were a player, but he really was, and that’s saying something with his résumé.  Whether it was taking care of his family, being a good friend, providing a strong role model, or going to the Philadelphia Zoo with a persistent fan, Halladay improved the lives of those around him.

Goodbye, Roy “Doc” Halladay.  You truly did make the game better for all of us.  We are all so lucky to have been witnesses to your career and life.  You will be sorely missed.

The Jeter Group hasn’t been lazy and has made a lot of moves already. Now the rumor is that the payroll should be cut back to $90M and Stanton (and Gordon and Prado) should be traded, but the other stars like Yelich and Ozuna should be kept.

Now, I do think trading Stanton is a good idea. He has been great but also injury-prone, and he has a huge salary and opt-outs to make it worse. However, Stanton still is about a 4-5 win player and those wins have to be replaced. The Marlins are already a top-heavy team, with only six hitters and one pitcher with a WAR of 2 or better, and thus losing one star would hurt a lot. To make it worse, they only have three players between 1 and 2 WAR; the rest are below 1 or negative. Also, there is little help from the farm to be expected, which is ranked one of the worst in MLB by most sources.

So realistically, where does trading Stanton, Gordon, and Prado lead you? Gordon had a good season, but it was heavily fueled by BABIP; he isn’t really a good hitter and his trade value is limited. Stanton has trade value obviously, but the contract and opt-outs make him less appealing. Prado has zero value. So realistically trading the three gives you two top-100 prospects and maybe 2-3 more decent ones (40-45s). That is a good return, but we are talking about a terrible farm here, that according to Eric Longenhagen only had one top-100 guy pre-2017. So you lose about five wins from Stanton and maybe two from Gordon, and your team still is top-heavy and the farm is slightly better but still below average.

If the Marlins try to retool by trading Stanton and Gordon and keep everyone else, they are honestly in the same situation as the White Sox were before last year, a stars and scrubs team. Now, Yelich and Ozuna have long contracts, so they don’t necessarily need to go immediately, but without a farm system and trade chips it will be hard to build around them.

If the Marlins are serious about competing anytime soon, they need to either keep Stanton and spend big (which IMO is stupid because stars and scrubs teams hardly work anymore), or sell everyone and try to build a top-5 farm system as fast as possible. The Marlins aren’t in a bad spot to do that, although unfortunately their value is mostly hitters, and not ace pitchers, for whom the market currently is better.

But still, if you trade Stanton, Gordon, Yelich, Ozuna, Realmuto, Straily, and one or two of the relievers, you should easily be able to get back like seven top-100s, plus 6-7 more 40+ prospects, and that would immediately make them a top-5 farm system. Now, that would be a huge sell-off, but if you take Stanton away from such a top-heavy team, IMO that is the best thing that you can do.

I really hope Jeter is not just a popular head to sell an even more greedy owner. If the Marlins would trade the expensive guys and then try to retool around the cheap guys, that would be a very bad signal, because with that farm system, that likely would mean they keep being stuck in between. So unless the new group wants to spend $180M+, they better trade the high surplus value guys too.

Now, if there isn’t a good offer for Yelich and Ozuna, they can afford to wait a little like the White Sox did with Quintana, but ultimately the two need to be traded if the Marlins want to rebuild the team. Half-way rebuilds rarely work, at least if you don’t have a good farm system and good depth in the back end of the roster already.