Tom Hackimer loves Driveline, uses a Motus Sleeve, and is one class short of earning a physics degree from St. John’s University. In other words, Minnesota’s 2016 fourth-round pick is a pitching nerd. He’s also an intriguing prospect. In 43 relief appearances this past season, the sidearming 5-foot-11 right-hander logged a 1.76 ERA and 10.4 strikeouts per nine innings between Low-A Cedar Rapids and High-A Fort Myers. He followed that up with a strong showing in the Arizona Fall League.

Hackimer discussed his scientific and methodical approach, which includes slow-motion video and the modeling of his motion after Joe Smith’s, earlier this month.

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Tom Hackimer on being a pitching nerd: “Before I knew that I was going to be any good in baseball, I thought I would go to grad school and get a degree in civil engineering. I like to build things. That seemed like a logical step, as civil engineering would be building things on a bigger scale, such as bridges. I’ve always thought that would be cool.

“As it pertains to baseball… I try to build things that will help me. My senior year of college, I built sort of a pitch-tunneling device. At least that’s what it was in theory. It was basically a window that I could change the height of. I put it 20 feet in front of the mound and would work on throwing all of my pitches through it, wanting them look the same all the way up to that point, at least.

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Players today are physically superior to those of previous generations. They’re bigger, they’re stronger, they’re faster. Thanks in part to advances in training methods, most modern-day athletes are fine-tuned machines.

Are they also smarter? Given the amount of information now available, from launch angles to spin rates to advanced stats, they certainly know things their forebears didn’t. Does that mean they understand the game better? I asked a selection of big-league managers for their opinions during the Winter Meetings.

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Craig Counsell, Milwaukee Brewers

“Hopefully we’re making progress. I think they should always be getting bigger; they should always be getting stronger; they should always be getting a little smarter. We have access to more and more information as we make progress in the game. So yes, I think so, but it’s not leaps and bounds. Some of it is that the information is a little different, and we’re asking the players to consume more information.

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Kirsten Karbach grew up listening to Andy Freed and Dave Wills call Tampa Bay Rays games on the radio. Now she’s following in their footsteps. At age 27, Karbach is the voice of Philadelphia’s high-A affiliate, the Clearwater Threshers. She’s been with the Florida State League club since 2013.

According to Ben Gellman, Karbach got her job by “knocking our socks off” in an interview.

“When I was with the Threshers, my boss told me I could hire a No. 2 broadcaster to intern and help me out,” explained Gellman, who now does play-by-play for the Salem Red Sox. “He suggested a guy from the University of South Florida, whose tape was pretty good, but I’d heard a couple of innings of Kirsten on tape and was blown away by the quality of her call. I told my boss, ‘We have got to bring her in for an interview.’

“We brought her on board and she was a terrific partner, consistently pointing out nuances of the game and enhancing the broadcast. When she took over the lead job in 2014, I knew she’d do a fantastic job and I’m so happy to see her continued success in a corner of our industry that badly needs more women and people of color — and other people who aren’t straight, white males — to give us a diverse perspective that better reflects our fans.”

Karbach obviously feels the same way, and while she’s currently the only female play-by-play broadcaster in affiliated baseball she doesn’t expect that to be the case for much longer. Read the rest of this entry »

Mike Fiers signed a free-agent contract with the Detroit Tigers on Friday, which means he’ll be working with a new pitching coach. After spending the last two-plus seasons with Brent Strom in Houston, Fiers will now be under the watchful eye of Chris Bosio — himself a new Motown arrival.

Back in October, I happened to ask the 32-year-old right-hander about coaches who have made an impact. One was Rick Kranitz, who he had in Milwaukee for his first several seasons.

“When I got to the big leagues, Kranny told me to trust in my stuff,” related Fiers. “Even though I was a right-handed pitcher throwing 88-90 with a slow curveball, he instilled in my head that what I did worked for me. I didn’t have to try to be like somebody else. We had Zack Greinke, Yovani Gallardo, Kyle Lohse — guys who’d had success in the big leagues — but what I needed to do was be myself, not try to steer myself into being a pitcher I wasn’t.”

What Fiers was — and for the most part still is — is a righty with a standard build, average-at-best velocity, and solid-but-unspectacular secondary offerings. Lacking plus stuff, he lasted until the 22nd round of the 2009 draft. Pitchers who share those characteristics are a dime a dozen, and most don’t make the majors.

I challenged Fiers with a difficult-to-answer question: Why have you succeeded, while the majority of pitchers with your profile never get off the farm? Read the rest of this entry »

The Hall of Fame’s Modern Era committee is scheduled to vote on Sunday, with the results announced later that day. Who among the 10 candidates will be elected into Cooperstown is anyone’s guess. Based on previous veterans’ committee decisions, it won’t be many — if any at all. The electorate consists of 16 members, and the support of at least 12 of them (75%) is needed to cross the threshold.

We conducted a poll of our own, asking a cross section of baseball writers from around the country (and Canada) which of the candidates is deserving. We requested, along with their selections, a brief explanation for each Yes vote. (As you’ll see below, “brief” is a relative term.)

Here are the responses, with final results tallied at the end.

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Mike Axisa, CBS Sports
Selections:Tommy John, Marvin Miller, Alan Trammell.

“Tommy John was a borderline Hall of Famer as a player, and I think his impact on the game through the surgery that bears his name should be considered, and that pushes him in for me. John’s overall impact on the game, both as a player and medical marvel, are Cooperstown worthy.”

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Riley Pint has a golden arm and a sky-high ceiling. The 20-year-old right-hander reaches triple digits, which helped prompt the Colorado Rockies to take him fourth overall in the 2016 draft. He’s the best pitching prospect in the system and a potential big-league ace.

The numbers don’t reflect that. Since signing out of an Overland Park, Kansas, high school, Pint is 3-16 with a 5.40 ERA and a 1.70 WHIP. This past season, he walked 59 batters in 93 innings at Low-A Asheville. To say he’s a work in progress would qualify as an understatement.

Are the Rockies concerned? I asked Zach Wilson, the club’s director of player development, for his appraisal of the youngster’s development.

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Zach Wilson on Pint: “Numbers are numbers, and in the development world, they don’t tell the whole story. As a matter of fact, they tell very little of the story. Walking [59] guys in fewer than 100 innings is going to raise a red flag to somebody staring at a stat line, but this was a 19-year-old in his first full season — and we were aggressive with him. The numbers weren’t a concern to us whatsoever. This was just a small part of the global developments scenario for Riley. He made strides.

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The Detroit Tigers are shedding veteran contracts and restocking what had become a depleted farm system. That’s good news for the team’s future. It’s bad news for their fans in terms of watching winning baseball. As with any rebuild, near-term pennant contention isn’t part of the plan.

Al Avila is approaching the situation with a stiff upper lip. As unpleasant of a task as it might be — no one likes to lose — Detroit’s GM accepts the fact that in order to get better, his team first has to get worse. That’s why he traded J.D. Martinez, Justin Verlander, Justin Upton, Justin Wilson, and even his own son. And he’s not done dealing.

During the General Managers’ Meetings in Orlando, Avila praised both the prospects he’s been acquiring and the young talent that has already begun contributing at the big league level. He then went on to suggest the latter group might not want to invest too heavily in Detroit-area real estate. Read the rest of this entry »

Peter Moylan is known for being from Australia as much as anything. That and the tattoos and the fun-loving personality. The fact that he’s a pretty decent relief pitcher tends to get lost in the shuffle. It shouldn’t. The 38-year-old side-winder has just four career saves, but he’s 24-9 with a 3.00 ERA since debuting with the Atlanta Braves in 2006. This past season, he made a league-leading 79 appearances with the Kansas City Royals.

Moylan originally came over in 1996 when the Minnesota Twins signed him at the age of 17. That didn’t pan out. After two tumultuous years of Rookie ball, Moylan found himself back in Australia working day jobs. Unable to cut the mustard as a pitching prospect, he became a laborer, a glass installer, a pharmaceutical salesman. Baseball became more or less a hobby.

He turned the hobby into a second chance. Moylan attracted the attention of Atlanta scouts while pitching in the 2006 World Baseball Classic and was inked to a make-good contract. He did just that. Despite a plethora of surgeries — back, elbow, shoulder — he’s still wearing a big-league uniform a decade later. Does that mean he’s a household name down under? Not so much.

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Moylan on making his mark in MLB: “Am I surprised I’m still playing? No, but I feel like I’m playing with house money. In everyone’s eyes, I was never going to be a guy who comes over here and goes very far. I was 27 when I was a rookie. I came out of the World Baseball Classic and it was more of ‘Let’s take a chance on this guy.’ The fact that I’ve turned that chance into an 11-year career… I’m really grateful.

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The Cincinnati Reds didn’t pitch well in 2017. Their 5.17 team ERA was the worst in the National League, as was their 5.08 FIP. They also gave up more runs and issued more free passes than any senior circuit staff. A plethora of arms contributed to those woeful results. In all, 31 hurlers took the mound for the Central Division cellar dwellers.

Dick Williams sees a light at the end of the tunnel. When I talked to the Reds GM earlier this month, he sounded anything but pessimistic about his club’s pitching future.

“We’ve built up our roster to a young exciting group,” said Williams. “One thing I’m really pleased with is the progress we’ve seen with our young pitching. People were a little concerned about their pace of development this year, but we had to fill a lot of innings with pitchers we weren’t necessarily expecting to be in the big leagues.”

Williams went on to explain that they learned of Homer Bailey’s elbow maladies shortly before spring training, and that Anthony Desclafani joined him on the shelf not long thereafter. A third member of the projected starting rotation, Brandon Finnegan, was subsequently injured in April. As a result, “the Sal Romanos and Rookie Davises and Amir Garretts were making big league starts early in the season, which wasn’t part of their original development plans.” Read the rest of this entry »

Trey Mancini had a successful first season with the Baltimore Orioles. The 25-year-old University of Notre Dame graduate hit .293/.338/.488, with 24 home runs. Last week he was rewarded with a third-place finish in American League Rookie-of-the-Year balloting.

Every bit as notable is the fact that he played the majority of his games as an outfielder. Coming into the year, Mancini had served exclusively as a first baseman or designated hitter. At 6-foot-4, 215 pounds, he profiled as a slightly more athletic version of Mark Trumbo.

Neither would dispute the comparison. When I talked to the Orioles teammates late in the season, both agreed they have a lot in common. The body types, the determination to overcome their defensive limitations, the plus power and the strikeouts, the hot and cold streaks. By and large, Mancini is Trumbo 2.0.

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Trey Mancini: “This season has been a whirlwind, for sure. Changing positions in spring training and learning to play the outfield at this level has been the coolest experience I’ve ever had. I grew up a first baseman — I’ve been a first baseman all my life — and nobody really thought much of me switching positions. People didn’t think I was athletic enough.

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