Author Archive: David Laurila

Huston Street isn’t an expert on analytics. Nor does he claim to be. But he’s by no means a neophyte. The veteran closer is more knowledgeable about advanced stats than the average player. He also has some strong opinions.

A little over a year ago, Street shared his negative view of FIP in one of my Sunday Notes columns. This past spring, I approached him at the Angels’ spring-training facility, in Tempe, to get his thoughts on shift strategy. I ended up getting a lot more than that. A simple question segued into what might be best described as a stream-of-consciousness look at the state of analytics, in classic Street style.

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Street on defensive shifts: “I’m a big believer in match-ups when it comes to shifts. When they’re done really well, they’re based on the individual match-up and not on a general approach to shifting. Half the league throws 96 and the other half throws 93. Then there’s me, who throws 90.

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PJ Conlon doesn’t fit the profile of a New York Mets starter. The defending National League champions have a rotation populated by deGroms, Harveys and Syndergaards. Conlon, meanwhile, isn’t a power arm. The 22-year-old pitching prospect is your prototypical finesse lefty who relies more on guile than gas.

Twenty-seven games into his professional career, Conlon resembles a half-his-age Jamie Moyer. He looks hittable, but squaring him up is often an exercise in futility. Since being drafted in the 13th round last year out of the University of San Diego, Conlon has allowed a grand total of nine earned runs in 84 innings. On Saturday, he took the hill for the Low-A Columbia Fireflies and breezed through 10 innings on just 97 pitches. He flirted with a no-hitter and held Hagerstown to a lone tally.

Soon after that start, Conlon was named to the South Atlantic League’s mid-season All-Star team. He leads the circuit in both wins and ERA, and ranks second in WHIP.

Conlon was featured in this past Sunday’s Notes column, with his Irish heritage being the main focus (he was born in Belfast). Today we hear from the southpaw on his pitching prowess.

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Conlon on pitching: “I’d describe myself as a shorter lefty who doesn’t have great velocity. I’m about 6-foot and will top out at 91 on a good day. I’m usually between 87-90, but I can run the ball and do different things with it. I don’t really throw anything straight.

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Jon Gray had one of his best starts of the season on Sunday. The Colorado Rockies right-hander fanned 12 while limiting the Padres to two runs over seven innings. It was his third straight solid outing following a a nine-run dud against the Cardinals on May 19.

A few days after his St. Louis shelling, the 24-year-old University of Oklahoma product threw a pre-game bullpen session at Fenway Park. On his way back to the clubhouse, he stopped in the outfield grass and conferred with his pitching coach, occasionally mimicking his pitching motion.

After the confab concluded, I approached him to ask what they’d been working on. I had other questions in mind as well. I’d interviewed Gray a few months after he was taken third overall in the 2013 draft, and a lot of development had occurred since that time. A follow-up was in order.

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Gray on his development and needing to stay in sync: “There’s a lot more to this game than it might seem. You’re constantly making adjustments in order to compete. I’ve done a lot of things with my delivery, as well as mentally. You have to make adjustments a lot faster at this level. If I know something isn’t right in my delivery, I have to change it as soon as possible, otherwise it’s going to get bad. Same thing mentally. I have to really keep tabs on myself, with each pitch, each approach.

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Jon Harris had a rocky outing a week ago. After allowing just one run over his previous 32 innings — an unearned run, to boot — the Blue Jays pitching prospect was kicked around for eight runs in a loss to South Bend. The reason for his poor performance was as much mental as it was physical.

“I was in a funk,” explained Harris, whom Toronto selected 29th-overall last year out of Missouri State. “I couldn’t really get comfortable — I couldn’t get a rhythm — and I let the game speed up on me a little. I was in my head a lot, worrying about what I was doing wrong instead of just focusing on making my pitches. South Bend is a good hitting team and if you make a mistake they’re going to jump all over it. And they did.”

Harris didn’t allow the implosion to linger. In his next start for the low-A Lansing Lugnuts, the 22-year-old righty allowed just one run over five innings against Dayton. His prior-game hiccup in the rearview, he took the mound with his chin held high. Read the rest of this entry »

Lance McCullers puts a lot of thought into his craft. The 22-year-old right-hander fashions himself a bulldog — understandably so; his father was a big-league closer — but in between starts he puts on his pitching-theorist hat. In many respects, he fits the analytic Astros’ paradigm to a tee.

Selected 41st overall by Houston in the 2012 draft, McCullers features a mid-90s fastball and a killer curveball. His lack of a consistent changeup has been a cause for concern, but to this point he’s thrived with the two plus pitches. Twenty-six games into his big-league career, McCullers has a 3.44 ERA and has averaged over a strikeout per inning.

McCullers talked about his pitching approach, which focuses more on spin than location, following a mid-May outing in Boston.

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McCullers on his adaptive approach: “I don’t like putting labels on people, like, ‘He’s a finesse guy’ or ‘He’s a power guy.’ The game will dictate how I pitch. If a team is trying to jump on my heater early — they’re really hunting fastballs — I have no problem throwing 60-70% offspeed and using my fastball for effect.

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Heading into the 2012 season, Baseball America wrote of DJ LeMahieu, “Most scouts see him as a singles hitter who doesn’t provide enough beyond his batting average.” BA added that “his fringy speed and quickness don’t fit at second base.”

The latter turned out to be patently false. The 27-year-old won a Gold Glove at second base with the Rockies in 2014, and he remains a solid defender. He doesn’t look like a middle infielder — LeMahieu is 6-foot-4 — but his plus-2 DRS over the last two years puts him solidly in the gets-the-job-done category.

From an offensive standpoint, the singles-hitter label has a grain of truth to it. Despite calling Coors Field home, LeMahieu doesn’t leave the yard very often. Extra-base hits aren’t his forte (last night’s home run and pair of doubles notwithstanding). And while he’ll accept a free pass — his walk rate is a respectable 8.3% — no one is about to compare him to Eddie Yost.

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Chad Bettis throws both a cutter and a slider. Or maybe he throws cutters but not sliders? That determination largely depends on how you parse pitches. Whatever your opinion, you probably won’t get much of an argument from him. The Rockies right-hander isn’t 100% sure himself.

“Both,” was Bettis’s initial answer to my ‘Cutter or slider?’ question. That was followed by less-than-definitive elaboration.

“It’s the same grip; it’s just me manipulating it to make it shorter or bigger. With one, I’m more behind the ball and with the other I’m a little more on the side of it. When I want to make it a little sweepier, I can. When I want to make it short and tight like a cutter, I can do that too.”

Bettis had a slider at Texas Tech, although he’d already begun developing a cutter by the time Colorado selected him in the second round of the 2010 draft. Prior to last season, the cutter is all he’d thrown in pro ball.

The reintroduction of a slider — if that’s what you choose to call it — came about mostly by accident. Read the rest of this entry »

Danny Salazar has a fastball that averages nearly 95 mph and one of the best changeups in the game. Given that lethal combination, it’s no surprise that he’s striking out over 11 batters per nine innings and has a 2.32 ERA. In his age-26 season, the Indians right-hander is continuing his ascent into most-overpowering-pitchers territory.

Signed by Cleveland out of the Dominican Republic in 2006, Salazar began emerging as a top-shelf prospect after returning from Tommy John surgery in 2011. Two years later, he was in the big leagues with a heater that touched triple digits. Last season, he logged career highs in wins (14), innings pitched (185) and strikeouts (195).

Salazar talked about his repertoire, which includes a changeup with a unique grip — no, it’s not a splitter — when the Indians visited Fenway Park earlier this month.

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Salazar on why he’s emerged as a front-line pitcher: “I think it’s learning. Every time I go outside, every time I watch a game, I’m paying attention. I’m seeing how guys attack hitters. That’s helping me to become a better pitcher.

“You learn about yourself and you learn about hitters. My best pitch is a fastball, but I know that if I’m just throwing fastball, fastball, they’re going to do damage to me. I have to use my secondary stuff, too. I’m learning more about myself and more about the other teams and how to attack them.”

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Mike Clevinger was nervous when he made his major-league debut with the Cleveland Indians last Wednesday. As a matter of fact, he was so nervous that he vomited prior to taking the mound. That didn’t prevent him from pitching well. The 25-year-old right-hander allowed just one run through five innings before faltering in the sixth. He wasn’t involved in the decision, but his club did come out on top in a 12-inning affair played in Cincinnati.

A fourth-round pick by the Angels in 2011, Clevinger came to Cleveland in the 2014 deal that sent Vinnie Pestano west. Prior to being called up, the impressively coifed native of Jacksonville, Florida, was 5-0 with a 3.03 ERA at Triple-A Columbus.

Clevinger talked about his debut outing — primarily his emotion-filled first inning of work — when Cleveland visited Boston over the weekend.

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Clevinger on his mindset when he took the mound: “I remember trying not to look up. I was trying to just zone in on the catcher. Ever since I got to pro ball, what I’ve heard is, ‘Whenever that time comes, don’t look up. If you do, the moment will get you out of yourself. So all I thought was, ‘Stay within yourself, stay within yourself; don’t overthrow, don’t overthrow.’

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The numbers suggest that Khris Davis should be labeled a power hitter. Since the beginning of last season, the Oakland outfielder is hitting .244/.308/.504 with 39 home runs in 603 plate appearances. This past week, he had a three-homer game capped off by a walk-off grand slam.

A few days before his heroics, I opined to Davis that he’s best described by said label. He demurred.

“That’s arguable,” answered the 28-year-old former Brewer. “It’s just what everybody’s judgment is of me. I don’t think I’m a power hitter.”

Color me a skeptic. Not only is Davis among the league leaders in home runs this year, he went deep 21 times over the second half of last season. If he’s not a power hitter, where are the bombs coming from? Read the rest of this entry »