Morning Mound Visit: sabermetrics news - 2/9/19

FanGraphs | Jay Jaffe: Rest in peace to one of the biggest legends in the sport’s history, Frank Robinson. He was a Triple Crown winner, first ballot Hall of Famer, fighter of housing discrimination and segregation, ambassador of the game and Medal of Freedom winner, and the first African-American manager ever. This was the most inner-circle of inner-circle greats, both on and off the field.

Hareeb’s Hangout | Hareeb al-Saq: This is pretty math-heavy, but Hareeb has been an excellent source of DRC+ criticism and I expect it to continue in this series. With their new update he finds that the latest update decided that batters were worth 4800 fewer runs without changing replacement level, which is weird and probably something that should be fixed and discussed in the future.

ESPN Insider | Bradford Doolittle ($): One of the reasons teams aren’t spending is due to playoff positioning, where some are outright tanking, and others basically have a playoff position (or a team strength thereabouts) pretty much locked in, like the Yankees, Red Sox, and Indians. But if the divisions were trimmed to just four in the league, it could force teams on the cusp to bulk up to make the playoff cut, like the Rays who would be a fringe wild card contender otherwise.