Baseball Season’s Basic Math
Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose. Lyndon B. Johnson
May 23, 2024
Diamond Dust #3
Introduction: Calculations, Computations and Projections
One of the most basic joys of every baseball season is projecting how well (or how poorly) a player, a pitcher or even a team is doing over a short stretch for the whole 162 game length. After 27 games, the season is exactly 1/6th in the books (6×27=162). When the Angels played their 27th game this year, Mike Trout had hit 10 home runs. He was precisely on pace for 60 HRs for the year. Of course, poor Trout went down with a knee injury shortly thereafter, quickly ending any dream that he would hit even 30, much less 60, home runs for the season. When the Dodgers finished their 27th game this year, Shohei Ohtani had stroked 14 doubles. He was on pace for 84 doubles in 2024, which would obliterate the Major League record of 67 in a season by Earl Webb (and was also almost halfway to his own career high of 30 which took him 157 games). Oddly, Ohtani promptly stopped hitting boatloads of doubles and his 2B rate quickly fell behind Webb’s record pace. The Chicago White Sox began 2024 by going a horrific 3-22 and articles where written that they might break the New York Mets’ record of 120 losses in a season. Since then, the White Sox have gone 12-13, making that complete collapse scenario quite unlikely. The adjustments and counter-adjustments by the players, the ebb and flow of the teams’ schedules, and the capricious luck of the game itself eventually evens almost everything out. Except for those rare times when it does not.
Just two years ago, baseball gravity did not bring Aaron Judge back to earth and he crushed 62 homers to break the America League HR record. In 2024, we may be seeing yet another Icarus who does not fall out of the sky. Shohei Ohtani, taking a year off from the rigors of pitching, free from the LA Angels’ dungeon, with his concentration possibly sharpened by getting married, and perhaps even hyper-focused after his interpreter stole millions of dollars from him, may be on his way to a Baseball season to remember. Or not, only time will tell. But, whether Ohtani does or does not continue to impress, it will not detract one bit from the simple mathematical beauty of the first half of every Baseball season. Of course, the 6×27=162, 5×32=160, and even the 4×40=160 calculations are already in the 2024 rear view mirror. However, the 3×54=162 marker is already almost here. The perfect fulcrum calculations of 2×81=162 and somewhat far less satisfying 1.5×108=162 multiplications still wait in the not too distant future. Usually, all these early season projections of Baseball player’s future performance are just an exercise in daydreaming. But, when they are not, a baseball fans gets to watch Baseball history unfold in real time. Of course, math is not the only way to enjoy the Baseball present. One other way is to look over what is happening and search for deeper trends.
Does increasing pitch speed depress position player career length?
In 2022, the 42-year-old Albert Pujols retired after a long career [2001-2022]. Basically, the first half of Pujols’ career [2001-2011] was a superb audition for the Hall of Fame. The second half of his career [2012-2022] was a long slow decline into mediocrity. From 2017 to 2021, Albert was a below average hitter (by OPS+). In 2022, he did have one last glorious part-time season, ending on a high note. In 2023, the 40-year-old Miguel Cabrera also retired after a long career [2003-2023]. Cabrera started his career as a very good hitter and eventually peaked as an all-time-great batter from 2010 to 2013. Until 2016, he was still one hell of a hitter. A back injury in 2017 basically ended his useful career as a player. From 2017 until 2023, Cabrera was a below average hitter (by OPS+) for five of his seven remaining seasons. The two seasons that Cabrera was not below average (2018 & 2020), he barely played (38 & 57 games respectively). Unlike Pujols, Cabrera did not go out in a blaze of glory. He waddled through 2023 to collect the last year on his contract. For many years, I believed that the two main reasons behind both Pujols’ and Cabrera’s long slow glidepaths into retirement were: 1. neither player bothered to keep themselves in good condition at all after signing long-term contracts; and 2. neither player’s team could buy into the economic philosophy of “sunk costs” and simply eat the remainder of their bloated contracts. But now, thinking it over, I wonder if there was another reason that both men struggled mightily in their 30s?
It has been stated that the average speed of a Major League fastball has risen from about 91 mph in 2000 or so to 94 mph presently [2020 or so]. The basic fast-twitch-muscle-responses of the human body peaks from ages 18 to 21. With pitchers throwing harder & harder, would it not follow that this rise in velocity would make it harder and harder for players aging into their 30s to continue to perform at a high level? Was this a contributing factor to the decline of Pujols and Cabrera? Perhaps more importantly, will this have an effect on all the players currently signing contracts that take them deep into their 30s and even 40s? Recently, there have been a few articles written about the fact the no active players are really close to collecting 500 home runs or 3000 hits. The basic conclusion of these articles was that this was just an anomaly and it would straighten itself out eventually. But what if it is not? What is Baseball is becoming more and more a young man’s game because of fast-twitch dominance? Mike Trout, the greatest player of the last Baseball generation, has seen his career in his 30s derailed by injuries…but also by a sky-rocketing strikeout rate. There are other players (looking at you, Giancarlo Stanton) who have also lost control of the strike zone in their 30s. Has the game tilted strongly towards those who are still in their 20s? If it has, this will also have long term ramifications on the economics of Baseball. Right now, the salary structure of Major League Baseball is designed to take money from young players and reward veterans (an arrangement which was built by both the Baseball owners and the Player’s Union). Can any system which robs the productive members and rewards the unproductive persist?
Will six man pitching rotations start being adopted in 2024?
It is almost inevitable that Major League pitching rotations will increase from five to six pitchers. With pitching staffs now almost always 13 men large, the split of 6 starters and 7 relievers (rather than 5 and 8) seems more logical. It will reduce the stress on starter’s shoulders and elbows. Right now, a pitcher in a five man rotation will start about 32 or 33 games in a season. A pitcher in a 6-man rotation will start exactly 27 games if their team sticks strictly to such a schedule. Of course, with pitchers averaging about six innings per start, the qualification (162 innings pitched in a season) for winning the ERA [earned run average] title may become problematical. If all the teams used a six-man rotation, it would be possible for only four or five pitchers, all below average, to qualify for that title. In 2023, the Philadelphia Phillies went to a six-man rotation to prepare for the play-offs. At the beginning of 2024, it seemed likely that the he Dodgers could become the first team to permanently adopt a six man rotation. The Achilles heal of the recent Dodger’s super teams has been just getting into the post-season with a healthy starting pitching staff (the teams’ one recent World Championship came when the 2020 strike kept their starters fresh). Yoshinabu Yamamoto, the teams’ new ace pitcher from Japan has spent his entire career pitching in a six-man rotation. The other Dodger’s ace, Tyler Glasnow, has never even approached the 5-man rotation minimum 30 starts & 180 IP standard because of injuries. The Dodgers have multiple pitchers returning from assorted injuries (Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler, and Dustin May), not to mention a bunch of possible rookie starters. It seems inevitable that the LA Dodgers will eventually go a strict six-man or looser always five days of rest rotation. And it also seems likely that a strict 6-man rotation will also let average fastball velocity increase yet some more. But it hasn’t happened yet.
Many proposals have been floated to bring back the old school 250-300 IP starting pitcher. But the answer is obvious. It is just a question of roster size. With 13 pitchers, the average pitcher has to throw 112 or so innings (162×9= 1458/13=112+ innings pitched). If you limit the roster size of just pitchers to 10, that jumps to 145+ innings pitched. Of course, the Player’s union would almost surely object severely to that type of roster limitation. However, the 10 pitcher limit does have a link to tradition. The 25-man player roster has been around since about 1920; and, for most of that time, the pitching staff was usually 10 men. The recent (2020) increase of the total roster size to 26 players did not help with the diffusion of innings pitched between ever more pitchers. As long as the Major Leagues allow their teams to place 13 (even 14) pitchers on the roster, the current trend against starting pitchers pitching 200 or more innings in a season will continue. Perhaps a limit to just twelve pitchers would be a start? One interesting facet of this roster management problem could be combination pitcher/players like Shohei Ohtani. Perhaps the Major Leagues could encourage future Ohtanis by excluding players who play more games in the field (or at DH) from the roster limit? But, no matter what the Major Leagues decides to do about this issue, the actual solution to increasing starting pitching workload will always begin with just reducing the number of pitchers that a team can carry. And, of course, reducing the roster size of the pitching staff will also bring down the average fastball velocity as pitchers need to preserve their arms to throw more pitches & innings.
What happens to Players caught up in the Current Culture War?
Long ago, Major League caliber players were excluded from the Majors for a completely spurious reason: the color of their skin. But, other than that piece of historical stupidity, players have usually been allowed to play in the Majors no matter what horrible blemish is contained in their life stories. Both Henry Thompson and Cesar Cedeno played in the Major Leagues despite murdering someone. Manslaughter, at the very least, was not enough to keep them out. In the 1930s, Edwin “Alabama” Pitts was allowed to play in the minors despite spending 6 years in Sing Sing prison for robbery. In the 1970s, Ron Leflore played in the Major Leagues after three years behind bars for armed robbery. Considering that past, it seems slightly strange that three star caliber players are currently unemployed basically by becoming entangled in modern culture wars. Alphabetically, these players are Trevor Bauer, Wander Franco and Julio Urias. All have run afoul of the “MeToo movement” that condemns violence against women. This movement began in 2006 and peaked in 2017 with the accusation and eventual conviction of movie producer Harvey Weinstein for multiple offenses against numerous women. Although none of the Baseball players accused of violence against women seems to be quite the monster that Weinstein apparently is (was?), each has been accused of something that should make them unwelcome in polite society. Trevor Bauer was accused of beating a woman unconscious during consensual “rough” sex (and several other women came forward to establish this as his pattern). Wander Franco was accused of sexually exploiting a 14-year-old girl. Julio Urias got into an argument with his significant other and put his hands on her in a very hostile manner.* Will any of these men play Major League Baseball again?
*The Urias incident, as reported, is actually a bit confusing. Some sources stated Urias hit his girlfriend. Other sources claimed he choked his wife. Apparently, he is not married and it was his long term significant other. Exactly how Urias assaulted her is somewhat unclear.
Right now, there doesn’t seem to be any path back to the Major Leagues for Bauer, Franco, or Urias. Although all three men deserve to be punished, I am uncomfortable with the current electric chair to their career approach. While retaliation has its place, there must also be rehabilitation in a civilized society. Could the Commissioner’s Office and the Player’s Union not negotiate some type of agreement outlining these player’s way back. Make them give half of their salaries to charities against whatever crime they committed. Make them do community service. Take away the argument that these players need to be ostracized forever and replace it with the fact that they could do some good. Of course, that would be pro-active approach, something usually foreign to Baseball. The Major Leagues seem to usually like to wait until a problem just disappears or becomes life-threatening. In the case of the 3 players named above, they are all probably doomed. Franco is probably the least doomed. He is still drawing his salary from Tampa Bay, his crimes happened in another country with different rules, and the situation between himself and the victim contains a greater criminal (the victim’s mother). Urias may eventually be able to return to the Majors because no one seems to be paying any attention to it. Bauer, who was never convicted of anything at all, is probably just screwed. He was considered an asshole before the scandal happened, has been totally unrepentant since it happened, and his signing by a team will surely generate a ton of bad publicity. Perhaps his only hope now is that someone from the ownership ranks, a traditionally uber-conservative group, desires to send a message of contempt to modern cancel culture.
The Latest Candidate for the Dwight Evans’ Career Path?
One of my favorite players of all time was Dwight Evans (Dewey!), the right fielder for the Boston Red Sox in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1970s, Dwight was one-third of a fascinating outfield with Jim Rice and Fred Lynn. All three players ended their careers with borderline Hall of Fame cases. A very good argument can be made that any or all of the three belong in the Hall; but an equally good argument could be made that none of them do. Rice, of course, is in the Hall despite his sketchy qualifications. Lynn and Evans remain on the outside looking in. Rice and Evans are somewhat opposite. Rice had his best years in the 1970s but faded in the 1980s. Dwight Evans, on the other hand, struggled in the 1970s but found himself in the 1980s. Fragile Freddy Lynn, perhaps the most talented of the three, simply could not stay healthy enough in either decade. Evans’ career path was pretty unusual. He came up in 1972 at the age of 20. But he could not seem to harness his talents. Dewey had injuries, inconsistencies and an everchanging batting stance. However, in the strike year of 1981, Evans seemed to finally put it all together. From 1972 to 1980 (ages 20-28), he had only played 140 or more games 4 times with a high of 152. But in 1981, he played every game (all 108) during the aborted season. Before 1981, his highest OPS+ was a good, but not great 128. In 1981, Evans had a fantastic (and career high) OPS+ of 163. He led the American League in plate appearances, homers, total bases, and walks. It was Evans’ career year but it was not a fluke. Dewey maintained a much higher level of production for the rest of his career. After he turned 30, Evans played 140 or more games seven more times with a peak of 162 twice. He also cleared an OPS+ of 128 six more times with a peak of 157. After turning 30, Evans accumulated more than half of his career WAR [Wins Above Replacement]. Dwight Evans was a quintessential Baseball late bloomer.
A little while ago, I wondered if another Red Sox outfielder, Jackie Bradley Jr., would follow in Dwight Evans’ footsteps. Bradley came up in 2013 at the age of 23 (Evans had signed out of High School while Bradley had signed out of College which partially explains the difference in their ages during their Major League debuts). Bradley was, with Andrew Benintendi and Mookie Betts, also part of a much celebrated young outfield trio. But unlike Evans and his mates, not all of these three players turned in very good to almost great careers. The unbelievable Betts turned into a no-doubt Hall of Famer. But Bradley Jr. and Benintendi will need to buy a ticket to visit that Baseball shrine. Like Dewey, Bradley was a fantastic defensive outfielder. But Jackie Jr. was a center fielder while Dewey played right. Bradley played his first full season in 2014. And it was beyond ghastly offensively. In 127 games and 382 ABs, Bradley hit just one home run, batted .198, and slugged .266 (his OPS+ was just 49).* But he hit well in a half season in 2015 (119 OPS+), had his career year in 2016 (26 HRs/87 RBIs/.267 BA). From 2017-2019, Bradley was a slightly below average batter (OPS+ from 89 to 92). But the really odd thing about Bradley was that he, in every season from 2015 to 2019, combined hot streaks in which he was the best hitter on the team with terrible cold spells that looked he had never ever swung a bat before. In the strike year of 2020, Bradley was 30 and hit a career high .283. His OPS+ was 116. If he could minimize the cold patches & maximize when he was on-fire, it seemed like he could have a much greater second half of his career. Instead, Bradley promptly hit for the consecutively pathetic BAs of .163, .203, and .133 [2021-2023]. Bradley then fell right out of the Majors. Jackie Bradley Jr. was no Dewey Evans.
*OPS+ equals a player’s on-base percentage [OBP] and slugging average [SA] combined and then normalized for park effects on a scale of 100. A 49 OPS+ is beyond terrible.
There are two current players who may be able to be qualify for the mythical Dewey Evans Late Bloomer Award. One is Minnesota outfielder Matt Kepler. Kepler was raised in Germany by his American mother and Polish father, who were both ballet dancers. Hardly a normal Baseball lineage. Reportedly, he had never faced a pitcher who threw over 80 mph before he came to the US as an adult. In his 20s, Kepler was noted for a significant flaw: he hit far too many ground balls to access his full talents. He seemed to have all the signs of a late bloomer: little experience at Baseball when he was young, underlying talent, and correctable flaws. He debuted for the Twins in 2015 at the age of 22 and has been a regular since 2016. But basically, with the exception of the home-run-happy year of 2019 and the dismal strike-shortened 2020 , Kepler was a below average hitter from 2016 to 2022. However, he seemed to turn a corner in 2023 after turning 30 years old (123 OPS+ matching his career high in 2019). He has so far continued this late-in career renaissance in 2024. Here is hoping he can keep it up. The other current player who is a possible Dewey Evans style late-bloomer is Jurickson Profar. Profar debuted in the Majors in 2012 at the age of 19 and looked like a potential coming star in 2013. Profar then missed both the 2014 & 2015 seasons to shoulder injuries. From 2016 to 2023, Profar has mixed decent seasons (2018, 2020, 2022) with poor years (2016, 2019, 2021, and 2023) and yet another injury season (2017). It seemed like all his initial potential had been squandered. This was quite sad because, by all reports, Profar is a well respected man. However, in 2024 at the age of 31, Profar seems to have gotten a second win. Will it continue on? Only time will tell. On thing that both Kepler and Profar have in common is that, as they reached their 30s, both players rediscovered their joy in playing the game. If they can keep it up, it will make for a great and uplifting story.*
*It could be argued that the ever increasing fastball velocity in the Majors will make it even harder to be a late bloomer like Evans. If this is true, the stories of Kepler and Profar will be that much better if they are able to maintain their recent improvements deep into their 30s.
Conclusion: Waiting for the 54th and 81st mile (game) markers.
The 2024 season is fully underway. It will soon be Summer once again and some questions will be clearer. Will Shohei Ohtani and Gunnar Henderson be able to keep up their current paces? Will some player explode on the League like Sammy Sosa did in 1997 with his record (although steroid fueled) 20 HRs in month. The season is still young but the prologue and the first act are now in the books.