Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, purple for NotGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community.
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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
Washington at Cincinnati | 16:05 ET
Gio Gonzalez (86.2 IP, 99 xFIP-, 1.4 WAR) faces Johnny Cueto (148.2 IP, 84 xFIP-, 2.8 WAR). Of some (perhaps trivial) interest regarding the Washington Nationals: the club features three players (Anthony Rendon, Denard Span, and Jayson Werth) to have produced more than four runs by means of baserunning — a fifth of all major leaguers, that total, to have crossed the four-run threshold by that measure this season.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Washington Radio.
**Updated at bottom**
Until yesterday, when I thought of Ryan Raburn, I thought of one thing. A year ago, 399 batters came to the plate at least 150 times. Raburn finished 13th among them in wRC+, right between David Ortiz and Shin-Soo Choo. This year, 322 batters have come to the plate at least 150 times. Raburn ranks 319th among them in wRC+, right between Andrew Romine and Mark Ellis. So, Raburn was one of the very best hitters in the league, and he has also been one of the very worst hitters in the league, and people get upset with defensive statistics for sometimes bouncing around all over the place. There’s nothing inaccurate about Ryan Raburn’s offensive statistics. They’re accurate and weird and stupid.
Now, when I think of Ryan Raburn, I think of two things.
I don’t know how possible it is to get a whole -1 UZR on one play, but Raburn at least explored beyond the frontiers. It’s not his first time trying to get -1 UZR on one play, either. Raburn failed to make the catch on a blooper. In fairness, it was not an easy blooper to catch, particularly if you have Ryan Raburn’s legs. But that wasn’t the end of it. That was half of the end of it. There’s nothing real remarkable about Mike Moustakas hitting a pop-up and getting lucky enough to reach base. But then Raburn tried to throw the baseball, and though he was technically successful in throwing the baseball, he was unsuccessful in handling the baseball as he intended, and the Royals wound up with an improbable run. It wasn’t a run that won them the game, but it was easily a run that could’ve.
When Yoenis Cespedes made that crazy throw, it inspired people to look up other amazing outfield throws. Ryan Raburn threw a lawn dart. Here, then, is a recent and presumably incomplete history of the lawn dart. We’ll begin with the godfather of the genre.
Last night was about the pitchers. Nearly every game had at least one good starting pitcher performance, and many of them we’re not even going to talk about today. Max Scherzer’s 11 strikeouts? Nope. What about Tyson Ross‘ 11 strikeouts? Nope, not them either. We’re not even going to talk about Jeff Samardzija and Wei-Yin Chen, who combined to allow one run across 16 innings. No, we’re going to talk about the five pitchers who posted a Game Score of 75 or better last night — Corey Kluber, Marcus Stroman, Danny Duffy, Matt Garza and Cole Hamels.
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As Jeff noted the other day, there stands to be a very good chance that Jeff Samardzija is the only real impact pitcher traded this month. The Rays keep winning, which reduces their incentive to move David Price. The Red Sox still say they want to re-sign Jon Lester, so trading him mid-season would be counterproductive to that goal. The Royals still think they’re contenders, so they aren’t going to move James Shields. The Padres want to keep Ian Kennedy. Right now, the best pitcher who is actually available is probably Bartolo Colon, who remains an average pitcher by FIP and xFIP but has apparently lost his runner-stranding fairy dust, and so he’s running a 114 ERA- at age-41 and is under contract for another $11 million next year, when he’ll be 42.
If ever there was a time to sell high on a starting pitcher, this would be it. This is maybe the most obvious seller’s market for arms we’ve seen in some time. And yet, in the middle of a golden opportunity, the Phillies have apparently taken this stance:
To date, Phillies telling other teams Cole Hamels is not available.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) July 22, 2014
I get that the Phillies have their own way of doing things, and they see themselves as a franchise that should reload and not rebuild, but at some point, they have to accept reality.
The Phillies’ 2011 season ended with Ryan Howard crumpled in a heap between the batter’s box and first base. What was suspected then was confirmed later: Howard had suffered a rupture of his Achilles. Howard’s five-year, $125-million extension was to begin in 2012.
It just about goes without saying that Howard’s contract with the Phillies has been a disaster. It’s important to understand that most analysts predicted that the deal would be a problem for the organization. It’s just as important to understand that the deal has gone far worse than anyone could’ve thought. The most-wrong person here is Ruben Amaro, but in a way the skeptical analysts were also wrong, for not projecting a bad-enough outcome. That’s not entirely fair, but the point is that even the biggest cynics didn’t think what has happened with Howard would happen.
And here’s what’s happening: it’s 2014, and Howard’s deal has two more years left. According to Jon Heyman, the Phillies are trying hard to deal Howard away, expressing a willingness to eat a lot of the money. So far, of course, there have been no takers. Meanwhile, Ryne Sandberg is starting to sit Howard, trying to find room for Darin Ruf. Ruf, in Triple-A, has hit one home run. Contained within that piece is a note that the Phillies have internally discussed just dropping Howard from the roster, paying him, and moving on. His contract is a little more than halfway over. Said Amaro at the time of the extension agreement: “There’s always risk when you’re doing guaranteed deals, but based on what he’s done, I think it’s a good risk.”
The contract, for the Phillies, has been catastrophic. It hasn’t singlehandedly prevented them from competing, but no reasonable contract can do that to a team, and it’s certainly made the situation more difficult. Probably, it’s not the worst contract in the history of baseball, in terms of the difference between dollars paid and dollars worth. The one bit of good news is that Howard inked a five-year deal, whereas, say, Albert Pujols is under contract through 2021. So, at some point in the somewhat near future, Howard will be off the Phillies’ books. But Howard is well on his way to an ugly feat. One that seems almost inconceivable, but one that captures the reality of all that’s gone down.
| 11:19 |
: Good afternoon and good morning, baseball fans! I’ll be with you for a little more than an hour, beginning at the top of the hour upcoming! |
| 11:56 |
Marcus Stroman as a starter: 61 IP, 2.21 ERA, K-BB% of 17.2%, 2.93 FIP, 3.28 xFIP. Thoughts on him ROS? Thoughts on his ceiling long term? |
| 11:58 |
: Like him, like him. ROS as a starter, maybe 3.50, 3.75, kinda like the systems have him. I don’t think his ceiling is much higher than what he’s doing now, but I think he can do this (a 3.25-3.75 type ERA, not 2.21) in multiple seasons, occasionally wow, occasionally disappoint. Very polished, smart guy. |
Breaking balls sometimes get short shrift these days. Perhaps because of their strong platoon splits and weak (but probably real) correlation with injury, it’s the change up that teams are insisting their pitchers learn. Brett Anderson is a product of a baseball family and one such organization, and yet he continues to ply his trade mostly by throwing a strong breaking ball or two, when he’s healthy.
Is it one pitch, is it two pitches, does it lead to platoon splits, does it lead to injury? His slurve knows all. Or at least a bit.
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
Cleveland at Kansas City | 19:10 ET
Josh Tomlin (81.1 IP, 81 xFIP-, 0.8 WAR) faces Yordano Ventura (107.2 IP, 95 xFIP-, 1.5 WAR). The latter has recorded the highest average fastball velocity (96.8 mph) among all qualified pitchers while also throwing strikes and preventing runs at a slightly above-average rate. The former has somehow improved upon his previously established strikeout rates by about 50% while also — despite conspicuously modest armspeed — while also producing the same exact park-adjusted xFIP as considerably more celebrated starters Madison Bumgarner and Max Scherzer.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cleveland Radio.
A couple of weeks ago, I broke from the typical Prospect Watch post setup to write this, which still managed to provide thoughts on and evaluations of two players but in a more freeform space than usual. On some occasions such as that one, I find my thoughts on players get encased in larger thoughts about prospecting in general. In this installment, I bring you another, but it concerns a player of far more repute than 25-year-old A-ball pitcher Dario Alvarez or his reliever teammate Akeel Morris–I’m talking about 2014’s fifth overall draft pick, Twins shortstop prospect Nick Gordon.