Ben and Sam talk to ESPN investigative reporter T.J. Quinn about the string of suspensions in the ongoing battle between baseball and PEDs.
Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Ben and Sam talk to FanGraphs writer August Fagerstrom about the mechanics and significance of Max Scherzer’s 20-strikeout start.
Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Over the course of big-league history, there have been a few hundred no-hitters. There have been 66 occasions of a pitcher hitting multiple homers in one game. Scarcity doesn’t automatically mean a superior accomplishment, but what Noah Syndergaard just did against the Dodgers was extraordinary. His first time up, he hit a home run. His second time up, he hit a home run. The last pitcher to pull this off was Micah Owings in 2007, and Owings was more of a hitter, anyway. Here are the MLB.com highlights. This would be no fun without the highlights.
Not that there’s any such thing as a bad home run, but those were big-boy dingers. Syndergaard jumped on a first pitch, and then he jumped on a two-strike pitch. He gets points for diversity, and he also gets points for dumb luck, since the second homer followed four consecutive shown bunts. Instead of moving the runners a little bit over, he moved them all the way over. Syndergaard drove home all the Mets’ runs. He genuinely pitched and hit them to victory. It was one of the better all-around single-game performances in history, I’m sure.
Among the many surprises of the 2016 season, the fact that the Blue Jays struggling offense is being carried by good performances from their starting rotation has to rank near the top of the list. Toronto bashed their way to the postseason last year, but with Russell Martin (.185 wOBA) and Ryan Goins (.198 wOBA) giving the team absolutely nothing at the plate this year, the bottom of the Blue Jays order has been a rally-killing black hole. And the lack of offense from those two have put pressure on the rest of the line-up, which means that the continuing struggles of Troy Tulowitzki have been a bit more obvious this year.
Tulo didn’t hit that well after coming over from Colorado in the mid-summer trade last year, but his defense at shortstop allowed him to remain a valuable contributor, and because the team was scoring six runs per night, his lack of offense didn’t seem like a big problem. Now, with the team scoring four runs per game, Tulo’s .172/.275/.336 line is a bit more problematic, and the offensive issues magnify his own struggles. Thankfully for the Blue Jays, there’s one easy sign to point to as reason for hope; Tulo has a .190 BABIP, which ranks 190th out of 194 qualified hitters so far this year. That isn’t going to last, and Tulo’s ability to still hit for some power and draw walks means that he should be a productive hitter once again after that number corrects itself with more time.
But it isn’t true that Tulowitzki’s problems are just bad luck. There are some legitimate reasons to think that age might just be slowing his bat in an irreversible way.
Today at FanGraphs, we’re introducing an interactive run-expectancy tool that incorporates the batter’s skill into the run-expectancy value. The tool, developed by the rather incredible Sean Dolinar, allows the user to input a few factors, including one to account for the batter, and in turn spits out a number estimating how many runs will be scored for the rest of the inning.
Major League Baseball’s new slide rule has not been without controversy, both in its creation and in its implementation. Some might feel hard slides are just a part of baseball and need no legislation at all. Those parties have already lost this particular battle. There are those who might like some sort of rule, but feel the new rules are a bit too onerous. Still others might feel the new rule is a good one and should be implemented uniformly (I am in this camp). Those who want the rules tweaked appear to be winning now, though, as MLB seems to be backing off full implementation of the slide rule, perhaps to avoid more controversial plays like those which occurred in April.
In the sixth inning of a tied game on Tuesday between the Detroit Tigers and Washington Nationals, James McCann came to bat with the bases loaded and one out. McCann hit a ground ball that appeared as though it could start a double play, thus ending the Tigers’ threat. Anthony Gose, running from first to second, did this:
This play clearly violates the new slide rule. Gose is not close to the bag at all, never even attempts to touch it or be near to it, and is clearly attempting to break up a possible double play. McCann got down the line quickly enough that he likely would have beat the throw even without the slide, but that fact is immaterial to the new slide rule as it was introduced this offseason.
In the end, the play was reviewed, the replay official deciding it was not a violation. Here’s MLB’s explanation as relayed to MLive (H/T Hardball Talk):
Even though the judgment was that runner failed to engage in a bona fide slide, the Replay Official must still find that the runner’s actions hindered and impeded the fielder’s ability to complete a double play. In the absence of the hindering/impeding element — which is a judgment call — the runner cannot be found to have violated 6.01 (j). The judgment on this one was that there was no hindering or impeding of the fielder.
What we find here is a distortion of the rule and a direct contradiction of the clearly written language in which it was authored. Nowhere in the rule does one find the words hindering or impeding or anything similar. When the Jose Bautista slide ended a game earlier this season season, we went over the rule in great detail. Reading the explanation above, however, it would seem that there are actually two requirements for interference in this situation: first, a failure to execute a bonafide slide and, second, that the runner’s actions actually hindered or impeded the fielder. This is not the rule as written.
It wasn’t that long ago that Carlos Gomez was one of the best position players in baseball. From 2013 to 2014, Gomez’s 130 wRC+ and excellent center-field defense put him in some very elite company:
| Rank | Player | WAR |
| 1 | Mike Trout | 18.5 |
| 2 | Andrew McCutchen | 15.3 |
| 3 | Josh Donaldson | 14.1 |
| 4 | Carlos Gomez | 13.1 |
| 5 | Miguel Cabrera | 12.6 |
But since the start of 2015, Gomez’s offensive production has cratered. A look at his 150-game rolling wRC+ paints the picture quite clearly. He starts to put it together in late 2011, turns himself into a star, and then comes crashing back to Earth.
He missed time with injuries last April and September, and of course there was that whole business with the Mets backing out of a trade for him, reportedly due to concerns about his hip. There’s no way to know exactly how the injuries affected his game last year, but he hasn’t done anything to alleviate concerns during the first month of 2016. He’s striking out a ton and isn’t hitting for any power. Gomez has delivered a 41 wRC+ with a 34.2 K% and .074 ISO so far this year.
The Red Sox were a fairly popular pick to win the AL East entering this season. The continued maturation of their young position players combined with an improved starting rotation — fronted by big-ticket free-agent acquisition David Price — was the recipe for success.
Here we are, over a month into the campaign, and the Sox are battling the Orioles for the top spot in the division. The offense has been even more potent than expected, with David Ortiz fighting off father time and Xander Bogaerts taking the next step toward stardom. The pitching staff, however — with the exception of knuckleballing savior Steven Wright — haven’t gotten the memo. Price, in particular.
Price enters his start this evening with an AL-worst 6.75 ERA. It’s not like his stuff has evaporated: he still possesses a strong 53/12 strikeout-to-walk ratio, and his swinging-strike rate stands at a career best 14.1%. Today, let’s dig into some granular ball-in-play (BIP) data and draw some conclusions as to whether it’s OK to start worrying about Price.
| 1:36 |
: this is p chill beginning for a no chill chat
|
| 12:01 |
: HOT DAMN WAS THAT A START LAST NIGHT OR WHAT?
|
| 12:01 |
: MAX POWER
|
| 12:01 |
: What are your thoughts on Bauer? is this the year he finally realizes his potential? or will his control issues keep him down.
|
| 12:01 |
: Best combo of movement and velocity from him in his career. Really consistent two-seam movement. Going to set career high in gB% and keep the homers down, if not the walks.
|
| 12:02 |
: What are some positive signs you’re looking for from Price in his start today?
|
The man who threw two no-hitters in a single season just one-upped himself. Max Scherzer was overwhelming on Wednesday night, striking out 20 Detroit Tigers batters without a single walk. It may not have matched the overall brilliance of his 17-strikeout, no-walk, no-hitter against the Mets a little over seven months ago, but this one was every bit as memorable. Although strikeouts have been on the rise for a decade, so too have the limitations on starting pitchers’ workloads, and in an era where aces get shut down in time for the playoffs and others get removed while chasing history, Scherzer went where it was difficult to imagine a man could go again, becoming the fifth pitcher to strike out 20 batters in a nine-inning game.
Scherzer did so by descending upon the strike zone with a reckless abandon. He threw an almost unfathomable 96 strikes in 119 pitches, becoming the first pitcher in recorded history to throw as many strikes in fewer than 125 pitches. His 80.7% strike rate ranks fifth since the beginning of the expansion era in games where the starting pitcher threw at least 100 pitches.
You’re in one of two camps with regard to Scherzer’s performance. You’ve read about it, and you wish you’d seen it, or you saw it, and you want to see it again. I was in the former camp, before I joined the latter. Let’s relive the five most dominant sequences from Max Scherzer’s most dominant game.