Lewis Wolff and John Fisher are bad, bad men

<div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Look around baseball and you will see entrepreneurs and smart business people who have purchased baseball teams. Oh, there are some who might have inherited their money but for the most part team owners have gotten into a position of owning a team because they were very good at business. Once they become baseball owners, the expectation is that they are supposed to forget all of that and bring a city a winner at all costs. Take the <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/donaljo02.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/donaljo02.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" rel="nofollow" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Josh Donaldson</a></strong><span style="font-size: small;"> trade as an example.</span></span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The two owners of the Oakland Athletics, Lewis Wolff and John Fisher were roasted last night and this morning because <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/beanebi01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/beanebi01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" rel="nofollow" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Billy Beane</a></strong> traded away Josh Donaldson for a cheaper <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/lawribr01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/lawribr01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" rel="nofollow" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Brett Lawrie</a></strong> and three prospects. If you don't believe me, check out<a data-mce-href="http://sfbay.ca/2014/11/28/rather-than-pay-as-trade-away-donaldson/" href="http://sfbay.ca/2014/11/28/rather-than-pay-as-trade-away-donaldson/" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank"> this article</a> by Jason Leskiw for a major media outlet. How dare Wolff and Fisher save money and run a good business!</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But is the assumption this is a money dump realistic? When I looked at the deal last night, I saw a 24-year-old player with upside in Brett Lawrie, two really good prospects and a so-so prospect traded for arguably the best third baseman in the American League if not in baseball. While both players, Donaldson and Lawrie, are heading to arbitration for the first time this season, Lawrie will turn 25 in January and Donaldson, 29 a month from now.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lawrie has been hurt a lot. Donaldson has been healthy. At least that is the line some angry Twitter people have given me when I said I liked the trade for both teams. The implication is that Donaldson is a "gamer" and Lawrie a "poser." I don't know how you justify or quantify that, but okay. Donaldson does stand to make more in arbitration. But then you have two really good prospects in <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/graveke01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/graveke01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" rel="nofollow" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Kendall Graveman</a></strong> and <b><u><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=barret004fra&utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.mlbtraderumors.com" target="_blank">Franklin Barreto</a></u></b> and the throw in of <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/n/nolinse01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/n/nolinse01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" rel="nofollow" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Sean Nolin</a></strong>. Not a bad haul for Donaldson if one or two of those prospects can be helpful.</span></div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" lang="en"><a href="https://twitter.com/FlagrantFan">@FlagrantFan</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/AskROTObaseball">@AskROTObaseball</a> Yeah, great trading one of the top hitters in the league for a centerpiece, Lawrie, who plays 100 games a year<br />— Dan Cas (@DantasyBaseball) <a href="https://twitter.com/DantasyBaseball/status/538661299899887617">November 29, 2014</a></blockquote><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <br /><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lawrie has shown much upside defensively and while he may not be in Donaldson's class, he isn't in the dunce category either. Donaldson has compiled 16.6 rWAR by the age of 28. Lawrie, 11.7 by the age of 24. Doesn't that make this trade look a little better?</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">People forget that Donaldson was acquired from the Cubs back in 2008 in a deal very similar to this one. Donaldson was a prospect too for the Cubs and I bet there was a lot of consternation when Billy Beane traded away <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/harderi01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/harderi01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" rel="nofollow" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Rich Harden</a></strong> to get Donaldson and three other prospects. Of the four, only Donaldson panned out (though <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/murtoma01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/murtoma01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" rel="nofollow" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Matt Murton</a></strong> has had a great Japanese career).  Harden was never the same and has been out of baseball for years.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">First of all, you cannot judge trades until years after the fact. But with the instantaneous cyber world we live in, people are dying for page views and social media followers by making judgement pronouncements immediately. And one of those is to blast the owners for "forcing" Billy Beane to manage his assets efficiently.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It's okay for the players to be business people. It's okay that their agents are charged with maximizing the players earnings. But it's not okay for baseball owners to do the same thing. Why do the owners in Tampa get a pass and the ones in Oakland scorn? Both have lousy stadium issues and low attendance. They both do the best they can while trying to keep a profit margin. Anyone who thinks owners should not care about making money is misguided.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The sons of George Steinbrenner are facing similar scrutiny. Why aren't they countering the moves made recently by the Red Sox!? Why aren't they spending money like crazy to get back on top!? Old George would never allow the Yankees to go two years in a row without making the playoffs! Um...remember the 1980s?  And the team payroll for the Yankees is just as high or higher under the sons as it ever was with The Boss.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The big complaint in Oakland is that the A's haven't made the World Series. The theory is that if Wolff and Fisher would spend a little more, that World Series would have been in reach. It doesn't matter that the team has won 277 games in the last three seasons, by golly, the goal is to win it all.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Money does not make that happen. A lot has to fall in place for a team to get hot at the right time and win short series to get to the biggest of all short series and win it all. Peter McGowan, the owner of the Giants doesn't like to throw money around either and he has won three titles. All three had people scratching their heads. Getting to the playoffs is hard enough. Winning there is a crap shoot.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I understand that Josh Donaldson was a beloved player in Oakland. I understand that he has been an MVP candidate two years in a row. I also understand that his defensive skills play a large part of his value and I do not trust the current way those defensive skills are valued. I do agree that Donaldson is a great fielder. But give me a better way to quantify it.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jason Leskiw says himself in his diatribe that Josh Donaldson played hurt most of 2014 and had to wrap his shoulder like a pitcher. Think about that for a second. Yeah, he played almost every game, but at what cost and how will that influence his game moving forward? Who knows.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I don't believe Wolff and Fisher had any part of this deal. Billy Beane made the deal. Billy Beane has made a lot of deals. A lot of them turn out pretty well. Why don't we let this one play out for a couple of years before we start painting a picture of Beane as browbeaten by greedy, Scrooge-like owners.</span></div>

Lewis Wolff and John Fisher are bad, bad men

Look around baseball and you will see entrepreneurs and smart business people who have purchased baseball teams. Oh, there are some who migh...

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Some early batted ball anomalies

<div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A month of a baseball season is still a fairly small sample size. After all, we are only nearing the 15% mark of the season. There are a lot of games left to be played. Even so, 23 to 24 games played is a pretty good chunk of games to see a few trends taking place. Whether sample size or a meaningful chunk of games is up to the eye of the beholder. However, it does allow for some weird batted ball statistics. I have compiled a few for your viewing pleasure. Just don't make too much of what is being presented. Because it IS early yet.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thirty-six qualifying players have yet to hit an infield popup. I find that figure to be pretty amazing. You would think that not many popups would lead to a pretty good average for balls in play (BABIP). But that's not the case for <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/f/freesda01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/f/freesda01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">David Freese</a></strong>. Not only has he not hit a popup, but his line drive percentage is at a healthy 25%. Those are good batted ball odds. And yet his BABIP sits at .186. It is no wonder that the guy is hitting .143 after eighteen games.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But that is a little bit misleading. Freese is striking out at a 29.6% clip, so he only has 45 balls in play altogether. Even so...</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For another extreme, we look at <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/player_search.cgi?results=eatonad01,eatonad02&utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/player_search.cgi?results=eatonad01,eatonad02&utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Adam Eaton</a></strong>. Eaton has brought some enthusiasm to the White Sox and that team seems far from the dead team they were last year. But Eaton's statistics are really weird. His line drive percentage of 11.1% is the fifth lowest in the Majors right now. And yet his BABIP is a healthy .313. That's kind of hard to do.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But it doesn't end there. Adam Eaton's batted ball statistics show that a full 74% of his batted balls are grounders. That gives him a ratio of ground ball to fly balls of 4 to 1. Holy cow, I have never seen those kinds of numbers put together in one batter.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/lawribr01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/lawribr01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Brett Lawrie</a></strong> of the Blue Jays is off to a slow start. He has a .151 average and a .538 OPS. Those are pretty bad numbers despite the five homers he has hit. His average makes sense because his BABIP is only .125, which is insanely low. Well...it is insanely low only if you don't see the details.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Brett Lawrie easily is last in the Majors at hitting line drives. His 8.8% line drive rate is so far off the Major League average (usually around 19.5%) that it almost seems silly. He is the only MLB player (qualified) that is under 10%. Needless to say that Mr. Lawrie is not squaring up many baseballs. Maybe he should use a fatter bat?</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/tejadru01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/tejadru01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Ruben Tejada</a></strong> of the Mets also has some mind-blowing batted ball stats. He leads the Major Leagues in line drive percentage. His rate so far in that category is almost staggering. 38.1% of his batted balls have been line drives. And he has a .688 BABIP when he hits a line drive. So why is his overall BABIP stuck at .285? That's weird isn't it?</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You don't know the half of it. Tejada has hit 16 line drives. He has also hit 16 ground balls and ten fly balls. Only one of his 26 combined ground balls and fly balls have fallen in for a hit. One! And it was on a grounder. That is amazing.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tejada, amazingly enough, is not alone. <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/casteni01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/casteni01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Nick Castellanos</a></strong> also has a similar problem. Castellanos is second in the Majors in line drive percentage at 37.7%. That's the good part. But his BABIP is only .280. Castellanos has hit 24 fly balls. Only two of them are hits and that is only because they went over the wall for homers. He only has one ground ball hit.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Royals' <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/e/escobal02.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/e/escobal02.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Alcides Escobar</a></strong> is off to a pretty good start this season and is batting .301. That is despite the fact that he leads all players in popping up to the infield. He has done so 27.8% of the time. And yet he has a healthy BABIP of .368. How does that happen? It happens when 80% of your line drives turn into hits (way over average) and 40% of your ground balls turn into hits (again, way over average). I don't think he can keep that up.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We have already seen a pretty amazing stat of Adam Eaton hitting four ground balls to every fly ball. But that is chicken feed compared to <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/reverbe01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/reverbe01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Ben Revere</a></strong>. Revere's ratio is an astounding 7.83 ground balls for every fly ball. He has only hit eight fly balls all season. And yet, Revere's BABIP is sitting at .342. Being fast helps.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Okay, one more. There are only three players in the Majors who have a rate of 30% or higher of their fly balls going over the fence. You could probably guess that they would be <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/trumbma01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/trumbma01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Mark Trumbo</a></strong>, <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/pujolal01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/pujolal01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Albert Pujols</a></strong> and <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/player_search.cgi?results=abreujo02,abreu-007jos&utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/player_search.cgi?results=abreujo02,abreu-007jos&utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Jose Abreu</a></strong>. The other commonality these three share is very low BABIPs. Abreu's is the highest at .258. Trumbo's was under .200 before he got hurt. And Pujols is sitting at .240. But who cares when so many of your fly balls are sailing majestically over the fence.</span></div>

Some early batted ball anomalies

A month of a baseball season is still a fairly small sample size. After all, we are only nearing the 15% mark of the season. There are a lot...

+ Read more »