Episode 1780: Thank You for Your Service

Summary[]

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about which teams have the most unfinished roster construction to complete post-lockout and the league's and union's dueling playoff format proposals, then answer listener emails about what Wander Franco would make as a free agent today, a plan to combat tanking, and the proper pluralization of "hit by pitch," Stat Blast about Rich Hill and Scott Service, and meet two major leaguers, the Nationals' Joan Adon and the Cubs' Tyler Payne.

Topics[]

How much would Wander Franco be worth on the open market?
Anti-tanking proposal: The "Gold Plan" which makes draft lottery weight based on number of wins since elimination
What's the correct plural oF "hit by pitch"?
Player who has signed the most separate contracts with the same team
Player who had the most distinct stints with a saingle team
Scott Service vs. Scott Servais
Meet a Major Leaguer: Meg picks Joan Adon
Meet a Major Leaguer: Ben picks Tyler Payne

Banter[]

Entering the lockout, consequences of the rules prohibiting contact between teams and players, what front office people will be doing in the meantime
Which teams have the most unfinished business interrupted by the lockout
Competing proposals from league and players for an expanded postseason

Email Questions[]

Nathaniel: So in light of Wander's contract, let's pretend the Rays, instead of signing him, accidentally cut Wander and he is a free agent at age 20. My question is what would his value be if he were magically a free agent today? I assume it's going to be a lot more and at first I thought about how lopsided it is towards the team, but I suppose they invested a lot in his development? But does that justify the difference?

Matthew (Patreon): There is a semi-popular anti-tanking measure that has been floating around NHL circles called the Gold Plan, named for its creator Adam Gold, who presented it at the Sloan Analytics Conference back in 2012. The system, as applied to MLB, would work like this: rather than tying draft pick placement to placement in the standings or a weighted lottery, as is currently done in the major men's North American sports leagues, teams would start accruing wins the day after they are mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. The team that accrues the most wins after they have been eliminated picks first in the draft (with the bad teams having the most opportunity to accrue wins).

The logic here is that this should incentivize teams to win every single game, because you have to win your way to a good draft pick, rather than lose. The most frequently identified downsides are that this could depress the trade market (with teams incentivized to hold their good players) and this could just mean a shift from tanking to be bad overall to tanking to be eliminated earlier.

Curious for your takes on this proposal (good and bad) and whether there are any unintended consequences that I may have missed here.

Michael Mountain (Patreon): The plural of "run batted in" is "runs batted in" - leaving aside any heated debate over the proper way to pluralize the acronym. The plural of "base on balls" is "bases on balls". What is the plural of "hit by pitch"?

My gut feeling based on what sounds right is "hit by pitches" - but shouldn't it be "hits by pitch"? Why does this feel different? Is it to emphasize that a separate pitch is thrown each time the event occurs? Is "bases on balls" the outlier because the last noun of that expression is already plural, so it needed unique treatment? Does this even matter (probably not)? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Stat Blast[]

Podcast favorite Rich Hill joined the Red Sox for the fourth time in his career, signing his seventh contract as a free agent with them. Ben wonders if this is a record.
Kenny Jackelen of Baseball Reference confirms that Hill's seventh free-agent contract with a single team is indeed a record, passing Andy Pettitte, who signed with the Yankees six times as a free agent.
Ryan Nelson determined that the player with the most distinct stints with a single team is Scott Service, who was acquired by the Cincinnati Reds on six separate occasions. Ben reads his copious transaction log on Baseball Reference.
Despite being on the Reds roster many times, he didn't play very much. Ben explains that Service was a replacement-level reliever, so he was easily acquired and just as easily discarded.
Just as Rich Hill, a Boston-area native, kept returning to the Red Sox, Scott Service, a Cincinnati native, kept returning to the Reds.
With five stints with the same team are Russell Branyan and Jeff Manto (both with Cleveland) and Bobo Newsom with the Senators. Newsom didn't get along with Senators manager Bucky Harris, who would get rid of him, but then hire him back for his arm.
Eighteen players (including Hill) have had four stints with the same team. 251 players have had three.
Ten players have had stints of three or more with two different teams.
Two players have had stints of three or more with three different teams: Chris Michalak (Diamondbacks, Reds, Blue Jays) and Jamey Wright (Dodgers, Rangers, and Royals).

Service vs Servais[]

Meg gasped at hearing the name Scott Service, mistaking him for Scott Servais, manager of the Seattle Mariners, whose name is pronounced identically.
Pitcher Scott Service faced catcher Scott Servais a number of times during their overlapping careers. Ben plays a clip of one such plate appearance, in which the announcers enjoyed the name confusion. The two faced each other eight times, and Servais went 2 for 6 with a double and a walk.

Notes[]

Teams are not allowed to contact players or their agents, but Ben notes that there may be some skirting of the rules and wonders what transactions will be announced suspiciously soon after the lockout ends.
Ben doesn't find most of the early reports on negotiations interesting because the two sides are just staking out their positions, and the final result will be different.
Although the players union is also in favor of expanded playoffs, they also know that the owners want it more, so they're likely to hold out and use it to extract some future concession from the owners.
MLB proposed a 14-team playoff, in which the six division winners are joined by 4 wildcards in each league. The top division winner gets a bye, and the other two get to choose which wildcard team they want to face in the first round. The two unselected wildcard teams play each other.
The players offered a 16-team playoff in conjunction with a realignment into two divisions per league, with 8 and 7 teams in the divisions.
Meg likes the idea of teams picking their opponents, in part because it provides a source of content for writers. Ben likes it because of the added strategy, as well as the psychological effect of being chosen or passed over. Rivalries would go into overdrive when a team chooses or snubs its longtime rival. This almost happened last year when there was a possibility of the Yankees, Red Sox, and Blue Jays tied for two wildcard spots.
Ben feels that Wander Franco would sign for twice as much money if he were a free agent today.
Ben figures that if the Rays did mistakenly release Franco, the owners would find some way to cancel it.
Scott Boras exploited an overlooked clause that says if the team does not tender an offer to a draftee within 15 days, the player becomes a free agent. He was able to get four players declared free agents, and they signed for a collective $30 million. This proves that the draft heavily suppresses player salaries.
Ben doesn't think the anti-tanking proposal will help much. Draft picks in baseball are not a sure thing like in other sports because of the high variance in player development. In baseball, teams tank because the owner is pocketing revenue sharing money rather than spending it on the team. Meg agrees. Prospects are cheap, and dumping your veterans saves money.
In response to people arguing that the MLB draft should be a big deal like other sports, Ben says, "I think we just have to let that one go." "Frankly, even I don't pay that much attention to it." "I don't know most of the names of those players, and then I immediately forget the names of most of those players."
Meg doesn't like "hit by pitches" because it sounds like multiple balls hitting the batter at once. She prefers "hits by pitch", since you are hit multiple times, but each time by only one pitch. But "HsBP" reads weird, so she would abbreviate it "HBPs".
Ben also likes "hits by pitch", but the word "hits" already has a specific baseball meaning, so it leads you astray. He tries to write around the issue by substituting "plunking" or similar terms. But not "beaning"; that is specifically a ball thrown intentionally at the batter's head.
The SABR style guide recommends hyphenating the term "hit-by-pitch" and using the plural "hit-by-pitches". Meg argues that we over-hyphenate words.
Episode 1781 takes up listener suggestions on the topic of pluralizing "hit by pitch".
All player images disappeared from the MLB Web site when the lockout began. Meg figures this was out of an abundance of caution to avoid creating any possible legal risk. "If pettiness were driving it, they miscalculated how it would land."
Both Joan Adon and Tyler Payne debuted on the last day of the season. Baseball Reference lists Adon as the last player to debut in 2021, but Ben argues that it really was Payne, because all the games on the final day started at the same time, and Adon started the game, whereas Payne was a late-inning pinch hitter.
There were 265 debuts in 2021, which Ben believes is a record, surpassing 2017's 262.
Ben: "It is generally not a good thing to have a lot of major league debuts." The Orioles had the most with 16, then the Cubs and Angels with 15, then the Marlins 14, the Rangers 13, the Diamondbacks 12. You had to get down to 11 with the Astros and Blue Jays to find winning teams. The fewest debuts were from the Cardinals and Atlanta with 3.
Ben welcomes Zach Kram as a new Patreon supporter.