He leads all rookie pitchers with 1.0 WAR, and is tied with the thus-far sensational position players Evan Gattis and A.J. Pollock. Sunday night, Hyun-Jin Ryu completed six innings against the San Francisco Giants, and though he took a loss, Ryu induced weak contact from a line-drive team. If the national audience was paying attention, they saw perhaps the best rookie in the league.
Seth Smith continues to mature as a hitter. Despite a recent cool stretch, the 30-year-old Oakland A’s outfielder is off to a .283/.366/.455 start. A career year may be in the offing, as well as a shedding of the platoon-player label.
A left-handed hitter, Smith came into the campaign with a career .614 OPS in limited at bats against same-handed slants. This season he is getting more opportunities versus southpaws, and the results have been positive — he’s hitting .345./.387/.586. The sample size is too small to be meaningful, but the same can’t be said of his efforts to fine-tune.
Smith talked about the evolution of his hitting approach — against righties and lefties alike — when the A’s visited Fenway Park in late April.
——
Seth Smith: “When you get to the big leagues, you’re taking that next step from just kind of swinging and trying to hit home runs to working counts. The longer you’re around, the more you pay attention to what the pitchers are trying to do. Strengths and weaknesses become more important. Over time, you learn how to be a smarter hitter.
“I don’t think you ever have it completely figured out, but I’ve made a steady progression. I have a good idea of what I’m trying to do up there. You need to be right physically, but being right mentally is equally important.
“An adjustment I’ve made is not worrying about getting deep into counts, nor worrying about putting the first strike in play. It’s about waiting for the strike you’re looking for. That comes with at bats and knowing what the pitcher is going to do late in the count. The more comfortable you are — regardless of the count — the better chance you’re going to have of success.
| 11:58 |
: Szymborski ist angekommen. Zittern unter seiner nerdlichen Blick!
|
| 11:59 |
Soriano or Minor RoS for fantasy? |
| 11:59 |
: Depends what you need, really.
|
| 11:59 |
Will Ian Kennedy rebound? |
| 12:00 |
: Yeah, but he’s more like 2012 and 2010 than 2011.
|
| 12:01 |
Marcell Ozuna have a good year? |
The Orioles shocked the baseball world by making the American League playoffs last season, based largely on a 29-9 record in one-run games. This .763 winning percentage in one-run games was the best in baseball and had every analyst who knew how to calculate a Pythagorean record screaming, “Lucky!” Was the Orioles record in one-run games lucky? Or, the better question is, how much of it was luck?
Several high-profile hitters have been slowed by back injuries this season. The Yankees’ Kevin Youkilis is on the disabled list with a sprained back for the third time in his career. Shane Victorino missed eight games from late April to early May because of a bad back. Jose Bautista missed about a week of play with back spasms. When back problems occur to hitters, fans should not be surprised to see a marked loss of future production from those players.
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.
1. Three Notable Eastern League Performances
2. SCOUT Leaderboards: Double-A Eastern League
3. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
4. Today’s Complete Schedule
Three Notable Eastern League Performances
The leaderboards for the Double-A Eastern League are below. Here are brief notes on three players from those leaderboards.
• J.R. Murphy and Christian Vazquez are both (a) among the Eastern League’s top prospect-age hitters per SCOUT, and (b) 22-year-old catching prospects. The former is in the Yankees system; the latter, in the Red Sox system. They’ve both posted walk-to-strikeout ratios above 1.0 so far, while also showing above-average power relative to the league. Sox Prospects refers to Vazquez as an “excellent defensive catcher.” Murphy split time between catching and third base in the low minors, which could potentially stall his development, although reports suggest that he’s improving constantly.
Ben and Sam discuss Scott Kazmir’s win over the weekend, then talk about the Angels’ outlook for the rest of this season and beyond.
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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.
1. Featured Game: Boston at Texas, 15:05 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule
Featured Game: Boston at Texas, 15:05 ET
Regarding Texas, Who’s Starting for Them
Starting this game for Texas is talented right-hander Yu Darvish.
Regarding Yu Darvish, What He’s Done This Season
In terms of what Yu Darvish has done this season, here are numbers which tell much of that that story: 38.2 IP , 38.4% K, 8.6% BB, 51.9% GB, 2.18 SIERA, 56 xFIP-, 1.8 WAR, 1.6 RA9-Wins
Ranks: Darvish Relative to the League
Here are those same numbers as above, except also now with Darvish’s rank in each relative to the league’s 107 qualified starters: 38.2 IP (37th), 38.4% K (1st), 8.6% BB (74th), 51.9% GB (21st), 2.18 SIERA (1st), 56 xFIP- (2nd), 1.8 WAR (3rd), 1.6 RA9-Wins (12th).
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.
1. Discretionary NERD Scores by Robert J. Baumann
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule
Discretionary NERD Scores by Robert J. Baumann
It has become customary in these Notes for the handsome author to assign NERD scores*, at his discretion, to those pitchers who’ve accumulated fewer than 20 innings as a starter — with a view, that is, to completing the day’s NERD Game Scores and, as a result, making all well within the Republic.
*NERD being the present site’s very proprietary watchability score.
It so happened, however, that the author composed today’s edition of the Notes both at a Milwaukee-area cafe and beside NotGraphs contributor/existential blunderbuss Robert J. Baumann. It was to Baumann whom the present author conceded his NERD privileges for the day.
Below are the five pitchers who are starting this afternoon/evening but who’ve also thrown fewer than 20 innings as a starter this season — each accompanied by Baumann’s discretionary NERD score and his justification of same (both, of course, being subject to the derision of the Outraged Public).
Pitcher: Tony Cingrani, LHP, Cincinnati
Discretionary NERD: 11
Baumann’s Explanation: He’s striking out batters at an amazing pace. Not really walking guys. And he looks a little bit like Bryce Harper. In the face, I mean. [Note: Baumann has celebrated Cingrani recently in the fire-hot pages of NotGraphs.]
Greetings FanGraphs readers, I am Drew Sheppard, and if you recognize my name it is probably from the Yu Darvish pitch selection GIF that made the rounds last week. Over the coming months, it is my goal to use similar techniques to put a visual spin on some of the information FanGraphs has always provided, including but not limited to similar pitcher breakdowns.
