Oh look people, it’s Hall of Fame season, which means it’s time for tired articles about Pete Rose and Barry Bonds, impassioned pleas for Mike Mussina and Larry Walker, glowing remembrances of Jim Thome and Chipper Jones, and the hottest takes about Curt Schilling’s Twitter account. But there is one annual piece that dares to break the trope and remember the lesser players on the ballot and decide who among them is worthy of receiving a single vote for the Hall of Fame. No rehashing Trevor Hoffman vs. Billy Wagner here, just looking at the best candidates to receive a pity vote. In previous years I have endorsed Jason Kendall, Edgar Renteria, and Mike Cameron as players worthy of a pity vote. Let’s see who meets the mark this year.

First we need to eliminate reasonable candidates. My standard has been likelihood of receiving three or more votes. Now this isn’t a perfect standard — I don’t think anyone would consider Mike Sweeney or Magglio Ordonez real candidates, but they have both gotten three votes in recent years — but it’s a good estimate of where the line between guys getting pity votes and guys who might be getting real votes lies. Of this year’s candidates, there are a number we can easily eliminate. Chipper Jones will likely get 95% or higher, and Jim Thome seems likely to get over the 75% mark this year as well. Omar Vizquel will more than likely at least hit double digits in percent, even if he was probably a worse player than Mike Cameron, who got completely shut out last year. It’s a little harder to gauge Scott Rolen, Johan Santana, and Andruw Jones. Their cases require some level of nuance, so there’s a wide range where they could end up. I’d say all three certainly deserve to stick around for at least a second ballot (personally, I’d vote for Rolen with no hesitation), and I feel pretty confidently they’ll each manage to reach double digits in total vote count.

The difficult choices for me are Johnny Damon and Jamie Moyer. Neither will stick on this ballot because neither has much of a case at all. But they might have enough of one to net more than two votes. Johnny Damon had a reputation as a great player, and he played in a lot of playoff series for high-profile teams and stuck around long enough to get some gaudy counting stats. There was even some brief talk about him possibly pushing to 3,000 hits. There hasn’t been a candidate with a super similar profile in a few years, but going back to 2014, we had Moises Alou receive six votes and Luis Gonzalez garner five. Now, I think both those players were better than Damon, but I think he’s perceived to be about the same level. While there’s a chance he doesn’t get more than two votes, he could definitely push into the 5-6 range. So I’m going to group him in with the non-pity vote guys. That being said, there’s a solid chance he only gets one or two votes.

Even more difficult to judge is Jaime Moyer. There haven’t been many pitchers hitting the ballot who had long, nice careers that weren’t real Hall of Fame candidates to compare to him. Moyer was better than Kenny Rogers, who got one vote in 2014, but he was definitely worse than David Wells, who managed five a year earlier. My made-up estimate is that Moyer will receive ~2.1 votes on average, so I’ll lean on the side of caution and not consider him for the honor of a pity vote.

Finally, let’s pour one out for Ben Sheets, who is, by a not insignificant margin, the best eligible player not to appear on this ballot. While he’s not quite the omission that Javier Vazquez was last year, Sheets was quite a good pitcher. He pitched like a Hall of Famer for one season (2004) and started the All-Star Game in another (2008). He has more WAR as a Brewer than any other pitcher, and ranks fourth overall in franchise history.

Carlos Zambrano (30.6 WAR) finished fifth in the Cy Young voting three separate times and was a fringe top-10 pitcher for three or four years, although he did walk a lot of dudes. Along with Mike Hampton and Dontrelle Willis, he was one of the good-hitting pitchers of his era. While his wRC+ was a pretty mediocre 57, his 24 career home runs (in 774 PA) are impressive for a pitcher. From 2001-2012, the length of his career, Zambrano hit 50% more home runs than any other pitcher. Yovani Gallardo and the aforementioned Mike Hampton are the only other guys in double digits. Zambrano was also known for wearing his heart on his sleeve, which just serves to make him a bit more memorable. Overall, Zambrano was a pretty good player, and a reasonably interesting one as well, but his career was rather short — he’s only 36. That being said, it’s not like an extra five years of quality pitching would turn him into a Hall of Fame candidate, or even a Jaime Moyer-level candidate.

Chris Carpenter (39.1 WAR) won a Cy Young award in 2005 and finished in the top three in the voting in 2006 and 2009. In between, he had two years lost to injury, which was a recurring theme with Carpenter. For a guy who didn’t become an above-average pitcher until he was 29, and missed quite a bit of time for injury, he had himself a nice career. In fact, if he had been able to stay healthy, he likely would have avoided eligibility for a pity vote, but alas, he’s stuck competing with these guys.

You probably remember Livan Hernandez (34.5 WAR) pitching a boring game for or against your favorite team. I’m not sure how, but I’m pretty sure Livan Hernandez pitched every inning for both the Padres and the Pirates in their July 29-31 series in 2004. Yeah, Baseball-Reference might say that Josh Fogg and Kip Wells and the other Adam Eaton and Brian Lawrence pitched those games, but those players all had the spirit of Livan Hernandez in them. In his career (1996-2012) Livan Hernandez officially pitched 3189 innings, which is 200 more innings than second place (Jaime Moyer!). Unofficially, I’m pretty sure he pitched about 55,000 innings and counting.

I mostly remember Carlos Lee (27.5 WAR) for signing a big contract with the Astros that just never seemed to end. Lee could rake with anyone, hitting both for power and for average, and he was generally pretty durable, but his poor defense kept him from being very valuable. There are two things in his favor as a pity vote candidate. For one thing, his top Similarity Score from B-R is Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda. Yes, Cepeda is an iffier Hall of Famer, and yes, Andres “The Big Cat” Galarraga is third on that list, but that’s something. Carlos Lee also ranks seventh all-time in career grand slams. Well, he’s tied for seventh, with Jimmie Foxx and Ted Williams. Of the players ahead of him, three (Lou Gehrig, Eddie Murray, and Willie McCovey) are Hall of Famers, two (Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez) would be if not for steroid drama, and one (Robin Ventura) is Robin Ventura. That’s some pretty good company, The Big Cat included.

Kevin Millwood (46.2 WAR) was almost certainly better than you remember him being. He ranks 22nd in WAR among starting pitchers since 1995, which places him immediately ahead of Johan Santana and Cole Hamels. Of course, Millwood first achieved success as the Braves’ fourth starter behind Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, and Tom Glavine, so it’s not hard to look bland compared to those guys. But Millwood garnered some legitimate accolades in his career. He threw a no-hitter, he led the AL in ERA in 2005 despite having a losing record, and he finished third in Cy Young voting in 1999. Even with that, I must say he had one of the more boring careers of a pitcher of his caliber.

Aubrey Huff (17.1 WAR), amazingly, is still one of the Rays’ franchise leaders in WAR among position players. He ranks tenth with a staggering 9.9 WAR, placing him among other Rays legends like Matt Joyce and Jason Bartlett. All joking aside, Huff was a fine, well-rounded hitter who couldn’t field a lick. Possibly the strangest aspect of his career, though, was his 2010 campaign for the Giants. He had a truly moribund season in 2009, and I mean it in the literal ‘about to die’ sense. But in 2010, at age 33, he decided to be good at everything baseball-related he possibly could be. His walk rate skyrocketed to 12.4%, well above his typical 8-9% range, and he hit 26 dingers, which is really like 47 when you account for the fact that he was hitting left-handed in AT&T Park. Even his defense, not traditionally one of Huff’s strong suits, was pretty solid, both at first base and in corner-outfield positions. Overall, he was good for 5.8 WAR and finished seventh in NL MVP voting. If this had been the start of some sort of late-career resurgence, Huff would have been an excellent pity vote candidate, but it turned out to just be a last gasp in a dead career, as he only survived for two more godawful seasons.

Orlando Hudson (21.1 WAR) was a solid all-around player — good defense, average offense. The type of guy who bats seventh on a pennant winner. He won four Gold Gloves and made a couple of All-Star games, but really, he wasn’t a particularly special player in any way. Cool guy, but really, a boring player.

It’s incredible to think that Kerry Wood (23.7 WAR) was in the majors as recently as 2012. I mean, he was basically broken by 2004, but still managed to limp along for nearly a decade. Well, I shouldn’t really say limp, because he did have a solid year in relief in 2008, but for the most part it was limping. To be honest, looking back on Wood’s career, it wasn’t exactly incredible in terms of value. While he did strike out anything that moved, he was also rather walk-prone — 4.34 per nine innings for his career. He never again matched his 4.4 WAR as a rookie and only crossed the 200 inning mark twice, and only one of those was during Dusty Baker’s tenure, so don’t blame him. Of course, I can’t continue without mentioning the 20 strikeout game, because, well, he struck out 20 guys in nine innings.

Brad Lidge (11.6 WAR), like Kerry Wood, struck out a lot of guys. In 2004, with the Astros, he struck out 42.6% of batters he faced. At the time, this was the third-most strike-out-iest season by a reliever ever, behind only Billy Wagner‘s 1999 season and Eric Gagne’s 2003 season. Now it’s been passed by some Craig Kimbrel and Aroldis Chapman nonsense, bu that shouldn’t diminish from Lidge’s dominance. Lidge was also fantastic with the Phillies in 2008. They won the pennant and he came in fourth in Cy Young voting and eighth in MVP voting. Of course, it wasn’t all sunshine and roses. Lidge gave up a whole lot of walks. And he was hilariously awful in 2009. I mean, pitcher wins and ERA are pretty blunt tools for a reliever, but they tell a story here — Lidge went 0-8 with 7.21 ERA. What’s particularly impressive is that he actually sustained that ERA for months. Despite consistent usage, he never dropped below a 6.75 ERA for a day after April. Still got those 31 saves though.

I’m not actually going to do all the legwork, but I can say with some degree of certainty that Jason Isringhausen (11.2 WAR) is the best player ever drafted and signed in the 44th round. He was a good closer for the Cardinals for a few years. Made a pair of All-Star Games. He’s in a three-way tie for 26th in all time saves, which doesn’t sound that impressive. But one of those guys he’s tied with is Hall of Famer Bruce Sutter! And the other one is…Fernando Rodney.

Hideki Matsui (12.9 WAR) is probably the best non-Ichiro position player to come out of Japan. He won the MVP for the 2009 World Series, and he made a pair of All-Star Games, and he was remarkably durable, not missing a game for his first three years in MLB. That being said, Matsui’s bat was just good and not great, and his lack of quality glovework made him just a nice player. He only once reached 3 WAR in a season, which is less than even Orlando Hudson. Notable player, but not a particularly good one.

Now we come to the hard part. Who deserves a pity vote? Well, I can quickly eliminate Hudson, Huff, Matsui, Lidge, and Isringhausen. No offense to any of those guys. All were quality players. But if one of them were missing from the ballot and say…Adam Kennedy were in their place, I don’t think I would have gone through the effort to mention them as a snub. Sorry y’all. I think I’m going to eliminate Kerry Wood from consideration as well. While one particularly good game may be enough to get Jack Morris into the Hall of Fame, I don’t think it’s enough to earn a pity vote. And Carlos Lee, while a better player than any of the above group, isn’t exactly screaming out for further recognition.

That leaves us with four pitchers. Of them, I’d say Carpenter has the most impressive peak, Millwood has the most impressive full career, and Zambrano has the most impressive bat. But my choice has to be the one and only Livan Hernandez.

The way I see it, a pity vote is supposed to do one of two things. You should either shine a light on a good player, who is clearly not a Hall of Famer, but shouldn’t be forgotten. Or it should be to remember and acknowledge a guy who represented something to a generation of fans. Livan Hernandez definitely falls into the latter of these two. Livan Hernandez represents every Livan Hernandez-type pitcher who has ever done Livan Hernandez-type things. Joe Blanton. Carl Pavano. Jason Vargas. Bronson Arroyo. Gil Meche. Freddy Garcia. Kevin Correa. Kyle Lohse. Brad Penny. Jason Marquis. Sidney Ponson. Aaron Harang. Jeremy Guthrie. Ian Kennedy. Jon Garland. Matt Morris. Ervin Santana. Jeff Suppan. Mike Leake. Randy Wolf. Jake Westbrook. Livan Hernandez. Livan Hernandez.

As a baseball nerd, I enjoy reading Ryan Thibodaux’s (Thibodaux’?) yearly tally of Baseball Hall of Fame ballots. I participate in the yearly gnashing of teeth at Murray Chass’s intentionally blank Hall of Fame ballot.

But one thing I’m not behind is the push for mandatory public Hall of Fame ballots. (The Hall rejected the BBWAA’s vote to make every ballot public.) Secrecy in balloting among private citizens is a value worth defending, even if the votes themselves are based on malice or stupidity.

A brief history:

The English tradition was to vote with one’s voice, as evidenced by Virginia’s early voting methods:

As each freeholder came before the sheriff, his name was called out in a loud voice, and the sheriff inquired how he would vote. The freeholder replied by giving the name of his preference. The appropriate clerk then wrote down the voter’s name, the sheriff announced it as enrolled, and often the candidate for whom he had voted arose, bowed, and publicly thanked him.

Even as ballots shifted to paper ballots, the votes themselves were publicly displayed, often counted in plain sight of the public. But as should be unsurprising, the public ballot meant that public pressure could be exerted on any person’s vote. Bribes and threats were frequent.

Eventually ballots were printed by local party bosses. The secret ballot soon began to gain steam as a potential innovation in England and Australia. In England, intimidation was pervasive:

He referred the intimidation exercised by landlords on tenants . . . , by employers on the employed, by customers on shopkeeper. . . .  He had known half a congregation leave their parson and set up another place of worship on account of his vote, thus depriving him of a considerable part of his income.

(Boycott by Hall of Fame ballot would admittedly be fun.) Brazen vote purchasing was common in American politics, with the 1880s producing multiple tainted national elections.

By the 1950s, the secrecy of the ballot was a core American value, as seen in Twelve Angry Men:

JUROR SEVEN: Who was it? I think we have a right to know.

JUROR ELEVEN: Excuse me. This was a secret ballot. We agreed on this point, no? If the gentleman wants it to remain secret…

JUROR THREE: What do you mean? There are no secrets in here! . . .

. . . .

JUROR ELEVEN [omitted in film version]: Please. I would like to say something here. I have always thought that a man was entitled to have unpopular opinions in this country. This is the reason I came here. I wanted to have the right to disagree. In my own country, I am ashamed to say that.

Why have a secret ballot? The primary goal is that a voter is protected from public pressures. As a party boss, I wouldn’t know if you voted for my candidate or another one, so threats and bribes have no guarantee of success. And as a sports fan, I wouldn’t know if you voted for Roger Clemens or not, regardless of what your public posturing on steroids may have been.

(There were plenty of reasons why the printed secret ballot had negative consequences on turnout, namely imposing a quasi-requirement of literacy, but the secrecy of the ballot was not the problem there.)

So where does this leave us with the Hall of Fame ballot? Do these reasons of secrecy apply to the BBWAA? I don’t think we have to worry about vote buying (Deadspin notwithstanding), but I guess my position relates to first principles of the Hall of Fame ballot. With this vote, we want an honest accounting of whether a supermajority of voters believes said player belongs in the Hall. We may have problems with the percentage necessary, or the number of votes on the ballot or the composition of the electorate itself, but the purpose of the Hall is to see who the electorate believes is a Hall of Famer in their hearts, not in the face of public scrutiny. Unless we just want to have a JAWS cut-off and eliminate the electorate entirely, there must be something ineffable about the Hall of Fame, something that comes from a private evaluation of one’s emotions. The sportswriters are not elected by us, nor are they supposed to be “accountable to the public.”

There are of course strong arguments against anonymity in voting. Yoav Fromer argues that the secret ballot allows people the luxury of voting for positions that are publicly unpalatable. Without needing to defend their choices, voters can simply hide behind the secret ballot and avoid public accountability. Similarly, John Stuart Mill worried that in private people would be more prone to bias or dishonesty: “People will give dishonest or mean votes from lucre, from malice, from pique, from personal rivalry, even from the interests or prejudices of class or sect, more readily in secret than in public.”

But part of the reason the Hall is built around these secret ballots is the belief that we do want the raw honest truth from the voters. We don’t want their public opinions; we want to know what they believe in their dark hearts. And if they really can’t quite stomach voting for a “steroid guy” or they think Jack Morris just feels like a Hall of Famer, we want those flawed, messy and private emotions packed into their vote.

Furthermore, it’s not clear that Fromer and Mill are correct in practice when it comes to the BBWAA ballot. As it turns out, many people are quite willing to hold unpopular public opinions, and the publicity of ballots has not made Murray Chass or Dan Shaughnessy behave like any less of a dolt. In 2017, only five ballots were anonymous anyways.

If people want to reveal their ballots, more power to them. And kudos to Thibodaux for asking for ballots and to those voters who disclose their reasons for voting. These efforts undoubtedly add to our public discourse on what the Hall is and means.

I understand that I’m probably standing against the tide of history on this one. But we should not be quite so quick to force the disclosure of private votes simply because they may be unpopular positions.

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.)

On the surface, Rougned Odor had a pretty decent 2017. He got paid $1.3 million, was healthy the whole season, and on top of it all, he hit 30+ home runs for the second straight season. That’s about it as far as good things go — Odor posted the single worst wRC+ and OBP of 2017 among qualifiers, and barely hit above the Mendoza line. Yes, someone who hit 30 home runs was worse at the plate than Alciedes “What’s an extra-base hit?” Escobar.

The fact that Odor hit such a milestone while being so terrible places him in unique company. Of all the sluggers who hit 30+ home runs this season, here’s where he ranks in wRC+.

Single Season wRC+ with 30+ HR (2017)

Ouch. Almost every single player who hit 30+ HR in 2017 posted a wRC+ that was at least average, but Odor was 39 points below average.

If you’re reading this, Odor, please stop, because it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Actually, I lied, it doesn’t get better. It only gets worse.

Here’s how Odor’s season ranks historically among all seasons with 30+ home runs.

Single Season wRC+ with 30+ HR (All-Time)

Words escape me. Hitting 30+ HR is typically a recipe for success. We’ve seen 1,292 individual seasons of 30+ HR, and in those seasons, 98.3% of those hitters posted a wRC+ of at least 100. In 99.9% of those seasons, those hitters posted a wRC+ of at least 70. Odor only barely broke 60, posting a wRC+ of 61.

Every single hitter who hit 30+ HR in a season posted an SLG over .400 — except Odor (.397), who finished 20 points behind the second-lowest SLG in a 30+ HR season, Dave Kingman’s 1985 season (.417).

Across individual seasons with 30+ HRs, hitters posted an average wRC+ of 143. Odor is about -3.45 standard deviations from the mean. For context, Babe Ruth’s 1921 season, where he hit 59 home runs, drove in 168 RBIs, and posted an OPS of 1.359, was +3.41 standard deviations from the mean.

In other words, Odor’s 2017 was a historical oddity.

Single Season wRC+ with 30+ HR (All-Time) Histogram

How was Odor so brutally bad, in spite of hitting 30 home runs? Jeff Sullivan identified an issue with Odor back in June in that Odor was hitting too many pop-ups, leading to poor production. Compare Odor’s batted-ball data from 2016 to 2017. Odor’s batted balls didn’t change that much, aside from his infield pop-up rate almost doubling.

Rougned Odor Batted Ball Data, 2016-2017

Essentially, Odor was still squaring up and hitting dingers, but the rest of his fly balls weren’t leaving the infield at the same rate that they were in 2016. Odor recorded 16 fewer extra-base hits in 2017 than he did in 2016 despite appearing in 12 more games.

Sullivan predicted that Odor wouldn’t finish “all that close to a wRC+ of 54” because Odor would adjust and correct his infield pop-ups. And yes, Odor did manage to adjust, dropping his IFFB% a good amount during the second half (first-half IFFB% of 20.6%, third-highest in the MLB, second-half IFFB% of 9.4%, 67th in the MLB), but Odor didn’t get that much better.

In fact, Odor actually got worse in the second half — Odor posted a wRC+ of 69 in the first half, but only 50 in the second half. Despite cutting down on his biggest issue, Odor struggled even more.

Maybe it was just bad luck. Odor saw his BABIP drop by 46 points (.244 to .198) and his wOBA drop by 27 points (.284 to .257) from the first half to the second half despite his batted-ball data staying roughly the same, and his xwOBA dropped only from .288 to .281.

The portion of Odor’s production that relied upon home runs was still intact, but the rest of Odor’s production was practically non-existent. Odor doesn’t rely on walks, and the balls that he puts in play tend to run low BABIPs. So Odor’s non-home-run production is extremely BABIP-reliant and therefore extremely volatile, so when BABIP turned against Odor, the only form of production he could fall back on was home runs.

Odor’s 2017 resembled that of a three-true-outcomes hitter who doesn’t walk. For example, if we gave Odor’s BB% rate to his teammate, Joey Gallo, Gallo’s 2017 wOBA would drop from .364 to .296, which resembles Odor’s 2017 wOBA of .272 (the difference between the figures can be accounted for by Gallo’s higher HR/PA).

Take this as evidence that Odor could be a productive hitter. If, all other things held equal, he walked as much as Gallo did, his fly-ball-happy approach wouldn’t be so problematic. But he doesn’t, so Odor will need to radically change his approach at the plate to achieve consistent production.

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.

The concept of “the shift” has become more widely used throughout major-league baseball. While some teams shift more than most, others are shifted against more than most. The Shift Era is still relatively new as teams dive deeper and deeper into the analytical realm to increase winning percentage. However, is using the shift actually effective?

I believe that there are certainly situations where the shift should be utilized. Players such as David Ortiz, Albert Pujols, Brian McCann, etc. generally are the style of players to shift against. Older players generally rely more on pulling the ball because they are able to generate more power. These styles of pull-only hitters are usually prime targets for shifting against. My question is, why haven’t these players adapted their swing against the shift?

When learning swing mechanics, you’re taught to square up the baseball and drive the ball where it’s pitched. When shifting, pitchers are forced to make very selective pitches to avoid batters driving the ball the other way through the shift. This is hard for pitchers because it takes away some of their effectiveness. Hitters are beginning to find ways to beat the shift and steal easy hits. If a batter is in a shift situation, they can essentially eliminate pitches towards the outside half of the plate. Knowing the pitcher’s pitch arsenal, the batter can then be selective in his approach. Depending on the count, the batter can determine the next pitch, whether it’s offspeed or a fastball. Obviously a tailing fastball in on the hands is hard not to roll over into the shift, but that’s just good pitching.

Batters are finally beginning to grasp that they can beat the shift by simply putting down a bunt down the line. Or, they can create longer bat lag from their hands letting the ball travel deeper in the zone and taking the ball to the opposite field. The best hitters in baseball are those who can hit to all areas of the field. Charlie Blackmon was shifted against 121 times this year; he hit .412 against the shift. Why in the world would teams shift against him 121 times? Kris Bryant was shifted against 210 times; he hit .364. Players like this who are able to adapt their swing progressions at the plate should not be shifted against this often. Teams are simply giving them easy hits, which lead to runs. The whole point of the shift is to avoid baserunners, right?

Again, there are some batters against whom shifting works. Brian McCann was shifted against 248 times and still hit .243 against the shift, which is still pretty good considering it’s towards the bottom of the league. Lucas Duda was shifted against 241 times, hitting .243; still not terrible. Again, there are situations you can get away with shifting. The only time teams should shift should be with no runners on, strict pull hitters, and with a pitcher who’s comfortable with pitching inside.

When teams shift with runners on, I believe it’s a terrible strategy. It’s considerably difficult turning a routine double play with players out of their positions. Also, it’s difficult to catch runners stealing when you have a third baseman trying to find the bag and make the tag. Players like Dustin Pedroia have taken advantage of teams using the shift with runners on to take the extra base with the third baseman out of position. Players are beginning to find holes in the shift and are taking advantage, leading to runs.

When shifting, I believe the best option is to leave the shortstop between 2^nd and 3^rd, the second baseman shaded up the middle towards the bag, and the third baseman moving into right field between 1^st and 2^nd. With the third baseman in this position, he can create the same angle to 1^st as when he’s at 3^rd. This way players are in more comfortable standard positions, keeping the double play a more viable option. Shifting works in certain situations, but teams need to be more careful as hitters begin to adapt their approaches and steal easy hits, using the shift against the enemy.

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.

Cody Bellinger was called up by the Dodgers to the big leagues on April 25^th of this year. Coming in at only 21 years of age, Bellinger was looking to make a name for himself. Toward the beginning of the season he would split starts between left field and first base. Eventually Adrian Gonzalez would go down to injury, giving Bellinger the opportunity of being an everyday first baseman. Bellinger rose to the occasion, cementing himself in the history books, as he will be the National League Rookie of the Year. Not only will he achieve this award, but he helped bring his team to the World Series. Before Bellinger’s arrival to the team, the Dodgers were 9 for their first 20 games. The Dodgers would go on to win 104 of their 162 games.

During the course of the season, Bellinger put up incredible numbers. He played in 132 games throughout the year, driving in 97 runs, scoring 87 times, and belting an astonishing 39 home runs, finishing only behind the powerful Giancarlo Stanton (with 59). Bellinger had a respectable .267 batting average while maintaining a .352 on-base percentage and .581 slugging percentage. He was a force at the plate, putting fear into the eyes of many pitchers. Although he didn’t walk so much — only 11.7% of the time — he still managed to have a wOBA of .380, staying in the top 30 for the MLB. On average, he would draw a walk for about every two strikeouts; not the best, but still better than most players belting over 30 homers. His plate discipline was above average for power hitters throughout the season, but come postseason, this would all change.

Throughout much of the postseason, most people were reflecting on Aaron Judge’s struggles, after having himself a historic season at the plate. Judge would break the record for strikeouts in a postseason until Bellinger would then beat this unfavorable record with 29. Through Bellinger’s 15 postseason games, he would belt three home runs, driving in nine runs and scoring 10 times while walking only three times. Most of these statistics happened during the NLDS and NLCS. His wOBA would fall to .295, with a .219 batting average, walking 4.5% of the time, while striking out in an astounding 43.3% of his plate appearances. In fact, in the World Series alone, he would achieve 17 of his 29 strikeouts. Bellinger would struggle immensely at the plate throughout the World Series, with the exceptions of Games 4 and 5.

During the series, the Astros pitching staff would focus on beating Bellinger in on the hands with curveballs falling out of the zone, and with fastballs tailing up and away. Amazingly, Bellinger during the regular season only chased pitches out of the zone 29.7% of the time. This would change immensely as the Astros pitching staff’s effective deception would often pull Bellinger’s bat out of the zone.

In Game 4, Bellinger would face Astros pitcher Charlie Morton in the top of the 5^th with no outs in a 1-2 count. Bellinger’s stance is in a more upright position with his bat also in a vertical position. This makes creating torque through his hands a little more awkward, as he rolls his hands into a hitting position. When this curveball begins to spin further in on his hands, it becomes too difficult to bring his hands in further, leading to this awful swing and follow-through shown. His approach on this pitch looks as if he’s trying to hit the ball 500 feet over the right-field wall; not an optimal mindset in a 1-2 count when you know the curveball is coming. His head was nowhere near the zone; he may as well have swung with his eyes closed. This is the position we often saw Bellinger in throughout the World Series when thrown an inside curveball. However, Bellinger would use this at-bat for his next plate appearance.

Now we see later in the game Bellinger is in a 1-1 count facing Morton in the top of the 7^th. He knows he’s going to see a curveball in on his hands and adjusts accordingly. His body is in a lower position with his bat in a more angled approach, with his hands staying back, anticipating curveball, looking to stay in on the ball with his hands and drive it to right field. Bellinger manages to fight this pitch off, fouling it back, showing his adjustment helped. His follow-through is also in a significantly better position, with his head staying back looking at the ball, and his body stays in a more balanced stance. This approach, showing that he’s able to make even a small adjustment to making contact with the low and in curveball, led pitchers to start targeting the outside upper half of the zone with the fastball again.

Here we see in Game 4, Bellinger faces Astros pitcher Charlie Morton with a 1-1 count and 0 outs in the top of the 5^th. Bellinger’s body is not in an effective hitting position for hitting this outside fastball. His body is falling out away from the zone, his pivot foot is not providing any power, and his hands reach out from his body too far. Bellinger would acknowledge this issue and had this to say before Game 4:

“I hit every ball in BP today to the left side of the infield,” Bellinger said. “I’ve never done that before in my life. Usually I try to lift. I needed to make an adjustment and saw some results today. I’m pulling off everything. Usually in BP I just try to lift, have fun in BP. But today I tried to make an adjustment. I needed to make an adjustment, and so I decided I’m hitting every ball to left field today.”

This is exactly what Bellinger would do.

In the top of the 9th in Game 4 with a 1-0 count and no outs, Bellinger faces Astros closer Ken Giles with runners on. Bellinger has his eyes locked in on the ball as he’s seen this pitch before. He’s using his approach from batting practice earlier to drill this ball into the gap. He keeps his body in an athletic hitting position, keeping his hands in and generating all his power through his lower half, creating torque through his strong hands. We see him drive this ball into the left-center gap, keeping his eyes on the ball the whole way and maintaining a strong follow-through. Bellinger did exactly what he said he would do and helped his team win this game. He would then carry on this adjustment into Game 5, showing people why he will be this year’s NL RoY.

Although Bellinger would fall into his old habits in Games 6 and 7, his ability to recognize where the problem is and the ability he has to adjust is what makes him an effective hitter. Through this, Bellinger will only continue to become better and will continue to become one of the most feared hitters in the league this next season. At only 22 years old now, Bellinger will become the next big star in this great sport we call Baseball.