February 11th, 2020: Astros, Roster Check-In, Ford, LeMahieu, Betts, Paxton, Postseason Format

It is Spring Training eve. Pitchers and catchers will officially report to Tampa tomorrow, though many have been in town for a while now. October king Masahiro Tanaka said yesterday he feels the Astros cheated the Yankees out of the 2017 World Series, so there's that. Now here are today's thoughts as we snicker at the Red Sox trading their face of the franchise for prospects named Jeter and Alex.

1. "You guys Codebreaking?" In the least surprising news ever, more details have come to light about the Astros' sign-stealing scandal, and at a minimum they raise questions about the investigation and commissioner Rob Manfred's report. Jared Diamond (subs. req'd) reports an Astros intern developed an algorithm to steal signs -- "algorithm" makes it sound more sophisticated than it was, someone would manually input the sign sequence and pitch type into a spreadsheet, then use it to detect the pattern -- and presented it to GM Jeff Luhnow in Sept. 2016. They called the algorithm "Codebreaker" and it was used at home and on the road. Diamond says there was no effort to hide it from Luhnow and he would even walk into the video room during games and joke, "You guys Codebreaking?" You may recall that in his report, Manfred said the investigation "revealed no evidence to suggest that Luhnow was aware of the banging scheme," yet Diamond says Manfred sent Luhnow a letter 11 days earlier saying "there is more than sufficient evidence to support a conclusion that you knew -- and overwhelming evidence that you should have known -- that the Astros maintained a sign-stealing program that violated MLB’s rules." I guess technically both statements could be true. Luhnow knew the Astros were stealing signs but was not aware of what Manfred calls the "banging scheme," meaning the literal trash can banging to relay the signs to the hitter. Semantics, I guess. Anyway, Manfred now has two questions to answer:

1. Why did the report call the sign-stealing "player-driven" when there is evidence a front office intern developed Codebreaker and Luhnow was aware of it?

2. Why did the report not cover anything prior to 2017 when MLB knew Codebreaker was developed and presented to Luhnow in 2016?

The answer to both questions: Manfred is protecting Astros ownership. Blaming everything on the players and keeping the front office out of it distances owner Jim Crane as far away from the scheme as possible, and remember, Manfred works for the owners. The very first paragraph of the report says "our investigation revealed absolutely no evidence" that Crane was aware of the sign-stealing, which is just weird. Why is that so prominent? When reports surfaced that the Red Sox stole signs in 2018, Manfred called Red Sox owner John Henry to tell him he will investigate because "I've got no choice here," according to Tom Verducci. Does that sound like someone eager to dig into this scandal and clean up the game? No it does not. It sounds like someone sheepishly calling his boss to warn him bad news is coming. Manfred is Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction. He's a fixer who has to make ownership's problems go away quickly and quietly. We deserve answers though, and by we I mean the fans (i.e. the paying customers) first and foremost, but also opposing teams and players. They're not happy. Meanwhile, A.J. Hinch started his image rehabilitation tour with an interview on MLB's own damn network -- baseball and the media at large are absolutely stupid enough to give him an analyst job soon -- and when directly asked whether Astros players wore buzzers or other devices in 2019, he gave a non-answer. "Well the commissioner -- we got investigated for three months -- the commissioner’s office did as thorough an investigation as anyone could imagine, as possible. I mean, I know you mentioned the emails, and the texts, and the messages, and I believe them," he said. What the hell is that? It's not a denial, I know that much. Hinch had an opportunity to give a firm "no" and he did not. Sure seems like there is more to that story, eh? I think it's incredibly naive to believe the Astros stole signs in 2017, won a championship, then stopped stealing signs in 2018 because they didn't think it worked, as Manfred's report claims. Astros players have shown no remorse whatsoever, likely because they've experienced zero consequences. Baseball has a serious credibility problem right now. We don't know how the baseball will play from one year to the next (or even one month to the next based on last postseason), two of the last three World Series champions were serial cheaters, and MLB's report into the Astros was incomplete at best and intentionally misleading at worst. I know this much: more information about Houston's cheating will be revealed in the coming weeks and months -- the Astros reportedly cycled through a ton of front office staffers over the years to keep costs down, and I reckon a few former employees hold enough of a grudge to speak to the media about Codebreaker and whatever else -- and the punishment and Manfred's report will only look more and more insufficient as time goes on. It'll also make Manfred look less trustworthy as well, not that he is particularly trustworthy now. The commissioner is supposed to have the best interests of the game in mind at all times. Instead, Manfred comes off as a shill for ownership because he is a shill for ownership. When fans can't trust the person responsible for overseeing the sport, I don't know how you come back from that. The Codebreaker leak and the ongoing scandal should be the beginning of the end for Manfred. It really should. Unfortunately, I suspect it has only improved his standing with his bosses because he is so clearly protecting Crane.

2. Roster check-in. Okay, enough sign-stealing talk. Time to talk actual baseball. Pitchers and catchers report to Tampa tomorrow and we should check in on the roster. We learned two things recently. One, James Paxton required back surgery last week and will be out until May or June. That changes the rotation outlook. And two, the Yankees really are going to do nothing other than sign Gerrit Cole and re-sign Brett Gardner this offseason. They have not made any other noteworthy moves. To be fair, the Yankees did overhaul their training staff, but Cole was their only new roster addition. The Yankees could still do something before Opening Day -- they added Mike Tauchman on March 23rd last year and that turned out to be significant -- but, as far as I'm concerned, the offseason ends when Spring Training begins, and the offseason will end tomorrow with no notable additions other than Cole. Bit of a bummer. Did the Yankees need to do anything other than sign Cole? No, not really. Would it have been nice to see them do something else, especially after losing several key depth players (Dellin Betances, Didi Gregorius, Austin Romine)? Yes, absolutely. Alas and alack, it did not happen. Here is the Yankees' projected 26-man Opening Day roster (it is officially 13 pitchers and 13 position players):

As always, there are a few interchangeable parts there. Maybe it's Estrada instead of Wade, Ford instead of Frazier, Hale instead of Loaisiga, etc. Hicks and Paxton are 60-day injured list candidates, so clearing a 40-man roster spot for Hale or Iannetta or whoever is a non-issue. (The Yankees will eventually need a 40-man spot for German. He doesn't count against the 40-man while suspended.) There will be a few position battles in Spring Training this year and I'm planning to break those down further on Friday. For the most part, that's the roster. The bench leaves a little something to be desired and having both Happ and post-Tommy John surgery Montgomery in the Opening Day rotation is suboptimal, but Paxton got hurt, so what can you do? At +50.4 WAR, FanGraphs projects the Yankees as the third most talented team in baseball behind the Astros (+54.7 WAR) and Dodgers (+54.4 WAR), which sounds about right to me. The +4 WAR gap between the Astros and Yankees is not worth sweating. More importantly, those three teams are in their own tier -- the Twins are next at +45.7 WAR -- and the Yankees are heads and shoulders above everyone else in the AL East. (The Rays are next in the division at +43.7 WAR). Even with Hicks and Paxton hurt, and German suspended, the Yankees have good depth beyond their projected 26-man roster, and now that they're keeping Happ and going over the $248M third luxury tax threshold, they should (should) be open to taking on money at the deadline, which will help them get whatever they need in July. Can the season start already? I'm pumped.

3. Another Ford projection. Three weeks ago I noted ZiPS really likes Mike Ford. It projects him as a true talent .257/.340/.481 (116 OPS+) hitter in 2020, which is awfully good considering projection systems are inherently conservative. ZiPS is not the only projection system that loves Ford either. PECOTA (subs. req'd) was released last week and it has him as a top 40 (!) hitter in the game. Here is a portion of the projected DRC+ leaderboard (DRC+, or Deserved Runs Created Plus, is Baseball Prospectus' version of wRC+ and OPS+, that catch-all offensive metric presented relative to league average):

35. Josh Bell: .266/.354/.510 (127 DRC+)
36. Mike Ford: .255/.342/.502 (126 DRC+)
37. Jeff McNeil: .290/.353/.472 (126 DRC+)
38. Joey Gallo: .228/.349/.523 (126 DRC+)

Huh. Only Giancarlo Stanton (139 DRC+) and Aaron Judge (130 DRC+) project better than Ford among Yankees. Last year PECOTA had Luke Voit as a top 25 hitter with a projected 128 DRC+. He finished with a 118 DRC+ and I'm sure it was much closer to (or higher than) a 128 DRC+ before Voit tried to play through the sports hernia in the second half. PECOTA doesn't like Ford quite as much as it liked Voit last year, but the situations are similar. An unheralded slugging first baseman performed very well in a small sample in the second half -- Ford authored a .259/.350/.559 (134 wRC+) batting line in 163 plate appearances last year, which is very good but not quite Luke Voit in 2018 good -- and the projection systems bought into it. Well, no, they're buying into more than just the small sample size MLB success. They're also buying into the minor league track record, and Ford crushed Triple-A last season (.303/.401/.605 for a 151 wRC+). Maybe Ford really is this good? Voit was last year. I mean, he wasn't 2018 good, but he was really good before the sports hernia. He was hitting .280/.393/.509 (140 wRC+) when he first went on the injured list. The Yankees have a decided lack of lefty thump in their lineup at the moment and, as you can see in the roster projection above, it would not be difficult to get him on the roster. Swap Ford for Clint Frazier on the bench and there you go. The downside is Ford is a first base only guy and the Yankees already have a first base only guy in Voit, plus Stanton might be limited to mostly DH duty, and who knows what's up with Miguel Andujar? All I know is the Yankees will find a way to get Ford into the lineup should he hit like last season and as the projection systems, uh, project. These one-dimensional first base slugger types are easy to typecast as Quad-A players, but the Yankees already identified Voit as a player who can be more than that. Perhaps Ford is next.

4. How can he improve? DJ LeMahieu. Our series looking at each core Yankees heading into 2020 continues today with DJ The Mahieu. We've already covered Zack Britton, Aaron Judge, Adam Ottavino, James Paxton, Luis Severino, Giancarlo Stanton, Masahiro Tanaka, Gleyber Torres, Gio Urshela, and Luke Voit. Never before has the Yankees corner of the internet been so collectively wrong about a player as it was with LeMahieu last year. Like five people liked the signing. I wanted Marwin Gonzalez instead. Others wanted Jed Lowrie. Then LeMahieu went out and hit .327/.375/.518 (136 wRC+) with a career high 26 homers, the 16th lowest strikeout rate in baseball (13.7%), and good-to-great defense at three infield positions, including two (first and third bases) he barely played prior to 2019. The end result was a +6 WAR season and a fourth place finish in the AL MVP voting. The exit velocity spray chart and Statcast numbers are sexy af:

Like I said, we've never been so collectively wrong about a player. How could LeMahieu be even better in 2020? I honestly don't know. Last year felt like a best case scenario season. Everything that could go right went right. I worry LeMahieu is in for major regression should the rocket ball go away -- there is some evidence the juiced ball helps low power guys more than the big sluggers, and LeMahieu averaged 12.8 home runs per year from 2016-18 while playing his home games in Coors Field -- but I also think he's a smart enough hitter to not change his approach to try to rediscover that power. I could be completely wrong, but LeMahieu strikes me as the type who will stick with what's worked his entire career and just continue spraying the ball around the field. If that means he goes back to being a 10-15 homer guy rather than a 25+ homer guy once the rocket ball go away, so be it. Given his tendency to hit the ball hard -- LeMahieu ranked 19th in average exit velocity (91.7 mph) last season, right behind Marcell Ozuna and Matt Olson -- I think LeMahieu could stand to get the ball airborne a little more often. He's been a 50% ground ball rate guy the last two years after sitting around 55% earlier in his career. Getting that number down to 45% or so could turn a few more singles into extra-base hits. That's easier said than done though. Adjusting your swing to hit the ball in the air could equal less hard contact, or less contact in general. I honestly don't know how else LeMahieu could improve going forward. He does everything so well already. Getting better and more comfortable at first and third bases would help, though LeMahieu figures to play primarily second base in 2020. Among the 234 players with at least 1,000 plate appearances the last three years, LeMahieu ranks 194th with -6.8 baserunning runs, on par with slow dudes like Joe Mauer (-6.5) and Yonder Alonso (-7.2), so I guess that's his big weakness? He's a crummy baserunner? I suppose LeMahieu could improve his baserunning, though we're talking about seven runs across three seasons. It has a small impact, overall. Point is, we've got to dig pretty deep to find ways LeMahieu can improve. Fewer ground balls would be cool, as long as it doesn't hurt his contact rates or contact quality, and getting more comfortable at first and third would work too. Better baserunning? Sure, but I'm not going to sweat that. LeMahieu is very good and very well-rounded. With any luck, the potentially unjuiced baseball won't cut into his production too much.

5. The Mookie Betts trade (again). At long last, the Mookie Betts trade has been finalized. It's official too. Announced by all three teams. The deal was reworked because the Red Sox didn't like Brusdar Graterol's medicals -- the delay was annoying but I don't blame them for sounding the alarm when they're trading Mookie effin' Betts -- and the trade grew is size. It went from a five-player trade to a 10-asset trade. For posterity, here is the full deal:

The Red Sox get a slightly better package -- I prefer Downs to Graterol, especially if Graterol's medicals are as bad as alleged -- but, at the end of the day, they still attached Betts to Price to get under the $208M luxury tax threshold rather than get the best talent possible for the face of the franchise. Team hires a Rays executive to run their baseball operations and makes a Rays-esque trade. News at 11. The Twins effectively sold Raley and the draft pick for $10M (and a fringe Single-A prospect). The original trade was essentially Graterol for Maeda, which tells us Minnesota values Raley and the pick at $10M. For what it's worth, that pick is currently 67th overall and last year Craig Edwards pegged the value of the 67th overall pick at $4.1M. The Dodgers? Lordy, what a trade. They added Betts and half-price Price and Graterol without subtracting anything they'll miss from their MLB roster or giving up one of their top prospects (Gavin Lux and Dustin May). Downs was expendable given their infield depth and Wong (and Camargo) was far down their catching depth chart. Hell of a trade for them. As far as the Yankees are concerned, everything I wrote about the trade last week still applies. The Red Sox got (much) worse in the short-term, the Twins got a pitcher who matches up well with the righty heavy Yankees lineup, and the Dodgers will be that much more formidable should we get a 1981 World Series rematch. Before the reworked trade came together I wondered whether the Yankees would (or should) swoop in to steal Maeda away from the Twins. James Paxton will be out until May or June and both Paxton and Masahiro Tanaka will be free agents after the season. Maeda is rock solid -- his career 40.9% ground ball rate and 1.18 HR/9 in Dodger Stadium and the NL West might not have translated well to Yankee Stadium and the AL East though -- and his contract is absurdly cheap (and exploitative). Maeda is no longer an option but what about Ross Stripling? He was supposed to go to the Angels with Joc Pederson before Angels owner Arte Moreno got fed up with the delay and backed out of the trade. Stripling will make $2.1M this year and he had a 3.22 ERA (3.44 FIP) with 26.2% strikeouts, 4.8% walks, and 47.4% ground balls in 212.2 innings the last two years. That came in 36 starts and 29 relief appearances. The under-the-hood numbers don't jump out at you ...

... and Stripling has a long injury history, but it's hard to argue with the results and the fact he can start or relieve. He's someone the Yankees could throw into the No. 5 starter mix while Paxton is out and move to the bullpen whenever necessary. The Dodgers have a full 40-man roster and they were ready to send Stripling to the Angels even after adding Price and subtracting Maeda. Is there a Stripling for a non-40-man roster prospect or two trade to be made? Package, I dunno, Yoendrys Gomez and Oswald Peraza? Too much, too little? Not sure. It seems likely the Dodgers will send Pederson elsewhere soon -- they're overloaded with outfielders and clearing his $7.75M salary will help them stay under the $208M luxury tax threshold -- but I don't think they're desperate to move Stripling. He's a very nice depth piece and making only $2.1M. That seems like someone a World Series contender should keep, you know? Even if the Dodgers are intent on keeping Stripling -- again, they had a trade in place before the Betts deal was reworked -- I think he's worth a call for the Yankees, especially with Paxton sidelined. Stripling is a good pitcher and it never hurts to ask. (As for Pederson, I wrote about him as a possible target back in November and he'd certainly fit. The Yankees are short on lefty bats and the Clint Frazier/Mike Ford roster spot in the roster check-in table above is begging for an upgrade. The problem is Joc's $7.75M salary equals $13.5625M in real dollars to the Yankees because of the luxury tax. Can't say I see the Yankees going there financially.)

6. Paxton's future. When the James Paxton injury news broke last week, it was easy to assume it closed the book on a potential contract extension. Paxton will be a free agent after the season and he might be the best free agent starter on the market. It's either him, Robbie Ray, Marcus Stroman, or Masahiro Tanaka (or Trevor Bauer depending what you think about him). While the injury certainly decreases the chances of an extension, I do not think it closes the book entirely. Believe me, if Paxton comes back in June firing bullets and looking like the guy he was late last year, the Yankees will be open to an extension. He turns 32 in November and will become a free agent having never qualified for the ERA title, so his earning potential will be limited despite the upside. I think something between Dallas Keuchel's deal (three years and $55.5M) and Kyle Gibson's deal (three years and $30M) is probably Paxton's best case scenario. It's way too early to say the Yankees will not be interested in an extension with any certainty. They'll let Paxton complete his rehab, get back on a mound and pitch in games, then reevaluate the situation and decide whether to pursue an extension. That's all. The same applies with the qualifying offer. The qualifying offer is set at the average of the top 125 salaries in the game and my quick math puts that at $18.98M this coming offseason. That would be a record and up from $17.8M last year, though the final number will be lower because signing bonuses don't count as salary in the calculation and I'm not going to dig through 125+ contracts to figure out what's salary and what's a signing bonus. Should Paxton pitch like he did in August and September after coming back from the back surgery, I reckon making the $19M-ish qualifying offer would be an easy yes. Getting that guy back on a one-year deal -- even a pricey one-year deal -- would not be a terrible outcome. Good pitcher with injury issues on a short-term deal? I'd be happy with it. But again, that is dependent on how Paxton looks and performs once he returns. At this time last year making Didi Gregorius the qualifying offer seemed like a no-brainer, then he had a .276 OBP following his injury. The Yankees know Paxton and his medicals better than anyone and that will inform their decision. We'll see what happens after the season. From where I sit, I think the qualifying offer and an extension remain in play despite the injury. As likely as they were two weeks ago? Nope, but don't assume they're off the table completely.

7. Postseason format proposal. As I'm sure you've already seen, Joel Sherman reported yesterday that MLB is mulling over a new postseason format that would take effect in 2022. As part of the proposal, the postseason would expand from five teams per league to seven, and it would allow higher seeded teams to pick their first round opponents. Here's Sherman with the details:

In this concept, the team with the best record in each league would receive a bye to avoid the wild-card round and go directly to the Division Series. The two other division winners and the wild card with the next best record would each host all three games in a best-of-three wild-card round. So the bottom three wild cards would have no first-round home games.

The division winner with the second-best record in a league would then get the first pick of its opponent from those lower three wild cards, then the other division winner would pick, leaving the last two wild cards to play each other.

I will start with this: I think it's a good thing MLB is open-minded under commissioner Rob Manfred. That's certainly better than being stuck in "we've always done it this way and we're going to keep doing it this way" mode, isn't it? But this *gestures at that proposal* is preposterous. Seven teams means we'd be dangerously close to a .500 or worse team making the postseason -- last year's No. 7 seeds would've been the 84-78 Red Sox and 85-77 Diamondbacks, and in 2017 the 80-82 Angels, Rays, and Royals would've tied for the final two Wild Card spots -- and the idea that this would curb tanking is very naive. Anyone who believes that is giving the owners too much credit. MLB added a fifth postseason team a few years and there's more tanking than ever right now. (Just wait until teams realize they can make the postseason with 82-win rosters.) The "pick your opponent" aspect could actually be kinda cool, I think, but MLB would undoubtedly screw it up. Three things separate baseball from other sports. One, they play every single day. Two, there's no clock. And three, the regular season means something because the postseason is very exclusive. Five of the 15 teams in each league qualify and less than 10 years ago it was only four of 15. Putting seven teams in the postseason lessens the importance of the 162-game season because it'll be that much easier to back your way into October. The Wild Card Game has been very successful and postseason expansion is inevitable at some point. It's going to happen. In theory, it should happen when MLB expands to 32 teams, but there's no indication expansion is happening anytime soon, and I don't think MLB wants to wait around much longer to expand the postseason field. There is too much money to be made. This postseason format would begin in 2022 not only because that'll be the first season of new Collective Bargaining Agreement -- the MLBPA has to agree to a new postseason format -- but because it'll also be the first year of MLB's new national television contracts with ESPN and TBS. This has nothing to do with competitive balance. MLB will pretend it does, but this is designed to get as much money out of the networks as possible. More postseason games equals more money. It really is that simple. The proposal is a short-term cash grab with little regard for the long-term viability of the sport. Part of me thinks MLB leaked this for three reasons. One, to distract from the sign-stealing scandals. Two, to gauge the public reaction (overwhelmingly negative from what I've seen). And three, to throw it out there as potential leverage in upcoming CBA talks. With any luck, this will wind up in the proposal graveyard with other nonsensical stuff from previous CBA negotiations. If MLB wants to expand the postseason, fine, but add two new expansion teams to make sure the regular season remains meaningful. The last thing this sport needs right now is an easier path to the postseason, because too many owners have shown us they will try only the bare minimum amount, and this proposed postseason format lowers the bar even further.

8. Rapid fire thoughts. NYCFC may finally be moving out of Yankee Stadium. The Major League Soccer franchise has called Yankee Stadium home since 2015 -- the MLS and MLB seasons overlap, so the grounds crew has to convert the field over to soccer whenever the Yankees are on a road trip -- and David Waldstein reports NYCFC is close to finalizing plans for their own 25,000-seat stadium as part of a $1 billion development plan that would include housing units, a school, retail space, etc. The new facility would be located between 152nd and 157th Streets along River Ave., so on the opposite side of Macombs Dam Park (the old Yankee Stadium site). Randy Levine is helping facilitate the deal -- the Yankees own 20% of NYCFC -- though it sounds like construction won't begin until 2022. When NYCFC first moved into Yankee Stadium, the expectation was they would only play there three years. By time their new facility opens, it'll be close to a decade. Better late than never, I guess ... new video guidelines are coming to MLB. In the wake of the Astros and Red Sox being outed as no good dirty cheaters, commissioner Rob Manfred told Ron Blum the league is likely to restrict access to live video feeds during games. "I think you should assume that before the season starts we will have new guidelines with respect to the use of video equipment. I think we have too much video available in real time right now," Manfred said. That's all well and good, but right now only the instant replay video person is supposed to have access to a live feed. Everything else is supposed to be on an eight-second delay. That obviously is not the case. The Astros were using an illegal feed. I am pro-eliminating in-game access to video entirely. Watch as much video as you want before and after games. During the game, the players and coaches are cut off completely. Replay challenges would have to be a gut call and players couldn't go back to watch their at-bats, scout the incoming reliever, check where a pitch missed, etc. The players would hate it, but tough. They've already shown they can't be trusted with live video. Whatever Manfred and MLB decide to do, I am confident it'll be an easily exploitable half-measure with an entirely new set of unintended consequences. It's the only way this sport knows how to operate.

(Send your questions for Friday's mailbag to RABmailbag at gmail dot com.)