MLB 2015 Thread: The Hunt for October

[Tal]

Best start a thread off, given the season starts this weekend. I used to follow the sport very closely in my uni days. I picked a team - as I do with any and every sport I follow - and became a Yankees fan (apologies). How times have changed in the last ten years...

The MLB is no longer a front for steroid-swilling thunderthwackers, leaving whatever the baseball equivalent of Wisden is more expensive than ever, on account of the additional ink spent on all those asterisks by players' records. Anyway, enough chuntering.

Minnesota Twins' pitcher, Ervin Santana, signed a four year, $50m contract to be their number 2 guy in December. Looks like the Twins will be saving some of that money. Santana released a statement this morning:

"I am very disappointed that I tested positive for a performance enhancing drug. I am frustrated that I can't pinpoint how the substance in question entered my body. I would never knowingly take anything illegal to enhance my performance. What I can guarantee is I never knowingly took anything illegal to enhance my performance. That's just not me, never has been and never will."

Click to see full-size image.

The league recognises that having tested positive for a performance enhancing substance means he's gained an unfair, physical advantage...so he can't come back until the summer.

Anyway, onto the real stuff. Who's going to win things? Teams and individuals. Surprises and No-Brainers welcome. Feel free to talk about ERA, K, Pinch hitting, Slug percentage and anything in between.

Over to you.

[Tal]

Here's a story from left field for you to get going: Jackie Mitchell. Seventeen years old and how much would you have paid to have seen Babe Ruth's face?

http://www.baseballessential.com/news/2015/04/02/jackie-mitchell-the-girl-who-struck-out-babe-ruth-and-lou-gerhig/

My favourite article on the subject:

"The Yankees will meet a club here that has a girl pitcher named Jackie Mitchell, who has a swell change of pace and swings a mean lipstick. I suppose that in the next town the Yankees enter they will find a squad that has a female impersonator in left field, a sword swallower at short, and a trained seal behind the plate. Times in the South are not only tough but silly." Source: The New York Daily News (April 2, 1931)

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/articles/aubrecht8.shtml

Bleacher Report finds the most poignant line:

"Of course, a woman striking out two of the world's greatest hitters caused a stir through the larger sporting world—so much so that Commissioner of Baseball Kenesaw Mountain Landis voided her contract several days later, saying the sport was "too strenuous" for a woman."

http://m.bleacherreport.com/articles/2418403-throwback-thursday-female-ace-jackie-mitchell-strikes-out-babe-ruth

[tikay]

I do hope this thread gains some interest & traction, Tal Bloke.

In this book.....






...5 or 6 themes run right through, from start to finish, & Babe Ruth, & the New York Yankees, was one of them. It's often said Babe Ruth paid for the construction of Yankee Stadium.

Babe Ruth's story, from cradle to grave, must be one of the greatest sporting stories ever. Inspiring, exciting, surprising, barely believable & eventually poignant.

Fingers crossed the thread gets some interest.

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

[TightEnd]

I wrote some ante-post and strategic stuff up on the MLB for this weekend

here is part of it (i won't link, people don't like it)

The 2015 MLB

There are 30 MLB teams split into six divisions, three in the National League and three in the American League. There is a 162 game regular season from April until September. Five teams from each league then contest the play-offs, the winners of the two leagues playing in the World Series in October.

To a large extent, all the major US sports are structured to provide competitive balance. This is especially the case in the NFL which has a salary cap and extensive free agency, and a team can go from bottom to top in a short time if it manages and recruits well including the draft.

The MLB has no salary cap, has free agency but also it is unusual to draft a player and see him straight into the majors. Draft picks can spend a long time in the minor leagues particularly if drafted from high school at 18. In addition the MLB has local TV deals on top of the national contracts. If you are in a big market such as New York, LA or Chicago for example regional sports networks can pay a fortune for the TV rights. The Los Angeles Dodgers inked the second largest deal worth $8.35 billion over 25 years with Time Warner Cable last year, to give one instance. If you are in one of the MLB's smaller market cities your deal will be far smaller. The difference this provides to spending power, and much of the money was spent on acquiring free agents, has been marked and of all the US Sports baseball has most resembled "haves" and "havenots" in terms of success and acquiring talent

On Opening day 2014 the LA Dodgers had a payroll of over $235m and a record sixteen teams exceeded $100m.. At the other end of the scale two teams, Houston and Miami, had sub $50m payrolls. Historically been quite unusual for a side to go from bottom to top very quickly: there have been barriers to doing so in acquiring talent, paying it and getting it on the field quickly.

However, competitive balance is key in US Sports and successive MLB commissioners have introduced a number of measures to level the playing field including a luxury tax (penalties for over spending via payroll) and penalties for under-spending. This has had the effect of meaning payrolls across the league are equalising, and so the English premier league effect of it being impossible to beat the richest teams over a season is being reduced

So the high rollers aren’t outspending the second-tier teams to the degree they once did. Nor are the penny-pinchers falling as far behind. The teams at the bottom of the new 2015 payroll rankings are much closer to $100 million than $0, which wasn’t true two years ago. It’s not just the fear of financial penalties that has forced the big and small spenders toward the centre of the payroll range. The local TV contracts have enabled some teams to extend their young players instead of watching them walk and the traditional underdog teams now contain young players who can’t easily be bought.

Some teams are still smarter and more efficient than others, you still have to manage well off the field, and coach well on it but levelling the financial playing field is reducing the variation between teams.

Four teams in last year's payroll bottom six made the playoffs last year. Only three teams in the top six did. The Kansas City Royals made the World Series on a sub $100m payroll. In an era of increasing competitive balance, being a big club in the league doesn’t grant the power to dominate that it once did.

Former commissioner Bud Selig’s introduction of a second wild card spot in each league in 2012 has done wonders for the regular season, as more teams than ever before believe they have a shot at the play-offs, but it has also meant that the World Series participants can more than ever be those clubs that get both hot and lucky at just the right time

The effects of structural changes in the MLB finance and play-off structure since 2012 provide value in ante-post betting via spotting teams that may improve faster than forecasts assume. There’s a good chance that another unlikely World Series winner will be seen in 2015

[TightEnd]

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/video/2015/apr/03/mlbs-ringing-the-changes?CMP=share_btn_tw

[Tal]

Here's a question, then:

There is no salary cap, so teams with rich owners and monster TV deals can buy five superb pitchers for rotation, sluggers, guys with high hit percentages and big RBI numbers, the best outfielders and the best coaching staff.

They play 160 games in a season, which should be a great way of reducing variance and ensuring the best teams finish at the top.

So, why does the best team only get 85 wins and the worst as many as 75?

Compare that to the Premier League, where a team like Chelsea has 20 wins out of 29 and Leicester just 4. There aren't even any draws in baseball.

Why isn't a team winning 100 games?

[TightEnd]

Here's a question, then:

There is no salary cap, so teams with rich owners and monster TV deals can buy five superb pitchers for rotation, sluggers, guys with high hit percentages and big RBI numbers, the best outfielders and the best coaching staff.

They play 160 games in a season, which should be a great way of reducing variance and ensuring the best teams finish at the top.

So, why does the best team only get 85 wins and the worst as many as 75?

Compare that to the Premier League, where a team like Chelsea has 20 wins out of 29 and Leicester just 4. There aren't even any draws in baseball.

Why isn't a team winning 100 games?

that used to be more the case

teams with 65 wins, teams with 95 wins and a far broader distribution of outcomes in between

the bell curve has become steeper though, for the reasons outlined in my article above

luxury taxes on overspenders, penalties for underspenders

here is the payroll list for 2010. ranges from 55-200m

http://content.usatoday.com/sportsdata/baseball/mlb/salaries/team

in 2015 http://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/

21 of the 30 teams are spending over 100m

the dodgers - tv deal -have overtaken the yankees too

so the parity across the league is increasing. easier for the worse teams to retain stars when even their own tv deals allow them to

particularly in the american league you see a lot of teams clustered at 80-85 wins compared to 5 years ago. they are all financed and structured to be competitive and didn't used to be

[Longy]

Go Cubs.

Actually have some hope this year, the Cubs have some real young talent coming through and the front office seems to have decided this is the year they can be competitive at the top end again.

Plus there is this....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADXs2C4Vmho

[TightEnd]

Go Cubs.

Actually have some hope this year, the Cubs have some real young talent coming through and the front office seems to have decided this is the year they can be competitive at the top end again.

Plus there is this....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADXs2C4Vmho

they were bad for so long they were able to draft a lot of high pick talent

when that became ready for the big leagues, this year, coincided with the owners giving up on the old management, recruiting a new GM and opening the chequebook for the likes of Lester

the cubs are the most backed team to win the world series in some vegas books

[TightEnd]

a look at each team and one commentator's post season picks

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/lingering-questions-predictions-for-every-team-on-eve-of-opening-day-040515

[mulhuzz]

as a Red Sox fan i'm hoping we can go from bottom of pile towards the top again. should score very heavily this year, but need a really first rate pitcher to help stop leaking runs. I can't have us winning the WS and think that winning the AL, whilst possible, isn't a bet at 7/1. seems quite short.

as is usual, I think I'll just oppose the Yankees all year. Old and very likely worn out, with a bullpen that is creaking and straining at the top end.

[Tal]

Five games into a 160 game season and the press are in hyperbole mode:

http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/yankees/post/_/id/84000/besides-a-rod-yanks-are-spinning-out-of-control

Can a team at 1-4 be "spinning out of control"?

[TightEnd]

Five games into a 160 game season and the press are in hyperbole mode:

http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/yankees/post/_/id/84000/besides-a-rod-yanks-are-spinning-out-of-control

Can a team at 1-4 be "spinning out of control"?

No, the Angels lost the first four last year and finished 98-64

the Yankees are rebuilding, no longer the biggest payroll in baseball. plenty of talent in the minors but post Jeter there has to be a bridge period

the PR problem, which in the big scheme of things isn't important, but leads to articles like the above, is that its like Utd under Moyes...biggest club in a tough spell so they are going to be shot at

it also doesn't help that the Red Sox look very good, so when your big rival is a year ahead of you in performing, thats another thing to go at the Yankees with

[Tal]

Standings

   AL East Division   P   W   L   R   PCT   
1.   Boston Red Sox   5   4   1   30:15   0.800   
     
2.   Toronto Blue Jays   5   3   2   28:20   0.600   
     
3.   Baltimore Orioles   5   3   2   24:22   0.600   
     
4.   Tampa Bay Rays   5   2   3   20:22   0.400   
     
5.   New York Yankees   5   1   4   17:29   0.200   

     
   AL Central Division   P   W   L   R   PCT   
1.   Kansas City Royals   5   5   0   31:13   1.000   
     
2.   Detroit Tigers   5   5   0   39:11   1.000   
     
3.   Cleveland Indians   5   2   3   17:20   0.400   
     
4.   Chicago White Sox   5   1   4   12:31   0.200   
     
5.   Minnesota Twins   5   1   4   11:27   0.200   
     

   AL West Division   P   W   L   R   PCT   
1.   Texas Rangers   6   3   3   20:27   0.500   
     
2.   Oakland Athletics   6   3   3   36:18   0.500   
     
3.   Los Angeles Angels   5   2   3   14:17   0.400   
     
4.   Seattle Mariners   5   2   3   12:24   0.400   
     
5.   Houston Astros   5   2   3   10:14   0.400   
     
   NL East Division   P   W   L   R   PCT   
1.   Atlanta Braves   5   5   0   26:9   1.000   
     
2.   Philadelphia Phillies   5   3   2   13:19   0.600   
     
3.   New York Mets   5   2   3   16:16   0.400   
     
4.   Washington Nationals   5   1   4   9:17   0.200   
     
5.   Miami Marlins   5   1   4   13:27   0.200   

     
   NL Central Division   P   W   L   R   PCT   
1.   Cincinnati Reds   5   4   1   19:16   0.800   
     
2.   Chicago Cubs   4   2   2   12:13   0.500   
     
3.   St.Louis Cardinals   4   2   2   11:8   0.500   
     
4.   Milwaukee Brewers   5   1   4   14:26   0.200   
     
5.   Pittsburgh Pirates   5   1   4   14:21   0.200   
     

NL West Division   P   W   L   R   PCT   
1.   Colorado Rockies   5   4   1   30:16   0.800   
     
2.   Arizona Diamondbacks   5   3   2   23:19   0.600   
     
3.   San Francisco Giants   6   3   3   19:24   0.500   
     
4.   San Diego Padres   6   3   3   25:19   0.500   
     
5.   Los Angeles Dodgers   5   2   3   19:24   0.400   
     

[tikay]

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