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Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Newsletter Excerpt, February 25, 2025 -- "An Interminable Rebuild, and the Nationals"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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Mark Lerner’s Nationals have been the worst team in baseball this decade, with four last-place finishes and last year’s distant fourth. Legitimately hampered by a pandemic season that left them unable to capitalize on 2019’s surprise title, the Nationals embarked on a rebuild in 2021 that has produced a strong core. The last few offseasons, though, they have refused to spend money around that core, leaving them once again on the outside looking in at the NL’s contenders. Even this winter, with James Wood, Dylan Crews, Mackenzie Gore, and CJ Abrams comprising a strong collection of inexpensive building blocks, Lerner made it sound like the team is years away: “There’s no point in getting a superstar and paying him hundreds of millions of dollars to win two or three more games.”
 
 
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Monday, February 24, 2025

Newsletter Excerpt, February 24, 2025 -- "MLB v. ESPN"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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ESPN just doesn’t need baseball’s volume the way it did 35 years ago, when it would show six games a week, including multiple doubleheaders. NFL draft coverage dominates April, then the NBA and NHL playoffs get them through May and into June. The WNBA eats some of the innings baseball used to in June and July, and is the bridge to NFL preseason coverage. Throw in a hundred hours of Little League World Series games -- which are a lot cheaper to broadcast -- plus a bunch of tennis and golf, and ESPN can fill out its schedule just fine without Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge. 
 
 
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Saturday, February 22, 2025

Newsletter Excerpt, February 22, 2025 -- "Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and the Blue Jays"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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The Jays were rewarded for spending a lot of money and talent on their starting rotation the last few years. Since 2022, when they signed Kevin Gausman, the Jays are ninth in the majors in WAR produced by starters. Gausman, Jose Berrios, and Chris Bassitt have all been worth their contracts, and the Jays don’t miss what they traded to the Twins for Berrios. In 2 1/2 years in Toronto, Yusei Kikuchi made every start at the level of a #4 starter. They made the playoffs twice with these guys. There’s justifiable frustration in Toronto that they haven’t been able to add the six-win superstar they need, but the investments this front office made in market-value pitching are up there with any team’s in the last decade.
 
 
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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Newsletter Excerpt, February 19, 2025 -- "Product Investment, and the Dodgers"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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The Dodgers have the best team in baseball, the best ownership, a top-five farm system, and now two titles in five years. They’re the favorite to repeat. Here’s the thing, though. If you advance them to the Division Series by acclamation and make them a 60/40 favorite in every playoff series, they’d have just a 22% chance to win the World Series. Make them a farcical 67/33 favorite in every series -- completely unrealistic in baseball -- and they’d still have just a 29% chance of winning it all. The Dodgers may be maxing out everything a team can do to win, and they still can’t squeeze the drama out of the season.
 
 
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Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Newsletter Excerpt, February 18, 2025 -- "That's What the Money Is For"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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The team comes first, within reason, and upgrading from the worst defensive third baseman in the game to an above-average one -- so the team can win more -- is a perfectly valid reason to move on from whatever promises were made. It is, in fact, what the team is supposed to do. We’ve heard for years about how good a manager Alex Cora is; this is what he gets paid to do, sell an unhappy player on a decision that is best for the team. Use a carrot, use a stick, but in the end, Cora has to put the best team on the field.
 
 

 

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Monday, February 17, 2025

Newsletter Excerpt, February 17, 2025 -- "Cole Ragans and the Royals"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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What matters most is that no matter where he plays, India leads off in front of Witt. Royals leadoff hitters -- mostly Garcia -- had a .270 OBP last year, worst in baseball by 22 points and eighth-worst in recorded history (min. 500 leadoff PA). Witt was sixth in baseball in plate appearances but 34th in PA with runners in scoring position and 48th in PA with runners on base. Adding India and his .352 career OBP was a surgical strike aimed at this problem. Even if Witt regresses from his ten-win season, having India atop the lineup will make the lineup work a lot better and add 30-40 real runs to the team’s output. 
 
 
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