Dombrowski Says He "Never Had Any Knowledge" Of 2018 Red Sox Sign-Stealing; Cora, Now Implicated In Illegal Activity With Two Teams In Two Consecutive Years, Declines Comment

(New York Post website)

The Red Sox have released a statement as MLB begins investigating allegations that the team used its video replay room to illegally steal signs during the 2018 season.

We were recently made aware of allegations suggesting the inappropriate use of our video replay room. We take these allegations seriously and will fully cooperate with MLB as they investigate the matter.

Former president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski stated that he had not been contacted by MLB: "I never have had any knowledge of this." Manager Alex Cora declined to comment.

The Red Sox were fined an undisclosed amount by MLB in September 2017 for relaying sign sequences from the replay room to the dugout. At that time, MLB said it "received absolute assurances from the Red Sox that there will be no future violations of this type". The Globe's Nick Cafardo reported the Red Sox had received a "very lenient punishment ... Basically, what Manfred said in his discipline was the next team to try something like this is really going to get nailed."

Alex Speier, Boston Globe:

One member of the team confirmed to the Globe that there was constant traffic in 2018 to and from the area where the real-time feed used for determining whether to challenge on-field calls was broadcast. However, that source noted that the real-time video replay system was located next to the BATS video consoles that players use to review in-game at-bats.

According to that team member, Red Sox player traffic around those systems was constant — in no small part because players were constantly reviewing their swings and pitch selections from previous at-bats. Indeed, that same team member noted that it could have been possible for sign sequences to be stolen via the BATS system, albeit in a fashion that was slightly (at least one batter) behind real time.

That said, the proximity of the BATS system to the real-time feed also would have created what was characterized as an almost unavoidable temptation to crack teams' sign sequences, something that could be used to relay pitch types and/or locations via traditional means.

Last season, according to Speier, "the Red Sox were among the teams that had pitchers keep sign-sequence cheat sheets in their hats out of concern for sign-stealing". In an interview from 2019, pitcher Rick Porcello said:

Major League Baseball is limiting mound visits because there are too many mound visits because we're worried about guys stealing signs. When you start altering rules in the game because of espionage, you start realizing this is pretty real, and it's not just the AL East doing it. It's everyone. But it's part of the game now. There's so much technology, so much video, 30 different camera angles where a coach can watch a flex in the forearm. You've got first base coaches standing on the foul lines trying to stare at catchers' signs. It's real. But it's part of the game.

There is, of course, a very real difference between (a) sitting in the video room, watching and pausing video of the game in-progress to determine sign sequences and (b) a coach on the field or a player on the bench looking for tip-offs by staring at a catcher's forearm or the way a pitcher holds the ball in his glove or the way an infielder may move slightly before a pitch.

Several Boston sportswriters have a simple solution to baseball's current "spy-vs.-spy culture": Take away the video.

Peter Abraham, Boston Globe:

From first pitch to last, do not allow players, coaches, managers, or team staffers access to televisions, monitors, or any other device showing the game beyond the MLB-approved content on those tablets used in dugouts. Everything else, including video on cellphones, should be off-limits, with violators facing suspension. Video replays to correct mistakes by umpires should be handled by a fifth umpire watching from the press box level ...

According to Major League Baseball, hitters are free to use video replays during the game to study pitchers or hitters but can't use replays to steal signs. That's like saying you can use a radar detector on the highway but not to avoid speeding tickets. ... So get rid of it. The players can study all the video they want up until the game starts. Then everything shuts off.

Jason Mastrodonato, Boston Herald:

Here's one idea: get rid of the replay video rooms. We don't need them. Fans have to be exhausted of watching the manager put his hand in the air for 1 or 2 minutes after every close play as he waits for the call from the video room just to decide if he wants to challenge it or not. Then we wait another 2 or 3 minutes for the replay review.

If managers want to challenge, they can make the decision in real time based on what they see and what their players tell them. It slows the game down otherwise, and clearly teams are taking advantage of having accessible video feeds during the game.

While Cora has declined to speak about these new allegations, he will soon be talking at length to MLB's investigators.

As John Tomase of NBC Sports writes, Cora also "reportedly played a direct role in the Astros' signstealing during their 2017 title season as bench coach".

Sean McAdam, Boston Sports Journal:

Cora served as the bench coach for the Astros, and has been interviewed by MLB in conjunction with that ongoing investigation. And in 2018, of course, Cora was in his first year as Red Sox manager, directing them to a franchise-record 108 wins and a World Series victory. ...

Whereas it might have been difficult for MLB to severely discipline Cora for a past transgression that was committed with a former employer, Cora receives no such protection this time around. If an investigation by MLB — which confirmed one would be undertaken after The Athletic's report — reveals wrongdoing by the Red Sox in 2018, Cora will very much be held responsible — perhaps more than any other figure.

Hannah Keyser, Yahoo Sports:

Amid growing paranoia about sign stealing, Major League Baseball is discussing on-field technology for communicating pitch calls and plans to start soliciting feedback from players this spring training ... The commissioner’s office is in the process of developing a handful of prototype devices to encode pitcher-catcher communication, including a wearable random-number generator and lights in the mound ...

One of the devices in development, described by league sources, is a wearable random-number generator (similar to a push password used for secure log-ins) that corresponds to which sign in a sequence is relevant. This would preserve the existing dynamic of a catcher putting down a sign for interpretation by the pitcher, but overlay it with a level of secure encryption that would be virtually impossible to decode even with a dedicated software program.

Alternatively, the finger system could be replaced by in-ground lights on the mound. Sources with knowledge of the idea said catchers would have access to a control pad that corresponds to a lighting panel visible only to the pitcher. A certain button for a certain light sequence for a certain pitch.

Keyser notes that minor league pitchers wearing earpiece prototypes have found them both distracting and uncomfortable. ... I find it amazing that MLB is considering these technological innovations, while still dragging its feet when it comes to an electronic strike zone.

MLB does not want people to know this story exists. This is MLB's main webpage, today at 3:00 PM (ET):

(MLB.com website)

Tom Keegan, Boston Herald:

In 2001, the Wall Street Journal's Joshua Prager rocked the world with a report that [Bobby Thomson, who hit a National-League-pennant-winning home run in 1951, may have been aided by stealth] technology. The method of cheating, detailed in Prager's book, The Echoing Green, involved the Giants installing a powerful telescope in center field in the Polo Grounds, and pointing it at the opposing team's catcher. A buzz signal electronically was sent to the Giants' bullpen to indicate what pitch was coming. The players in the bullpen relayed body signals to the hitters, at least those who wanted to know. Did Thomson cheat on his historic homer?

It's a fascinating story, but of course the Giants were cheating, though Thomson (supposedly) was one of the hitters who did not want to know what pitches were coming. And there is a reason why the 1951 Giants' scheme was not publicly known for decades. It was blatantly against the rules.

I was reading the SoSH thread about the allegations against the Red Sox last night. Most, if not all, of the posters believed the Red Sox story was much ado about nothing, it's different from the Astros' trashcan banging, and everyone does it:

Way less egregious ... small potatoes ... far less egregious than what the Astros were doing ... a less worse form of cheating ... a close look at any professional sports team is going to unveil something sketchy going on ... Most of the league is trying to gain a competitive advantage...Who cares ...

In baseball, especially, sign stealing is as old as the game. Every team does it. Every. Single. Team. ... The etiquette seems to be that so long as you are clever and discreet about it, no one makes a stink. But if you are overtly flaunting your efforts (with the dugout banging to signal offspeed pitches, or if you show up on the mound with pine tar slathered on your neck) you're going to get called out for it. To a great extent, this entire "scandal" feels very much like baseball's involvement with PEDs. It was tolerated and even encouraged for decades until it became so glaring (in terms of the changes to players appearances and the assault on the record book) that MLB had to do something.

That second paragraph is one person's comment (as opposed to six in the first paragraph) and I probably shouldn't single it out, but I'm dismayed at its paucity of logic.

If a team is clever about cheating, it's quietly acknowledged and allowed? What constitutes "clever" cheating as opposed to "mildly intelligent" cheating? What behaviour lies just over the line into "overtly flaunting"? Would "average flaunting" of the rules make "a stink"? Is all of this written down somewhere? A pitcher can use pine tar as long as it's not slathered on his neck? That's like saying baseball has no problem with the fact that all umpires are blowing calls as long as most fans don't notice it. (Actually, that has been MLB's attitude — and it sucks.) Baseball tolerated PEDs, and for a very long time, but the assumption that the leagues would have continued turning a blind eye if fewer (or different) records were broken ...?

I think all of these posters were desperate to make a distinction because it was Boston's behaviour that had come under scrutiny. And, frankly, I expect a higher level of discourse and honesty from SoSH. If the Yankees had won the World Series two years ago and been accused of this activity during that season — for both home and road games — I have an inkling the reaction would have been somewhat different.

For me, it comes down to this: A player may not agree with some of the rules of his sport, they may make no common sense, they may even be repealed in the future, but abiding by these rules is a requirement of playing the game. He might think he should be able to take PEDs, it's his body, etc. The rule against PEDs is arbitrary, for sure; it's not a law applicable to the general public. But one of the unambiguous rules of professional baseball is taking them is not allowed. If the rule book of your sport says "X is illegal", if you do X and are caught, you should not be surprised if you are punished.

MLB Will Open An Investigation Into Allegations Red Sox Illegally Used Video Room To Steal Opponents' Signs In 2018 (In Home And Road Games)

Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic report that MLB's investigation into sign-stealing by the Houston Astros in 2017 has now widened to include the Boston Red Sox's activity in 2018:

Three people who were with the Red Sox during their 108-win 2018 season told The Athletic that during that regular season, at least some players visited the video replay room during games to learn the sign sequence opponents were using. The replay room is just steps from the home dugout at Fenway Park, through the same doors that lead to the batting cage. Every team's replay staff travels to road games, making the system viable in other parks as well.

Red Sox sources said this system did not appear to be effective or even viable during the 2018 postseason, when the Red Sox went on to win the World Series. Opponents were leery enough of sign stealing — and knowledgeable enough about it — to constantly change their sign sequences. And, for the first time in the sport's history, MLB instituted in-person monitors in the replay rooms, starting in the playoffs. For the entire regular season, those rooms had been left unguarded. ...

"It's cheating," one person who was with the 2018 Red Sox said. "Because if you're using a camera to zoom in on the crotch of the catcher, to break down the sign system, and then take that information and give it out to the runner, then he doesn't have to steal it."

The Red Sox declined to comment at the time of publication.

Major League Baseball said in a statement, "The Commissioner made clear in a September 15, 2017 memorandum to clubs how seriously he would take any future violation of the regulations regarding use of electronic equipment or the inappropriate use of the video replay room. Given these allegations, MLB will commence an investigation into this matter." ...

The Red Sox's system was possible only when a runner was on second base, or sometimes even on first base. Nonetheless, a team that is able to discern that information live, during a game, and relay it to base runners has a distinct advantage. A runner at second base can stare in at a flurry of catcher's signs and know which one matters, then inform the hitter accordingly.

It's impossible to say for certain how much this system helped the Red Sox offense. But their lineup dominated in 2018, when they led the league in runs scored. ...

The accounts about the Red Sox's activity were given to The Athletic on the condition of anonymity. ...

Like the Astros, the Red Sox operated with a deep suspicion that they were not alone. In some cases, players and coaches arrived in Boston with firsthand experience of sign stealing elsewhere. In recent postseasons, the paranoia was particularly acute.

"You got a bunch of people who are really good at cheating and everybody knows that each other's doing it," said one person with the 2018 Red Sox. "It's really hard for anybody to get away with it at that point. … If you get a lion and a deer, then the lion can really take advantage of the deer. So there's a lot of deers out there that weren't paying attention throughout the season. In the playoffs, now you're going against a lion."

The Red Sox in 2018 were under a new manager, Alex Cora, whom The Athletic previously reported played a key role in devising the sign-stealing system the Astros used in 2017, when he was the team's bench coach. ...

The system the Red Sox employed was not unlike one they had used in previous seasons under a different manager, John Farrell. It was also similar to one the Yankees and other teams had employed before MLB started its crackdown. (Hitters can legally visit the replay room during games to study some video.)

A staff member in the Red Sox's video replay room would tell a player the current sign sequence. The player would return to the dugout, delivering the message on foot, rather than through a wearable device or a phone.

"There was constant movement," said one person who was with the 2018 Red Sox. "They were always trying to figure out the system."

Someone in the dugout would relay the information to the baserunner, leaving the runner with two easy steps: Watch the catcher's signs and, with body movements, tell the hitter what's coming.

In daily hitters' meetings, Red Sox players and personnel would review their communication methods for that day.

The runner would let the hitter know if he was aware of the sequence. "Put two feet on the bag or look out into center field, and do something that's subtle," as one Red Sox source described it.

The runner stepping off the bag with the right foot first could mean fastball; left foot first, a breaking ball or off-speed pitch.

Such a system was far more difficult for opponents to detect than banging on a trash can. It also had a semblance of propriety, incorporating old-school, legal practices: A runner on base still had to use his own eyes before he could put the contraband information to good use.

Like many teams, the Red Sox often knew pitchers' sequences heading into a game through the use of video. If a pitcher does not or did not change his sign sequence from his previous outing, that is and was his own responsibility.

But if the sign sequences were altered on the fly, the Red Sox had a way to adjust almost immediately — by sending a player from the dugout to the video room a few feet away. ...

In at least one respect, baseball's efforts to eliminate electronic sign stealing are similar to its attempts to curb the use of performance-enhancing drugs: The league's rules to prevent cheating lag behind the cheaters.

The evolution of the replay room into a hive of sign-stealing activity was years in the making. ...

As far back as 2015, the Yankees used the video replay room to learn other teams' sign sequences, multiple sources told The Athletic. Other teams likely were doing the same. Sources said the Red Sox began doing it no later than 2016.

"Oftentimes it takes a player to show up and be like 'You f—— morons, you're not doing this?'" said one American League executive.

CBS Sports Claims Two Houston Players "Open Up" About Sign-Stealing Scandal ... They Don't.

The headline on a current CBS Sports story claims that Carlos Correa and Joe Musgrove, members of Houston's 2017 World Series-winning team, "open up about [the sign-stealing] allegations".

Don't bother clicking the link. Correa and Musgrove do not "open up" (or even "answer a direct question"). They both avoid or flat-out refuse to offer any meaningful statements.

At an autograph show last weekend, Correa told The Houston Chronicle he has cooperated with MLB's investigation "like we've all been doing so we can put an end to all of this and all this talk and move forward." When asked if the allegations were true, Correa said: "That's something we can't discuss anymore once we talk to MLB. That's the end of it."

Correa admitted he was surprised to read former teammate Mike Fiers's comments in The Athletic last November. Fiers explained in detail how the Astros stole signs and relayed information to batters during games. Correa added: "He's a grown man, and he can do whatever he wants to do."

In the two months since those comments were published, no member of the Astros organization has denied Fiers's allegations. GM Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch did not answer numerous questions at December's winter meetings, but Hinch assured reporters "there will be a day when I get to address it". At the autograph show, Alex Bregman refused to answer questions and George Springer declined an interview request through a team representative.

Musgrove said some things about "everyone" and "no one":

I wasn't even in the dugout for any of that stuff. Everyone is going to have thoughts on stuff regardless. Everyone always accuses people of something. That stuff goes around the league all the time. ... I don’t think that taints [anything]. ... I watched how hard we worked every day. I watched the preparation we put in to study hitters ... and whatnot. That's all the stuff no one accounts for. Everyone hears that we cheated, and they hear that there was the whole trash can deal going on, but no one sees the work that we were putting in every day to prepare ourselves and give ourselves an advantage.

The never-ending issue of performance-enhancing drugs shows that well-prepared baseball players can and do also cheat to give themselves an even larger advantage.

Musgrove said he has not been interviewed by MLB. (So would he be able to answer the question Correa avoided because he had been interviewed?)

Commissioner Rob Manfred has indicated he would like the investigation completed prior to spring training.

Vox Media (Owner Of SB Nation) Fires 200 Writers Rather Than Pay Them Fairly

Daniel R. Epstein wrote an informative article for Beyond The Box Score last month, headlined "Don't Let MLB Insult You".

MLB's revenues were almost $11 billion in 2019, yet its teams (and/or its stadiums) are subsidized to varying degrees by taxpayer dollars. "You probably receive no direct benefit from this tax giveaway," Epstein points out. "All it buys you is the opportunity to go spend even more money on baseball close to home."

The Cubs are owned by the Ricketts — America's 66th wealthiest family with a 2015 net worth of $4.5 billion ... [and] they want you to believe they can't afford [Eric] Sogard [who signed a 2020 contract with another team for $4.5 million]. ... Fenway Sports Group is the third largest sports conglomerate in the world, whose initial investment of $700 million has increased in value by 843 percent, yet Mookie Betts might get dealt away this winter! ...

MLB insults us everywhere we look. Their desire to cut 42 minor league teams — and then threaten to walk away from MiLB altogether — is insulting. ... Every taxpayer-funded stadium deal is insulting. ...

[MLB's] sandbox is the size of a beach, yet they tell you they're running out of sand.

Epstein closes with this:

This will be my last article for Beyond the Box Score. This site is a subsidiary of SB Nation, owned by Vox Media, which was valued at $1 billion in 2015. Vox recently made the decision to fire several underpaid writers en masse. This is in response to a well-intended, poorly-written California law limiting contractors to 35 articles per year before they must be hired as staff. Rather than comply with the law by paying hard-working writers decently, they decided to annihilate dozens of jobs.

I am not directly impacted by this decision. I don't live in California or write for a California-based site, but I can no longer produce content for Vox's benefit in good conscience. Writing twice per week and contributing some editorial work, I make $105 per month. That's a rate of about $4/hour. I love writing analytically about baseball, and as this isn't my main career or source of income, I don't do it for the money. However, I can no longer reconcile writing for a billion dollar corporation who would rather eliminate valuable contributors than pay them fairly. ...

I'm not sure exactly what's next for me, but I'll be able to look my children in the eye knowing that I'm doing what I believe is right.

On December 16, 2019, The New York Times reported that Vox Media would be firing 200 freelance SB Nation writers.

John Ness, executive director at SB Nation, says the law, which went into effect on January 1, "makes it impossible for us to continue with our current California team site structure because it restricts contractors from producing more than 35 written content 'submissions' per year." (Vox is taking advantage of legislation meant to improve working conditions at companies that rely on contractors rather than employees.)

Ness is not being honest, and he knows it. No one is restricted from producing more than 35 submissions per year. But, according to the new law, if they do, they have to be made an employee. So what Ness is really saying is: "The new law doesn't allow us to continue exploiting our writers as much as we would like, so we will simply get rid of them, save money, and have a shittier product." (This decision comes on the heels of G/O Media's destruction of Deadspin in late October.)

If those 200 writers became "employees", Vox would then be required to pay them more fairly, provide benefits, etc. ... But how can a media conglomerate worth more than one billion dollars survive if it is forced to pay people more than $4.00 per hour?

One of the comments under Epstein's article says:

Safeway did that in Chicago to the Dominick's Grocery chain...
rather than negotiate in good faith with the union. They just pulled out of the Chicago market. That is why we must reverse deregulation. Industries only police themselves for their own ends. Good Luck, Mr. Epstein. What a sad time we live in.

Manfred Ruins Baseball, Part 48: Nike Swoosh On Front Of Uniforms, 'Ad Patches' Coming

Nike:

The 2020 season marks the first on-field example of Nike's partnership with Major League Baseball (MLB) as its official uniform provider. The partnership ... marks a new chapter for Nike's innovative legacy in uniform design, long built on upholding critical nuances across sport steeped in tradition and fervent allegiances.

"We're excited to kick off our partnership with Major League Baseball with the unveil of next season's uniforms," says Hal Melhart, Sr. Product Line Manager for Nike Diamond. "Each franchise has a deeply personal history, with a visual identity that continues in this update. In the future, we look forward to preserving this integrity while still bringing more of Nike's creativity to uniform designs, as we build energy around the game for its players and its fans."

What a steaming load of shite.

Nike sees a sport "steeped in tradition", teams with a "deeply personal history", and decides the best way to "preserv[e] this integrity" is by plastering its dumb fucking logo positioning its "creative visual energy" on every player's uniform. This exciting "unveil" comes at a price, of course.

MLB will pay Nike the grand sum of One Billion Dollars for the privilege of desecrating its uniforms with the "swoosh" for the next ten years. Each team will pocket about $3 million per season (and thus be able to afford an additional pitcher for mop-up duty in blowouts).

Rob Manfred respects Nike's "reputation as a leader in driving innovation". The swoosh is, of course, only the next step down a slope to which Manfred is applying a thick coating of grease. MLB uniforms have had a small Majestic logo on the sleeve since 2005 and the side of every cap has featured a New Era logo since the 2016 postseason.

Looking ahead, MLB is highly interested in selling "ad patches" on uniforms beginning in 2022. Noah Garden, MLB executive vice president of business and sales, says that glorious innovation is "inevitable".

My sources tell me Manfred initially wanted to go with this design, but decided to bide his time:

No Evidence Exists Showing "Three-Batter Minimum" Rule Will Lead To Quicker Games

Beginning with the 2020 season, Rule 5.10(g) will state that both starting and relief pitchers are required to pitch to either a minimum of three batters or to the end of a half-inning, with exceptions only for injury or illness. Commissioner Rob Manfred claims that this change will decrease the average time per game.

Opinions on this new rule run the gamut, from "no big deal" (Anthony Castrovince, mlb.com) to "a huge mistake" (Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated) to "it will barely matter" (Ben Clemens, FanGraphs) to "it will have a significant effect" (Matt Provenzano, Beyond The Box Score).

I am completely against this rule. Even the fact that it was proposed in the first place is troubling. Also of concern is that Manfred sees no downside to altering 150 years of professional baseball by denying teams the right to change pitchers when they feel it is appropriate. ... I cannot wait until a team loses the World Series because they were forced to keep an ineffective pitcher in the game. (Actually, "I cannot wait" only if that team is the Yankees. (Which would undoubtedly lead to the abolition of the rule.))

The very thing Manfred wants to eliminate - relievers facing only one or two batters - has actually been decreasing in recent seasons. Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated reported that pitchers in 2018 faced one or two batters mid-inning only 0.58 times per game: "For the sake of taking away one pitching change every other game, MLB [has] messed with the integrity of the game by penalizing strategy and innovation."

Thanks to Baseball Reference's Play Index, I was able to see how many relief appearances lasted one or two batters. (I did not determine how many of these appearances ended an inning, however.) I also looked at the average time of game (overall and for nine-inning contests only).

Year     One BF    Two BF    Avg. Time of Game    Avg. Time of 9-Inning Game
2019      1100      1054           3:10                      3:05
2018      1145      1143           3:04                      3:00
2017      1119      1091           3:08                      3:05
2016      1182      1075           3:04                      3:00
2009      1118      1066           2:55                      2:51
1999       980       904           2:57                      2:53
1979       439       411           2:35                      2:31
1959       161       211           2:34                      2:31

I see no correlation between more one- and two-batter relief appearances and longer games.

The average time of game increased by two minutes in both of these comparisons:

(A) 2019 to 2017 (56 fewer one- and two-batter appearances)

(B) 2009 to 1999 (300 more one- and two-batter appearances)

There were 105 fewer one- and two-batter appearances in 2018, as compared to 2016, but the average time of game remained the same.

From 1959 to 1979, the number of short relief appearances more than doubled (372 to 850), but the average time of a nine-inning game remained exactly the same.

Comparing 2019 to 2009, there were 30 fewer one- and two-batter appearances (which is statistically insignificant: an average of one such outing per 80 games), but the average time of game increased by 15 minutes.

If the average length of games in seasons ten years apart increased by 15 minutes, but the number of one- and two-batter relief appearances was almost unchanged, then there obviously is another reason for that dramatic time difference.

Someone should tell Commissioner Manfred.

Red Sox Reportedly Not Shopping Betts This Winter

Rob Bradford reports that ("according to major league sources") the Red Sox are not actively shopping Mookie Betts. Chaim Bloom et al. are likely still listening to potential offers, of course.

Bradford estimates that Betts will earn between $27-30 million in arbitration for 2020.

Anthony Castrovince offers 20 "bold predictions" for the coming season, including:

3. The Red Sox won't trade Mookie Betts. They'll extend (or re-sign) him by year's end.

New chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom will get the club under the Competitive Balance Tax threshold and "reset" their tax burden, perhaps by moving a good chunk of the money owed to David Price or Nathan Eovaldi. But if one of baseball's most successful and relevant franchises in one of its biggest markets can't retain a homegrown superstar, something's amiss.

Before 2019, These Ten Accomplishments Had Never Happened

In more than 200,000 major league games, many things have never happened.

Andrew Simon (a research analyst for mlb.com) highlights 10 performances – five by pitchers, five by hitters – that had never been seen until 2019, including these two:

Sale the K machine
May 14 vs. Rockies: 7 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 17 K
It wasn't a great year for Chris Sale – certainly not by his lofty standards. And on this night, he ended up with a no-decision as Boston fell in 11 innings. But even during a disappointing day, Sale showed why he's still one of the most talented pitchers in the game, making a serious run at the hallowed 20-strikeout mark. He struck out six straight to start the game, had eight through three innings, and then picked up three K's apiece in the sixth and seventh before exiting with 108 pitches. He is the first pitcher to rack up 17 while finishing with only seven innings. ...

Devers is double trouble
August 13 at [Cleveland]: 6-for-6, R, 4 2B, 3 RBI
At only 22 years old, Rafael Devers was a breakout star for the Red Sox in 2019. Only Nicholas Castellanos smacked more doubles than Devers (54), and no MLB player racked up more hard-hit balls (252), according to Statcast. The Boston third baseman combined those strengths in a 7-6, 10-inning victory at Progressive Field, notching the 111th six-hit game in the past 112 seasons, but the first with as many as four doubles. Three of those two-baggers – and five of his six total knocks – had exit velocities of 103 mph or higher.

MLB's New Contract With Umpires Gives Possibility Of Automated Zone As Early As 2022

What a great Christmas present!

The Associated Press reports that robot umpires could be "called up to the major leagues at some point during the next five seasons".

Umpires agreed to cooperate with Major League Baseball in the development and testing of an automated ball-strike system as part of a five-year labor contract announced Saturday, two people familiar with the deal told The Associated Press. The Major League Baseball Umpires Association also agreed to cooperate and assist if commissioner Rob Manfred decides to utilize the system at the major league level. ...

The independent Atlantic League became the first American professional league to let a computer call balls and strikes at its all-star game on July 10. Plate umpire Brian deBrauwere wore an earpiece connected to an iPhone in his pocket and relayed the call upon receiving it from a TrackMan computer system that uses Doppler radar.

The Atlantic League experimented with the computer system during the second half of its season, and the Arizona Fall League of top prospects used it for a few dozen games this year at Salt River Fields.

MLB has discussed installing the system at the Class A Florida State League for 2020. If that test goes well, the computer umps could be used at Triple-A in 2021 as bugs are dealt with prior to a big league call-up. ...

Book Review: Power Ball: Anatomy Of A Modern Baseball Game, By Rob Neyer

I've enjoyed and been impressed by Rob Neyer's writing for over 20 years. I was extremely jealous of him back in 1999 when he spent the summer in Boston attending every Red Sox home game and writing Feeding The Monster. His three Big Book(s) Of Baseball (Lineups, followed by Blunders and Legends (tracers!)) are insightful and entertaining, even educational.

I recently finished reading his latest book, Power Ball: Anatomy of a Modern Baseball Game, which won SABR's 2018 CASEY Award for the Best Baseball Book of the Year.

Using the framework of a late-season game in 2017 between the Astros and the Athletics (September 8, to be precise), Neyer explores and explains how major league baseball has changed over the last few decades. Along the way, he addresses the supposed ills of the game, such as extreme shifts. Neyer notes that the leagues' batting average on balls in play has barely budged in the new age of shifting - and, in fact, the entire idea of standard player positioning is a shift.

As HarperCollins, Neyer's publisher, states:

Over the past twenty years, power and analytics have taken over the game ... Seemingly every pitcher now throws mid-90s heat ... Every batter in the lineup can crack homers and knows their launch angles. Teams are relying on unorthodox strategies, including ... purposely tanking a few seasons to get the best players in the draft. As he chronicles each inning and the unfolding drama [of the game] ... Neyer considers the players and managers, the front office machinations, the role of sabermetrics, and the current thinking about what it takes to build a great team, to answer the most pressing questions fans have about the sport today.

I assumed I'd post a traditional review of Power Ball, but I found I was putting a post-it note on every third page (on average), noting a certain passage or observation. For the record, there were post-its on 80 different pages - and realized I'd be fussing with a lengthy (and positive) review for far too long. So I'm going to post a few snippets that I hope will give you a good feel for Neyer's writing style and the tone of the book. (And I love the cover, with its great use of the now-traditional online or on-screen strike zone box. It even includes a ball that may well be a low strike.)

The Human Element

The demise of the human element in umpiring seems terrifying too. Specifically, the prospect of "robot umpires" – which is a stupid term, but what are you gonna do? – who will call the balls and strikes. To an outside observer, it might seem odd: the idea that we actually want our game officials to make the wrong call roughly 10 percent of the time, as even the best human umpires do, when calling balls and strikes. ...

But the game was not designed, any more than any other game is designed, for the human element to include errors by the officials. If the men who invented Baseball could have eliminated umpires from their new sport, they would have. If they could have eliminated umpires' errors from their sport, they would have.

Today the people who run Baseball can eliminate those errors. Of at least a huge percentage of them. If the technology isn't ready yet, it could be soon.

When the human element can be removed, it will be removed ...

Robot umpires are coming, friends. Just as sure as tomorrow's sun. For the simple reason that today's technology, available to anyone with a cell phone or wi-fi, often makes it obvious when the umpire misses one, and nobody pays good money to see umpires be wrong. ...

Once that particular human element is gone, though, we'll still be blessed with the human element of players' training habits; the human element of pitch selection; the human element of guessing pitches; the human element of managers' cognitive biases; the human element of executives' and owners' emotions; and, oh, a few million other human elements that won't just disappear because a bunch of smart kids are writing code. Promise. [pp. 105-106]

I love using the term "robots", so naturally I was amused by Rob describing the term as "stupid" on one page and then using it himself (sans quotation marks) on the next!

On Statcast Data and Broadcasters

With Lowrie's long, loud third out [which ends the fifth inning with the Astros leading 7-3], the A's "win expectancy" stands at just 7.2 percent, according to the FanGraphs website, which generates a running graph for every major-league game. Because people like numbers—people with internet connections and favorite sports teams especially like numbers—the Win Expectancy charts have become popular, at least among the cognoscenti. It's potentially a pretty good "storytelling stat," if you're desperate for something like that. In fact, top-notch analyst (and now Major League Baseball Advanced Media staffer) Tom Tango has called Win Expectancy the ultimate story statistic.*

[* Win Expectancy, along with its cousin, Win Probability Added, has probably helped kill the sacrifice bunt for non-pitchers, since the actual numbers suggest that bunting doesn't improve your chances of winning, but actually lowers them a smidgen.]

Well, except usually it's not really much fun to drop a percentage into the middle of a story. Win Expectancy works well visually, when the line on the graph reverses itself a few times, or makes a huge jump (or fall) right at the end.

But if you're not FanGraphs or FiveThirtyEight, how often do you drop a graph into the middle of a story?

What's more, Win Expectancy leaves out much. As FanGraphs' glossary notes, "WE is the long-run average, however, so you need to remember that a 40% chance of winning is based on average players. If Miguel Cabrera is at the plate against Aaron Crow, the true odds favor the Tigers more than WE graph indicates."

Aaron Crow hasn't pitched in the majors since 2014. If you don't remember him, feel free to substitute Seth Maness or Nate Jones or Al Alburquerque. You can also swap in Jose Altuve for Cabrera if you want.

In the context of this game—the Astros have the better lineup, and the better bullpen—one might reasonably knock a percentage point or two off the A's true chance of winning this game. Either way, based purely on what we know, the home team now has roughly a 1 in 20 chance of winning this game.

Is this a thing worth knowing, if you're just a fan watching the game? I think for most fans, it probably is not. You might rather not know. Especially if you're a fan of the team that's losing. We know that fans tend to change the channel or go home if their team's almost certainly going to lose. I can understand how Win Expectancy would serve as a fine story stat. But only after the fact, and only in games with a big change, or changes. It's a tremendous comeback stat. Again: after the fact.

So? We're perfectly free to ignore Win Expectancy when it's not interesting, right? We are. I have greatly enjoyed entire seasons of baseball without seeing or hearing or reading about a single WE graph. At least until October, when curiosity does sometimes push me toward the (alas, context-free) percentages. And broadcasters, hardly interested in losing viewers and listeners, have no (good) reason to mention Win Expectancy during a game. They're far more likely to say something like, "Gee, if we can just get a few guys on base and somebody hits one out, things could get real interesting." Which of course happens less often, even in today's game, than they want us to think.

Win Expectancy, then, is the perfect Postmodern Baseball statistic: it's there when you want it—when it's interesting or useful, however rarely that might be—but the rest of the time it's not there. [JoS: In Power Ball, it's there. Each half-inning in the book ends with both the score and the Win Probability of the team leading or, if the score is tied, the team about to bat.]

I wish we could say the same about the new Statcast numbers that have so quickly weaseled their way into the broadcasts. Especially the national broadcasts; so far, only a few local broadcasts have incorporated the Statcast data (although the Astros' TV crew seems to be among the enthusiasts).

As Keith Hernandez writes, "I wonder what [Yogi Berra] and some of the other old-timers would say if they heard some of the broadcasters in the game today. Too many of them emphasize all these crazy stats, like 'exit velocity,' trajectory angles,' or, and this is my favorite, 'percentage rate of someone making a catch.' His probable rate of making that play was seventy-six percent!' Give me a break. Who cares how many miles per hour the ball traveled once it left the bat, or how high the ball traveled in degrees, or how many seconds it took to leave the ballpark?"

Hernandez does possess some self-awareness, also writing, "Am I dating myself? Am I a dinosaur? I guess to a degree I am. . . ."

He does have a point, though. What too many broadcasters don't seem to understand is that the new, user-friendly Statcast-driven numbers are interesting only at the extremes (and of course there's also the little issue of suggesting to listeners, however implicitly, that catch probability is anything close to precise).

When Altuve homered back in the first inning, Geoff Blum intoned, "Altuve pummels it, to the tune of 106 off the barrel, estimated 415 feet." When Chapman homered in the second, Blum said, "One hundred and three miles an hour off the bat," with an onscreen graphic listing that number, along with "26 DEGREE LAUNCH ANGLE."

Okay: 415 feet. We know something about 415. We know something about 415 because for as long as they've been painting numbers on outfield walls, we've had some context for outfield distances. It was obvious to me, as a kid, that 400 feet was a long ways from the plate. Because if you hit the ball 400 feet, usually it would be a home run. Hell, you could hit the ball only 330 feet and get a home run. Even fewer feet in Boston! But you kinda knew. Because the numbers were right there on the wall.

Launch angle, though? Exit velocity? We have no context, and only a Very Chosen Few of us will ever have any meaningful context. For two reasons. One theoretically solvable, one probably not.

The first reason is that the broadcasters are making absolutely no effort to provide any context, and are unlikely to. Exit velocity 103: Is that a lot? No idea! We're simply given the information, and information should not be given unless it's somehow useful and it's not useful without context and we're practically never given any context. Too much trouble, probably.

But broadcasters can learn.

The second, bigger reason is the numbers themselves. Baseball statistics work when they describe something we care about and when we can, given a reasonable chance, tell the difference between something that's impressive or interesting, and something that is not. ...

It's not Statcast's fault, or MLBAM's fault, that we're seemingly on the verge of being inundated by meaningless, context-free information. Quite frankly, it's 100 percent the broadcasters' fault. The broadcasters who still seem obsessed with small sample sizes and RBIs and fielding percentages have now skipped an entire generation of good, hard-won, contextualized knowledge, and for some reason seized upon exit velocity as a key objective in Statistics Scavenger Hunt. ...

Essentially, the new Statcast data is wildly important for the evaluators and decision-makers in the front offices, and modestly useful for that subset of journalists and essayists who rely on, and have the head for, in-depth statistical analysis. But otherwise, the data are often just more meaningless dribs of information, good for filling airtime in the absence of genuinely insightful analysis, but not much else. And in some cases the numbers are crowding out evocative, lyrical prose and verbiage. Which were already in alarmingly short supply. [pp. 144-148]

Hmmmm ... "inundated by meaningless, context-free information. Quite frankly, it's 100 percent the broadcasters' fault. The broadcasters who still seem obsessed with small sample sizes and RBIs and fielding percentages have now skipped an entire generation of good, hard-won, contextualized knowledge, and for some reason seized upon exit velocity ..."

Boy oh boy, am I ever looking at you, Dave O'Brien (who seemingly has never met a "meaningless drib of information" that he didn't rush to breathlessly communicate (free from all context) on the air, filling airtime and avoiding insightful analysis). He's not alone, not by any stretch of the imagination. Now that Vin Scully has retired, every baseball announcer is guilty of spouting noise pollution, to some degree or other. But OB is the announcer I have to put up with.

Pace of Play and Disagreeing with Bill James

Melvin orders an intentional walk . . . but unlike in every other season before 2017, Melvin's pitcher doesn't actually have to throw any pitches.

The "automatic" intentional walk was introduced just this season, as part of Baseball's ongoing, if fitful, efforts to address "pace of play" issues. There's now (apparently) serious talk about enforcing rules limiting pitchers' time between pitches; in fact, the clocks are already in place in stadiums, but to this point they've essentially been ignored, due largely to objections from the players' union.

So this season, for the first time ever, the intentional walk can easily pass without notice. Because instead of the manager giving some signal to his catcher, followed by four pitches delivered (usually) way high and outside—and so practically impossible to hit—now a manager need merely make a signal to the umpire . . . and off trots the batter to first base, having witnessed not a single pitch.

The point of course is to quicken the pace of play.

The old intentional walks took around one minute apiece. Now, one minute of dead time: that's not nothing. Except these days there just aren't many of those particular dead minutes to kill. ...

In 2016, there were only 932 intentional walks all season. In 2017, there will be only 970. (With their seventeen intentional walks apiece, the A's and Astros will tie for second fewest in the majors, with Terry Francona's first-place [Cleveland] issuing fifteen. In the National League, Bud Black's Rockies will finish last with only twenty.)

So, let's see . . . 970 minutes spread over six months is 162 minutes per month, or ____ minutes per week, or 6 minutes per day. Not for every team, or every game. For all of Major League Baseball. Which seems like . . . not a lot?

In fact, it really is not a lot. It's hardly a smidgen. ...

The most obvious way to speed up the pace would be shorter commercial breaks. They used to be shorter, and still there was enough time for the teams to switch places on the field, for the pitcher to get his warm-up tosses. Now, you could (reasonably, I think) argue that cutting thirty seconds of advertisements between each half inning would (a) bring in lower revenue in the short term, but (b) bring in more revenue in the long term, with a slightly quicker game leading to slightly higher ratings, and (thus) ad rates.

So far, it doesn't seem that anyone's much appreciated those extra six minutes. It also doesn't seem that anyone's much missed the four-pitch intentional walks. Yes, the prospect of the new rule deeply offended some sensibilities. At least one journalist blamed the rule on those damned millennials. ...

Still, such a fundamental exception to the game's fundamental rules—you know, four balls for a walk, three strikes yer out, etc.—is defensible only if it's part of something larger. And in 2017, it's really not. The commercial breaks are the same, and there's a pitch clock but . . . just in the minor leagues, with the aim of helping umpires enforce the long-standing rule, minors and majors, that a pitcher must deliver a pitch within . . . well, you're probably not going to believe this, but within twelve seconds. It's right there in the book, Rule 5.07(c): When the bases are unoccupied, the pitcher shall deliver the ball to the batter within 12 seconds after he receives the ball. Each time the pitcher delays the game by violating this rule, the umpire shall call "Ball."

You wanna guess how many times a major-league umpire has enforced Rule 5.07(c) in 2017? Okay, so I don't know. But if the number isn't zero, it's very, very, very close to zero. It's difficult for umpires to hurry along the pitchers, and it's difficult for umpires to hurry along the hitters. As long-time umpire Dale Scott told me, "All we could do was write up the chronic violators, and then the league will send them a letter, and then maybe they'll fine them. But the union takes the teeth out of everything. The fines aren't large enough to deter anything, and MLB didn't want ejections." ...

Bill James thinks all these measures, or half measures, even if implemented, would make little difference. "The essence of the problem," Bill will write in a few weeks, "is that there are many, many, many things which can be done inside of a baseball game to waste time, and it is always in someone's interest to do these things. Pitchers can stand on the mound without pitching. Catchers can visit the mound. Pitchers can throw to first.
Managers can change pitchers. If you limit pitching changes they will start changing outfielders in the middle of the game, or holding up the inning to move the outfielders around. Batters can ask for time and step out between pitches. Base runners can ask for a sliding glove. Batters can change bats. Networks can sell more commercials between innings."

More Bill: "Baseball is trying to address a general problem with remedies targeting one issue or another. This is never going to work, because there will always be something else that can pop up that will waste even more time than whatever you were trying to stamp out before. I'm glad they are trying to fix the problem, but it is never going to work. It's like swatting mosquitoes. There will always be more mosquitoes." ...

I think Bill is wrong. Or wrong enough. Most especially, Bill is largely wrong when he says Baseball is trying to address a general problem with remedies targeting one issue or another. Baseball hasn't actually made any real commitment to such remedies. Go back and look at that list of ways to waste time. None of them have actually been addressed in meaningful ways. And you can't even include intentional walks, because the point of them was never to waste time; it just worked out that way. ...

Ultimately, it all comes back to the pitcher. He's the one with the ball in his hand. Unless he's got a really good excuse, he simply must deliver the next pitch within a reasonable number of seconds. If he doesn't do that, it's a ball. If he does but the batter's not ready, tough shit for the batter. Essentially, it comes down to reasonably clear rules and the umpires' willingness to enforce them.

Because when it comes to the pitch clock in the minor leagues, nearly everyone who's been quoted on the subject says essentially the same thing: Before you know it, you've forgotten it's even there. This was just one of the changes in Double- and Triple-A a few years ago, designed to speed things up, but it's the clock that seems to have made the biggest difference. In 2015, the first year of the clocks, Triple-A game times dropped by twelve minutes.

That said, it's far from clear if just a pitch clock would have the same impact in the majors. Because it turns out most of the dead time between pitches comes with runners on base, when the pitch clock's turned off, because of the time required to mind those runners. Considering that research shows most pitchers, in the absence of baserunners, already deliver the next pitch within twenty seconds, the time saved might be negligible, or less than we'd expect.

Or maybe it's not really so much about the time at all. Automatic intentional walks, as we've seen, make little difference in anything. Except maybe perception. With every supposed remedy, at least Baseball can say, "Hey, get off our back! Can't You see that we're doing something?"

There is literally not a human being on earth who could discern the few minutes per week "saved" by junking those four-pitch intentional walks, just as there's not a human who could notice, with their eyes, the difference between a .250 hitter and a .300 hitter. But tell someone a guy's a .300 hitter, and they'll figure they saw it all along.*

[* Over the course of a whole season, as Crash Davis relates so vividly in Bull Durham, the difference between .250 and .300 is roughly one hit per week.]

Same thing with pace of play. It's not all just psychology and persuasion. Some, though. If Baseball keeps saying they're concerned about it, and actually does throw in a few time-saving wrinkles, most fans might well believe the pace has picked up. More than it actually has. And so everyone wins, a little.

This is just the fifteenth time all season that Melvin's called for an intentional walk, a tactic that's become wildly unpopular since Bill James pointed out, way back in the 1980s, that teams typically give up more runs with the intentional walk than without. Which is a pretty strong argument against doing it. [pp. 191-197]

The Public Hates Slow, Dragging Games

Games taking too long? Too-long games were considered a scourge a century ago. Not to mention nearly every year since then. In 1915, when the average game didn't last even two hours, Federal League president James Gilmore complained, "Something must be done to speed up play, as the public does not like to see unnecessary wrangling on the field and a slow, dragging game." [p. 220]

Posnanski: The Baseball 100

Joe Posnanski is doing "an absurd thing" at The Athletic. It starts tomorrow and will conclude on Opening Day of the 2020 season.

Over the next 100 days, I will be counting down the 100 greatest baseball players in history, each with an essay. In all, this project will contain roughly as many words as "Moby Dick." ...

You will probably get mad when you see which players I have left out, which players I have ranked way too low or way too high. You might want me to know just how dumb I am, just how little I know about baseball, just how insulting the ranking was. I totally get it. ...

But the point of this for me is not the ranking but the stories. Every one of these players has a fascinating story — about persistence, about confidence, about pure talent, about amazing moments ... The stories are what inspired me to do this bonkers thing. ...

I will not go into great detail about my ranking. Some of it is science, but admittedly some of it also art. I will give you a handful of guiding principles:

1. I think today's players tend to be underrated compared to those who came before them.

2. I lean toward players who were great at their peak, even if that peak only lasted a short time, and lean away from those who were consistently but not toweringly good for a long time.

3. I lean toward players who did multiple things well over specialists (no matter how great) who basically did just one thing well.

4. I take a lot of care to make educated guesses about players whose careers were shortened by things beyond their control — World War II, for example, or baseball's tragic and infuriating color line. I don't make the same adjustment for injuries. ...

5. I have done a lot of research about the Negro Leagues to estimate the greatness of the players there. I try to be as unsentimental about this as I possibly can. ...

This list is a moving target. ... This is because there’s no significant difference between a player ranked 72 and 48 and 31. I could swap them, for the most part, without it changing much of anything. ...

The toughest part of doing this list was cutting it off at 100. There are 25 or so players who I think are just as deserving to be on this list as anyone in the bottom 50. It was brutal narrowing things down, but that's how such lists go. ...

And away we go.

Red Sox Could Save $100 Million Over Three Years By Getting Payroll Under 2020's Luxury Tax Threshold

Alex Speier, The Globe, December 10, 2019:

For the Red Sox, the luxury tax looms as a giant iceberg in the movement toward building a 2020 roster. The team has made no secret of its desire to dip its payroll beneath the $208 million threshold that would trigger penalties for 2020.

The Red Sox are willing to pay the luxury tax, something they've done in 10 of 17 seasons since something like the current form of the tax was introduced in 2003 ...

If the Sox scale back their payroll to $205 million next season before returning to their 2019 level of $243.5 million in 2021 and 2022, they could save a total of roughly $90 million to $100 million over the next three years.

How? For that, it's worth looking at the current collective bargaining agreement between Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association, and the changes it introduced to the luxury tax threshold and the penalties for exceeding it that teams have cited as a reason for changes to their spending behavior.

Speier then goes into more depth than you'll find anywhere else. Management's desire to get under the threshold is well-known, but the magnitude of the savings certainly was not common knowledge. Speier presents two tables:

Consider two scenarios: In one, the Red Sox maintain a $243.5 million payroll in 2020, 2021, and 2022. In the other, the team spends $205 million in 2020 then returns to $243.5 million in 2021 and 2022. ...

If the Red Sox don't reset:

Year    Payroll  Luxury Tax   Revenue Sharing    Total
                              Rebate Penalty*
(All figures in millions)
2018    239.5      12              0             251.5
2019    243.5      12              2.25          257.75
2020    243.5      19.61           6             269.11
2021    243.5      18.61           9             271.11
2022**  243.5      17.61          12             273.11
Total  1213.5      79.83          29.25         1322.58

If the Red Sox do reset

Year    Payroll  Luxury Tax   Revenue Sharing    Total
                              Rebate Penalty*
2018    239.5      12              0             251.5
2019    243.5      12              2.25          257.75
2020    205         0              0             205
2021    243.5       8.32           0             251.82
2022**  243.5      10.83           3             257.33
Total  1175        43.15           5.25         1223.4

* - estimated reduction of revenue sharing rebate for market disqualified teams.
** - new CBA year (assumes $212 million luxury tax threshold in 2022)

Using these numbers, the Red Sox would save $99,180,000 by the end of the 2022 season.

Martin Perez Joins The Rotation

The Red Sox signed lefty Martin Perez last week to a $6 million deal for 2020 and a team option for 2021. It's been a slow winter and it's hard to muster much, if any, excitement over this news.

Chad Jennings writes that the Red Sox liked some of the changes Perez, who will be 29 in April, made last season.

[H]e saw his fastball velocity spike from 92-93 mph to 94-96 mph. He added the cutter, and his strikeouts also went up. His hard-hit rate and average exit velocity were among the best in the game according to Statcast. ... The Red Sox also felt that Perez represented good value at the back of the rotation ...

$6 million seems like a bit much for a guy with Perez's middling (at best) track record. After a decent rookie season in 2013, he has posted ERA+s of 91, 95, 104, 100, 76, and 90.

Last year with the Twins, Perez had an ERA of 2.89 on May 18, but slumped to 6.17 over his last 22 starts. He pitched more than five innings only nine times in those 22 starts.

One commenter at The Athletic was extremely optimistic:

We could use him as an opener against teams that are lefty oriented at the top of their order. We could use him in long relief or even middle relief. He could even be a guy we throw for 3 batters if our opponent has stacked lefties against us. In other words, he's an interchangeable part in a new Red Sox pitching machine. ... It's always nice to have innings eaters at the top of the rotation like Price used to be but creating inexpensive depth is very valuable too.

Most SoSHers don't think the glass is as half-full as that, but a fair amount are willing to trust Chaim Bloom:

I assume (though obviously without any evidence) that Bloom and the people he listens to saw something (maybe even just that elite weak contact %) and think there's a way to unlock a better version of him. There are a couple of indicators that suggest he's been better than he looked. Take a look at the Astros---they have a track record of taking pitchers and tweaking them to vastly improve them (to be fair, the Astros have generally had better raw material to work with than Perez). But still, targeting underperforming pitchers with the hope of "fixing" them is how teams get bargains. While its entirely possible that Bloom and co. are wrong, I don't think that they said "yep, that 76 ERA+, that's what this teams needs for 6 mil"

Perez will fill the fifth starter spot left vacant by Rick Porcello. If the Red Sox can get some consistency out of Perez next season, that option for 2021 might end up being somewhat of a bargain. I really like and respect Bloom, so I will keep an open mind.

"I Wish To Subscribe To Your Newsletter"

Tim Marchman:

I respect the Yankees holding the line at nine years for the sweaty guy who was a league-average pitcher all of two years ago. That’s how you do business in the modern, efficient major leagues.

and

Rick Porcello signed a one-year contract with the Mets for $10 million.

The Red Sox signed infielder José Peraza, 25, for 2020 at roughly $3 million and claimed infielder Jonathan Arauz from the Astros in today's Rule 5 Draft.

Peraza spent the last four seasons with the Reds. He's not much of a hitter, putting up a .288/.326/.416 line in 2018, his best full season, which was a bit under league average.

Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich, The Athletic:

Major League Baseball's investigation into the Astros likely will not be completed until after the new year, sources with knowledge of the investigation told The Athletic.

The league's department of investigations has 76,000 emails to examine and has already conducted 60 interviews, commissioner Rob Manfred said Wednesday ... The league also has a store of instant messages to sift through as well, Manfred said. ...

A report shown to be incomplete after the fact would be a wart on the league's credibility ... a point that may underscore Manfred's deliberate approach.

In Wake Of Cole Signing, Red Sox Are Watching And Waiting

In the wake of the MFY's signing of Gerrit Cole to the largest contract ever given to a pitcher, Boston's chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom says the Red Sox have no imminent moves. Trusting the methodical processes he has brought to Boston, Bloom knows making a purely reactionary move would not be a smart decision for a team with a long-range view.

Look, we want to beat the Yankees as badly as anybody — trust me. I think it's just a question of us being able to step back and say, "What is the best approach for us to do that?" The more we feel like we're being reactive to other teams' moves, I think the more we're playing their game. We might be pushing ourselves further from that objective rather than helping ourselves. ...

Having had the good fortune of being in this division for a long time, I'm kind of used to seeing the Yankees, and the Red Sox for that matter, do things over the years. It didn't change things that much in terms of how I reacted to that [with the Rays]. I think it's one of the great things about the challenges of being in, what has been over the course of time probably the toughest division maybe in all of pro sports. You expect the standards to be very high and you expect your rivals to be constantly looking to improve, constantly find ways. The approach from team to team might vary, but you expect them to constantly be doing things to make themselves better. It's important to not get distracted by that. It's important to focus on your own club and how you can accomplish your goals. ...

I think it's been very consistent with the way the group thinks about things, is to really make sure you're not unprepared for any possibility. With that, I think comes at least considering to some degree a wide variety of guys who are out there. You hope that as you get more information that you obviously only have so much focus. You only have so much bandwidth to look into players to really feel like you understand them well.

The Post's Joel Sherman: "Boston probably knew it wasn't better for 2020 than the Yankees, maybe not the Rays either. Then Cole showed up in the AL East." ... His colleague Ken Davidoff takes a more measured tone: "We know how random, how cruel October can be. Cole in pinstripes guarantees nothing. Cole in pinstripes falling short, though? That guarantees more of the same first-world questions and scrutiny that have hovered over this first-world franchise for a decade."

Several teams have expressed an interest in David Price, according to several reports. MLB.com's Ian Browne writes that Boston's payroll is currently projected at about $220 million, a bit more than the Competitive Balance Tax threshold of $208 million the front office would prefer to be at going into 2020.

Browne mentions the Angels and White Sox as possible destinations for Price, who had surgery on his left wrist in September. Red Sox general manager Brian O'Halloran said Price "typically starts his throwing program in early to mid-December and that's the same this year. He's recovered well from wrist surgery and we expect he'll be ready to go like normal at the beginning of spring training".

Bloom: "I don't want to get into specifics of really any trade conversations that we're having. But I think you can see just by looking around the league that pitching has been the story of the week."

Yankees Sign Gerrit Cole To Nine-Year Deal Worth $324 Million

George A. King III, Post:

In the type of move George Steinbrenner lived for, his Yankees and son Hal Steinbrenner are back on top of the baseball universe after signing stud right-hander Gerrit Cole to a record-setting, nine-year contract worth a staggering $324 million Tuesday night.

The move sent shock waves through the lobby of the Manchester Grand Hyatt, where the winter meetings are being held, and ... immediately stamped the Yankees as the team to beat in not only the AL East but the American League and the favorites to win the World Series for the first time since 2009.

Cole joining the Yankees turns a good rotation into the best in baseball ... [Cole turned 29 last September]

[I]t took less than a dozen hours to finalize the largest contract ever given to a pitcher and the fourth-highest in baseball history to any player. There is no deferred money and Cole will make $36 million a year. He can opt out after the 2024 season.

Kristie Ackert, Daily News:

The deal obliterates the day-old record set by Stephen Strasburg, who agreed to a contract of $245 million over seven years with the Nationals on Monday afternoon. Cole's average annual value is an eye-popping $36 million.

The Yankees payroll for their 40-man roster was at $209.9 million before the deal and they are already looking for ways to shed excess costs elsewhere. ...

Cole has always been the Yankees priority for improving the front-end of their rotation. ... Having drafted him in 2008 and then having failed in an attempt to trade for him when he was with the Pirates, the right-hander has always been just out of their grasp. ...

[Cole] instantly becomes their ace and brings their rotation into the upper echelon in baseball. Last season, Cole ... led the AL in strikeouts (326) and ERA (2.50) over 212.1 innings pitched in 33 games started. He also had the best fielding-independent pitching rate in the AL with 2.64 and highest strikeout per nine innings pitched (13.8).

Marvin Miller Elected To Hall Of Fame; His Family Will Not Participate In Ceremony

"If they vote me in after I'm gone, please let everyone you know it is against my wishes and tell them if I was alive I would turn it down." — Marvin Miller (1917-2012)

Marvin Miller, the legendary executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, was elected to baseball's Hall of Fame on Sunday. Miller was chosen to lead the newly-formed players union in 1966 and he served for 16½ years.

The recognition of Miller's stature by the baseball establishment comes decades too late. This was Miller's eighth time on a Hall ballot. The fact that Miller received the bare minimum for induction (12 of 16 votes (75%)) makes it seem like the Modern Era Committee offered grudging acknowledgement: Okay, we'll finally let him squeeze in, but he's not getting even one vote more than necessary.

In 2013, Peter Miller wrote:

No one in our family will attend or speak at any HOF ceremony regardless of the outcome of the HOF vote. It's important for union members and the media to understand why, so that the story does not get misrepresented as "sour grapes," personal pique, or anything of the sort.

My father felt that the essence of the honor, if any, was in celebrating the MLBPA's accomplishments in changing Baseball from a management-dominated industry to one characterized by an equal labor-management relationship, a change resulting in a vastly more competitive game, fan interest, and increased wealth for all, including the owners of baseball clubs.

These changes were brought about by the concerted action of union members, the baseball players themselves. Although he enjoyed the recognition, my father did what he did not for fame and glory, but for justice and for equitable labor-management relations. To treat that as something incidental, as of lesser value than personal fame, is really to dishonor him and the players.

My father's wishes, stated in writing, and reaffirmed to me in person many times, and for the last time within weeks of his death, were that he did not want to be on the HOF ballot. In a 2008 letter to the Baseball Writers Association, he wrote:

"Paradoxically, I'm writing to thank you and your associates for your part in nominating me for Hall of Fame consideration, and, at the same time, to ask that you not do this again. The anti-union bias of the powers who control the Hall has consistently prevented recognition of the historic significance of the changes to baseball brought about by collective bargaining." ...

The May 29, 2008 Baseball Prospectus blog quoted my father on what he regarded as his family's role in carrying out his intentions:

"If considered and elected, I will not appear for the induction if I'm alive. If they proceed to try to do this posthumously, my family is prepared to deal with that."

Our course of action couldn't be clearer. I'm sure there will be those who want to "do the right thing" out of guilt, or because of some newly discovered perception of historical accuracy. But nobody needs the HOF to understand my father's place in baseball and labor history. The historical record is widely available on the Web and in the Marvin Miller archive at NYU. His portrait is at the Supreme Court in Washington DC, which is more accessible than Cooperstown.

Susan Miller said of her father's induction: "It would have been a great honor 20 years ago."

Red Sox Trade Sandy León to Cleveland

The Red Sox traded catcher Sandy León to Cleveland on Monday for minor league right-hander Adenys Bautista.

ESPN/Associated Press reported:

Bautista, 22, went 1-1 with a 7.79 ERA in 14 relief appearances for the In----ns in Arizona Rookie League in 2019.

ESPN made five errors in that short sentence:

1. Bautista was born on August 6, 1998, so he's 21. He won't turn 22 until next August.

2. Bautista made 7 relief appearances (not 14) in the Arizona Rookie League in 2019 (July 26 to August 26).

3. Bautista had a 0-0 record in the Arizona Rookie League in 2019 (not 1-1).

4. Bautista had a 10.13 ERA in the Arizona Rookie League in 2019 (not 7.79).

5. The word "the" should be inserted before "Arizona".

Bautista's 1-1 record came in the 7 games he played in the Dominican Summer League (June 5 to July 20). His stats from both leagues combined equal 14 games and a 7.79 ERA.

Ian Browne (mlb.com) had no problems reporting the correct information:

The 21-year-old Bautista pitched at the Rookie level in 2019, compiling a 7.79 ERA in 14 relief appearances in the Dominican Summer League and the Arizona Rookie League.

The Red Sox also did not tender contracts for 2020 to infielder Marco Hernandez and reliever Josh Osich. Last week, pitcher Brian Johnson was placed on outright waivers; he's still with Boston, but not on the 40-man roster.

Chris Sale was given the all-clear sign to begin throwing, after seeing Dr. James Andrews last week.

The Best Players & Games Of The 2010s (And A Couple Of Best-Of Red Sox Lists)

Jayson Stark looks at the Best Of The 2010s:

The five best players of the 2010s

1. Mike Trout — You were expecting maybe Rusney Castillo? Trout just crushed this field in pretty much every category that didn't involve counting — and even a few categories that did. But the biggest headline was this: According to Baseball Reference, his 72.5 Wins Above Replacement in the '10s meant he was worth 18.3 more wins than any other position player in the sport, despite the fact he essentially gave everyone else a two-year head start! And there has never — we said never — been any player who blew out the field in WAR by that crazy a margin in any — we said any — decade. The old record was 16.3, and that was set by Honus Wagner over 100 years ago (1900-09). ...

2. Joey Votto — Only two players in the sport had a .300/.400/.500 slash line in the '10s. One was Trout. The other was Votto (.306/.428/.516). This guy has been way too underappreciated. More on him later.

3. Adrián Beltré — There were just four players who were worth at least 50 wins in the '10s, according to the Baseball Reference WAR computations. Beltré was one of them even though he didn't play a game in 2019. Did you know that only one player in baseball finished in the top 10 on the offensive and defensive WAR leaderboards for this decade? Yep, that was Adrián Beltré. ...

The five best pitchers of the 2010s

1. Clayton Kershaw — Let's debate Kershaw's October struggles some other time, OK? That's because we're talking about a man who had an ERA under 2.00 for 197 consecutive regular-season starts between 2011 and 2018. That's amazing. And we're talking about a man whose 164 ERA-plus is the greatest by any starter, in any decade, since Walter Johnson hung a 177 in the first quasi-decade (1913-19) after earned runs became an official stat in 1913. That's mind-blowing. And if we use 1,500 innings as the minimum, we're talking about a man whose ERA (2.31) was 72 points lower than the next-best pitcher of this decade. And that's unheard of. Just a reminder that Clayton Kershaw in his prime was something special.

2. Max Scherzer — Scherzer led the sport in strikeouts (2,452) and wins (161) in the '10s. And he's about to make his seventh top-five Cy Young finish in a row. The only other pitchers in history who can say that? Greg Maddux and Kershaw.

3. Justin Verlander — Verlander is going to finish with five top-two Cy Young finishes in this decade. That's dominance. And if we use WAR as a measuring stick, nobody had more 6.0-win seasons (six) or 7.0-win seasons (four) in the '10s than Justin Verlander did.

4. Chris Sale — What Votto is to that hitters' list, Sale is to this pitchers' list. A better ERA (3.03) than Verlander. A better strikeout rate (11.08 per nine innings pitched) than Scherzer. A better WHIP (1.03) than anybody except Kershaw. ...

MOST WINS ABOVE REPLACEMENT, PITCHERS, IN THE 2010s

Kershaw, 59.3
Verlander, 56.2
Scherzer, 56.1
Hamels, 46.2
Sale, 45.4
Greinke, 44.0
Price, 38.6
Kluber, 33.2
deGrom, 32.7 ...

Best postseason pitcher of the 2010s: Madison Bumgarner

Based solely on the pure raw numbers, maybe you'd give this to Stephen Strasburg, the guy with the 1.46 career postseason ERA. But just when I started mulling that thought, I looked back on MadBum's epic October of 2014, his shutouts in two wild-card games, his absurd and unprecedented 0.25 career ERA over four World Series starts. And I thought: Will we ever see anybody do that again? Did you know that in those four World Series starts, Bumgarner gave up a total of one run? Did you know that in his 16 career postseason starts, he has allowed zero runs in six of them (not even counting his five shutout innings in relief in a Game 7 you might remember)? Did you know that he and Randy Johnson are the only two left-handers since Sandy Koufax to throw multiple shutouts in the same postseason? Did you know that in the Giants' three championship runs, MadBum made at least one postseason start of at least seven innings and no runs in all three of them? Oh, and he gets like a billion extra-credit points for basically winning the 2014 World Series all by himself. (All other Giants starters in that World Series combined for a 9.37 ERA and got through only the third inning twice in five starts.) So one more time, let's ask: Will we ever see anybody do that again? ...

Best pitcher who never won a Cy Young: Chris Sale

Not only is Chris Sale by far the best pitcher who never won a Cy Young in this decade, but he's also a contender for best pitcher who never won a Cy Young, period. For instance, Sale's WHIP for the '10s was an awesome 1.03. Ready for a list of all the other pitchers in the last 100 years who had a WHIP that low in any decade (with at least 1,500 innings)?

Clayton Kershaw, 0.96 (2010s)
Sandy Koufax, 1.01 (1960s)
Juan Marichal, 1.05 (1960s)
-That's a wrap –

It was Kershaw who dominated this decade. But it was Sale who finished in the top two in ERA, strikeout rate, opponent average, opponent slugging, opponent OPS and FIP — among other stuff. He has six top-five Cy Young finishes to show for it but no trophies. Juan Marichal and Curt Schilling feel his pain. ...

BEST ON-BASE MACHINE OF THE 2010s — Votto walked 1,046 times in this decade. Only one other player — Carlos Santana — was within 200 of him. Only four other players — Santana (944), José Bautista (812), Trout (803) and Andrew McCutchen (769) — were even within 400 of him!

BEST WORKHORSE OF THE 2010s — Verlander faced 8,635 hitters, just in the regular season, in the '10s. Only two other pitchers — Scherzer (8,300) and Lester (8,236) — were within (gulp) 500 hitters of him. We continue to show way too little appreciation for pitchers who provide that much volume, especially when it comes with Verlander-esque domination. ...

What goes up must come down — except possibly at the Trop. So lastly, here's to the men who "led" the '10s in all those departments they'd rather we never looked up!

LOWEST BATTING AVERAGE (min. 3,000 PA) — Danny Espinosa, .221

LOWEST OBP — Adeiny Hechavarría, .290

LOWEST SLUGGING PCT. — Billy Hamilton, .326 ...

MOST STRIKEOUTS — Chris Davis, 1,597 (most by any player in any decade in history)

MOST LOSSES — Rick Porcello, 109

MOST GOPHERBALLS — James Shields, 262 ...

Jen McCaffrey: The 10 Most Memorable Red Sox Games Of The 2010s

Chad Jennings: The 10 Most Significant Red Sox Decisions Of The 2010s

Tim Britton: The 20 Best MLB Games Of The 2010s

The Athletic: The Athletic's MLB All-Decade Team

Right field
Mookie Betts (19/28)

From 2010 to 2019, 1,838 position players made at least one plate appearance in the major leagues. Of those, only 742 stuck around long enough to log just short of a season's worth of plate appearances (600). Within that group, 14 position players earned the sport's greatest individual honor, the Most Valuable Player award. But none could top Betts' MVP campaign in 2018. When measured by FanGraphs' version of WAR (10.4), it ranked as the most valuable single season in the entire decade. That edged out Trout's 2013 (10.2), and Posey's 2012 (10.1). In an era in which some of the best players in the league can be classified as one-dimensional, Betts has become a star by excelling in every aspect of the game, a tribute to his athletic versatility. In high school, Betts was a standout star in basketball, baseball and bowling. He has participated in the World Series of baseball (2018) and the World Series of bowling (2015 and 2017). Among right fielders, Betts' 42.0 WAR for the decade, according to Baseball-Reference, ranks ahead of Stanton's 39.9. And Betts reached that total despite playing in 368 fewer games and swatting 169 fewer homers, a testament to his defense and baserunning.

Betts in the 2010s: 42.0 WAR, .301/.374/.519, 2018 AL MVP, four All-Star selections, four Gold Gloves, 965 hits, 229 doubles, 139 homers, 25 steals

The quote: "To come up as a second baseman and turn himself into the type of right fielder that he is just shows how athletic he is, for one, but also how dedicated he is to making himself better. Offensively, he's the MVP, but he runs the bases really, really well, he plays a Gold-Glove right field and puts up video-game-like numbers in the box. He can do it all." — Former Red Sox player Brock Holt