When I first met Drew Storen, his train had yet to reach Big League Station. The Stanford product was 22 years old and pitching in the Arizona Fall League, his Nationals debut still six months away. Since that time he’s ridden a roller coaster.

The 27-year-old right-hander has a 43-save season on his resume, but also an elbow injury and a crushing post-season loss. Briefly demoted to the minors in 2013, he bounced back to the tune of a 1.12 ERA in 65 games last year. With everything that’s transpired since our initial conversation, a glimpse in the mirror was in order.

“You try not to reflect when you play,” said Storen. “It’s human nature to do so, but you try to go day-to-day – every cliché possible – in baseball. You have to go forward, because the train is moving.

“But it’s been a good journey. There have been challenges, and good times as well. I feel I’ve grown as a pitcher. Trying harder is not always trying better, and I’m not as pedal-to-the-metal as I used to be, When I came up, I was more of a bar-fighter than a boxer. I’ve learned that you need to be a tactician; you can’t just go out there and out-stuff people.”

Analogy aside, Storen has never possessed a troglodyte mentality. He was already familiar with PITCHf/x when I interviewed him five-and-a-half years ago. He still utilizes the tool, typically to review his release point, and relies heavily on video to “make sure everything is in tune.”

Monitoring his mechanics and the depth he’s getting on his deliveries is an off-the-field endeavor. His mind’s eye is equally attentive on the mound. Read the rest of this entry »

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, dark red for The Hardball Times, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.
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We rarely talk about Aaron Harang. When we do, it’s usually to describe him as a “safer” player rather than a good one, or perhaps to poke a little fun at his appearance. He never ranks very highly when it comes time to make lists, and we’re generally at a loss to describe his success. And yet, he keeps churning out solid seasons of baseball.
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Over the past month-plus, the author has published each week a statistical report designed to serve as a nearly responsible shorthand for people who, like the author, have enthusiasm for collegiate baseball, if not actually expert knowledge of it. Those posts have served as a means by which one might broadly detect which players have produced the most excellent performances of the college season.

Because organizing the data for those posts is a bit time-consuming and also because (as I say) my familiarity with college baseball is in its nascent stages, I’ve previously confined those Maybe Predictive posts to three of the most notable conferences: the ACC, Pac-12, and SEC. Since I began publishing them, however, more than one reader has asked for coverage of this or that conference — and as I’ve become more familiar with the game, I’ve wanted that same thing, as well.

What follows is a step in that direction. Included below are the top college players by (maybe) predictive stats for three additional and competitive baseball conferences: the Big 10, Big West, and Missouri Valley. Note that it’s not my intention to suggest that these are certainly the next three best conferences by talent. Note also that it would probably make sense to include the Big 12 here, but the data is even more difficult to access from that conference’s home page.

As in the original edition of this same thing, what I’ve done is utilize principles introduced by Chris Mitchell on forecasting future major-league performance with minor-league stats.

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This is the update to September’s list and a lot has happened since then. I chose to rank as many players as there are first round picks and to give reports on them, since those are the guys that matter at this point. I obviously have lots of info beyond that to pass along, but opted to be more general at this juncture.

The next couple section break down plays as sandwich to 2nd rounders or 3rd rounders or others of note, with varying definitions from each group that I note below.  The reason I’m less detailed about the lower rankings is because 1) we’re still six weeks from the draft, so this will change 2) it’s kinda silly to act like 45 and 65 are that different at this point and 3) there’s inherent secrecy from scouts about draft rankings, so these will likely change again in the summer when we see these guys compete on an even playing field. For these next two groups, players are presented in order of preference, so you can shift them around a few spots if you want, but the final section of others is in no order at all.

As I’ve said in many places already, this class is very weak up top. The top 15 players listed below have anywhere from six to ten players worth of being picks in the top half of the first round in a normal year. This amounts to 5-9 elite players missing, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but means teams picking in the top 20 will likely notice they’re getting less than they may have expected to get a year ago when the draft class was less clear.

Again, since the draft is inherently secretive at some level and I can’t see every player multiple times this spring, these rankings are a mix of what I’ve see and think and what scouts are telling me. I’d like for it to be 100% my opinion, but that would be foolish, so I have to side with the preponderance of scouts, even when they disagree with me.  I’ll link to video from the FG YouTube page where we have it, which is still a lot, but there will be a lot more in the coming weeks, as we have video of nearly every player I put in the top 3-4 rounds.

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As Kris Bryant heads to North Side of Chicago to make his debut, the lack of movement on the South Side has merited much less attention. Carlos Rodon remains a starting pitcher in Charlotte as the White Sox use two currently inferior pitchers in the rotation. Much of the same arguments for keeping Kris Bryant down apply to Rodon. By keeping him in the minor leagues, the team can gain an extra year of service time. A couple starts during the course of the season is not likely to make a huge difference for the White Sox’s season.

Whether those arguments are valid as they apply to Rodon are moot now. The time needed to keep Rodon down is over, and the White Sox still haven’t named a starter for Sunday afternoon, but they have eliminated one name:
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Imagine, if you can, the least-fair thing in baseball. Do you have it? Maybe you’re picturing having to face Giancarlo Stanton with the bases loaded. Maybe you’re picturing one of those Clayton Kershaw curveballs, or Juan Lagares running down a would-be winning double in the gap. Maybe you’re just thinking about Billy Hamilton on the bases. OK! You’re wrong.

The least-fair thing in baseball is Aroldis Chapman throwing a changeup. It’s the least-fair thing for exactly the reasons you’d expect. His fastball is unfair enough on its own; add a changeup and you’ll have helpless hitters twisting their spines. The good news was this: for years, Chapman’s changeup was only theoretical. It was something he’d throw a few times in spring training before realizing he didn’t need to mess around. Chapman was never quite lacking for weapons.

Then in 2014, Chapman got experimental. For the first time, he carried that changeup into the season. And the results? You could probably guess the results, even without me telling you, but just for the sake of being complete: Chapman threw 63 changeups, according to Brooks Baseball. Opposing hitters made contact exactly once (it was an out). Allow me to repeat that, for effect: batters made contact with one Aroldis Chapman changeup in 2014, out of 63 opportunities. They didn’t always swing, but you get the point.

It was beautiful. It was perfect, from an objective-observer viewpoint. It was decidedly not perfect from an unobjective-opposing-hitter viewpoint. Through the first half of the season, Chapman threw 11% changeups. In a June series against the Pirates, Chapman threw six changeups in consecutive games. All of a sudden, it looked like the change was going to be a regular part of the repertoire, and Chapman was soaring to new levels. Chapman, at that point, was playing with his food.

Read the rest at Just A Bit Outside.

On Wednesday, Collin McHugh pitched well against the Ben Zobrist-less Oakland A’s. Zobrist’s absence made the A’s a weaker version of themselves, but they were still a tougher opponent than the hapless Rangers he saw five days earlier. While McHugh only tossed 5.2 innings and faced just 23 batters, he tied Trevor Bauer for the single-game strikeout lead for 2015 with 11. Although unlike Bauer, McHugh walked zero A’s instead of five Astros.

This is largely noteworthy because Collin McHugh was one of the most prominent breakout players from a year ago, and we’re dying to know how much of that breakout we should take to heart. In 2014, McHugh was a 3-4 win player, who could have been a solid number two starter on almost any team in the league and he posted those numbers in under 160 innings. If McHugh is actually that able, the Astros have five more seasons of a very good pitcher who can help anchor their next playoff rotation.

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Merry Krismas, Chicago; Kris Bryant’s defense magically improved in the exact amount of minor league games it took for the Cubs to delay his free agency by a year. With that remarkable coincidence act of theatre out of the way, the Cubs can now acknowledge that Bryant is not only their best third baseman, but one of their best big league players. And so today begins the Kris Bryant Era in Chicago.

Chris Mitchell has already written up the KATOH system’s expectations for Bryant, and as you’d expect, a model based on Bryant’s minor league performances think he’s going to be quite good. After all, few players have torn up minor league hitting the way Bryant has; including his stint in the AFL, Bryant has hit .331/.430/.671, good for a 195 wRC+. Kris Bryant can hit, and when he hits, the baseball goes a long way.

That profile is why he’s the consensus top prospect in baseball, and why there’s so much hype surrounding his call-up. Bryant isn’t some toolsy athlete in low-A ball that could be great in three years, or a flame-throwing ace who could rack up the strikeouts until his arm explodes; he’s a college-polished slugger who already projects as one of the best third baseman in baseball, even before he plays a big league game. As prospects go, Bryant is a very low-risk talent, as it would take a minor disaster for him to not be at least reasonably productive for the Cubs in 2015 and beyond.

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