The other day, Craig Kimbrel blew a save for the first time in — I don’t know — awhile. He was given a two-run lead and he retired the first two batters he faced, but then he unraveled. In a pinch, the game was off to extras. Kimbrel is one of those relievers for whom any hiccup is notable. And when you notice Kimbrel’s blown save, you notice something else. Kimbrel, in a tiny sample, is sitting on a 5.68 ERA. If you add up the ERAs from his first five seasons in the majors, you get a sum of 6.37. Something’s a little wonky. Or nothing’s wonky at all, and this is just early-season randomness. Regardless, Kimbrel catches your eye with a 5-something ERA. He’d catch your eye with a 3-something ERA.

Is there anything going on we should know about? Kimbrel’s pitch velocities are fine. Kimbrel’s pitch mix is normal. His arm slot hasn’t changed. So there’s no easy conclusion, but Ken Rosenthal spoke to somebody with something to say:

The report from one uniformed observer: “His command was terrible. He threw three pitches that almost hit guys in the head. He even threw a pickoff to first with no first baseman there. And on the pitch that was hit for a double to tie the game, he missed by three feet.”

Is it that simple? Is Kimbrel just missing his command? Is that why his strikeout rate is down? The source was talking about Kimbrel’s blown save in Arizona. So I decided to investigate Kimbrel’s blown save in Arizona.

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Episode 561
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 all baseball — in particular that part of the game concerning the next collective bargaining agreement — by means of a new, possibly better microphone.

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 33 min play time.)

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Episode 560
Kiley McDaniel is both (a) the lead prospect analyst for FanGraphs and also (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio — during which edition he discusses which GMs are attending which amateur games, his way-too-early mock draft from last week, and the uncertainty of the D-backs’ uncertainty.

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 48 min play time.)

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Over the weekend, the White Sox scored 16 runs against the Reds in three games, and just Sunday they got the best of the impossible Aroldis Chapman, walking off after three consecutive hits. With that in mind, this would seem a funny time to be critical of the White Sox position players, but then, for one thing, the season’s been a lot longer than a couple days. And, you know what? So much content is published with timing in mind. People write about a player after he has a big game. It’s natural, but you can think of it as a form of bias. In this post, let’s not be swayed by recency. Most recently, White Sox position players have been good. Let’s knock ’em down a few pegs!

You already know it’s been a struggle for the Sox, and after spending the offseason trying to build a contender, already they’ve approached a decision point. It’s not time yet for the Sox to pull the plug, but it’s an increasingly likely outcome. At this moment, the White Sox sit dead last in the majors in team WAR, which means they rank even behind the Phillies. People have their differences with WAR, but history shows that WAR and team performance are very closely connected. Good teams don’t rank last. (Good teams don’t rank close to last.)

On the pitching side, things could be better and they could be worse. The team sits in the middle of the pack, which seems appropriate for such a top-heavy roster. There are clearly good pitchers, and there are clearly replaceable pitchers. But as for the position players, collectively it’s been a nightmare. By WAR, the Sox are in last place, and they’re in last by more than a full win. By WAR, the Sox have performed below replacement-level. This is a disaster, so let’s break it down.

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Remember when nobody wanted Nelson Cruz? He’d been with the Rangers but his contract had ended and steroids and everyone was like, “Nooooo thanks.” Well, not exactly everybody. After a long time the Mariners called and reportedly had a short deal done with Cruz before the front office nixed it. I picture former team president Chuck Armstrong in a military uniform with puffy pants shouting in a fake English accent, “No, no, not Mariner material!”

Finally, after waiting an entire off-season, Baseball’s Yukon called and Cruz signed a one-year deal with Baltimore and hit about a billion homers. Then he was a free agent again. It was at that point that the Mariners realized the error of their ways.

“But I thought you said…”
“Tut tut, my boy. Cruz!”

Some years to go, but so far the Mariners have nothing to complain about. Cruz leads baseball with 14 homers, three more than the closest imitator, and is currently slugging over .700. He’s done this even though he’s forsaken Texas and Baltimore, two hitter friendly parks, especially for right-handed home run hitters, for Seattle, a park a few nudges on the other side of hitter friendliness. You would think that would curtail his home run activities at least a bit, but so far, no problem for ol’ Nelly. How is Cruz still hitting homers despite his unfriendly surroundings? Let’s see!

It makes sense to write about Baseball’s home run leader in mid-May, but as you might imagine for the league’s home run leader, we here at FanGraphs have written about him before. Jeff Sullivan wrote a piece on Cruz on April 20, but it’s been three weeks and Cruz is still crushing it and we’re nothing if not completists here so why not take another crack. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben and Sam banter about the Astros and discuss what Bryce Harper’s hot streak means.

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Troy Tulowitzki has been an integral piece of the Rockies lineup for years now. He’s racked up an impressive 34 WAR in his 10 seasons in Colorado, but it’s not clear if he’ll be a part of the team’s future plans. And if he is, it’s not clear that he should be.

The Rockies don’t have the looks of a playoff team this year. This is partly because they’re 11-17 and bringing up the rear in the National League West. However, even before the season began, the Rockies looked more like existers than contenders. Given the collection of players on their roster, they appear to be something worse than a .500 team on paper.

Teams like this don’t have much use for an aging star shortstop. As a result, it very well might be in Colorado’s best interest to hit the reset button and trade Tulowitzki in exchange for players who stand a better chance of helping the next playoff-bound Rockies team. After nearly a decade of Troy Tulowitzki at shortstop, it might be time for the Rockies to move on.

That brings us to Trevor Story. If Colorado does ultimately deal Tulo, and his replacement comes from within, Story will likely be the man getting the nod. Not all that long ago, Story looked like a big league shortstop in the making. The Rockies selected him 45th overall out of high school in 2011, and he quickly became a consensus top 100 prospect after a .277/.367/.505 performance as a teenager in the South Atlantic League. At that point, it seemed like he was only a couple of years away from knocking at the door of the big leagues. Read the rest of this entry »

Breaking out for three consecutive years certainly has some positive elements to it, but it also means that the first two breakouts did not completely take. After failing to make the rotation out of Spring Training, Danny Salazar might have moved himself from potential breakout star to post-hype sleeper. After his hot start, the sleeper tag has been removed, and only a potential star remains. Salazar has had periods of dominance in each of the last last three seasons, but those dominant stretches have been followed by problem periods. This is now the fourth time Salazar has been called upon to for an extended role in Cleveland’s rotation, and Salazar, helped by his previous experiences, is now pitching as well as anyone in Major League Baseball. Consider his first roughly-30 innings each time.
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At the very bottom of the 2015 standings, you’ll find two unsurprising teams tied for the worst record in baseball: the Phillies and the Brewers. The Brewers have been a disaster, already firing their manager, and the Phillies are paying the piper for years of making moves to maximize short-term returns. But do you know which team is only a half game ahead of that pair of disasters? Well, you probably do if you clicked on this post, given that I put them in the subject, but yes, it’s the Oakland A’s, who currently stand at 12-21 after getting swept in Seattle over the weekend.

The A’s were expected to take a step back this year after trading away Josh Donaldson and a bunch of his friends, but while they spent the first half of the winter getting younger, they also went out and landed Ben Zobrist, Billy Butler, and Tyler Clippard, showing that they weren’t just punting on 2015. While they churned half the roster in an effort to set themselves up better for the future, this was supposed to be a team that could at least hang around the Wild Card race and maybe make another run at a division title if things broke right. Instead, after weeks of baseball, the A’s are 8.5 games behind the Astros, and their playoff odds have shrunk from 33% on Opening Day to 15% today.

While it’s still early enough to turn things around, there is a point at which the hole gets too big to dig out of, especially because other teams will likely start calling about impending free agents like Zobrist, Clippard, and Scott Kazmir in the next month or so. If they don’t start winning pretty soon, you can bet that Billy Beane won’t hesitate to make another flurry of trades to bring in even more young talent, so the A’s clock is ticking, and it won’t be too long before they have to decide if they’re in it for 2015 or not. Despite their miserable start to the season, I wouldn’t suggest giving up on this A’s team just quite yet.

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