I’m no lawyer, but something about the new CBA (collective bargaining agreement) seems like it really shouldn’t be legal.
Like I said, I don’t know what the law actually says, so I’m just going by my intuition.
Let me try to explain my concern using an example from another industry. Let’s suppose all the U.S. airlines got together and unilaterally decided they wouldn’t pay any of their pilots more than $100 per hour. I’m pretty sure that would be illegal, though I admit I don’t know which specific law it violates–maybe it’s labor law or antitrust, but I’m pretty sure that companies can’t do that.
On the other, if the airlines got together and bargained with the pilots union and the outcome of the negotiation was an agreement that says no pilot would be paid more than $100 per hour, that seems like it should be legal.* That is, because representatives of the pilots are at the negotiating table and the pilots’ union gives its assent, we would recognize it as a valid agreement. The key idea is that it’s not unilateral, and the pilots have a say in what the limits on wages are going to be.
* I’m aware that in practice in the United States, each airline generally negotiates a separate agreement, and that some airlines are not unionized. But in some industries, union agreements are made collectively with multiple employers, so the basic point remains.
Next suppose the airlines and the pilots get together and they decide that not only should the limit on pilots’ pay be $100 per hour, but also that the flight attendants pay should be no more than $25 per hour and the baggage handlers should be limited to $10 per hour. Furthermore, assume that no flight attendants or baggage handlers were present at the bargaining table. Would this agreement be legal? It seems to me that it wouldn’t be, for the same reasons that the unilateral limit agreement by the airlines wouldn’t have been. The fact that the pilots may have agreed to it would seem to be irrelevant if we’re talking about the pay of flight attendants and baggage handlers.
Now isn’t the CBA essentially the same thing? The teams and the Major League Baseball Players’ Association get together and not only agree on the rules under which MLB players’ salaries will be set, but also on the rules and limits governing the pay and bonuses of U.S. and international minor leaguers. The new rules for the amateur draft are expected essentially to function like a hard slotting system, with very little flexibility to pay more than the recommended amount for each draft slot. Furthermore, the minor leaguers are not represented at the bargaining table–the Players’ Association membership is limited to the 1,200 players who appear on the major league teams’ 40-man rosters. Like I said, I’m not lawyer, but it’s hard for me to believe that such an agreement could be legal.
Now maybe baseball gets away with this because of its antitrust exemption. To tell the truth, I’m not sure what the antitrust exemption does for baseball. In most respects, it seems to operate about the same as the other major professional sports that don’t claim such an exemption—maybe it’s its operations with the minor leagues that are protected by the exemption.
Or maybe MLB just figures that no one is going to challenge them in the courts. Who would? Certainly not some 17-year Dominican kid who sees baseball as his only ticket out of poverty. Probably not the 19-to-22 year-old draft-eligible American kid who dreams of major league glory either. None of them would want to rock the boat. And even though most minor league players are terribly exploited, they aren’t the type of workers who are likely to organize a union. So maybe the CBA is illegal, but MLB has decided that it can get away with it because no one will challenge it.
How much difference will the CBA really make? The reactions are all over the map. Brien at It’s About the Money describes it as
“a truly terrible deal, basically the worst case scenario and then some. It’s a horrible deal for amateur players, and will certainly push a large amount of them to college, and a fairly substantial number of young athletes to other sports altogether.”
At the other extreme is Tom Boswell of The Washington Post (have you noticed how he’s seeming more and more like a PR flak for the Nationals and MLB lately?), who writes that the CBA
“is so monumentally symbolic for the sport, and such a shock to our cynical systems, that millions of fans, accustomed to 35 years of labor warfare or steroid disgrace, may suffer from the same delighted whiplash. We hardly know how to cope with optimism in such unaccustomed quantities.”
For a more balanced discussion, we can read Rob Neyer of Baseball Nation:
” I think it’s far too early for say exactly what effect the new rules about amateurs will have on competitive balance and quality of play, generally.
My guess, though? Whether positive or negative, the overall impact will be small enough that it’s difficult to measure.”
My view is similar. Looking specifically at the Nationals’ last couple of drafts, what players were we able to sign that we probably wouldn’t have signed with the new rules? My guess is that there were really only two—A.J. Cole in 2010 and Matt Purke this year—who wouldn’t have signed without extra money. Yes, the Nats have signed a lot of other players over slot—Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper, Sammy Solis, Robbie Ray, Anthony Rendon, Alex Meyer, and Brian Goodwin—but my sense is that if the new rules had been in effect, most of those guys would have gone ahead and signed and taken less money. So, while there’s some effect on the team, it’s mixed (the team loses out on a couple of prospects, but also saves quite a bit of money). Furthermore, because the new rules create hard expectations about bonuses for each draft slot, disasters like the failure to sign Aaron Crow in 2008 become much less likely.
The other thing to think about with the new rules is that, like other restrictions on mutually beneficial contracts, there will be efforts to evade the restrictions that will lead to unintended consequences. We can sort of guess what they might be. Will teams start buying cars and condos for their prized prospects? Will the kid (or the kid’s parents) get cushy off-season “jobs” with partners of the team? We can look at some of the shenanigans that go in the NCAA and get a sense of what happens when an external authority tries to prohibit payments for talent.
So I don’t like the new CBA limits on amateur and international contracts—they basically are intended to transfer income from relatively poor minor leaguers to rich owners and MLB players—but I think they will be evaded and have a relatively small effect on the talent available to baseball as a whole or to the Nationals, specifically, as a team.
Other parts of the agreement are also a mixed bag. There will be more interleague play (probably inevitable) and another pair of wild card teams. Contrary to some suggestions, it will not reduce the probability of a wild card team winning the World Series—yes, the probability of any individual wild card team winning will be only half as large, but there will be twice as many wild card teams competing, so the probability of one of them winning the championship won’t be perceptibly different. There will be expanded drug testing and a ban on smokeless tobacco, which I count as pluses. But on the whole, the changes seem fairly modest and unlikely to upset the fortunes of the rich and powerful who run the game.
It’s always fun to look at projections for how players will do next season. Any individual projection is, of course, very likely to be wrong, but a group of player projections will often get the story generally right. Fangraphs has posted the 2012 Bill James Handbook Projections.* I’m going to run through them for the Nats players, adding a little commentary where appropriate. I think they provide an interesting view of the potential strengths of our current roster, along with warnings about potential risks ahead.
For position players, I’ll give the following lines of actual or projected statistics:
Games/Plate appearances — Average / On-base percentage / Slugging — wOBA (weighted on-base average)
For pitchers, I’ll just report the actual and projected:
Innings Pitched — ERA / FIP (fielding-independent pitching)
* While I used to faithfully buy the Bill James Handbook every winter, I have to admit I quit buying them two or three seasons ago. When my better half asked me to clean out the overcrowded bookshelf, I decided that books filled with statistics that I can mostly find online were among the easier choices to dispose of.
I’ll start with the players who are projected to decline relative to 2011, then move on to players who are projected to improve. In each case I’ll report the player’s 2011 actual line, the Bill James 2012 projection, and then add a brief comment.
Projected declines
Michael Morse
2011 Actual: 146/575 — .303/.360/.550 — .387
2012 Bill James: 140/553 — .291/.347/.505 — .369
Following a career year at age 29, a drop-off in performance shouldn’t be surprise anyone. My own guess is that he’ll lose a little more than projected in average, but do a little better in isolated power.
Wilson Ramos
2011 Actual: 113/435 — .267/.334/.445 — .332
2012 Bill James: 113/425 — .267/.317/.431 — .321
This season, Ramos exceeded his minor league projections, so I assume that’s the reason for projecting a slight sophomore slump.
John Lannan
2011 Actual: 184.2 — 3.70/4.28
2012 Bill James: 180 — 4.40/4.49
Ouch! I’ll admit that I’m part of the camp that’s been skeptical about Lannan’s future as a pitcher, and this projection is certainly consistent with that view. I’ll also point out that while Lannan was overall a league-average pitcher for this season, his performance was quite inconsistent. From May 27 to August 17, he pitched 14 games, going 6–2 with an average game score of 55 and allowing 2.85 R/9. But during the periods before May 27 and after August 17, he performed pretty poorly, pitching 19 games with a 4–11 record and allowing 5.71 R/9.
Ross Detwiler
2011 Actual: 66 — 3.00/4.21
2012 Bill James: 109 — 4.46/3.87
Ouch again! I guess his relatively unimpressive AAA stats from last season affected this projection.
Jordan Zimmermann
2011 Actual: 161.1 — 3.18/3.16
2012 Bill James: 175 — 3.39/3.51
As I’ve pointed out a couple of times, JZimm has had some good luck this season with his home run rates and some regression is appropriate.
Projected improvements
Ryan Zimmerman
2011 Actual: 101/440 — .289/.355/.443 — .347
2012 Bill James: 139/596 — .291/.363/.486 — .366
This projection has his power returning, but not quite to the level it had reached in 2009/2010 (though that’s probably mainly a reflection of the league-wide drop in offense).
Jayson Werth
2011 Actual: 150/649 — .232/.330/.389 — .323
2012 Bill James: 146/579 — .259/.360/.451 — .354
Again, a nice bounce back, though not a return to the levels he reached in 2008/2010. In addition to the league-wide decline in offense, he’s also dealing with a less hitter-friendly ball park and the effects of age.
Adam LaRoche
2011 Actual: 43/177 — .172/.288/.258 — .258
2012 Bill James: 87/293 — .255/.333/.445 — .341
The uncertainty in his return from injury seems to be exhibited more by reduced projected playing time than by a reduction in his rate statistics.
Danny Espinosa
2011 Actual: 158/658 — .236/.323/.414 — .325
2012 Bill James: 158/623 — .248/.329/.445 — .330
Since his 2011 statistics were generally consistent with his previous minor league stats, his 2012 projection shows a modest improvement.
Ian Desmond
2011 Actual: 154/639 — .253/.298/.358 — .290
2012 Bill James: 143/561 — .268/.317/.394 — .312
If he can hit this projection, that should be enough for him to retain his roster spot.
Roger Bernadina
2011 Actual: 91/337 — .243/.301/.362 — .303
2012 Bill James: 96/292 — .261/.327/.399 — .323
It would be an improvement, but not enough to justify a promotion to a regular.
Chien-Ming Wang
2011 Actual: 62.1 — 4.04/4.57
2012 Bill James: 119 — 3.78/3.80
Obviously, a risky projection.
Fangraphs didn’t show a projection for Stephen Strasburg (I’m not sure whether the Bill James Handbook did one), and I’ll skip the projections for relief pitchers, who are notoriously hard to project. Overall, the message seems to be that while Nationals’ hitting is likely to improve, the starting pitching (other than Strasburg and possibly Wang) is likely to drop off. So Mike Rizzo’s search for a starting pitcher seems justified.
I’ll end by presenting, without comment, the projections for a few players who have been mentioned as possible targets in free agency or trades:
Potential free agent or trade acquisitions
B.J. Upton – 2012 Bill James: 153/637 — .251/.344/.424 — .340
C.J. Wilson – 2012 Bill James: 215 — 3.31/3.41
Roy Oswalt – 2012 Bill James: 171 — 3.47/3.52
Mark Buehrle – 2012 Bill James: 208 — 3.98/4.08
Update: November 15, 2011
It turns out I missed the most remarkable of the Nats’ Bill James Handbook projections (hat tip: Carson Cistulli of fangraphs.com). When I saw that projections weren’t available for either Strasburg or Brad Peacock, I didn’t bother checking projections for other players who didn’t have much major league experience, so I missed this shocker:
Tom Milone
2011 Actual: 26 — 3.81/3.56
2012 Bill James: 52 — 3.29/2.70
The FIP is based on a projection of 8.3 K/9 and 1.2 BB/9. Cistulli wrote, “Whatever methodology James’s projections use, it appears convinced that Milone is more than a soft-tossing left-hander.” I can sort of understand how James and his staff came up with those numbers based on his AAA stats, but after watching Milone pitch in September, I’d be shocked if he met these projections.
The hot stove league kicked off this week with the Nats signing Chien-Ming Wang to a one-year, $4 million contract. While the signing was widely anticipated, it is likely to have effects in both short-term, impacting the plans for the Nats’ 2012 starting rotation, and in the longer-term, where it may enhance the team’s ability to recruit international talent.
Mike Axisa of FanGraphs views the contract as a bit of an overpay. I, on the other hand, think the price was reasonable. Wang’s projected performance for next season obviously has a large variance. At the high end, the Nats are hoping for a 2.5 to 3.0 WAR performance, which would be consistent with his performance over eight of his last nine starts in 2011. At the low end, however, he is reinjured or fails to establish consistent command and doesn’t make it through the season. A mean projection for 2012 is probably about one WAR, for which $4 million isn’t unreasonable in view of the potential upside.
How will Wang’s signing affect the plans for the Nats’ starting rotation? At the moment, the opening day rotation appears to be shaping up as Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann, John Lannan, Wang, and Ross Detwiler, with Tom Milone and Brad Peacock (who have options) returning to the minors. At least in Peacock’s case, I think the time in the minors can be helpful, since he needs to work on developing another pitch.
Of course, as Mike Rizzo has emphasized, the team really needs to have eight or nine starting pitchers available (especially with Strasburg facing an innings limit), so it’s quite likely that we’ll see Milone and Peacock later in the season. Furthermore, Rizzo continues to pursue a top-of-the-rotation starter. On this point, I fully agree with Rizzo. While our pitching prospects have impressive potential, our current rotation remains weak in comparison with those of our main competitors—Philadelphia and Atlanta.
After earlier speculation about the Nats pursuing C.J. Wilson and Yu Darvish, the talk now seems to be focusing on Mark Buerhle. Rob Neyer of Baseball Nation concludes that Buerhle is the second best free agent pitcher on the market. I think pursuing Buerhle rather than Wilson makes sense—Buerhle will probably require a three-year commitment, while Wilson will probably demand at least a five-year contract, which just seems too risky. I’d still like to see the Nats take a run at Darvish, but Buerhle would be a good acquisition who would make the Nats’ rotation competitive with any team except for Philadelphia.
Of course, if Rizzo succeeds in signing a top-of-the-rotation starter, Detwiler, who is out of options, will likely be pushed into a long-relief role. I think that’s somewhat unfortunate, since I view Detwiler as likely to have a better season than either Lannan or Wang. And if Detwiler is destined for the bullpen, that probably implies that Tom Gorzelanny would be non-tendered. I’d sort of hate to see Gorzelanny go, since I thought he pitched pretty well overall with the exception of some bad luck on his home runs per fly ball rate. Another possibility, of course, is that Detwiler would be used as trade bait in Rizzo’s effort to land a center fielder. That could be a sensible strategy for the Nats, since Detwiler has established some trade value and seems replaceable by other prospects in the pipeline, like Milone and Sammy Solis.
Another aspect of Wang’s signing perhaps hasn’t received as much attention. Watching the Taiwan All-Star series, I’ve been impressed by what a major celebrity Wang is in his home country. I learned that the Nats games he pitches are broadcast there, which has the side effect of turning Nats players like Michael Morse into Taiwanese celebrities.
I hope that the Nationals take advantage of Wang’s celebrity to expand their scouting and recruitment efforts in Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia. I can foresee such an effort yielding dividends long after Wang’s contract is over. In addition, an expanded the scouting operation in Taiwan would position the Nats to eventually move into China as that country’s baseball program advances. At some point in the next 25 years, I expect China to embrace baseball, and when they do so, it will have a huge impact on international baseball. If our team can develop a scouting and recruitment system that’s comfortable with Chinese culture, we could have a leg up on an enormous source of talent.
The Nationals lost utility player Brian Bixler after the Houston Astros claimed him off waivers, the Astros announced this afternoon.Bixler, 29, started the season with Class AAA Syracuse. He appeared in 79 games for the Nationals and hit .205/.267/.265 in 94 plate appearances. The Nationals valued him for his blazing speed and versatility, as he played every position this season except catcher, pitcher and second base.
One of the great things about the old Bill James Baseball Abstracts was seeing how he developed sophisticatedly simple methods for organizing data. For example, for a study of rookies, he organized players into six buckets. “Fives” were the all-time greats, players like Aaron and Cobb. “Fours” were the major stars, players like Whitey Ford and Bob Gibson. “Threes” were players who could be described as marginal Hall of Fame candidates, players like Ron Guidry, Dick Groat, and Chick Hafey. “Twos” were the “very good ballplayers/minor stars,” and “Ones” were merely “good ballplayers.” Of course James set statistical criteria for each bucket – to qualify as a “One,” for example, a player had to play 1100 games or have at least one big season, scoring or driving in 100 runs or hitting 30 home runs. A pitcher might qualify by winning 90 games or saving 140.
Of course the great majority of major league players in history, more than 80%, were in his final bucket—the players who didn’t even qualify as “Ones.” James described them:
Though some of them do turn in two or three good seasons… these are players who either have limited ability or “fail to reach their potential,” passing out of the game leaving only a scattered memory. Their personal accomplishments, though significant in isolation, are of such a magnitude that their exclusion is not deemed to damage an evaluation of the rookie crop of which they are a part.
Brian Bixler is, of course, a member of this large group. I’m not a person who especially enjoys memorizing trivia, and I tend to forget most players of this type. In Brian’s case, however, I think I’d like to remember this catch.
On October 5, 1948—63 years ago—Washington won its last World Series. The championship was not won by the Senators, who lost 97 games and finished seventh in the American League. It was Washington’s other baseball team, the Homestead Grays, who won their third Negro League World Series championship in six years in what turned out to be the last such Series ever played. The Grays won four games to one, clinching the victory with with a dramatic extra-inning win that remains shrouded in mystery.
Both the Grays and their opponents, the Birmingham Black Barons, featured future Hall of Famers, but they couldn’t have been more different. The Grays’ star was their 41-year old veteran first baseman, Buck Leonard, then in his 15th season with the Grays and one of the most respected hitters in Negro league history. In contrast, the Black Barons’ future Hall of Famer was a teenager who dazzled observers with his hitting, fielding, running and throwing and who would ultimately be recognized as one of the greatest players of all time, Willie Mays.
In an earlier article I described how the Grays won the Negro National League pennant, beating Baltimore in the championship series with the deciding game tainted by controversy. The Negro leagues were in deep distress, as both the black fans and press had shifted their attention to the newly integrated major leagues. Attendance at Grays home games at Griffith Stadium, which had averaged nearly 11,000 per game before integration, dropped to 2,000 per game by the late summer of 1948.
The first game of the World Series was played in Kansas City on Sunday, September 26, where the Black Barons had just won the Negro American League championship over the Kansas City Monarchs.* The Grays took a 3–1 lead in the bottom of the second when Willie Pope tripled to score two runs and was then driven home on a double by Luis Márquez. The Black Barons narrowed the score to 3–2 in the top of the eighth when Piper Davis doubled with two on. The first runner scored, but when Pepper Bassett tried to score from first, Grays right fielder Bob Thurman’s throw nailed him at the plate. The Grays didn’t allow any additional runs and took a 1–0 lead.
* It wasn’t unusual for Negro League World Series games to be played in other cities; most teams did not control their own ballparks and leased their parks, when they were available, from white major or minor league teams.
Game 2 took place Wednesday in Birmingham. The Black Barons took a 2–0 lead into the sixth, when the Grays loaded the bases with one out. Wilmer Fields hit a ground ball forcing the runner at second, but Birmingham shortstop Artie Wilson wasn’t able to turn the double play, allowing Márquez to score from third. Then Eudie Napier singled, scoring Luke Easter and tying the game. Pope was the next batter and he hit a three-run homer, giving the Grays a 5–2 lead. The Black Barons were able to score only one more run in the ninth and fell behind two games to none.
Game 3 was played the next day, and those in attendance got a glimpse of the future of Willie Mays. In the fourth inning Thurman launched a long fly to center, which Mays was able to chase down at the wall. In the sixth, Mays threw out Leonard attempting to go from first to third on a single. Then, in the ninth with the score tied 3–3 and a runner on second, Mays smoked a ball up the middle for a walk-off single and narrowed the Grays’ lead to one game.
Game 4 was played on Sunday, October 3, in New Orleans. The Grays rolled over the Black Barons 14–1 behind the pitching of Fields and a grand slam hit by Easter.
The teams returned to Birmingham for Game 5 on October 5. From a line score, it looks like it must have been an exciting game. Homestead scored two in the first; Birmingham tied it in the fourth and took a 4–2 lead in the fifth; Homestead came back with three runs in the sixth; Birmingham scored two in the eighth to retake the lead 6–5; and Homestead tied it 6–6 in the top of the ninth. The Grays finally put the game away with four runs in the tenth inning, ending the final Negro League World Series game ever played.
Unfortunately, I really can’t say very much about what happened other than the scoring because it appears all of the reporters were in Boston preparing to cover the major league World Series between the Boston Braves and the Cleveland Indians. The Indians featured Larry Doby and Satchel Paige, two of only four black players then playing in the majors (along with Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella of the Brooklyn Dodgers), so the appearance of Doby and Paige in the World Series caught the full attention of the black press.
The article in the Baltimore Afro American is only seven sentences and appears to have been written by someone who hadn’t actually seen the game. John Klima wrote a book, Willie’s Boys, on Mays and the Black Barons, and it appears he wasn’t successful in finding a newspaper account either. He writes, “Detailed were scant in papers around the country, as black newspapers dedicated their space to the major league World Series…”
While the Washington Homestead Grays were the last Negro League World Series champions, the victory was bittersweet. After the season ended, the Negro National League folded. Several of the teams also folded, though three teams were absorbed into the Negro American League, which soldiered on as an unofficial “minor” league for another decade. The Grays decided to become independent and go back to barnstorming, lasting two more seasons before folding in late 1950.
Three of the Grays players eventually made it to the majors: Luke Easter, Bob Thurman, and Luis Márquez. Wilmer Fields received offers from major league teams but preferred to play in Latin America. Buck Leonard was too old to draw interest from major league teams, but he could still hit and continued to play for the Grays through 1950, and then in the Mexican League from 1951 to 1953 (ages 43 to 45), where he averaged .326 and slugged .515.
Addendum – August 3, 2017.
I’m happy to report that there’s a lot more information available about this series, thanks to a new book from SABR (Society for American Baseball Research), Bittersweet Goodbye: The Black Barons, the Grays, and the 1948 Negro League World Series. The E-book is free for SABR members and inexpensive for non-members, and even the hardcopy is quite affordable. The book includes not only more detailed information than I was able to find about the series and the league championship series leading up to it, but also detailed biographies of the members of both teams. Many researchers contributed to this fine book. So if you’re interested in this relatively obscure part of American baseball history, I recommend that you get the book
References
I relied heavily on the account of the World Series provided by John Klima, Willie’s Boys: The 1948 Birmingham Black Barons, the Last Negro League World Series, and the Making of a Baseball Legend, John Wiley & Sons, 2009, supplemented by contemporary newspaper articles from the Baltimore Afro American, which are available from Google News Archives.
For general background on the Homestead Grays during their Washington years, see Brad Snyder, Beyond the Shadow of the Senators: The Untold Story of the Homestead Grays and the Integration of Baseball, Contemporary Books, 2003.
Just one Nationals player appears among the major league leaders for most of the major statistical categories for his position, and his initials aren’t MM, RZ, JZ, or DE. Looking over the leaderboards for relievers at Fangraphs helped me appreciate what an extraordinary season Tyler Clippard has had:
- He ranked third among major league relievers in innings pitched with 88-1/3.
- Ranked seventh in ERA with 1.83 (the leader was Eric O’Flaherty).
- Led the majors in holds with 38.
- Ranked second in strikeouts with 104 (the leader was Craig Kimbrel with 127).
- Ranked third in WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched) with .84 (the leader was Koji Uehara).
- Ranked fourth in opponents’ batting average with .158 (the leader was Antonio Bastardo).
- Ranked tenth in K% with 31.6%.
- Ranked fifth in infield fly balls induced with 19.0%.
- Led the majors in win probability added with 5.01.
- Ranked third in RE24, a measure of contribution to runs prevented that is superior in many ways to ERA, with 26.56 (the leader was David Robertson).
- Ranked second in REW, a measure of wins above average based on expected runs, with 2.90 (the leader was David Robertson).
- Ranked third in shutdowns with 40 (the leader was Jonny Venters).
- Ranked third in “Clutch” (a measure of how much better or worse than normal a player does in high leverage situations) with 1.58.
- The value of his changeup was rated third in the majors (the leader was Ryan Madson), and the value of his fastball was rated 11th (the leader was David Robertson).
- He ranked fifth in percentage of strikes that were swung at and missed with 16.1% (the leader was Jonathan Papelbon).
Because he isn’t a closer, Clippard’s name seldom comes up in discussions of the game’s best relievers. However, we Nats fans can appreciate what a valuable pitcher he’s been this season.
The Nats began September in the doldrums, going 2–5 and losing series to the Braves, Mets, and Dodgers in succession. They reached their low point on September 8 after Drew Storen entered a tie game against the Dodgers in the top of the ninth and giving up three runs for the loss. As a rainstorm forced the cancellation of the second game of the doubleheader, the Nats’ record stood at 65–76 (.461).
Then the Nats’ bats woke up and their young pitchers turned in several outstanding performances. They went 15—5 down the stretch, taking five of their last six series—including four-game sweeps of both the Mets and the Phillies. They ended the season with a victory over the Marlins on a 10-strikeout, one-hit masterpiece from Stephen Strasburg.
Except where noted, all statistics are for the month of September only.
Record:
17–10 (.630) for September, ending the season at 80–81 (.497).
Pythagorean Record:
15–12 (4.07 R/G – 3.52 RA/G).
MVP for September:
Ian Desmond (.302/.331/.448, 27 G, 122 PA, 4 HR, 16 R, 12 RBI, 120 wRC+, 0.9 fWAR, .64 WPA, 5.56 RE24). His playing time and clutch performance allowed him to edge out an excellent performance by Wilson Ramos (.358/.434/.582).
Most valuable starting pitcher:
Stephen Strasburg (1–1, 1.88 R/9, 5 G, 24 IP, 9.0 K/9, 0.8 BB/9), with honorable mention going to Brad Peacock (2–0, 0.75 R/9, 12 IP).
Most valuable reliever:
Craig Stammen (1-0, 0.00 R/9, 5 G, 8-1/3 IP, 10.8 K/9, 3.2 BB/9, 0.0 HR/9, 0.48 WHIP, 1 of 6 inherited runners scored, 4 shutdowns, 0 meltdown).
Best start this month:
Stephen Strasburg (September 28, 3–1 win over the Marlins in Miami, 6 innings, 1 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 10 SO, Game score of 78).
Worst start:
John Lannan (September 10, 9–3 loss to Houston at home, 2-1/3 IP, 8 H, 6 R, 1 BB, 1 SO, Game score of 21).
Best shutdown:
Tyler Clippard (September 9, 4–3 win over Houston at home). Clip pitched the 10th and 11th innings of a 3–3 tie, allowing only one batter to reach on a two-out single in the 11th, and striking out two. When the Nats scored the winning run on a throwing error in the bottom of the 11th, Clippard was credited with the win. (Win probability added .246)
Worst meltdown:
Drew Storen (September 8, 7–4 loss to Los Angeles at home). Entering in the top of the ninth of a 4–4 tie, Storen allowed three runs to score on two singles, a double, a walk, a hit batter, and a stolen base, before Collin Balester was called in to get the final out. (WPA –.472)
Clutch hit:
Michael Morse (September 26, 6–4 win over the Marlins in Miami). The Nats were behind 4–3 and down to their final out in the top of the ninth, with runners on second and third. Morse got hold of a 1–1 splitter and Bob Carpenter got to say, “see you later.” (WPA .731).
Choke:
Michael Morse (September 17, 4–1 loss to the Marlins at home). The bottom of the 11th, the score was tied 1–1, one out, and there were runners on first and third. Morse grounded into a double play to end the inning. (WPA –.317). The Marlins scored three in the top of the 13th to win it.
If you’ve read this blog, you know that I support the sabermetric approach to analysis and am not averse to citing numbers like WAR (wins above replacement) and WPA (win probability added). Nevertheless, many of the numbers available at sites like fangraphs.com and baseball-reference.com remain a sort of alphabet soup to me. So it’s fun to discover that one of the numbers I hadn’t paid much attention to can really tell me a lot.
The number I’m excited about right now is called “RE24.” For evaluating relief pitchers, it works a lot better than ERA (we know that ERA can often be pretty meaningless for relievers). And the statistic also works for batters, giving us information about situational hitting and clutch performance that is omitted from popular statistics like WAR and wOBA.
What is RE24? In a way, it’s kind of similar to WPA, except it’s measuring runs instead of wins. Let me explain.
The calculation of WPA begins by assuming that each team, on average, begins a game with a probability of winning of 50%. (Yes, in any individual game the probabilities will be more or less than 50%, but if we take the average across all games and teams it has to be 50%.) Each event during the game then raises or lowers the win probability, and WPA simply assigns the change in win probability of these events to the batter (offense) or pitcher (defense) and then adds them up. At the end of the game, the total WPA for the players on the winning team always equals +.50 (their probability of winning has gone from 0.50 to 1.00) and the total WPA for the players on the losing team always equals –.50.
RE24 applies the same type of calculation to the changes in expected runs. Major League Baseball teams are averaging 4.3 runs per game, or about .48 runs per inning. So each inning starts with +.48 runs expected and ends with zero runs expected (after the third out is recorded).
As an example, let’s look at the third inning of Thursday’s game against Philadelphia. Rick Ankiel led off with a double. With a runner on second and no outs, a team can expect to score about 1.10 runs; the increase in expected runs (.62 = 1.10 – .48) was credited to Rick Ankiel as his RE24. Next, Jesús Flores struck out; there were .44 fewer runs expected with a runner on second and one out than with nobody out, so his RE24 was –.44. Brad Peacock then grounded out, advancing Ankiel to third. There were .31 fewer expected runs with a runner on third and two outs than with a runner on second and one out, so Peacock was charged with –.31 RE24. Ian Desmond doubled, scoring Ankiel, and Desmond was credited with .96 RE24 (1.00 for the run scored minus .04 because he ended up on second, whereas Ankiel had been on third). Roger Bernadina singled, scoring Desmond (+.91 RE24). Bernadina then stole second, giving him an additional +.09 RE24. At this point, with a runner on second and two outs, there were .32 expected runs. Finally, Ryan Zimmerman flied out to end the inning and was charged with –.32 RE24.
RE24 versus WPA
RE24 sounds quite a bit like WPA – so what does it tell us that WPA doesn’t? The key difference is that RE24 treats all innings and runs the same, whereas WPA gives more weight to events occurring in “high leverage” situations, such as in the late innings of close games. While that helps WPA as a “story” statistic—it can immediately tell you whether a hit or an out came with the game on the line—it also can cause it to work poorly for telling us the value of an event. That’s because we can’t really tell how important a run will turn out to be at the time that it is being scored (or prevented).
For example, if a team wins 4–3, scoring three runs in the second inning and the tie-breaking winning run in the ninth, which run was most valuable? I’d argue that they were all equally valuable because ultimately the team needed all four runs to win. At the time it was scored, the last run felt especially valuable because time was running out, but the reality is that all four runs were equally necessary. When Zimmerman hit his walk-off grand slam against the Phillies, capping a 6-run ninth inning, the Nats’ relief pitchers (Tom Gorzelanny, Sean Burnett, and Todd Coffey) were the unsung heroes; if they hadn’t kept the game within reach, the offense’s ninth inning heroics might have been for naught. But WPA doesn’t recognize the ultimate importance of their low leverage innings, whereas RE24 gives them full credit for holding the Phillies scoreless. (The movie Moneyball highlights another great game where runs that didn’t seem important at the time turned out to be critical.)
So my take is that while both RE24 and WPA have their uses, RE24 generally does better at measuring the value of a player’s overall situational performance, whereas WPA reveals something about how a player performs in situations where the game is known to be on the line.
RE24 for pitchers
For pitchers, ERA already captures quite a bit of situational performance. For example, if Ross Detwiler loads the bases with no outs and manages to work his way out of the jam without giving up a run, his ERA credits him with the scoreless inning.
ERA sometimes breaks down. The biggest problem is with relief pitchers. One of the most important responsibilities of a relief pitcher is to prevent inherited runners from scoring, yet a relief pitcher’s ERA is unaffected by whether he prevents or allows inherited runners to score. Ironically, when a pitcher leaves the game with runners aboard, his performance is judged by events that occur after he’s in the dugout. Because RE24 allows partial credit for preventing or allowing runs, it can appropriately split the responsibility for inherited runners between the pitcher who left them on and the pitcher who allows them to score (or prevents them from doing so).
The other difference is that RE24 tracks all runs, not just unearned runs. Sabermetricians have long complained that ERA, by removing unearned runs, doesn’t really adjust for fielding and can lead to a misleading measure of pitcher performance, since the unearned run rates vary systematically among pitchers. (Groundball pitchers tend to allow more unearned runs, whereas strikeout or flyball tend to allow fewer unearned runs. So ERA tends to overstate the performance of groundball pitchers like Chien-Ming Wang and John Lannan relative to simple R/9.)
RE24 is measured as positive or negative deviations from MLB average, so to be able to directly compare it to ERA, we need to add back in the MLB-average runs. For Stephen Strasburg for example, multiply his innings pitched (18) times the league average runs per game, (4.28/9), then subtract his RE24 (3.52) to give a number (5.04) that’s directly comparable to his runs allowed (5). But this is on a scale of R/9 rather than ERA, so to convert it to an ERA scale I multiply by the MLB ratio of ERA to R/9 (3.94/4.28). Finally, we divide by Strasburg’s IP and multiply by 9, giving us an “RE24 average” of 2.32, which can be compared directly to his ERA of 2.00.
Comparing the RE24 averages of the Nats pitchers to their ERAs, we see that some pitchers do quite a bit better (Tyler Clippard‘s RE24 average is 1.19, compared to his ERA of 1.88), while others do much worse (Doug Slaten‘s RE24 average is 9.56 compared to his ERA of 4.02). Burnett and Henry Rodríguez also did more poorly with RE24, while Coffey did better. In general, these differences reflect the pitcher’s performance with inherited runners. Among starters, Wang did especially poorly (4.68 versus his ERA of 4.04), reflecting a large number of unearned runs allowed.
RE24 for batters
For batters, measures like wOBA and WAR are based on averages for various types of hits (singles, doubles, triples, home runs, walks, etc.) and generally aren’t affected by situational hitting, such as batting performance with runners in scoring position or grounding into double plays. For a measure of player value, you might want to include situational performance, but there are so many situations to consider that doing so systematically may seem daunting.
Fortunately, RE24 does these calculations automatically for all possible base-out situations. To see whether a batter performs better or worse than expected based on the situations he faces, we can simply compare his RE24 to his WRAA. (WRAA, or “weighted runs above average” converts a batter’s wOBA to runs above average, so it’s on the same scale as RE24.)
For example, Wilson Ramos has an RE24 (–7.01 through Saturday’s game) that’s 12½ runs below his WRAA, which reflects his overall poor splits with runners on base or in scoring positions. Jayson Werth also has a poor RE24 relative to his WRAA, while, on the positive side of the ledger, Danny Espinosa, Laynce Nix, Iván Rodríguez, and Ankiel all have RE24 stats that are stronger than their WRAA.
Warnings
The main caveat with RE24 is that it always attributes everything that happens with an in-play event to the batter and the pitcher. Of course, fielders and baserunners often matter a lot to what happens, so for individual plays RE24 can be a fairly crude measure. As a consequence, I generally wouldn’t take the full difference between RE24 and WRAA, for example, as a measure of a batter’s situational performance, since some of the difference may also be attributable to baserunners or fielders.
Even with this caution, I’m finding that RE24 is a very powerful tool for looking at questions such as post-season awards, where I’d like to take account of situational performance in a systematic way.
lizroscher of The Good Phight writes:
The Nationals went from a team I pitied to a team I despise pretty quickly. Their players won’t stop yakking about how good they’re about to be. Davey Johnson always looks like he’s someone’s lost grandpa. John Lannan can’t stop throwing pitches at the Phillies. And then there’s Danny Espinosa. Espinosa, who is a .238 hitter in 2011, has turned into a Phillie Killer. In 17 games against the Phillies, he’s 20-for-59 with three doubles, six walks, and 15 RBI. Espinosa has seven home runs against the Phillies. Seven. His total for the year? 21. A full 1/3 of his home runs have come against the Phillies. That’s insane, especially because Danny Espinosa is not a good baseball player.
I hate Danny Espinosa…
I’m not kidding, Danny Espinosa makes me physically ill.
63 years ago today, September 20, 1948, Washington won its last pennant. They claimed the pennant by beating Baltimore three games to one in a best-of-five league championship series that was tainted by controversy. Washington’s veteran Hall-of-Fame first baseman led the league in batting average and tied for the league lead in home runs with his teammate in left field—who was one of the great power hitters of the era and also led the league in RBIs.
Readers who know a little baseball history are objecting now, noting that my lead paragraph appears to be inconsistent with one or more of the following facts: The Cleveland Indians won the 1948 American League pennant. The old Washington Senators’ last pennant came in 1933. The St. Louis Browns didn’t relocate to Baltimore until 1954. And the MLB league championship series didn’t begin until 1969.
On the other hand, readers who know a little more baseball history realize that in 1948 most African American players still played in separate, segregated leagues with their own pennants and World Series. In 1948, Washigton’s Negro league team*, the Homestead Grays, won the final pennant race of the Negro National League and went on to play in the last Negro League World Series. Buck Leonard was their Hall-of-Fame first baseman and Luke Easter was their power-hitting left fielder.
* There is some confusion out there about whether the Homestead Grays really were a Washington team. The Grays began in 1910 as a “sandlot” or recreational team for black steelworkers in Homestead, Pennsylvania (near Pittsburgh). By the 1920s the Grays were fully professional, at first as an independent team (not affiliated with the formal Negro leagues) playing in the Pittsburgh area, and later, beginning in 1929, as a member of one of the major Negro leagues. During the 1930s they played their home games at Greenlee Field or Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Beginning in 1940, the Grays began playing about half of their home games in Washington at Griffith Stadium. When playing in Washington, they wore a “W” on the sleeve of the home uniforms, and when playing in Pittsburgh they wore an “H.” The Grays were soon drawing more fans per game than the Senators, and by 1943 the Grays were playing two-thirds of their home games in Washington. While they continued to claim both Washington and Pittsburgh as homes, during the mid-to-late 1940s Washington was recognized as their primary home. For example, contemporary articles about the 1948 league championship in the Baltimore Afro American refer to Griffith Stadium as the Grays’ home field and refer to their players as “the Washingtonians.” For more information on the Homestead Grays in Washington, see Beyond the Shadow of the Senators by Brad Snyder.
By 1948, the Negro leagues were dying. While integration of the major leagues was moving forward at a glacial pace, black baseball fans had abruptly shifted their attention from the old Negro leagues to the newly integrated majors. At the end of the 1948 season, nearly three years after Branch Rickey announced the signing of Jackie Robinson, there were still only four black players in the majors—Robinson and Roy Campanella with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and Larry Doby and Satchel Paige with the Cleveland Indians. It would take more than another decade for baseball to become fully integrated. But the sports sections of black newspapers had already shifted their coverage to tracking in detail the performance of these new stars of integrated baseball. Negro league games, even including playoffs and World Series, were now relegated to short articles at the bottom of the page. As was the case with other Negro league teams, attendance at Grays’ games dropped off dramatically. Instead, the black fans crowded into a sold-out Griffith Stadium whenever the Indians, with Doby and Paige, came to town.
The 1948 Grays were not the same team that had dominated the Negro National League from 1937 to 1945. Josh Gibson was dead; Cool Papa Bell and Jud Wilson were retired; Ray Brown had been banned from the league for jumping to the Mexican League. Of their old stars, only Leonard and long-time shortstop Sam Bankhead remained. In addition to Leonard, Easter, and Bankhead, other notable 1948 Grays players included Puerto Rican center fielder Luis Márquez, pitcher / third baseman Wilmer Fields, and right fielder Bob Thurman.
Their opponents in the league championship playoff, the Baltimore Elite Giants, featured a team built more around speed than power. Their leadoff hitter and second baseman, 19-year old Junior Gilliam, would go on to win the National League Rookie of the Year Award in 1953 and have a 14-year career with the Dodgers. (I’m old enough that I remember watching Gilliam play with the 1960s-era Dodgers.) Pitcher Joe Black would also play for the Dodgers and win the Rookie of the Year Award in 1952. Veteran pitcher Bill Byrd had pitched five times in Negro League (“East-West”) All-Star Games.
Because Griffith Stadium was unavailable, the entire best-of-five series was to be played at Bugle Field in Baltimore. The first game was played on Tuesday, September 14. The Grays’ Tom Parker pitched a shutout and won 6–0, with Easter driving in four runs on a home run and a triple and Leonard driving in the other two on a bases-loaded single. In game two on Thursday, the Grays took a 5–3 victory behind the pitching of Garnett Blair, who must have had a sore arm, since he was described by the Baltimore Afro American as a “lame armed pitcher.”
Friday’s game three would end in controversy. The city of Baltimore had a curfew that prevented night games from continuing past 11:15. (Apparently the night games began at 8:30, which seems surprisingly late.) At 10:52, the teams were tied 4–4 after 8 innings, and the managers met with the umpires to discuss the possibiity of calling the game as a tie. The rules of that era apparently did not include a provision for completing a game the next day—they were following the same rules that would apply if a game were called early for rain. The umpire thought there should be enough time to finish another inning and ordered the teams to play on. Baltimore brought in relief pitcher Jonas Gaines for the top of the ninth, and he quickly gave up four singles and two walks. After falling a couple runs behind, Baltimore decided that their best chance would be to delay the game so that the inning wouldn’t be completed before the curfew, forcing the score to revert to a tie. So they stalled and “were making no effort to get the side out.” When the umpire finally called the game, the score was 8–4 and the Grays had the bases loaded with two outs. The Elites’ strategy appeared to have worked, as the score reverted to 4–4 and the game was called as a tie.
After protesting in vain to the umpire, Sonnyman Jackson, the Grays’ president, called the league president, John L. Johnson, in New York. Johnson overturned the umpire’s decision and ordered the remainder of Friday’s game to be played from the point where it ended. The Elite Giants’ president, Vernon Green, was notified of the decision shortly before game four was scheduled to start on Sunday afternoon. He objected strenuously, and went ahead with the scheduled game without making any announcement to the crowd. Baltimore won the game, 11–3. After the game, as the fans were leaving the stadium still unaware of the league president’s decision about game three, the Grays’ baserunners returned to the bases they had left Friday night and waited for the umpires to order the completion of the unfinished game. But the Elite Giants returned to their clubhouse, and the umpires also ignored them, so eventually the Grays left the field.
Johnson agreed to come to Baltimore on Monday, September 20, and hold a hearing on the issue. He then reiterated his decision that the game should resume from the point where it ended. Green decided to forfeit the game instead, saying he would not open Bugle Field and ask local fans to come out to see a half inning of a title game followed by an exhibition game. So it turned out that the Grays’ final pennant was awarded in a hotel room by men wearing suits.
While I’m somewhat sympathetic to Johnson’s decision given the unsportsmanlike strategy that the Elite Giants were employing to stall the game, I don’t think his decision can actually be justified by the baseball rules that were in effect at the time. Sportswriter Sam Lacy of the Baltimore Afro American wrote a column ranting about the illegality of the league president’s decision.
In a subsequent article we’ll tell the story of the Grays’ final World Series.
References
For general background on the Homestead Grays during their Washington years, see Brad Snyder, Beyond the Shadow of the Senators: The Untold Story of the Homestead Grays and the Integration of Baseball, Contemporary Books, 2003.
For background on the process of integration and its effects on black baseball, see Jules Tygiel, Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy, Oxford University Press, 1983.
I pulled accounts of the NNL championship series from contemporary newspaper articles appearing in the Baltimore Afro American, which is available for free from Google News; for example, see the September 18 issue.
Nats Noodles 