Ben and Sam banter about burning clubhouse belongings and banning intentional balls, then discuss the shaky starts to the season by Matt Harvey, Sonny Gray, and Dallas Keuchel.
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After the scrum was gone, after he’d answered all the difficult questions about his punch heard around the baseball world, after he’d deflected and postponed and shrugged, after he slumped into his seat and sighed, Rougned Odor looked up and saw me coming. To his credit, he raised his eyebrows for the coming question, ready for another round.
He was relieved when I asked him about being sent down in 2015, and what he learned when he was down there. Relieved, even though I was asking him about one of the more difficult times of his baseball life. Well, difficult in a different way than the difficult time he’s experiencing right now.
Last winter, coming off the best season of his career, Yoenis Cespedes hit the free-agent market, and promptly heard crickets. He watched David Price and Zack Greinke break $200 million in early December, and then saw Jason Heyward set the market for outfielders with a $184 million deal a week later. And then he sat and watched a bunch more pitchers get paid, while he, Chris Davis and Justin Upton sat around waiting for offers that never came. Finally, in January, all three eventually found homes, but Cespedes was unable to land the big deal he was looking for, instead taking a three-year deal from the Mets that gave him the chance to hit the market again this winter, if he so chose.
A quarter of the way through the 2016 season, Cespedes opting out of the last two years of the deal is now a foregone conclusion; the only way he wouldn’t hit the market this winter is if the Mets re-do his deal before he gets there, or if he blows out his knee between now and October. Cespedes has not only carried over last year’s second half surge, but he’s even somehow building on it.
This past Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Labor released its long-awaited update of the regulations governing overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Specifically, the new Labor Department rule modifies the FLSA’s so-called “white collar” exception, under which certain salaried workers employed in an executive, administrative, or professional capacity are not entitled to overtime compensation.
Currently, anyone working in a white-collar position who receives a salary of at least $23,660 per year is exempt from the FLSA’s overtime requirement, meaning that they do not receive any additional pay even when working more than 40 hours per week. Beginning in December 2016, however, that salary threshold will rise to $47,476, so that any white-collar workers earning less than that amount annually will now be owed one-and-a-half times their normal hourly rate anytime they work 41 or more hours per week.
Because MLB teams employ dozens of front-office and business employees working in an executive, administrative, or professional capacity, and because many of these individuals may earn less than $47,000 per year despite routinely being expected to work more than 40 hours per week, this new rule has potentially significant ramifications for the baseball industry.
For one month early in the 2015 season, Rick Porcello, traditionally a sinkerballer whose fastball sits at 91, led with the four-seam. It was only the second month in Porcello’s career in which the sinker’s position as his primary pitch was usurped by the four-seam, and unlike the other instance of this happening, the magnitude of the shift was noticeable.
It was the beginning of Porcello’s tenure in Boston, his new home after spending the first six years of his career in Detroit, and so at the time, it seemed like focusing on incorporating the four-seam fastball might’ve been part of the early organizational roadmap for Porcello. But the experiment didn’t go well. In eight four-seam-reliant starts, Porcello allowed 31 earned runs in 48 innings, good for a 5.81 ERA and a 4.76 FIP. All of his patented ground balls went missing, his home-run rate ballooned, he walked more batters than usual, and just like that, the four-seam trial run was over. Back to the sinkers he went.
If it really was an organizational thing — that the Red Sox encouraged Porcello to use his four-seam fastball more early in the season, if not just to see what it was like — it doesn’t seem like a bad idea, results notwithstanding. Even though Porcello’s “heater” only sits at 91, he has the ability to ramp it up to 96, and even more important than that, he’s able to naturally generate more spin on his four-seamer than almost any pitcher in baseball. We know that high-spin fastballs can be effective when located up in the zone, even without velocity, and so Porcello seems to possess a real weapon with his high-spin heater.
For whatever reason, though, the plan didn’t work, and so it didn’t stick. Maybe it was command, maybe it was comfort, maybe it was the way relying on the four-seamer affected the rest of his sequences, or maybe it was something else entirely. Whatever the case, Porcello went back to the sinker being his primary pitch, and he hasn’t looked back since. But the four-seamer is still there. And the way he’s using it now is making it more effective than ever. The idea to employ a four-seam approach may not have gone as smoothly as originally planned, but it looks like it’s working itself out anyway.
Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric nobleman 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
Oakland at Seattle | 22:10 ET
Hill (49.2 IP, 89 xFIP-) vs. Walker (42.2 IP, 78 xFIP-)
One might be inclined, instead of opting for this game, to choose the one which features the Rays and Marlins, on account of that contest offers not only (a) two reasonably compelling starters but also (b) one of the very best center-field cameras in all of baseball. As opposed to this game, that is, which features two compelling starters, as well, but one of the worst center-field cameras. Unless there have been developments in the meantime, that is. In which case: ignore this entire brief entry. Whatever the case, the consequences are almost non-existent and we’re an embarrassment to our ancestors.
Readers’ Preferred Television Broadcast: Oakland Athletics.
Mike Clevinger was nervous when he made his major-league debut with the Cleveland Indians last Wednesday. As a matter of fact, he was so nervous that he vomited prior to taking the mound. That didn’t prevent him from pitching well. The 25-year-old right-hander allowed just one run through five innings before faltering in the sixth. He wasn’t involved in the decision, but his club did come out on top in a 12-inning affair played in Cincinnati.
A fourth-round pick by the Angels in 2011, Clevinger came to Cleveland in the 2014 deal that sent Vinnie Pestano west. Prior to being called up, the impressively coifed native of Jacksonville, Florida, was 5-0 with a 3.03 ERA at Triple-A Columbus.
Clevinger talked about his debut outing — primarily his emotion-filled first inning of work — when Cleveland visited Boston over the weekend.
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Clevinger on his mindset when he took the mound: “I remember trying not to look up. I was trying to just zone in on the catcher. Ever since I got to pro ball, what I’ve heard is, ‘Whenever that time comes, don’t look up. If you do, the moment will get you out of yourself. So all I thought was, ‘Stay within yourself, stay within yourself; don’t overthrow, don’t overthrow.’
Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric nobleman 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
Chicago NL at San Francisco | 20:05 ET
Hendricks (41.0 IP, 75 xFIP-) vs. Bumgarner (58.2 IP, 85 xFIP-)
It doesn’t require a brain surgeon to recognize that a game featuring two of the league’s more successful pitchers and more successful clubs — that such a game would possess some interest for the public. There’s also no reason to believe, however, that a medical doctor trained specifically in the field of neurology would be particularly well-suited to diagnosing the likely aesthetic value of such a game. There are a number of neurosurgeons, presumably, who have almost no familiarity with the Pastime. Like Nate’s dad, for example. He’s a neurosurgeon, but what does he know about sport? Nothing, is what.
The numbers suggest that Khris Davis should be labeled a power hitter. Since the beginning of last season, the Oakland outfielder is hitting .244/.308/.504 with 39 home runs in 603 plate appearances. This past week, he had a three-homer game capped off by a walk-off grand slam.
A few days before his heroics, I opined to Davis that he’s best described by said label. He demurred.
“That’s arguable,” answered the 28-year-old former Brewer. “It’s just what everybody’s judgment is of me. I don’t think I’m a power hitter.”
Color me a skeptic. Not only is Davis among the league leaders in home runs this year, he went deep 21 times over the second half of last season. If he’s not a power hitter, where are the bombs coming from? Read the rest of this entry »
Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric nobleman 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
Tampa Bay at Detroit | 16:10 ET
Smyly (49.2 IP, 85 xFIP-) vs. Fulmer (19.1 IP, 85 xFIP-)
The virtues of Drew Smyly as a pitcher are what Thomas Jefferson — and also anyone who possesses some facility with English — might describe as “self-evident.” As for Michael Fulmer’s virtues as a pitcher, those are decidedly less evident at the moment. Because one of the things he’s done is to concede earned runs at a rate about 50% higher than an average pitcher. By this measure, his virtues are rather obscure. But look: he’s produced a fielding-independent line that’s roughly a standard deviation better than the average starter’s. And a sitting fastball velocity more than a standard deviation better. And he’s also more than a standard deviation younger than the average starter. The marginal return on your psychic investment in Michael Fulmer is likely to be enormous. Thanks to Michael Fulmer, you’re going to be flush with psychic currency.