Addison Barger put up the best numbers of any hitter in the Toronto Blue Jays system this season, and he did so with a hitting style that was initially influenced by Ichiro Suzuki.

“I’m naturally a right-handed hitter, and actually switch-hit throughout high school,” explained Barger, who now hits exclusively from the left side. “At the time I started hitting left-handed, around 10 years old, I was obsessed with Japanese players and the Japanese style of hitting. A big leg kick was part of that, and it’s something I mimicked. It just stuck with me.”

That’s not to suggest the 22-year-old infielder profiles similarly to the Japanese icon and erstwhile Seattle Mariner that he grew up watching in Bellevue, Washington. That aforementioned big leg kick is one point of difference; while more pronounced during his NPB days and at times early in his MLB career, Ichiro’s was never as high as the one Barger currently employs. And Barger is no Ichiro-like slasher. The future Hall of Famer had a swing designed to slash line drives into the opposite-field gap. Barger’s M.O. is now the inverse. Indeed, as evidenced by the 26 home runs he hit across three levels, Barger is a basher. Read the rest of this entry »

Craig Lefferts has a place in San Diego Padres history, and a good story that goes along with it. The 65-year-old veteran of 12 big-league seasons shared it with me prior to a recent Arizona Fall League game.

“My rookie year was 1983, with the Chicago Cubs,” said Lefferts, who is now a pitching coordinator in the Oakland Athletics organization. “We had two left-handers in the bullpen, myself and Willie Hernandez, and the two of us would play catch every day, trying to work on a changeup. We had a right-hander in our pen by the name of Bill Campbell who threw a screwball. He taught, or at least attempted to teach, us how to throw a screwball. Mine was terrible and Willie’s wasn’t very good either. [Pitching coach] Billy Connors told me, ‘I don’t want you to ever use that in a game. I want you to pitch with the stuff that got you here. You’re a rookie, so don’t go out there and try and throw a new pitch.’ So I didn’t, but I kept working on it. After the season, I went to winter ball and perfected it.

“The next year, Willie got traded to the Tigers and I got traded to the Padres,” continued Lefferts. “Both of us threw a screwball as our best pitch. He won the Cy Young Award and I had arguably the best year of my career. I had 10 saves, but was mostly setting up Rich Gossage. Then Willie and I met in the World Series.” Read the rest of this entry »

Jordan Lawlar’s fifth stop in what was essentially his first professional season ended prematurely on Friday. Playing for the Arizona Fall League’s Salt River Rafters, the 20-year-old shortstop suffered a fractured left scapula after being plunked by a pitch. The injury — the second to put him out of action since he was taken with the sixth overall pick of the 2021 draft — will leave him on the shelf for a reported six to eight weeks. Fourteen months ago, he tore a labrum in the same shoulder after just a pair of games with the Arizona Diamondbacks’ rookie-league entry.

The progress he’s made in the interim is a testament to his talent. Advancing from the Arizona Complex League to Double-A Amarillo, with two stops in-between, Lawlar slashed .303/.401/.509 with a 138 wRC+ and 16 home runs in 459 plate appearances this season. A self-described “pure hitter who likes to just be athletic in the box,” the Dallas-area native is currently No. 42 in our Top 100 Prospects rankings.

Veronica Gajownik knows him well. An outfield and hitting coach in the Diamondbacks system, the former Team USA infielder worked with Lawlar in Amarillo this year, and more recently in the AFL.

“He wants to get better,” said Gajownik, who is on Salt River’s coaching staff. “He has a very open mind, and the determination to do what it takes to get to the big leagues. The effort level is great to see from someone his age.” Read the rest of this entry »

Adley Rutschman batted .304 with a .581 slugging percentage against four-seam fastballs this season, and learning how to handle heaters up in the zone played a big part in that success. Prior to being drafted first overall by the Baltimore Orioles in 2019 out of Oregon State University, the 24-year-old catcher wasn’t used to being attacked with elevated offerings. That changed when he entered pro ball. As a result, Rutschman found himself having to make both mental and mechanical tweaks as a hitter, and he’s done so with aplomb. The switch-hitting catcher is coming off a rookie season during which he logged a 133 wRC+ with 49 extra-base hits in 470 plate appearances.

Rutschman discussed his up-in-the-zone approach when the Orioles visited Fenway Park in late September.

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On adjusting to professional pitchers:
“Comparing the pitching styles of college versus pro ball, one of the biggest changes I’ve seen is guys pitching up in the zone. Another is that, analytically, teams are more so taking into account what guys do well and working off of those strengths. In college, I feel like how teams pitched was very program-dependent.

“Up here, if guys have a good four-seam fastball, they’re usually pitching up in the zone. If they’ve got a good two-seam fastball, they’re attacking you horizontally. That was a big adjustment, learning to cover top to bottom instead of just in and out. Not that guys here don’t ever thrown in and out. They will, so there’s more variation. Read the rest of this entry »

Matt Mervis didn’t get a ton of opportunities to hit at Duke University. He hit a ton this summer in his second full season of pro ball. Signed by the Chicago Cubs as a non-drafted free agent in 2020, the 24-year-old first baseman went deep 36 times across three levels — 15 of his dingers came in Triple-A — while slashing a robust .309/.379/.606. Currently competing in the Arizona Fall League, he has four home runs to go with an 1.103 OPS in 36 plate appearances with the Mesa Solar Sox.

Mervis’s ability to clear fences is his calling card, but that’s not how he views himself as a hitter.

“I have power, but I wouldn’t call myself a power hitter,” said Mervis, who went into yesterday as the AFL’s co-leader in home runs along with Heston Kjerstad. “I like to be a hitter. I hit for average and hate striking out. I try to move the ball, and if it turns into a double or a home run that’s great. I’m a big guy and hit the ball hard naturally, so it was really just simplifying my swing that led me to driving the ball more this year.”

Mervis does recognize that extra-base power is a big part of what will get him to the big leagues. At 6-foot-4, 230 pounds, slashing singles would be a path to nowhere.

“I’m a left-handed-hitting first baseman and it’s what we’re supposed to do in a lineup,” acknowledged Mervis. “That was the case long before the game turned to home runs and strikeouts. I grew up watching guys like David Ortiz, Prince Fielder, and Anthony Rizzo, a bunch of left handed hitters with a bunch of power. I don’t put pressure on myself to do that, but I obviously want to hit home runs and help us win.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Boston Red Sox acquired a unique pitcher when they claimed Jake Reed off waivers from the Baltimore Orioles last week. They also acquired a pitcher who is heading into the offseason looking to rework a delivery that is among the funkiest in the game. As Ben Clemens showed us when writing about him last summer, the side-slinging 28-year-old right-hander has been attacking hitters from an arm slot that is anything but ordinary.

Reed’s effectiveness in the big leagues has been a mixed bag. Since debuting with the Dodgers last July, he’s held same-sided batters to a .639 OPS, but he’s also logged a 5.74 ERA over his 28 relief appearances. With designs on jumpstarting a professional career that began in 2014 when he was drafted 140th overall by the Minnesota Twins out of the University of Oregon, Reed plans to not only bring a new throwing motion with him to Boston, but a higher octane heater as well.

Reed discussed the evolution of his atypical delivery, and why it again needs to change, on the final weekend of the regular season.

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On dropping his arm angle:
“I’d pretty much always been low three-quarters. I was pitching pretty well in the minors, but in 2017 the Twins changed over their front office. Baseball was getting a lot more progressive, which sort of changed how guys are valued. I threw pretty hard — I was a mid-to-upper-90s kind of guy — but my stuff didn’t necessarily perform super well analytically. So about halfway through the 2019 season we had a long conversation and came to the idea of me dropping down sidearm and trying to create more movement on my sinker, and improve my slider. That was the first time I really made that transition from how I’d thrown my whole life. Read the rest of this entry »

Two years before being hired to manage the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Joe Maddon interviewed for the job in Boston. The winter-of-2003 vetting by the then Red Sox decision-makers — a subject I broached with Maddon in a 2007 interview — didn’t bear fruit… but what if it had? Earlier this week, I asked the proud son of Hazleton, Pennsylvania what might have happened had he started his big-league managerial career in Boston.

“I don’t think it would have turned out as well,” responded Maddon, who spent nine years in Tampa before going on to manage the Chicago Cubs and the Los Angeles Angels. “I wasn’t ready for that; I wasn’t ready for that market. Theo [Epstein] and Jed [Hoyer] made a great decision. Tito was the right guy.”

History bears that out. Four years removed from managing the Philadelphia Phillies for the same number of seasons, Terry Francona led the Red Sox to their first World Series title since 1918. While Maddon went on to win a World Series of his own, with the Cubs in 2016 — the team’s first since 1908 — hiring a first-year manager as Grady Little’s replacement wouldn’t have been in Boston’s best interests. Nor in Maddon’s.

“I needed more time to really develop what I wanted to do, and how I wanted to do it,” explained Maddon, whose managerial resume includes nine 90-plus-win seasons. “I really did need more of an expansion team than a tradition-based team at that point. I could experiment. I could try different things that weren’t very popular, or that nobody had thought about. I needed that wider berth, and the support that I got from Andrew [Friedman] at that particular time. So, thank God for unanswered prayers. I wanted the Red Sox job, but it was so much better for me to start out with the Devil Rays.” Read the rest of this entry »

Home runs trump singles and doubles, and for that reason it looked like the New York Yankees were going to beat the Cleveland Guardians in ALDS Game 3. Buoyed by a pair of two-run blasts, with a solo shot thrown in for good measure, the team that led baseball in long balls (254) in the regular season was poised to push the contact-oriented club that finished with exactly half as many to the brink of elimination.

It didn’t happen. Instead, yet another chapter in late-inning heroics was written by a team looking for its first World Series title since 1948, as Cleveland rallied for three runs in the ninth inning to walk off New York, 6–5 and take a 2–1 series lead in the best-of-five ALDS. The Guardians can clinch their first pennant series trip since 2016 in Game 4 on Sunday.

The Guardians took an early lead against Luis Severino. Steven Kwan led off the bottom of the first inning with a double, and with one out and runners on the corners, Josh Naylor hit a ball that shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa couldn’t handle. Ruled a single, it plated Kwan and set Cleveland up for what might have been a big inning. It wasn’t to be: The Guardians ended up stranding two runners in scoring position when the slumping Andrés Giménez — just seven hits in his last 42 at-bats with 16 strikeouts going into the game — fanned on a full-count pitch.

Another chance for a crooked number came in Cleveland’s next turn, when Kwan singled home Gabriel Arias, who had doubled to open the bottom of the second, with one out, but Severino induced back-to-back flyouts to leave a pair of runners stranded once again. Through two innings, the Guardians had six hits, but their lead was only 2–0. Read the rest of this entry »

Triston McKenzie was 19 years old and pitching for High-A Lynchburg when he was first featured here at FanGraphs in May 2017. Five years later, he’s one of the top starters on a talented Cleveland Guardians staff. In 31 appearances this season, the lanky right-hander logged a 2.96 ERA and a 3.59 FIP with 190 strikeouts in 181.1 innings. Last week, he tossed six scoreless frames and allowed just two hits in Cleveland’s Wild Card Series-clinching win over the Tampa Bay Rays.

McKenzie, the scheduled starter for ALDS Game 3 versus the New York Yankees on Saturday, discussed his evolution as a pitcher and the mindset he takes with him to the mound during the Guardians’ final home stand of the regular season.

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David Laurila: We first talked five years ago. What have you learned about pitching since that time?

Triston McKenzie: “The biggest difference is that I’m in the big leagues. Mindset-wise, how I attack hitters hasn’t changed much outside of adapting to this level and understanding that guys are more disciplined in what they do in their approach. I’ve figured out that you can’t always be the the young gun, the kid who is going to throw his best stuff over the heart of the plate. These guys can hit that. So I’d say it’s a mix of finding my identity as a pitcher, figuring out what my strengths are and where I can beat guys, but not getting so headstrong that it’s to my detriment.”

Laurila: How much better do you understand how, and why, your stuff works? You’re obviously working with smart coaches and seeing a lot of data. Read the rest of this entry »

The Tampa Bay Rays’ season came to an end yesterday, and as a result, so did Stan Boroski’s coaching career. An underrated part of the A.L. East club’s success for over a decade, Boroski joined the staff prior to the 2010 season — he’d previously tutored pitchers in the Houston Astros organization — and became the bullpen coach in November 2011. He announced last month that he’d be retiring at the end of the season.

I recently asked members of Tampa Bay relief corps about their highly-regarded coach. What’s made him so good at his job?

“I really think it’s his presence,” said Pete Fairbanks, a mainstay in the Rays bullpen for the past three-plus seasons. “It lends itself to the environment that we’re in down there. It’s a very loose and unfocused group, and Stan does a great job of managing that. There is also his ability to put across our message of attacking the strike zone, and just how valuable that is. That’s something he has preached all of the time I’ve been here, It’s like beating a dead horse, but it’s a horse that needs to continue to be hit, over and over again. It’s that important.”

The message has resonated well. Rays relievers walked just 2.79 batters per nine innings this year — only the Dodgers were better — and their 2.96 walk rate since 2018 is the lowest in either league. In order to reach base against Boroski’s bullpen, you’ve typically needed to hit your way on. Read the rest of this entry »