Like most fans, I enjoy a spirited Spring Training competition. Non-roster invitees, young upstarts, and the previous year’s hangers-on engage in friendly warfare for what usually figure to be 2 or three “TBD” slots on a team’s bench, bullpen, or the back of the starting rotation. For this year’s defending National League champs, there could conceivably be only one (or none) as-yet-spoken-for job to win in Florida this spring, and one of those on the outside looking in figures to be a player who appeared in all but 19 games for the Cards in 2013.
Tag Archives: Baseball
The Underperformers: Boston, Detroit, Anaheim, Colorado, Cubs, White Sox (WAR and Team Success, Part 3)
The world champion Boston Red Sox headline the list of teams with a win-loss record (97-65) more than four games worse than what both fWAR and rWAR expected. The obvious knee-jerk response to this statement for many would be to scoff at WAR for declaring the World Series winners to be worse than they actually were. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Both fWAR (106-56) and rWAR (104-58) rated the Red Sox as the best team in baseball, and predicted the team to be much better than what their record turned out to be. As we all know, the bullish stance taken by WAR on the Red Sox played out as expected in the playoffs, which ended with the Sox defeating the St. Louis Cardinals in a 6-game Series that wasn’t as close as its length made it look.
The feel-good “worst to first” narrative of this year’s Boston team was a media favorite this year, and there was substantial outcry when John Farrell finished second in Manager of the Year voting to a former Red Sox skipper who’d somehow turned up in “flyover country.” Whether Farrell’s contributions as a clubhouse leader were responsible for several Red Sox turning in stellar individual performances is up for debate. The fact that WAR rated the Sox so well, however, reveals that Farrell was in fact working with a fantastic baseball team. Unfortunately for fans of baseball “magic,” the reason for the success of the 2013 Red Sox is clearly that its players (as measured objectively against all of the other players in baseball) were really, really good. The question we’re left with, then, is why the Sox were “only” able to win 97 games.
Clayton Kershaw Gets his 30 Million AAV, And it Might Be Worth It
It is my fervent hope that Part 3 of the WAR study will be up at some point tonight. First, though, and briefly: we all kind of knew this was going to happen. Clayton Kershaw is the best pitcher in baseball right now, and it isn’t particularly close. The 25 year-old 2-time Cy Young winner has led the National League in ERA each of the last 3 years while averaging over 230 innings pitched, was best in strikeouts in 2011 and 2013 (having finished 2nd in 2012 by one K), and in both 2012 and 2013 led the league in pitcher Wins Above Replacement and adjusted ERA+.
For a couple of years, baseball has speculated that Kershaw would be the first 30 million dollar man, and today it happened. Shortly after filing for arbitration, Kersh and the Dodgers got to work on what would be a 7-year, $215 million dollar contract extension with a player opt-out after five years. The deal is surprisingly reasonable in length given Kershaw’s stature and youth – He’ll only be 32 (the same age Adam Wainwright is today!) when his seven years are up.
ONE TOOL BASEBALL 