January 28th, 2022: CBA Talks, Hall of Fame, Mailbag

Lockout, Day 58: Welcome to the second longest work stoppage in MLB history. The 1994-95 strike takes the cake at 232 days, and a week ago the current lockout passed the 1981 strike (50 days) for the second longest. I’m setting the over/under at 99.5 days. I’m feeling optimistic and will go with the under. Let’s get to today’s thoughts.

1. The latest on CBA talks. MLB and the MLBPA are kinda sorta maybe starting to make progress on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. Progress is a relative term though, and the two sides are said to remain far apart on several key matters. Still, they got a little done during their meetings Monday and Tuesday this week. Let’s round it all up.

Minimum salary and bonus pool

MLB and the MLBPA actually agreed to something! Earlier this week MLB agreed to the union’s proposal for a bonus pool for pre-arbitration-eligible players. Bonuses would be given to pre-arb players for things like All-Star Games and awards voting, and also hitting certain WAR milestones. The two sides are far apart on the money – MLB wants a $10M pool and the MLBPA wants $105M – but they agree on the concept, so the hard part is out of the way.

The bonus pool comes with good and bad. First and foremost, it’s more money for players early in their careers, and that’s good. Also, the bonus pool comes from MLB’s Central Fund, not the teams themselves, which would theoretically eliminate any sort of roster manipulation (use a starter as a reliever to keep his bonus down, etc.). Who cares about the bonus when someone else is footing the bill?

There’s also some bad. Do the bonuses count as base salary when the player gets to arbitration? Arbitration raises are tacked onto the player’s salary the previous year, and starting at, say, $600,000 is much different than starting at $1.6M if the player earned a $1M MVP bonus or something. If the bonus counts as salary going into arbitration, then the team will care about the player’s usage, and try to avoid bonuses.

Unless MLB gives the bonus pool to the MLBPA and lets the union worry about distributing it (not a bad idea as long as the union is transparent with membership), you have to outsource the bonus decisions to a neutral third party. WAR is as neutral as it gets, though which version do you use? Here is 2021 Wade Miley as a cherry-picked example:

• Baseball Reference: +5.6 WAR
• FanGraphs: +2.9 WAR
• Baseball Prospectus: +0.1 WARP

FanGraphs WAR is based on FIP and includes pitch framing. Baseball Reference WAR is based on runs allowed and doesn’t include framing. Baseball Prospectus WARP uses exit velocity and other Statcast data, which comes from MLB itself, so that’s a conflict of interest. All three calculate defense, park factors, and positional adjustments differently as well.

So which one do you use? There’s no right answer! For analysis, multiple versions of WAR is a feature, not a bug, because it forces discussion. For matter of fact player evaluation, WAR alone isn’t enough, because it supposes a level of precision that just isn’t there. Even the folks who developed WAR will tell you it shouldn’t be used to for something like this. (Sean Forman, the man behind Baseball Reference, had a good Twitter thread on this.)

That lack of precision is a problem for many reasons, the biggest of which is determining who gets and doesn’t get a bonus. Apparently the top 30 pre-arb players in WAR will get a bonus. Well, go that far down the leaderboard and the difference between No. 30 and No. 31 will be something like 0.2 WAR. That is well within WAR’s margin of error, regardless of version.

(Also, relievers are going to get hosed with the WAR component. You’re going to have to be a Dellin Betances or Josh Hader caliber reliever to get a WAR-based pre-arb bonus. Even being Chad Green might not be enough and Green has been awesome.)

There’s also an awards component to the bonus pool and awards voting is highly subjective*. As a member of the BBWAA, I can tell you we do a lot of really dumb things. It’s impossible to cover all 30 teams equally. You’re going to have biases in favor (and against!) players you cover. That’s how Kevin Pillar got a tenth place MVP vote in 2019. Total objectivity is a nice idea, but it’s not really a thing.

* Counterpoint: MLB contracts have included awards bonuses for years and years, so this isn’t a new concept. Some of those bonuses are significant too. Look at Byron Buxton’s contract.

Unless Mike King, Estevan Florial, or one of the Triple-A pitchers (Deivi Garcia, Luis Gil, Luis Medina, etc.) really takes off, the Yankees don’t have anyone with a chance to trigger a pre-arb bonus in 2021. Oswald Peraza and Anthony Volpe, whenever they arrive, are most likely to be the first Yankees awarded such bonuses. (Jonathan Loaisiga is in arbitration already.)

MLB proposed replacing arbitration with a pay-for-play system based on WAR before the lockout and the pre-arb bonus pool isn’t quite that, but it’s in the neighborhood, and next time around MLB will push to expand the system and use it to determine salaries. Take that to the bank. It’s on the union to be prepared for it, and to reject it out of hand.

In addition to the bonus pool, MLB and the MLBPA both proposed increases to the minimum salary (an increase is not a concession by MLB, it is standard), though the two sides disagree on the size of the increase. The minimum salary was $570,500 last year. The MLBPA proposed $775,000. That’s probably still too low. MLB’s proposal:

• 0-1 years of service time: $615,000
• 1-2 years of service time: $650,000
• 2-3 years of service time: $700,000

MLB proposed a set salary at each service time level, which won’t happen. Teams often give out pre-arb salaries higher than the minimum as a gesture of goodwill (the Yankees routinely give out pre-arb salaries north of $600,000) and MLB’s proposal would eliminate that. Aaron Judge made $1.371M during his three pre-arb years. MLB’s proposal would have paid him $1.272M.

I think the MLBPA came in too low with its $775,000 proposal. They should have started at $1M or so and “settled” around $775,000. Also, MLB’s proposed raise from $570,500 to $600,000 doesn’t even keep up with inflation. If you start with 2017, the first year of the old CBA, inflation alone would push the minimum up to $650,000. So yeah, MLB’s proposal won’t cut it.

Since the beginning the union has said its focus is putting more money in the pockets of young players (more accurately, for players early in their careers), and they’re right to make that the priority. Look at the numbers for the last non-COVID season, via Travis Sawchik:

Among all players to step on the field in 2019, 63.2% had less than three years of service time. They accounted for 53.6% of days of service time accumulated, but they combined for only 9.8% of player pay.

At the opening of the 2021-22 NHL season, 23% of players were paid within 10% of the league's lowest wage. In the NBA, it was just 3%.

The average MLB career is under four years (3.71 years as of 2019, per Sawchik), so yes, the top priority should be funneling more money to players early in their careers. They make up more than half the player pool and aren’t guaranteed to make it to arbitration, let alone accrue the six years of service time necessary to reach free agency.

Overall, the pre-arb bonus pool is a good thing because it’s more money for guys just starting their career. Distributing the bonuses will be thorny, and I don’t like using WAR, but it is more money for players, particularly top young players. The union has more ground to gain on the minimum salary. MLB’s proposal is short of what the final number should be.

MLB drops arbitration proposals

Earlier this week MLB dropped its proposed changes to arbitration. That includes the pay-for-play system based on WAR, eliminating Super Twos, the works. This does not mean the arbitration system will stay the same. It just means MLB will not pursue any changes. The MLBPA still can (and has) propose changes to the system.

The union is seeking to get players into arbitration a year earlier and that is in no way radical. It was the rule for a long time. Players needed only two years of service time to reach arbitration from 1974-86. Then the MLB got it to three years with the 1986 CBA and it’s been the same ever since. It’s been two years before. It can be two years again. Will it happen? I don’t know, but getting it would be a big win for the union.

MLBPA withdraws free agency proposal

During the meetings earlier this week, the MLBPA withdrew its proposal for eligibility rules that would get players into free agency a bit sooner. Here’s the free agent eligibility system the union proposed before the lockout, and has since pulled off the table:

• 2022-23 offseason: No change to current system (so 6 years of service time).
• 2023-24 and 2024-25 offseasons: 6 years of service time or 5 years of service time and at least 30.5 years of age, whichever comes first.
• 2025-26 and 2026-27 offseasons: 6 years of service time or 5 years of service time and at least 29.5 years of age, whichever comes first.

Under the 2025-26 and 2026-27 rules, Aaron Judge would have become a free agent this winter. It wasn’t a great proposal, but it’s better than the current system because it would get some (but not many) players into free agency a year earlier. You’re not going to overhaul free agency in one CBA. The MLBPA will have to take small bites, and this was a start.

Similar to MLB wanting to replace arbitration with a pay-for-play system, earlier free agency was always going to be a long shot for the MLBPA this time around, and the union giving up on that advances talks without conceding anything. Seems like each side dropped the thing it was least likely to get. MLB gave up on an arbitration overhaul and the MLBPA gave up on earlier free agency. Now they can focus on stuff that might actually happen.

(Also, withdrawing a proposal is not the same as making a concession. I’ve seen way too many sites confusing the two. A concession is giving up something you already have. Agreeing to free agency after seven years of service time instead of six would be a concession. Withdrawing a proposal is just withdrawing a proposal. You’re not surrendering anything.)

Service time manipulation

Dropping the earlier free agency proposal does not mean the MLBPA is no longer battling service time manipulation. They are separate things. A few weeks ago MLB proposed giving extra draft picks to teams with young players who go to the All-Star Game or get awards votes, as if that would stop them from manipulating service time and potentially saving millions down the road.

Service time manipulation is not a loophole. It’s a bad faith tactic that amounts to wage theft, and MLB really shouldn’t get a say in the fix. The union’s proposed fix is awarding a full year of service time to rookies who reach certain awards voting thresholds (top five in Rookie of the Year, etc.), and also awarding service time in the postseason. MLB said no.

I have no idea how you stop or even just slow down service time manipulation – the MLBPA’s proposal would have to apply to all pre-arb players, right? otherwise teams would find a reason to send second and third year players to the minors if they get the full year bonus as a rookie – because MLB does not act in the best interests of the game. Building an exploit-proof service time system ain’t easy, but I hope to see something in the new CBA.

Proposed changes to revenue sharing

Revenue sharing is an underrated important topic and I’ve done you all a disservice by not mentioning it as often as I should. Before the lockout, the MLBPA proposed cutting $100M off the top of the revenue sharing pool, then dropped it to $30M earlier this week. I think that means each team would receive $1M less in revenue sharing each year, which isn’t too big a hit.

Long story short, each team puts 34% of its local revenue in a pot each year, then takes out an equal 1/30th amount. Big market teams like the Yankees pay more than they receive, and small market teams receive more than they pay. There are all sorts of escalators and deductions (the Yankees can deduct stadium debt payments from their local revenue, for example), but that’s the revenue sharing program in a nutshell.

A few weeks ago OG Braves blogger and economist J.C. Bradbury posted this graph showing the MLBPA’s share of league revenues over time:

The MLBPA’s share dropped suddenly and significantly with the 2003 CBA. What changed? The revenue sharing rate. It went from 20% to 34%. Teams had more guaranteed money coming in and gate revenue became a smaller piece of the pie, and they eventually realized they could cut payroll to save even more money without missing the box office revenue as much.

Revenue sharing changed everything and MLB reportedly considered the system off-limits going into CBA talks. That gave the game away. The guaranteed shared revenue allows teams to not worry so much about half-empty ballparks and makes it nearly impossible to lose money. Of course the owners don’t want to change revenue sharing.

At the same time, revenue sharing is pretty much the only thing that causes infighting among the owners. They’re all on the same page when it comes to taking money away from the players, but taking money away from each other? That’s a different story. Big market teams don’t want to subsidize small market teams and small market teams want more from big market teams. I present to you Randy Levine’s comments about Brewers owner Mark Attanasio in 2010:

“I’m sorry that my friend Mark continues to whine about his running the Brewers. We play by all the rules and there doesn’t seem to be any complaints when teams such as the Brewers receive hundreds of millions of dollars that they get from us in revenue sharing the last few years. Take some of that money that you get from us and use that to sign your players.

“The question that should be asked is: Where has the hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue sharing gone?”

If the MLBPA proposes revenue sharing cuts, big market teams like the Yankees and Dodgers are going to be all ears, and small market teams won’t want to hear it. Owners try to pit well-paid veterans against early career workers making little all the time in labor disputes, and not just in baseball. In every industry. A revenue sharing civil war flips the script on MLB a bit.

Moreso than a draft lottery, changes to the revenue sharing system could be an effective way to curb tanking. Teams that finish under .500 in back-to-back years lose X percent of their revenue sharing money, with escalating penalties for each sub-.500 season thereafter. Might work? The owners only speak one language. Want to stop tanking? You have to hit them in the wallet.

I’m not sure how much the MLBPA will be able to chip away at revenue sharing in this CBA given all the other stuff they need to accomplish, but revenue sharing has hurt the sport, and it’s worth trying to roll it back, even a little at a time. The MLBPA is proposing a $1M cut per team right now. I wish it were more but it’s a start. It could be the solo homer that starts the four-run comeback.

MLB threatens to sacrifice games

From the “no duh” department: MLB told the MLBPA it is willing to sacrifice regular games to get what it wants earlier this week. That is not a threat or even the quiet part out loud. It’s just an acknowledgement of reality. The lockout would have no teeth if the owners weren’t willing to lose games. MLB waiting 43 days to make its first post-lockout proposal was a dead giveaway.

That said, it is jarring and aggravating to see “MLB is willing to lose games” in writing. Revenues are at an all-time high and giving up games would be very dumb and shortsighted. Then again, MLB doesn’t know any other way to operate. Lose games and MLB will lose fans, and you’d think the owners with a long-term stake in the sport’s health would care about that, but nope.

Also, Rockies owner Dick Monfort reportedly told the union teams don’t make as much money as they think because they have to pay for security, COVID protocols, etc. I don’t know how you respond to that with anything other than “you are free to sell your team if owning it is too much of a burden.” Free advice for MLB: don’t let the Rockies guy do the talking. Good grief.

(Labor lawyer Eugene Freedman noted that when management says it can’t afford something, the National Labor Relations Act requires them to open their books and prove it. So it’s probably not a coincidence Monfort was not at Tuesday’s meeting after saying what he said Monday.)

Miscellany

A few other quick items: MLB proposed ad patches on jerseys and helmets, and in exchange they would agree to pension and medical benefits adjustments proposed by the MLBPA. The union has expressed a willingness to agree to ad patches in the past, so this will probably happen (they should ask for a cut of the ad revenue on top of the other stuff). Personally, I couldn’t care less about ad patches. You'll quickly get used to them like you quickly got used to the New Era logo on hats and the Nike swoosh on jerseys. It’s kinda crazy MLB hasn’t pushed for uniform ads sooner. There's a good chunk of change to be made there (the Lakers have a $20M a year ad patch deal, so imagine what the Yankees could get). This seems like an easy concession for the MLBPA … MLB and the MLBPA will meet again soon to discuss non-economics matters like scheduling, grievance procedures, etc. That’s stuff they usually roll over from the previous CBA, but at some point they have to talk about it just to make sure neither side wants to make any changes. While that happens, the two sides will work behind the scenes on their economics proposals. Another bargaining session could happen as soon as next week. Fingers crossed.

2. The 2022 Hall of Fame class. Earlier this week David Ortiz was announced as the newest Hall of Famer. He was the only player voted in by the BBWAA. Bud Fowler, Gil Hodges, Jim Kaat, Minnie Minoso, Tony Oliva, and Buck O’Neil were voted in by the Veterans Committee last month, so it’ll be a seven-man induction class this summer.

Ortiz didn’t sail in (he made it in by 11 votes) but he’s a clear Hall of Famer to me. He was one of the best all-around hitters of his generation, more than good enough to overcome the DH stigma. DH is a position and Ortiz is one of the best ever. I hated the guy when he played, but Ortiz was a monster and an all-time great at his position. A worthy foe.

(I’m glad at least one recent player was voted in just for Cooperstown’s sake, especially one as popular as Ortiz. Red Sox fans will flood the town during induction weekend. All those small businesses took a beating during the pandemic and Hall of Fame weekend basically makes their summer. I haven’t been to Cooperstown in a few years now, but it’s a delightful place.)

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens fell short in their tenth and final year of eligibility and are now off the BBWAA ballot. They go to the Veterans Committee next. I don’t have the energy to rehash the performance-enhancing drug debate – yes, it is extremely hypocritical Ortiz got in while Bonds and Clemens didn’t, that Bud Selig got in after presiding over the Steroid Era, etc. – and I’m glad Bonds and Clemens are off the ballot just so we no longer have to talk about them every year.

A few non-Ortiz, non-Bonds, and non-Clemens thoughts on the Hall of Fame voting. First, Alex Rodriguez received only 34.4% of the vote in his first year of eligibility. That’s a little below where Bonds (36.2%) and Clemens (37.6%) were in their first year on the ballots. Jayson Stark (subs. req’d) says 86% of new voters voted for those two over the last five years. All the PED-friendly new voters are presumably already on A-Rod’s side, and he was still only at 34.4%. Eek.

A-Rod never did fail a PED test, but he admitted to using them (on multiple occasions) and was suspended, so I don’t think there’s any chance he ever gets in through the BBWAA vote. Coming in below Bonds and Clemens (even slightly) in his first year on the ballot all but confirms it. It sucks, Rodriguez is on the short list of the greatest players I’ve ever seen, but he has no one to blame but himself. 10 years on the ballot is a long time, yet it still feels like Alex is a long shot.

Second, Andy Pettitte has gone from 9.9% to 11.3% to 13.7% to now 10.7% in his four years on the ballot, so he’s holding steady in the Don Mattingly zone, where he gets enough support to stay on the ballot (more than 5%) but not much more than that. I don’t think Pettitte is a Hall of Famer, but I do think the voters need to rethink their standards for starting pitchers. Only 19 starting pitchers who started their careers in the Expansion Era (since 1961) have been voted into the Hall of Fame. 19 in 60 years. Modern starters are underrepresented in Cooperstown*.

* Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, and Justin Verlander are the only active no-doubt Hall of Fame starters, I think. Zack Greinke is a notch below them. CC Sabathia is the only starter scheduled to join the ballot in the next four years who will get serious Hall of Fame consideration (maybe Felix Hernandez too?). That’s it until Kershaw, Scherzer, and Verlander hang ‘em up.

Third, Scott Rolen (52.9% to 63.2%) got a very nice bump this year and has five more years on the ballot. He’s going to get in at some point, maybe even next year. Fun fact: Rolen never played a position other than third base in his career. Not even DH. Pretty weird for a guy who played 17 years, including two in the American League. Billy Wagner (46.4% to 51.0%) didn’t get as big a bump as Rolen, but he did get a bump, and he has another four years on the ballot. I’ve flipped from a no to a yes on Wagner and I think he’ll get in eventually. The Hall of Fame standard for relievers can’t be Mariano Rivera. Wagner was as good as any non-Rivera reliever of my lifetime.

And fourth, Carlos Beltran is the only notable player joining the ballot next year, which means we’re in for an entirely new round of cheating talk thanks to the Astros sign-stealing scandal. MLB’s report singled out Beltran as a ringleader. I think Beltran was a Hall of Fame player, but overall I’d say he’s on the bubble more than a slam dunk, and the sign-stealing is absolutely something that could keep him under 75% a while. So we’re going to get PED and sign-stealing pearl-clutching thanks to A-Rod and Beltran the next few voting cycles. Joy.

I guess the good news is Bonds, Clemens, Ortiz, Curt Schilling, and Sammy Sosa all came off the ballot this year and cleared out the logjam a bit. That frees up votes for other players. Bonds and Clemens (and Schilling) didn’t get in, but they sat around 60% the last few years. The majority of voters feel they belong in the Hall of Fame. Now all those votes could be redirected to other players. Rolen and Wagner will benefit. Maybe Pettitte too? Would be neat.

Mailbag Questions of the Week

Jonathan asks: I just read the Athletic article about Dillon Lawson by Lindsey Adler, which is behind a paywall, but worth reading. Two of her points seemed at odds with each other:

A. In 2021, the Yankees (1) led MLB with an average of 4.10 pitches per plate appearance, (2) saw the lowest rate of strikes at 61.9 percent; and (3) had a 28.3 percent rate of swinging at pitches outside of the zone, the lowest in the American League.

B. "None of their rates of batted ball outcomes — ground ball, line drive, fly balls — were particularly remarkable. They were neither toward the top nor the bottom of the league in any category."

It seems hard to have A and B at the same time, yet the Yankees pulled it off, for better or for worse. Any thoughts on how that happened, and what should/could be done differently in 2022?

Here’s a non-paywall story with some of Lawson’s comments from his video call earlier this week, if anyone’s interested. As Bobby at Views from 314 Ft. showed, the Yankees were average at best at hitting strikes last year. They hit .273 with a .478 SLG against pitches in the zone in 2021. The MLB averages were .280 and .488, respectively. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t good either.

I think that, while true, saying the Yankees were average against pitches in the zone is an oversimplification. Their problems were probably rooted in certain pitch types in certain locations. They did poorly against fastballs at the letters or sliders at the knees, something like that. Or maybe they had trouble with specific pitch sequences from righty or lefty pitchers. There’s so many variables!

The Yankees were about average against fastballs and breaking balls in the zone last year, and they were dreadful against offspeed pitches. Here are the numbers quick:

• vs. fastballs: .283 AVG and .507 SLG (MLB averages: .287 and .496)
• vs. breaking balls: .270 AVG and .450 SLG (MLB averages: .265 and .471)
• vs. offspeed: .226 AVG and .400 SLG (MLB averages: .273 and .482)

Having so many similar hitters (i.e. swing-and-miss righties with similar swing paths) makes the Yankees more susceptible to certain pitching styles, like all those power righties teams throw at them in the postseason. Could it be they’re susceptible to offspeed pitches (changeups and splitters, most commonly) as well? If so, it’s easy to exploit that weakness because everyone in the lineup is similar. Match up against one guy and you match up against most of the lineup.

The Yankees themselves increased their changeup usage in the two years under pitching coach Matt Blake and I think they’re ahead of the game on this, like the Astros were ahead of the game with high spin elevated four-seam fastballs. The Brewers and Giants are the other teams that most significantly upped their changeup usage the last two years and those are two smart, pitching savvy organizations. I don’t think the changeup thing is a coincidence.

If changeups are the future, the Yankees might be in trouble with their current lineup? Based on their performance against offspeed pitches in the zone last year, yeah maybe. That’s probably an oversimplification as well, but I think there’s at least a little something to it. Offspeed pitches tend to be ground ball pitches, and the Yankees hit too many ground balls last year. Ground balls can only be so productive. Not matter how hard you hit it, it ain't going over the fence.

As a team, the Yankees don’t chase out of the zone all that often, and that’s half the battle right there. Now they just need to do more damage when they swing at pitches in the zone, and 2021 is an outlier. The Yankees crushed pitches in the zone prior to last year. Was it a one-year blip? The beginning of a trend? I don’t know, but it was out of character, and the Yankees are concerned enough that they overhauled their hitting coach staff.

Michael asks: I know these sort of comps are pure folly, but if Tony Oliva is a Hall of Famer, shouldn't Don Mattingly be as well?

Yup. “This guy got in so that guy should get in too” isn’t great Hall of Fame logic (that only lets more undeserving players in, right?), though it certainly applies to Oliva and Mattingly. They didn’t play in the same era but their numbers are so similar it’s kinda freaky:

Oliva won Rookie of the Year and was twice the MVP runner-up. He went to eight All-Star Games and received MVP votes in eight seasons. Mattingly won one MVP and was runner-up another time, and went to six All-Star Games. He received MVP votes in six seasons. Their hardware is pretty comparable, though I’d say the MVP win gives Mattingly an edge.

Mattingly had 842 more plate appearances despite his injuries, so although their home run and WAR totals are almost identical, Oliva got there with less playing time. Neither guy won a World Series but both put up big numbers in their limited postseason action (Mattingly had a 1.148 OPS in the 1995 ALDS and Oliva had a career .928 OPS in 13 postseason games).

Mattingly and Oliva both spent the maximum 15 years on the BBWAA’s Hall of Fame ballot and neither was ever close to induction. Mattingly topped out at 28.3% in his first year of eligibility. Oliva topped out at 47.3% in his seventh year. He consistently had voting percentages in the 30% range. Mattingly was mostly in the teens, and even had a few single digit years (he was on the ballot during the performance-enhancing drug logjam though).

Oliva fell off the BBWAA ballot in 1996 and went through the Veterans Committee several times before getting voted in last month. Mattingly fell off the BBWAA ballot in 2015 and went through the Veterans Committee (the Modern Baseball Committee, to be precise) in 2019, and received fewer than four votes, so he again wasn’t close to induction (12 votes are needed for the Veterans Committee).

The good news for Mattingly is you get a lot of bites at the Hall of Fame apple. Players get 10 (formerly 15) years on the BBWAA ballot, then go through the Veterans Committee in perpetuity. You get all those chances and only need to get over the 75% threshold once. Mattingly will go through the Modern Baseball Committee when they meet in 2023, and if necessary, he'll go through again in 2025, 2028, and 2030 as well.

Also, Mattingly is still building his Hall of Fame case! He’s a manager now, so maybe he follows the same path to Cooperstown as Joe Torre. Torre was a damn good player who won an MVP, but didn’t get into the Hall of Fame until he managed a dynasty. The Yankees were Torre’s fourth managerial stop too. He had a lot of failures as a manager before having success. Surely you remember the tabloids when Torre was hired:

Maybe Mattingly starts winning titles with the Marlins, or he leaves to join another team and wins there. Point is, Mattingly can still improve his Hall of Fame case. Like everyone else my age, he was my favorite Yankee as a kid, though I never really thought of him as a Hall of Famer. I’d be thrilled to see Mattingly get in one day, and if a successful second act as a manager gets in him, great. A person’s entire career should be considered, not just his playing career.

Steve asks: If Arias were in the 2021 MLB draft, would he have been drafted higher or lower than Mayer? Better potential?

FanGraphs and MLB.com both had Marcelo Mayer as the No. 1 prospect in the 2021 draft while Baseball America had him at No. 2. Mayer went to the Red Sox with the No. 4 pick, and the various top 100 prospects lists rank him in the No. 15-20 range.

They play the same position, otherwise comparing Mayer to Roderick Arias is tough given their different backgrounds. Mayer was drafted as a well-known high school senior who played in showcases. Arias signed at only 17, so he’s essentially a high school junior, and only the real inside baseball-y people have actually seen him play. There’s much less familiarity with him.

What we can do is use 20-80 scouting scale grades to compare the two. MLB.com is the only site with scouting grades for international prospects, so we’ll use them. Here’s the comparison:

Reminder: 20 is terrible, 80 is top of the line, and 50 is average on the 20-80 scale. Mayer has the edge defensively and Arias the edge in running, but given how speed is usually the first thing to slip as young players mature, I’d rather have the better defender than the better runner. Mayer being a half-grade better than Arias seems fine to me.

So, based on that, Arias would have been drafted lower than Mayer had he been draft-eligible, though probably not a ton lower. Likely in the No. 5-10 range. HowEVA, let’s read the kicker in MLB.com’s scouting report on Cuban outfielder Cristhian Vaquero, their No. 2 international prospect behind Arias:

Consider this: If Vaquero was in the US, he would be a high school sophomore and on track to be a top five pick in the Draft in a couple of years.

If the No. 2 guy was on track to be the top five draft pick, doesn't it follow that the No. 1 guy would as well? Does that mean Arias would have been a top five pick had he been draft-eligible next year, when he would have completed his hypothetical senior year of high school? Hmmm.

Arias and Mayer are both talented and highly regarded, but the industry having a longer track record with Mayer leads me to believe just about everyone would take him over Arias. And that’s fine. Arias is still a bit of an unknown, and it’s only natural to favor the guy you know better. Maybe MLB will really screw over amateurs and get a combined domestic and international draft rather than a straight international draft. Then we could answer these questions definitively.

(Send your requests for Tuesday's random Yankee series and questions for Friday's mailbag to RABmailbag at gmail dot com.)