Fernando Tatís Jr is arguably the most-exciting young player in the game. He’s certainly gotten off to a rousing start. Through his first 55 games with the San Diego Padres, the 20-year-old shortstop is slashing .327/.393/.620, with 14 home runs, a 162 wRC+, and 13 stolen bases. Twice he’s scored on a sacrifice fly that was caught by the second baseman. Defensively, his range and his arm have both elicited oohs and aahs from what is becoming an increasingly-invigorated Padres fanbase.

The conversation that follows is focused entirely on the young man’s approach to hitting. He’s learned his lessons well — primarily from his father, former big-league infielder Fernando Tatis — but at the same time, his M.O. at the plate is straightforward. Tatis likes to keep things simple, and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon. Given the numbers he’s been putting up, why should it?

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David Laurila: Is hitting simple, or is it complicated?

Fernando Tatis: “It’s complicated if you want it to be. I think if you take it as simple as possible, you can be more consistent every day. People make it complicated when they start doing a lot of stuff — when you start doing a lot of stuff to your mind; when you think you’re doing this, you’re doing that. For me, a big thing is to remember that I’m playing baseball. I’m just a kid playing in a park. Yes, I have to make adjustments sometimes, but as simple as I can be at the plate is way better.”

Laurila: Are you basically hunting fastballs?

Tatis: “I’m always looking fastballs. I don’t want it to sound like hitting is that easy. Don’t get me wrong. Hitting is not easy. But again, as simple as I can make it is way better.”

Laurila: How do you go about recognizing breaking pitches? Is it mostly a matter of reps?

Tatis: “More reps will be better for you, but for me, recognizing breaking balls is … a big part is when you’re looking for his fastball, you forget about everything down. If you see spin up, those are the good ones to hit. The ones down are going to be hard.” Read the rest of this entry »

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 this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Pete Fairbanks, Jack Flaherty, and Will Smith — on how they learned and developed their sliders.

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Pete Fairbanks, Texas Rangers

“My coach — this was in summer ball when I was 14 or 15 years old — was Matt Whiteside, who I believe pitched for the Rangers back in the day. He showed me a grip and said, ‘Hey, kind of just turn your wrist; turn it on the side when you throw it.’ It’s possible that it was originally taught to me as more of a curveball, but looking back it’s always had slider characteristics to it. Regardless, that was my introduction to a breaking ball.

Pete Fairbanks’ original slider grip.

“The grip was similar to the one I have now, although it has varied over time. My slider has been good and bad. For instance, it was really cutter-y in 2017; it was very flat. It had six-to-eight inches of lift to it, which obviously isn’t what you’re looking for from a slider. You’re trying to get closer to zero. But with the tweaks I’ve made to it this year, it’s really taken off.

“I worked with one of our systems guys, Sam Niedrorf, when I was down in High-A. He was the guy who was feeding me all of my numbers on it, so I could fiddle with it to get it where it needed to be this year. We had a portable TrackMan, and I threw a couple of bullpens in front of that. Read the rest of this entry »

Dakota Hudson is somewhat of a square peg in a round hole. At a time where four-seamers at the belt are de rigueur, the 24-year-old St. Louis Cardinals right-hander likes to live near the knees. Since debuting last season, Hudson has thrown his signature sinker a full 50% of the time. And he’s done so successfully. Hudson has a 3.31 ERA over 119-and-two-thirds career innings.

He hasn’t always relied on the worm-killer responsible for his MLB-best (among qualified pitchers) 60.3% ground-ball rate. As a young pitcher at Mississippi State University, Hudson was primarily four-seamers from straight over the top, and a breaking ball he couldn’t consistently command. Then came his metamorphosis.

“Butch Thompson was my pitching coach at the time,” explained Hudson. “I was 10 or 11 appearances into my sophomore year, and had just gotten through maybe two innings. He came up to me and said, ‘Hey, are you willing to make a change?’Of course I was. So I dropped down.”

The original plan was to drop all the way down to sidearm, but Hudson couldn’t comfortably get that low. He ultimately ended up closer to three-quarters, with a sinker and a cutter/slider becoming his weapons of choice.

The process of finding the most-optimal arm slot was achieved sans a catcher. Read the rest of this entry »

Paul DeJong will represent the St. Louis Cardinals in next week’s All-Star Game. He’ll do so with solid, albeit unspectacular, offensive numbers. The 25-year-old shortstop is slashing .260/.344/.455, with 13 home runs and a 110 wRC+. Thanks in part to plus defense, he leads the Redbirds with 2.9 WAR.

Two years ago, in an interview that ran here at FanGraphs, DeJong discussed the mental side of hitting. This past weekend, the Illinois State University graduate — his degree is in biology — sat down for a far-wider-ranging conversation about his craft.

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David Laurila: How would you describe your hitting approach?

Paul DeJong: “My general approach is to hit something hard through the middle. I’m usually looking for a fastball that I can hit gap-to-gap; not pull, not oppo, but kind of through the middle. That gives me the best chance of adjusting to different speeds and different locations. I’m able to open up, or if I’m late, I still have time to keep it fair.”

Laurila: Something I’ve been asking players about is the idea of an A-swing, and whether hitters have multiple swings.

DeJong: “Hitters absolutely have multiple swings. For instance, if you get fooled on a breaking ball, you’re kind of adjusting your body. But for me, it’s more about keeping my hands back. If you do that, you can drift forward with your body — you’ll be off balance out front — but if your hands are still back, you’re able to deliver the barrel, still put the ball in play hard.”

Laurila: What about on fastballs riding high in the zone? Read the rest of this entry »

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 this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Carson Fulmer, Lucas Giolito, and Clayton Richard — on how they learned and developed their changeups.

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Carson Fulmer, Chicago White Sox

“I’ve always thrown a four-seam fastball, so early on I wanted to throw a four-seam changeup. I could never get enough velocity off of it, so I needed to come up with something else. What I came up with was kind of a fosh. This was about two years ago. But I couldn’t find enough consistency in the zone — it would throw me into bad counts — so I kind of got away from it. Read the rest of this entry »

Brendan McKay continued his fantastic season this past Saturday. Making his big-league debut with the Tampa Bay Rays, the 23-year-old left-hander retired 18 of the 20 Texas Rangers batters he faced. And his work on the farm had been every bit as dominating. In 66.2 innings between Double-A Montgomery and Triple-A Durham, McKay compiled a 1.22 ERA and allowed just 38 hits.

And then there’s the offensive side of the equation. As you know, McKay can swing the bat. Aspiring to be the major’s next Shohei Ohtani — sans the Tommy John surgery — the former Golden Spikes winner as a two-way player at the University of Louisville was 11 for his last 33, with three home runs, at the time of his call-up.

What is his approach on each side of the ball, and does he truly expect to be able to play both ways at baseball’s highest level? I addressed those questions with the 2017 first-round pick a few days before he arrived in The Show.

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Laurila: Nuts and bolts first question: What is your approach on the mound?

McKay: “I’m a pitcher who likes to get ahead — just like every other pitcher — and force the action, rather than letting the hitter have any control over the at-bat. That’s basically it.”

Laurila: Are you looking to induce contact, or are you out there trying to miss bats? Read the rest of this entry »

A number of years ago, Boston sports-TV anchor Bob Lobel used to say of former Red Sox players excelling for other teams, “Why can’t we get players like that?” Similar words are currently being uttered in Detroit, in regard to James McCann. In his first season with the Chicago White Sox, the 29-year-old catcher is slashing a robust .320/.378/.519, and he’s already gone deep nine times.

McCann wasn’t nearly that good with the stick in his four-plus years with the Tigers. When he signed with the ChiSox in December — a bargain-basement one-year deal for $2.5M, no less — he was a .240/.288/.366 career hitter. How did he suddenly morph into an offensive force?

“Honestly, the biggest thing for me this year is that I’m trying to be the best James McCann,” is how the Tigers castoff explained it prior to a recent game at Fenway Park. “I’m staying within myself and not trying to do too much. I’m taking my base hits the other way — I’m taking my singles — and not trying to hit the impossible six-run homer.”

The breaking-out backstop trained with Rangers infielder Logan Forsythe over the offseason — both live just south of Nashville — and as McCann pointed out, each has played with some great hitters over the course of their careers. Not that attempting to emulate one’s more-talented peers is always the best idea. Read the rest of this entry »

Cavan Biggio has turned yet another corner this season. One year after blasting 26 home runs in Double-A New Hampshire, the 2016 fifth-round pick has ridden a torrid start at Triple-A Buffalo to a spot in the Toronto Blue Jays lineup. And while he remains an unfinished product, the early returns have been promising. Since debuting on May 24, the son of Hall of Famer Craig Biggio has a 114 wRC+, and he’s gone deep five times.

What type of hitter is the 24-year-old infielder? Part of that answer can found within our Blue Jays Top Prospects writeup, which dropped prior to spring training. A more recent, and much more comprehensive look, went up just one week ago, courtesy of my colleague Devan Fink.

And then there is Biggio’s own take. The young Blue Jays basher broke down his mechanics, as well as his power-and-patience approach, in a wide-ranging conversation that took place last weekend.

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David Laurila: What is your hitting philosophy?

Cavan Biggio: “My goal is to get a pitch I can square up, and drive. Hitting the ball hard is my No. 1 goal. If I don’t get the pitch I want in the first couple of strikes, I’m going to take. Once I get to two strikes, I’m going to battle and just try to get on base.”

Laurila: Are you basically looking fastball middle?

Biggio: I’d say I’m pretty traditional in trying to hunt the heater. I look for a heater in the middle thirds: middle-in, middle, and middle-away. Those are the parts of the strike zone where I can do the most damage. I’ve also gotten better at recognizing offspeed while looking for the fastball, so if it’s a mistake— if it’s a hung breaking ball — hopefully I’m able to hold off a little bit, put a good swing on it, and barrel it up. So I’m basically trying to hit the heater, but if a guy makes a mistake with a breaking ball, I’m ready for that as well.”

Laurila: What is the key to recognizing an off-speed pitch, particularly one you can handle? Read the rest of this entry »

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 this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Shelby Miller, Daniel Norris, Tyler Olson — on how they learned and developed their curveballs.

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Shelby Miller, Texas Rangers

“I probably didn’t start throwing a curveball until high school. Growing up, my dad always told me they’re not good for your arm — not at an early age — and that changeups are better. But then there was this guy named Jerry Don Gleaton in my hometown — he played professionally, and was a baseball coach at Howard Payne University and I worked with him. He taught me some mechanical things, showed me some grips, and it kind of went from there. Read the rest of this entry »

Tyler Clippard got top billing in this column nine months ago. A Toronto Blue Jay at the time, he boasted a 3.17 ERA, and had allowed just 6.5 hits per nine innings over 696 career appearances. Thanks in part to a lack of save opportunities, he was one of the most-underrated relievers in the game.

Twisting a familiar phrase, the more things remain the same, the more they change. Clippard is now a Cleveland Indian, and while he’s still gobbling up outs — his 3.05 ERA and 5.2 H/9 are proof in the pudding — he’s getting them in a new way. At age 34, having lost an inch or two off his fastball, the under-the-radar righty has pulled an old pitch out of his back pocket.

“Toward the end of last season, I started to incorporate a two-seamer,” said Clippard, who’d scrapped the pitch after transitioning to the bullpen in 2009. The new role wasn’t the primary driver, though. As he explained, “I mostly got rid of it because it wasn’t necessarily sinking. I thought, ‘If it’s not sinking, why should I throw it?’”

A decade later, a reason for throwing it emerged.

“Traditionally, I’ve been a fly-ball pitcher and have given up home runs,” said Clippard, who has surrendered 99 of them at baseball’s highest level. “In the overall scheme of things, I have’t been too concerned about that. There was a year, 2011, when I gave up 11 home runs — which is a lot for a reliever — but I had a 1.83 [ERA]. I can give up home runs and still be fine. At the same time, if I can keep the ball in the ballpark a little bit more, that’s obviously going to benefit me.”

Hence the reintroduction of a two-seamer… this despite the fact that it isn’t diving any more now than it did a decade ago. Read the rest of this entry »