Chase Whitley grew up playing good old country hardball in Alabama. More specifically, he played it in rural Alabama. The Tampa Bay Rays right-hander hails from Ranburne, which he affectionately described as “a small town with zero stoplights.” Fewer than 500 people call it home, so it’s no wonder he knows “literally every person there.”

In Hoosiers-like fashion, the close-knit community has captured sports glory.

“Growing up, my teams consisted of a bunch of close friends,” related Whitley. “There were 13 of us, and we played together from Little League and Dixie Youth all the way through high school. My junior year, we won the state championship.”

Whitley also played on some “really good” basketball teams, and he spent time on the gridiron as well. Kids in Ranburne are expected to participate in multiple sports because, well, it’s what you do in that neck of the woods. As for their athletic accomplishments, Whitley views them mostly as a byproduct of “buddies who hang out and play some pretty good ball.”

That’s when they’re not working. Growing up where they did, you earn your keep. Read the rest of this entry »

Caleb Joseph is a classic example of a catcher whose value extends well beyond his raw stats. The 30-year-old Baltimore Orioles backstop isn’t much of a hitter, and while his defensive numbers are good — he’s an above-average pitch-framer and has a solid success rate throwing out runners — they’re by no means elite.

More than anything, Joseph is a game-manager and a psychologist. The gear he wears is often referred to as the tools of ignorance, but that might be baseball’s most-misleading slang term. Catchers know the game, and Joseph knows it better than most. The ability to help a pitcher, especially an inexperienced pitcher, navigate from Point A to Point B isn’t something you can quantify. It does make you a huge asset to a major-league baseball team.

I recently approached Joseph to get his perspective on how young pitchers mature. Our conversation didn’t end there. We also delved into the development of young catchers.

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Joseph on the maturation process for pitchers and catchers: “You don’t see many youngsters figure everything out right away. What we’re seeing now is a lot of power arms coming up. The stuff and the action, the power behind the fastball, is all there, and the location is secondary. You do have guys who are 89-92 with incredible command — they rely completely on that — but more times than not, you’re seeing the power.

“You get these young arms who dominated in high school, and they dominated in college, and it was mostly because of their stuff. They could miss in the middle of the plate. Then they got to the minor leagues and a lot of them could dominate at the lower levels there. But when you get to the big leagues, you have to mature in order to succeed. And there are a lot of different aspects to that maturity.

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Steven Souza, Jr. is showing signs he might be ready to break out. Fourteen games are far too few to make any determinations, but the numbers are promising. The Tampa Bay Rays slugger is slashing .320/.424/.520, and six of his 16 safeties have gone for extra bases. Every bit as notable is the fact that he’s drawn nine free passes, and fanned just 13 times, in 59 plate appearances.

Power has never been a problem for the 27-year-old Souza. Making consistent contact has. Coming into the season, he was a .234/.309/.404 hitter with a propensity for being punched out. All of a sudden, he’s the one doing the punching.

When I asked Souza why he’s gotten off to such a good start, he offered a fairly generic answer.

“I really don’t know,” Souza told me on Saturday. “Right now I’m just running into some balls, finding some holes, finding the barrel. I don’t get too caught up in the analytics stuff. I’m a guy who can’t overthink things, so I just try to keep it simple. Right now the ball is falling for me.”

For a baseball reporter, “I just try to keep it simple” is a commonly heard phrase. It’s an honest answer, but at the same time, a more concrete reason is often lurking behind the facade. Souza is hitting the ball harder than ever before — at least in terms of big-league success — and simplicity is rarely a new concept for a professional athlete.

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Logan Morrison is older and wiser, and he’s off to a strong start this season with the Tampa Bay Rays. Over 46 plate appearances (including this morning’s game), the 29-year-old first baseman is slashing a healthy .302/.348/.535, with three round trippers. Thanks in part to a grand salami and a .350 batting average with runners on base, he’s tied for the team lead in RBI, with 10.

He’s still colorful. Morrison has long been good with a quip, and while his hitting approach has matured, his personality remains engagingly offbeat. That’s good new for scribes and fans alike — everyone loves a snappy quote — and LoMo supplied several when I spoke to him over the weekend.

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Morrison on his career thus far: “I’d say I’ve had some ups and downs. There have been some speed bumps along the road, but I’m still here. They’re trying to get me out, but I’m still here.

“I was 22 years old when I got called up. I didn’t know [crap] about anything I was doing. I thought I did. I thought I had it all figured out, and I actually did pretty well that first half-season. I carried it over into the next year, too, but then I got hurt and got off the tracks a little bit. Then I got hurt again. I had to have another surgery on the same leg.

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Raise your hand if you didn’t realize Matt Belisle ranks 12th among active pitchers with 603 career appearances. And don’t feel bad if you’re reading this and asking “Matt who”? That’s especially true if you’re a fan of an American League team. The 36-year-old righty has been a reliable reliever for a long time, but he’s spent the bulk of his career with small-market teams in the NL, and he has just five career saves. He’s anything but a marquee name.

You are familiar with him if you’re a Rockies fan. Belisle was a workhorse in Colorado from 2010-2014, appearing in 73 games annually. Before that he was a Cincinnati Red, and he’s since moved on to the St. Louis Cardinals, Washington Nationals, and now the Minnesota Twins.

When I talked to him late in spring training, Belisle told me he’s grateful for the career he’s had. He also doesn’t take anything for granted.

“What’s behind me is gone,” said Belisle. “I just look at today. I keep everything in front of me and do everything I can to win the way I need to win. I take care of the hours and the days, and let the months and the years take care of themselves.” Read the rest of this entry »

Last April, I interviewed Baltimore Orioles slugger Mark Trumbo about his hitting approach. As he explained, it’s unapologetically aggressive — and geared toward power. The numbers bear that out. Trumbo hit 47 bombs last year — the most in either league — and he walked just 51 times in 667 plate appearances. For better or for worse, that’s who he is.

Belying Trumbo’s free-swinging ways is the fact that he is studious. He’s put a lot of thought into what works for him, and once the offseason rolls around, he’ll tinker with technology-driven tools. Terms like “exit velocity” and “launch angle” aren’t part of his everyday vernacular, but he knows exactly what they mean. Trumbo’s job is to bash baseballs, which necessitates his need to understand how baseballs are best-bashed.

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Trumbo on launch angles: “I’m not, by any means, hyper-obsessed with some of these pop terms that are being thrown around. Especially launch angle. In practice, my goal is usually timing more than anything. When I am trying to drive the ball, I’m more or less trying to knock the fence down. It’s not to hit the ball as high and far as possible. If that happens in a game, great, but there’s a happy medium between a ground ball and a high fly ball. What’s most productive for me are those line drives that just continue to carry.

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Brad Brach broke out after reaching Baltimore. Fueled by a velocity spike and a healthy dose of confidence, the 31-year-old right-hander has excelled since being acquired by the Orioles from San Diego prior to the 2014 season. In 183 relief outings, Brach has a 2.56 ERA and has allowed just 163 hits over 224.2 innings. Working primarily as a setup man, he’s been credited with 22 wins and three saves.

Brach — an All-Star for the first time last season — was treading water before coming east. A pedestrian fastball was a big reason. The Monmouth University product was barely topping 90 mph when the Padres lost faith and shipped him out in exchange for a low-level prospect. Then came spring training in a new uniform, and sage tutelage from a pair of since-departed pitching gurus.

Brach detailed his career-altering velo jump, and the I’m-coming-after-you mindset that followed, prior to yesterday’s game at Fenway Park.

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Brach on how he turned a corner in 2014: “I made a mechanical adjustment that helped me gain some velocity. I straightened out on the rubber. I kind of throw across my body and, before, I was tilting way too much. I was throwing so far across my body that I was basically having to get over myself to throw to home.

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The Tampa Bay Rays had 12 bunt hits in 2016, with Kevin Kiermaier’s four leading the way. Expect Mallex Smith to surpass both of those numbers this season — not just the individual mark, but the team total, as well. The 23-year-old speedster already has one in the books, and if all goes to plan, more are on the way.

Mallex Smith is a bunt machine in the making. That’s not a pejorative. The kill-the-bunt crowd isn’t off base, but their primary target is the out-surrendering sacrifice. Smith’s aim is to reach safely, and to then wreak havoc once he’s on. There’s no questioning his ability to do the latter. Smith led the minors with 88 steals in 2014 (as MLB.com’s Jim Callis sagely predicted he would), and he’s a perfect three-for-three since donning a Tampa Bay uniform.

Acquired over the offseason — he went from Atlanta to Seattle to Tampa on January 11 — Smith isn’t conventional in a modern-day sense. Launch angles and exit velocity are in vogue, and the 5-foot-9 outfielder is all about electricity. He fashions himself a jackrabbit, which is exactly how his first-base coach sees him.

“Mallex is a very dynamic athlete who can do things you don’t see a lot on a baseball field these days,” opined Rocco Baldelli, who as a player was dubbed The Woonsocket Rocket. “There just aren’t a lot of players that fit that sort of speedy, athletic profile in 2017. He really endears himself to that role. He knows what he is as a player.”

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On October 24, 2015, the Pittsburgh Pirates acquired Trevor Williams from the Miami Marlins in exchange for Richard Mitchell. Sort of. As ESPN’s Jayson Stark reported shortly thereafter, Williams was actually compensation for the Marlins’ hiring of pitching guru Jim Benedict. Mitchell was considered a non-prospect, while Williams was a former second-round pick, and is now working out of the Pittsburgh pen.

Last week, I asked Williams about the veracity of the report. Was he truly traded for a pitching instructor?

“It was weird,” said the 25-year-old right-hander.“On paper, I wasn’t, but in actuality, I was. It does make for a good story, because not many people get traded for a non-player. It is what it is. Whether you’re traded for a player, a front office guy, or a clubbie, you’re changing teams, you’re changing scenery.”

Williams wasn’t immediately aware of what had gone down. All he was told is that he was traded for “a minor leaguer.” Once the name became known, he went to his computer. Read the rest of this entry »

We had multiple Pirates articles here at FanGraphs yesterday. Craig Edwards, for example, wrote about how Gerrit Cole’s slider went missing against the Red Sox. Travis Sawchik wrote about the embattled shift. I contributed, as well, with a piece called “Searage, Taillon, and the Pirates Upstairs“.

I’d spoken to pitching coach Ray Searage and right-hander Jameson Taillon on Monday, and the latter followed up on our conversation with a stellar effort on Wednesday night. Making his first start of the season, Taillon tossed seven scoreless frames against a potent Boston lineup. His most impressive performance came in the fifth inning. In a scoreless game, the Red Sox had put runners on second and third with none out. Taillon responded by recording consecutive strikeouts, then got Dustin Pedroia to bounce back to the mound.

I planned to follow-up with Taillon this morning to get his thoughts on the performance, particularly in regard to his sequencing. Unfortunately, this afternoon’s game was postponed early due to weather, and the Pirates clubhouse wasn’t opened to media.

Despite that disappointment, I do have follow-up Taillon content to provide. The majority of what he told me earlier in the week wasn’t included in yesterday’s article, with today in mind. Here are the highlights.

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Taillon on why he’s throwing more two-seam, and fewer four-seam, fastballs: “I kind of put pressure on myself to command my four-seam. Basically, I got a little too fine with it at times. The two-seam is just a much more aggressive mentality, and I do put guys on the ground with it. I’ll throw bad two-seams in my head — out of my hand, I think they’re bad — and I’ll still put hitters on the ground. It’s a better pitch for me.

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