Episode 829
Jay Jaffe is progenitor of the very famous JAWS metric and author of the reasonably famous The Cooperstown Casebook. On this edition of the program, he recounts a harrowing drive from Secaucus to Cooperstown, advises listeners on when not to visit the Hall of Fame’s gift shop, and relates the experience of spending some winter months in the aforementioned New York State hamlet.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 50 min play time.)

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Clay Buchholz has been rejuvenated in Arizona. Signed off the scrap heap in early May — the Royals had released him — the 34-year-old righty is 6-2 with a 2.47 ERA in 12 starts since joining the Diamondbacks. He twirled a complete-game gem on Thursday, holding the Padres to a lone run.

Health had been holding him back. Buchholz has battled numerous injury bugs over his career, particularly in recent seasons. Cast aside by the Red Sox after a tumultuous 2016 — a 4.78 ERA and a six-week banishment to the bullpen — he made just two appearances for the Phillies last year before landing on the disabled list and staying there for the duration. Frustration was clearly at the fore.

Truth be told, he’d rarely been his old self since a sparkling 2013 that saw him go 12-1 with a 1.74 ERA — and even that season was interrupted by injury. Given his travails, one couldn’t have blamed him had he thrown up his hands and walked away from the game.

That wasn’t in his DNA.

“No, this is what I do,” Buchholz told me earlier this summer. “I wasn’t ready to give it up. And while this offseason I told myself I wasn’t going to go through the whole minor league deal again, I swallowed my pride and did that for a little bit. It was for the best, because it helped me get to where I’m at now. It feels good to be able to go out there and throw without anything going on, mentally or physically.”

Buchholz made five starts in the minors before being called up, and he did so with a glass-is-half-full attitude. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Ben’s introduction to climbing, a Mets-Phillies blowout, Scott Kingery‘s slow pitches, Jacob deGrom‘s run support, Jose Ureña‘s suspension and how to punish hit by pitches, the Rangers’ odd triple play and the 2002 debut of Ron Wright, Matt Kemp‘s slump, and an umpire’s rapid reaction, then answer listener emails about Mike Trout’s value if he couldn’t slide, the ethics of using strategy in Little League, Kevin Gausman and the decline of pitching from the stretch, making rental-trade returns contingent on what happens after the trade, how to trade up from nothing to something (Dwight Schrute-style), and the job security of established GMs like Brian Cashman, plus a Stat Blast about the humidor-equipped Chase Field and teams that hit the ball harder at home or on the road.

Audio intro: Aretha Franklin, "Think"
Audio outro: Aretha Franklin, "Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time)"

Link to Andrew McCutchen’s brawl recap
Link to Scott Kingery’s slow pitch
Link to Andrew Dominijanni’s slowest-possible-pitch trajectories
Link to Mike Fast on the slowest possible pitch
Link to Levi Weaver on the Rangers’ triple play
Link to umpire bat-flip GIF
Link to Jeff on the new Chase Field
Link to Mike Petriello on Minute Maid Park
Link to Jeff on the disappearing windup
Link to Marc Carig on the Yankees’ clubhouse culture
Link to Dan Szymborski on the decline of Kemp

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As baseball analysis has grown, the advanced metrics have begun to find their way into television broadcasts more regularly. Announcers will occasionally mention win probability in terms of game context. Pitcher FIP will be brought up alongside ERA. The slew of batter statistics — wOBA, wRC+, ISO, et al — will be used to shed further light on hitters. Even fielding metrics like UZR and DRS have slowly started creeping their way into viewers’ homes, at least from national television broadcasts.

The one quantifiable area of the game that seems to get a little less sabermetric coverage from broadcasters is baserunning. Stolen bases are of course referenced, and Statcast sprint speeds are a relatable number that does occasionally get mentioned. However, the concept of baserunning runs (BsR) has not made its way to television in the way that its fielding counterparts have.

While the introduction of Statcast sprint speeds to the public is a step forward in understanding how good a baserunner is, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Rather, it tells something more akin to the potential baserunning value that a player can bring. Activating that potential involves no small amount of baserunning instincts for basically anyone who lacks Billy Hamilton’s speed. Looking at one player in particular from 2018 clearly shows us why in explaining runner ability, broadcasts need to go beyond sprint speed.

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Once upon a time, half a decade ago, Jurickson Profar was the consensus No. 1 prospect in baseball. The 20-year-old switch-hitting shortstop had more than held his own as a teenager at Double-A Frisco in 2012 and had received a major-league cup of coffee in September. The following spring, he topped the prospect lists of Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, ESPN, MLB Pipeline, FanGraphs, and (probably) Cat Fancy. While he spent most of the 2013 season in the majors, a significant shoulder injury and subpar performance in sporadic playing time within the Rangers’ deep infield have prevented him from getting a foothold as an everyday player until this season. Amid what’s mostly been a lost year for the Rangers, the now-25-year-old Profar’s performance has been a bright spot.

Thursday night was among the brightest for Profar. In an 8-6 win over the Angels in Arlington, he not only went 2-for-3 with a solo homer (his 14th of the season), he started a triple play of a variety that hadn’t been seen in over a century. With the bases loaded and nobody out, he made a diving short-hop stop on a hot smash by David Fletcher, stepped on third to force out Eric Young Jr. (who was on second base), tagged Taylor Ward (who had wandered off third), and threw to Rougned Odor at second base to force Kole Calhoun:

Not only was it the Rangers’ first triple play since May 20, 2009, according to Stats Inc., it was the first triple play in which the batter wasn’t retired since June 3, 1912, when the Dodgers pulled one off against the Reds. Alas, there is no video available for that one, but the SABR Triple Plays Database describes that one as a 6-2-5-2-4 play, with catcher Otto Miller recording the first two outs, presumably via a forceout at home and then a second runner getting aggressive, and then second baseman John Hummel making the third out.

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Chris Davis is having a no good, terrible, very bad season. He’s hitting .163/.245/.310, good for just a 49 wRC+, and overall has contributed 25 weighted runs below average. His once-solid defense at first base seems to have deteriorated, as well: his -3.6 UZR/150 this year at that position represents the lowest figure he’s recorded since playing there in limited fashion for the Orioles back in 2012. Overall, he’s posted -2.2 WAR, and if that sounds like it’s close to historically bad, that’s because it is. And while Davis is no longer in danger of authoring the worst season ever, there’s no disputing that, as a player, his 2018 campaign leaves much to be desired.

Davis’s futility led a reader to pose an interesting question in Dan Szymborski’s chat this week: would the Orioles be better off using Rafael Palmeiro at first base in 2018 than Davis? Because this seemed like a question worth answering, I enlisted Dan’s help (in exchange for crafting some documents so he could buy the Orioles) in doing just that.

Rafael Palmeiro, in case you were wondering, is now approaching his 54th birthday. Back in his heyday, he was one of the more underrated superstars of the game. Over more than 2,800 games spread across 20 major-league seasons — mostly at first base and DH — he hit .288/.371/.515 (130 wRC+) and accrued 70 fWAR, including 10 (!!) seasons above 4 WAR. His counting stats, too, are impressive: 3,020 hits, 569 home runs, and even 97 stolen bases (including 22 in 1993). Perhaps most incredible of all, Palmeiro struck out 1,348 times in his career and walked 1,353 times , posting identical 11.2% rates.

Palmeiro was, in many ways, a complete hitter. He would probably be a deserving member of the Hall of Fame, too, had he not told Congress under oath that he’d never used performance enhancing drugs, then failed a steroid test just six weeks later. Congress even considered perjury charges against Palmeiro before concluding there was insufficient evidence to charge him in a report which, notably, called Palmeiro’s testimony “compelling” and included that he had passed a polygraph test.

But we’re not talking about prime Palmeiro. We’re talking about 2018 Palmeiro. While at first that might sound bizarre, Palmeiro is currently playing professional baseball. He and his son are teammates on the Cleburne Railroaders, a team in the independent American Association. And wouldn’t you know it, Palmeiro is raking. Though a full 26 years older than the league’s average player, Palmeiro is hitting .301/.424/.495. (His son Patrick is hitting .239 with a .654 OPS.) He has 20 walks to 25 strikeouts, showing he still has some plate discipline skills, and he’s been getting better as the season wears on, raising his OPS from .801 to .919 just since June 27.

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Fringe Five Scoreboards: 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013.

The Fringe Five is a weekly regular-season exercise, introduced a few years ago by the present author, wherein that same author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own fallible intuition to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.

Central to the exercise, of course, is a definition of the word fringe, a term which possesses different connotations for different sorts of readers. For the purposes of the column this year, a fringe prospect (and therefore one eligible for inclusion among the Five) is any rookie-eligible player at High-A or above who (a) was omitted from the preseason prospect lists produced by Baseball Prospectus, MLB.com, John Sickels, and (most importantly) FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel* and also who (b) is currently absent from a major-league roster. Players appearing within Longenhagen and McDaniel’s most recent update — and the updates published by Jeffrey Paternostro of Baseball Prospectus and John Sickels at Minor League Ball — have also been excluded from consideration.

*Note: I’ve excluded Baseball America’s list this year not due to any complaints with their coverage, but simply because said list is now behind a paywall.

For those interested in learning how Fringe Five players have fared at the major-league level, this somewhat recent post offers that kind of information. The short answer: better than a reasonable person would have have expected. In the final analysis, though, the basic idea here is to recognize those prospects who are perhaps receiving less notoriety than their talents or performance might otherwise warrant.

Brock Burke, LHP, Tampa Bay (Profile)
A third-round selection out of a Colorado high school in 2014, Burke has had the capacity to hit 95 mph for much of his professional career but has struggled to consistently hold his velocity from start to start. “I’d be down to 87-90 at times,” he told FanGraphs’ David Laurila in a post from June. “Now I’m more consistent with ranges, and my velo isn’t dropping at the end of games.”

Burke attributes at least part of his development to a Driveline Baseball program in which he participated with other Rays pitchers. “It was definitely beneficial,” said Burke. “It got me in better body shape, which has helped my accuracy and my velo.”

Whatever the cause, Burke has been excellent of late. Following an early-July promotion to Double-A Montgomery, Burke has recorded strikeout and walk rates of 33.6% and 6.2%, respectively, in 36.2 innings. The differential of 27.4 points between those two figures would represent the highest such mark among qualified Double-A pitchers. Burke was characteristically strong in his most recent start, recording an 8:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio against 28 batters over 7.0 innings (box).

Burke seemed to have the most success with his fastball in that start earlier this week. Here, though, is footage of the one his better curveballs:

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In some circles, Kyle Schwarber has reached mythical proportions. Nor is the rise of his legend entirely unreasonable. Consider some of his exploits to date. He reached the majors just a year after being drafted and proceeded to record 16 homers in less than half a season. He hit a monster home run that helped clinched a playoff series against the rival Cardinals in 2015. Then, after missing the entire 2016 season with knee surgery, he returned for the World Series and reached base in half of his plate appearances, the Cubs winning three of the four games he started. He’s still just 25.

In the nearly two years since that epic series, however, Schwarber has failed to live up to the hype. That said, he’s basically also fulfilled the expectations evaluators had for him as a prospect. Back before the 2015 season, this is what Kiley McDaniel had to say about Schwarber’s future.

When I first saw Schwarber last summer on a loaded college Team USA, I thought the middle linebacker-looking dude wasn’t a good bet to stick at catcher, but he was surprisingly nimble for his size with enough ability to at least consider it. I wrote that he was good enough back there to allow him to play there in the minors and develop him as a potential backup that plays once or twice a week but is a primary at left field or first base. The Cubs took him #4 overall out of Indiana and agree with my defensive suggestion; they’ll develop him as a catcher this year, but most assume his bat will be ready before his glove, meaning he’ll be a part-time catcher at best. There’s legit 30 homer power and surprising feel to hit with a realistic chance for a big league look in late 2016.

At the time, McDaniel gave Schwarber a 60 future-value grade, or roughly the equivalent of a three-win player. Nearly 1,200 plate appearances into Schwarber’s career, he’s put up a 112 wRC+ and 5.8 WAR. He has been, in other words, basically a three-win player thus far in his career. Yes, lot of his value came in that rookie season and, yes, last season might be regarded as a disappointment; however, much of his struggles last year were due to bad luck, and he’s played pretty well this season.

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Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In the twenty-first installment of this series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Patrick Corbin, Zach Eflin, and Sonny Gray — on how they learned and/or developed a specific pitch.

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Patrick Corbin (D-backs) on His Slider

“My slider. When I was really young, I asked my father how to throw a breaking ball, and he showed me this grip. It’s something I’ve stuck with throughout the minor leagues and the big leagues. It’s been my best pitch, and it’s kind of neat that my father showed me the grip.

“I can’t remember exactly when it was, but probably around 10 years old, maybe the first couple of times I played catch with my father. He always used to say he loved throwing it at the left-handed batter’s hip and having him freeze, only to have the ball break over the plate. That’s something I’ve always remembered and taken with me.

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