Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 573: Free Agents, Front-Office Surveys, and Other Incisive Emails

Episode Date: November 12, 2014

Ben and Sam discuss Jerry Crasnick’s executive survey, then answer listener emails about Max Scherzer, international spending, and more.

Please sign your letters, please don't make me blue. Please sign your letters, then I'll know it's you. Can't stop thinking of you, you're always on my mind. Please sign your letters, please don't be unkind. Good morning and welcome to episode 573 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus presented by The Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I'm Ben Lindberg of Grantland, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. Hi. Hi. Hi.

So you updated your survey of the results of Jerry Krasnick's executive survey, which I was happy to see. I enjoyed that article that you wrote a couple years ago. Jerry Krasnick does a survey of hot off-season questions every year around this time. He's been doing it for over 10 years. And you looked at this a couple of years ago to see whether the executives were any better than chance or better than we are when coming up with the answers to these questions. Maybe we probably talked about it on the podcast at the time. And you found that they were not significantly better than chance, that they were just a little bit better than a coin flip.

And the samples are so small, I suppose that they could actually be worse or they could be much better. much better. But you have updated it for the last couple years, which is good because I just did an update for Grantland today of my offseason predictions piece, which is looking back at the predictions that teams made about themselves. And so I cited your research as evidence that no one can predict anything about anything. So did you, were you particularly surprised by any of the responses in Krasnick's latest survey? He asked executives, he asked 28 people whether they thought Lester or Scherzer would be a better value, which outfielder the Dodgers were more likely to trade, most likely to trade this winter. What will happen with Giancarlo Stanton? Whether they prefer Victor Martinez or Nelson Cruz?

Whether Cole Hamels or Starlin Castro is more likely to be traded? The over-under on A-Rod's home run total? Will the Giants re-sign Pablo Sandoval, and will the Pirates re-sign Russell Martin? So I don't, let's see, I don't know. Like you said, it's a, you know, it's a limited pool. I think we have 11 years, so we have like 80 questions. And some of those questions are worthless as data because they're just, it's impossible

to gauge, you know, what do you think Mel Kiko Berra smells like, for instance. If that were a question, it would be hard for me to confirm whether they got it right or not. But, and some of them are like that. But I think based on, and I also haven't really recrunched the numbers that much, but based on what I know from these, I would consider, first of all, question number one, who provides better value over the course of his next contract, John Lester or Max Scherzer? I would consider the answers to that to be worthless because there are two things. That's actually a question that gives them two questions that they have to balance, who basically ask them to predict how much they'll sign for, which they're not great at. They seem to always underguess.

They seem to always be on the low end of what the guys actually sign for. And two, who's better? And they're not very good at that either. They're good in the sense that they know that a great player is better than a very poor player, as we all do. But there's no clear sense that once a player gets to a certain level of famousness, the GMs have any particular insight into them that we don't. They probably do a little, but not so much that it shows up in a question like this.

So I would say that this asks them two questions that they're fairly loose on and therefore put them together, and I would give it no credence whatsoever. Second question, who are the Dodgers most likely to trade this winter? I find that they do very well on whether a player is going to get traded or not. That seems to be their strength. And I think that makes sense. We are very bad at trades, you and me and people like us. When we try to do a fake trade, we really genuinely have no idea whether it's anywhere near the ballpark or not. Trying to make a trade involving, you know. Yeah, I don't try as a rule. You do too.

You liar. I do not. You definitely try. You absolutely try. Constructing trades or proposing trades is my least favorite. I know, but you do it. I guess I've done it. I've done it all.

Trying to balance 18 years of service time from prospects that are somewhere between C- and A- against a season and a half of a superstar who is arguably overpaid. There's just way too many moving parts, and so those are very hard to do. GMs seem to be good at those moving parts, and of course, they also have a much better sense of, in this case, who the Dodgers seem to be pushing when they talk to them. When they happen to bump into the Dodgers at the bar, and they're just sort of casually talking about players, they probably have a sense of who the Dodgers are actually hoping that you'll take. So I would say that the answer to that is useful. Are the Marlins more likely to trade Stanton this winter or sign him to a long-term deal?

I don't think that they really know. I think that in most cases the correct answer in this is inertia, is to just say that everybody will stay where they are. And they did. They were smart this year. They did that. So I don't think that it would be smart to bet on a trade or a long-term deal based on history. And they didn't. So that one seems like a good response. Victor Martinez and Nelson Cruz both had big years. Who's more likely to maintain that success? Not much better than a coin flip

here, I don't think. And the fact that they're fairly unanimous about it, 21 to 6, in favor of Martinez, strengthens their case a little bit. But I don't think that they've added much to my assessment or your assessment. Who's more likely to get traded, Hamels or Castro? This one, I think they're, again, it's a trade question and it's two guys who are somewhat complicated cases, so I think they know it much better. Although the problem is that they split. They pretty much split. They split down the middle. And nobody said neither, which is interesting.

There's always a neither. There is a both. So there are three people said both. So they're clearly not feeling pressure to answer the question literally to the words of the question. What is with the... Hang on. We'll get there. We'll get there.

We'll get there. And then what's the over-under on A-Rod's home run total? I wouldn't consider them to be particularly knowledgeable. It's not like anyone has seen A-Rod play in the last year and knows what he's looking like these days. That's a fun one, but that's more of a parlor game, I think they would acknowledge. And then will the Giants re-sign Sandoval?

I don't think that they have any idea. And Martin. Oh, and will they re-sign Martin? I think that's also something they don't have a lot of idea on, but maybe a little bit more. So yes, as you were about to say, in every single one of these, there's at least one. Almost.

Not everyone, which it would be less interesting if it were everyone, I think. But it's not. In almost every one of these, there's an I don't know. And actually, I don't think it's that bad because Krasnick's trying to keep his ballot count consistent. And GMs, I mean, we don't know the conversation. Maybe they don't. Maybe that's part of being an effective leader

is knowing partly when to delegate and sometimes just knowing when to punt. You know, even trying to spend 15 seconds of brainpower on an answer is 14 seconds more than you need. You look at that, you don't have an intuitive sense. bother just go pass and so they pass and so i don't think it's that i do think that it would be funny though if uh if this was the same guy right right well it'd be funny if it was the same guy saying i don't know because it's not every question, which would mean that he must have answered. So he's completely confident that he knows the future as it relates to some of these questions.

But in others, he is not quite sure. But yeah, it seems like someone who doesn't quite understand how to speculate. The point is, we know that you don't know, but we want to know your educated guess. Yeah. So, yeah, that's kind of funny. But, yeah, I don't know. Fun to read, but as you have found, not a whole lot of predictive value. You'd think that if they were going to be good at one thing, as you said, they seem to be pretty good at telling who's going to be traded or who's more likely to be traded, but not good at gauging amounts or the actual market

money-wise. You'd think that would be something that they would be decent at. And this is, to be fair, this is not all GMs and assistant GMs. It's talent evaluators, which is sort of a nebulous title. And there may be some scouts in here. So it's not all people who are necessarily in the room talking to agents all the time. But you'd think that executives would have a decent idea of where the market was going to be just based on buzz and based on what agents are asking for and what they're hearing from other teams and writers and rumor mongers and everything. You'd think that they wouldn't always undershoot amounts, but maybe it's just that they're thinking about what they would pay and not factoring in the winner's curse and the fact

that there's always someone who wants that player more. Yeah, and partisanship skews are which facts we choose to look at. And maybe you could imagine that these front office guys are, in a sense, partisans and agents are partisans on the other party. And maybe you just sort of, over the course of all those years of being on one side of the negotiations, your math gets skewed as these things happen. So it doesn't totally surprise me that that's the case. So what question would you ask if you had these 28 guys and you wanted to get insight?

And again, they're 28 guys from teams that are all over the league. They're different positions. So it's not like you can ask, well, where's Addison Russell going to start this season? I mean, you could. But it's not like if you had 28 Cubs front office guys, you could ask that question, and you'd be pretty good at it. But you don't. You have 28 guys from all over the league.

So you're going to have different perspectives on different things. What question would you ask that you would think that the most value added compared to your own knowledge would be? I wonder if maybe, well, I don't know. It's not really what Kresnik is doing, but if you were to ask about prospects, something about prospects. I feel like maybe they'd have more insight, like, um, like who's the most likely prospect to be traded in a deal or, or I don't know what, what prospects are people going after or, or surprisingly willing to trade or something. I don't know how I would phrase it or even even just, I'd be curious to know, like, I guess there'd be no real consensus

because I don't think teams necessarily have a consensus on prospects. Their own internal rankings often differ dramatically from the list that you might find at Baseball Perspectives. Maybe if you average them all together, it would look something like that list, but they, they vary quite a bit. I don't know. I'd be interested in like most overrated top prospect, something like that. Yeah. Like which prospect, uh, is going to see his, uh, you know, of these five top, you know, say top 25 prospects, which one will be ranked lowest next year? Or which one will be ranked highest next year?

I'd be interested in knowing right now who the number one pick in each year. Some years it's obvious. Some years it's obvious even right now. but a lot of times you go into the winner with six to eight guys who are all kind of going still playing for competing to be the top pick

in the June draft I'd be interested to know who they thought would be the number one pick and see if they're any good at that I could see them being good at that yeah that'd be good too maybe maybe who who Yeah, that'd be good too. Who, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, who will get the most saves this year

that doesn't have a job as a closer right now? Uh-huh. Yeah, I thought you were going to ask about games finished without a save opportunity. Yeah. That's an easy answer. I might give them five keepers in my keeper league and ask them which three yeah everyone's be a question that we get a lot everyone who works in baseball

just hopes that they will be asked fantasy questions all the time Okay, anything else? I don't Yeah, well Michael Kadir We said that We thought that in the week That he had to decide Whether to accept the qualifying offer He and the Rockies should bang out a two year 22 million dollar deal

And instead he and the Mets did Two years 21 With the draft pick cost with the draft pick costs and so that suggests that the Rockies should have well I don't know maybe no I guess the rock well so the Met okay so let's think about it like this the Mets give up I think it's the 15th pick and the Rockies will get the 35th pick. And so that suggests that there was some inefficiency there. Either their assessments of Michael Kodair are drastically different or strongly different,

or the Mets have a much bigger need than the Rockies. But otherwise, you figure that's what a, what would you guess, a $3 to maybe $8 million difference, the difference between the 14th pick, 15th pick, and the 35th? Yeah, sure. $8 million maybe? Maybe. I'd probably take the under on that.

But $3 to $8? You'd take the under on that. On eight. On eight, yeah. So, okay. Anyway. Yeah, there was a quote from Theo that was in a Chicago Tribune article by Paul Sullivan that I wanted to read because it was sort of similar to what we talked about when we discussed whether we had learned anything from the postseason,

whether the way that the Royals or Giants were constructed had taught us anything about how to win in the postseason. And someone asked him, I take it, about whether he thought that the Cubs have like a postseason ready bullpen or whether he is interested in building a strong bullpen because of how important bullpens seem to be in the postseason this year. And he said, one thing I always worry about is looking at the postseason and trying to draw broader conclusions about those teams. In the postseason, a lockdown bullpen becomes more important because with the off days, those guys are available to pitch every day and pitch more than they would during the regular

season. And it's a lower run scoring environment in the postseason. So certain things become more important. But also, if you want to have a good back end of the bullpen, getting a lot of innings out of starting pitching takes the burden off those relievers and means your best relievers are available to pitch more often and stay healthy. I think this was a postseason where maybe the bullpens took center stage more than the starting pitchers. But if you look at what Bumgarner did, it also emphasizes just how impactful a true number one on a roll can be in October. A true number one on a roll can be in October. I just think next year a team may not generate much offense except hit a bunch of home runs and everyone will say the long ball is king these days because no one has power. You have to be a little careful.

Which is, I think, correct. That was more or less what we said. So I agree. Okay. So we can get to some listener email questions now. So this one comes from Clark, who says, I was amused by the bomb ass versus not bomb ass discussion in Sam's recent piece on Nelson Cruz. If the BA versus NBA OPS plus line is 128 for DHs,

could you identify the pivot point for other positions? Do the Royals have a single bomb-ass hitter? So we should explain what we're talking about here. You wrote about Nelson Cruz last week, and I have it here. You said he had a 140 OPS plus this year compared to 124 the year before. That doesn't seem like much, but designated hitters aren't like other things. You don't need a designated hitter. If you go to a party and there's leftover pasta salad and the hosts ask you if you want to take it home, well, sure.

We all need food. So long as it's fresh and reasonably good, you'll take it. You'll use it. But if the host asks if you want to take home a dog and it's not your dog, it better be a bomb-ass dog. The line between bomb-ass and not bomb-ass for a designated hitter is around a 128 OPS+. So Clark wants to know where the line is for other positions and whether the Royals have anyone who would clear that line. Well, the line is much lower, but you don't need to clear the line anywhere else. The point is that you need a shortstop no matter what, so you don't necessarily get hung up on how good he is.

Everybody needs a shortstop. Everybody doesn't need a DH, though. And so the line is, I don't know, probably the line as a pure descriptive, the line would probably be like, you know, 121 for a first baseman or a corner outfielder. DHs were 110 league average this year. 121 for a first baseman, corner outfielder. Maybe 112 or so for a second baseman or a center fielder. 107 for a shortstop. And I don't know, 105 for a catcher. However, you don't look at Alcides Escobar and go, Oh, he's only 98.

It's not bomb ass. You're still super happy to have him because you need a shortstop because he's a pretty good one. It's a totally different standard, I would say. It's like a need versus want thing, right? Yes. You'll take the thing you need even if it's a much lower standard. You don't want it. I mean, I have a coat rack for instance, a really super nice coat rack. And this coat rack might be the nicest thing I own in its category. My house is nicer than the coat

rack in an absolute sense. But this, it's actually, it's a hat rack. I'm sorry. Is it a hat rack? It's the nicest thing you own and you don't even know what it is. It is. Well, it's an antique and it's, you know, 100 years, it's the finest of this, it's the finest antique hat rack, hat pole, coat rack you can get. Hat pole, it's called a hat pole. Hat pole, coat rack you can get. Hat pole, it's called a hat pole. I love it. This is a thing that I really value a great deal in my life. If you knocked it by 20%, I'd throw it away. I wouldn't even really want it in the house. Since it's awesome, I love it. I just think it's the greatest thing to own. But there's like two hat poles in the world that I would consent to putting in my house at all.

Makes sense. Okay, this question comes from Joe. Keith Law did a piece on the top 50 free agents highlighting Mr. Scherzer, old blue eyes, see what I did there as the top free agent. Law mentioned that- Ben, you totally botched the joke. mentioned that Ben you Totally botched the joke Completely botched the joke it's old Blue eye oh I get it Now I see what he did There law mentioned a

Drop in velocity of about half a mile Per hour on Scherzer's fastball in 2014 based on what We've seen from other starters and their effectiveness What can we project Scherzer's downward Spiral of doom to be How much juice will he lose if he continues on the historical trend of pitchers losing miles per hour how do you think he will fare compared to other starters who lost their mojo scherzer has significant movement on his fastball so that may help him cope with the

drop-off better than some his slider is his best secondary pitch with late movement for now. So there's a, uh, uh, related to this in the Jerry Krasnick polls, the executives piece, uh, there's actually a, yeah, that's right. A line about this that struck me as very odd that somebody would cite it. Um, and, uh, that, that line, that point that was made, uh, that line is, uh, Scherzer's fastball velocity declined from 94.2 to 92.8. That's hardly alarming, but in the aftermath of Justin Verlander's disappointing season in Detroit, some executives wonder how he'll adapt to having a less dominant repertoire.

From being around Verlander, absorbing his decline. Do you think we're misreading that? Do you think that there are actually executives that wouldn't notice this if Verlander had been like a twin? But since Scherzer and Verlander are teammates, it seems suggestive.

Maybe. I guess so. Or do you think they're just saying, well, Verlander's another reminder that we should always be wary of pitchers who depend on high velocity because we know that velocity is going to drop and that not all of them adjust equally and that this hasn't but the fact that their teammates the fact that Detroit appears on both their uniforms is actually irrelevant and that that was not intended by this executive hard to

say I don't know maybe the fact that they're both Tigers makes it easier for someone to notice. Anyway, what was the question? So the question is whether his drop in velocity is worrisome or what the typical drop in velocity is and how we think that he will age compared to other starters. So the drop in velocity is not at all unusual. That is, I think, completely normal to lose half a mile per hour at that age.

I know that Bill Petty has done lots of research on fastball velocity aging curves, and I am quoting from him now. He writes, Velocity is a young man's game. Rather than a parabolic curve of some sort, pitchers generally lose velocity from the beginning. Through age 28, they appear to stay within half a mile per hour of their peak velocity. But starting at age 29, which is, this was Scherzer's age 29 season, right? Yeah, age 29 season.

They have lost about one mile per hour hour with the loss accelerating every year thereafter. So losing half a mile per hour after that age per season is not all that strange, I don't think. So I would expect him to continue losing some velocity so he i mean he still throws quite hard so it's not at a point where um actually if you let's see let's i'm looking at his uh brooks baseball velocity aging curve so his velocity according to brooks was 94 even and the year before that it was 94 and a half and the year before that it was 95 so i guess that's pretty much typical although before that it was actually lower so he spiked a little bit at age 27 or so wait can we go over these numbers again because i the the thing that i just read from the gm who's worried about verlander was that it dropped from 94.2 in 2012 to 92.8 this year. Are those numbers correct or not? No.

Well, maybe according to some other site. You know why? It's still a big decline. You're looking at four seamers only. Yes, right. So it's, let's see. Well, no. I mean, he barely threw any other kind of thing no

right unless you were out he threw like three sinkers yeah so if you average them is it conceivable that someone averaged them no it's not conceivable that someone averaged them is it no it's not i that would be a bad mistake but so that yeah i don't know what that would mean because i mean brooks baseball's velocity readings are slightly different from what you'll find at other sites because they're measuring velocity at the moment of release or as close as they can figure, whereas other sites are figuring it like five feet after that, after it's slowed down a bit sort of.

Can I interrupt you, Ben? Where PitchFX measures it, yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I'm glad that according to Brooks it didn't drop because this actually was what I was going to ask you. Would it be any less troubling if his velocity didn't drop, which maybe it didn't? There's no reason really particularly.

It dropped a little. Yeah, it dropped a little. But it doesn't seem like there's any particular reason to think that a guy whose velocity has not dropped is any stabler than a guy whose velocity has dropped to me. Like you, we know that he's not going to throw as hard when he gets older. Like we just know that that's a fact. And so whether that, that decline has already, you know decline has already kind of come in stages before,

I don't know that it's any less likely that it's going. It probably is somewhat more likely. It's probably somewhat less likely that a guy whose velocity has been perfectly stable up to now will maintain it a little bit longer. But I wouldn't think it would be much more likely, and I wouldn't think that that likelihood would go much into the future. You know what I mean? Like, I would almost rather see a guy sign a guy whose velocity has dropped some,

but the performance has stayed exactly the same. Because then I at least could talk myself into the idea that something about this guy's style or the adjustments he's already made will make him immune to the performance drop that is likely to come with the velocity drop. Because I know the velocity drop is a stone cold certainty and the performance drop is the unknown. That's not a certainty. So what you're trying to figure out is if you can, who's going to hold their velocity longest? But I don't know that you can. But regardless can who's going to hold their velocity longest but i don't know that you can and if you uh but regardless who's going to hold their performance the longest and so uh that's why like for instance uh going back to the credit this krasnick piece has been very

useful uh going back to the krasnick piece somebody who picked lester uh specifically noted that he's already um he's already seen his decline, right? Am I imagining this? I think he said that he already... I read something somewhere about how Lester's agents, aces, were trying to sell him based on the fact that he had more pitches in the top 15 or different pitch types in the top 15 according to some pitch type run values than any other pitcher as if to suggest that he's got a deeper repertoire of good pitches

and therefore would be a better bet to age well, perhaps. Yes. And here's from the Krasnick piece. A lot of talent evaluators look at Lester's all-around pitch ability and see him as a safer choice, which the obvious implication is safer in that he isn't as reliant on velocity and velocity is not probably going to stay forever. Quote, he has a simpler delivery, cleaner arm action. There's not a lot to go wrong. I believe he will be okay when his stuff backs up. His stuff backs up here is basically a synonym for when he stops throwing his heart. up his stuff backs up here is basically a synonym for when he stops throwing his heart so uh so the this is already i guess they're not saying that lester's already lost his velocity and that's why he's okay but it is with an eye toward what's going to happen when he loses his velocity that

makes him more appealing to this guy yeah i would guess that someone who's already started losing velocity would be a little bit more likely to lose more of it. Not more of it, because everyone eventually loses the same amount because eventually they die. But prior to that, there are different curves of losing your fastball velocity. So I would guess that someone whose decline has started at age 29 or 30 would be more likely to lose whatever number that you want to pick out, whatever amount of miles per hour by age 35 or whatever, than someone whose velocity has been completely stable through the same age. But I see what you're saying, that it could be a positive sign if someone has lost velocity and has not declined in performance. But I mean, you would think that probably teams are sophisticated enough that they are able to project with some degree of accuracy how well a guy's performance would survive a loss in stuff i would guess or i don't maybe the maybe the verlander deal is a sign that that's not the case but i would think that based on just looking at pitcher characteristics whatever it is whether

it's deception or it's the number of pitches you have or it's the gap in velocity between the pitches or it's command or whatever, I would think that some teams have built various models or algorithms to try to predict how well pitchers will age based on their repertoire. So in that case, maybe you wouldn't need to see whether they have already survived the loss and stuff or not. You could just look at their profile, how similar they are to other pitchers. Yeah.

And probably, I guess if a guy has already shown velocity drop, you would have at least some wariness of the possibility that he might have shoulder problems that are going to get worse or something like that. That it's not simply aging, but that there might be something wrong in getting progressive. I think it's almost certain that I'm going to write about this offseason. So we'll revisit it when I do, and I have some facts and data. Okay. Do you have any facts and data from the Baseball Reference Play Index? I do.

So this one is about home field advantage. And I think you and I both like home field advantage. One of the things we like about it is how kind of strange and mysterious it is. Like we know that it's extremely consistent, but I don't think either of us feels that there is a conclusive answer for why it exists exactly the way it does. And any time you start to zero in on one explanation, you think, well, but what about this aspect of the game,

which also shows home field advantage? How come that also shows home field advantage when it seems to be totally unrelated to the variable that we've zeroed in on? Those words might make more sense in a couple minutes. They were kind of weird and random when I said them just now. But so I started wondering about this because I was looking at some guy's ground ball double play rate. I don't know why, but I wondered if it was like a home thing, like a home road thing. I don't know why I thought it would be a home road thing. But then I started wondering whether ground ball double play rates show a home field advantage.

And so then I started wondering, well, what does show a home field advantage? We know that the home team wins roughly 54% of the time. We know that this is true even in the postseason. It's probably true in spring training. And so we know they win, but what about each of these component performances? And baseball is, of course, made up of all these different skills that lead to victory. And the skills don't always have a lot to do with each other, although there are some threads that tie them together.

Anyway, so I wondered about ground ball double plays, and then I wondered about other things. So I went through 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16 different aspects of baseball that I wondered if they showed a home field advantage. And so name something, like something that's on the play index. So like ground ball double plays is one. So I'll just tell you, ground ball double plays, I looked at how often home teams hit into ground ball double plays based on how often they reach first base,

which isn't a perfect denominator because if you reach first base and there are two outs, you obviously can't hit into a double play. But it's better than, for reasons that will probably become clear, it's better than anything else that's simply available. So I looked at ground ball rates after reaching first base and in fact the home team hits into about 48.5% as many ground ball double plays or rephrased another way, the home team on defense turns 51.5% of the ground ball double plays and therefore they have a 51.5% to 48.5% home field advantage. So that's one of the 16.

Do you want to name another thing that you think I might have looked up? Catcher interference. No, I didn't look that up. Oh, well, this is useless then. That's the only one I want to know about. Hit by pitches. Hit by pitches, good one. Also 51.5%, exactly the same as groundball

double plays home field has a 51.5 to 48.5 advantage which is surprising right what is what in the world could being at home have to do with getting hit by pitches other than other than the pitcher himself on the road is uncomfortable with maybe the mound. Right, the mound, yeah. Or is uncomfortable just being away from his family and so therefore is a bit wilder. You might think that the familiarity with the batter's eye

would make hitters more able to avoid pitches, but that's not the case. In fact, this surprisingly hit by pitches and ground ball double plays, which seem to be two very different things, two very different skills, depending on many very different variables, have the exact same home field advantage, which is odd. Name another. Well, if I were going to guess what had one of the largest home field advantages, I would guess triples. Triples has the second largest that I looked up at 54 to 46. The only one larger is intentional walks,

and I think that one is largely due to the fact that you're probably more likely to intentionally walk somebody when you're trailing than when you're winning, and I think that's probably true. And home teams are more likely to be winning. So triples is essentially, you're right. And triples now, triples is very different too because triples, the reason that you zeroed in on it is because that is a home ballpark familiarity with the grounds themselves, right? So if you were looking at home field advantage and wondering what causes it, you might look at triples and say, oh, wow, well, triples,

that's a big part of it. It must be that the home team is more familiar with all the nooks and crannies of their home ballpark. And that's why they have a home field advantage. And triples would give you a solid piece of evidence. And yet that has nothing to do with getting hit by a pitch. And so therefore, it must be something either different than or shared between those two things. So I'll do some other ones, simple ones. Home runs, 51%. BABIP, 50.7%.

Isolated power, 51.7%. Strikeout rate, 51.6%. Walk rate, 52%. So those are a little higher than the norm. And that would, if you were looking at this and trying to figure out a reason for these things, you might say, well, that's the umpire effect. So those would cause you to maybe zero in on the umpire effect a little bit more. Pickoffs, 52%, which is interesting. That might on the umpire effect a little bit more. Pickoffs, 52%, which is interesting. That might be an umpire effect.

It doesn't seem to have anything whatsoever to do with the ballpark itself, with the grounds themselves. Some ballparks have cutouts in a different place. Maybe runners are better able to gauge their distance from the base if they're used to that could be could be that's interesting so then uh box are 51.7 you would think that's an umpire thing however maybe it's the maybe it's the pickoffs thing maybe it's the cutoffs thing maybe the inability to control a running game uh then transfers over to box to being more likely to

although it's probably umpires. Wild pitches, 51%. Stolen base percentage, stolen base success rate, 50.8%. Sacrifice bunts, although sacrifice bunts is a little bit different because it, again, has to do with game state and strategy, but it's 51.8%. And wild pitches is 51.0%. So a couple things that are interesting about this. One is how incredibly consistent these are.

Nothing below 50, nothing above 54. And there's just this tiny little window where all the home field funnels, and I guess window and funneling don't work, but there's this tiny little area where the home field advantage funnels everything into the same general region, which is weird and it just furthers the idea that there's something mystical about it. There's

something that is, it must be just so simple. It makes you think it should be so simple that it's 50 to, you know, there's this range of basically exactly 51 to 51 and a half percent for all of these things um and yet uh you can't really unless it all comes out of the uh strike zone like i guess if if you're if your hypothesis that this is all about umpires giving more strikes to the home team um and you know more balls to to the road team uh then you could sort of create a line connecting most of these things to that. Not quite all of them. Like wild pitches, probably not. Like you probably can't find that big of an advantage out of this,

out of a strike zone that would lead to so many more wild pitches for the home team. But largely you could tie them to that, but not entirely. So since it's not entirely so since it's not entirely you think it has to go with something else the other thing that's interesting about this is that um none of these other than triples is 54 we think of the 54 home field advantage but in fact um it's this accumulation of all these little advantages in every little aspect of the game none of which is that, but the end result is very noticeable. We generally feel like the home team

has a pretty sizable advantage in a game, and it does, although the advantage in every little aspect of the game is tiny, tiny. Tiny, tiny, but persistent. This, by the way, is throughout all of Major League history, and it was all based on rate stats. So per plate appearances were applicable, per runner on first were applicable. Cool.

Okay. So please support the Play Index by going to baseballreference.com and using the coupon code BEP to get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription. Box, Ben, box. Do you think that's just umpires? Well, no. I would guess that that has something to do with player comfort level, or maybe box are more likely in, I mean,

obviously they're more likely with, they only happen with runners on base, right? So you're more likely to they only happen with runners on base right so you're more likely to have runners on base I only did this based on situations with runners on base I see okay well yeah I don't know I guess it would just be

possibly comfort level or mound or whatever as you said would be affecting those other stats hard to say that's why home field advantage is fascinating. Okay, this question comes from Eric in New Zealand. We will partially answer it. This is a question about the Angels,

who just spent $8 million or more on one player, who is named Roberto Baldoquin, I would guess, who, well, I'll just read the question. The Angels, pending the usual visa issues, splashed out $8 million plus on a guy who does not seem to be high on teams' lists of international prospects and have totally blown out their international slot money. Of course, some of it is, what do they think they know that the others don't? I I mean this guy will get Number one pick bonus money Is he really that good? Any idea?

No, no idea We've just Skimmed the information that's out there Online Jesse Sanchez from MLB.com Wrote a bit about him but it's just the Basics, he's 23 He's 5'10", 180. He can play third base in the

outfield. He left Cuba in February. He's been trading in the Dominican Republic, etc. And there's a video of him on YouTube that I have not watched. So I do not have any insight on whether he is good or worth the money. But Eric asks, the questions I have for you are this. Given the structure of how the international pool slash slots are constructed and given the angels payroll constraints, would it be a workable strategy to go all in and spend another 20 to 30 million and go after a Yohan Mankata, who probably is worth number one money, as a way to restock the prospect cupboard, especially as this spending does not count against the main payroll luxury tax.

Perhaps more big picture is, let's say big market teams just decide to ignore the rules and spend up large to get who they want, as some have done so far, and just absorb the fine slash tax. Would you think MLB would try to come up with something to stop this? I don't know, maybe like a player must be drafted via the MLB draft unless they have X years of pro ball service in a non-USA league or at least Y years old. As it stands, it seems the current setup does little to deter the big spenders' thoughts. So yeah, this guy was subject to the international bonus spending stuff in the CBA because he has not played in the cuban leagues for five seasons and he's under 23 so he's subject to those signing guidelines the angels total bonus pool for this year was 2.4 million dollars so they spent more than three times that on this one player alone, which means that they will pay a 100% tax on the overage,

and they will not be able to sign a player for more than $300,000 during the next two signing periods. And this is something that we talked about, I think, Russell and I talked to Kylie McDaniel about in July after the Yankees spent many millions of dollars and blew past their bonus pool to do this same sort of thing. So the question about whether they should just spend a ton of money if they can for now, it seems like the answer is yes. If, if Moncada becomes available or some other guy becomes available, then they should do that. It's probably worth it to them to pay the overage because they're not going to be able to sign a good player on this market for the next couple of years. So they might as well make it count while they have the chance. And they would be

bidding then against the other teams that have already exceeded their pools. And you'd think that maybe the Angels would be a particularly good candidate to do this in that they don't have much of a farm system and they need to restock it. And they don't seem to have a whole lot of flexibility on the major league roster. So this is maybe a way to get some young talent. And so the question about what MLB can do or should do about this is maybe the more interesting question. The fact that teams are incurring this penalty willingly suggests that the penalty is not strong enough. Or maybe there shouldn't be a penalty, but from MLB's perspective,

trying to keep the bonuses down and ostensibly ensure parity, it doesn't seem like the penalties are strong enough to do that anymore. Teams have decided that they're not going to abide by these things. So I don't know what the solution to that, other than something drastic like a draft, you could just raise the penalties even more. There is some level of tax on the overage where teams would decide not to do it anymore. But I don't know what the level is. I don't know if there are any other creative solutions that teams could apply. But yeah, it seems like one of the few areas where big market teams can maybe still use their financial clout to have an advantage.

So that's what's happening. Remember when there used to be like recommended slots in the draft and there were no penalties, but they were just recommended. And teams actually followed them. Like we would always hear about how teams followed them. The White Sox, yeah. Then Bud Selig and the commissioner's office would, like, send you a stern letter. Yeah, you'd get a call from some annoyed person. I don't know if this is actually true.

It might be that I'm overstating how much, or we might have been misled by how much that actually happened, how much teams fell in line. But certainly the impression we always got was that teams mostly fell in line and followed those slot guidances. lesson in the way that laws can sometimes actually degrade kind of morality or ethics or behavior because now that there is a penalty, there's no guilt about blowing past the limits. You just do it and pay your fine. I think I remember seeing that there is an example of this where like daycares, if you have, if you ask your parents, you know, please don't be late picking up your kids. We really need you here. We're just a bunch of humble, you know, school administrators. We don't want to be stuck here into the evening because you were too late to pick up your kid.

Parents are really good about getting there. And then if you impose a fine of like, you know, five bucks or whatever, parents go, oh, okay, well, if I'm late, I just have to pay five bucks or, you know, 50 bucks or whatever. And it becomes just another transaction. And you can weigh your self-interest in this transaction and you might decide that it's worth it for you. And so, in this case, there might decide that it's worth it for you. And so in this case, there's no guilt whatsoever. There's nobody would accuse the angels of acting unethically

if they blow past their limits and take advantage of that. You pay your fine. If they want to stop you, then they should charge you another fine. And I don't know, I feel like maybe there's something about this in the trajectory of the United States since the mid-1970s that somebody could tease out if they really wanted to. I will say that while editing the book, Jason and I have been making sure that all the players that need to be covered get covered. And one of the ways that sometimes players get missed is that international signings often get overlooked and don't make the book. So we're being careful to make sure that they are. And in that process, it has become, like I knew the Yankees had signed a bunch of really good international, like I knew they had done this strategy. We knew it was coming six months before it happened. It happened. And I

knew that. I didn't quite realize how extreme it was. By MLb.com's international prospect rankings the yankees signed the number 1 2 5 7 9 13 14 and 16 prospects so like if this were the draft it would be like if they had eight picks in the first 16 in the j draft. Like imagine one team doing that. That's what the Yankees did. Uh-huh. And so there is some point at which the penalties would become so harsh that a team wouldn't do it, but it might be a lot higher than it is now. So maybe the more effective way to curb this kind of spending,

if MLB wants to do that is by just making just having some disapproving person have to have to sign off on it or you you can't just do it you have to go through someone who's going to try to talk you out of it or something and frown at you and disapprove. Yeah. Okay. Ask Eric Hartman's real quick. That's a quick one. Okay. I feel like we talked about this once, but I don't know. I think we did.

Yeah, so. Eric is listening to every episode. If he wants to address it again, then we obviously didn't address it enough. Good point. So Eric says, a reader of Drew McGarry's Fun Bag had a question I really enjoyed. What would be the difference if baseball had offenses and defenses, a completely different group of nine guys in the field versus the nine that bat? So we,

I think that we talked about it because, um, I don't know if, if Eric has asked, I don't know if Eric is suggesting that it would be forced if you can't use the same guy on both sides of the field. Probably. Well, we don't know. It's not in question. I think when we talked about it last,

I mentioned that I one time asked Kevin Goldstein if you had to pick the nine best defensive players in the world, or maybe the eight because I probably left out pitcher, how many of those eight are not in the major leagues right now? And I think he said zero. Or maybe he said one. And that has always stuck with me and blown me away That kind of, that has always stuck with me and blown me away.

Because it feels like the skills are separate enough that you would have this whole class of, like, incredible, you know, Venezuelan shortstops who could never hit 100 even in middle school and therefore never advance, but have the defensive brilliance that would get them to the majors in a two-team, two-divided squad kind of a format. But Kevin didn't seem to think that was true. I'm assuming I understood him correctly. And so to answer Eric's question, there's probably not a lot of players that are qualified to do one, to do defense, that aren't also qualified to hit in the

majors um and so assuming that you you know you still need a lot of players to fill your league i think most of the same ball players would still be in the majors yeah now the question is if you had the choice of like say you have carlos gomez Oh yeah, I think once we were asked, I don't know if we answered it, but once we were asked if you had to do this, then which position would Carlos Gomez play or somebody like that. So if you had the choice between, if you had Carlos Gomez and you could choose to play him on both ends or if you could choose to play him on only one,

how many players do you think would play both ways? So there's 240 starters in Major League Baseball at positions, 240 position starters, not counting DH. Of those 240 positions, how many do you think would be guys playing both ways? And let's leave the possibility of fatigue out of it like we'll say that there's no fatigue based reason to rest your guys just in terms of quality yeah and maybe probably not many i would think like like 20 well because every minor league shortstop is a better first baseman

than most first basemen, right? Or is a better second baseman, certainly, than most second basemen. So probably in that sense, you would have a lot more minor league shortstops playing in the majors. But I don't know. Okay, let me rephrase it. Of the 30 starting shortstops, how many would go both ways? How many of the 30 best defensive shortstops in the world are currently major league shortstops, would you guess? I'd say 20.

Oh, wow. I was going to say maybe 8. But yeah, maybe it is 20. I think Kevin... Yeah, I'm more on the Goldstein side. Yeah, I think the lesson of Kevin's reply to me is that it's probably closer to 20, maybe. So how many of those would also be on offense? Well, oh, because now Billy Butler

could be your starting shortstop on offense so probably no one I see maybe Tulowitzky this got too complicated

it requires much more work yeah that's a tough one okay alright since we started talking they announced the manager of the yearboats yeah requires much more work. Yeah, that's a tough one. All right. Okay, all right. Since we started talking, they announced the manager of the year votes. Yeah. I'm sort of surprised that Matt Williams got 18 of 30 first place votes.

Does that surprise you? Clint Hurdle got eight first place votes and Bruce Bochy got three? It wasn't going to be Clint Hurdle again because he won last year. And you can't overperform if you did the exact same thing as last year. I mean, Hurdle had enough lingering sadness

about the Pirates that he got eight. And I mean, that was impressive. But I think one manager in history has won two in a row. Oh, is that true? Yeah, this is and I mean, that's, that was impressive. But what I think one manager in history has won two in a row. Oh, is that true? Yeah. This is, I mean, show Walter one for the third time, but each of them came 10 years apart. Yeah. And the giants weren't very good. Remember the giants collapsed in the second half. So you can't really give it to Bochy under the rules that they normally allow. So yeah, if you have, if you're the best team in baseball and you won 82 games the year before, you're going to get it every time, I think, or the best team

in the league. I think you're going to get it every time. Like next year, if the Yankees win 100 games, Girardi will get it, right? Sure. Yeah, so that's basically what happened with the Nationals. But Hurdle came close. Yeah, the only time that I, I think the only time somebody's won it two years in a row was Bobby Cox. And the next year, the Braves missed the playoffs for the first time in forever, and they've won one postseason game in the decade since.

So probably good for the Pirates that they didn't. Okay. All right. Lastly, I don't have an answer to this. This question came from Maxime from Quebec, who asked about income tax rates and free agency. So he said that Robinson Cano signed with Seattle last year for $240 million. Do you think the Yankees had to offer him something like $260 to match the offer on

an after-tax basis? There's no state income tax in Washington, but there is a 9% tax in New York. And he wanted us to discuss the influence of state income tax on free agent decisions, whether Texas and Florida have a competitive advantage over Toronto, New York, and California. I don't know. Theoretically, yes. I'm not an expert in tax law, surprisingly. So a lot of players have off-season homes or permanent residences in Florida, for instance, and they

don't play in Florida. I don't know how that affects things. Theoretically, yes. And if you Google baseball free agents income tax, you can find a bunch of journals and papers where people looked at this and calculated how much different the value is in various states. I was thinking of doing an article on this to see whether I could tell whether those teams in certain states get better deals on free agents, like whether they pay fewer dollars per war or something. But I'm not sure that that would even be doable because there are so many other considerations with dollars per war, payroll and GMs

and all these other things. So I don't know the details of that, but yes, theoretically, there should be some impact. That is the end of the show. We will be back later this week with another show. I will post the link to that Krasnick article in the Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild.

We welcome your ratings and reviews and subscriptions on iTunes and your questions for next week at podcast at baseball prospectus.com.