Newsletter Excerpt, February 27, 2020 -- "Yasiel Puig"

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. 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 nearly 25 years.

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"It’s a harder project than you would think to place Puig on a roster. His righthandedness, his inability to play center, his perceived platoon issues, and his history of being difficult all chip away at his market value. If you’re signing a four-win player, you live with the issues. If you’re signing a two-win player, you find reasons to look somewhere else."

Newsletter Excerpt, February 26, 2020 -- "New York, New York"

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. 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 nearly 25 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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"The Mets’ last major-league transaction was the signing of Betances on December 24. A team in the sweet spot for making additions goes into 2020 with a payroll nearly identical to what it spent in 2019. Perhaps more germane, the team has less than $80 million in commitments in 2021; there was clearly room to sign talent to long-term contracts in an effort to close the gap on the Braves and Nationals, and the Mets just didn’t do it.

"Then again, given what Brodie Van Wagenen has done in his 15 months as GM, maybe this is for the best."

Newsletter Excerpt, February 21, 2020 -- "Fine, I'll Write About the Astros"

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. 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 nearly 25 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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"The Astros’ sign-stealing scheme is a difference of degree, not kind, from the cheating that is a throughline in baseball back to the 1800s. It’s not some leap, some crime no one had ever considered before Carlos Beltran had an idea. Even the technological aspect isn’t new; the technology, of course, is, and that made the Astros’ sign-stealing more effective than previous schemes that employed buzzers or telescopes and lights. This is what baseball players do, what they have done. This is what baseball organizations do -- bend rules, bend morality, to win more games, now and in the future."

Newsletter Excerpt, February 20, 2020 -- "[Missing Starter] and the Angels

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. 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 nearly 25 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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"At a projected payroll of $187 million, though, you wonder if both buying Rendon and spending another $20 million on one of those #2/#3 types (instead of choosing between the two paths) would have been a wise investment, even if it would have put the Angels over the tax threshold. As is, the Angels need a number of things to go right just to close ground on the Rays, A’s and whoever lands second in the AL Central."

Newsletter Excerpt, February 18, 2020 -- "Hyun-Jin Ryu 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. 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 nearly 25 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’m struck by how a relatively young team looks like it could be pretty bad defensively. Bo Bichette is a big downgrade from Freddy Galvis, who was here for three months in 2019. The outfield corners will be bad unless Anthony Alford somehow steals a job. Cavan Biggio had surprisingly good numbers in about half a season at second base; that the Jays also used him on three corners, though, is an indication that he’s not going to be an asset defensively at second. There aren’t many better options in the system, though, and besides, these Jays will be built around scoring runs, not preventing them. The three-sons top of the lineup is one of the better stories we have at a time we need all the good baseball stories we can get."

Newsletter Excerpt, February 14, 2020 -- "Get Down, Loogy Oogy Oogy"

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. 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 nearly 25 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 used to complain about the way modern bullpen usage cut down on the number of roles for pitchers. I don’t expect to see 1980s-style, anything-goes usage again, but I can remember a guy like Chuck McElroy throwing 101 innings in 71 appearances just before matchup ball really took over. There used to be room for multi-inning lefties, or even complete-inning lefties, and then for a generation MLB lefty relievers either had to be closers or LOOGYs. If this rule change means that baseball teams stop trying to develop LOOGYs, and instead let their left-handed relievers grow into wider roles, that should make for a better game. 

Newsletter Excerpt, February 13, 2020 -- "Potpourri"

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. 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 nearly 25 years.

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"My solution remains eliminating two teams, going back to four sevens and division winners only to the playoffs. The Division Series round, while producing some memorable moments, has chipped away at the importance of the regular season, denied us great pennant races, and has never truly found a broadcast home. While I don’t expect to win this argument, I’ll keep making it, because from where we are right now, making the playoffs more exclusive and shorter is far better than making them less exclusive and longer."

Newsletter Excerpt, February 11, 2020 -- "Hunter Pence and the Giants"

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. 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 nearly 25 years.

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"The Giants are what a bad team looked like before tanking showed us just where the floor could be. The Giants lost 98 games in 2017, but leveled off at 89 and 85 defeats the last two years, and will probably be in that range again. It makes for a marginally better experience if you live and die with the team each day, but with a middling -- though improving -- farm system, eventually the Giants are going to have to bottom out. The 2021-23 stretch looms as a tough run for this team."

Newsletter Excerpt, February 5, 2020 -- "The Mookie Betts Trade"

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. 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 nearly 25 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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 "Just for 2020, this trade doesn’t make the Red Sox a lot worse. It makes them a little worse, albeit in a range where the marginal wins they’re giving up affect their wild-card chances. It caps their ceiling while saving them perhaps $60 million in salary and tax payments, as well as resetting their penalty structure in future years. The Red Sox only traded 2020 Mookie Betts; they didn’t have the 2021-2028 version. Evaluating this trade as if they did, as if employing that version was simply a matter of choice, is an error."

Newsletter Excerpt, February 4, 2020 -- "Hard LABR"

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. 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 nearly 25 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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"Tonight I’ll be returning to the draft table as part of LABR, specifically the 15-team mixed-league draft I took part in a year ago. That team started well but finished [redacted], despite picks as successful as Stephen Strasburg (4.7), Jeff McNeil (18.7) and Mike Soroka (21.9). I had injury issues, but not as bad as many other teams did. I did make a couple of costly in-season mistakes that tied my hands and led to a slow fade in the second half."