Get It In Gear, McCutchen

Andrew McCutchen's batting average, on base percentage, and slugging percentage, 2012-2015:

Year	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG
2012	157	593	107	194	29	6	31	96	20	12	70	132	.327	.400	.553
2013	157	583	97	185	38	5	21	84	27	10	78	101	.317	.404	.508
2014	146	548	89	172	38	6	25	83	18	3	84	115	.314	.410	.542
2015	151	544	88	159	36	3	22	95	10	5	95	126	.292	.403	.491

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

Generated 9/28/2015.

He's batted .300 or better, with an on base percentage of .400 or better, and a slugging percentage of .500 or better, for three straight seasons. That puts him in pretty select company. Here are the members of the .300/.400/.500 club in each of the past four seasons:

• 2012: McCutchen, Prince Fielder (.313/.412/.528), Buster Posey (.336/.408/.549)
• 2013: McCutchen, Miguel Cabrera (.348/.442/.636), Paul Goldschmidt (.302/.401/.551), Mike Trout (.323/.432/.557)
• 2014: McCutchen, Victor Martinez (.335/.409/565)
• 2015 (so far): Goldschmidt (.316/.431/.558), Bryce Harper (.336/.467/.658), Joey Votto (.318/.464/.556)

McCutchen is the only player to have finished more than one season above .300/.400./.500, though Goldschmidt is a lock to do it this year. If McCutchen can do it again this year, he'll join very select company:

Four or More Straight Years: .300/.400/.500 BA/OBP/SLG

Every player with an asterisk after his name is in the Hall of Fame. .300/.400/.500, four years in a row, that's really something!

If McCutchen plays each of the the Pirates' remaining six games, he'll probably get something like 26 plate appearances. He'll probably walk at least three times. That leaves 23 at bats, which will give him 567 for the season. To bat .300, he needs 170 hits. To slug .500, he needs 284 total bases. That means that in his final 23 at bats, he needs 11 hits and 17 total bases. Nine singles and a couple homers would do it. Going 11-for-23, that's not easy. But he needs to start now!

 

Trailing 30 - August 2

Here is an explanation of this weekly feature, listing the best and worst of past 30 days, made possible by FanGraphs' Leaders application. Comment for the week: The cutoff here is close enough to predict Players and Pitchers of the Month. American League: Mike Trout and...oh, I don't know...Scott Kazmir? Easy picks in the National League: Carlos Gonzalez and Zack Greinke.

   American League              National League

   Team W-L                     Team W-L      

1. Kansas City     18- 9     1. San Francisco   15- 8

   New York        16- 8     2. Pittsburgh      15-10    

3. Chicago         16-10     3. Los Angeles     14-10         

4. Los Angeles     14-10        New York        14-10   

5. Hou, Min        12-12        Philadelphia    14-10        

   Worst Team W-L               Worst Team W-L

1. Tampa Bay        9-15     1. Cincinnati       8-17      

2. Oakland          9-14     2. Miami            8-16       

   Texas            9-14     3. Colorado        10-13      

4. Boston          10-14     4. Cincinnati      11-14
5. Det, Sea        11-15     5. Milwaukee       11-13

   Batting Average              Batting Average     

1. Hosmer, KC       .390     1. Parra, Mil       .421  

2. Cabrera, Chi     .386     2. LeMahieu, Col    .418      

3. Kinsler, Det     .383     3. Posey, SF        .413           

4. Bogaerts, Bos    .380     4. Votto, Cin       .395          

5. Cain, KC         .365     5. Gonzalez, Col    .386       

   Lowest Batting Average       Lowest Batting Average  

1. Vogt, Oak        .171     1. Castro, Chi      .136          

2. LaRoche, Chi     .172     2. Ahmed, Ari       .157       

3. Hunter, Min      .179     3. Bryant, Chi      .163
4. Perez, KC        .188     4. Pederson, LA     .170           

5. Butler, Oak      .189     5. Peterson, Atl    .180      

   On Base Percentage           On Base Percentage  

1. Trout, LA        .441     1. Votto, Cin       .540           

2. Sano, Min        .435     2. LeMahieu, Col    .480          

3. Cain, KC         .432     3. Parra, Mil       .477         

4. Hosmer, Oak      .429     4. Harper, Was      .448          

5. Teixeira, NY     .426        Kang, Pit        .448      

      

   Slugging Percentage          Slugging Percentage   

1. Trout, LA        .800     1. Gonzalez, Col    .855        

2. Teixeira, NY     .733     2. Parra, Mil       .724     

3. Cain, KC         .671     3. Kang, Pit        .663       

4. Cabrera, Chi     .653     4. Bruce, Cin       .652       

5. Rodriguez, NY    .646     5. Votto, Cin       .651        

          

   Home Runs                    Home Runs

1. Trout, LA          11     1. Gonzalez, Col      11
2. Rodriguez, NY       9     2. Duda, NY           10        

   Teixeira, NY        9     3. Gonzalez, LA        8
4. Cespedes, Det       8     4. McCutchen, Pit      6
   Cruz, Sea           8     5. 11 with             5

   Runs                         Runs    

1. Cain, KC           23     1. Gonzalez, Col      21        

2. Eaton, Chi         22     2. Parra, Mil         20     

3. JD Martinez, Det   20     3. LeMahieu, Col      19
   Seager, Sea        20     4. 3 with             18
5. 2 with             19        

   RBI                          RBI      

1. Cabrera, Chi       24     1. Gonzalez, Col      25        

2. Donaldson, Tor     23     2. Howard, Phi        23      

   Morales, KC        23     3. Bruce, Cin         20       

   Trout, LA          23     4. McCutchen, Pit     19
5. Davis, Bal         22     5. Pence, SF          18   
                             

   Stolen Bases                 Stolen Bases             

1. Dyson, KC           8     1. Hamilton, Cin      11
2. Reyes, Tor          6     2. Gordon, Mia         8     

3. 5 with              5     3. Heyward, SL         7   

                                Pollock, Ari        7
                             5. 4 with              6
                                                     
   Saves                        Saves

1. Holland, KC         7     1. Kimbrel, SD        11

2. 5 with              6     2. Melancon, Pit       8

                                Rosenthal, SL       8
                             4. Casilla, SF         7
                                Familia, NY         7

   ERA                          ERA

1. Kazmir, Oak-Hou  0.35     1. Kershaw, LA      0.22

2. Tillman, Bal     1.31     2. Greinke, LA      0.95

3. Heaney, LA       2.20     3. Leake, Cin       1.25

4. Price, Det       2.25     4. Lackey, SL       1.26

5. Samardzija, Chi  2.27     5. deGrom, NY       1.30

   Worst ERA                    Worst ERA

1. Hutchison, Tor   7.46     1. Burnett, Pit     6.60

2. Gallardo, Tex    5.96     2. Wisler, Atl      5.52

3. Hutchison, Tor   5.68     3. de la Rosa, Col  5.40

4. Lewis, Tex       5.63     4. Rusin, Col       5.25

5. Bauer, Cle       5.46     5. Morton, Pit      5.04

   WHIP                         WHIP

1. Kazmir, Oak-Hou  0.73     1. Greinke, LA      0.58

2. Samardzija, Chi  0.81     2. Kershaw, LA      0.59
3. Salazer, Cle     0.88     3. deGrom, NY       0.61

4. Tillman, Bal     0.90     4. Lester, Chi      0.74
5. Gray, Oak        0.92     5. Leake, Cin       0.83

   Strikeouts                   Strikeouts

1. Archer, TB         40     1. Kershaw, LA        52     

2. Keuchel, Hou       38     2. Lester, Chi        43

   Price, Det         38     3. Lynn, SL           40

4. Sale, Chi          36     4. Syndegaard, NY     38

5. Salazar, Cle       35     5. Arrieta, Chi       37

The Draft

This isn't going to be a Pirates-centric post, but let me start with a Pirates-centric comment. Monday, in previewing the series with the Brewers, I wrote

The key would appear to be to strike early against the starters, since the Brewers bullpen's been up to the task of shutting down the opposition in late innings.

For the record: Scoring a total of one run over two games against the Brewers' starters, as the Pirates have done, does not constitute striking early. In fact, it violates the whole "strike early" premise.

Now, the baseball draft. It started Monday. It continues today. I'm not going to say anything about the players drafted, because I don't know the players drafted. Well, I've heard of some of them, but it's not like they're going to step onto the major league roster and have an impact immediately. 

Rather, I want to talk about the baseball draft, and how it differs from the draft in other sports. The NFL draft, is, of course, a spectacle, held at a major venue like Madison Square Garden, broadcast live on ESPN or a network, and the dominant topic on sports talk radio and TV for weeks in advance. The NBA draft is pretty much the same. The MLB draft--well, it goes on for three days, televised on MLB Network, which isn't included in many basic cable packages, and it's filmed in a studio. The MLB draft just isn't the event the NFL and NBA drafts are. Why not?

Here's the key, glaring difference: The NFL and the NBA outsource player development to the NCAA.

I've said this over and over. It explains a lot about the difference between the sports. It explains why MLB player salaries constitute a smaller percentage of team revenues than NFL and NBA player salaries. It explains why there's a thriving minor league system in baseball but not in football or basketball. And it explains why the MLB draft can't, won't, and never will compete with the NFL and NBA drafts.

There are two reasons the MLB draft is way, way different from the NFL and NBA drafts. First, one player in baseball can't turn around a franchise. The Chicago Bulls were 33-49, fourth in the NBA Central in 2007-08. The next year, after drafting Derrick Rose, they improved by eight games and took the 62-20 Celtics to the seventh game in the playoffs. The Indianapolis Colts were 2-14, last in the AFC South in 2011. The next year, after drafting Andrew Luck, the team went 11-5 and was beaten in the postseason by eventual Super Bowl champion Baltimore. A superstar can turn around a franchise.

In baseball? The biggest impact rookie of late was Mike Trout, who was runner-up in the MVP vote in 2012. Without Trout in 2011, the Angels were 86-76, second in the American League West. With Trout the next year, they were 89-73 and third in the division. They won more games, but they still went home after the season ended. 

Now, granted, I'm being a little fast and loose, particularly with football. Basketball's a five-player game, so one player can have an enormous impact. The Cleveland Cavaliers went to the postseason five straight years with LeBron James with an average record of 54-28. The next four years, with James in Miami, they averaged 24-54. This year, with James back, they were 53-29. Football's a 22-player game, so one player doesn't have the same impact. But as the example of Luck illustrates, one player can, in specific circumstances, change a franchise's direction. In baseball, though? It just doesn't happen that way.
The second, and in my opinion more important, reason that baseball's draft doesn't have the impact of football's or baseball's is the time between drafting and playing. The best players in this year's NFL draft will start for their teams this fall. The best players in this year's NBA draft will start for their teams this winter. The best players in this year's MLB draft...well, we'll see them in a few years. There are exceptions--Brandon Finnegan played for TCU in the College World Series last summer and for the Kansas City Royals in the MLB World Series (albeit with a 10.50 postseason ERA) in October--but most drafted players won't appear in the majors for years. Literally, years. Let's look at the last five rookies of the year in each league. I'm going to list only domestic rookies of the year, since there isn't a functional international draft.

• 2010: Buster Posey was a first-round pick in 2008 and spent two years in the minors. 
• 2011: Craig Kimbrel was a third-round pick in 2008 and spent three years in the minors. Jeremy Hellickson was a fourth-round pick in 2005 and spent six years in the minors.
• 2012: Bryce Harper was the first pick in 2010 and spent two years in the minors. Trout was a first-round pick in 2009 and spent three years in the minors.
• 2013: Jose Fernandez was a first-round pick in 2011 and spent two years in the minors. Wil Myers was a third-round pick in 2009 and spent four years in the minors.
• 2014: Jacob deGrom was a ninth-round pick in 2010 and spent three years (he was injured in 2011) in the minors. 

None of these top players were major-league regulars the year they were drafted. None of them were major-league regulars the year after they were drafted. Posey, Harper, and Fernandez were the only three who were major-league regulars two years after they were drafted.

Why is that? I'll go back to my main argument: The NFL and the NBA outsource player development to the NCAA. After playing college football or basketball, the best college football and basketball players are pretty much ready for the professional game. After playing college baseball, the best baseball players aren't ready for the professional game. The NCAA does a nice job of preparing football and basketball players for the big leagues; it doesn't do it for baseball. Part of it is caliber of competition, part of it is frequency of play, part of it how the game's played, part of it's the type and level of coaching--put all together, and almost every player selected in this year's, or any year's, baseball draft is going to require time in the minors. During those minor league seasons, some players will get hurt, Some will prove to be ineffective. Some will have a major weakness exposed as they face progressively better competition. All of these factors make the major league draft much, much more of a crapshoot than the other drafts. The 2009 baseball draft was fabulous, yet of the 24 players drafted before Trout, seven haven't made it out of the minors, three hitters have yet to appear in 100 games, and four pitchers have yet to appear in 50 games. That's 14 of 24 players, in a bumper year, who aren't yet major league regulars six years later. 

The baseball draft is just different. It's not going to be the spectacle the NFL and NBA drafts are, and it's not going to generate the franchise-changing talents the other drafts yield. 

Hit Batters as Collateral Damage of Rising Strikeouts Rates

My latest in my obsession with batters getting hit by a pitch was just published at FanGraphs. Link here. Pretty graphs, neat tables--I really pulled out the stops! The conclusion can be expressed as a syllogism (a word that, I'll admit, generally isn't associated with baseball);

• Batters are most likely to be hit when the pitcher is ahead on the count. Counts of 0-2, 1-2, 2-2, and 0-1 are by far the most likely ones to result in batters being hit by the next pitch.
• With rising rates of strikeouts, batters are facing more counts of 0-2, 1-2, 2-2, and 0-1.
• Therefore, rising rates of strikeouts are causing more batters to be hit by pitches.

Click over to the article, which, I promise, does not contain the word syllogism, though it does have a clever link illustrating why correlation is not causation. 

The Risk of Giancarlo Stanton

The Miami Marlins have signed their star right fielder, Giancarlo Stanton, to the longest and richest contract in baseball history: 13 years, $325 million. The 25-year-old Stanton can opt out of the deal after the 2020 season. We don't know the details of the contract, i.e. how the dollars are spread around over the years, but I'll go out on a limb and say that at an average value of $25 million per year, he's going to be paid a lot of money every season. Stanton, who turned 25 earlier this month, was an All-Star and finished second in MVP balloting in 2014, leading the National League in home runs (37), total bases (299), slugging percentage (.555), and, in a statement both of his talent and that of the Marlins lineup surrounding him, intentional walks (24). He's tied for tenth all time in home runs through age 24:

Rk	Player	HR	From	To	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	RBI	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
1	Eddie Mathews	190	1952	1956	732	3141	2634	497	735	119	24	492	471	443	.279	.388	.559	.947
2	Alex Rodriguez	189	1994	2000	790	3515	3126	627	966	194	13	595	310	616	.309	.374	.561	.934
3	Mel Ott	176	1926	1933	983	3978	3367	680	1059	195	31	711	537	258	.315	.412	.548	.959
4	Jimmie Foxx	174	1925	1932	810	3270	2750	612	923	159	57	667	460	377	.336	.432	.625	1.056
5	Mickey Mantle	173	1951	1956	808	3491	2944	642	907	136	43	575	524	578	.308	.412	.560	.972
6	Ken Griffey	172	1989	1994	845	3606	3180	518	972	194	19	543	374	477	.306	.379	.541	.920
7	Frank Robinson	165	1956	1960	735	3155	2741	501	818	145	27	449	321	427	.298	.380	.552	.932
8	Albert Pujols	160	2001	2004	629	2728	2363	500	787	189	9	504	304	279	.333	.413	.624	1.037
9	Orlando Cepeda	157	1958	1962	764	3220	2987	471	922	163	16	553	172	463	.309	.350	.532	.881
10	Giancarlo Stanton	154	2010	2014	634	2640	2288	350	619	138	8	399	318	742	.271	.364	.540	.903
11	Johnny Bench	154	1967	1972	782	3229	2887	421	781	142	12	512	288	470	.271	.334	.488	.822

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used

Generated 11/18/2014.

As you can see, he got there in fewer plate appearances than anyone on the list (among players with 100 or more homers through age 24, only Mathews, Pujols, Bob Horner, and Willie Mays went deep more often than Stanton's 5.8% of plate appearances), and he's also struck out more than the others. 

The contract has resulted in predictable reactions.

• It's too much money. Yes, it's the biggest contract in baseball history in total dollars, but not in average annual value. Miguel Cabrera, Clayton Kershaw, Alex Rodriguez, and Justin Verlander are in contracts that pay them more than an average of $25 million per year, and the $25 million average equals the current contracts of Ryan Howard, Josh Hamilton, and Felix Hernandez. There are players whom one might view as more valuable than Stanton (Mike Trout and Andrew McCutchen, to name two), but Stanton's contract isn't out of line with those of the players on the $25 million-plus list.
• No, I mean, it's too much money for a player. Sports Illustrated's Joe Sheehan has pointed out that the share of baseball revenues going to player salaries has steadily declined since the turn of the century. Given that no teams were going bankrupt in 2000, and that fans would probably rather watch Stanton hit than watch his owner, Jeffrey Loria, count money, I can't see a problem with the players getting a bigger slice of the pie.
• No, seriously, we can pay a baseball player that much and we can't pay schoolteachers and firefighters? This argument will make sense when kids walk around wearing their teachers' replica jerseys and firefighters negotiate with regional sports networks to televise their rescues.
• Thirteen years is too long. There's no question that's a risk. But Stanton will be 38 when his contract ends. Cabrera's will pay him at least through age 40, possibly a couple years longer, depending on options that vest based on his MVP vote. Rodriguez is under contract through age 41. Same with Albert Pujols. It's a long contract, but not ridiculously long. 
• He won't age well. Stanton is 6'6", 240. One could easily see him slowing down as he ages, moving from right to left to, eventually, first. He's in the National League, so he can't become a DH. But here's the thing: Historically, players with "old player skills" (home runs, walks, strikeouts) tend to flame out relatively early. Stanton last year was first in the National League in homers, second in walks, and sixth in strikeouts. On the other hand, Stanton is a good athlete. He grades out as an above-average right fielder and was 13-for-14 as a basestealer in 2014. He's not just a slugger.
• His owner's crazy. Well, that's true. He's "the most hated man in Major League Baseball." The Marlins' payroll last year was $42.4 million, last in the majors. The average annual value of Stanton's contract equals nearly 60% of that total. It doesn't make sense to pay that much to one guy while doing everything else on the cheap. Is this indicative of a willingness to spend? If so, the Marlins, who have a lot of promising young players, could contend. But we've been down this road before with Loria, when he added players after the 2011 season only to unload them after a disappointing 2012. But say this for Loria: His sins have consistently been of being penny-pinching, not profligate.

Rather, there are two things that I worry about with Stanton:

• Durability. Stanton's first full year in the majors was 2011. He played 150 games that year. He hasn't matched that total since. In 2012, he missed 39 games due to knee pain that required surgery in July. He also had oblique and shoulder injuries that year. He missed 46 games in 2013 due primarily to a strained hamstring but also with shoulder soreness and an ankle sprain. Last year he was healthy until September 12, when he was hit in the face by a Mike Fiers fastball in one of those can't-watch-it injuries, suffering multiple facial fractures. Hard tissue injuries (bones) tend to fully heal and are as much bad luck as anything. Soft tissue injuries (muscles, ligaments, tendons, cartilage) can be recurring. Toronto shortstop Jose Reyes, for example, has been on the disabled list five times, and day-to-day several other times, with hamstring problems. Stanton's been on the DL only twice in is career (the hit-by-pitch last year was in September, when teams don't bother disabling players), and he had a healthy 2014 until the Brewers' Fiers beaned him, but his record isn't scot-free. (All injury data from Baseball Prospectus.)
• Sustainability of revenues. The reason baseball revenues have grown dramatically in this century is television. With the proliferation of DVRs, consumers can record the programs they like and watch them when they want, fast-fowarding through the commercials. Sports are one of the few events consumers watch live. So they see the ads for beer and trucks and insurance while watching a game that they skip while watching sitcoms. That has made sports programming particularly valuable to advertisers and, therefore, for the networks that carry them. Additionally, TV broadcasting has shifted from national networks to regional sports networks (RSNs), like NESN in New England, YES and SNY in New York, and MASN in Baltimore/Washington. Teams have national contracts with ESPN and FOX, but they also have local contracts with RSNs that can dwarf the national contracts. Cable subscribers pay to have RSNs bundled with other channels. However, there's been a move to "unbundle" cable, letting consumers pick and choose the channels they want rather than the average of 189 that they receive now. Will your great aunt want ESPN, much less the RSNs, if she could pick her channels? And if she doesn't, and many others don't, what will happen to RSN revenues? The prospects for unbundling, as well as the savings it might yield, are unclear. But Stanton's contract assumes a stable economic model in baseball. In my role as a financial analyst, I've often said that Wall Street has a penchant for seeing a point and drawing a line through it. Baseball's doing the same thing with its current revenue mix. What works today may not in 2027, the last year of Stanton's contract.

Overall, I can't get too excited over Stanton's contract. Baseball's rolling in dough; might as well give it to a marquee player. I question what the Marlins have in mind longer term, and I worry about his injury risk, but the focus here's on the field of play anyway.