Ben and Sam discuss the Jose Fernandez injury and talk to Corey Dawkins and Doug Thorburn about the Tommy John rehab process and why pitchers keep getting hurt.
Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Eric Hosmer is still sitting on one home run as we approach the one-fourth point of the regular season. He hasn’t hit fewer than 14 dingers yet in a year, so it’s clear that Hosmer’s still looking for his power stroke. But don’t make the mistake of believing that Hosmer has yet to make a positive contribution — he’s got a 120 wRC+, which is basically right on what he did a year ago. Let’s keep doing that, comparing last year to this year. The offense has been identical, overall. Hosmer last year was nine runs below average defensively. Hosmer this year is on pace for about -7. So in a sense, Eric Hosmer has been just as good a player. But, last season, Hosmer was worth just over three wins. This season, he’s on pace to be worth just over one win. How do you explain that, when a guy’s been hitting the same and fielding the same? Is WAR losing the mind that it doesn’t have?
That’s one option. Or you could look at WAR’s other, oft-forgotten input. You think about baserunning value when it comes to burners like Billy Hamilton and Jacoby Ellsbury. It’s easy to kind of forget about it when you’re dealing with a first baseman or a DH. But, to this point, according to our leaderboards, Hosmer has been the worst baserunner in baseball, at almost five runs below average, already. That puts him on pace for -21, eclipsing Kendrys Morales‘ recent record of -14 in 2009. Hosmer, presumably, won’t keep up this impossible pace. Previously, for his career, he was actually above average. But how did things get to this point? How has Hosmer already cost his team that many runs in such a small sample of games?
There are .gifs, and, unfortunately, they are big.
Episode 448
Dave Cameron is both (a) the managing editor of FanGraphs and (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio — during which edition he analyzes the baseball that’s there and also the baseball that isn’t.
Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.
You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.
Audio after the jump. (Approximately 45 min play time.)
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
By now you might’ve read that, Sunday afternoon, Clayton Kershaw gave up a home run on his curveball. Clayton Kershaw does not often give up a home run on his curveball. According to some sources, it was the first time Kershaw’s curve had been hit out in the regular season, ever. This is a disputed instance, from April 2011. We do know, for certain, Kershaw gave up a playoff dinger on his curve in 2009. Matt Holliday hit it, but unfortunately for him, the same game for Holliday became differently eventful in the later innings. Also, 2009 was before Clayton Kershaw became Clayton Kershaw. But anyway! The point is that Kershaw’s curve doesn’t get taken yard. It got taken yard, so that’s interesting.
Lots of people have come at this from the Kershaw side. Not a lot of attention has been paid to the Brandon Hicks side. Hicks is 28 and a former prospect, and a big reason why he’s never gotten regular big-league playing time is because he hasn’t been able to consistently hit non-fastballs. Since 2002, 1,308 position players have batted in the majors at least 100 times. Hicks has posted the third-lowest contact rate, at 59%. According to PITCHf/x, Hicks has swung at 172 non-fastballs and whiffed at 60% of them. Hicks is an all-or-nothing sort, and maybe that’s precisely the sort that was going to take Kershaw’s curve out. But prior to the homer, it’s not like Hicks looked comfortable against Kershaw breaking balls.
During a conversation with Alex Rios about the changes he’s made over his career, the Texas Rangers outfielder made a comment about an accepted truth in baseball. His comment was seemingly simple but hid one of the more complicated aspects of the game.
We were talking about his bad year in Chicago in 2011, when he hit .227 with 13 homers and 11 stolen bases, and his wRC+ was 40 percent below the league average. When pushed to come up with a reason for his renaissance since that low, Rios could only think of one thing he’d really changed.
“I was trying to get deeper into the count and see more pitches and be a little more patient at the plate, to make myself hit a better pitch,” he said of 2012, when his career got back on track.
Rios did take more pitches per plate appearance in 2012 than he did in 2011 — .05 pitch more per plate appearance, or about 30 more pitches over the course of a full season. Not a ton more pitches, but more. And it’s a trend he’s continued since, to the point that he’s now back above league average in the stat (3.85).
| 12:02 |
: And heeeeeeeeeer come the pretzels.
|
| 12:04 |
: First off, our off-topic business, the Electoral Brawllege.
|
| 12:04 |
:
|
| 12:04 |
:
|
| 12:05 |
Hey, Dan. After five straight seasons of playing 150 games or more, is Ryan Braun officially now an injury-risk player? If so, should I consider dealing him when he returns and puts up a couple of good weeks. And what should I ask for him? |
| 12:05 |
: It’s probably a little premature to call him an injury risk player.
|
Each weekday during the minor-league season, FanGraphs is providing a status update on multiple rookie-eligible players. Note that Age denotes the relevant prospect’s baseball age (i.e. as of July 1st of the current year); Top-15, the prospect’s place on Marc Hulet’s preseason organizational list; and Top-100, that same prospect’s rank on Hulet’s overall top-100 list.
Of the 33 players selected in the first round of last year’s amateur draft, 30 of them recorded either a plate appearance or inning pitched at the professional level. What follows is a brief report on the three who didn’t do that.
Phil Bickford, RHP, Cal State Fullerton (Profile)
Level: College Age: 18 Top-15: N/A Top-100: N/A
Line: 64.1 IP, 9.1 K/9, 1.7 BB/9, 0.28 HR/9, 2.24 ERA
Summary
The only unsigned draftee from last year, Bickford is pitching effectively (although perhaps with less velocity) in a hybrid role for Cal State Fullerton.
Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.
Most Highly Rated Game
Atlanta at San Francisco | 22:15 ET
Gavin Floyd (7.0 IP, 82 xFIP-, 0.2 WAR) faces Tim Lincecum (35.2 IP, 89 xFIP-, 0.0 WAR). The former was effective against St. Louis last Tuesday in his return to the majors following Tommy John surgery and the subsequent rehab, recording a 5:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio and 52.6% ground-ball rate in 7.0 inning (box). With regard to the Braves and Giants as clubs, they represent two of the five teams in the National League currently with a greater than 50% chance of qualifying for the divisional series.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: San Francisco Radio or Television.
On Friday night, I had a crazy thought. Over the last few days, I’ve kind of fallen in love with this crazy thought, and the two people I’ve shared it with kind of loved it too. Though they were drinking at the time I shared it with them, so now I’m going to present it to a group of (probably) sober readers, and see if my crazy thought maybe isn’t so crazy.
A baseball game is nine innings, and occasionally more. Okay, rain makes it so that it can also last fewer than nine innings as well, but outside of weather problems forcing an early end, baseball games are nine inning affairs, with the availability of extras if needed. This is the sport we all know and love. But maybe there’s a different version of a baseball game that could be just as great. Or maybe even better.
Ben and Sam discuss the Dodgers’ perplexingly slow start and the NL West race.
Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS