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By now, if you’ve done any digging into the meaning behind the buzzword that “analytics” has become, you’ve become aware of Wins Above Replacement, or WAR. Today, Major League Baseball decided to take things a step further, and create a war between Baseball Reference and Fangraphs. Image courtesy of © Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports Thankfully this offseason we don’t have Major League Baseball owners delaying the start of 2023 through a lockout, but if you can think back to 2021 when that was the reality, an interesting proposal was made. Reporting from The Athletic’s Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal highlighted a desire for the league to do away with the current arbitration system. The plan was to instead calculate bonuses and increases for player salaries based on accumulated WAR from any given season. As things stand currently, teams have control over players for six years. They don’t become arbitration eligible immediately, and therefore are only offered salary increases based on the assessed league minimum. This is why players pushed so hard for increased pay, given so many are not rewarded with substantial draft bonuses. A player may work their way through the minor leagues making less than minimum wage, and then never see a true payday until years into their big league career (that’s if they make it that far). The problem with using Fangraphs’ WAR valuation to determine paychecks is that baseball owners are then placing importance on an outside entity to control the livelihood of their workforce. It seems counterproductive to players, as they would no longer be able to argue in favor of themselves based on other production, and WAR is biased in terms of creating value for relievers or starting pitchers in conjunction with those that play every day. In The Athletic’s report it said, “Agreeing to a system that keeps the best players under team control, and at a set scale of pay, for potentially a longer period of time than six years — the current time it takes to get free agency — could lessen those players’ earnings in the long run. And, if the top-earning players in the sport don’t have a way to grow their salaries, then other players’ salaries also might not grow over time.” While that didn’t ultimately come to pass in the newly agreed to CBA, Major League Baseball has now introduced a new statistic. Enter aWAR. Currently there is bWAR, which alludes to Baseball Reference’s calculation, and fWAR, which alludes to Fangraphs. aWAR, as described by MLB, is a straightforward average of the two numbers. It is literally defined as “average of fWAR and bWAR.” The immediate problem here is the nuance. Neither calculation is the same because both companies weigh certain aspects of performance differently. A player could be seen better by one or the other, and therefore have that as a negotiating tactic to their advantage. With this being sent out in a memo as an official statistic, MLB has effectively sought to implement their WAR proposal within the constraints of arbitration. As players look to file at a higher number than their team may view them worthy, the argument on the team’s side can be made officially around the concepts of an accepted aWAR statistic. Of course team’s could’ve done this on their own previously, but it would’ve been a hypothetical suggestion with no one having to adhere to the aWAR principal. It will be interesting to see how writers utilize this new statistic, and how much we hear about during the upcoming arbitration cycle. It’s certainly not nothing that the league introduced this statistic in advance of those discussions for teams and players in 2023, and that can’t be something seen as favorable for the MLBPA. There doesn’t seem to be a reason that aWAR would be advertised on either Baseball Reference or Fangraphs sites as it would counteract the reason to have their own statistic featured prominently, and would provoke a reason to consult the other entity. Either way, this seems like the league saying one of those things they do but shouldn’t say out loud. Let’s see how this goes. What do you think? View full article

There wasn’t much news about the impending CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement) situation this week, but Rob Manfred sure made it substantial when speaking to wrap up the quarterly owner's meetings. We are now just 12 days away from the expiration of the current CBA, and while there have been some moves regarding free agency transactions, they have generally been of the same type. There has yet to be a long-term deal struck with any of the big names, and those that have signed are doing so on what amounts to one-year contracts. Players seem to be waiting for a bit more clarity as to what their eventual earnings opportunity will look like, and that makes sense as it’s their side being squeezed in the current CBA. It is maybe somewhat surprising that we have seen a handful of extensions, and it’s also good that there have been a few moves for fans to dissect. You have to wonder if some of the extensions are being agreed to because players are looking for an opportunity to guarantee their money while they can. We will see how things play out after a new CBA is agreed upon, but it's certainly possible that security for those signing one-year deals is also a determining factor. While Manfred did say that “we are focused on making an agreement prior to December 1st,” it’s the follow-up comment that looks more futile. In suggesting that shutting things down this winter is worthwhile if it gets things done, he’s basically calling the players' bluff and forcing them into a situation where missed games may be their only opportunity to push back on ownership. During this part of the yearly schedule, players are turning their focus toward opportunities for the season ahead. By stopping that process for weeks, or even months, Manfred has effectively told the workforce the only part of the year that carries weight is the portion where owners are generating revenues. Major League Baseball Players Association Executive Director Tony Clark has his work cut out for him. Right now, as Major League Baseball continues to be lopsided from a revenue-sharing standpoint, players are squeezed from a potential earning standpoint. The recently-announced licensing switch has baseball pushing everything to Fanatics. The league, and effectively ownership, has a stake in the company while none of those revenues are currently slated to be dispersed to players. By suggesting the only detrimental portion of this situation being lost games, Manfred has created an opportunity for players to once again be the victims of public backlash as fans will be the ones to lose should action be delayed or canceled. We’re very quickly careening towards December 1, and the Commissioner’s office’s gamesmanship is well underway. We will continue to try to keep updated on news and rumors regarding a potential new CBA. If you see anything online, please leave a link in the comments below and continue the conversation. MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook, or email View full article

The Big Story dropped, as the Twins have a deal in place with slugger Logan Morrison. You can find Twins Daily stories on it here, here and here. Oh, and here. But to some of us old timers, there was even bigger news: the possible return of the infamous bullpen cars. That’s the most fun and fairly straightforward news that resulted from a long interview with MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark regarding pace of play. That nostalgic, semi-ridiculous, totally unnecessary lovable, promotional crutch of my youth is what you’ll want to hang onto – we’ll get back to it – because once you leave that simple idea, things become a lot messier.In fact, messy is the best way to describe MLB and the length of their games. The games are longer because they’re messy. The solutions are messy. The positions of both the league and the MLBPA are messy. And the agreement that was reached for this year’s games is messy, too. Even the use of the word “agreement” is messy. The MLBPA worked with the league on the issue, but opposed most of the solutions. As a result, the agreement simply said that the MLBPA would not oppose the changes, which is safe to do because they had almost no power to oppose. The solutions are messy, so I’ll provide a link to the details. The summary is this: only six visits to the mound per game, and that includes the catcher. Commercial breaks between innings will be slightly shorter. And for now, there will be no clock for anything this year, with the suggestion that the players will try to police themselves. But it’s certainly not ruled out for next year. The MLBPA’s position on the changes is messy, too. Certainly the players would love to make sure that they don’t spend an extra hour at the ballpark. “Players don’t want to be in a position where they’re playing three-and-a-half or four hour games,” Clark says, and he went back to that point repeatedly. But what is less clear is what they’re willing to propose. Because there are game integrity issues about which the players are concerned. We’ve seen changes that were supposed to improve the game have unintended consequences, like instant replay totally changing how stolen bases are called. The concern is that rule changes will impact the game. “It’s not a matter of not appreciating advancements in the game. It’s not that,” says Clark. “As it relates to a pitch clock or not a pitch clock, the guys - on its most fundamental basis – just don’t believe that a pace of game violation should potentially change ... the outcome of a game.” In this case it’s the players who are being the baseball purists. By doing so, they’re at odds with their own self-interest in shortening the games.But they're not alone. The fans face the same dilemma. “Baseball games are too long” is becoming as ubiquitous a cliché as “MTV doesn’t play music videos” but the truth is that for the last decade game times were fairly steady prior to the past six years. Per Baseball Reference, the first time that MLB games averaged over three hours was in 2000, likely a result of the offensive explosion of that era. But it retreated, and didn’t exceed that mark again until 2013. Like players, fans also care about the time of the game so long as it doesn’t affect their team. By all means, if the opposing team’s closer is taking too long in between pitches, they should be penalized. But if your slugger needs to readjust his batting gloves for the fifth time, you want that to be his prerogative. Of course, it’s easy for fans and players to be conflicted, because ultimately they don’t get much say. That could change in the next Collective Bargaining Agreement, which is still four seasons away. We’ll find out if the players really want to oppose impacting the games and how important it is. Is it really important enough to open a new front in the negotiations with management? Are they willing to give up something financially for their fundamental belief on the integrity of the game? (And, more cynically, is that one of the reasons that MLB is pushing this agenda to annoy the players?) The MLBPA’s position would be strengthened if they released some concrete proposals, and that’s where we might see the return of bullpen cars. Clark gave some background information about that idea, sort of tongue-in-cheek. It was the result of talks about reducing the time of pitcher changes, which average almost three minutes per change, since pitching changes are going up in frequency. Bullpen cars were one idea to help. “And it was a nostalgic one that any fan who has been around the game, and has loved our game as long as a number of them have, can appreciate the days when there were cars,” clarified Clark. Bullpen cars! It’s nice to see one idea that fans, ownership and players can agree on. We’ll need to wait on it, but we’ll also be waiting for the owners and players to sort out the rest of this pace-of-play mess. Twins Notes The Twins beat the Rays 5-4 on Sunday afternoon in their Grapefruit League home opener. Kyle Gibson started, was relieved by Addison Reed, who was followed by Ryan Pressly, so a fair number of potential Opening Day roster pitchers appeared. The lineup also contained several probable starting players. After the game, manager Paul Molitor revealed that Joe Mauer and Miguel Sano will likely make their first spring training appearance on Wednesday, presumably in the home half of the split squad games scheduled that day. Furthermore, the current plan is to have Sano play in the field, though he didn’t specifically say if it would be at first base, third base, or center field. ;-) For more notes and speculation today, I’d encourage you to check out a new feature on Twins Daily that we’re trying out: Twins Daily Nightly Wrap. It’s all the inside stuff we couldn’t fit into the column in a short audio file that you can listen to on your smart phone or computer. Let us know how you like it. P.S. No, but seriously, the bullpen car will be awesome. This is a no-brainer. Make them super fast to speed up gametime. Sponsor the hell out of them. So long as it's a car wearing a baseball cap, we, the fans, are IN. Click here to view the article

Every day we're in spring training, there are lots and lots of notes and speculation that can't fit into our stories. So we're going to talk about those for 10 minutes or so occasionally in the Twins Daily Nightly Wrap. You can listen on your smart phone at work at this link. Tonight's topics include Logan Morrison, Miguel Sano's health, a conversation with MLBPA Executive Director about the slow free agent market, Kyle Gibson's turnaround and arbitration process and Ervin Santans's finger.Listen here. Click here to view the article