Ben and Michael Baumann talk to Grantland lead hockey writer Sean McIndoe about the rise of sabermetric-style analysis in the NHL.

Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

When our other prospect writers submit scouting reports, I will provide a short background and industry consensus tool grades. There are two reasons for this: 1) giving context to account for the writer seeing a bad outing (never threw his changeup, coming back from injury, etc.) and 2) not making him go on about the player’s background or speculate about what may have happened in other outings.

The writer still grades the tools based on what they saw, I’m just letting the reader know what he would’ve seen in many other games from this season, particularly with young players that may be fatigued late in the season. The grades are presented as present/future on the 20-80 scouting scale and very shortly I’ll publish a series going into more depth explaining these grades. -Kiley

Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s go back to 1920. Let’s look at starting pitchers who threw at least 75 innings in consecutive big-league seasons. Relative to last year, Jake Arrieta’s K-BB% has improved by 14 percentage points. That’s the fourth-greatest improvement within the sample. Relative to last year, Arrieta’s FIP- has improved by 64 points. That’s the single greatest improvement within the sample, edging out 2007-2008 Cliff Lee. This is what a breakout looks like. This is what maybe the biggest breakout looks like.

It’s up to you to determine whether or not Jake Arrieta is an ace, but he’s certainly generated ace-like results for the past several months, so if he’s not an ace yet, he’s on the right track. Six times already, he’s held an opponent hitless into the fifth. Three times, he’s held an opponent hitless into the seventh. Twice, he’s held an opponent hitless into the eighth. Arrieta’s flirted with history a few times, and while he hasn’t sealed the deal on an actual no-hitter, he’s at least earned greater familiarity and exposure. The Arrieta breakout, by now, is obvious. And more and more people are becoming aware of it.

So, we think we know what we have. How did this happen? How was Jake Arrieta built? Let’s condense his whole story into a blog post. Seems editorially responsible.

Read the rest of this entry »

When our other prospect writers submit scouting reports, I will provide a short background and industry consensus tool grades. There are two reasons for this: 1) giving context to account for the writer seeing a bad outing (never threw his changeup, coming back from injury, etc.) and 2) not making him go on about the player’s background or speculate about what may have happened in other outings.

The writer still grades the tools based on what they saw, I’m just letting the reader know what he would’ve seen in many other games from this season, particularly with young players that may be fatigued late in the season. The grades are presented as present/future on the 20-80 scouting scale and very shortly I’ll publish a series going into more depth explaining these grades. -Kiley

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, the author published the final results of this year’s weekly Fringe Five column, which column is designed to identify the most compelling of those rookie-eligible minor leaguers excluded from notable preseason top-100 prospect lists. To what degree it does that (i.e. identify compelling prospects) is a matter of some debate, probably. With a view to assessing the efficacy of the project, however — or, at least, to producing internet content — what follows is a review of the top finishers from the 2013 series of weekly Fringe Five posts. Players ordered alphabetically according to surname.

Wilmer Flores, 3B/SS, New York NL (Profile)

Much of what the author is compelled to say about Wilmer Flores, he’s already said within the last 24 hours via a combo package of two posts regarding the 23-year-old’s surprisingly adequate shortstop defense. What’s omitted from those posts, however, is any mention of Flores’s offensive acumen — which acumen the Venezuelan native exhibited considerably during Tuesday night’s Mets game, during which he hit two home runs and produced a single-game 836 wRC+ over four plate appearances. Over the last two weeks now, Flores has recorded the highest isolated-power mark (.429) among 156 qualified batters while simultaneously posting the fourth-lowest strikeout rate among that same group.

Maikel Franco, 1B/3B, Philadelphia (Profile)

That Franco appeared among the top-five finishers on the arbitrarily calculated end-of-season 2013 Fringe Five Scoreboard deserves some note — insofar, that is, as he (i.e. Franco) last appeared within that weekly column at some point in or around July, his inclusion on multiple mid-season prospect lists having disqualified him from consideration as a “fringe” prospect. Though he continued to exhibit an excellent combination of power and contact ability following a promotion to Double-A last year, that same package of skills didn’t translate entirely to Triple-A this season, where he homered at only about half the rate as in 2013. That he recorded a league-average line there as just a 21-year-old, however, bodes well for his future.

Mike O’Neill, OF, St. Louis (Profile)

Given the limits both of his power and also his defensive skills, O’Neill’s ceiling is necessarily rather low. In 2013, however, he produced such considerably anomalous walk and strikeout rates (16.0% and 6.5%, respectively) at Double- and Triple-A that he became a fixture among those prospects included weekly in the Fringe Five. While still better than average, O’Neill’s rates haven’t scaled the heights of incredulity like last year. In 477 plate appearances between Double- and Triple-A this season, O’Neill has produced marks of 10.3% and 8.8%, respectively. That he’s employed by an organization boasting a surplus of outfielders offers no great hope to his chances of earning any kind of playing time.

Danny Salazar, RHP, Cleveland (Profile)

Salazar began last season as a Tommy John survivor never to have appeared on a top-100 prospect list and ended it starting the Cleveland Clevelanders’ literally most important game of the year. What he did in the meantime was exhibit both a 96 mph fastball and also split-changeup, the latter of which offering provoked a non-zero number of religious experiences throughout Cuyahoga County. In terms of run prevention, Salazar’s 2014 season hasn’t been as excellent; indeed, he’s produced a league- and park-adjusted ERA 13% worse than average. In terms of his fielding-independent performance, however, Salazar has continued to pitch like an above-average major-league starter — if with perhaps slightly less electricity than during his 10-start run with the parent club last year.

Marcus Semien, 2B/3B (Profile)

As one notes from his stat lines here, Semien has produced very different offensive numbers this season at the minor- and major-league levels, exhibiting excellent plate discipline and contact skills in the former and much less of those things in the latter. That said, Semien’s walk and strikeout rates in 2014 represent a substantial improvement over his brief time with the White Sox last year, when he produced a 1:22 walk-to-strikeout ratio in 71 plate appearances. Both Steamer and ZiPS regard him as a nearly a league-average true-talent hitter.

The Next Five
Here are the players who finished sixth through tenth on last year’s Fringe Five scoreboard.

Boston infielder/outfielder/wunderkind Mookie Betts wasn’t even eligible for the Five until a mid-July promotion to High-A Salem, but still produced enough there to finish sixth overall on the mostly arbitrary Scoreboard. His 2014 season has been mostly a study is excellence … Miami left-hander Brian Flynn appeared within a number of early season editions of the Five, but was less effective following a promotion to Triple-A New Orleans. He made just two major-league appearances this season… Somewhat surprisingly, it’s been Mets right-hander Rafael Montero‘s command that has made his transition to the majors difficult. He’s produced a walk rate of 12.3% over 39.0 innings in the majors this season after walking only 5.8% of batters in over 400 minor-league innings… St. Louis’s Stephen Piscotty didn’t exhibit any more power this year than last — of some concern, that, if he’s to play a corner-outfield spot. Still, he continued to record excellent plate-discipline marks this season, posting walk and strikeout rates of 7.7% and 11.0%, respectively, with Triple-A Memphis… Following a promising record in the minor’s last season, Burch Smith’s 2014 was a nothing: he pitched only 5.1 innings for San Diego’s Triple-A affiliate while dealing with a forearm injury.

Read the rest of this entry »

Jose Altuve accomplished something Tuesday night. He played in a major-league baseball game! Wow! And even more incredible than that, he broke the Astros’ single-season record for hits, previously held by Craig Biggio. There are still another two weeks left to play. Of course, not all hits are the same, and we don’t usually spend much time talking about single-season hit totals, but you might prefer this: Altuve’s been great. The hits are one indication. He’s been something in the vicinity of a five-win player, as a 24-year-old in the middle infield. That’s a long-term building block.

So when some people think Altuve, they think hits. When other people think Altuve, they think short jokes. It’s clear that, in order to become the player he is today, Altuve’s had to overcome considerable adversity. A lot of that is simply that players his size tend to get selected against. They receive fewer opportunities. But then there can also be issues on the field, even during opportunities. Maybe it’s more difficult to turn a double play. It’s certainly more difficult to snare a line drive. And there’s the matter of the strike zone. Umpires aren’t great with unusual strike zones, and Altuve’s, obviously, is lower than most.

According to the PITCHf/x settings, the lower part of Altuve’s zone is lower than the average zone by almost three inches. The higher part of Altuve’s zone is lower than the average zone by almost five inches. So you know where this is going, based on that sentence, and based on the headline. I think I put together this same exact post every season. It’s time now to reflect on the season’s highest called strikes to Jose Altuve.

Read the rest of this entry »

Look at the list of two-pitch starters these days, and you won’t find any left-handers. That’s probably because lefty starters have to think about opposite-handed hitters more than anyone. That’s probably also why more lefties use changeups than righties — the pitch is more effective against opposite-handed batters.

Well, Derek Holland’s changeup has seen better days, he’ll admit it. And he doesn’t throw his semi-consistent curve all that much. So how does the Ranger’s mustachioed lefty make it work?

Read the rest of this entry »

In some ways, this Reds season has turned out exactly like we expected. Way back in February, I worried that Cincinnati wouldn’t have enough offense to compete in 2014, and that the season would be a disappointment. It wasn’t hard to see why, really. Take a team that was 15th in wRC+ in 2013, replace Shin-Soo Choo’s elite on-base skills with the huge question mark of Billy Hamilton, do absolutely nothing else other than add the mediocre Skip Schumaker and Brayan Pena to the bench, have Brandon Phillips and Ryan Ludwick get another year older, and watch the offense collapse.

That’s what happened! Sort of. The Reds are 29th in wRC+, saved from last only by the Padres, and are probably going to lose more games than they have since 2008, but it hasn’t happened in exactly in the way we might have thought. Hamilton has been good enough. Joey Votto and Jay Bruce, the only two Reds hitters you could have counted on entering the season, have had disaster years. Devin Mesoraco and Todd Frazier have had breakout campaigns. The end result is still bad, just a different kind of bad.

You can see the same thing on the pitching side, too, just in the other direction. A good, deep rotation was expected to be a strength, and it has. Homer Bailey had finally put it all together in 2013, earning himself a rich contract extension, and a full year of Tony Cingrani seemed fascinating. But Bailey, dealing with a bulging disk in his neck, made only 23 decent starts before undergoing flexor tendon surgery. Cingrani was a huge disappointment, dealt with shoulder issues and hasn’t been seen in the bigs since June. Mat Latos didn’t make his first start until June thanks to elbow trouble, then made only 16 before being shut down earlier this month with — wait for it — elbow trouble.

This shouldn’t be a good rotation. By one measure, it’s arguably been the best rotation. We should talk about that.

* * * Read the rest of this entry »

Who is the best team in baseball right now? There are a handful of ways one could attempt to answer this question.

The Angels currently have the best record at 94-57, so they’re a natural pick, and maybe the best selection, as they also lead the majors in both run differential and expected record by BaseRuns, both measures which attempt to strip some luck out of a team’s results. But on the other hand, the Angels were excellent for most of the year in part due to the excellent pitching of Garrett Richards, who is now injured and won’t pitch again this year.

Rob did a nice job of showing that one player does not make or break a team, but good players do matter to some degree, and the Angels are a worse team without Richards than they were with him. His loss doesn’t cut out their legs, but it does make them less likely to keep winning at this same pace going forward, and this question asks us to care more about the future than the past.

So maybe this isn’t such an open-and-shut case. Let’s evaluate a few of the top contenders, and look at their claim to the Best Team in Baseball title.

Read the rest on Just a Bit Outside.