Newsletter Excerpt, December 29, 2018 -- "Nelson Cruz and the Twins"

This is an excerpt from 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. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

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"The Twins start the year with their best rotation in a decade, and certainly with the one with the highest upside since then. If the key to the 2019 Twins is those three homegrown position players, right behind them in importance is this collection of homegrown starters, all but Odorizzi and Pineda. This could be a very strong starting rotation."

Newsletter Excerpt, December 27, 2018 -- "My Ballot"

This is an excerpt from 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. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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"I don’t, and likely never will, have a vote, so I don’t have to adhere to the ten-man limit. With that in mind, these are the 11 players on the ballot I consider fully qualified for the Hall of Fame:

Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens
Roy Halladay
Edgar Martinez
Mike Mussina
Andy Pettitte
Manny Ramirez
Mariano Rivera
Scott Rolen
Curt Schilling
Sammy Sosa"

Newsletter Excerpt, December 26, 2018 -- "The Brotherhood of the Traveling Contract"

This is an excerpt from 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. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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"This trade wasn’t designed to do that, anyway. This trade is just the latest example of a team wanting to not pay Matt Kemp to play baseball for them, and finding a creative way to do so. In the last 2 1/2 years, Kemp has been traded for Hector Olivera, who never played again; for Scott Kazmir, who will probably never play again; and for Homer Bailey, who was the third-worst pitcher in baseball over the last two years, while being paid $44 million.

"Matt Kemp didn’t sign the worst contract in baseball history, but he did sign, perhaps, the most interesting contract in baseball history."

Newsletter Excerpt, December 20, 2018 -- "The Shift"

This is an excerpt from 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. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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"Banning the shift is doesn’t balance offense and defense. It is a welfare program for a subset of players who won’t adjust on their own. Baseball has never, in its long history, picked out handful of players and made a rule just for them. That’s what banning the shift would be, and it’s a terrible precedent to set."

Newsletter Excerpt, December 17, 2018 -- "Billy Hamilton and the Royals"

This is an excerpt from 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. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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"One of the most visible ways in which power pitching has changed the game is that it has overpowered the Hamilton class. There’s a high minimum strength standard now, and if you don’t reach it, you can’t play. Billy Hamilton doesn’t have a career .245 batting average because he’s obstinate but, rather, because you can’t beat modern pitching by 'just slapping the ball and running.' The game that Willie Wilson could play 40 years ago, that Otis Nixon could play 30 years ago, that Ichiro Suzuki and Juan Pierre could play even a decade ago, is gone.

"Billy Hamilton’s career is just another thing we’ve lost to pitchers becoming witches. Everything comes back to velocity. Everything."

Newsletter Excerpt, December 11, 2018 -- "Tyson Ross and the Tigers"

This is an excerpt from 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. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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"Some of those starter prospects could land in this pen for a little while. Ron Gardenhire was the Twins’ manager when Johan Santana was coming into his own in 2002 and 2003, and he used Santana in the bullpen on the way to Santana becoming a superstar. He managed Francisco Liriano, in a similar fashion, to an All-Star season in 2006, though Liriano almost immediately broke down. That doesn’t mean Manning or Faedo or Casey Mize will become Santana, just that Gardenhire has some experience breaking in a starter through the pen."

Newsletter Excerpt, December 10, 2018 -- "The Veterans Committee Strikes Again"

This is an excerpt from 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. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $39.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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"We need to be able to say ;This was a great player who didn’t meet the qualifications of a Hall of Famer' without being positioned as the skunks at the party. I can have all the respect I should for the careers of Lee Smith and Harold Baines, which were substantial, while also saying they were not qualified for the Hall."

Newsletter Excerpt, November 30, 2018: "Hidden Revenue Sharing"

This is an excerpt from 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. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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"That money, that baseline guaranteed cash that is more about the media and advertising landscape than anything baseball has done itself, is the single biggest driver of competitive imbalance today. Too many teams take that money and lock in a guaranteed profit. For almost all of baseball history, a team’s bottom line was connected to its performance on the field. Slowly, and now more rapidly, that is not the case. Just having a franchise is enough to be in the black. No, $60 million alone doesn’t do that, but that $60 million, which is created unequally and shared equally, is enough that you can do the bare minimum locally and carry no financial risk."

Newsletter Excerpt, November 20, 2018: Mariners/Yankees Trade

This is an excerpt from 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. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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"So trading Paxton was the right decision, and it will presumably be followed by more trades. Edwin Diaz is a perfect trade candidate, a reliever who has been worked hard and who is coming off a strong season. The 2019-20 Mariners don’t need a brand-name closer, and I’m pretty sure we’ve seen more than half of Diaz’s career WAR already. If he’s still here on Opening Day, it’s a mistake.

"I’d shop Jean Segura (29 next year, signed through 2022) as well. There’s a limit to how low the payroll can go, with Cano, Hernandez, and Seager all probably immovable, but this is now an exercise in acquiring value for 2021 and beyond. Jerry Dipoto took the first, hardest step; let’s see if he keeps walking."