Scott Heineman has become increasingly interested in the mechanics of his swing. That said, the 27-year-old Texas Rangers outfielder isn’t married to the technical aspects of his craft. Nor is his approach what one could call cookie-cutter. That was crystal clear when I asked him the ‘art or science?’ question.

“I’d say hitting is more of an art,” Heineman expressed last Sunday. “I’m going to do what’s most comfortable for me. For instance, I’m not going to go out there and imitate Paul Goldschmidt. That’s what works for him — that stance — but I’ve tried it in the cage and it doesn’t work for me. That said, he does things I really like. I guess I could say I’m an artist painting my own picture, and at the same time looking at all the other pieces in the gallery. I’m seeing how they use colors, and whatnot, and putting parts of that into my own art. That’s what I’m doing with hitting.”

Heineman’s portfolio is somewhat spotty. Pointedly bland in last year’s cup of coffee — a .679 OPS in 85 big-league PAs — he’s otherwise made a good impression down on the farm. Heineman’s right-handed stroke has produced a snappy .303/.378/.475 slash line over four minor-league seasons. Ever the realist, he recognizes that those numbers aren’t going to translate to the big-league level if he doesn’t study the masters. Moreover, Goldschmidt isn’t the only bopper whose palette he’s perused.

“I’m not Mike Trout, even though I’ve tried to be Mike Trout,” Heineman told me. “But it doesn’t work. Again, I’ve got be myself. Even so, guys like Trout, Ryan Braun, J.D. Martinez… I take bits and pieces from them.”

Heineman absorbed a valuable chunk of information last September when the Red Sox played in Texas. It came via a player who revamped his swing and has gone on to craft multiple monster seasons.

“Before the game, J.D. Martinez and I were both running out to center field,” said Heineman. “I said, ‘Hey J.D., do you have a second? I don’t want to take you away from your pregame routine, but I’d love to ask you a couple of questions about hitting.’ He was like, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve always got time to talk hitting.’ So we talked for a couple of minutes, and as we were breaking off he said, ‘Why don’t you tell your clubbie a time that’s good for you tomorrow, and we’ll meet in the tunnel and talk a little bit more.’”

The next day, the two got together in the bowels of Globe Life Park and talked shop for approximately 10 minutes. Some of Martinez’s words pushed Heineman in the direction of science and technology.

“That’s where the all video I like to watch came into play,” Heineman explained. “He half-jokingly told me that it’s not worth taking a swing if you don’t video it. For instance, your body can fool you. You need to be consistent with everything — how you go about loading and triggering into the ball — and that can change without you really noticing. A big thing for me is my elbow. While I might line up a pitch with a high elbow, I know that in the future that probably won’t be a good road for me.

“Another thing [Martinez] said that was cool is, ‘I’m rarely perfect in this game.’ This is a guy who is usually hitting .330 with 30 home runs. He said his perfect swing, his perfect timing, is a line drive home run to dead center.”

Which brings us back to art. Much like an Andy Warhol could never be a Claude Monet, Heineman will never be J.D. Martinez. The former Oregon Duck doesn’t possess that type of raw talent. At the same time, he can be a better version of himself.

“From my experience, no one knows hitting better than Luis Ortiz, our major-league hitting coach, or Howard Johnson, who I had in Triple-A,” said Heineman. “Both are educated on how they need to work with different guys. And that’s crazy, because we’re all different artists. A good art teacher knows how to show each individual how to be their own best artist. From there you can hopefully create a masterpiece.”

——

The Ogden Raptors are reportedly one of the roughly 40 minor-league teams slated for contraction. Count Kyle Farmer among those who doesn’t want to see that happen. The Cincinnati Reds jack-of-all-trades broke into pro ball with the rookie-level Raptors, and his memories of that experience are endearing. Despite the grind.

“I’ve read that they’re in danger, and I’m hoping they’re not,” Farmer told me earlier this week. “It was the perfect transition from [the University of] Georgia to the minor leagues. It was a great atmosphere, a great town, and I stayed with a great host family. It was your prototypical minor-league setting. It taught me a lot. It taught me how to love baseball.

“In college, you have it so easy. Then you go to the minor leagues — especially the Pioneer League with the all the long travel — and you have to adapt. If you don’t love baseball, the minor leagues aren’t for you. It’s a grind. It’s a mental grind. If you don’t learn to sleep on a bus, learn how to go without a meal, then you’re not going to make it. The big leagues aren’t going to happen.”

And then there is the Ogden atmosphere. The Raptors have led the Pioneer League in attendance for each of the last 15 seasons.

“The town supports them so well,” said Farmer “The Raptors are a great landmark for Ogden, so losing them would be awful. Part of me understands why [MLB] would do it, but at the same time, they’d be taking away baseball for so many people. This pandemic is showing how important baseball is to the world. People miss it, and if you take away a small-town team, forever… I’d be sad to see that happen.”

——

RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS

Turkey Gross went 0 for 2 against Lefty Grove.

Oscar Grimes went 5 for 29 against Orval Grove.

Moose Grimshaw went 7 for 20 against Fred Glade.

Skinny Graham went 2 for 4 against Milt Gaston.

Johnny Groth 2 for 6 against Connie Grob.

——

The news that the Baltimore Orioles have released 37 minor-league players has been met with indignation on social media. That’s understandable. The budget cuts, the furloughs, and the ill-advised move toward contraction have combined to leave a sour taste. Even so, some context is in order. Were it not for the pandemic, a good many of the 37 would have been let go more than a month ago.

The number of players each organization releases in spring training varies. Per player-development personnel I checked with (none of whom work for the Orioles) it can range from as few as 15 to as many as 35. One of the estimates I got was “roughly 20-30 each spring.”

Organizations differ in approach. Some prefer to release players at the end of the minor-league season rather than bring them to camp the following spring. Other teams will invite a larger number of players to camp, necessitating more cuts. And the releases don’t always come all at once; they often happen in waves throughout the month of March. Of course, this year’s spring training didn’t progress as usual; it ended abruptly. Exactly how that altered the fortunes of 37 Baltimore Orioles hopefuls is hard to say.

——

A quiz:

Which 1970s-1980s infielder followed in his father’s footsteps by playing for Alabama in the Orange Bowl? Both were quarterbacks.

The answer can be found below.

——

NEWS ITEMS

Japan’s national high school championship, which was to begin on August 10, has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Founded in 1915 and held annually at Koshien Stadium, the two-week tournament was last on hiatus during World War II.

The Hiroshima Carp opened up part of their stadium to a limited number of fans on Thursday, allowing them to watch the club’s first practice since spring training was shut down. NPB is hoping to start its season as early as mid-June.

Ken Retzer, who caught for the Washington Senators from 1961-1964, died last week at age 86. Retzer was behind the plate on September 12, 1962 when Tom Cheney fanned 21 batters in a 16-inning complete-game win over the Baltimore Orioles.

Jonathan Becker and Daniel R. Epstein are the new co-directors of the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America. The duo replaces Howard Cole, who founded the IBWAA in 2009.

The SABR Games Project reached a milestone this past week with the publication of its 2,000th article. The project was launched in 2014.

——

The answer to the quiz is Butch Hobson. The power-hitting third baseman ran the wishbone for Alabama in the 1972 Orange Bowl. His father, Clell Hobson, threw a touchdown pass in the 1953 Orange Bowl.

——

Jacob Cruz didn’t hit a lot of home runs. The outfielder-turned-hitting-coach went deep just 19 times in parts of nine seasons. But he does share a rare distinction: Cruz is one of just a handful of players whose first and last big-league hits left the yard. The final one, which came in a Cincinnati Reds uniform in 2005, doesn’t have much of a story. The initial one, which came in 1996 with the San Francisco Giants, evokes memories that will last a a lifetime.

A knuckleballer was on the hill.

“It was off [Tom] Candiotti, and it’s crazy,” recalled Cruz, who is currently the assistant hitting coach for the Milwaukee Brewers. “I remember that in the pregame meeting, they talked about how every once in awhile he was going to flip you a curveball when he fell behind. Sure enough, he did.

“My second at bat, Candiotti went 1-0 on me. I remember stepping out and thinking, ‘All right, there’s a chance he’s going to flip a breaking ball here.’ That’s what happened. The ball popped up out his of hand, and my eyes lit up. I hit it out to right-center field.”

His trip around the bases was a mixture of exaltation and anxiety.

“Rounding first base and heading toward second, I couldn’t feel my feet on the ground,” Cruz explained. “I also recall thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, did I even touch first base? Do I go back? Will anybody even notice?’ But you don’t forget that. You never forget that first hit.”

It came in Cruz’s second game. A day earlier, flummoxed by Hideo Nomo’s splitter, he’d gone 0 for 4 with three punch outs. Butterflies were in abundance.

“It’s such a blur,” admitted Cruz. “You’re so nervous. You’re this kid, and we’re playing the Dodgers in front of 30,000 fans at Candlestick. Before the game, my heart was coming through my chest. I’m thinking, ‘Slow down, Cruz.’ And it just never did. Eighth inning, and my heart is still racing. I called my dad afterwards and told him, ‘Pops, it’s tough up here.’ He said, ‘What are you talking about?’ I said, “My heart never slowed down; I don’t think I can take this every day.’ Of course, it eventually does slow down.”

———

LINKS YOU’LL LIKE

NPB teams aren’t cutting pay or furloughing employees during the COVID-19 shutdown. Jim Allen explained why at jballallen.com.

ESPN’s Marly Rivera talked to Toronto Blue Jays southpaw Hyun-Jin Ryu 류현진 about his experiences in the KBO, and why he thinks you should watch.

At Baseball America, JJ Cooper looked at how minor-league teams on the chopping block are scrambling to find MLB partners.

Beyond The Boxscore’s Kenny Kelly took a look at Yadier Molina and the great catcher WAR.

Will the pandemic set back the Kansas City Royals’ rebuild? Max Rieper explored that question at Royals Review.

At Words Above Replacement, Bill Thompson wrote about how Chiang Chih-Hsien is still packing a wallop in the Chinese Professional Baseball League.

———

RANDOM FACTS AND STATS

Bill Buckner had 2,715 hits, including 498 doubles and 49 triples.
Rusty Staub had 2,716 hits, including 499 doubles and 47 triples.

In 1963, Pittsburgh’s Bob Bailey had three 3Bs, 12 HRs, and 10 steals.
In 1964, Pittsburgh’s Bob Bailey had three 3Bs, 11 HRs, and 10 steals.
In 1965, Pittsburgh’s Bob Bailey had three 3Bs, 11 HRs, and 10 steals.

The 1965 Chicago White Sox, a 95-win team, had eight players with between 10 and 18 home runs. No one had more than 18. They had five pitchers with between 10 and 15 wins. No one had more than 15.

Hank Greenberg singled in his only career at bat against Ted Williams.

Players born on this date include Dave Machemer, whose only big-league home run came in the first inning of his first game. On June 21, 1978, Machemer led off for the California Angels and promptly went deep against Minnesota’s Geoff Zahn. As Machemer would later tell me, “It was all downhill after that.” He finished his career with 11 hits in 48 at bats.

On May 23, 2002, Shawn Green went 6 for 6 with four home runs to help lead the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 16-3 win over the Milwaukee Brewers.

Babe Ruth hit his final three home runs on May 25, 1935 as a member of the Boston Braves. It was the fourth three-homer game of his career. Ruth played his last game on May 30, 1935.

Bill Sharman, a Boston Celtics legend and a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, was a third baseman/outfielder in the Brooklyn Dodgers system from 1950-1955. Sharman received a big-league call-up in 1951 but never appeared in a game.

Roger Clemens’s given name is William Roger Clemens.

High Pockets Kelly was once traded for Pea Ridge Day. High Pockets is in the Hall of Fame. Pea Ridge is not.

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a mystifying comment on the back of track star and Oakland A’s designated runner Herb Washington’s 1975 Topps card, the phenomenon of wildly inaccurate appraisals of player value, and the utility of pinch-running specialists. Then (21:48) they talk to ESPN broadcaster Jon “Boog” Sciambi about calling KBO games from home, learning a new league, the perils and pitfalls of remote baseball broadcasting, how calling games in a different time zone has affected his sleep schedule, making international baseball accessible to American fans, how the pandemic may impact the future of broadcasting, and more.

Audio intro: Phish, "Fast Enough for You"
Audio interstitial: Richard Thompson, "Johnny’s Far Away"
Audio outro: James Taylor, "As Easy As Rolling Off a Log"

Link to Washington’s 1975 Topps card
Link to Andrew’s book about baseball in Taiwan
Link to Cardboard Gods entry on Washington’s card
Link to video of Washington pickoff
Link to 12/1/74 article on Washington
Link to 12/27/74 article on Washington
Link to Sam on Hamilton’s value
Link to Travis on Hamilton’s value
Link to Sam on Washington, Hamilton, and Bolt
Link to Ben on Lords of the Realm
Link to KBO on ESPN schedule
Link to photo of Boog’s backdrop
Link to Boog on building a better broadcast
Link to Bryan Curtis on remote broadcasts
Link to info on Project Main St.
Link to donate to Project Main St.
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Episode 887

I welcome FanGraphs writer Craig Edwards to the program. Craig and I discuss the growing tension between team owners and players, MLB’s claim that a season of fanless games will result in $4 billion in losses, the move to shorten the amateur draft, and the discourse surrounding it all. Plus, Craig briefly puts his lawyer hat back on to assess the so-called smoking gun email, and we recall the 2011 World Series.

Relevant Craig pieces:

• Parsing MLB’s Claim of a $4 Billion Loss
• After Years of Profits, MLB Owners Ask Players to Subsidize Potential Losses
• Five-Round MLB Draft a Shortsighted, Pound-Foolish Move

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

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Audio after the jump. (Approximate 43 min play time.)

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In this week’s MLB The Show 20 stream, featuring Ben Clemens and Dan Szymborski, the White Sox head to Minnesota to square off against the Twins in a battle for first place in the AL Central.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is the latest installment of a series in which the FanGraphs staff rounds up the latest developments regarding the COVID-19 virus’ effect on baseball.

MLB’s Extensive List of Health and Safety Protocols Is Being Dissected

Last Saturday, a 67-page document laying out all of the health and safety measures considered necessary for a 2020 major league season was reported by The Athletic. In the week since, voices from inside baseball as well as the public health and epidemiology fields have weighed in on what the proposal means, where it goes too far, and where it falls short.

Beginning with medical experts — since they really are the most important voice here — the perspective seems to be that MLB’s proposal is extensive and thoughtful, but the actual execution of it will be challenging. That was the sentiment communicated by Andy McCullough and Marc Carig in a story for The Athletic that ran Thursday. Part of the challenge could be ensuring that measures are taken as seriously as they should be for as long as possible. If MLB’s protocols are effective, it will mean the virus isn’t spreading throughout clubhouses. That will make the threat seem less dangerous, which could lead to people letting their guard down and no longer following the rules as closely.

Troublingly, the steps toward that false sense of security has already begun. In a report by ESPN’s Jesse Rogers, players openly wondered why so many restrictions would be necessary in an environment where everyone has tested negative for the virus. As doctors have warned, however, false negatives exist, and allowing everyone to proceed with life as normal would be very risky regardless of test results. Read the rest of this entry »

After the initial sugar rush of watching live KBO baseball faded, I’ve settled into a comfortable routine. While I work and relax throughout the day, I’ll watch some KBO action from the night before, either the English language feature game or a Twitch rebroadcast in Korean. In that way, I soak in the atmosphere of baseball almost by osmosis, sometimes focusing closely on a play but sometimes just listening to the sound of it.

At some point, however, I started to get a sense of déjà vu. Hey, that Ah-Seop Son guy is on base again. Hey, did he walk? That was a nice at-bat there, but haven’t I seen this before? It turns out that yeah, that was the case. Through 61 plate appearances in 2020, Son has drawn 14 walks. That’s a cool 23% walk rate. I wasn’t just imagining things — 14 games, 14 walks. He truly is just walking all the time.

Some quick backup before we cover what’s going on this season: Son has been a mainstay in the Giants lineup for the last decade. Since 2010, his worst wRC+ was a 112 showing in 2019, with a 151 wRC+ effort in 2014 his best overall year. For the most part, he’s been a metronomic presence at the top of the lineup, as his career stats attest — he’s a career .323/.395/.471 hitter, which works out to a 134 wRC+. That’s something like career Will Clark — relative to a weaker competition level, of course.

That career .401 OBP says a lot about his on-base prowess, and indeed, Son’s career walk rate is a robust 11.3%. He’s never been much of a slugger, but the combination of gap power, 20-homer pop at his (and the league offensive environment’s) peak, and an all-fields, line-drive approach have made opposing pitchers careful around the plate, and he’s been willing to take his walks. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

If the NC Dinos are the Korea Baseball Organization’s hottest team — and at 12-2, with a three-game lead over the second-place LG Twins, that’s the case — then the SK Wyverns are its coldest. Through Friday, they’ve gone 2-12, a skid that includes a 10-game losing streak, one game shy of the longest in franchise history.

Based in Incheon, South Korea’s third-largest city after Seoul and Busan, the Wyverns — those are two-legged dragons, in case you’ve forgotten — have been particularly successful in the past couple of years, finishing second in the regular season standings twice in a row. After going 78-65-1 in 2018 under former major league manager Trey Hillman, they beat the Nexen (now Kiwoom) Heroes three games to two in the best-of-five Playoff Series, then beat the Doosan Bears four games to two in the best-of-seven Korean Series for their first championship since 2010 and fourth since joining the league in 2000. Last year, they went 88-55-1 but finished tied with the Bears, that after holding a 7 1/2-game advantage over them as late as August 24. Since the Bears held a 9-7 advantage in head-to-head competition, they won first place and automatically advanced to the Korean Series, while the Wyverns suffered a three-game sweep at the hands of the Heroes in the Semi-Playoff Series.

Per Dan Szymborski’s rough KBO projections, the Wyverns were forecast to be the league’s third-best team behind the Heroes and Bears, with a 17.0% chance of finishing first and an 83.3% chance of making the playoffs. Instead, after splitting their first two games against the Hanhwa Eagles, they lost 10 straight: the series rubber match against the Eagles, then two to the Lotte Giants and three to the LG Twins (both on the road), three to the Dinos at home, and the series opener agains the Heroes in Seoul. They finally got off the schneid by beating the Heroes on Wednesday, 5-3, then lost to them again on Thursday, a game in which they blew a 5-0 lead and suffered this final indignity, a walk-off infield single that deflected off shortstop Sung-hyun Kim 김성현. Read the rest of this entry »

Reggie Jefferson played alongside some elite hitters in a career that spanned the 1991-1999 seasons. His teammates included the likes of Albert Belle, Nomar Garciaparra, Ken Griffey Jr, Edgar Martinez, and Mo Vaughn. Jefferson was no slouch himself. A left-handed hitter who most often platooned at DH, Jefferson slashed .300/.349/.474 with a 110 wRC+.

Jefferson broke into the big-leagues with the Cincinnati Reds as a switch-hitter. A cup of coffee later, he joined the Cleveland Indians and continued swinging from both sides. He then scrapped the practice after being dealt to the Seattle Mariners in exchange for Omar Vizquel. His best, and most-turbulent, seasons came in his five-year stint with the Red Sox. In 1996, Jefferson batted .347 with a 140 wRC+. In 1999, a fractious relationship with Boston manager Jimy Williams led to an aggrieved exit, which was followed by a year abroad with NPB’s Seibu Lions.

Upon returning from Japan, Jefferson went on to earn a business degree from the University of South Florida. He’s now a player agent for Reynolds Sports.

———

David Laurila: Where did you first learn to hit?

Reggie Jefferson: “My father played in semi-pro leagues. I’m from Tallahassee, Florida, and baseball was really big in the black community when I was a young kid. I remember him playing when I was four or five, and then he went straight into managing the team. Every Saturday I would go watch those guys play; he would have me all over these small towns, watching baseball. That’s really how I learned. Like most hitters, it just came to me naturally. There aren’t too many guys that you can teach to hit.”

Laurila: Did you grow up batting right-handed or left-handed?

Jefferson: “Left-handed, but it’s a funny story. No one in my family had ever been left-handed, and the first glove my dad bought me was actually for a right-handed thrower. I remember being in the yard, playing catch right-handed. I was kind of ambidextrous, so my dad never picked up on it. In time, I realized that I did things better with my left hand, so I played left-handed and became a left-handed hitter. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Cincinnati Reds. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed, you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It can be found here.

Other Prospects of Note

Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.

Sleeper Arms I Like
Reiver Sanmartin, LHP
Jhon De Jesus, RHP
James Marinan, RHP

Sanmartin has been traded a few times (Texas to New York to Cincinnati). He’s a little low-slot lefty whose tailing fastball and sweeping slider dovetail from one another in an effective way. He has a shot to end up with plus command and make a roster. De Jesus is a stallion with arm strength — 91-96, touch 98 — and 30 control/feel. Marinan has pedigree as a sinker/slider starter prospect. He was up to 95 in some starts and 88-92 in others.

College-Aged Outfielders with a Carrying Tool
Quin Cotton, LF
Fidel Castro, RF
TJ Hopkins, CF
Michael Beltre, LF
Lorenzo Cedrola, CF
Andy Sugilio, CF

Cotton was in the third round mix for some clubs coming into his junior spring at Grand Canyon. Scouts hoped a swing change might unlock dormant raw power, and as Cotton tried to make one, he came undone and had a bad year. Now he’s in an org that has lately had some success making swing changes. He has 55 pull power. Castro’s frame is still really projectable for a 21-year-old and he has natural low-ball lift. He’s got a shot to grow into power yet. Hopkins is a senior sign who hit .295/.371/.463 at South Carolina. Beltre is 25, so assume he’s getting his doctorate. He’s physical and fast and plays really hard, but his swing just doesn’t work. Cedrola and Sugilio are speedsters without viable strength.

Up-the-Middle Depth
Miguel Hernandez, SS
Hendrik Clementina, C
Jose Tello, C
James Free, C

Hernandez can still pick it and make an average amount of contact, but hasn’t filled out like I thought he might when he was 19. The other three are big-bodied catchers with power. Free signed for $125,000 as an undrafted free agent.

Young Dominicans
Braylin Minier, SS
Esmil Torres, SS
Junior Tamares, CF
Jose Acosta, 3B

This is an especially relevant group because for over a decade, Cincinnati’s most prominent international talent acquisitions have typically come from Cuba. It’s been the Reds’ M.O. to avoid the teenage demographic and instead sign older Cuban players when they hit the market later in the process. Most of the 2019 17-year-old class had verbal deals long before new International Scouting Director Trey Hendricks arrived, as he told the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Bobby Nightengale last July. It makes sense then that they ended up with Triana, who hit the market at age 19, and Minier, who popped so late that any info on him is hard to come by since clubs had most of their money committed and had stopped scouting 2019’s. Baseball America has noted that Minier was trained by Patrick Guerrero, who used to work under Reds International Crosschecker Bob Engle in Los Angeles and Seattle.

Torres was in the DSL last year. He has a medium frame, good defensive footwork, and downward-cutting swing from both sides of the plate. Tamares is a plus runner with some feel to hit. He needs to get stronger. Acosta has a good frame and crude bat control.

System Overview

This system looks rough in large part due to a combination of graduations (Nick Senzel, Aristides Aquino) and trades (Taylor Trammell, Josiah Gray) made with an eye toward competing for a playoff spot in a strong division.

The international program seems inclined to re-engage with a significant portion of the market it had previously avoided. The Reds also seem more inclined than other clubs to draft older high schoolers, and an unusually high number of their slugging corner bats have among the most reckless approaches in all of baseball. The current pillars of the org’s scouting and player development haven’t been in place for very long and 2020 is a key year for understanding the org’s new tendencies as they reveal them. It was hard not to write this list with the org’s new pitching development processes in mind, as Pitching Coordinator Kyle Boddy’s body of research and thinking is basically available online.