Dellin Betances Exposes Baseball

I'm going to go out on a limb and opine that Dellin Betances is awesome. The gigantic, Brooklyn-raised Yankee reliever sports a career ERA of 2.16, a WHIP of one, and 400 strikeouts in 254 innings. Those numbers put him in the company of the two best relievers in baseball -- Aroldis Chapman and Kenley Jansen.

What makes Betances especially valuable is what you might call Andrew Miller Syndrome: Betances is Joe Girardi's Swiss Army Knife, heading to the hill whenever he's needed. In three years, he's made 217 appearances -- mostly in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings. He's entered games with no days' rest about as often as he's pitched with days off. And half his pitches are thrown in high-leverage situations.

A mere 22 saves belie his prodigious value to the Bronx Bombers.

The Betances Arbitration Debacle
You might have heard that Betances took the team to salary arbitration, requesting a tenfold raise to $5 million, citing projections that put his financial worth at about $15 million to the team. The Yankees countered with $3 million, citing precedent. No other non-closer has ever won more than $2 million in his first year of arbitration.

The Yankees' case is based on a flaw in the arbitration rules, which were constructed on an old paradigm that over-values closers and saves. Without the saves to make his case, Betances was forced into the untenable position of having to argue that he is a closer, which he patently isn't, although patently false arguments seem to be the strategy du jour in America.

Needless to say, the Yankees won the arbitration case and Betances will simply double his career earnings this season. 

A Great Set-up Man > A Lousy Closer
The larger issue is that the arbitration system makes no sense. Had Betances simply pitched at the same level of production all ninth innings, instead of seventh and eighth innings, he would have cited Aroldis Chapman's $5 million arbitration salary from three years ago and probably exceeded that. The irony there is that Betances pitches in more high leverage situations as a fireman than he would as a closer, who is often asked to protect two- and three-run leads.

Compare Betances with Phillies closer Jeanmar Gomez, a replacement-level pitcher who is Betances' inferior by every measure except saves, 37 of which Gomez fell into last season despite a 4.85 ERA. And by salary: those 37 saves earned Gomez a $4.2 million contract for 2017.

Take a look at the difference between these two pitchers over the last three years:
Betances: 217 games, 245 innings, 5.3 hits/9, 3.4 BB/9, 14.3 K/9, 1.93 ERA, 8.5 WAR
Gomez: 179 games, 205 innings, 10 hits/9, 2.7 BB/9, 6.4 K/9, 3.68 ERA, 1.5 WAR\

One More Thing, Randy Levine...
There is one more point to make, and that is that Yankees president Randy Levine must have been channeling his inner Jim Dolan in the aftermath of the arbitrator's decision, and now he owes Betances an apology. Levine's denigrating public rant about Betances and his arbitration strategy was mean-spirited and gratuitous. He is going to have to live with the consequences if Betances leaves town as a free agent when he's eligible because the boss treated him poorly in public.

Infrequently Asked Questions

You have questions? I have answers. Some of them are even right answers.

These are the questions baseball fans have been sending my way lately:

Q. Can the Indians return to the World Series next year?
A. Which is to say, can they make the playoffs? Fo' shizzle. Their two injured starters return to join my Cy Young pick, Cory Kluber, and Trevor Bauer is poised to take the next step. They lose Mike Napoli's bat but add by subtraction in the field. If Michael Brantley can return to anything like his 2015 self in 2017, and Lindor, Naquin and Ramirez avoid catastrophic sophomore slumps, they could be even better. With the Royals, White Sox and Twins reeling, only the Detroits have the stuff to challenge Believeland.

Q. When does the Yankees' rebuild pay off?
A. Sooner than any of us want it to. They very likely have the best Minor League system in baseball today, and that's even after Gary Sanchez and Greg Bird made The Show.

Q. Should the Mets sign Yoenis Cespedes?
A. It's not my money, so sure! The Amazins can hurl with anyone, particularly with Gsellman in the mix and a potential Wheeler bounce-back, but they have fewer bats than an aquarium. Getting Neil Walker back is nice, but the Mets had better sign someone who can thump or the fans will be doing the hurling. They can sign Cespedes for some gargantuan contract that he won't be worth, once again playing three left fielders in their outfield. But who's the alternative -- DH Edwin Encarnacion? DH-in-waiting Jose Bautista?

Q. Which is the worst team in baseball next year?
A. i wouldn't bet against the Reds.

Q. What should the Jays do about their two big free agents?
A. Toronto is in a pickle. Lose Bautista and Encarnacion and there go 70 home runs out the door. Each is expecting the kind of deal that could sink a team as they age poorly. The Blue Jays are too good to punt and too smart to bankrupt the future on a 36-year-old defensive liability. I think the brass are hoping the market for Bautista cools and they can reclaim him for a reasonable amount.

Q. Is Andrew McCutchen over?
A. Boy, that would be precipitous -- from the game's most dynamic player to replacement level in one year. Regression to the mean suggests he'll be a 3-4 win player next season -- very good, but not the 'Cutch we knew. After that he's 31.

Q. How good can the Mets be next season? They were ravaged by injuries in '16 but overperformed; could they get a lot better and win fewer games in '17?
A. Depends on the sticks. The lineup they have today couldn't beat O'Neil's Texaco from the Bay Village Little League. They need to find some lumber, whether from inside the roster or plucked off another one. Add some scoring to 140 starts out of deGrom, Syndergaard, Gsellman, Harvey, Wheeler and Matz, and they're a serious World Series contender.

Q. Is there anyone on the free agent wire who can help my Orioles pitching staff?
A. Zippo, zilch, nada, nuttin, nil. Rich Hill's the best moundsman out there and he's 37 with 24 good starts in his pocket.

Q. Are we forgetting about Buster Posey?
A. Who? His output dipped 50 points of OPS in his age 29 season but he's still an above-average hitter with mad framing skills who was worth four wins to the Giants. He's a Hall of Fame argument, depending on how he ages, and still one of the best receivers in the game. It wouldn't surprise me if he hit .300 next year with a bump in home runs and 5+ wins of value.

Q. Who is the most under-rated player in baseball?
A. There are two variables in that question, one of which is, how is a particular player "rated." For the past two years I've touted Marlins outfielder Christian Yelich. The low-key 24-year-old has a Gold Glove, a Sliver Slugger and a .293/.368/.483 batting line over a three-and-a-half year career. 

Q. Didn't Ian Kinsler sort-of get his wish?
A. When the Rangers flipped him to Detroit for Prince Fielder before the 2014 season, Kinsler called GM Jon Daniels a "sleazeball" and wished a 0-162 record on Texas. Since then, he's added 18 wins and a division title to the Tigers, but Texas has won its division each of the last two seasons, even as injuries ended Fielder's career prematurely. So assuming Kinsler hates the Rangers and not Prince Fielder, all he has is the satisfaction that his side got the better of the deal.

Q. What can we reasonably expect from Gary Sanchez in 2017?
A. Not that. Fangraphs projects .268/.329/.490 with 26 home runs and four wins against replacement. Pretty good for $540,000.

Q. It felt like Terry Francona out foxed Joe Maddon in the World Series. Why does everyone love Maddon?
A. For all the right reasons. He's smart and open to new ideas. His players love playing for him. He keeps it light over 162 games. He knows his players and never panics. That said, I agree that Tito did a great job of matching his limited assets -- most notably Cory Kluber and Andrew Miller -- against the Cubs' deep vein of talent. 

Q. I can't decide whether Hal Steinbrenner is a better owner than his father. George was a lunatic but his teams won.
A. That's not technically a question, frequently asked or otherwise. It's a different time now. George could bully the rest of baseball then in a way Hal can't today. New York enjoyed advantages -- not just financial-- that pre-dated the luxury tax, shared revenue and a social media landscape that makes anywhere the center of the media world depending on who's Tweeting. George's brand of insanity would be a colossal failure today.

Q. You made it pretty clear that you think Donald Trump is a sociopath. What policies of his are you rooting for?
A. My problem with Trump is not partisan;  who even knows where he stands on the issues? The problem is he's a despicable human being who remains willfully ignorant of the job he sought. Replacing the Affordable Care Act and enforcing some fiscal discipline would be welcome developments, though I have zero faith he will accomplish either.

Q. What is ahead for Bryce Harper? He was the world's best player in 2015 and then hit .243 last year.
A. Almost no one's career progresses in a straight line. Harper appeared to be dinged up last year, yet he managed a .373 OBP, 24 homers and three wins against replacement. His 2015 might have been a one-off, but Fangraphs projects a big bounce back for him, particularly in the power department.

Q. What do the Cubs do if Jason Heyward continues to suck?
A. The only thing that's certain is that they'll keep paying him through 2023.

Q. Where does Aroldis Chapman land and for how much?
A. Are we assuming he's chasing the cash? Word is he and the Yankees are courting.

Q. Am I crazy or is this Hot Stove season shaping up as the worst ever? The free agent crop is garbage.
A. The free agent crop is mostly garbage. As for your mental health, you should see a professional.

Q. Who is going to be the best free agent pickup this winter?
A. Ian Desmond? Versatile defenders with broad skill sets tend to have high floors, and speedsters tend to age well. Plus he's good looking and of uncertain ethnicity.

That's enough for now. Keep those cards and letters coming. And try to put the questions in question form.

Fireman of the Year Award Goes To Terry Francona

The Fireman of the Year Award doesn't exist anymore. It was retired in 2011, long after the notion of employing your best relief pitcher to extinguish a rally was itself extinguished.

Blame Tony LaRussa and Dennis Eckersley
The closer killed the award, given annually by The Sporting News. When the fireman was in his prime, managers called upon him in any late inning to get key outs with runners on base, then quell the riot for another frame or two.

In 1977, Sparky Lyle won the Cy Young Award (and the Fireman, of course) hurling 137 innings and winning 13 games without ever starting. Mariano Rivera, who tallied nearly three times as many saves in his career as Lyle, averaged about half as many innings per year and never pitched even 80 in a season once he became a closer.

Chapman vs. Miller
Which brings us to the two bullpen back-enders packaged by the Yankees to Chicago and Cleveland to help those two woebegone franchises make a run at a title this year. One flame-throwing lefty, Aroldis Chapman, is closing quite nicely for the Cubs, allowing two earned runs in 13 innings while fanning 22 of 53 batters he faced in August. That's exactly what Theo Epstein and his front office cadre paid a high price for.

Over in the AL, former Red Sox skipper Terry Francona was reunited with lefty flamethrower Andrew Miller, who served as Chapman's eighth-inning caddy in New York. Because he wasn't wed to saves, Miller has been amenable to serve in the old fireman role. He's entered games most often in the seventh inning, and sometimes in the eighth or the sixth. Miller has been used in only three save situations, but like Chapman, he's allowed two earned runs in 15 innings and whiffed 24 of 52 batters.

But they're not the same. They've pitched roughly the same number of innings, faced the nearly same number of batters, smoked roughly the same number and allowed the same number of runs, Miller has been much, much more valuable.

Win Probability Added
By Win Probability Added, a statistic that determines the likelihood that a team will win when a reliever enters a game and the likelihood when he exits (100% in the case of a save), Miller has gifted 1.3 wins to the Indians in just one month, while Chapman has earned just .15 for the Cubs. 

That's because a team ahead by two entering the ninth is virtually a lock to nail down the win even without the closer, whose successful "save" adds nearly nothing to the team's win probability. Contrast that to a fireman who enters with the bases juiced and a one-run lead in the seventh. That game is close to a toss-up, but if he can induce a double play, or fan the two batters, he's put out the fire and vastly improved his team's odds of winning.

The risk for a manager of trodding this weeded-over path is that another reliever blows a ninth inning lead and the hometown blowhards call for your head. But a self-confident helmsman like Terry Francona can do it, and a tip of the cap to him for trying it.

Maybe if the Tribe wins the World Series, everyone else will finally try what should never have been abandoned.

Both Sides Won the Chapman Deal

I own an automobile. Granted, it's a little four-cylinder Toyota Yaris, bought for 13 grand five years ago, but it runs reliably, hauls my bicycle and sips gas.

If you gave me a better car, say a 2016 Honda Fit, I would drive that instead. (I like small hatchbacks.) I might even be willing to pay something for it, but not much, because I already have an automobile.

If you then offered me a third automobile, even a Mercedes or Lexus, I wouldn't be very interested. What do I need three cars for?


Th-h-h-h-h-he Yankees Win!

The analogy isn't exact, but it suggests why Aroldis Chapman is so much more valuable to the Chicago Cubs than to the New York Yankees, and why the Yankees might have made the Chapman trade announced yesterday even if they believe they are competing for the Wild Card in 2016. As one of three shutdown relievers, Chapman has less value to NY than he has to Chicago, which lacks confidence in their now-former closer, Hector Rondon.

Yankee fans bemoan the loss of their shutdown closer, but they didn't lose their shutdown closer, they lost their shutdown seventh inning. Andrew Miller, whose fastball also blazes white hot, who also fans more batters than a bakery air conditioner and who also allows a run once every new moon will move from the eighth inning to the ninth. Ditto for Dellin Betances, who will shut down the eighth inning rather than the seventh. In other words, the loss to the Yankees is pretty minimal, whether they're contending or not.

The Cubs Win Too!
For the World Champion-or-Bust Cubs, a fireman like Chapman can alter the course of events. His acquisition tells the roster and the fans that they are all-in for a championship. Even more to the point, as the value of closers appears to magnify in October, Chapman may be the piece that catapults the team from playoff guarantee to World Series behemoth.

Cubs boss Theo Epstein relinquished a boatload of young talent for 30 innings of Chapman. Under ordinary circumstances, he got fleeced. But here too, the automobile analogy applies imperfectly. Adam Warren, who excelled in his two Bronx seasons, was getting drilled by NL hitters. Shortstop Gleyber Torres, the key prospect sent to NY, has limited value to a Cubs roster that sports All-Star Addison Russell in that position, and All-Star performers at second and third.

The Perfect Trade
In other words, this is the prototype of a synergistic trade. Each team gained more than it lost, in the Yankees' case, much more. Their high-priced, doddering roster was promising years of pain prior to the acquisition of four legitimate Major League prospects. And If the Cubs win their first World Series in 108 years, nothing those prospects achieve will matter on Chicago's North Side.

The Royals Have Sparked A Trend, But Not the One You Think

In mid-October, the 86-win Houston Astros held a four-run lead with six outs until the victory that would catapult them into the AL League Champion Series by a three games-to-one margin and send home the over-achieving Kansas City Royals. 

But KC roared back with five runs in the eighth to knot their series before winning the deciding fifth game, and then sweeping Toronto en route to the whole shebang. That small pivot is now beginning to change the whole face of baseball.

Your Nose Runs and Your Feet Smell? You're Build Upside Down
As we've recounted here before, the Royals are built upside down. Their offensive formula is predicated on low-strikeout batters who put the ball in play, pressure the opposition with speed, and then hold the lead with spectacular outfield defense. They win with lockdown relievers Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Greg Holland (since released following surgery that will sideline him all 2016) in the final three frames after hoping to cobble together six innings from their mediocre stable of starters. 

Had Houston held that lead, no one would be thinking twice about Kansas City's odd formula. But to the victor belong the spoils, and also the trend-setting. Now everyone wants to blot out innings seven through nine.

The Hot Stove Scramble for Closers
Consider that the Dodgers just made -- and may have nixed -- a deal for flamethrower Aroldis Chapman, to pair with closer Kenley Jansen. They've already lost Zack Grienke at the top of their rotation and lost out on David Price. So they're evidently attempting to build from the back forward, though that may now be on hold because of accusations that Chapman clamps down on more than just opposing hitters.

Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances, leaders of the Million Strikeout March, have made Yankee Stadium safe for late-game leads. The Red Sox swapped for all-world closer Craig Kimbrel to slot in above Koji Uehara, who has produced a 1.86 ERA, 72 saves and nine times as many strikeouts as walks the last three years. Dave Dombrowski couldn't buy a closer when he was running the Tigers and now he's got two of them to shut down the eighth and ninth innings for the Red Sox.

Out of nowhere, the Astros made the playoffs in 2015 with solid reliever Luke Gregerson and his 2.79 lifetime ERA shutting the door. Last week they swapped their top pick in the 2013 draft and a pile of young players for Phillies closer Ken Giles.

It's All About October (and now November)
And so on. Last year, the thought was that emulating the Royals required the immense good fortune of having three lights-out relievers. Now teams are actively in search of them, and promising them all predetermined roles.

What became clear to many GMs this year wasn't the success of the combo during the season. Teams are realizing that winning in the playoffs requires more than just bullpen arms; it requires bullpen quality. Herrera, Davis and Ryan Madson, their replacement seventh inning hurler, combined for 12 innings of scoreless World Series work with 19 strikeouts as KC came from behind late in three of their four wins. 

Now every team with serious postseason expectations is scrambling to cobble together their own endgame scenario. Good luck with that!

When Models Look Extra Ugly

Democrats are predictably excoriating Paul Ryan these days for his "attack" on Medicare. His voucher plan for the government-sponsored health care insurance for the elderly (and the not-nearly elderly; you can join at 65) diminishes benefits going forward.

Democrats are comparing Ryan's plan to perfection, or to the current system. Neither, of course, is an apt comparison. Medicare is rushing headlong off the financial cliff without reform, and threatening to take the entire American economy with it. Relative to insolvency, which is the ultimate fate of the program under everyone else's plan (i.e., no plan at all), Ryan's proposal is a revelation.

A similar debate is shaking the Sabermetric community these days in the wake of a pair of disturbing arithmetic developments. But the conclusion is the same: the measure of a new idea isn't in comparison to perfection, but to the old paradigm.

First, some context. Ever since Voros McCracken unveiled the idea in 1999 that pitchers have limited control over what happens once their pitch is put into the field of play -- a conclusion now much more nuanced and qualified -- seamheads have been whipping up concoctions to strip luck and defense out of pitching results to determine how well pitchers are actually pitching.

One of the many formulae brewed by the stat wizards is FIP -- fielding independent pitching. Without excavating spreadsheets filled with higher math, it can be described this way: given the number of batters a pitcher has fanned, walked, hit with pitches and allowed to homer, how many runs should we expect to score against him given average defense and ballpark?

In July, Reds closer Aroldis Chapman broke FIP (in the words of CBS Sports). He faced 52 batters in 14 1/3 innings and whiffed 31 of them. He allowed just six hits, two walks, a HBP and nary a run, nailing down 13 saves. Batters posted a desultory .122/.173/.143 line against him.  In other words, Chapman was Superman for a 30-day period. (He's been no slouch under other moons.)

Putting those numbers through the meat grinder yielded a FIP for Chapman of -0.99. That is, Chapman could be expected, given his performance, to yield minus-one run per nine innings. Certifiably nuts.

Others have noted odd sightings in Baseball-Reference.com's WAR (Wins Against Replacement) calculations. WAR attempts to review all of a player's performance and all of the context and measure him against a Triple-A replacement at his position. In mid-August, Cubs keystoner Darwin Barney had a higher WAR than Brewers slugger Ryan Braun. Just for context, Barney is hitting .268/.309/.386, or about 12% below the MLB average. Braun, at .301/.380/.526, is 53% above average. Braun is also superior in the baserunning department and has grounded into fewer double plays. Moreover, Wrigley Field and Miller Park are about equally kind to hitters, and both batters suffer equally in their inability to bat against their own team's woeful pitching staff.

What WAR sees that we don't is defense. It credits Barney for defense double in value of any other second-sacker's, while Braun's left-field stylings more resemble the staccato flight of a pigeon. Subjectively, there appears to be a grain of truth here, but clearly not enough that anyone in Wisconsin would trade Braun for every Barney ever known, including the purple dinosaur. WAR is suffering convulsions and has been put on bed rest, at the very least.

These two developments have led some to observe FIP and WAR's death throes. The projection models have failed and it's time to put them out of their misery. But in the words of that great philosopher Quick Draw McGraw, "Now hold on there just a doggone minute, Baba Looie."

No model is perfection, not even Adriana Lima. Clearly outlier performances like Chapman's make mincemeat of statistical models. As I've mentioned before, quantitative analysis of defense is just in the bloom of its youth, beholden to bursts of impaired judgment. I rarely rely on WAR or WARP and pay much more attention to offensive valuations, leavened by a general sense of a player's glovework.

Nonetheless, FIP is an extremely useful tool, and though the value it applies to Chapman's performance is nonsense, it's not really wrong. FIP says Chapman was virtually unhittable, and by golly, he was. Only 18 batters out of 52 could even put the ball in play.

The real question then is, are these models less imperfect than the old tools? WAR certainly measures something bigger and more relevant than Triple Crown stats do, but whether it measures relative positional value better than Triple Crown stats measure hitting performance would require some sort of study. There's no doubt that FIP tells us much more about a pitcher than W-L and ERA; it's been shown to be vastly better at projecting performance.

All of which presents the same moral that every other development in quantitative analysis has: the state of the art is improving, but will never be perfect. After all, they measure the performances of people.

Voices In My Head

I watched Aroldis Chapman pitch for the first time today, he of the already-renowned 104 mph heater. 

Dude can bring it, but he was all over the place with his arm angle and with his pitches. His landing position varied pitch-to-pitch. His repertoire is limited to two pitches, which while devastating, aren't sufficient for a starter.

In short, let's all calm down about him just yet. His upside is way up, but for now, he's raw. 

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The Cardinals are a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. How can a team with Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter and Jaime Garcia, all with ERAs under 3.00, lose seven of nine to the three worst teams in the NL? Since sweeping the Reds in mid-August St. Louis is 6-14 and free-falling out of the playoff race.

Of course, their offense has been the main culprit. They have just two reliable hitters, Pujols and Holliday, and Prince Albert went 18 hitless at-bats before today's harmless single in a loss to the Reds. 

This is the price the usually sagacious Redbirds are paying for shipping off Ryan Ludwick in a July 31 trade that netted fungible veteran starter Jake Westbrook. I don't think it's a coincidence that their travails began right about the time that Ludwick packed up his .832 OPS for San Diego.

The Cards have scored 22 runs in 10 of their last 11 games, not including an 11-10 loss to Washington a week ago. They haven't helped themselves afield. Twelve of the 59 runs they've relinquished in their last 11 games have not accrued to their pitchers' ERAs. In today's game, four of the five runs against Adam Wainwright were "unearned" and that doesn't account for the sixth Red tally, set up when a fly ball bounced off Matt Holliday's leg and into the stands for a double. (The great Dick Stockton noted that pinch-hitting first-baseman Yonder Alonso had "legged out" a double.)

The Reds' eight game lead with fewer than 30 left is nearly insurmountable, and the Cards have a team stack to climb over for the wild card. More than ever, I think they'll rue their trade deadline move.

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Much was made of the leaked report showing that several bad teams have been pocketing their luxury tax money rather than spending it on players. Much of the controversy is based on the common confusion between cause and effect.

Poor performance and low payroll are highly correlated because both ends are cause and effect. Obviously, refusing to spend on players can drain a team of talent. Equally true, lousy play keeps salaries down. More true, the more young players, the more payroll stays real low.

The discussion is most absurd when it comes to the franchise in Pittsburgh. The Pirates are young and not very accomplished, so naturally their payroll is low. Signing a couple of high-priced free agents (as if they even could) to help the team win 78 games and block the advancement of prospects is not only useless, it's counter-productive. Most free agents, who must already have six years in the majors, are on the downsides of their careers by the end of their free agent contracts, which would coincide with the Pirates' prospects, if all goes according to plan, reaching baseball maturity. 

Pittsburgh management has a plan -- procure lots of young talent, draft well and often, build an international development system and be patient. None of that requires as much cash as one Mark Teixeira contract. Regardless of whether they execute it well, it's the right plan. The size of their payroll is irrelevant. 

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