MLBits: Pham Talks a Big Game, Giants Collecting Franchise Faces, Runs Per Win, More

Jan 15, 2018

This is the week the dam is going to break, and all the free agents are going to sign and all the trades are going to happen. I can feel it. It’s gonna happen.

Here’s some news from around the league …

Never in his career has Cardinals outfielder Tommy Pham played in 150 games, hit 30 home runs, or stolen 30 bases in a single season, but he plans on doing all of that next year … and a lot more, telling MLB.com that he “believes that I could be a really special player, and all I’ve got to do, I just need time to show it.”

To be fair, he did break out in a HUGE way in 2017 (148 wRC+, 5.9 WAR) … but there was just SO MUCH not to like about it. For one, despite always being something of a high-BABIP guy, Pham’s .368 BABIP last season was 26 points above his previous career high. On top of that, he hit way too many grounders (51.7%), dropped his fly ball rate (26.1%) below his career average, hit more infield popups than ever (7.0%), benefitted from the third highest HR/FB ratio in the NL (26.7%), and didn’t even earn it given his decreasing hard-hit rate (35.5% – lowest of his career) and increasing soft-hit rate (15.5% – second highest of his career). Oh, and his breakout came at the age of 29 (he’ll be 30 before the season). So, yeah, I’ll take the under on his 30-30 prediction, thanks.

Also, an interesting anecdote from Adam Wainwright in that MLB.com piece about the nature of the Cardinals’ clubhouse last year: “Last year, Tommy stood up in the middle of the clubhouse one time and started yelling at folks, and guys were looking at me like, ‘Are you going to do something to stop him?’ And I was like, ‘Man, absolutely not. I love that about this guy.’ He brings an attitude to our team that we need.”

One Cardinal I do suspect will do well next season, however, is Marcell Ozuna – the former Marlins outfielder trade to St. Louis earlier this winter. In a funny quote from Cardinals.com, Ozuna recalls learning about the trade to St. Louis and how “scared” he was that the Marlins might send him to the wrong team. “The first thing I heard [was] they were going to trade me to the Oakland A’s,'” Ozuna recalled. “I said, ‘God, please, leave me over here.’ Then I heard they traded me to the Cardinals, and I said, ‘OK, thanks.'” I woulda went with Oakland, pal.

Okay, we love to hate on the Cardinals here (like we really, really LOVE it), but sometimes even they do something right. At the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Benhamin Hochman writes about Emily Wiebe, their first female baseball analyst. “She has a strong interest in baseball,” Mozeliak said, “… The game is changing, the industry is changing, and she brings a lot of modern skills to our operations. She is very talented — she has a very bright future in our organization.” Even if it feels almost unimaginable that there’s not been more female analysts in similar positions within their organization, it’s a great step in the right direction.

To keep up the Cardinals’ theme, apparently, … in case you didn’t know, 35-year-old catcher Yadier Molina has a plan:

"Three more years, that's it," Yadier Molina says. He's repeating his plan to complete his contract and then retire. #cardinals #stlcards
— Derrick Goold (@dgoold) January 15, 2018

And with it being Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I have one final bit related to the Cardinals:

All-Star @Cardinals center fielder and free-agency pioneer Curt Flood paints the legendary Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. #MLKDay pic.twitter.com/MhaEnrr1T9

— MLB (@MLB) January 15, 2018

If I asked ten people, “How many runs wins a ballgame?”, I might get as many different answers, but the disparity would be understandable. Indeed it’s a difficult one to answer, because there are actually two different ways to consider it. At first glance, you might think, “Surely you need fewer than 10 runs to win your average baseball game,” and that’s certainly true (62% of teams that score half as many runs (5) win their game). But if you’re coming at it from a purely mathematical/sabermetrics perspective, you’ll find every additional run a team scores (or prevents) gives them about .103 more wins. Or, put differently, you get one win every 9.74 runs (frequently rounded to 10!).

I bring that up because, for as long as I’ve been following baseball closely, “10” is the number of runs I’ve always seen equated to a win. But at Baseball Prospectus, Rob Mains took a closer look to see if that doesn’t need to be updated. And lo and behold … it does. Sorta. Er, well, depending. Basically, while 10 runs is still a good estimate for the entirety of Major League history, it varies much more wildly from year-to-year based on the offensive environment. “If you said ’10 runs per game’ in 2012,” writes Mains at BP, “you were more than a full run too high. If you said it this past season, you were more than a run too low.” We most often bring up runs in this context when discussing WAR, defense, and/or pitch framing, so we’ll need to keep in mind how “off” our results might be if the current season is inflated or not.

53-year-old Rafael Palmeiro has not had much luck finding the starting point for his comeback just yet:

“No, not yet. I may have to go to Japan.” – Rafael Palmeiro on if he’s received any offers during his attempt to return to #MLB. #MLBNHotStove
— MLB Network PR (@MLBNetworkPR) January 12, 2018

But, hey, he’s still working on that swing:

Bat speed coming along. Swing feels great. pic.twitter.com/D18vLJhDKC

— Rafael Palmeiro (@Rafael_Palmeiro) January 11, 2018

pic.twitter.com/tu6QOmGwXo

— Rafael Palmeiro (@Rafael_Palmeiro) January 11, 2018

In case you missed the news earlier today, Andrew McCutchen was traded out of Pittsburgh to the San Francisco Giants. And while I’m glad to see him leave the NL Central (he was pretty good again last year), I will say that he was always one of the easiest non-Cubs players to like:

Andrew McCutchen Responds to His Right Field Assignment with Pure Class:https://t.co/PmjsmNqcsB pic.twitter.com/hIka6QiikF

— Baseball is Fun (@flippingbats) February 6, 2017

If you’re keeping score at home, you’ll note that the Giants now have three “face-of-the-franchise”-type position players in Buster Posey, Evan Longoria, and Andrew McCutchen. The thing is, even if they’re all still talented, they aren’t quite the players they were circa 2012-2013:

If it were 2012/2013, the Giants would be, terrifyingly awesome:
Buster Posey – 7.7 WAR (2012)
Andrew McCutchen – 8.4 WAR (2013)
Evan Longoria – 6.5 WAR (2013)

But it's 2018, and the projections are in:
Longoria – 3.0 WAR
McCutchen – 3.0 WAR
Posey – 4.6 WAR

Still good, but …

— Michael Cerami (@Michael_Cerami) January 15, 2018

Also, at least one defensive metric is extremely unkind to McCutchen as he reached age 30:

Fewest Defensive Runs Saved
Last 2 Seasons
Andrew McCutchen -42
Matt Kemp -35
José Reyes -34 pic.twitter.com/5fLhwnTxKz

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) January 15, 2018

And finally, from Baseball is Fun, does anybody remember the Army softball player Chris Coghlan stole his moves from?

Remember When That Army Softball Player Literally Jumped Over the Catcher to Score https://t.co/2CKbqrcZ4M pic.twitter.com/52d4fxSrvR

— Baseball is Fun (@flippingbats) January 15, 2018

Brett Taylor contributed to this post.

written by

Michael Cerami

Michael Cerami began covering the Chicago Cubs for Bleacher Nation as a part-time contributor in 2015. One year later, he joined Bleacher Nation full-time, covering the Chicago Cubs and Major League Baseball. Today, Michael runs Bleacher Nation, contributing as a writer (Cubs, MLB) and an editor for all sections of the site, including the Chicago Bears, Bulls, and Blackhawks, as well as MLB, NBA, NHL, and NFL. In 2019, Michael was the co-host of NBC Sports Chicago's Cubs Post-Game Show Outside the Ivy. You can find him on Twitter/X @Michael_Cerami

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MLBits: Pham Talks a Big Game, Giants Collecting Franchise Faces, Runs Per Win, More

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