For hitters, luck can sometimes explain a poor batting average on balls in play (BABIP), especially in short time frames. Players generally reach the majors with an apparent skill at hitting the ball hard enough and far enough so that hits drop around 30% of the time. If a hitter coming up through the minors lacks this ability, it’s very difficult for him to receive the promotions necessary to reach the majors. There are 126 active players in the majors with at least 3,000 plate appearances and every single one has gotten a hit on at least 27% of the balls that were hit in play. Since the beginning of 2011, however, Mark Teixeira has nearly 2000 plate appearances and he’s a hit on just 23% of balls hit in play, the lowest figure among MLB hitters with at least 1500 plate appearances. He’s the rare hitter who can survive without a decent BABIP.

The bottom of this season’s leaderboard in BABIP is littered with players getting off to rough starts, hitters who have lost their ability to hit major-league pitching, and Mark Teixeira.

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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
Seattle at Tampa Bay | 13:10 ET
Hernandez (61.2 IP, 68 xFIP-) vs. Archer (60.0 IP, 69 xFIP-)
It is perhaps not one of the world’s great injustices, but still a small- or medium-sized injustice, that one is compelled to observe half of Seattle right-hander Felix Hernandez’s starts by means of Safeco’s center-field broadcast camera. The angle of that camera, one finds, distorts the magnitude of any horizontal break a pitch might feature moving in towards a right-handed batter or away from a left-handed one. As a result, it’s difficult to distinguish between anything a left-handed pitcher is throwing — or, alternatively, to fully appreciate a great right-handed changeup. Felix Hernandez possesses exactly the latter of those things. Fortunately, the Tampa Bay camera is one of the greats — as is Tampa Bay’s starter tonight, it seems.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Tampa Bay Radio.

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Joe Kelly always seems just a tweak away from greatness. He owns one of the biggest fastballs in the game, and has decent secondary pitches that don’t deserve scorn either. His command isn’t great, but he’s no Henry Rodriguez either. Throw a little bit more of one pitch, or a little bit less of another, the thinking has gone, and we’ll finally see greatness from the guy to match his athleticism and velocity.

You might have to admit that the latest tweak, suggested publicly by his manager, makes you wonder if there’s a fatal flaw that will forever keep the 26-year-old Red Sox starter from realizing his potential. It’s already the third such tweak that either the player or the team has discussed since they acquired him late last year.

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Ben, Sam, and Dan Brooks banter about Saber Seminar, then answer listener emails about pine tar, the meaning of the middle of the order, and throwing back home runs.

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If you just look selectively at some of the names, it doesn’t seem so bad. So far this year, through a little more than a quarter of the season, Robinson Cano has hit about as well as Matt Kemp. He’s hit a little better than Troy Tulowitzki, and a lot better than Carlos Gonzalez and Chase Utley. Those are all names of proven star players! The problem being, they’re star players who’ve sucked. On the one hand, it’s encouraging to see these names near the bottom of the wRC+ list — it’s a good reminder that struggles can be perfectly normal — but that doesn’t make the struggles themselves any easier to tolerate, and in the case of Cano, his problems are among the factors contributing to the Mariners being a disappointment. It’s not that they’ve wasted a month and a half of Nelson Cruz hitting for Barry Bonds power, but they’ve accomplished less than you’d think.

Because of the team expectations, there’s more pressure than there usually is. Because of the enormity of Cano’s contract, there are more eyes on him than there usually are. And because of Cano’s age, there’s a bit more fear than you’d usually figure. The good news is there’s potentially good news. The bad news is we don’t know what to make of it yet.

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On multiple occasions since the middle of March, the author has published here 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. These posts have served as a means by which one might broadly detect which players have produced the most excellent performances of the college season.

What follows is another edition of that same thing, updated to account for the completion of every conference’s regular season.

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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Breakout candidates are often identified on the pitching side either on the strength of peripheral stats which portend improvement over more conventional numbers, a strong second half, or some demonstrative change in a pitch. Sometimes, the candidates fulfill expectations and make those who stumped for them look like geniuses. Most of the time, however, the players meet their reasonable expectations and everyone moves on to another slew of potential breakouts. Poor seasons by breakout candidates tend not to get noticed, however, but rather ignored. Drew Hutchison spent the first month of the season looking like a breakout candidate that would soon be forgotten. He has spent the last few weeks attempting to turn around a rough start, culminating in a shutout of the White Sox during which he struck out eight without giving up a walk. Hutchison’s fastball has gained some life on it the second month of the season, providing some confidence that a breakout could still be in store.

Hutchison earned the breakout label by meeting many of the characteristics mentioned above. His ERA for Toronto in his first year of starting last year was 4.48, 10th worst in the majors among qualified pitchers, but his peripherals showed something a little better as his FIP was a middle-of-the-pack 3.85 and the difference between his ERA and FIP in 2014 was eighth-highest among qualified pitchers. His 23% strikeout rate was in the top 20, and his walk rate was decent. Hutchison’s peripherals made him look average instead of bad, although that alone is not what made Hutchison a potential breakout candidate.

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In the recent past, we’ve discussed many of the various aspects of the emerging granular batted-ball velocity/exit angle data that is all the rage today. Last week, we looked at the hitters with the best and worst contact quality in both the American and National Leagues; over the next couple weeks, it’s the starting pitchers’ turn, as we look at the best and worst contact managers in the game in 2014. Today, let’s look at the American League. You’ll notice that contact management was quite central to AL starting pitcher success last season.

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