Morning Mound Visit: sabermetrics news - 3/8/19

FanGraphs | Craig Edwards: All teams have dead money, but some teams have significantly more than others. This year’s honor goes to the Dodgers, who have over $40 million in dead money, $23 million alone from the Homer Bailey trade (who they released). The Blue Jays are paying all of Troy Tulowitzki’s salary, as well, and the Red Sox are still paying Pablo Sandoval (lol) and Rusney Castillo, as are the Mets still paying David Wright.

Baseball Prospectus | Gerald Schifman ($): The Dodgers are known for their extensive pitching depth, and Andrew Friedman has argued that starters can be overrated in that they throw fewer innings, thus making your rotating bullpen sometimes more important. Every team has followed suit, and now there are twice as many minor league pitcher transaction (either a call-up or option) since 2009, and it has been growing ~9% a year. Teams are essentially treating their 40-man as a rotating 25-man these days.

The Ringer | Ben Lindbergh & Rob Arthur: In yet another in their scouting report series, they show that with the advent of technology and analytics, this information could endanger scouts. Teams have employed more scouts recently, yes, but they are required to understand spin rate, and Trackman, and all of the niche things a data scientist would only have to know in the past. And with teams like the Astros cutting back on scouts, it could send a shock-wave throughout the league that other information is better or more enriching than scouting reports.